Linda Ambrose won the BCHF Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing for ‘Pentecostal Preacher Woman.’
Bernice Gerard (1923 – 2008) was one of a kind – a Pentecostal preacher, a feminist, a talk show host, a politician and an ecumenist.
Vancouver Sun religion (and more) columnist Douglas Todd put her right at the top of his list of BC’s most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century, after consulting with scholars of religion and other authorities.
Gerard probably isn’t as well remembered as she should be, but a new biography will help to remedy that – especially now that it has won a significant award.
UBC Press published Pentecostal Preacher Woman at the end of 2024, and last month the British Columbia Historical Federation named it the 2024 winner of the BCHF Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing.
A May 26 Facebook post on the BCHF site noted:
Media coverage was often very negative. Image from YouTube video
Those who do remember Gerard will be most likely to recall her foray into foreign territory on the west side of Vancouver.
Much to the surprise of nude bathers at Wreck Beach, she and a doughty band of followers turned up in person during the summer of 1977 to protest a practice she thought might spread to other beaches.
She was widely derided for her troubles, receiving scorn from all sides in the media, from political leaders and the general public. As a young Point Grey, non-Christian resident – though not a habitue of Wreck Beach, I might add – I was, alas, very much one of the crowd.
Indulging in a brief personal (slightly relevant) aside, it turns out that I was at that time hitch-hiking through Zambia, where I became a Christian.
My farmer/missionary hosts urged me to go to L’Abri in Switzerland, saying I was asking too many questions. Francis and Edith Schaeffer ran a lovely community in the Alps which encouraged seekers or newcomers to the faith to ask anything they liked.
I well remember challenging the table hosts about public nudity, raising Wreck Beach as a positive example. I can’t recall their response, but it probably had something to do with modesty.
Returning to Vancouver as a Christian (and blessed to have met my wife Margaret at L’Abri), I was fortunate enough to come to know Bernice in person, as she was on the board of Christian Info Society, which published BC Christian News, where I worked for many years.
Meg Johnstone interviewed Bernice Gerard for the December 2000 issue of BC Christian News. One thing Bernice said:
We may see a great turn-around . . . I’ve never felt that we have to win, but we have to stand up. . . . Biblically, we’re given an opportunity to act and give our witness, but we don’t guarantee that we have to be successful. I feel strongly that we need to take our place in the community and do whatever we have to to witness, let our light shine.
I don’t believe we ever discussed public nudity and I remember her as an intelligent, principled and responsive Christian leader.
In fact, Ambrose pointed out during a recent talk (see below), that despite being perceived as a middle aged prude, “Bernice Gerard went on air – late night phone-in show – and she said, “Call me, ask me anything.” And they did.
Gerard also attracted considerable attention, often not positive, during her tenure at a Vancouver city councillor from 1977 – 1980. But there was much more to her than the portions of her life that made the news.
Who was she?
Speaking at the BC Historical Federation’s annual conference in May, Ambrose described the “elevator speech” she gave to her 12 year old granddaughter when she asked what the book is about.
She began:
After some discussion of the Wreck Beach incident, Ambrose continued:
As Ambrose said, the reasons are complex, but relate to the fact that her mother was held in a mental institution. She described how, following the birth in New Westminster – “in a story that’s very much a reverse of everything we hear about indigenous children and the 60s scoop” – a “Stolo woman living on the Fraser River married to her fisherman French Canadian husband” took her home. The Gerards later adopted her.
Her adoptive mother died when Bernice was just three, and she was “farmed out” to various relatives by her father, who also abused her – then she had a dramatic religious conversion at the age of 12 through a couple of “preacher women.”
Bernice Gerard and Velma (McColl) Chapman were life-long ministry partners.
Gerard was always very active. As her memorial stated upon her death in 2008:
Burton Janes reviewed Pentecostal Preacher Woman in Faith Today, saying, “perhaps ‘complicated’ is the operative word in trying to understand Gerard.”
He added that “some may even wonder why she remained rooted in various religious institutions, including the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.”
He captured her determined personality and the book’s success in portraying her complex persona:Gerard wrote two autobiographies, Converted in the Country (1956) and Bernice Gerard: Today and for Life (1988).
In the latter book, she wrote, “God said, ‘Go!’ Church leaders in all too many cases said, ‘No!’” She always pushed back hard against her critics.
“It is no secret,” she continued, “that women have had to struggle for recognition of their full personhood; what is surprising is that the church with all its respectability is in so many areas the last bastion for male chauvinism.”
She admitted the question of women in ministry is far from being a simple one. She criticized the people who claimed “it’s a man’s job, so get out of the pulpit!”
She had “no time for debate with those who raise the subject of women’s ministries with the intent to silence or harass women.” She had “been endlessly challenged, questioned, cajoled, condemned, and alternately complimented and commended.”
She saw herself as “a person created in God’s image whom he wants to make free to be whole, to grow, to learn, to utilize fully the talents and gifts God has given her as a unique individual.”
Ambrose bases her book on Gerard’s sermon notes, personal archives and life writings. She allows her subject to speak in her own voice as she traces her evolving life journey. Ambrose concludes, “When we make meaning from our life stories, it’s complicated.”
Go here for the full review. And here for a write-up Lloyd Mackey did about Bernice Gerard, with considerable input from Linda Ambrose, for Convivium, now in the Cardus archives.
Final thoughts
Ambrose said at the end of her talk that “there’s a lot of BC in BG,” noting that several key themes in her biography of Gerard “touch on aspects of BC history,” and are still important issues:
- the history of adoption and child welfare in this province;
- faith and feminism; women and ministry;
- same-sex relationships;
- secularization and irreligion;
- the religious right in Canada.
Version 1.0.0
Ambrose concluded Pentecostal Preacher Woman by writing about her trek to Wreck Beach in the spring of 2019 (clothed, as she confirms in her talk):
I went there because I wanted to put myself where Gerard had been. I wanted to imagine what she might have been thinking on that summer day in 1977 when she made her silent protest.
I was trying to understand the firmly held convictions that caused her to do something so public and so dramatic, especially when she knew she would endure a good deal of mocking afterward. . . .
In the end, Gerard took a moderate stance on the Wreck Beach question, respecting that those who enjoyed the clothing-optional beach had every right to do so but also insisting that Vancouverites who wished to stroll along other public beaches should not have to worry about unexpected encounters with naked people. . . .
I took three smooth stones from the beach that day as a souvenir: a white one, a black one and a grey one. Those little stones now sit on my desk. They remind me that when I am writing history, things are rarely black and white. There are always more than two sides to every story.
Spending all this time with Bernice Gerard and her life stories, I have come to realize that the same thing is true when we craft our own inner narratives too.
Ambrose has been working on these issues for a long time. For a some more insights into her reasons for writing about Bernice Gerard, you could check out:
- CBC News interview (July 7, 2016): ‘Laurentian historian Linda Ambrose tracks role of women in Canada’s Pentecostal movement’
- Abstract of an article by Ambrose in Gender & History, 2022, 34(2): ‘A Messy Mix: Religion, Feminism and Pentecostals’
There are gaps in the book. She doesn’t mention BC Christian News, for example. Nor does she say anything about Bob Birch, with whom she led the charismatic movement in Vancouver.
However, Ambrose very much deserves her award and this book would be beneficial for any believers, but also for those in the broader community, and across the nation.