Annie Armstrong - Woman's Missionary Union - Controversies and Conflicts

Controversies and Conflicts

Beginning in 1895, Armstrong became involved in a series of controversies and conflicts with other WMU leaders. When Fannie E.S. Heck, the president of the Union, opposed her on an issue regarding how to integrate Sunday Schools in missionary work, Armstrong declared, "either she must resign or I shall!".

On the heels of the internal conflict within the WMU, Armstrong became embroiled in a denominational conflict over the establishment of a missionary training school at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Armstrong opposed the establishment of a school on several grounds. She argued that the WMU's funds should be directed exclusively towards missionary work on the field. In 1906, Armstrong became outspoken in her opposition to the training school when it began accepting female students, holding that seminaries should educate exclusively men and a fear that it was laying groundwork for the ordination of women.

In that same year, an editorial critical of her opposition to the school appeared in a denominational newspaper. Taking the editorial and other criticism of her opposition as a personal attack, she resigned from the WMU, vowing to never again serve the denomination.

Though she kept her promise, she remained active in her local congregation and missions in the city of Baltimore.

However, towards the end of her life, she allowed an Easter collection of funds for home missions to be collected in her name, and made a conciliatory address to the WMU where she expressed the hope that the WMU would become "stronger with each successive year".

She died on December 20, 1938 in Baltimore, the year the WMU celebrated its fiftieth anniversary.