Evangelical pastor, talk-show host, politician. Pentecostal Preacher Woman explores the life of the Reverend Bernice Gerard (1923–2008), one of the most influential spiritual figures of twentieth-century British Columbia, whose complicated blend of social conservatism and social compassion has lessons for our polarized times.

Coming out of a difficult childhood, Gerard was attracted to Pentecostalism’s emphasis on direct personal experience of God and the use of spiritual gifts, and she became a widely travelled international evangelist. As a pastor, radio personality, and alderman, she was a compelling communicator for the Christian right and an ardent critic of liberal social mores, yet she supported social justice for refugees, Indigenous people, and Vancouver’s homeless population. She remained rooted in patriarchal religious institutions but practised a kind of feminism and shared her life with a female partner.

Based on Reverend Gerard’s personal archives and writings, Pentecostal Preacher Woman traces the complex evolution of a conservative woman’s ideas about faith and society.

Linda Ambrose's profile page

Linda M. Ambrose is a professor of history at Laurentian University. She is the author of For Home and Country: The Centennial History of the Women’s Institutes in Ontario, A Great Rural Sisterhood: Madge Robertson Watt and the ACWW, and, with Michael Wilkinson, After the Revival: Pentecostalism and the Making of a Canadian Church. She also co-edited Women in Agriculture: Professionalizing Rural Life in North America and Europe, 1880–1965 with Joan M. Jensen.