Faith & Spirit Quote by Charles Simeon

Simeon’s line lands with the bracing practicality of a pastor who’s seen piety turn performative. “Not primarily to be holy women” isn’t a demotion of holiness so much as a rebuke of holiness-as-self-project: the kind that polishes the soul like a trophy and keeps faith safely inside the boundaries of “personal growth.” He flips the emphasis from identity to vocation, from private moral purity to public, costly service. The grammar matters: “our calling” is communal, not boutique; “not primarily” concedes holiness matters while refusing to let it become the main event.

The subtext is a quiet but pointed critique of religious cultures that confine women to the role of spiritual ornament - admired for devotion, contained by it. Simeon, an Anglican evangelical shaped by the late-18th-century revival’s urgency, pushes against a domesticated femininity that equates goodness with gentleness and withdrawal. Work “for God and for others” moves women outward, into responsibility. It also relocates validation: the goal isn’t to appear saintly, but to be useful in love.

Then comes the clincher: “with Him.” That phrase prevents the sentence from becoming mere activism or moral hustle. Simeon’s theology insists agency without self-salvation: the work is real, demanding, and collaborative, but not powered by the anxiety of earning worth. The line works because it holds two tensions at once - holiness is necessary, but it’s not the product; service is central, but it’s not solitary. It’s an anti-vanity metric for faith: less glow, more good.