WOMEN’S PLACE IN MINISTRY

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 10 March 1934, Page 13

WOMEN’S PLACE IN MINISTRY

OPPOSITION OVERCOME. REV. DOROTHY WILSON’S VIEWS Idie opinion that there was a definite place for women in the Christian ministry was expressed by the Rev. Dorothy F. Wilson, a Congregational ] minister from England, in the course of an address at the weekly luncheon of the Auckland Rotary Club, states the “New Zealand Herald.” Miss Wilson said she supposed the feelings of most of the people regarding women in the ministry were still based on the writings of St. Paul. In' the early, days of the Church women were allowed a degree of freedom, and there was no doubt that in tlite first century they preached and baptised, but St. Paid’s teaching and influence later forbade women to officiate in the Church, and they were even forbidden to act as doorkeepers on the women’s side of a church building. Asceticism developed in the growing Church., and although one would have i expected the Reformation to alter the position, it actually became worse, i Martin Luther, the great German reformer, was quoted as saying, “A woman’s place is to to remain at

home, sit still, keep house, and hear and bring up children.” In spite of opposition there came two pioneers, George Fox and Wesley, and women assumed a greater place in the Church. There were now about 30 women ministers in Britain, of whom eight or nine were Congregationalists. Official recognition was being given to women preachers, notably Miss Maude Royden, who had been made a Companion of Honour by His Majesty the King for her religious services in the life of the nation, and also an honorary doctor of divinity of Glasgow University. “We must not forget that in Christ there are neither white nor black men, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor freeman, male nor female,” continued' Miss Wilson. “These tilings do not count in the spiritual mind. From my own experience there is a definite place for women in the ministry. EVen in the Gospel of Christ perhaps we women see something that- men do not. Christ never claims to see the difference between the sexes. If God says to us women, ‘Thou shaft,’ is it for any man or anv Church to sav, ‘Thou shaft not?’ ”