WOMEN AS PASTORS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19905, 27 September 1926, Page 13

WOMEN AS PASTORS.

WESLEYAN DECISION. MATRIMONY A DISQUALIFICATION. (Thom Ocb Own Cqbbesponde.vt.) LONDON, July 30. A recommendation that women should be made eligible for the ministry of'the Wesleyan Church as far as possible on the same terms as men was passed' by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference by n majority of .14 in a total vote of 300. The recommendation was based on the belief that, “there is apostolic authority for regarding women as on a spiritual equality with men in the Christian Church.” One important, qualification was, however. made. The Rev. C. Ryder Smith, in presenting the report of the committee which has dealt with the, matter, stated that marriage of a woman minister should be regarded as equivalent to resignation, or that on marriage she should withdraw from the active ministry to a position analogous to that of a minister without a pastoral charge. The committee held a preference for the first alternative. The opposition was led by the Rev. C. Fnsor Walters (secretary of the London Mission, who moved an amendment rejecting the recommendation, referring it back for further consideration and urging further, development of the existing Wesley deaconess • order. “We are neither retrograde nor reactionary.” he declared, “but there are lines drawn in humanity, and there are paths of life where men cannot enter, and others where women cannot.” He argued that there was no Scriptural Catholic authority for the proposal, and protested strongly against a sub-committee trying to do something which the Church had not done for 2000 years, and setting aside a tradition of 2000 years. The subject of Catholic agreement was a somewhat delicate one for Wesleyan ministers, remarked Dr Scott" Lidgett, for the so-called Catholic Church had never recognised the ordination of Wesleyan ministers without the imposition of episcopal hands. TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN. Miss S. Pugh Jones (Llangollen), supporting the admission of women, commented upon the “sentimentalists,” who said that women had more' spiritual influence than men. They were the people, she added, who, as a rule, were most reactionary in their attitude towards women so for as breaking with tradition was concerned, the early Christians broke with it to such an extent that they were described as having turned the world upside down. Unless Christians to-day continued to turn the world upside fUwn they could not continue as a vital church. The Rev. J. E. Rattcnbury (Southport) opposed the recommendation because of the distinction it drew between married women and single. A call to the ministry could not be countermanded,’ lie said, even by a thing so important as matrimony, and the introduction of that qualification was an indication of the practical difficulties in the way of the proposal. He suggested it would bo wiser to develop other ministries, than to admit women to a field in which there would bo peculiar difficulties.