WOMAN MINISTERS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1933, Page 1

WOMAN MINISTERS

AUTHORITIES DISCUSS QUESTION DON DON, July 1". Are women ministers wanted? Comment*; made by English Baptist and Congregational Colleges suggest that they are not. Opposite views, however, were expressed by Dr. A. Maude Royden, minister at the Guildhouie, Eccleston Square, and president of the Society of ( the Ministry of Women Interdenominational; : “The reports strike me a 6 being more interested in the question of the convenience of the Church than of the "Will of God. The whole point with regard to women ministers is whether God ever gives a vocation for the Ministry to a woman. If He does, the question of marriage, discipline or no demand is irrelevant. “If He does not, they are irrelevant aliso. AVhy do those, who make these inquiries never ask whether it is or is not possible for a woman to be called by God to the ministry? Unless they are prepared to state, that there is some spiritual inferiority in women which makes such a spiritual call impossible, it seems difficult to guess what answer they can give to this j question.

Dr. J. E. Rattenbury, Methodist minister : “The whole question of women and the ministry ig being carefully considered by the Methodist Church. The desire to give ministerial status to women is quite strong, but the difficulty is to find the proper manner to do it. “I can see no reason why, in a Congregational Church, a woman should not be appointed to a special church, but the connectional system of the Methodist ministry raises difficulties. Miss Florence Underwood, Women’s Freedom League: “A congregation has a perfect right to choose the minister it wants. The point is that women should have equal chances of being selected as men. A woman as n minister is more or less an innovation, but she should be as successful as a man.”