WOMEN AS ELDERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 95, 13 July 1927, Page 5

WOMEN AS ELDERS

PRESBYTERIAN PROPOSAL MINISTER IN FAVOUR ~V yr O MEN should ultimately be eligible for our pulpits, and L for one, would be delighted to see them there,” said the Rev. W. D. Morison-Sutherland, in explaining a motion he brought before a meeting of the Auckland Presbytery last evening. Mr. Sutherland moved: “That in the judgment of the Presbytery the word male be deleted from paragraph 43 of the Book of Order, that it be declared that in the Book of Order wherever .i word denoting the masculine is used it shall be held to include also the feminine, unless the countrarv is explicitly stated.” Paragraph 43 states that “Elders are male members of the congregation in full communion.” Mr. Sutherland said if they agreed with the motion and sent it to the Assembly they were taking a step to the complete emancipation of women, which was bound to come. Women were found everywhere in public life now and were a complete success. AN UNCHRISTIAN ATTITUDE Mr. Sutherland went on to say that it was really Judaism that placed women in an inferior position, and to maintain that attitude would be quite un-Christian. In asking that discussion on the matter be deferred, Mr. Atkins said it was too momentous a question to be decided by a small meeting of the Presbytery. Mr* Sutherland said he was quite willing that the matter should be held over for a month. He would give notice of motion.