Current issue

April 2024

  • Leading Worship Without a Minister
  • New Life for Church Buildings
  • Scottish Love in Action

 

Home  >  Features  >  Fifty Years of Women Elders

Features

Fifty Years of Women Elders

Fifty Years of Women Elders

Monday January 11 2016

The Very Rev Dr Finlay Macdonald looks back on the 35-year debate that led to women being admitted to the Eldership of the Church of Scotland in 1966.

IN May it will be fifty years since the General Assembly of 1966 finally opened the eldership to women. I say ‘finally’ because it took a while.

In 1931 the Assembly received a petition calling for eldership and ministry to be open to women. The petition asserted that ‘the continued exclusion of women from these offices is contrary to the mind and teaching of Christ and limits the operation of the Spirit of God.’

The following Assembly received two petitions. One asked that a number of women be granted corresponding membership of the Assembly, with a right to speak but not to vote. The other proposed that, rather than considering eldership and ministry, the Church should seek to develop existing opportunities for women.

All three petitions were referred to the intriguingly named Committee on the Place of Women in the Church. The Committee reported back in 1933 recommending eligibility for eldership but not ministry.
 The recommendation was referred to presbyteries but failed to 
secure the necessary support.

The following decade brought the Second World War and in 1940 the Assembly appointed a Special Commission, convened by Professor John Baillie, ‘for the Interpretation of God’s Will in the Present Crisis’. During those dark years the Commission presented a series of reports and the one brought in 1944 included a recommendation that eldership should 
be open to women. The proposal was referred to presbyteries which approved by a margin of 39 to 27. However, the 1945 Assembly was persuaded to send the matter back to presbyteries with a specific instruction to consult with kirk sessions and congregations. The outcome was a complete reversal of the vote, to 44 presbyteries opposed and 22 in favour.

The debate continued and in 1960 the Assembly learned that 27 presbyteries were now in favour of women elders, 14 against with 23 undecided. Sensing some movement, the Committee brought an Overture with enabling legislation which was sent down under the Barrier Act. The outcome was a dead heat with 34 presbyteries For and the same number Against. Under the rules the measure fell.

The focus of attention then shifted to women and the ministry, with a petition from Mary Lusk (subsequently Levison) brought before the 1963 Assembly. 
This was remitted to the recently formed Panel on Doctrine.

The following year the Panel reported that it reserved its position with regard
 to ministry but was strongly in favour of women elders. This led to an enabling Overture in 1965. In that year’s Assembly the convener, Dr Roy Sanderson, stressed that the Panel was not presenting a negative argument that there was no compelling doctrinal case against; rather, he presented a positive case based on the nature of the Church and the privilege of baptism.

It is interesting from today’s perspective to hear some of the arguments advanced against women elders in that 1965 entirely male debate. One commissioner upbraided the ‘fathers and brethren’, suggesting that the men of the Church should be ashamed that women might need to take on the duties of eldership. Another suggested that ‘it was no compliment to women to make them little imitation men’. A third asked if the Panel might not consider creating a new order for women, separate from the eldership; and someone, with a long memory, recalled what had happened in 1945 and moved an amendment to have the Overture sent also to kirk sessions and congregations.

In the end the Overture was approved and sent down under the Barrier Act where it received the approval of 45, with 17 opposed. This cleared the way for the General Assembly of 1966 to enact the legislation.

The terms of General Assembly Act 28 
of 1966 could not be clearer: ‘Women members of a congregation shall be eligible for election and admission as elders on the same terms and conditions as men members of a congregation.’ However, right from the start, the interpretation 
of the new law became muddied. Given 
the division of opinion there was no expectation that every kirk session would have women elders overnight. As a consequence an impression emerged that the legislation was entirely permissive.

In 1991, the Board of Practice and Procedure, of which I was convener at the time, expressed concern that, 25 years on, a number of ministers and kirk sessions were still treating the legislation as permissive. It stated: ‘The fact that a kirk session has always chosen men from the total number of those available is not in itself a breach of the law’. However, it then advised that ‘if, as a matter of policy or principle a kirk session had deliberately restricted its choice to men, and thus denied the eligibility of women, the law has been contravened.’ The General Assembly upheld this view.

The latest figures available (31 December 2014) reveal a total 31,146 elders, of whom 16,373 are women and 14,773 are men.
 At last year’s General Assembly 174 of the 341 Commissioners from the Eldership were women. The first woman to be elected Moderator of the General Assembly was an elder – Alison Elliot in 2004.

This is an abridged version of a feature from January's Life and Work. Subscribe here.