Standing at the burning bush

Women's experience in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand¹

Sarah Mitchell

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) has been in existence for just over one hundred and fifty years. At its General Assembly in 1990, celebrations were held to recognise the land-mark of one hundred and fifty years. That time seemed a good opportunity to consider the past years-especially as we look forward to the twenty-first century. This article considers the place of women within the period up until 1990. It is an attempt to give an overview of women's experience within their church.

Women and Church

From the 1970s, the women's movement has brought about significant changes in society. These have not necessarily spilled over into the world of religion. Until recently there were very few connections between women in the church and women in the secular world. Generally, publications concerning the experience of women in Aotearoa-New Zealand give very little, if any, information about women in the church and women's theological study; likewise literature relating to religion in Aotearoa-New Zealand tells us very little about women within that religion.² It is usually only when the topic is specifically women within a particular religious sphere that it is possible to learn about the place of women in religion in this country.

However, in recent years, women have been attempting to build bridges between those committed to the women's movement from both outside and inside the churches. Such commitment is evidenced in feminist publications, workshops and conferences, feminist ritual groups and networks. While fifty years ago the authority of the bible, the church and the clergy was almost unquestioned, and women's roles within the church were clearly defined and rarely challenged, today churches are required to respond to these challenges relating to authority and women's roles.

Women's experience of the language of worship, for instance, is a key issue being addressed by most of the mainline churches in the 1980s and 1990s. This is as a result of feminist challenges from inside and outside the church which can no longer be ignored.

As early as 1975, at the United Women's Convention, women from within the church issued this challenge to the church structures: 'We noted that for thousands of years theology has been written by men from within an hierarchical society; that it has been written with the images of God expressed in male terms-Lord, Master, King, Father; and that, although it is emphasised that "all are one in Christ Jesus", the history of theology shows an underlying assumption that the inherent nature of woman is inferior. We should like to help correct this imbalance.'³

While there may have been little response from churches at that time, there is no question that this challenge is now being heard within the churches of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Women in the PCANZ

Women's stories bear little resemblance to the official story of the church which takes very little account of women within the church. The story of the PCANZ is primarily the story of a male-dominated church. However, when we search for them, there are stories to be told about the women of the church.

Women were highly respected within colonial New Zealand and were probably offered more opportunities to influence decisions in the church than they would have had in the more settled life of their home land. However the courts of the Presbyterian Church, where the decisions were made, were (just as they were 'back home') all-male committees.

The respect given to women⁴ is probably most visible in the important role women were given as guardians of the country's morals. Organizations such as the Campaign for Christian Order of 1943, organized by the National Council of Churches, reminded post-war women of their 'supremely important task of building up the moral resources of the nation and of training children to order the world better'.⁵ This 'important task' given to women was initially fulfilled within the home. Later, as women were given a place within the area of Christian education, the Sunday school became the public setting for women to continue their task of instilling moral values in children. While the Sunday school would probably not have survived without women's commitment to this task, as far as can be ascertained from the scant documentation, until the late 1960s the superintendency of both Sunday school and cradle roll was not given to women but filled by the men of the parish.

Women's organizations

Women's organizations have been a place where women in the church have been allowed to exercise leadership to a large degree, with very little influence from the men. However, even in these women's groups one would expect to find one man present on certain occasions. The minister has nearly always been given some kind of leadership role in church women's groups, especially in relation to official occasions. Ministers were often made honorary presidents of the women's group and expected to chair the annual meeting. Even today the Moderator of the PCANZ is the honorary president of the national executive of the Association of Presbyterian Women. Generally, the day to day running of the organization was, and is today, left to the women. These women's groups have been, and some still are, a hive of activity, often the very hub of the life of a congregation, offering the large numbers of women in the church important roles in leadership and mission.

Established in 1909, the Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union (PWMU) focused on the needs of those working in the mission field. 'Knitting, baking, crocheting, sewing and praying, were considered appropriate and proper women's work.'⁶ In 1944 a new group, the Presbyterian Women's Fellowship, was formed offering a wider range of activities to women in the church. By 1963 these two groups had combined to form the Association of Presbyterian Women (APW).

And yet, these church groups have rarely been given the power or recognition that is their due. Before 1979, the women who presented the APW report to the General Assembly were associated with the Assembly only for the duration of the report. This gave them permission to speak to the report and to answer any questions related to it. Other than that the women from APW had no opportunity to speak in the highest court of the church.⁷ From the 1979 Assembly onwards, the president and one other member of APW were given associate status at Presbytery and General Assembly (that is, they were allowed to speak, move and second motions but were not allowed to vote). At the 1988 Assembly it was agreed in principle that full voting status be given to the APW representatives at Presbytery and General Assembly. While the Book of Order and Judicial Committee was 'instructed to bring alterations to the relevant sections of the Book of Order to next Assembly in line with these principles', it does not appear that this has yet been done.

Missionaries

While women do not seem to have been allowed to speak with authority or hold positions of leadership within the church until fairly recently, it does appear that leadership within the missionary movement has always been open to women-both single and married. The earliest missionaries appointed by the PCNZ, Rev. Wm. Watt (1868) and Rev. P. Milne (1870) are mentioned as having wives, who presumably accompanied the men and worked within the mission field. However, these women are not named in our archives.

The first New Zealand woman Presbyterian missionary, working in her own right, was Helen McGregor, a daughter of the manse, who went to India in 1892. Helen McGregor was not an isolated example. In 1939, more than half (fourteen of a total twenty-five) overseas workers were women while twenty-three women worked in the Maori Mission alongside nine men.

Deaconess order

If women wished to respond to a call from God to some form of ministry the major avenue open to them was the deaconess order. From its inception in 1901, until the closing of the order in 1975, one hundred and seventy five women were ordained to the office of deaconess within the PCNZ.⁸

'Almost a Minister': the title for the Outlook⁹ editorial which marked the jubilee of the deaconess order in 1951 describes succinctly the work of a deaconess and how she was regarded by the church. It could be used to describe nearly every area of the work done by these women. Their tasks took them into parish work, mission at home and abroad, social services, Christian education and community work. However, while they did everything a parish minister might be expected to do (except celebrate the sacraments) deaconesses were not given the same standing as a parish minister, or even that of a parish elder. In his history of the first fifty years of the deaconess order,¹⁰ J.D. Salmond describes the work deaconesses did in new housing areas, in the period 1935-55. After detailing the myriad tasks of seeking out Presbyterians in a new area, hospital and pastoral visiting, Christian education, leading women's groups, and conducting worship, he leaves the reader in no doubt that the establishment of churches in these new housing areas was due to the untiring, committed work of these women. But once the back-breaking work had been done, what happened to the deaconess? 'The appointments of most terminated only because their areas became ready for the rounded life of a full parish under its own minister.'¹¹ One is left to wonder what it was that was needed to make this parish life more rounded. Although trained alongside the men who were to be ordained, deaconesses were not only forbidden to celebrate the sacraments: until 1963, they were not allowed full membership of the courts of the church they served so selflessly.

The question of the status of the deaconess in relation to the courts of the church was an issue of long debate, first raised in 1933. What appears to be a straightforward issue of full-time church employees in relation to the committees of organization and power, was far from that. Rather than dealing with the whole issue, stop-gap measures were taken so that within Maori Missions deaconesses were considered ministers of religion 'for the purposes of the Marriage Act' in 1934, and in 1938 were allowed to be elected as elders. However, this ruling was only for those working within the Maori Mission. It took a long time before this order of ministry was recognised as such by the courts of the church. Assembly did not receive a report from the President of the Deaconess Association until 1950; deaconess training was not seen as part of the work of the Theological Education Committee until 1962; deaconesses had no rights to seats on Presbytery until 1968.

The end of this important ministry within the PCNZ began when Deaconess College closed in 1969. At the General Assembly of 1972, it was agreed that all deaconesses might receive ordination to the ministry of word and sacrament without any further training, and in 1975 the deaconess service ceased. Sylvia Jenkin, a deaconess who became a minister, believed that this move she and her sisters had made, would change the shape of the ordained ministry in the PCNZ. In the Foreword to Nancy Burgess' history of the deaconess order, Sylvia Jenkin wrote that they brought with them a variety and flexibility of service, and would also change the service offered by the men.¹² New possibilities for ministry emerged as a result of this move from the deaconess order to the ministry of word and sacrament.

One other area often overlooked is that of women workers who in the 1920s alongside deaconesses were appointed to the home mission staff. These women underwent the same training as men who became home missionaries; but again there was a barrier, defined by gender, to the recognition of the ministry they offered. 'While there was no provision in the Book of Order for ordaining and inducting them to their work, nevertheless, apart from the celebration of the sacraments, they really did the work of the ministry.'¹³

Women as managers or deacons

The General Assembly of 1894 made it possible for women to act as managers within their parishes. While two women, in Kaiapoi, were soon elected to this position, not many took up, or were given the opportunity to take up, this task. One can only speculate as to the reason. Laurie Barber suggests that 'few [women] believed themselves individually called, or sufficiently useful or publicly conspicuous, to offer themselves for the only parish office open to them, on boards of managers or deacon's court.'¹⁴ It may have been even more because women were not invited to take up these tasks- perhaps because the work of the deacons court, which had primarily to do with finance and property, was not considered appropriate work for women.

Women as elders

Elders of the church, or members of the Kirk Session, traditionally were 'men of Christian experience and standing in the congregation who have been elected by a meeting of communicant members and ordained to their office... The Session exercises rule in spiritual things within the congregation.'¹⁵ The possibility of women entering the hallowed realm of the Kirk Session as ordained elders was first raised officially in 1926. The path which this suggestion took was a long and involved one. Congregations, sessions, Presbyteries and General Assembly all gave serious consideration to the issue over an extremely long period of time. The questions, arguments and counter-arguments involved discussion, debate and voting in all the courts of the church, the formation of a special committee, and eventually amendments to the Book of Order in 1953, with final approval to women elders being given by the General Assembly in 1955. Since 1984 ministers are required to ordain both women and men, no matter what the minister's personal opinion might be on this matter, and elders are required to nominate new elders without 'unjust discrimination'. Even so, a few parishes still have no women elders and many sessions or parish councils would not have a proportion of women to men which reflects the membership of the parish.

Women ministers

The move to ordain women to the eldership, the decline in numbers offering themselves for training for the deaconess order, and the active encouragement from deaconesses, were some of the factors which opened up the possibility that women might be ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament. In 1961, just six years after it had approved the ordination of women to the eldership, the General Assembly gave approval in principle; the 1964 General Assembly made the final decision; and in 1965 the first woman minister, Margaret Reid, was ordained. While there have subsequently been challenges issued to this decision, none have been sustained. Just as ministers are now required to ordain women elders, so also are they required to ordain women to the ministry of word and sacrament. Candidates offering themselves for ministry training are also required, before selection, to express their willingness to participate in the ordination of women.

While only a small number of candidates training for ministry each year have been women, over the years a significant number of women have been ordained. The 1990-91 Year Book of the PCNZ lists 42 Presbyterian women in parish ministry and a total of 87 women (ministers and licentiates) on Presbytery ministry rolls (not including ministers and deaconesses emeritae).

While all women who have graduated in this ten-year period are either working for the Presbyterian Church, retired, or doing further study, most (if not all) have experienced discrimination because they are women and many have found it extremely difficult to find parishes which would accept them. 'Even in the late eighties some women in training and in the ministry felt they were still being asked to justify their presence and their calling. Finding a parish at the end of training was also difficult, for a variety of reasons.'¹⁶

With the recent decision to offer non-residential training for ministry via the Community-Based Ministry Training programme, women who were unable to undertake residential training for family reasons will now be available for training. This will probably lead to an increase in the numbers of ordained women. Only time will tell whether there will be a corresponding increase in the acceptability of women in ordained ministry.

Women on church committees

Initially only men were given places on the committees of the church, but gradually women were allowed to take their place alongside men. In the early stages, women were chosen as representative of women's groups-and not as individuals in their own right. Representation was initially limited to committees which were considered to be associated with what is traditionally accepted as women's work or related to women's interests. It was not recognized that women might have an interest in the wider questions related to church work. Thus we find that, in the 1930s, the only committees of the General Assembly with women members (and then only as representatives of PWMU and the Women's Bible Class) were committees associated with youth, public questions and temperance.

Table 1: Membership of Assembly standing committees, 1980 and 1990

Notes
1.associate and corresponding members are not included in these numbers.
2these figures relate to the number of places filled rather than the number of individuals involved in committees (an individual who is on more than one committee will have been counted more than once).

In recent years there has been a concerted effort to balance the membership of Assembly committees with equal numbers of women and men. The results can be seen by comparing figures for 1980 and 1990 (see Table 1). In 1980 women made up only 21.1% of the membership of Assembly committees, but by 1990 this had increased to 37.8%. Over the ten year period, the percentage of men on standing committees dropped by 16.6%, with a corresponding increase in women. There is a much larger increase in the percentage of laywomen (up by 13.9%) than in the percentage of clergywomen (up by only 2.7%). Whereas there has been a reasonable measure of success in this effort at Assembly level, 'inequality remain[s] endemic at Presbytery level and in the leadership of most parishes'.¹⁷

Change has also occurred in the pattern of leadership within the Assembly standing committees-there is now a greater number of women acting as conveners of committees. In 1988, General Assembly decided 'that Assembly committees be encouraged to appoint --conveners'. This decision was an active attempt to redress the gender balance of leadership in these committees.

Table 2: Convenership of standing committees, 1980 and 1990

By 1990, twelve of the forty-one standing committees were convened by co-conveners. Eight of these co-convener teams involved a woman working alongside a man, two involved teams of women while teams of men co-convene the other two committees.

But has this concerted effort of placing women in standing committees of the General Assembly actually given the balance sought? Has the increased number of women on these committees, and the increased number of women acting as conveners and co-conveners, shifted much power from men, and particularly from clergymen? When we consider the leadership patterns within the church structures, it is clear that even today, leadership is primarily for clergymen.

Table 3: Combinations of co-convenerships, 1990

Note
All female/male, clergy/lay combinations are clergyman and laywoman. There are no clergywoman and layman combinations.

It is not quite so clear as to the group which is the next most powerful. Clergywomen carry power as a result of their knowledge and experience of church structures and the place they find themselves within those structures. While most laymen are not necessarily as close to the centre of power as clergywomen, it is probably safe to argue that because the church is so strongly influenced by the society around it, the power invested in women who become clergy is not as great as the power of the laymen. However, while it may be difficult to rank laymen and clergywomen within the structures of power, clearly the least powerful group within the church is that of laywomen-neither the church nor society have given them power. But these laywomen have now become the second largest group of those who offer leadership in the committees of the church.

Initially this discovery seems surprising. If women are in fact sidelined, or struggling to find recognition in leadership within the church, why is it that laywomen are receiving such a high profile-with sixteen convening or co-convening committees, compared to the two clergywomen co-convening standing committees, none having a convenership role on her own?

While there are probably many different contributing factors, a suggestion worthy of consideration is that the reason laywomen are used more often than either women ministers or laymen for these leadership roles, is that they are not seen to be a threat, nor do they change the power relationships within the church. The church can continue fairly much as it has in the past, while seeming to have worked at equality and power sharing. Society within Aotearoa-New Zealand puts power in the hands of the men; power in the PCANZ is in the hands of men who have been theologically educated and ordained to ministry. Clergymen can therefore be seen to have been vested with power doubly-from society and from the church. The power differential between laywomen and clergymen is therefore as great as any might be: the men have considerable cultural power as well as the power of information and experience. To include these powerless women on committees, still keeping the numbers of clergymen higher than the laywomen, is an apparent sharing of power while ensuring that the power is still held by the traditional group.

There are a few Assembly committees where women outnumber men on the committee. Six of the forty-one standing committees of the General Assembly have more women than men within their membership. It is possible, with a balance such as this, that power sharing might occur within these committees. The committees in questions are: Business Committee, Church Schools, Communication, Unit 2 of COMEC, Christian Education, and Women in Church and Society. Two of these-Business and Communication- might be considered powerful committees within the church. While the Communication Committee has had a large budget and an important role in the church in earlier years, at the moment it is faced with many difficulties and financial cut-backs. The resignation of a strong and active committee in March 1989 led to difficulties in finding new members. It remains to be seen what might be the effect of a new female director and a committee made up of more women than men, all of whom are lay. The Business Committee's most important function is at the General Assembly and is carried out primarily by the co-conveners. It is difficult to imagine that the laywomen on this committee will effect much change, or prevent control from being primarily in the hands of the clergymen, especially with the co-convener partnership being that of clergyman and laywoman, thus putting the power, in terms of convenership, clearly in the hands of the men. Of the remaining committees with more women members than men, all have women as conveners and a high proportion of lay people. But these are all committees which have a very low profile with small budgets and little influence in the decision-making of the church.

But where do women feature in the committees that do have the power and do create change within the church? Probably the best example is the Council of Assembly. It has always had an important role in the church, but over the past few years the General Assembly has devolved more tasks to it. While the Council, in turn, is attempting to devolve power to Presbyteries, the Council, with its key decision-making and budget-setting role, is coming to be seen as the seat of power in the church, especially between meetings of the General Assembly. Its composition might give a fair indication of the place of women in the halls of power of the PCANZ.

Table 4: Council of Assembly membership, 1980-1990

Notes
1.Numbers marked * include a woman in the role of moderator or immediate past moderator
2.There was no General Assembly in 1989, therefore committees chosen in 1988 continued for 1989

This chart shows a similar trend to that noticed earlier in relation to the convenership of committees: as the church has sought to increase the number of women on its committees, laywomen, not clergywomen, have been brought into membership. Except for when there has been a woman in the role of Moderator or immediate past Moderator, only one woman minister has served on the Council of Assembly at any one time-and for many years there have been none. Again, the increase in number of laywomen probably has little influence on the decision making-the power of culture, knowledge and experience is still held by the clergymen. The percentage of clergymen on the Council of Assembly has not significantly decreased over the past ten years.

Women in positions of power

In the history of the PCANZ, the place to find women holding power has been in the APW. Having enormous influence amongst women, both within this country and overseas, and exercising a great deal of power within their own organization, little opportunity has been given to these women to make a contribution in shaping major decisions of the church. In terms of power, the APW, while encouraged to function autonomously, has been sidelined in relation to the wider church.

In general, the policy appears to be that women are not to be placed in positions of power in the church. Very few women become ministers in large, downtown parish churches and none of the major committees has been convened by women, until for the first time, in 1990, the convener of the Council of Assembly is a lay woman.

The position of Moderator of the General Assembly, while not necessarily a position of actual power, is a position which acknowledges the person as a leader within the church. In the history of the PCANZ, there have been only two women Moderators of the General Assembly: Joan Anderson in 1979 and Margaret Reid Martin in 1987. The five-step procedure for electing the Moderator, while attempting to become more open, ensures that those who are not known by the courts of the wider church (especially Presbyteries) have almost no chance of their name being taken to General Assembly for election as Moderator. While the church courts remain primarily controlled by men, it is unlikely that women's names will get through this sifting process.

Another possible position of power is that of the staff of the Theological Hall, where students are trained for the ordained ministry of word and sacrament in the PCANZ. Up until 1990, only two women had been appointed to full-time teaching positions at the Theological Hall. Nancy Burgess, in 1984, was the first woman appointed to a full-time position on the staff of the Theological Hall and the first woman ever to act as Principal (a position she held for 1989 and part of 1990). Judith McKinlay became the first woman to hold a church professorship, when she was appointed to the Chair of Old Testament at the 1990 General Assembly.

The path for each of these women appears to have had more than a fair share of stumbling blocks placed along the way. They stand as tall trees (always facing the possibility of being felled), as role models for women of the future, in a church which is still dominated by clergymen.

Women in powerful positions are few in number, often seen as 'token' women, in positions which are vulnerable and tenuous. While they are supported by a growing number of men within the church, their lives are often a struggle against great odds.

A patriarchal, sexist and/or gendered church?

Is it then a fair statement to describe the PCANZ as a patriarchal, sexist and gendered church? Is the treatment of women within the PCANZ similar to that of the culture which surrounds it?

It would appear that, if anything, the PCANZ lags behind society in its treatment of women. While the ethos which creates Presbyterianism is anti-hierarchical, claiming the priesthood of all believers, and committed to a Bible which teaches the unity of all in Christ Jesus (Gal 3.28), the working out of Presbyterianism, especially in relation to women, is still far from this ethos. Just as the early church found it almost impossible to live within society without absorbing the patriarchal influences of its environment, so also the PCANZ appears to be still carrying the patriarchal influences from society rather than relying on its liberating ethos and faith. Patriarchal, sexist and gendered attitudes are evident in many different parts of the church:

i. There is a great deal of discrimination against women (lay and clergy) within parishes, Presbyteries and Assembly.¹⁸

ii. The Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, 1988-1998, sponsored by the World Council of Churches and endorsed by the Conference of Churches in Aotearoa-New Zealand, has largely been ignored, or passed on to women's groups to consider and deal with. Such response indicates the lack of commitment or interest of the men in power within the PCANZ to consider how women might be involved in equal sharing of resources and power.

iii. There is a great deal of anger and fear relating to women in positions of power, as evidenced in the prolonged and emotional debates concerning the principalship within the Theological Hall and at General Assembly in 1990, when Judith McKinlay was appointed Professor of Old Testament.

iv. The response at General Assembly, 1990, to the suggestion of monitoring official documents of the church to ensure that their language is inclusive, seems to be motivated by fear of women's power.

v. The Committee on Women in Church and Society has produced some important documents concerning a wide variety of situations relating to sexist and patriarchal attitudes within the church (e.g. 'The PCNZ, The Pauline Epistles and Women in the Church Community'; 'Domestic Violence: A Problem for the Church within Society'). Very little has been done within parishes, sessions, Presbyteries and Assembly to ensure that action is taken on these documents.

This description of the structures within the PCANZ shows a church which is very little different from its surrounding culture. It has not built on its non-hierarchical, partnership vision, but rather, has absorbed the values and basic assumptions of the gendered, patriarchal society of which it is a part. Rather than leading society in new directions, it is a church reacting to the challenges of society and in particular taking note of society's new expectations that women take an equal and active part in leadership and decision making.

The experience of women contrasts with how the church understands the changes that have taken place. If its rhetoric is any guide, overall the church is satisfied with having done a good job of giving women equal opportunity -and now there are other things which require its attention.

'We have some good things we want to retain-a well educated clergy and laity; a good sense of social justice, human rights and pastoral care; we have worked at gender and ethnic equality; we have a loyal and competent administration in the office of the General Assembly; and a process of consultation and equality in decision making. But we need to improve our accountability; to convert our theology into action in the community; to improve our performance and sense of direction; to be more flexible and outgoing; and to relate to the new generations of New Zealanders.'¹⁹

There was no place for women in the official leadership, teaching or decision-making in the early days of the Presbyterian Church as it began in colonial New Zealand. In the one hundred and fifty years of its life in this country, there have been enormous changes. In the 1990's there is now no part of the church from which women may be excluded. Women today have a legitimate place at all levels of ministry and administration. In reality, however, few women have been given the power necessary to effect change within the church.

Rev. Dr Sarah Mitchell is Director of Community-Based Ministry Training in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. This is a relatively new form of non-residential training which prepares candidates for ordination in a parallel track to those in residential training at Knox Theological Hall.

Notes