Rite & Reason: For quite some time the Presbyterian Church has been backing itself into a fundamentalist cul-de-sac from which it may not escape
Rite & Reason: For quite some time the Presbyterian Church has been backing itself into a fundamentalist cul-de-sac from which it may not escapeRev Sam Mawhinney: the current moderator has made it clear that he does not approve of the ordination of womenRev Richard Murray, who will be installed as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland on Friday, immediately raised eyebrows inside and outside the church shortly after his selection as moderator-elect last February.
Are we therefore to believe that God is satisfied that the other main Protestant denominations in Ireland, including the Anglicans and Methodists, are right to have female leaders, but that He is still deciding whether a Presbyterian woman would be fit to be appointed moderator? Are Presbyterians a cut above, or below, the others?‘They believe the social contract has been torn up’: How one area feels after an anti-immigrant candidate was electedRome success has been years in the making, and...
They include the pioneering Ruth Patterson herself, but she was turned down twice, and on the latter occasion she did not receive even a single vote from any of the 19 presbyteries in Ireland. Such lack of grace from the church at large was appalling. The Rev Hughes stood again the following year but McNie was elected with a large majority. In previous decades, when Presbyterianism was a broad church, a “liberal” or a “conservative” candidate was elected moderator every second year but sadly those generous-spirited days have long gone.
For many years I was a member of the church, which was then broadly welcoming. There are still many decent people in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which also carries out good work in society for which it deserves recognition, but in recent years it has changed beyond all recognition. It has become one of the most conservative and, to some people, the least appealing of churches on this island. In my lifetime it has changed beyond recognition, and not necessarily for the better.
The current moderator, Rev Sam Mawhinney, made it clear that he does not approve of the ordination of women. Against such a background of relentless Presbyterian conservatism, it is a wonder that any female Presbyterian has the courage to even consider becoming a minister, much less a moderator – and that cannot be good for the church.
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