By Amanda Wells
Forty years ago, the Presbyterian Church of Aoteraroa New Zealand ordained its first woman minister.
A special service was held at St Luke’s Church and Community Centre in Auckland on 13 May, 2005 , to mark the anniversary of Margaret Reid Martin’s ordination.
Called a role model and pioneer by those gathered to celebrate her ministry, Ms Reid Martin has spent 40 years being questioned about the difference her gender made to her vocation.
After completing a BSc in botany at the University of Otago , she had considered training as a secondary school teacher. But this meant a costly move to Auckland . Deaconness training, on the other hand, was in Dunedin and fees were paid by the church.
During her first year of training in1948, the principal encouraged her to make an application for ministry to speed consideration of the issue. But Ms Reid Martin said it was “no part of [her] call” to force the church’s hand.
After being ordained a deaconess in 1951, Ms Reid Martin forsook the usual path of missionary, social and parish work to enter the field of education. She spent eight years at a state secondary school pioneering the teaching of scripture, as well as teaching science.
She has seen substantial change in Christian education. In the 50s and 60s, Christian educators were “very concerned that we increased people’s Bible knowledge, which was expected to spill over into how they behaved”. Universities had no religious studies departments in the 60s, and the Christian Education Association was involved in pushing for their establishment.
Changes were also starting to happen within the Presbyterian Church of Aoteraroa New Zealand . After years of study and consideration, in 1955 the Assembly approved women’s admittance to eldership.
But Ms Reid Martin still had no grand plan to become a minister. In 1964, the General Assembly meeting at St David’s Church, Khyber Pass , Auckland , passed the final regulations necessary for women to be ordained. Ms Reid Martin was attending with her mother. As the meeting ended, the Rev Arch Kirkwood tapped Ms Reid Martin on the shoulder and said, “you’ll be the first”.
“Don’t be silly,” she replied. But on the drive home, her mother again raised the issue, asking “why not?”.
During the next few weeks, Ms Reid Martin underwent a change that she describes as “difficult to explain”. “The question simply wouldn’t go away.”
Despite some of Paul’s statements, “I don’t ever think I ever felt there was a Biblical block to women”. Ms Reid Martin focused instead on Galatians 3:28 – “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Three weeks after the St David’s Assembly, she applied to become a minister.
Ms Reid Martin was ordained at St Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington , on Thursday 13 May, 1965 .
Although some people say she was a role model, Ms Reid Martin says she never saw her ministry as particularly worthy of attention. “I didn’t really think I was pioneering.”
“The one person who reacted strangely was an Anglican minister, who asked ‘what do we call you?’. I said, ‘just the same: Margaret’.”
She attempted to minimise any attention associated with her gender. “I was trying very hard not to be too different from the men”. Ms Reid Martin says more opposition to the change appeared to come from “ordinary women in the pews” rather than from men.
Sometimes women in ministry positions found dynamics with ministers’ wives difficult and jealously could become an issue. “Women in the 50s and 60s were pretty set in their roles. They did not go out to work; they stayed home and brought up a family.”
As more women entered ministry, they gained more confidence to be themselves, she says. Women brought a greater emphasis on symbols, colours, banners, music, dance and “other things that are more experiential”, and also gave men the confidence to use their gifts in these areas. “There’s much more variety in church worship today than in 1965.”
But it would be wrong to suggest that men lack pastoral skills, she says. “I certainly wouldn’t ever have said that women were more caring than men”.
Ms Reid Martin has never held a permanent parish ministry role. In 1982, she spent a year relieving in the parish, and invitations to take services have always been frequent. This way parishes could satisfy their curiosity, “but they weren’t stuck with me”.
She became the first female moderator of the Wellington Presbytery in 1975 but says this was simply because she had been in the presbytery long enough for it to be her turn.
Being appointed Moderator of General Assembly for 1987 carried different significance. Joan Anderson, a lay women, had been the first woman Moderator in 1979.
During Ms Reid Martin’s time in the role, she says she experienced “the reverse of discrimination”. Comparing notes with other past Moderators revealed that that the number of presents she received far exceeded those others had collected.
When Ms Reid Martin moved to Auckland in 1978, she was the only woman minister in the presbytery. In 2005, Auckland has 19 women ministers. Perhaps the only area that has remained male dominated is ministry to the city congregations that are perceived as more influential, she says. But the appointment Margaret Mayman to St Andrews on the Terrance and, very recently, of Sarah Mitchell to Knox Dunedin, bucks the trend of women choosing suburban ministry.
Ms Reid Martin was awarded a QSO in 2003 for her work in Christian education and for the Church, and requests to preach have not diminished.
More often than not on a Sunday, she can be found up the front.