We take a pride in claiming that ours was the first denomination to accept women into its ministry. England's first woman minister, the Rev Gertrude von Petzold, was inducted into the ministry of Narborough Road Free Christian Church, Leicester, in 1904, but the Unitarian Church in Glasgow does have a prior claim. In its earlier days as a Universalist Church, the Rev Caroline Soule was there ordained in 1880. Close links with Unitarians enabled her to preach in and later have temporary pastoral oversight of the Dundee Unitarian Church. A further forty-two women in Britain have since followed in their footsteps.
Our contribution to the women's movement continues. In 1985 we published a new hymn book, including many new hymns and taking into account the fact that many women are alienated by gender-exclusive language. Many, but not all of the hymns were adapted accordingly.
This has enabled a number of women who had formerly felt excluded from male-dominated worship to join us in giving joyful expression to their faith. This leaflet celebrates the way in which our Unitarian beliefs, values and principles affirm women's spirituality both in ethos and in practice. It is clear that the contributors feel accepted for themselves and value the support and shared wisdom of a loving church community as they make their personal spiritual journey alongside others on a similar quest. Finding spiritual fulfilment has enabled them to give expression to their concerns in the wider society.
It should be said that whilst our decision to elicit contributions for this leaflet brought forth a good response, some women felt the time was not quite ripe. Unitarian women live in the real world and recognise that the ideal of equality for all is elusive. In a less than perfect world many lack the necessary confidence to take on traditional masculine roles in the church and we have yet to achieve a satisfactory balance of men and women on committees and working groups.
There is, of course, no virtue in going against one's nature for the sake of a trend. Some women are happiest in creative, nurturing roles, preparing food behind the scenes and caring for those in need. The rising interest in church-based women's groups enables us all to share, unhampered by dogma, the richness of women's talents, experiences and spirituality and nourishes the ongoing challenge to work towards personal growth.
Celia Kerr
General Assembly President 1992-93
Scriptures and church traditions are guides, but will be questioned. As they reflect the experience of people (largely men) in another time and culture, I do not feel bound to accept any part which oppresses women. I can share ideas with others and search for lasting truth. I am supported in this quest through Unitarian activities including worship, social events and a women's group and through Unitarian publications. In the women's group we have explored issues such as images of God: masculine, feminine or ....?
In Unitarianism each person is ultimately his/her own authority in matters of belief. This places trust on the women and men who are travelling on this journey; they have inherent worth and value. This is a self-affirming philosophy, though not about selfishness or self-aggrandisement. Self-affirmation is important for many women. Women have often suffered from having a poor self image, which has not been helped by traditional, patriarchal faith systems.
Not all Unitarians always get everything right for me. However, Unitarians say a lot about freedom, and I have the same freedom as any other Unitarian to object to anything which seems to me to be unfair. I know that there have been some remarkable women who have been influenced by our dissenting tradition, including early supporters of women's rights. I celebrate the Unitarian approach to religion as it has allowed me to grow spiritually, always with the knowledge that individuals, both women and men, are ultimately their own authority in matters of belief
June Pettitt
In 1953 I first attended a service in a Unitarian church. I had tested several denominations but none seemed to satisfy whatever it was that I needed. I did not know what I was seeking. I was 21 years old and lacking in self confidence, and here I was in a church which emphasised the worth in all and no guilt feelings about sin and salvation. I was hearing about the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth and the divinity in all humankind. So God was not watching and judging me. What blessed relief. And a woman in the pulpit, this was something really new. I had discovered a church which offered a reasonable, sensitive, relevant and encouraging approach to religion. I responded to all this.
Now I am in the privileged, rewarding and joyful position as a lay leader of a Unitarian chapel. I see my work (if I can call it that) as trying to stimulate spiritual growth. I try to do this in several ways. Through the conduct of worship, using words which feed the heart and spirit as well as the mind. Through trying always to be sensitive to the different needs and worries of each member of my congregation. Through listening.
As a woman I can especially relate to other women and their problems. As a Unitarian I need refer to no source of authority other than my own feelings, conscience, intuition-that `still small voice'.
In every area of Unitarianism women's spirituality is evident, encouraged and accepted naturally. Unitarianism leads in equal opportunities. I owe my spiritual growing process to the free religious faith which is Unitarianism -- and to a remarkable woman.
Vina Curren
I am 25, female, in stable and fulfilling paid work and also in a firm relationship with my partner Mick who is also 25 but not a Unitarian. I was born into a strongly Unitarian family. My parents met through a British Unitarian organisation, my grandparents through an international one. One Grandfather was a Unitarian minister, the other a noted layperson. You may say, therefore, there was little question that I too would automatically feel at home in the Unitarian denomination, but it is never as simple as that.
I remember as a child an experience that perhaps started me off on the road to nonconformity. Attending a very early school assembly aged about 4 1/2 (when there were school places for the under fives) my Headmistress, whom I revered absolutely, told us the story of Noah and his Ark. I remember the isolation and terror I felt as I sat there thinking to myself "nobody could possibly build a boat big enough for two of every kind of animal in the world". Perhaps it was at that point that I became a Unitarian.
As a teenager I had another experience as I struggled to get to grips with my spiritual self. I was a member of a local Christian youth organisation that my best friend had introduced me to. After a worship service we divided into groups and our group was led by a young woman who can hardly have been more than 18. One Sunday she described to us how she'd given up her boyfriend for Jesus. I was appalled at this notion, stunned that a religion could become so controlling. Ultimately I left the group.
I was fortunate enough to participate fully in innumerable Unitarian youth events as a teenager which gave me the courage and tenacity to make my assault on the adult world. I was also fortunate enough to be part of a thriving local Sunday School as a younger child, an experience which definitely helped me to acquire an enquiring, if not always judicious, mind.
So, you ask, what does Unitarianism give me as a woman of today? Well, it gives me space and time to breathe, think and grow. It gives me access to broad-minded women and men, both young and old, who share in my quest to become a more rounded, fulfilled, living human being.
Helen Mason
The underlying principles of Unitarianism are ones that I held dear before I ever discovered the movement. I had come to realise as a teacher of Religious Education that it was an intensely personal subject, that religion could not be adequately streamlined into clearly defined categories i.e. denominations and faiths, to suit the spiritual needs of such differing masses of individual people. Unitarian lack of insistence on the belief in a set creed has been to me positively liberating and uplifting.
I have come to see set creeds as spiritually impoverishing and eventually self-destructive. A creed that offers theoretically the only means of salvation is in reality a means of maintaining a power structure. It destroys the elements of freedom, choice and tolerance so vital to lasting religious and therefore world peace.
Pat Kern
Later I remember with what a sense of discovery I first heard the concept of Unitarianism as a spectrum of beliefs and perspectives, and I have enjoyed the process of finding, and changing, my own position on that spectrum. There was a widening awareness of other religious concepts -- that no one person or religion has the whole truth about that which we call God, that God is but a name for the "mystery that has no name", and I rejoice in that mystery.
As Unitarianism developed and broadened, so did my ideas, which I felt sprang from my woman's perspective, about peace issues, about ecology, the unity and spiritual content of all life.
As a Unitarian woman in society, in aspects of my experience, such as magistracy, in counselling, as a school governor, I think I was able, however modestly, to contribute to tolerance, to compassion, to the wider view, which I felt as a woman and as a Unitarian.
Through Unitarianism I have developed my kind of feminism, that men and women are essentially different, but complimentary, that both sexes should value these differences, and at the same time realise that we all have within us both masculine and feminine qualities that need expression. Most fundamentally, that God is neither male nor female, neither god nor goddess -- those are the values and attributes we human beings should develop -- but the creative Spirit that moves through and with all life.
Irene Hornby
And what did I find? A feeling of worth as a human being and especially as a woman -- and I think it was not just coincidence that the minister's wife was also a doctor. I found a spirit of enquiry into the scriptures, not only from traditional Christian sources but also from the other great religions of the world, and from secular sources. I learnt about the Ministry of all believers -- a very novel idea for me and a great contrast with the Anglicanism of my upbringing. I learnt about Reverence for Life which overturned my idea that "Man should have dominion over animals". But the most revolutionary concept was that of working out our own theology based on the scientific method which I was already absorbing in medical school.
I have stayed with Unitarianism; it is by no means perfect and often irritating -- as well as hard work. It has given me a chance to grow and develop which I suspect I might not have had elsewhere. In turn I have been able to give something back in the way of leading worship and chairing the Social Affairs Committee. I have also been a chapel treasurer, traditionally a male role in most denominations.
Because Unitarianism imbues my whole life it of necessity affects the way I practise medicine. As I believe in the value of every individual and can cope with pluralism, I usually try to avoid the traps of racism, ageism and sexism. My ideas about the "after-Life" do not interfere with my care of terminally ill patients. Thoughts about the unborn do not constrain me in counselling women seeking abortions. Our lack of dogma frees me to make my own decisions in matters of ethics. Above all, I aim to enable people to reach their own informed decisions by educating them about their own bodies and try to give my disadvantaged patients a feeling of their own worth in a world which is for ever trying to devalue them and as well as asking "Why?", I also ask "Why not?"
Jane Williams
General Assembly President 1996-97
I was delighted when I discovered two others out of the nine religious leaders at this year's Remembrance Ceremony at the Cenotaph were women ministers, and more so a few days later when the Church of England General Synod voted in favour of the ordination of women. We Unitarians have led the way in this matter and long experience has brought no regrets.
One of the things I have always valued in my experience of the Unitarian movement is the sense of being treated as a person in my own right -- not just as someone's wife, mother or daughter. During the last fifteen years I have worked at home caring for my husband and stepfamily of five children and have at times felt that in catering for their genuinely substantial needs I was completely losing track of my own personality. For me, sharing in worship with Edinburgh Unitarians is a revitalising experience in which my own sense of identity is restored.
Focusing attention upon the needs of my inner self gives me a perspective on daily living which recognises the importance of my own feelings and opinions in relation to those of other people, against the backdrop of eternity.
I find the general sensitivity in our churches to the use of gender-exclusive language very helpful, because I believe God to be neither male nor female; surely the Power of Goodness, Beauty, Truth and Love has the attributes of both sexes? As one who feels excluded by language which seems to imply god speaks only to "the sons of men", I really do appreciate those who avoid its usage. This shared outlook enables me to affirm the value of women and women's experience in society.
Celia Kerr
The League brings Unitarian and other Liberal Christian women into closer co-operation and fellowship.
The object of the Unitarian Women's Group is to empower Unitarian women in their areas of concern within the Unitarian movement and the world at large.
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LIBERAL RELIGIOUS WOMEN
Promotes friendship and co-operation among the women of the liberal religious movements in all countries.
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