Angela Berners-Wilson: I was the first female priest
in England..
Reverend Angela Berners-Wilson was one of the first
women to be ordained as a Church of England priest in 1994 and is not chaplain
at the University of Bath and prebendary at Wells Cathedral. Growing up, her
father was a priest and in the 70s, when she was evolved in studying theology,
women were only lay workers in a parish or deaconess in churches. She always
knew she wanted to be a priest, but the idea of a woman becoming a priest
seemed so far away. She evidently found out she was not the only women who felt
the same way and joined the Movement for the Ordination of Women in 1978.
Though there are still pockets of resistance, there are a lot of women clergy
and equal numbers of men and women entering theological college. When she was
going through college, only three of those would accept women and a lot men didn’t
believed that women should be priest, but surprisingly her principle was a
women. I guess they believed this because in the bible Jesus was a man along
with his disciplines, and they felt like only males could represent him at the
altar, but this is not so. Jesus treated women with much respect, talked with
them, and engaged which was drastic for that time and was important in the
future of the ministry. In 1992, General Synod finally approved women to be
priests and in 1994 the legislation passed and 32 of them were ordained at the
same time. When she later got offered a job in a traditional area of Wiltshire,
some members of the British Legion were somewhat bigoted to the idea of a women
priest still. The first women to be priest had to somewhat prove themselves and
be on their best behaviors at all times because if not, (as always) they would
hear “She’s a woman, what do you expect?” Her husband was very supportive of
the struggles of being a female priest because his father was also a priest and
mother was a doctor. Angela’s main concern now is what will happen with thewomen bishops vote. She is worried that if it doesn’t get passed, the Anglican Church
will go into a great dishonor in the eyes of the world. As she stated, “It’s
the 21st century, and it seems very discriminatory not to allow
women to follow their vocation”.
Around the world, many people are still apprehensive
about female pastors and are somewhat threaten by this. Some mostly men, they
feel as though a female cannot lead them the way a man can. I think this is
total bs, if a woman is called by God, then she is supposed to be in that position
to preach his word. Who are we to judge? This is seen all over the world and is
more acceptable in more places than others. This is no surprise to me, women
are consistently on the attack about pretty much everything now or days and it’s
not by everyone, just some people in high position who are afraid to let a pad
wearing female lead them. They try to use the bible to back these beliefs up,
but if a women id called then she is called.
