Sm,—Not content with trailing his coat before the cricketers, Janus
now dangles it before the ecclesiastics, so, if "Life is beset with troubles," he has, I fear, made more for himself again ! He will not want a full- scale discussion on women's part in the Church. But has he considered the difference between status and function ? That men and women are equal in status (being all children of God) cannot be questioned. But that does not connote identity of function in the Church. Clergy and laity are all equal in status, but not in function. I am, I hope, equal to a woman as a human being—but I cannot be a mother. Men and women are equal in God's eyes—but that does not mean that He wants them all to do the same things.
Janus appeals to St. Paul: to St. Paul he shall go. St. Paul did indeed assert that in Christ is neither male nor female. He also said that women must not teach in church, and must not cut their hair short. He does not seem to have felt any inconsistency in this. Perhaps he knew that status and function are not the same ? Lastly, a static Church in an evolving world might serve a useful purpose. It might be the only fixed point in a whirligig, and thus save some of us from dizziness.—Yours, &c.,
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