Margaret Forrester | |
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| Born | c. 1939  |
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Margaret Forrester (born Margaret McDonald) became a missionary, Scottish church minister and writer. She was one of six women who successfully campaigned for the right of women to be ordained in the Church of Scotland. She supported gay-rights within the church.
Forrester had been educated in Edinburgh before she studied theology at New College, Oxford with an ambition to be a minister. In the year before she graduated she was elected to be the University Theological Society's president. [1]
In 1967 six women wrote an open letter to call on the Church of Scotland to allow the ordination of women. The six were Mary Weir, Claude Barbour, Elizabeth Hewat, Mary Levison, Sheila White (later Sheila Spence and Forrester and they wrote an open letter requesting that women should be accepted as ministers in the Church of Scotland. [2]
Levison had been the first to petition for the acceptance of women as ministers in the Church of Scotland in 1963. Forrester had witnessed the debate which decided to nor allow women. Every year the request was renewed and in 1967 the six found that they were not allowed to lobby the men who were making the decision so they decided to hold a press conference. The YMCA lent a room and the press were invited but they were not expected in any numbers. On the day the room was packed and the six of them, and their petition, were in the press. [2]
Her mother in law, Isobel Forrester, was an enthusiastic supporter of the ordination of women. [3] When the approval was given for women to be ordained Isobel sent a telegram to her daughter in law who was then in India telling Margaret of the "sweeping victory" on 22 May 1968. [2] Margaret was ordained. [4]
Forrester spent years in India where she again could not be a minister but she could teach. She came back to Edinburgh in 1978 and she became the minister in Edinburgh's St Michael parish. She would lead there for 22 years. [1] During this time she attracted controversy when she blessed a lesbian couple in the 1990s. It was speculated that this act had prevented her from becoming the moderator of her church. [5]
Forrester became a writer for children. [6]
Forrester, who had been born Margaret McDonald, married Duncan Baillie Forrester, who became a professor of theology at the University of Edinburgh. [7] Her husband died in 2016 aged 83. They had two children: Donald and Catriona. [8]
The Church of Scotland was one of the first national churches to accept the ordination of women. In Presbyterianism, ordination is understood to be an ordinance rather than a sacrament; ministers and elders are ordained; until recently deacons were "commissioned" but now they too are ordained to their office in the Church of Scotland.
James Aitken Whyte was a Scottish theologian, presbyterian minister, and academic. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1988 to 1989.
"Sermon on the Mound" is the name given by the Scottish press to an address made by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Saturday, 21 May 1988. This speech, which laid out the relationship between her religious and political thinking, proved highly controversial.
Donald Macpherson Baillie was a Scottish theologian, ecumenist, and parish minister.
In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. While ordination of women has been approved in many denominations, it is still a very controversial and divisive topic.
Duncan Baillie Forrester was a Scottish theologian and the founder of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at New College, University of Edinburgh. He was latterly honorary fellow and professor emeritus at New College.
Isobel Hoppar or Hopper was a Scottish landowner and governess of Margaret Douglas. She was a powerful political figure in Scotland during the youth of King James V, and her wealth and influence attracted misogynous comment from her faction's enemies.
Donald Macleod was a Scottish theologian.
Betty Bone Schiess was an American Episcopal priest. She was one of the first female Episcopal priests in the United States, and a member of the Philadelphia Eleven: leaders of the movement to allow the ordination of women in the American Episcopal Church.
Margaret Ellen Towner is an American religious leader who was the first woman to be ordained a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA).
Elizabeth Glendinning Kirkwood Hewat was the first woman to graduate BD and PhD at New College, University of Edinburgh, a missionary, a campaigner for women's equality in the Church of Scotland, and a historian of Scottish missions.
Mary Irene Levison was the first person to petition the Church of Scotland for the ordination of women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in 1963. This was achieved five years later and Levison became a minister in 1973. In 1991 she was appointed as Queen's Chaplain, the first woman to hold the position.
William Roy Sanderson was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1967. In 1961 he had organised the first meeting between a moderator and the pope. He was chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
Duncan Shaw was a Scottish Presbyterian minister, historian, and author. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1987 to 1988.
Reverend Elizabeth (Betty) Baxter Forbes Kinniburgh was one of the first women to gain the license to preach in 1969 and became ordained as a minister for the Church of Scotland in 1970.
This is a timeline of notable moments in the history of women's ordination in the world's religious traditions. It is not an exhaustive list of all historic or contemporary ordinations of women. See also: Timeline of women in religion
Leon David Levison (1919–2012) was a Church of Scotland minister. During the early 1970s he was Convener of the Church of Scotland's Moral and Social Welfare Board.
Iain MacLeod Greenshields is a Church of Scotland minister, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly from 2022 to 2023. He undertook key roles as Moderator for the funeral of Elizabeth II and the Coronation of Charles III. He was ordained in 1984, and currently serves as minister of St Margaret's Community Church in Dunfermline, Fife where he has been a minister for 16 years. His wife Linda is a teacher of religious, moral and philosophical studies at Levenmouth Academy, Buckhaven.She has taught for 42 years.
Isobel Forrester born Isobel Margaret Stewart McColl was a Scottish born ecumenist. She was chair and an active member of the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Association.
Claude Marie Barbour is a minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She was among the first female ministers in the denomination, being ordained in 1974 in Gary, Indiana.