YET again I agree with a lot of what Grenville Moore has said about the Archbishop of Canterbury (Church leader has lost his way, September 19).

However, he seems to have taken the verse calling for women to keep silent during the assemblies out of its context.

In the Corinthian letter Paul was dealing with a whole host of problems which had occurred in the fledgling church in Corinth. In synagogue worship, men were on one side of the church and women on the other and the women were shouting to their husbands across the church and so disrupting the worship, so Paul has to advise them to keep silent during the assemblies. But this is not binding on women today or else a good proportion of women ministers in all Protestant denominations would be lost to the vital service of the church.

Paul also advises the young Timothy not to allow women to address the meeting, probably because there may have been former temple prostitutes and other loose women among the first time converts. A bishop has to be the husband of one wife as well, probably because there may have been bigamists among the early converts. It would be interesting to know whether Mr Moore is a member of the Church of the Brethren because this is what they used to teach.

Philip H Hayworth Mornington Road Bolton