Seventh-day Adventist Church Refuses Ordination to Women

By Loren Seibold

The latest conservative denomination to deny women ordination is the Seventh-day Adventist church, a denomination whose single most significant shaping force was its 19th-century prophetess and co-founder, Ellen Gould Harmon White. 

White's role in the church might have suggested that women's spiritual leadership would be welcome. But that assumption wasn't tested until the push to strengthen women's rights in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1985 meeting of the quinquennial world convention, delegates voted to allow female pastors to work under a limited "commissioned minister" license, and congregations to ordain female lay elders. The decision was welcome in many parts of the American, European, and Australian church but sat uncomfortably with others, sparking three decades of campaigning against any further moves in that direction. 

Delegates in 2010 requested a Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) with the hope of settling the question. Impetus was provided by a few smaller judicatories in the United States and Europe that pushed ahead with granting full ordination to the women ministers in their territory. The TOSC convened in 2013. Though the result of that committee's work was encouraging about the possibility of women's ordination in those parts of the world church that wanted it, a motion was presented at the 2015 meeting of the world church without the recommendation from the TOSC.

Three things worked against its passage. 

1. 

   Ted N.C. Wilson
   The shifting of the church to the global south. About three quarters of church membership is now from cultures with traditional roles for women, like Latin America, Africa and southern Asia. 
2. The selection of Ted N.C. Wilson as church president. Wilson, though a North American, won the loyalty of the conservative delegates by promising to fight against the liberalization that many feared was happening in the American church. Wilson is a skilled politician with an authoritarian style, which he used to good effect against the women's ordination movement. 
3. A new theology of male headship. Opponents made a Biblical case for male leadership while also succeeding in grouping women's ordination with homosexuality, which frightened many in the aging demographic of the church.

On July 8, 2015, at the world conference in San Antonio, TX, the motion to allow large geographical regions (divisions) to decide for themselves about women's ordination was defeated 60% to 40%. (To the disappointment of many, who hoped this vote was a referendum on all female church leadership, female commissioned ministers and female lay elders were not eliminated: the motion was confined to the question of whether divisions could grant full ordination to women in their territory.)

The denomination has tried hard to maintain uniformity in both theology and polity throughout its approximately 175-year history. In the latest session much was made of an 1875 statement by Ellen White (ironically) that the General Conference session is the highest authority of God on earth, meaning that the July 8 vote was an ex cathedra decision binding all parts of the church.

Yet some of the judicatories that had already begun ordaining women have said they'll continue to do so, in defiance of the session vote. Which leads most observers to conclude that the question is far from settled.  

 

 

 

 

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Comments

[Jake Annister]

The church DID NOT refuse ordination of women. Rather, it determined that the conference leaders are not to determine it just like they are not to determine men. Ordination is determined by the votes of the congregation and it stays the same without change. Women can still be ordained.

[Loren Seibold]

I think you'd find, Jake, that very few who voted "no" thought they were merely voting on whether the unions or the divisions got to decide. That was the lawyerly interpretation, but in fact, for those voting "no", it was a referendum on women's ordination.

[Kcurtis]

However those who voted against the proposal felt about it, or what they hoped it would mean, the reality is that ordination is still decided upon at the level of the Union. Further, some would point out that failing to ordain places the church in North America at odds with its own working policy of non-discrimination. So while those who voted "no" may have done so as an intended statement of referendum, it does not in fact mean that as far as the practice goes.

[Eric Morris]

There is some good reasoning for the concept that the Unions had authority to choose ordination (which is why Pacific Union and Columbia Union were able to choose it without repercussions in 2012, in spite of TW's protests); and that the Unions still have this authority. The vote on July 8 simply left the status quo in place, as Dr. Artur Stele (GC VP) announced in his news conference after the July 8 vote. http://EqualOrdination.com/actual-significance/ and http://EqualOrdination.com/unions-authority/

[Loren Seibold]

I agree with what you say, Kcurtis and Eric. The way the decision was structured left an opening for the unions to continue to do what they want to do—at least in their minds. (I think eye hath not seen nor hear heard what the GC has prepared for them who defy what they believe is the meaning of the vote.)

Remember that there wasn't a single person who voted "no" that day who was thinking, "I'm fine with women's ordination: I just don't want the divisions to decide it." Nor were many who voted "yes" thinking, "I just want to move the jurisdiction of this up a level." Everyone was voting on women's ordination.

I'm only saying that you cn expect upcoming events to reflect what people thought they were voting on, not what the motion said, technically.

[Marygrace Coneff]

The sad part that so many seem to miss in voting no is that they were saying that there is inequality in our church. Which is true, and a very LONG history of it!

I graduated in 1981 and was not even interviewed for a pastoral position because of my gender. If I had been married to a minister, or a doctor who was wanted somewhere and could negotiate like two of my colleagues did, maybe I would have had a chance. Instead, two of my male colleagues were accepted, one who lived with his girlfriend, both drank and did drugs. And one of them got caught plagiarizing not once, but twice. He was hired and went on to have multiple affairs in each church he was assigned to. His wife was a loverly woman and I don't like what he did to her. He was finally removed and is now a used car salesman. I am sure he does well because he can lie and not worry about it at all.

Just because you have a penis, doesn't mean you will make a good pastor. It is ridiculous in this day and age to not embrace equality in our, well, my former, church.

And the largest church in the denomination has 7,000 members. It started with 10 people or so. It is led by a WOMAN! Are they saying that she does not have a gift of spreading the word of God, in CHINA no less.

Ted Wilson talks about unity, but he really doesn't want it. He wants things his way and no other. There were two motions to bring back his nomination for President, which were basically ignored. I don't trust him. And until he is gone, there will be no unity, only division. He creates division in the SDA church, which is exactly what Jesus preached against.

I know Jesus is saddened by what happened at the GC. He embraced the marginalized. He didn't hang out with the likes of the Ted Wilsons. In fact, he went into the temple and turned the tables upside down. And that is what would happen if He were here today, in my humble opinion.

[Cherry Ashlock]

A ministry student who was at the GC had a conversation with a delegate from one of the African divisions. In the course of the conversation back and forth the African went from far right in his anti WO stance to the middle. He still voted no because he thought North America needed to be taught a lesson and that they are not in charge anymore. To me that is not being true to ones convictions. Vote either yes or no based on biblical belief but as revenge seems unchristian.

[Loren Seibold]

Marygrace, I apologize on behalf of the church for what happened to you, that you'd didn't get the opportunities you should have had. That is wrong. I don't know these leaders personally, and I don't know what they're thinking, but I would say that at best it was an inartful way to set up the decision, to create such a clear win-lose situation that can't help but stress and divide the church.

[Mladen]

Well reported Loren. All of your three points are very correct, and the third one painfully so. Many discussions about WO and the vote was not about the very issue - should individual Divisions be allowed to decide for themselves whether to, or not to, ordain women ministers, but they turned into speculations about what will happen to us if we 'allow' it. The next thing that would have happened, many in-the-know were sure, was the entrance of homosexuality, and them as ministers. At that point many people stopped thinking and went into the fear/survival mode, and all the Bible texts suddenly looked to them like supporting male headship. The same culture that they feared will influence the liberals' opinion had skewed their own thinking and removed them from the sound Biblical teaching.

Marygrace Coneff, I was really saddened to hear your story, although it is not the first such a story I've heard. Many, many of us are disappointed with the treatment of women in our church, including yourself, and are hoping and praying this will change. Hopefully through Unions and conferences who will be courageous and faithful enough to follow Christ and not tradition/culture, brave enough to act on their conscience not on man's ruling. 'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you (humans) rather than God.