Faith in Context

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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Seventh-Day Adventists Vote Against Ordaining Women

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A Landmark Case Study of a Megachurch

by Monte Sahlin

This in-depth case study of Saddleback Church in southern California and founding pastor Rick Warren was actually published in 2012, but I only recently got around to reading it. It is Sacred Subdivisions by Justin Wilford (New York University Press). Although the author sees Saddleback as an example of post-denominational Evangelical religion, in fact it is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, an idenification that is largely hidden from the local community.

The book describes at great length how it fits the social context in which it exists, post-suburban America with its dis-integrated community structure. The patterns of a megachurch look much like those of its niche in the world; fragmented nodes of participation connected by the automobile and facilities much like shopping malls. The home and family have become the center of life and other institutions (work, community, politics and culture) are marginalized around the private center of each nuclear family's life.

And Saddleback Church is centered in home-based small groups. The entire purpose of the sermons, worship services and other programs is to make friends with people and get them involved in one of the small groups.

Wilford observes that the Evangelical megachurches have become expert at providing many different modes of worship, each appealing to a specific subculture. They are dispersed, multi-modal networks that only appear to be mass organizations. They best fit the endless suburban-like social context of California which is replicated to some extent around all major metropolitan areas in North America.

What does this mean? That the megachurch most likely will not be the primary shape of the Christian church in the 21st century, but it is a specific form limited to a specific context. Another indicator of this is the shift underway in the last five years or so to multi-site churches. Most of the largest congregations in American now have multiple, smaller campuses or venues, each with an on-site primary leader. And the largest of the megachurches are beginning to look like smaller versions of denominations, although they prefer the terms "network" or "association" or "coalition."

 

 

Pastors Caught in the Middle over Gay Marriage

by Loren Seibold

As we watch the political muddle of states trying to sort out policy on gay marriage, spare a thought for a group caught in the middle: the clergy.

I recently wrote on another blog about a Seventh-day Adventist pastor who was dismissed from his position as a Bible teacher because he signed the legal (for Washington state) license for his stepdaughter's marriage to another woman. But what was legal for the state wasn't legal for Brett Hadley. In the authoritarian Seventh-day Adventist church, Hadley was quickly fired.

The Methodist church handles the matter by holding trials for pastors accused of marrying gay couples. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist minister of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was in November found guilty of violating UMC's Book of Discipline by officiating (back in 2007) at the wedding of his son to another man. Schaefer subsequently had his credentials revoked. (Underlining the similarity to a civil court: Schaefer is appealing the decision.) According to Religious News Service, four other Methodist clergy trials may be convened soon.

To some, the matter may seem simple: if your denomination prohibits marrying gay couples, then don't do it, no matter what state law permits. But in a profession known for organizational compliance, there are still some pastors motivated by conscience and belief more than by polity. A pastor once said to me, "God called me to minister. The denomination I landed in was an accident." As gay marriage is recognized by a growing number of states, it should hardly be surprising that some pastors who hold views that differ from the denomination or congregation they work for will perform weddings for gay couples.

It's hard to know what to make of the UMC's clergy trials. On one hand, they are indicative of defined process and, one hopes, justice. Yet the mere mention of pastors "on trial," especially over something that many regard as a matter of justice to a long-persecuted subgroup, sounds vaguely persecutory itself. (Some Methodist leaders are demanding a discussion of the matter, earlier than the denomination's next General Conference in 2016, perhaps hoping to mitigate PR-damaging situations like Schaefer's.)

We are far from a consensus. Churches are divided. So are citizens. With SCOTUS's passing up the chance to ban gay marriage, state courts are opponents' last chance, and they've generally been supportive of gay marriage. (More likely: renewed challenges to gay marriage bans.) A popular HuffPo piece contrasts Pope Francis' comments on homosexuality with those that got “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson suspended from the popular A&E reality show. Never mind the number of ways the comparison between the two men is absurd: it's one more demonstration of how polarized we are. 

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Will the Last Person to Leave the Cathedral Please Turn Out the Lights?

by Loren Seibold

Last week my brother and I attended morning mass at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist in Brecon, the seat of the bishop of Swansea and Brecon in the Church in Wales. For those of us with a taste for such things, the service was lovely, not to mention extravagant by the standards of most churches: choir, pipe organ, incense and three priests in posh frocks. It's hard to beat the grandeur (and the acoustics) of a cathedral built in 1538. 

My observations probably won't surprise you if you know anything at all about Christianity in the UK. In this massive edifice were seated perhaps 30 worshipers, all of them elderly. From an announcement sheet in the missalette it appears the church has other ministries, such as a food distribution center. Yet that doesn't translate into participation in weekly worship. What the priests and musicians were doing was beautiful, historical, venerable, but apparently not especially winsome to the people of Brecon. 

It's hard to measure religious faith, because what people say they believe differs from what they do about it, and notably from what they say they do about it. UK church attendance estimates ("regular attendance" is usually considered once a month) range between 6% and 10%, depending upon whether you're talking about Christians or C of E members. Earlier this year a C of E press release claimed that a mere .3%  drop from 2012 translated into the guardedly good news that weekly attendance might have hit bottom. Just remember that that bottom is 1.1 million out of 56 million Britons—about 2%. As The Guardian's Andrew Brown says the graphs "look like the cool-down portion of a bicycle ride – the precipitous and frightening descent is over, and now there is just a gentle slightly downward path." He adds, "There isn't really a large portion of hope in the age profile and there is nothing in the figures to supply a cheerful story."

Though I appreciated the worship service, I admit I've never felt so keenly the out-of-touchness of organized religious worship as while watching three men in gold brocade dresses read 500-year-old prayers in Oxbridge accents to a mere handful of grayheads. Yet I'm reluctant to blame it on ritual. People in the UK still turn to churches in large numbers for some very ritualized services: weddings, christenings, funerals. Christmas and Easter attendance is up, too. It might even be that ritual is the best thing the Anglican church has going for it. Just don't expect people to sit through it more than a couple of times a year. 

The preacher in the Brecon Cathedral that morning (who in person bore a passing resemblance to Martin Clunes) blamed a great deal on Richard Dawkins' and his ilk for their arrogant opposition of religion. What crossed my mind was one of one of the most famous ripostes in British history, by prostitute Mandy Rice-Davies when the prosecutor in the Profumo scandal told her Lord Astor denied having even met her: "He would, wouldn't he?" It may not have been a profound sermon, but it was an honestly defensive one: we would say it's someone else's fault, wouldn't we?

This is the cross that we Christians are currently crucifying ourselves on, throughout the cultures that brought Christianity to the world. The system we've capitalized for two millennia fewer and fewer people value. We've too many big buildings, offices, titles, rituals, books, doctrines and degrees to admit easily the irrelevance of what we're doing with them. We know we're losing our audience, yet are at a loss to know how to respond. Andrew Brown says that the question is "whether things are going to change, or whether the church will pootle along, like an exhausted cyclist, until it finally wobbles over and collapses."

American Christianity, freighted by less history and more experienced in business building, has tried to be relevant. Yet successful empire builders like Osteen, Hybels, Warren, and Jakes raise just as many questions of authenticity to the message of Jesus as do the old cathedral denominations. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt instead of a cassock and surplice, building an auditorium instead of a cathedral, having one rich and famous pastor instead of an entire curia, doesn't excuse one from questions of how wealth, power, heirarchy and recognition fit with the message of Jesus. 

Or maybe relevance—that so, so American ideal—isn't even what we should be worrying about. All I know is that there's still spiritual interest out there. Are we in the the church able to help people make something good, truthful and life-affirming of that interest? Or are we too busy being the church?

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The Dark Side of Virginity

by Loren Seibold

Growing up in a conservative church I learned that Scripture demanded perfect sexual purity before marriage. The way the subject was framed even made it seem a virtue to be ignorant and naive. Implied (and sometimes said) was that sexual interest couldn't coexist with faith. Consequently some left the church precisely when they needed a church family most. Others stayed and learned hypocrisy.

Some Christian commentators are questioning the high place we've given virginity. In the Christian press Sarah Bessey, Elizabeth Esther, Rachel Held Evans, Jen Pollock Michel and Carolyn Custis James have all taken on the subject. Writes Bessey in "I Am Damaged Goods", "I was nineteen years old and crazy in love with Jesus when that preacher told an auditorium I was 'damaged goods' because of my sexual past. He was making every effort to encourage this crowd of young adults to 'stay pure for marriage.' He was passionate, yes, well-intentioned, and he was a good speaker, very convincing indeed. And he stood up there and shamed me, over and over and over again."

We Christians pride ourselves on a sterner morality: "thus saith the Lord" trumps any other reason for being good. Yet inseparable from—ideally, homogenized into—a specifically Christian morality is something that we don't always mention: Divine grace as a guarantee of forgiveness and restoration.

In practice, the line between acceptable Christian behavior and forgiveness for misbehavior is a shifty one. The church has had a tough time finding the balance between discouraging sin and encouraging sinners. The reformed sinner back from a life of addiction and debauchery may be a hero, making the rounds of the Christian lecture circuit to show what God can do. At the same time the young Christian trying to make early adult decisions is protectively shamed and scolded and left to believe there won’t be a way back."Your life will be ruined if you lose your virginity" is self-fulfilling: it gets ruined at least in part because we said it would be. And admitting there’s forgiveness isn't giving permission. 

Understandably, Christian leaders don’t want young people to do what they’d later regret. There’s plenty to fear about the effects of promiscuity: unwanted children, STDs, exploitation and psychological damage. I think you can make a good argument that fewer of these things would happen if there were any way for the church to talk about sex except "Don’t!" 

Given what is apparently permitted under the seventh commandment (concubines, multiple wives, women as chattel, adolescent marriage, child-bearing slaves), it’s hard to see how it can make the case for the judgemental purity preached from many pulpits. The New Testament is clearer on adultery and marriage, but it still doesn’t come up to the standard of conservative churches—a standard Elizabeth Esther calls our "new and improved" virginity. "Ultimately" she says, "we implied that a woman’s inherent worth and dignity could be measured by whether or not a man has touched her."

Perhaps that's why where the church is leading, few are following. A 2009 study  by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy concluded that 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) admitted to having had sex. (See more here.) Another study shows that the Christian purity movement has been a crashing failure: "Teens who took a virginity pledge have sexual relationships that are nearly identical to those of similar teens who did not make such a pledge. The one area in which the pledge does make an impact is negative: Teens who took a virginity pledge and did have sex were less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control."

There must be more effective ways to help young people grow up to have happy Christian families.

 

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Wealth Inequality and Charitable Giving

By Loren Seibold

Pew Research has just released a study that says that the recovery of the past couple of years has largely benefited the wealthiest 7%, while the lower 93% of Americans have seen net worth decline. Wealthier households hold their value in stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments that have rallied in value. But for the majority of Americans who have little or no investment in these markets—whose net worth is in their now-less-valuable family home—net worth has declined by 4%.

What will this mean for churches and the institutions associated with them? Most congregations rely exclusively on contributions, but many educational institutions are also heavily dependent upon gifts. Those who have in their constituency a concentration of these wealth holders will undoubtedly be in a better position to ride out the next few years.

That assumes that wealthy Christians are willing to contribute. Ken Stern writes in a recent Atlantic article that the wealthiest families give an average of 1.3% to charity, while the poorest give 3.2%. Stern suggests that “the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support”, and he quotes Berkeley research psychologist Paul Piff that “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.” The reason, he believes, is isolation: the wealthy are simply less aware than others of the needs around them. “Wealthy people who lived in homogeneously affluent areas—areas where more than 40 percent of households earned at least $200,000 a year—were less generous than comparably wealthy people who lived in more socioeconomically diverse surroundings.

The rich also contribute differently than the poor. “The poor” says Stern “tend to give to religious organizations and social-service charities, while the wealthy prefer to support colleges and universities, arts organizations, and museums.” So small churches and schools, especially those located in declining industrial and rural areas, may continue to decline, while universities and large congregations, especially those in wealthy suburbs that are most likely to have well-off alumni and members, might even thrive.

Given the increase in income inequality, that 1.3% can be massive. Charting the path ahead for ministry providers will require institutions to get the attention of those relatively isolated wealth-holders for less “sexy” projects than museums and self-named new college buildings—and that might not be easy.

Americans Actual Time Spent on Religion: Few Involved and Little Time Invested

Just nine percent of Americans report spending time on religious and spiritual activities; 6.7 percent of men and 11 percent of women. They report spending an average of one and two-thirds hours per day. Six percent reported doing so on week days and 16 percent on weekends, averaging more than an hour per day on week days and more than two hours on weekends.

These data are from the Time Use Survey conducted last year by the United States Census Bureau. The findings contrast sharply with Gallup and Barna polls that show about 40 percent of Americans claiming that they go to church each week, although other research has demonstrated that at least half of these respondents are reporting attendance that they do not actually engage in, probably because they see church attendance as a socially desirable behavior that they do not want to undercut by being honest in their responses.

The American Time Use Survey involves a sample of about 12,500 individuals age 15 and over who are asked to detail how they spend their time in a defined period the day prior to the interview. The sample is divided into equal shares for the days of the week and each is interviewed by telephone and asked to detail what they did on the previous day from 4 a.m. to the following 4 a.m. In other words, the period being detailed ended at 4 a.m. on the day of the interview.

If at any point respondents report doing more than one activity at a time, they are asked to identify which one was the "main" (primary) activity. If none can be identified, then the interviewer records the first activity mentioned. This may affect the data about religious and spiritual activities because many believers say that they pray while doing activities of a physical nature, such as cooking or housework or mowing the lawn. And it is common for people to watch television and read a book or periodical at the same time.

Religious and spiritual activities as defined in this study include those normally associated with membership in or identification with specific religions or denominations, such as attending religious services; participating in choirs, youth groups, orchestras, or unpaid teaching (unless identified as volunteer activities); and engaging in personal religious practices, such as praying. Some of the activities that many believers would associated with their faith commitments would be reported under a different category of volunteer activities.

What do these data mean?

Even among believers, involvement in religious activities is considerably less than assumed by most religious professionals. The "space" within which pastors work is getting smaller and very marginalized. It becomes more important that Christian faith be extended beyond the confines of religion into the secular world; secular pursuits, activities and spaces. The ability to extend the faith beyond the scope of religion is essential to the mission of Christ.

 

How Congregations Respond to Decline: Is It Lack of Sunday Laws?

Members of a sample of declining Protestant churches in the United States and Canada report that one of the main reasons their congregations are not growing is because traditional Sunday laws have been largely disappeared and Sundays have become crowded with many activities that compete with church attendance. Many of these churches have been in decline since the 1960s and the remaining faithful feel that the secularization of Sundays is one of the major reasons why. They see this as more important than internal factors that may have discouraged new members coming on board. Yet, some churches that face the same contextual factors are growing, not declining.

An analysis of the data demonstrates that the lack of Sunday laws cannot explain the extent of the decline in these congregations. But, blaming this element permits congregations to ignore internal factors, avoid change and focus on nostalgic memories of a past era when crowds thronged the church. Bottom line: declining congregations come up with theories to avoid making the changes necessary to turn themselves around. They would rather keep doing what is comfortable for them and justify their behavior with various explanations than engage in the difficult work of mission.

Source: Steve MacMullin, Review of Religious Research, March 2013.

Facebook May Not Be the Best Medium for Ministry

Facebook has significant limitations in getting your message out. Data from Facebook was used in research published in the most recent issue of Research Alertand it shows that only 12 percent of a person's friends actually read the notes that users post on the social networking service. If you post something daily on Facebook then the number of readers jumps up to 16 percent of your friends. This means that the reach of anyone who posts regularly on Facebook extends to only about 30 individuals.

Social networking systems are not mass media. Despite the massive numbers that have received a lot of attention, Facebook really only works with small groups. What does that mean for ministry? Social networking media are not an escape from small-group dynamics. They cannot be effective as the only or primary method of communication for a congregation or nonprofit organization. They are, at best, still only a supplementary medium.

Crystal Cathedral May Become a Catholic Cathedral

The Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California (the Orange County suburbs of Ls Angeles), is generally considered to be the original "mega church." It was founded in 1955 by Robert Schuller, a Reformed pastor. Originally, he planted a church in these growing suburbs by purchasing a drive-in theater and holding services in which people drove in and used the little speakers that hung on their car windows. Ushers moved around in golf carts to take the offering and pass out materials. In the 1960s this was a significant innovation for Evangelical churches and was copied many places for some years before drive-in theater faded from the general culture. When the Crystal Cathedral was first constructed its glass wall design was developed to allow the large drive-in attendance to see into the church and participate from their cars.

In the 1980s Schuller built the largest television ministry in America. The Hour of Power had more than two million viewers on Sunday mornings. He continued to have an average attendance of 10,000 on the 40-acre campus. He built a high-rise Prayer Tower that is still one of the tallest buildings in these flat, southern California suburbs. He retired in 2006 and since that time his son and daughter have engaged in a succession war which has depleted attendance and support. Of course, the demographics of suburban Orange County were also changing and today there is a larger attendance a the Spanish-language service each Sunday at the Crystal Cathedral than there is at the English-language service.

The Catholic Diocese of Orange as offered $50 million to purchase the entire facilities. This is enough to pay off all the debts of the Reformed congregation and leave them with a small fund. The board is meeting today to consider this and other offers (all of which would change the campus to something other than a church) in preparation for a bankruptcy court hearing on Monday (August 1). The Catholic spokesman has said that minimal changes would be made in the interior of the church to equip it for Catholic worship, but the exterior would be unchanged. There is evidently a disagreement among the current congregational leaders as to whether it is better to sell it to the Catholics or let it become a non-religious facility, with some hope that they might be able to sell most of the 40 acres and retain rental of the church building itself.

What Can We Learn?

The major weakness of the mega church model is the way in which is engages the market model of ministry, although that is also its major strength. Borders built a chain of large bookstores and now it is going bankrupt largely because it did not quickly enough understand and utilize new technology (E-books). This is the way of a competitive market context. Some economists call it "creative destruction," meaning that enterprises grow by feeding off each other. If we are going to use the same strategies in the cause of Christ, then we can only expect the same kind of change and loss. It is the price we pay for church growth in this model. The nagging question is whether this is really church growth and how would Christ relate to this situation. There are contrasting approaches such as Simple Church and community-based ministries that focus on smaller, more human-sized "organic" ministry models.