Mastodon

mackenzian

Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

ordination

By

David Newman was right

Social change does not occur through tokenism or exceptions to the rule of discrimination, but through the systemic abolishment of the rule itself. —Cherrie MoragaDuring the lead-up to the 2015 Adventist General Conference session in San Antonio, TX, several preachers, teachers, and scholars discussed the Adventist community’s approach to ordination.

The Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) and its regional subcommittees met over two years to thresh the questions. Their hope was that they would get to San Antonio with at least some consensus theology for the global collective to build on.

The North America Division’s report, for example, drew on the research of contributors across the US church and university network. It runs 240 pages long and includes articles from moderate Adventists like Dwight Nelson and Kendra Haloviak on leadership, authority, the priesthood, creation, and gender.

What it doesn’t include is a plain acknowledgement that contemporary denominational ordination isn’t “biblical”—neither modeled in the Bible nor mandated by the ethics of the early church. The international consensus statement conflates the ordination system with “public endorsement [from the Church] for persons who meet the biblical qualifications” or “[the Church] publicly recognizing those whom the Lord has called and equipped for local and global Church ministry.” It also buries the statement that “Over the course of Christian history the term ordination has acquired meanings beyond what these words originally implied.”

That acknowledgement was an outlier among the arguments that emerged during 2013 and 2014, often dropped in conversations and then run past. But J. David Newman made the most direct case for it.

Newman has argued that it’s inappropriate to debate ordaining pastors when modern pastoral ministry is discontinuous with the church roles described in the Christian scriptures, and the church has already allowed for the ordination of women deacons and women elders, two roles that are described in the Bible. 1

Though Newman’s position never found vocal advocates within the NAD, it seems to have persuaded some of his peers in Europe. Since the General Conference meetings denying world regions the autonomy to determine ordination policy for their own contexts, conferences in the Netherlands and Germany have continued to “lay hands” on ministers regardless of gender, and Sweden has abandoned the “ordination” category altogether.

Just a few weeks ago, however, while most of the US focused on the inauguration of No. 45, North American Division church officials met with the General Conference president to assure him of their continuing loyalty to the Adventist denomination. Other ministers have released their “ordination” credentials and sought “commissioned” credentials instead, the only kind the global church recognizes for its 3,500 women ministers.

“Non-doctrinal issues on which we have no consensus are not a basis for splitting the church,” church leaders reportedly told the General Conference.

Yet describing disparate treatment of employees on the basis of gender as a “non-doctrinal issue” is no way to end the disparate treatment. That description instead lowers the stakes and makes it less likely that Adventist community members will learn to see this as a problem that needs resolving.

This Bridge Called My Back was first published in 1981, a decade after the 20th Century Adventist church started reclassifying its women ministers. Co-editor Cherrie Monaga explains in the 2015 foreword that women are still marginal in US and global culture. Granting a few individual women exceptional treatment in this system doesn’t change the system’s nature because the underlying philosophy, ideology, and logic are still at work. All surface inclusion does is change the kinds of faces that enact and speak for the system.

The denominational discussion about ordination has been limited because discussants have preemptively committed themselves to saving the current structure. Regions of the world that have made the most emphatic progress despite this have been those that have worked around or replaced the category of ordained pastor entirely. We’d be much better off imagining a structure that’s just and doesn’t compel workarounds. For the sake of the employees still graduating into a two-tier workforce and members still acceding into a two-tier church, we’d be best off imagining differently.

[1] Newman closed his site early in 2018. Some of his work from 2014 remains on Adventist independent media sites like Adventist Today. ↩

By

Knowing history can change the conversation

This weekend I watched an extended presentation by Bert Haloviak and Dr. Kendra Haloviak Valentine on the Adventist community’s first 150 years with female pastors. It’s part of a series of talks from 2014, and so occurred before the 2015 General Conference vote in San Antonio.

Adventist Women In Ministry – Progress or Regress? from Azure Hills Church on Vimeo.

Bert Haloviak is a former staff member of the denomination’s archives, and has written several papers exploring the 19th Century church. Kendra Haloviak Valentine specializes in both Revelation and women’s role in the 1st Century house church.

Facts they share:

  • At least 50 Adventist female ministers received ministerial licenses from the 1870s to the 1970s.
  • Early Adventist language for what we now call “ordination” included the phrases “laying on of hands” and “setting apart.” Ordination practices in the denomination’s first several years involved prayer and a piece of paper, and recognized a person’s authority to preach and baptize as early as the 1850s.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, the IRS began asking questions about how the Adventist denomination determined which ministers merited tax-shielded benefits.
  • Rather than treat all ministers equally, GC officials chained future decisions to global consensus, stripped female ministers of their credentials, and granted them “missionary” licenses instead. Missionary-licensed ministers and “associates in pastoral care” were no longer eligible for “ordination.”
  • In the 1970s, three congregations, including a university church, recognized female ministers serving locally and ordained them. These ordinations in Maryland and California were not nationally or internationally recognized.
  • The first Adventist recognized as a local church minister rather than an itinerant was a woman, Bert Haloviak says.

An interesting point surfaces during the post-presentation questions: Kendra Haloviak notes that her younger students tend to assume that because they have seen female ministers at work in churches, there is no policy obstacle. And this makes them less exercised about removing those barriers: if people are doing the work, how can there be a problem?

The North American Division has indeed hosted a different kind of conversation about ordination in the 2010s than it did in the 1970s, but the wider denominational stalemate persists and institutional limits are still in place. While male pastors encourage their female colleagues, these structural limits mean that Adventist congregations are not by default welcoming environments for ministers who aren’t male, and congregations and conferences that do welcome them remain unusual.

But once we acknowledge our history a full century before mainstream society woke up to women’s equality, the question shouldn’t be “should we ordain women?” It should be “Did we ever have sound reasons to stop ordaining them?” When the motivation for redefining “minister” as exclusive of women was money and pressure from the IRS, my answer has to be no.

You can read a text version of this presentation; the video is not captioned.

By

When persistence makes sense

Muscular man jumps into a lake. The rope is visible at the top of the image. The sky in the background is large and blue.
Photo credit: Blake Wheeler

Constant improvement includes abandoning the things that no longer work… When a strategy or an action doesn’t seem to be working, the rule is, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try once more. then do something else.’ The first time around a new strategy very often doesn’t work. Then one must sit down and ask what has been learned… Try to improve it, to change it and make another major effort. Maybe, though I am reluctant to encourage that, you should make a third effort. After that go to work where the results are. There is only so much time and so many resources, and there is so much work to be done.” —Peter Drucker

A hard thing about organizational work is living the question, “Should we keep this latest change or move on to something else?” Conventional wisdom says it’s irrational to repeat the same actions and expect different outcomes, and yet it can be hard to know in the moment whether to persist or to adapt.

The Adventist community is currently persisting with its debates on ordination, church order, and local conference variations. Commentators keep invoking Acts 15, a Bible chapter that describes an early Church meeting about the status and responsibilities of non-Jewish believers.

Last year, just before the General Conference session in San Antonio, TX, communicator and consultant Ray Tetz outlined his perspective on the Acts chapter. “When faced with the cultural issues surrounding circumcision, the early church preserved unity for mission by endorsing different practices for different peoples. Their decision then is our example now,” Tetz said.

Statesman-evangelist Mark Finley also engaged this chapter the previous fall. In his own appeals to General Conference delegates, Finley argued that the church’s debate about the status of women diverted members’ attention from evangelism. He then suggested that critics of women’s ordination ought ultimately to comply with the majority’s decision, whatever it might be.

For onlookers like Jason Hines, however, this is entirely ordinary.

Some people who’ve already spent years engaging church leaders on this topic are justifiably wearing down. For them, “constant improvement” includes “abandoning the things that don’t work” and releasing a resistant denomination with them. Other people keep calling us to stay grounded and hopeful, trusting that the next step will become clear. In the meantime, any of us might have tangible positive actions to keep focusing on instead.

In the end that’s all that persistence means: engaging long enough to experience the present moment with others, and caring enough to clarify the next step.

By

Update: 4th Adventist Position on Ordination

In my post on the ordination discussion at last month’s General Conference Annual Council meeting (#GCAC14), I shared several background resources including the 1973 Camp Mohaven Report; Dr. Olive Hemmings’ book on ordination, interpretation, and culture; and the three positions that the Theology of Ordination Study Committee presented to the wider church:

(1) the headship principle means that only men may be ordained;

(2) the Spirit gifts without regard to gender, and so men and women may be ordained;

(3) the headship principle is the norm but the ordination of women is God’s Plan B to rebuke failed male leadership.

I’ve just received a fourth position on the theology of ordination that was shared with some Annual Council delegates but not presented at GCAC14.

J. David Newman waves goodbye to a smiling, applauding congregation in Fulton MD, July 2012
Newman on his last Sabbath as senior pastor of New Hope Adventist Church, MD, July 2012 | Photo credit: New Hope Adventist Church via Flickr

The author, J. David Newman, is editor of Adventist Today and adjunct professor of religion at Washington Adventist University. He writes:

“The three positions stated in the TOSC report assumed that there is no issue with the term
ordination itself. In fact the word ‘ordination’ was used synonymously with ‘select’ and ‘appoint.’

But the word ‘ordination’ has a very specific meaning in our church and that is why there is so much debate on whether women can be ordained as elder or pastor. It is interesting to note that the church has already approved the ordination of women elders but now debates whether a woman pastor can be ordained.

The TOSC does not explain why we have three ordinations in our church—deacon, elder, pastor.

It is the position of this paper that the real issue is ordination itself, that it is actually a Roman Catholic practice and not a Biblical practice. If we were to cease to ordain there would be no issue over women’s ordination. This paper examines whether the practice of three levels of
ordination can be found in the New Testament.” —J. David Newman, “A Fourth Option”

Newman is writing a book on the history of ordination from the Roman Catholic church through to early Adventism. He hopes the manuscript will be available in time for the 2015 General Conference session in San Antonio, TX, and tells me that “for those who want a deeper study, there will be extensive end notes to each chapter and several appendices.”

In this article, Newman describes the church’s practical ordination policy, analyzes the 5 distinct words translated “ordain/ordained” in the English King James Bible, and explains that the denomination’s method of setting apart distinct leadership classes with differing levels of authority over church rites may have organizational merit but “cannot be found in the New Testament.”

Read the 17-page paper on his website.

By

At #GCAC14: Adventists Debate Women’s Ordination—Again

Today, about 20 minutes down the street from me, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is on Day 6 of its 2014 Annual Council meeting. The group reconvened for the afternoon session at 2 p.m. Eastern.

The Annual Council meeting convenes church administrators from around the world each October to present progress reports on their departments and major projects, get budgets and membership updates, approve or reject closed committee recommendations, and group-edit revisions to the church manual. Voted changes are then forwarded for final review to the full General Conference session held every 5 years. The group just unveiled the question it wants the General Conference delegates to consider next year.

Lay member participation at both of these affairs is minimal; we are neither in the room directly nor through accountable representation, but thanks to social media, the denomination’s PR team, and two independent media sources, church members and other interested parties not attending can eavesdrop on what’s going on. (Special thanks go to Adventist Today and Spectrum Magazine!)

View from the main hall at the 2014 General Conference Annual Council meeting. Photo credit: Jared Wright for Spectrum Magazine
View from the main hall at the 2014 General Conference Annual Council meeting. Photo credit: Jared Wright for Spectrum Magazine

The Annual Council agenda today includes the ordination of women to pastoral ministry. The last international discussion I remember about this was in 1995 when General Conference delegates refused to allow North America and Western Europe to move forward with gender-equitable ordination rules given the needs of their territory.

But the timeline of comment, study, and [in]action on this question goes back to the 1800s and the Adventist denomination’s founders, not just to 19 years ago and the NAD: check out this general ordination overview via the GC Archives and this women’s ordination-specific timeline from SDAnet’s At Issue.

Earlier this morning, Annual Council delegates voted (275-11) to affirm this consensus statement on ordination from the Theology of Ordination Study Committee (pdf). (Other interim reports from the TOSC are hosted on the GC Archives website.) The TOSC committee needs the entire church to know that regardless of their differences they are loyal to the church’s 28 Fundamental Beliefs.

"VOTED: To affirm that in spite of the differences of opinion on the subject of women's ordination, the members of the theology of ordination study committee are committed to the message and mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as expressed through the 28 fundamental beliefs.
TOSC members offer the world church assurances about their continued loyalty. Photo via @adventistchurch

Related: The First Step in Apostasy: The Anti-creedalism of Charles Beecher (July 2014)

I’m not a neutral observer today. I’m the daughter of an ordained female elder who was among the first ordained in the British Union Conference.

I’m also the daughter of an agnostic former Adventist who, last time we spoke about this at any length, shared reservations about how much religious authority dresses up garden-variety games of power and control.

The pastoral team at the Adventist congregation I participate at weekly includes a woman doing good, diligent, soul-watering work despite a denominational climate that’s both passively and actively hostile. No, I’m not neutral about this debate and I’m not at all inured to the human costs it has charged us over at least the last 41 years.

No, Bill. Women who are also ministers can be spoken about in the abstract, but they can’t be spoken with in the flesh.

Related: Women Pastors Tell Their Stories (September 2014)

By this afternoon, observers expected the Annual Council to approve an “ecclesiastical” church policy solution to the problem of global disagreement about women and which roles women may or may not play with equal pay and responsibilities in denominational service.

Three options are being presented: for male headship and no women’s ordination (presented by Clinton Wahlen of the GC’s Biblical Research Institute; for gender mutuality and for women’s ordination (presented by Carl Cosaert of Walla Walla University); and a “third way” promoting men in ministry as God’s ideal, and women in ministry as “Plan B” (yes, really, that was their chosen term)—the lawful concession when men are not available or qualified (presented by Nicholas Miller of Andrews University and co-authored by David Trim of the GC Archives).

Only one of these options will advance from Annual Council to the next stage, which is “study” in the wider church ahead of July 2015’s international General Conference session in San Antonio, TX. All week long, GC President Ted N.C. Wilson and others have been hammering home the idea that whatever GC delegates decide next year should end the debate and all who disagree must “submit.” We can expect continued pressure along those lines between now and next summer.

I’m astonished that it has taken about 44 years to get to this point. It has also taken 19 years for the conversation to circle back to letting divisions compelled to ordain do so yet not forcing opposed divisions to do so. This was the very request that the North American Divison made in Utrecht (1995). Again, here is the question being referred back to the General Conference delegates:

In this millennium, however, the 1995 proposal is being offered alongside the reasoning, “Female ministers aren’t God’s best, but it is acceptable if we ordain them when men have failed.” And that argument is being presented as “moderate.” There are a number of missing voices across the discussion, as at least a few spectators have pointed out.

So in the absence of these women, today’s meeting involves abstract debate, compromise, and concession. Only two women spoke all day, and the first, a Chinese psychologist, didn’t reach the mic until after 4 p.m. I don’t expect female minsters to go to bed tonight feeling seen, heard, or affirmed: I suspect many have learned not to care how strident criticisms are, and others are beginning to learn. Someone said to me recently that this is a generational issue, that change will not be possible until the most recalcitrant voices move out of office or influence. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know who will be left to wait if it is.

I did see something interesting between the church stats and Peter Handless’ comments, though. Internationally, the majority of the church’s 18 million members are under 35yo. That is not a conclusion you’d draw from looking at the Annual Council photos. If the majority is not represented during discussion, how will we assure the legitimacy of the conclusion and policy changes that result from it?

Related (updated 11/2018): The NAD’s 2013 TOSC report. The NAD removed its summary, “WANTED! More Female Pastors — Essential for the Harvest,” in 2018. A new page compiles approved statements and documents.

Resources

I’ve compiled a list of resources that may help you read behind the tweets—and certainly get a rounder view of the topic than the Adventist Review will be able to provide.

Daily Reports

Adventist Today’s prime correspondent is J. David Newman.

Related: The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Faculty: On the Unique Headship of Christ in the Church (pdf)
ANN reports on Andrews statement. | Andrews faculty reaffirm statement in October 2014

Spectrum/Adventist Forum’s correspondents are Jared Wright and Bonnie Dwyer.

Further Reading

The report that started it all: The Camp Mohaven Report on Ordination (1973) via the Columbia Union Conference, which began ordaining ministers without regard to gender in 2012.

Some solid recent research on the role Adventist interpretation plays in this conversation: Sacred Texts and Social Conflict: The Bible and The Debate Over Women’s Ordination in The Seventh-day Adventist Church (2010) by Olive Hemmings, Washington Adventist University. I’ve summarized her recent presentations on this website, at Spectrum, and at Adventist Today.

The 2014 Theology of Ordination Study Committee Report – as received by #GCAC14 today.

Other comments: Jon Paulien, Loma Linda University | David Asscherick, Lightbearers

At 5:35 p.m., the proposed motion has still not yet been voted, but I expect it to pass comfortably based on the discussion so far. If it does, Annual Council will have punted on making a clear recommendation to the General Conference and we’ll have to await the delegates’ decision this July.

Update: By 5:40 p.m., both Spectrum and the @adventistchurch account reported that the motion passed 243-44 (3 abstentions). The GC in session will have to answer this question again.