Proposed Document Mandates Compliance
By Colleen Tinker
The unresolved problem of Adventist churches and conferences ordaining women in opposition to the policy of the General Conference (GC) of Seventh-day Adventists has reached a head. On Tuesday this week, July 17, 2018, the GC Administrative Committee voted a document that will be considered at the 2018 Annual Council for mandating compliance in the worldwide Adventist organization.
This document is the product of the Unity Oversight Committee that had collected “quantitative and qualitative data” from Adventist leaders around the world (including comments from Executives Committee members attending previous Annual Councils) and also from leaders of “the thirteen world divisions, General Conference Leadership Council, and GC institutions”.
In fact, the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Records developed and conducted “a survey of all union and division presidents worldwide.” Survey results revealed that “a majority of the world Church’s union presidents favored some kind of process for dealing with non-compliance.”
To be fair, the document does not state that it addresses the problem of women’s ordination but rather broadly includes compliance with all GC policies. Nevertheless, it came about because of the battle lines drawn over ordaining women, especially in North American and parts of Europe where this practice has much sympathy. This crisis between the official church policy and the desires of certain divisions came to a head at the last General Conference session in 2015.
This week’s document reveals that, contrary to the organization’s claim that its administrative model is not a hierarchy, when push comes to shove, the GC will enforce compliance from the top down. It will stop at nothing to enforce “unity” around official policy, even using public shaming and firing of individual leaders who do not maintain official protocol among the Adventist employees in their jurisdictions.
What’s in the document?
The document, available here, lists five “principles” which will govern the way the organization handles out-of-compliance “entities”. Then, if the miscreants still do not conform, three procedures may be implemented against them.
The document is complicated and technical, so for the purpose of this article, I will attempt to summarize its points. You may read the full statement at the link above.
In short, the organization of Seventh-day Adventism is arranged in four “levels”. The first level, Adventism has historically maintained, is the level where the power lies: the local church. The churches are organized into local conferences, and these conferences are organized into regional groups called union conferences. Groups of union conferences comprise divisions of the highest level, the General Conference.
Historically, each level has been responsible for following church policy. Each level could appeal to the next higher level for help if mediation or enforcement was needed, but each level voted its own leadership and managed its own operation. This new document, however, puts in place a top-down enforcement of compliance. In spite of the fact that Adventists have prided themselves on being “representative” and not “hierarchical” like the Catholics, this new policy is unapologetically run from the GC.
In a nutshell, this new protocol dictates how to handle non-compliant “entities”. In other words, conferences and churches that ordain or hire ordained women, for example, are out of compliance; this new policy proposes how to enforce compliance.
Any non-compliance is to be reported to the next higher level of organization for policy enforcement. In other words, if a local conference is hiring ordained women pastors, the executive committee of the union must deal with the problem and resolve it if the local conference does not. If the non-compliant entity refuses to get in line, the conference or union or division handling the case may request the help of a newly-formed GC committee called a Compliance Review Committee.
If the problem continues and the involved parties refuse to comply, the new policy sets consequences in motion. This is the stage where the process gets interesting.
Consequences may be meted out to the non-compliant entities, such as women functioning as senior pastors or conference presidents, but it’s not only the people who are functioning out of compliance who are “punished”. The union conference presidents are also targeted. The document states, “in the event the due process…does not bring about compliance…the non-compliant entity and/or the constituency-elected leader of that body (the union president)…may be subject” to discipline.
Here is the reason the union presidents are targeted, according to the document: the union presidents are members of the GC Executive Committee. As such, they are “the voice of the world Church” to their constituents. Therefore, as the official representatives of their regions and as the official voice of the GC to their regions, they are held responsible for getting their constituencies into compliance.
There are three levels of consequences. The first is a warning. The warning “applies generally to a non-compliant entity and does not intend to identify individuals for further action.” In other words, a warning means the miscreants are on the edge of serious results. The union president must get busy if he wants to avoid being publicly shamed or having his job endangered.
The second level of consequence is a public reprimand. This reprimand is directed not at the miscreant but at the union president. This amounts to a public shaming of the president and the union he administers. He will not be removed from his position as a member of the GC Executive Committee, but each time he “exercises his right of voice to address the GC Executive Committee,” the committee will be notified that he is under an official public reprimand.
If a union president receives a public reprimand, the local conference presidents in his union district are still full members of their committees, but if they “exercise voice” as they are permitted to do, “the body will be notified” that the speaker is a member of a reprimanded union.
In short, this second level of consequence is the public shaming of the union president and those employed by the conferences under his authority.
Finally, if the non-compliance is still not resolved, the GC Executive Committee may terminate the employment not only of the person who is out of compliance but even of the union president who has failed to manage his region.
What does this mean?
In reality, the bottom-up, representative power structure has been a facade behind which central power has directed the organization. While Adventists have proudly claimed that they are not hierarchical like the Catholics, this latest document is demonstrating that in reality, the General Conference absolutely dictates and controls the organization from the top-down. It is hierarchical just like its Catholic nemesis.
The current crisis of women’s ordination has catalyzed this new method of management and control. Now, with women persisting in pursuing ordination and with some local conferences and unions approving and facilitating this practice, the GC is holding the paid conference executives responsible for this infraction. While the members in many local churches, especially in conferences such as Southeastern California Conference, have voted for women’s ordination in constituency meetings, the GC has little leverage over the lay people.
Now the GC is holding the union presidents personally responsible for the compliance of the local conferences. The union conference presidents have the most to lose; they are paid by the Adventist organization; their reputations and careers are played out on the canvas of Adventism, and they manage large territories of the organization. For them to be fired because their conferences are out of compliance is to ruin their careers.
Moreover, the union conference presidents are less likely to have close relationships with the local conference pastors than are the local conference presidents. Certainly the union conference presidents are more likely to be political and less likely to participate in causes that may be found in local congregations. The GC will likely have much more power over non-compliance if they threaten the jobs of their union presidents and subsequently their division presidents than if they simply mandate compliance from their local conferences and from the lay members who have nothing personal to lose by lobbying.
In addition, this top-down control to stamp out non-compliance emphasizes that Seventh-day Adventism is not a New Testament church. The pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, along with the books of Acts and the rest of the New Testament explain how “church” is organized. Pastors/elders are described as men (1 Tim. 3 and Titus1), and deacons are appointed to conduct the practical work among the local body of believers.
Jesus, not a general conference, is in charge of the true church. He has given us His eternal word as the rule of faith and practice for believers. There is no biblical model describing a world-wide organization managing the activities and outreach of each local church.
Adventism’s top-down mandate to stamp out non-compliance of GC policies reveals that the organization is structured like a big business, not like the New Testament church. It has employees all over the world who must represent and enforce its central mandates and purposes, and those employees will experience punitive consequences if they fail to discipline their underlings. Their purpose is not to represent Jesus and the gospel but to represent the business of Adventism.
Finally, the entire issue of women’s ordination is an irrelevant discussion for Adventism. Seventh-day Adventism is a deception. It teaches another gospel that requires keeping the Law and believing in a false, extra-biblical prophet. It teaches a different trinity and a different, fallible Jesus. Without actually knowing and teaching the gospel, the issue of whether or not to ordain women is irrelevant.
Not only is the discussion irrelevant because Adventism is not anchored in Scripture, but it is confusing because Adventism is built on the revelations of a woman prophet, Ellen White. Ironically, the General Conference officials who are willing to fire their employees who promote women’s ordination are themselves slaves to Ellen White’s “spirit of prophecy”. In fact, their entire worldview depends upon her, and they defend her authority and her immovable position in their Fundamental Beliefs.
As Adventism pursues the extermination of non-compliance among its employees, its real need is increasingly clear: Adventists need Jesus. They don’t need a big business masquerading as a church; they need the real gospel. They need to know that there are no sacred days in Christ (Col 2:16-17). The law is fulfilled in Him (Heb. 10:1–18; Rom. 10:4). When we believe, we pass at that moment from death to life (Jn. 5:24) and are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13–14).
When we know Jesus, we know that God no longer reveals His truth to us through prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1:1–2).
Top-down control is not the mark of the true church. Jesus is the head of the church, and He teaches us His word when we trust Him. Our Head modeled servant-leadership, not institutional control. In Jesus we are free to worship the Father with gratitude, reverence, and awe, and we serve Him only.
In Christ, we no longer worry about adapting to an organization, but we live for the One who died for us.
Sources
- “Regard for and Practice of General Conference Session and General Conference Executive Committee Actions”
- “Organizational Structure”
- “Administrative Committee Takes Step Forward in Unity Process”
- “Compliance Committee’s Terms of Reference”
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