This is the first of a three-part series of the first chapter of Michael G. Coleman’s insightful book on the women’s ordination issue in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This impelling first chapter is reprinted here with permission of the author and publisher. The book can be purchased here.
As a Seventh-day Adventist pastor for nearly thirty years in the New York metropolitan region, I have been on both sides of the women’s ordination issue. In the early 1990s, prior to the 1995 General Conference Session in Utrecht, The Netherlands, I was a supporter of women’s ordination.
My position at that time was not solidly formed from a study of Scripture. Rather, I gravitated towards some plausible perspectives that I had heard from a few of the esteemed leaders in our denomination. For example, I accepted the argument that, although the Bible does not present a pattern for women as primary spiritual overseers in the church, the promise of Joel 2:28—that God will pour out His spirit on all flesh in the last days—is an indication that God will use women as pastors in the time of the end.
Although my support of women’s ordination during this period was not well formed, I never doubted that the issue of women’s ordination should be resolved on the basis of Sola Scriptura—the Bible and the Bible only. Society’s understanding of equality and civil rights should not be a criterion in the church’s study and deliberations of the question of women’s ordination because the Bible is the ultimate authority in the church.
A Biblical Study
At some point prior to the Utrecht General Conference Session, I began a biblical study on the topic of women’s ordination and concluded that both the Old and New Testaments present a clear pattern for men as primary spiritual overseers—a pattern that Jesus did not overturn even though he could have chosen dedicated female disciples to be among His apostles, such as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna (Luke 8:2, 3). I further recognized that, even though the prophecy of Joel 2:28 had its first fulfillment at Pentecost after the outpouring of the Spirit on both male and female disciples, none of the apostles appointed any woman as an apostle, elder, or deacon. This consistent pattern in Scripture led me to search for biblical principles to explain this interesting motif as well as to understand difficult passages that are laden with cultural elements.
Adventists’ interpretation of the seventh-day Sabbath became a model of how to properly apply hermeneutics in analyzing passages with cultural elements. Although the Sabbath is often surrounded by cultural and historically local elements, such as references to servants, cattle, and Jewish synagogues (Exod. 20:11; Luke 4:16), Adventists argue that the Sabbath is nevertheless universal and timeless—not limited to the Jews or to ancient times—because it was established at Creation and enjoined in the Ten Commandments. Likewise, I observed that, although there are cultural elements in some of the passages in which Paul restricts the authority of women, these cultural elements do not undermine the principle of male headship because Paul based his argument for the primacy of male spiritual leadership on the order of Creation. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:11, 12, Paul wrote: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence.” Many people claim that this passage is culturally conditioned and, therefore, cannot be applied to the church today. Yet, in verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter, Paul makes it clear that his argument for not permitting women to have spiritual leadership authority over men is based on the Creation order. Notice Paul’s words: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Tim. 2:13, 14). This passage of Scripture can- not be ignored; it should not be relegated to being culturally conditioned. Why? Because the apostle Paul appeals to the Creation for the principle of male headship.
Thus, prior to Utrecht, on the basis of a careful study of Scripture, I concluded that the primacy of male spiritual leadership in the church is rooted in the order that God established at the Creation and is highlighted in both the Old and New Testaments. In similar manner to the popular misconception of the Sabbath as a Jewish norm because of its cultural elements, the passages of Scripture concerning the leadership of women, which appear to be culturally conditioned, are in reality undergirded by the timeless and universal principle of male headship established at the Creation.
Not long after the delegates at Utrecht voted down the proposal from the North American Division (NAD) to allow each division to ordain whom it chose without regard for gender, I had an opportunity to talk with one of the two professors from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University who made presentations at the session prior to the vote. It appeared that this professor’s cogent presentation helped to convince the majority of the delegates to not approve the proposal brought by the NAD to let divisions decide the question of women’s ordination within their territories. In any event, this professor shared with me that his conscientious and scholarly presentation aroused the ire of several of his colleagues and other Adventist leaders; they were demonstrably upset with him. In return for his courageous stance, he received the sting of ostracism in an academic community where conscientiousness in theological scholarship is supposed to be valued.
San Antonio and its Aftermath
Twenty years later and just a few weeks prior to the 60th General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas, I began to prepare an open letter to the leadership of the NAD concerning women’s ordination. It is important to mention at this juncture that I respect the NAD and I have benefited professionally from their leadership. Therefore, my forthcoming critique of certain aspects of the NAD’s leadership should not be construed as an indication of ill will towards the organization. In any event, my open letter was partly in response to a letter that I had received from the NAD, dated January 5, 2015, in which was enclosed a copy of a brochure entitled, “Q&A Theology of Ordination,” designed to be shared with local Adventist churches within the NAD’s territory. The NAD’s letter stated that the brochure “addresses common questions about the topic of ordination.” However, after perusing the brochure, I could not in good conscience share it with my congregation because the Seventh-day Adventist denomination had clear protocols in place to address the issue of women’s ordination, and the NAD’s brochure seemed to preemptively propagandize the issue far beyond the scope of these procedures.
After the delegates at the 60th General Conference Session voted on the evening of July 8, 2015, not to allow each division to decide the question of ordaining women to serve as pastors, I decided that my open letter was no longer necessary because such a vote implied that the world church believes that the Bible does not approve of women serving as primary spiritual overseers in the church. However, when on the morning of July 9, 2015, I read a response by the president of the NAD in the Adventist Review to the vote of the General Conference, I concluded that my open letter was more relevant than ever before.
In his response to the General Conference vote, the president of the NAD, Pastor Dan Jackson, claimed to respect the decision of the 60th session and pledged to cooperate with the denomination’s actions; however, at the same time, he vitiated and contradicted the obvious sense of his initial statement by further stating, “We will continue with our intention of placing as many women into pastoral ministry as possible.”1 This statement sadly reflects what seems to be the real intention of the leadership of the NAD: to defy the expressed will of the Seventh- day Adventist Church on women’s ordination.
The administrators of the NAD have encouraged many dedicated and gifted women to assume the role of pastor with the tantalizing hope that, when leaders and members of the church see that women pastors have already been deployed (and in some cases ordained), the General Conference would be obliged to recognize this as a fait accompli. However, this could very well be wishful thinking; it could lead to disappointment for many women pastors. I sympathize with numerous committed women (some of whom I know personally) who have spent years in preparation and service in pastoral ministry but cannot legitimately be ordained. Nevertheless, I also recognize that the leaders who have encouraged these women down this road bear enormous responsibility for their suffering.
For the past five years since the 2015 General Conference Session, the leadership of the NAD continued with its “intention of placing as many women into pastoral ministry as possible.” The NAD has also tacitly endorsed all previous actions taken by union conferences in its territory to ordain women as pastors. Furthermore, the NAD’s strategy to place as many women as possible into pastoral ministry will likely set the stage for a move toward individualism and congregationalism within its own territory. Local congregations and local leaders might gradually follow the NAD’s example in rendering lip service to the decision of the 60th General Conference Session while, at the same time, strategically circumnavigating the expressed will of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Once the precedence of defying legitimate authority is set in motion then the gate will be wide open for churches, conferences, unions, and divisions to follow their own agendas at the expense of unity and truth.
There are several examples of unions that have followed the NAD’s lead in resisting the will of the General Conference in the aftermath of the San Antonio session. The propensity to act independently may be seen in the actions revolving around the North Pacific Union Conference’s (NPUC) scheduling of a constituency meeting on women’s ordination in the aftermath of the San Antonio session. A few union conference leaders and top officials in the NAD had misconstrued a clause in the General Conference Working Policy in a way that supposedly gives license for unions to have jurisdiction over the issue of women’s ordination.
When the General Conference administration clarified the aforementioned clause, NPUC realized that its attempts to act on women’s ordination would represent a departure from both the San Antonio vote and the General Conference Working Policy. Therefore, on August 19, 2015, NPUC voted to rescind its previous decision to hold a constituency meeting on women’s ordination. However, NPUC voted on the same day to increase opportunities for women in pastoral ministry and leadership in its territory.² NPUC clearly followed the NAD’s lead in paying lip service to the 60th General Conference Session’s decision on women’s ordination.
One month after NPUC’s actions, the executive committee of the Norwegian Union voted on September 20, 2015, to discontinue the practice of ordination altogether. Obviously, this was done in order to circum- navigate the 60th General Conference decision on women’s ordination. Union conferences in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands have all voted similar policies around the same time as Norway. Although their actions undermine the will of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, these unions believe that they have circumvented the issue of women’s ordination. However, unions do not have the authority to unilaterally take such actions with respect to ordination. These actions clearly undermine the expressed will of the denomination in the San Antonio General Conference Session.
Based on my observation and interactions with several of our leaders in NAD territory, the 60th General Conference vote seems to be an obstacle that some of our administrators are prepared to surmount, ignore, or defy in order to achieve the goal of women’s ordination. The momentum for defying the vote of the 60th General Conference Session has picked up pace in recent years, sometimes in reverberating ways, such as the appointment in February 2020 of a female as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.
Michael G. Coleman’s book, Women’s Ordination, the San Antonio Compromise, and the Adventist Slide into the LGBTQ Morass, may be ordered HERE
Guided by the principles of biblical interpretation that helped to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church, veteran New York pastor, Dr. Michael G. Coleman, finds in Scripture the basis for resolving the standoff that exists within Seventh-day Adventism over women’s ordination. He proposes a biblical solution to avoid the trend that has overtaken other Protestant churches. His response is a thoughtful, biblically faithful, and user-friendly resource. He encourages administrators, pastors, and laypersons to consider the evidence prayerfully and thoughtfully.
1 Daniel Jackson, Adventist Review, July 9, 2015.
2 “U.S. Union Conference Rescinds Special Meeting on Women’s Ordination,” Adventist Review, online edition, August 20, 2015.