Annual Council Ends With No Consequences For Rebellious Church Entities

On Monday morning at Annual Council, Hensley Moorooven and Karnik Doukmetzian gave a joint presentation on the General Conference Working Policy.

Karnik’s explanation of Working Policy begins at 3:55.02 in the video below.

  • Allistair Huong’s question is at 4:12.25

  • Karnik’s non-answer is at 4:13.01

Encapsulated in the Monday morning Working Policy presentation were statements on the importance of church entities (Conferences & Unions) adhering to the GC Working policy. On two occasions, these men suggested that willful defiance of lower church entities towards the GC Working Policy would result in consequences.

  • Said Moorooven “Compliance with Working Policy is a standard of conduct for Seventh-day Adventist organizations. “If you throw policy away, policy will also throw you away sooner or later” (Hensley Mooroven).

  • Said Karnik: “This is the forum where we take care of those disagreements. When Unions and Conferences take actions that are not in harmony with the voted actions of the world church, there are consequences that those organizations will face.”

These statements gave the impression that GCExcomm was finally going to address the major disagreement of the last ten years — rebellious Unions and Conferences ordaining females in direct opposition to the voted actions of the world church.

But wait, didn’t Karnik Doukmetzian say on Monday that Annual Council is “the forum where disagreements are taken care of”? He did. So why wasn’t the super important issue of rebellious Unions and Conferences “taken care of”?

Tuesday was a day of many reports. The issue of rebellion / noncompliance was not mentioned.

The 2025 GC Session will be in Indianapolis.

On Wednesday, there was very little business and only a couple reports, with the Annual Council meeting ending between 10 and 11 AM.

Questions. There were several steps outlined in the voted 2018 Compliance Document that are meant to address willful defiance of church entities. Why aren’t these measures being followed, and why —amidst all the reports—isn’t there a report of the status of the Compliance Document?

Where are the consequences?

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