In 2024, Lerato Makombe filed a suit against the Cape Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, claiming that the Conference failed to address her numerous grievances over a period of years, including congregants who refused to accept a female pastor due to their religious beliefs.
She says she was transferred to several districts and diagnosed with a mental illness as a consequence and successfully treated but subsequently resigned to avoid a relapse. She claims gender discrimination in her case against the Conference.
Makombe started work with the Cape Conference of the Seventh Day Adventists Church in January 2014 as an intern. She later became a pastor. From 2014 to 2020 she was transferred from post to post, often without any consultation, and was met with what she calls ‘hostile reception’ from congregants who do not believe that the Bible supports female pastors.
Makombe has a history of taking her Employer to court, filing another grievance in 2017. Since 2017, she has been treated repeatedly for psychological and psychiatric issues, including major depressive disorder. She blames her employer for her mental conditions, citing the unwillingness of some Seventh-day Adventist church members to accept a female pastor and the Conference’s unwillingness to demonstrate proper care and compassion. The conference claims that Makombe’s complaints were without substance.
Tapiwa Gandidze
In an earlier ruling, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), dismissed Lerato Makombe’s case. Last month, female judge Tapiwa Gandidze awarded Makombe $13,000 (equivalent) compensation by the labour Court of South Africa.
Observations
Makombe has a history of filing grievances against her employer.
Makombe has a history of mental health issues.
The judge who awarded Makombe $13, 000 is Tapiwa Gandidze, a black female.
Gandidze said said members of the congregation and church elders had demeaned Makombe and banned her from duties they said were reserved for male pastors.
Gandidze ordered the church to pay Makombe’s court costs because of the “unfathomable” treatment she received from the church which allowed her to fend for herself under the guise that it could not tell its congregants what to do.” The Conference said Makombe was a “serial complainer”. The judge expected that the Conference should tell (force) church members to accept a female pastor.
Church members said they were unhappy with a female pastor because this “conflicted with their religious and biblical convictions”.
Makombe claims that church members and the church elders “were hostile, they demeaned and humiliated her on WhatsApp groups.”
This issue is related to the General Conference in general and Ted Wilson in particular’s unwillingness to address rebellious church entities who have violated Three general Conference Session votes against ordaining women as pastors. Instead of making political statements, ADCOM should affirm the Bible’s fundamental teaching that church leadership is male. Annual Council voted a Compliance Document to address Conference and Union insubordination, and then refused to use it. No one has explained why they stopped using it.
The GC president should take steps to get this process moving quickly like King Hezekiah did in 2 Chronicles 30 and 31, and like Josiah did in 2 Chronicles 34 and 35. ADCOM should support him. The General Conference Executive Committee should support this effort with all possible dispatch, bringing it up at the Spring Meeting today or tomorrow!
Or they could stick their heads in the mud and be like Eli; they can watch the Church disintegrate into chaos and lawsuits.
The Bible teaches that pastors, overseers, and elders are to be qualified males (1 Timothy 2:11-12; 1 Timothy 3:1-3; Titus 1:6-9). Only qualified men can function as pastors and elders.
Of course, if someone doesn’t believe the Bible to be the authoritative word of God to man, it will be easy to find wiggle room on whatever aspects of this issue do not fit with their opinion or agenda.
The Seventh-day Adventist church made a major mistake by allowing women to be elders and sometimes pastors without ordination. It was a matter of time until this Pilate-esque compromise would create far more problems than it solved. Female headship is also a gateway drug to LGBTQ+. That time is here.
The solution is to remove all women pastors and elders, and return to the Word of God, asking His forgiveness and blessing as we go forward in faith. We must live by the Word of God.
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“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).