Sources: Secretariat, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, “A Study of Church Governance and Unity,” Sept 2016, North American Division 2018 Year-end Meeting Response to the Regard for and Practice of General Conference Session and General Conference Executive Committee Actions.  North American Division Theology of Ordination Study Committee Report, 2013.  “Unions and Ordination,” GC Secretariat Statement, Aug. 2015.

Sources: Secretariat, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, “A Study of Church Governance and Unity,” Sept 2016, North American Division 2018 Year-end Meeting Response to the Regard for and Practice of General Conference Session and General Conference Executive Committee Actions. North American Division Theology of Ordination Study Committee Report, 2013. “Unions and Ordination,” GC Secretariat Statement, Aug. 2015.

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

Dunlap SDA Church

The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church

P. Gerard Damsteegt

1: The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church: Its Historical Development

You know, this is quite a challenge that we face in our church.

And at the same time, to give me the ability to present it correctly, Because after the 2015 General Conference, people are confused.

And 1 site presented from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, and people say, yes, amen.

And then the next presenter comes from the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy and people say, Amen!

Why 2 different presentations, both of them the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, and different reactions, different concepts.

And so you can see here how Satan tries to confuse our church.

And so when I was working on this 2 weeks ago, I noticed that in order for me to present this clearly, this is 1 presentation, but then there is committees that have been working on what the Bible and the spirit of prophecy says.

And then another dimension is, hey, what do they do with the spirit of prophecy?

Since, okay, the general conference need to be followed.

And the other 1 says, no, Alan Wright says the general conference doesn't need to be followed.

So really, this is 1 presentation out of 4, and the other ones I may, sometimes, in the future.

But I will not burden you with it now, because you won't want to, at least you won't want to be in time for supper at home.

So how did the crisis in authority develop?

And this is not specifically about women ordination, but about what is at stake is now the unity of the church.

And keep that in mind, even if ordination plays a part in it, it is the unity of the church.

And here is then how the crisis in authority developed.

In the late 1960s, the attention began to be focused on the role of women in leadership positions.

And not only that, but in the 1970s, several General Conference commissions studied this question from the standpoint of theology, ecclesiology, which is the doctrine of the church, and mission.

And you know, you would say, you know, then you get some progress, but unfortunately, there was no progress.

This was the first really women committees in Mohaven, and it was the first time when there were about the same amount of men as women.

And if I give, if my wife could give the whole background to this, and then you can say sad, sad, sad.

Because as a result of this study committee, with the exception of 1 person, 1 woman, everybody agreed on women in ordination, basically.

But how can you convey this then to the church at large?

So here you get in the 1973 Autumn Council of the General Conference Committee, and continued study be given, that is what they decided, to the theological soundness of the election of women to local church offices which require ordination, and that in areas receptive to such actions there be continued recognition of the appropriateness of appointing women to pastoral evangelistic work." So this was a kind of a green light, you know, let us go on here but slowly.

Then you get the next year in the 1974 autumn council of the General Conference Committee.

It reaffirmed sections of the 1973 action and added its opinion that in the interest of world unity of the Church, no move be made in the direction of ordaining women to the gospel ministry.

And the gospel ministry, in the documents, that means the ordained ministry.

In the documents that I will present, gospel ministry is the ordained leadership of the local church and everywhere else.

Now, it was only a few years later that women were, pastors were baptized as candidates in the Columbia Union.

And 1 of the statements is because the church now ordains women as local elders, the possibility exists now for women to perform baptisms.

Now my wife wrote in a little later on, pushing the brethren, how there was this move, that rise of women, that we need to have this position, we need to have the position, and we need to be equality.

The idea that there is this inequality is not good.

Everything should be the same for male and female.

This idea started already in the French Revolution, as you know and remember, but this was very, very strongly emphasized.

Now you get the 1985 General Conference, And it urged here that affirmative action for the involvement of women in the work of the church be a priority, and to request leaders to use their executive influence to open to women all aspects of ministry in the church that do not require ordination.

And I'm a strong advocate of women in the ministry of the church.

But does this include ordination to the gospel ministry?

And today I will not go specifically in the analysis of the biblical text.

I may do that at another time because it's very, very important.

And then in 1988, Women's Commission, my wife was there, 1 of the involvements, and that was in March in 1988.

And there, you know, was also progress made.

Then you get the 1990 General Conference in Indianapolis, and here you see all the speakers that want to be, that was the stadium there and they wanted to speak on this issue.

And many people don't realize it, but that is very, very important here.

It accepted the recommendation of the 1989 Annual Council that in view of the widespread lack of support for ordination of women to the gospel ministry in the world church and in view of the possible risk of disunity dissension and diversion from the mission of the church, we do not approve the ordination of women to the gospel ministry.

Yes, women can work as evangelists and all kinds of things, but not as the ordained leadership of the Church, that is in charge of the Church.

And that, and many people today don't know this, and the North American Division make all kind of statements, yes, yes, yes, it has been approved.

Then in 1995, the General Conference dealt with a question of variance.

The North American Division, we are ready, our people want it, whether it's true or not, but our people want it, and so therefore we in the North American Division should be given the freedom to start ordaining women.

This decession denied this request from the North American division, that each division has the right to authorize the ordination of individuals within its territory in harmony with established policies.

In addition, where circumstances do not render it inadvisable, a division may authorize the ordination of qualified individuals without regard to gender, whether you're male or female.

And so They invited 2 Andrews University professors, Dr.

Gerard Darmstigt, of the pro and against views on women ordination.

And I still remember there was a call from Cairo by President Volkenberg.

And he said, you know, Darmstede, we discussed this and we'd like to have 2 presenters, 1 for and 1 against.

I said, you know, I don't know what to do because I have not made up my mind.

Oh yeah, but the brethren feel that you are a good candidate and so you present the position against.

So I had to study whether I agreed with against or not.

And I said, you know, I don't think that those issues, you know, Ellen White warns against dividing the brethren and sisters.

I don't think that will be good for our church.

The brethren have decided, and you are 1.

If you today, if you click on this link, you go directly to YouTube, and you see my 20-minute presentation, why I don't agree with the North American Division.

Of course, this presentation has not gained me any friends in North America.

But you know, since 1995, my position at the seminary has been different.

But anyway, you know, the Lord is in charge.

So soon after this, you find then that women began to be ordained, even if the decision of the council, the session was against.

Women were ordained anyway, ordination in the Potomac and the Southeastern California Conference.

In September 23, 1995 in the Sligo Church, Norman Osborne, Kendra, Holowiak, and Penny Schell were ordained.

Even if the General Conference decided against it, They went ahead.

Now in the 2010 general conference, again at the session there was a request for an official church study ordination.

The General Conference administration informed the session of its commitment, quote, to establishing a process to review the subject of ordination and will report back to the Annual Council during this quinquennial, which is a period of 2010 to 2015.

So this was the first official request to a general conference, we have to study this.

It's an abbreviation of the Theology of Ordination Study Committee.

And my wife and I were both participants in this study committee.

It is the General Conference Theology of Ordination Study Committee, the TASC.

2: The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church: The Misinterpretation of the Spirit of Prophecy

Those who have helped me to set up here, and those that come in the audience.

And let us just ask the Lord to bless this presentation because it is very sensitive material.

Some people may love it, some may not love it.

Precious Heavenly Father, we ask you to bless this presentation, give me the right words to say so that it may be helpful for those who are searching and are honestly looking for truth.

May this also help to improve the condition in our church, in Jesus' name, amen.

The presentation is called, The Crisis of Authority in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Misinterpretation of the Spirit of Prophecy.

Now this is 1 of the difficulties that we have.

You have the misinterpretation of the Bible, the misinterpretation of the spirit of prophecy.

But my last presentation was simply the development of the crisis, so that you can see where we are now, how it all came together, and the vague future that we have ahead of us.

Now if everyone understands how to interpret the spirit of prophecy, then great problems would already be solved.

But just as you will see here, the response of the various divisions to the presentation and the vote on the 2015 San Antonio General Conference clearly shows that people have determined that they will get their way, no matter what.

So the documentation, and you know, it's all available, there's nothing new here.

There is 1 that is published in 2016 by the Secretariat of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, and that is the Study of Church Governance and Unity, and that was published in September 2016.

And there you find the whole aspect from the General Conference and how they see the situation and what they feel need to improve and how to get forward to it.

You know, you have to keep in mind, we are now 3 years beyond San Antonio.

And San Antonio said, we cannot do certain things.

And after 3 years, we still have not found a solution to how to go forward to it.

Secondly, that is the North American Division 2018 year-end meeting response to the regard for and practice of the General Conference session and the General Conference Executive Committee actions.

So that is the response to whatever took place in San Antonio.

And so if you want to get the accurate documentation there's where you have to go.

So we start out to the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio.

And the motion that was made is in the context of church authority.

Whereas, the Seventh-day Adventist Church affirms that God has ordained that the representative of his Church from all parts of the earth, when assembled in general conference session, shall have authority.

And so this was the motion then that was going to be voted.

Therefore, after, and this is for all the 2 to 3000 delegates, after you have prayerfully studied, your study on the ordination from the Bible, the writings of Elunite, and the reports of the study commissions, and after you have carefully consideration of what is the best for the Church and the fulfillment of its mission, it is acceptable for division executive committees, as they may deem appropriate in their territories, to make provision for the ordination of women to the gospel ministry?

In the past it was spoken, no, but this is, yes, but in our culture, our society, we are different and we need to have some kind of an exception.

And if it was accepted in the North American Division and in Australia and in Europe, they could go ahead.

So there is no part in our church that can go ahead unilaterally.

So here was then the response to the negotiations for 3 years.

And this was just taking place in November last month.

And this was the response of North American division and the response of the other divisions, 3 other divisions is very, very similar.

And that is the response of North America to regard for and practice of general Conference Session and General Conference Executive Committee Actions, November 6, 2018.

They said, and this was the writing committee that put it together, We recognize Christ as the head of the church, Colossians 1 18.

We are guided by the Bible as our only creed, the Holy Spirit who inspired and interpreted it, the writings of Ellen White that shines light on it, and a resulting spirit of Christ-like forbearance.

So when you look at this, you know, you say, Amen.

You go by the Bible, Spirit of Prophecy and the Holy Spirit.

The DC document that was presented on the annual council in 2018 moves us away from the principles behind the 1903 reorganization endorsed by Alan G.

White with decentralized denominational authorities.

So the appeal to the decentralization of the denomination authorities and not just having it in control in Silver Spring.

The voicing of our obedience or objections is in agreement with the 1877 General Conference voted actions which allow for questioning any General Conference vote shown to conflict with the Word of God and the rights of individual conscience.

Review in Herald of October 4, 1877, page 106.

And if you look at this, you know now, Why not?

You know, if there is an action that is in conflict with the Word of God, we don't accept it.

And if it goes against our conscience, we don't accept it either.

So this seems to be positive things, and we are going to evaluate this.

White, in response to an 1888 general conference session, wrote, She had counseled against, later wrote, it was not right for the conference to pass it.

It was not in God's order, and this resolution will fall powerless to the ground.

I shall not sustain it, for I would not be found working against God, and I will not give it countenance for a moment." Letter 22, 1889, pages 10 and 11.

We believe the church should take heed of this counsel at this moment in our history.

And you know, looking at this response, it doesn't seem to be bad.

The word of God, the Spirit of Prophecy, the Holy Spirit.

There is a confusion now about what Ellen White wrote concerning the authority of the Assyrian Church.

In fact, some argue that her views on the authority of the General Conference session changed.

So once it was that view, and now she changed.

And therefore it is not clear at the very end.

And so our observation was, we need to look at all her statements on the General Conference and authority before we come to a final conclusion.

You know, comparing scripture with scripture.

Getting everything together on the same subject, and then if you have them all there, you will see a result.

So the first testimonies on the authority of the General Conference comes from 1875.

In 1875, she wrote to Charles Lee, it was a Scandinavian believer who was very forceful in his authority.

And Elamite wrote, quote, "'The word of God does not give license "'for 1 man to set up his judgment in opposition to the judgment of the church.

Either he is allowed to urge his opinions against the opinion of the church.

If there were no church discipline and government, the church would go to fragments.

Here we get, keep in mind here, 1 man against the church.

If you speak out very forcefully, thank you, then that is the problem.

And if there is no church discipline in government, the Church would go to fragments.

So, in other words, discipline is necessary.

Then a little later on, same year, she wrote to George Butler, who seemed to have misinterpreted a statement about his authority because of the presidential conference.

And when I says I have been shown that no man's judgment should be surrendered to the judgment of any 1 man.

3: The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church: The Misuse of the Bible

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming and giving me the opportunity to relate to you something that is extremely sensitive in our church.

It took me some while before I decided to do this, but the reason that I went forward to it is because there are so many church members that are confused.

Each side claims to have the truth, and yet the result is diametrically opposed to each other.

And so therefore I decided to ask the Lord to help me to clarify some of those issues so that you can also help others and at the same time you can express your concern to the leadership of the division and the general conference.

Because unless you take action, nothing will change.

They say, oh yeah, the scholars, the people there high up have to take initiative.

Only when the grassroots see it and run with this, things will be the same and get down, down, down.

So therefore, because of the importance here, I think we need to ask the Lord specially to guide us.

And during this presentation pray for me too.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the time that we can spend here to deal with the truth as it is in Jesus, to deal with the interpretation of the Bible, and the way that we interpret the Bible affects our destiny in the future.

Help us therefore and send the Holy Spirit.

Anoint my lips that whatever I say may be pleasing to you.

So this is done the third in a series on the crisis of authority in the SDA Church.

The first 1 dealt with the development, historical development.

The second 1 dealt with the misinterpretation of the spirit of prophecy.

And the third 1 that I'm now addressing is the misuse of the Bible in the crisis of authority in the SJ Church.

We go back now to the year 2010 at the General Conference, and at that time there was a request made for an official church study on ordination.

The leaders reflected upon it, and the General Conference Administration informed the session of its commitment, quote, to establish a process to review the subject of ordination, and will report back to the annual council during this quinquennium, the period of 2010 to 2015.

They felt now, after 40 years, the time has come to focus on the theology of ordination.

It was, quote, an attempt to bring about an understanding of what a theology of ordination was, end quote.

And then the General Conference formed a committee.

And that committee functioned for 2 years, 2013 to 2014.

It's called TOSC, or the Theology of Ordination Study Committee.

It cost a lot of money, but the brethren felt it is now time to do this.

And so its membership included more than 100 persons of both genders, male, female, serving the Church as theologians, pastors, administrators, and laypersons, mostly from the North American Division.

It met 2 times in 2013 and 2 times in 2014.

Now why is the majority of North America?

If you get all these equal representation of all the divisions, can you imagine?

4 times round trip, you know, 20 people from South Africa, 20 people from Australia, whatever, this is an incredible sum of money.

So they felt that this is, you know, and this was not a committee that was going to decide.

It was simply revealing what they from their study concluded.

And what are now the results of the Theology of Ordination Study Committee?

The study committee did not agree on a biblical position, even if that was 1 of the assignments, or LNG White Councils, or whether or not ministerial ordination should include male or female.

It was inconclusive on ordination, and yet that was its purpose.

It did reach a high degree of accord concerning a biblical theology of ordination.

It agreed about ordination as a practice in the early church in the New Testament.

And they concluded, 1, that, quote, Seventh-day Adventists understand ordination in a biblical sense as the action of the church in publicly recognizing those whom the Lord has called and equipped for local and global church ministry.

Keep in mind it is not simply a matter of 1 division, but ordination in our church, if you are ordained here, it is valid all over the world.

And so therefore we have to be very, very careful if we allow it in 1 place, because in another place it doesn't allow it.

If the person travels there, by virtue of the ordination, the person can do the ministry that a pastor should do.

Secondly, that quote, without ordination, while ordination contributes the church's order, it neither conveys a special qualities to the person nor introduces a kingly hierarchy within the faith community.

So keep in mind it doesn't affect the person's holiness or whatever.

Now this is totally different from the Catholic Church.

If you are ordained, no matter what, no matter what you sin or not or whatever, you are there, the church representatives of the holy aspects of the communion and all of the other things.

But to us, it doesn't give you simply a function and not a special holiness or hierarchy that you're now better than others, higher than others, more authority over others.

Now the result of task was 3 positions of ordination.

The position number 1, It doesn't seem to come up on the slides, but it said simply a matter of ordination is only for men and not for women.

Women ministers may be ordained according to the will of the various entities responsible for hiring pastors.

It doesn't matter whether you're male or female.

Series

The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church

2: The Crisis of Authority in the SDA Church: The Misinterpretation of the Spirit of Prophecy

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

1888's Everlasting Gospel

1. Lots of Phone Numbers Start with 1888.... Confused About the Number?

56m

The Shaking

3. The Shaking: Today’s Challenges

1h 29m

End-time Finance

05 Weeping Merchants: The Final Economic Collapse

58m

Final Events

03 Critical Phase 2 of the National Sunday Law

1h 13m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Most Important Book Outside of the Bible - A Deeper Look at The Great Controversy

03-Adventism’s Prophetic Message in the Great Controversy

1h

How to Study Your Bible

4-Deconstruction & Analysis

1h

Keys of Revelation

20. The Testimony of Jesus- Part A&B

1h 23m

The Reformation & the Remnant: 500 Years of Protestant History & Liberty

2. The Reformers and the Word of God

59m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Law, the Sabbath and Worship in the End-time Crisis

06-Danger Signals, Part 2

1h 10m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Stories for the End of Time - Forgotten Episodes of Adventist History

Diverging Paths

1h 11m

All the World Marveled

Preparing For the Last Temptation

45m

Alan Parker - Truth or Hoax: Validity of Ellen White

Was Ellen White a Hoax?

59m

Sound Doctrine