Male Governing Bodies
When it became possible to again gather
in person after Covid-19 regulations were relaxed in March 2022, the
Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia published a picture of the leaders of
the Union and the nine Conferences. They just wanted to show their joy at no
longer having to hold consultations only by zoom. Various meetings were to be
held: President’s Council, Administrators Council, Executive Committee, and
Board of Directors. The board members and other leaders had come together for
this. What they probably did not expect was the shitstorm that arose when the
picture was commented on the Internet. There was not a single woman among the
23 leaders in the photo. Many comments were angry, some were unfair. But the picture
made it clear that the SDA church is led only by men, even though more than
half of the church members are women. And that is the case not only in
Australia.
In his book Women in the Church which Samuele Bacchiocchi wrote in 1986, he
examines the role of women in the church. He shows much appreciation for all
that women do in the church and assumes equality of men and women before God.
However, he asserts that God did not intend women to be pastors. They cannot
hold the teaching and shepherding office because God reserved those duties
exclusively for men. His purpose in writing the book was to help ensure that
women's ordination would be rejected at the 1990 General Conference session in
Indianapolis. For more than 50 years, the church has studied and debated
women's ordination. Theologians cannot agree on a common position. The solution
of letting the decision on the issue be made at the regional level was rejected
in San Antonio in 2015. It does not look like there could be an agreement in
the future either. The top church leadership wants to preserve the status quo.
In my mind, there are two possible
solutions to the problem. Pastors need an official act of consecration into
their ministry usually called an ordination. This consecration is a
confirmation of the calling and a request for God's special blessing on the ministry
of the one being ordained. The church has two different terms for this:
ordination and consecration/commissioning. If all pastors were commissioned, we
would not have two classes of preachers. The problem is that only men are
ordained and women are placed in the lower category of commissioned ministers.
The Bible knows only the laying on of hands for ministry. The word ordination
does not appear in the Bible and could easily be abolished in the SDA church.
It is a relic of Catholic clericalism. Abolishing ordination in favor of
general consecration/commissioning would not change the blessing and there
would be no discrimination against women. It is just a matter of one word.
The second possible solution would
be to change the wording of the Working Policy where ordination is required as
a prerequisite for leadership positions such as Presidents of Missions,
Conferences, Divisions, etc., and add the word commissioned. After all, it is
this very working policy that prevents women from being elected to leadership
positions. The world has long recognized that women have special leadership
abilities. Why should half of the church not be represented in its leadership?
Then images like the one in Australia would no longer be shown.
On March 19, 2022, on the 9th
anniversary of his inauguration, “Pope Francis promulgated the text of the
Apostolic Constitution 'Praedicate Evangelium', which gives a more missionary
structure to the Roman Curia so it can be better at the service of the local
churches and the task of evangelization.”[1]
"It also establishes in black
and white that lay people - and therefore women - can also lead Vatican
departments."[2] This move sidesteps the issue of ordination
of women to the priesthood and opens the door for women's participation in
leadership roles. We have watched in recent years as Pope Francis has
repeatedly appointed women to important positions.
The Reuters news agency commented as
follows: "Francis has already named a number of laypeople, among them
women, to Vatican departments. Last year, he for the first time named a woman
to the number two position in the governorship of Vatican City, making Sister
Raffaella Petrini the highest-ranking woman in the world's smallest state. Also
last year, he named Italian nun Sister Alessandra Smerilli to the interim
position of secretary of the Vatican's development office, which deals with
justice and peace issues. In addition, Francis has named Nathalie Becquart, a
French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, as co-undersecretary of the
Synod of Bishops, which prepares major meetings of world bishops held every few
years.”[3]
Vatican News comments, "The preamble to Praedicate Evangelium makes it clear
that the central task of the Church, and therefore of the Roman Curia, is evangelization.
The whole Church, it says, is called to a 'missionary conversion.'"[4] All departments will henceforth be called
dicasteries. A new dicastery for evangelization will be established, directly
under the leadership of the pontiff.
Looking at this, we realize that the
Catholic Church has at least recognized that it has no future without the
participation of women. The Pope cannot overrule the statements of his
predecessors regarding the ordination of women to the priesthood. He is,
however, opening the door to women in administration and possibly even in the
diaconate. The highest positions are no longer reserved for priests. The will
to renew and change church structures seems to be there.
I do not see the will to change at
the highest level of my church. The leaders want to hold on to old traditions
and power structures. On the other hand, there are many parallels between
Silver Spring and the Vatican, such as the emphasis on mission and
participation of all in evangelization. Total Member Involvement and mission
are terms that are heard over and over again. How much more effective these
battle cries would be if women, who after all make up more than half of the church,
could also hear them spoken by women and see women in leadership as role
models. In some regions, we can already discern a change. Their leaders have
given up on waiting for the world church leadership to move on the issue of
women's ordination and are following their conscience. They are appointing
women to leadership positions and are slowly ensuring that the images will not
be so male-dominated in the future. What if our church leadership
would also see themselves as service providers and not as a controlling body?
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