Breaking News—Adventist Women Suffer Another Blow by Church Leaders

This morning, at the Annual Council meetings at the Adventist Church headquarters, the Executive Committee entertained a motion from the North American Division regarding the increasing presence of pastors—both men and women—who hold “ordained/commissioned” credentials from their local conference. A motion was presented, “to grant a variance to the model constitution to accomodate the unique needs of the North American Division with the insertion of “ordained/commissioned” when referring to local field presidents in the NAD.” The Trans-European Division asked for a similar variance that also included union presidents. The decision on the floor was to handle the request from the NAD first, and then to consider TED. The vote would break the glass ceiling rule (conference presidents must be ordained) that keeps women, who cannot be ordained as Adventist ministers, from becoming conference presidents. 

There was 4 hours of debate.

Then the Executive Committee voted by secret ballot.

Yes—117 votes.

No—167 votes.

Editor’s Note: This story has been edited to reflect the correct number of no votes, as per the SDA Department of Statistics, Archives and Research.

^{[Photo by Ansel Oliver/ANN]}