Skip to content

Upper Columbia Conference Continues Trend of Separate-But-Equal Ministerial Credentialing

separate_but_equal

In an attempt to elevate women ministers in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, many administrative territories have created workaround solutions to the problem of the General Conference's refusal to ordain women at the denomination's highest levels. One increasingly-common solution is to make women's credentialing functionally equal to men's credentialing by allowing commissioned ministers the same rights and privileges as ordained ministers.

The trend toward separate-but-equal-credentialing has created a situation in which male and female ministers may perform the same tasks and receive the same pay and benefits while remaining in distinct, gender-divided ecclesiastical categories. Within Adventism worldwide, ordination remains the highest ecclesiastical designation, and with a few notable exceptions, it continues to apply only to men. Some territories within the Seventh-day Adventist Church have been reluctant to extend even commissioning to women pastors though commissioning women has been a voted General Conference policy for many years.

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 29), the Executive Committee of the Upper Columbia Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (UCC), which encompasses Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and Northeastern Oregon, voted a policy to clarify the role of commissioned ministers who serve within the conference. UCC leadership clarified that going forward, commissioned ministerial credentials in the conference confer the same responsibilities and privileges as ordained ministerial credentials do, the key difference being that men may be ordained in UCC and women may not.

Explaining its executive action, the Upper Columbia Conference wrote,

The North American Division working policy states, 'A commissioned minister is authorized by the conference to perform substantially all the functions within the scope of the tenets and practices of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the members in the church or churches to which the minister is assigned…' L 32 10 NAD Working Policy.

The conference executive committee authorized commissioned ministers to perform the same functions as ordained ministers with in the UCC territory. This extends permission for them to perform weddings and baptisms, ordain local elders, deacons and deaconesses within their appointed district and to organize and unite churches in consultation with conference administration (as is the case with ordained ministers).

The efforts of the executive committee are to honor the decision of the world church to commission women rather than ordain them, and at the same time affirm and unify the gospel work of commissioned ministers.

The full policy statement, as voted by the Upper Columbia Conference Executive Committee, follows:

Upper Columbia Commissioned Ministerial Policy Voted 3-29-16 by Jared Wright (Spectrum Magazine)

 

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

 

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Subscribe to our newsletter
Spectrum Newsletter: The latest Adventist news at your fingertips.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.