Category: NAD TOSC Report

Bakersfield Hillcrest WO Symposium: June 13

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Post date June 13, 2015
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WO Symposium “Dangers on the Horizon” | Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick

DOWNLOAD HANDOUT for Kirkpatrick Bakersfield presentation.
WO Symposium PANEL DISCUSSION Allen Davis, Gerzon Gomez, Larry Kirkpatrick, Laurel Damsteegt, Jennifer Arruda, Daniel Mesa

WO Symposium “The Forgotten Story of 1989″ | Laurel Damsteegt

WO Symposium “Gift Versus Appointment” | Allen Davis

WO Symposium “We the People, Must Speak” | Jennifer Arruda

WO Symposium “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” | Pr. Daniel Mesa

WO Symposium “The Impact of Culture and the Desire for Unity” | Allen Davis

WO Symposium “A Woman’s Full Participation in Ministry” | Julie Mesa

Biblical Interpretation Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of Holy Scripture Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Insubordination NAD TOSC Report North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Phil Mills Proverbs Sabbath School class notes Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Women's ordination and Adding to God's Word

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Post date April 2, 2015
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CLICK HERE to download your copy of Phil Mills MD Sabbath School class notes “Adding to God’s Word: Humility and Truthfulness vs. Pride and Lies (Proverbs 30:1-8). While women’s ordination is not directly mentioned until the third page, the lessons are drawn sharply.
Mills’ short document makes important observations about the way the women’s ordination question has been handled by the North American Division (NAD). At the highest level the world church has repeatedly expressed its will on this matter. The NAD drive for women’s ordination has continued relentlessly. In his notes, Mills especially highlights certain basic elements in a biblical approach to determining what is God’s will in a matter. After presenting clear examples, Mills turns to women’s ordination. He refers to the 2013 NAD BRC Report to TOSC. Mills’ notes succinctly and clearly illustrate key questions.

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Council of Adventist Pastors Responds to North American Division's Ordination Mailing

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Post date February 27, 2015
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nad-wo-qa-brochure-cap-responseIn February 2015 the North American Division mailed to Adventist Churches in its territory thousands of brochures posing carefully phrased questions and advocating women’s ordination. Very little Scripture support is offered in the document. The link below reproduces the “answers” as included in the NAD mailing. The Council of Adventist Pastors interacts with this material.
The COUNCIL OF ADVENTIST PASTORS responds to NORTH AMERICAN DIVISION Q&A Theology of Ordination: answers to common questions.
Note. Document version updated on March 8.

1 Timothy Biblical Interpretation CAP authors Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Distinct roles Doctrine of Holy Scripture Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ecclesiastical authority Gender General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Headship Historical-grammatical method Larry Kirkpatrick Male-sex specific roles Methods of Bible Study 1986 NAD TOSC Report Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Redemptive movement hermeneutic Rio Document 1986 Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Theological pluralism Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) TOSC position one Trajectory theology Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

An Appeal to the Delegates to the 2015 General Conference Session

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Post date January 21, 2015
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More than 18M members, gathered from across the globe, make up the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Every five years delegates are elected and called to General Conference session. They seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for collective leading in key decisions of the Church. This July (2015), delegates will meet in San Antonio, Texas, USA. The issue of women’s ordination is to be addressed. On two previous occasions (1990, 1995), the General Conference voted not to permit the ordination of women to the gospel ministry. The short video appeal above calls for delegates to reject the proposal to permit each division to decide for itself on women’s ordination, and that the Church instead implement TOSC position #1.

Biblical Interpretation CAP authors Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Genesis Historical-Critical Method Historical-grammatical method Homosexuality Insubordination Jiri Moskala Junia Junias Larry Kirkpatrick LCMS Male-sex specific roles Mike Lambert NAD TOSC Report Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pre-fall headship Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Queer Theology Seminary Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unilateral Action United Methodist Church Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

WO and the SDA Theological Seminary

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Post date August 25, 2014
25 Comments on WO and the SDA Theological Seminary

Prs. Larry Kirkpatrick and Mike Lambert discuss the theological movement of denominations which approve women’s ordination and their inevitable drift into approval of same-sex unions. They consider how one and only one denomination so far has turned back from this—by reestablishing a historical-grammatical interpretive plan at their seminary. Discussion turns, with some regret, to the current situation of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary located in Berrien Springs, MI. The women’s ordination-favoring theological approach of the current dean is investigated, the core presupposition identified. 13 minutes.

Biblical Interpretation Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Culturally driven ELCA Galatians Gender General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio John H.P. Ruemann Krister Stendahl Larry Kirkpatrick Lutheranism Mike Lambert NAD TOSC Report North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

NAD's cultural WO solution

Pastors Larry Kirkpatrick and Mike Lambert discuss “NAD’s cultural WO solution.” Although the North American Division has packaged the adoption of women’s ordination as being a biblical necessity, the solution they insist upon for the church is strangely identical to the one offered by Lutheran scholar John H.P. Reumann to ELCA in 1987—just three years before the original attempt by the NAD to introduce WO to the world field in 1990 GC session. The CAP pastors also discuss a most critical hermeneutical admission made by Ruemann—although one that, so far, NAD WO advocates have not acknowledged.

Biblical Interpretation Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Genesis Historical-grammatical method Larry Kirkpatrick Mike Lambert NAD TOSC Report North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Redemptive movement hermeneutic Sabbath Seventh-day Adventist Church Slavery The larger issues Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Trajectory theology William Webb Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

NAD's trajectory hermeneutic examined

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Post date July 21, 2014
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The North American Division’s 248 page 2013 Theology of Ordination Study Committee Report urged that Seventh-day Adventists adopt a variety of hermeneutical innovations, among them, the “redemptive movement” or “trajectory” hermeneutic. References in the NAD document in support of these ideas included William J. Webb’s book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals. Pastors Larry Kirkpatrick and Mike Lambert share material from that book showing what happens when the people who developed it use their own “principle-based” approach on an issue like the seventh day Sabbath.
The NAD Report refers to William J. Webb’s book, Slaves, Women, & Homosexuals, in footnotes 18 and 19, and in several paragraphs in the report on pp. 26-28. The dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, later in the NAD Report also promotes the “redemptive movement” hermeneutic.

1 Corinthians Biblical Interpretation Church governance Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Distinct roles Doctrine of Holy Scripture Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ecclesiastical authority Gender General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Headship Insubordination Jennifer Arruda Male-sex specific roles NAD TOSC Report North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Seventh-day Adventist Church Unilateral Action Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

An open letter to my SDA family

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Post date June 23, 2014
9 Comments on An open letter to my SDA family

Jennifer Arruda
Dear Seventh-day Adventist worldwide family,
I wish to somehow send my voice to you, that you may know that I am one among many within the North American Division who do not agree with the consensus from the few at the top who are pushing women to be pastors and elders. I am a Seventh-day Adventist, 33 year-old woman, and it is clear to me from the Bible, our firm foundation, that God has not chosen women to be pastors or elders. I feel that I am not being represented correctly by the current Seventh-day Adventist leadership in North America. As you are in a position of responsibility in the church and with the potential to be among those who will vote on serious issues at the next General Conference session, I am writing this letter to encourage you to be faithful to the word of God. I am saddened to witness the politics and rebellious spirit here in the Pacific Union and the North American Division at large behind the movement for women to be ordained as pastors and elders. It is my plea for you to not be moved by the unseemly politicking in the church, to not be moved by the current culture of this corrupt world, to not be moved by threats or fears alike, but please, please, please, be moved by the Bible.
I can’t help but see the chilling similarity of this current power struggle to the one given us as an example in the word of God – the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The fearful consequences of their push for the leadership unassigned to them ended in tragedy, and I pray that tragedy is not also our end in the Seventh-day Adventist church over the same issue. If this issue of women’s ordination is unclear to us, it is because our hermeneutics have evolved into that which can erode any of the pillars of our faith, including the truth about the Sabbath. The same hermeneutical principles that have allowed some to embrace women’s ordination will lead to embracing Sunday sacredness as well.
The discourse in “Prove All Things, A Response to Women in Ministry” thoroughly points to the clear Biblical evidence of God’s will to have women very much involved in ministry, but not in the roles of pastor and elder. In a much abbreviated summary, the subsequent Biblical evidence seems more than enough to make this matter clear.
In the creation account alone—before the fall—there is abundant evidence that God put man as the leader and head. God created Adam first (with which God denotes headship – Exodus 22:29, Numbers 3:12), He created woman out of man, He created woman for man to be his “helper,” and Adam named Eve before and after the fall (“woman” and then “Eve”). One wonders, why didn’t God make Adam and Eve at the same time? Man’s headship is directly affirmed in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 11:3, 8, 9, “…the head of the woman is the man… for the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” God gives us the order and manner of the (pre-fall) creation of man and woman as the reason that “the head of the woman is the man.” To reject the New Testament interpretation of Genesis 2 is not taking precept upon precept and line upon line, but it is in fact rejecting the internal witness of the Bible.
God even cemented role distinctions into our very physical being at creation. It is absolutely impossible to carry on the human race without recognizing role distinctions God has created in us, as a woman cannot reproduce without a man and a man cannot bear the child. Our very physical nature reflects role differentiations.
After the fall, although it was Eve who sinned first and led Adam into sin, God holds Adam responsible. Why would He do that if Adam was not the leader of both? God reaffirms and adds to man’s headship by telling the woman that “he shall rule over thee” (Genesis 3:16). God rejected woman’s attempt to take on the leadership role at the fall. Man’s headship is also reaffirmed in the New Testament in Romans 5:12, “Sin came into the world through one man.” Why doesn’t it say “sin came into the world through one woman”?
We are also familiar with the texts in 1 Timothy 2 that describe women professing godliness—women that are in “subjection,” women who do not “usurp authority over the man.” And what are the reasons given? The order of creation, and the account of the fall. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:13, 14).
How can a woman meet the Scriptural requirements for congregational leadership as listed in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6, that an elder must be “the husband of one wife”? Certainly Paul could have been generic here in regard to gender had he been inspired to by the Holy Spirit. And, although the New Testament church is described as “a royal priesthood” in 1 Peter 2:9, God’s Old Testament church was also described as the same in Exodus 19:6, “a kingdom of priests,” yet God still had men, not women, in leadership of the congregation. All believers are to work for the salvation of others, but not all are to lead in this work.
A question with no logical answer is begged, how can a woman “submit” herself (as it says in Ephesians 5:22 and Colossians 3:18) to her husband at home, but then as soon as they walk into church on Sabbath morning, he is to submit to her leadership? Is she not his wife at church also?
Even just these few Scriptures are more than sufficient to thoroughly convince me that ordaining women as pastors and elders is wrong and not in God’s order; for to come to the opposite conclusion would mean to deny these direct and clear texts. And, in further study throughout the rest of the Bible, in studying the spirit of prophecy and Adventist history, it is affirmed again that ordaining women as pastors and elders is wrong and not in God’s order.
This issue is bigger than we may think, for the same hermeneutics that twist these plain texts of Scripture to ordain women as pastors and elders are the same hermeneutics that will lead us right out of the church in embracing Sunday as sacred. Please, let us not follow the example of Satan who aspired to a position higher than he was assigned by God. Please, let us not follow the example of Eve who, “like restless modern Eves, she was flattered with the hope of entering a higher sphere than that which God had assigned her. In attempting to rise above her original position, she fell far below it” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 59). Please, let us not follow the example of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram who were dissatisfied with the roles God had given them and sought the priesthood also.
I am one voice among the many in the North American Division who disagree with the few that are misrepresenting us. I feel that I am not being represented correctly. With the many others who are being misrepresented by the pro-women’s ordination push, I believe there would not have been such a consensus among the North American Division leadership and other Union and Conference leadership were it not for the politics and unfairness practiced in making these decisions. Please know that there are many Seventh-day Adventists in the North American Division who do not agree with the rebellion manifested in the manner the issue of women’s ordination is being pursued, nor with the very movement itself to ordain women to the office of pastor and elder.
Complete obedience to following anything the Scriptures command is the key to understanding them (John 7:17). Are we willing to be obedient? Please don’t make your decision on this issue as a political decision, nor by the corrupt culture of this world, nor employ the consequential reasoning that leads to compromise, but let your decision be based on the word of God, our firm foundation.
With love and respect,
Jennifer Arruda
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Annual Council Biblical Interpretation Church governance Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ecclesiastical authority General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Headship Historical-Critical Method Historical-grammatical method Male-sex specific roles Methods of Bible Study 1986 NAD TOSC Report North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Theology of Ordination Study Committee completes work (UPDATED)

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Post date June 5, 2014
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After some 18 months of work, the 106 member Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) concluded deliberations with a June 2-4, 2014 meeting. The TOSC study group was appointed as a result of the 2010 Atlanta General Conference session request made by the North American Division (NAD) that the Church consider women’s ordination yet again. It is now possible to look more broadly at what TOSC (not an NAD but a General Conference committee), has revealed.
Key outcomes from the 2013-2014 TOSC process now concluded include:

The committee agreed that the Seventh-day Adventist practice of ordination was valid (some had urged the practice was unbiblical).
The committee agreed that women should be involved in ministry. This was never in dispute although some favoring women’s ordination (WO) had suggested it was.
As meetings progressed it became apparent some supporters of WO were proposing the use of methods that seriously diverged from the longstanding Seventh-day Adventist use of the historical-grammatical approach to biblical interpretation. Advocates of WO unveiled an “adaptation” of the historical-grammatical method and a “major” (2013 NAD Report, p. 24) plan for biblical interpretation they called the “principle-based, historical-cultural” (PBHC) method. This approach they placed on a continuum between the historical-critical and historical-grammatical methods! (Ibid., p. 8). This modification in approach, they said, was “required” in order to address certain “difficult passages” (Ibid., p. 31). Fortuitously for those favoring WO, the use of the PBHC method eliminated from the Bible “conclusive evidence prohibiting the ordination of women” (Ibid., p. 25). The NAD study committee report here quoted from, far from supporting the historical-grammatical method as claimed (Ibid., pp. 7, 8, 14-20) actually treated the 1986 “Methods of Bible Study” document advocating it selectively at best, even criticizing it (Ibid., pp. 23-25).
Several biblical passages touching the question of Headship were studied in TOSC. Although the committee as a whole was divided, many found the exploration of the Scriptures on this point stimulating and useful.

The spirit of the meetings remained positive, but TOSC closed with no consensus. Participants remained sharply divided over women’s ordination.
The results of the TOSC process will in due course be made available in its final report, which includes the positions and recommendations suggested by groups in the committee. This material will be forwarded to General Conference ADCOM (Administrative committee) this month. At Annual Council this October the General Conference will review TOSC’s advisory recommendations and determine how the women’s ordination question will be processed at the 2015 General Conference session in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
In the concluding meeting, a third distinct group developed. This group felt it necessary to concede that the Church should let each division decide the women’s ordination question for itself. While holding that the office of the ordained minister should ideally be carried out by males, this group’s overarching stated concern was unity. And so, as God permitted Israel to choose for itself a king against His will, the Church should let each division decide the women’s ordination question for itself—even if the decision to ordain women was wrong.
A straw poll was taken on the last day of the meeting. Thirty-two persons voted for the biblical-qualifications (anti-women’s ordination) position. Forty committee members favored women’s ordination. And 22 persons voted for the let-each-division-decide-independently option. Imagine! Here we stand on the very borders of the heavenly Canaan, and the best we can do is agree to disagree?
The straw poll seemed to show that the participating majority of the committee would approve of having each division decide the matter of women’s ordination for itself—yet this was not so. In fact, the “Biblical qualifications” (anti-WO) and the “A proposal for an accord on Women in Ministry” (pro-women’s ordination) positions were very firm. Thus, the majority of the 95 polls returned (73) were NOT interested in the compromise position as their first option. (But as many as 12 who favored women’s ordination could have included the compromise position as their second option). But the straw poll also showed (32 + 22) that more than half of those participating understood male headship/leadership to be the biblical position. The compromise position garnered 22 responses as first choice, yet of those 22 almost as many, 19, were willing to accept another option. Thus, the compromise position lacked deep commitment. In contrast to these, zero of the 32 participants marking the “biblical qualifications” (anti-WO) position were willing to mark either alternative as second choice, while two did have a distant third option they preferred to the other. And so, a more nuanced look at the poll results shows that rather than being fluid, the positions are rather firmly locked.

Some favoring women’s ordination will overstate the significance of the straw poll results, but in actuality, there is little in the TOSC process for them to rejoice in. TOSC has revealed the most fundamental point in the whole matter. Namely, that should the world church adopt women’s ordination, it will have to change its approach to biblical interpretation in order to lend support for the new practice. It is no news that some are ready to change how we interpret the Bible in order to prevent “division” of the church. Yet the facts remain: the church is divided as never before.
TOSC has not created the divide. It has only more clearly revealed it.
Everything turns on the Adventist approach to biblical interpretation. Encouraging each division to act unilaterally on women’s ordination would set the precedent that in future, every division would decide on same-sex marriage or any other overly controversial matter. In essence, this course of action would mean abandoning global coherence as a church body. We would become a gaggle of disagreeing units each doing what was locally felt to be the right. Can a church thrive or even persist in existence when it values unity even at the sacrifice of God’s ideal, more than that unity founded on the authority of “the Scripture of truth”? Another denomination might survive that approach for a time; the Seventh-day Adventist Church would not.
TOSC could not have been more successful in revealing that the Church now stands at a monumental crossroads in biblical interpretation. Whatever is decided in San Antonio, it will be impossible to turn back.

1 Corinthians Calvinism CBMW Church Manual Columbia Union Conference (CUC) Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood E-60 Ecclesiastical authority Gender General Conference General Conference Working Policy Genesis Gerry Chudleigh Headship Historical-grammatical method Larry Kirkpatrick Male-sex specific roles NAD TOSC Report NAD Working Policy NAD Year-end Meeting North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Seventh-day Adventist Church Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Trans-European Division (TED) Unilateral Action Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Kirkpatrick response to Chudleigh on "Headship Theology"

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Post date May 6, 2014
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Pacific Union Conference communication director Gerry Chudleigh published his paper on May 1, 2014 titled, “A short history of the Headship Doctrine in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” Chudleigh proposes that in the 1980s a small group of Adventists from Southern Michigan raided Calvinist theologians for their “headship theology.” Nevertheless, he says, practically no Adventists had heard such ideas until 2012. According to Chudleigh “headship theology” is a brand new doctrine for Adventists, and the TOSC process “may be the first Adventist school of headship theology.” Via TOSC, according to him, this divisive new doctrine is being spread across the world field. Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick (Bonners Ferry and Clark Fork Idaho churches, Upper Columbia Conference, NPUC, NAD) considers Chudleigh’s rendition of events in this short response video. He is one of several ministers who are part of the Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP).