The Woman Question: GC President Speaks to Student Leaders on Women’s Ordination

Posted on 21. Apr, 2010 by Peter Katz in Community

“Make sure you have sought and understood the consensus” – Jan Paulsen, 9 April 2010 to the Adventist Intercollegiate Association meeting at Canadian University College

The following is a compiled transcript of General Conference President Jan Paulsen’s answers to a Q&A with student government leaders from all the Adventist colleges and universities across North America (except Washington Adventist University).

[Initial inquiry about women’s ordination.  The questioner was under the impression that it would be an issue discussed at the upcoming GC meeting.]

At the meetings that finished this Wednesday, I made a statement to our church leaders.  Coming out of our counsel this October, there were several requests that touched on this issue: where are we going as a church regarding women in leadership issues, and by what process do we affirm women in leadership.  Questions of that kind came up then.  I met with my closest advisory leadership teams […] for three or four days planning in January, and we talked about this in the planning meeting.  We agreed that I would try to obtain the thinking, the pulse of the church globally with respect precisely to this issue.  As you know, we’ve addressed it twice before in the General Conference, and frankly, the last thing we need is to bring it before a conference when we know the answer is going to be voted down.

We have to think through where we are going with this.  We had an agreement that I would contact all of the 13 regions of the global church not to undertake a new survey, but to take a rating of the pulse of these regions in the church—how does our church, how does leadership, view this issue.  I asked two questions: tell me about the range of roles that women have today in leadership in this church; how do you affirm them in that role?  Would you welcome an opportunity to ordain women to ministry in your region?  Even if you answer number two as no, would it negatively impact you if the church in some other part of the world decided to ordain women in the ministry?  The very clear answer that came back—and they did a pretty thorough checking and testing, contrary to what is reported in a particular journal that reported that “8 men vetoed women”; it was not one person’s decision, but rather one hundred people—by far 75% or so of the global territories came back and said, “No, we are not ready to ordain women to the ministry in our part of the world; yes, we would be negatively impacted if the church were to do it anywhere in the world.”

Okay.  That’s the answer I have to live with.  And it’s not easy, but let me also say that even in those parts of the world that said not only are we not ready to do it, but that it would negatively impact the church in our division as far as the unity of the church was concerned, they also said to me, “We are not where we were ten years ago; there is movement in thinking.”  Not just we are not ready to do it, but we are not ready yet— hinting that a certain education process needs to go on.  Any change in the church is a slow process, and sometimes, it takes a new generation to make change.

[Inquiry about his personal view on women’s ordination, and how it will change.]

All of my colleagues in leadership know that I have stated that I know of no biblical reason that women should not be selected […] I think the reasons that nothing has happened are cultural based.  A greater value to me than a question on what is going to happen […] is to hold this church together, globally.  The unity of the global church is a doctrine;  many issues are not doctrines that we deal with, but this one is. So, I will give it my best shot to keep the church together.  We are not going to do this globally […] it will be in regions.  But globally, the church has to accept that it will be in regions without tearing itself apart.

[My own inquiry about the paradox of denying the validity of cultures in favor of women’s ordination in favor of cultural pluralism.]

I said this a couple minutes ago: that the question of unity is not only impacted by what you do, but it can be negatively impacted by what you don’t do. By being insensitive to the needs of the church when there is not a clear biblical mandate … all I’m saying here is that I’m trying to move something on, and I don’t know where it’s going to go or how quickly. I sense that there are shifts that are there.  I really don’t know what else to say to that.

Tags: civil rights, gender, jan paulsen, religion, women's ordination