ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT WOMEN'S ORDINATION :
(First published in Adventists Affirm, Spring 1987)
Some Fundamental Questions
Why is the issue of the ordination of women as elders or pastors of such crucial importance for the Seventh - day Adventist Church at this time?
What is at stake is the authority of the Bible for defining SDA beliefs and practices. The New Testament expresses its teaching on the role of women in the church in theological terms, basing it on interpretation of earlier Bible passages. It is presented as part of God's "law” and as “a command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:34, 37). If such a Biblical teaching is regarded as limited to the culture of Paul's time, the same could be said of Biblical teachings regarding Creation, Sabbathkeeping, clean and unclean meats, footwashing, tithing, etc. The authority of Scripture as a whole would thus be undermined and discredited. The issue is important enough that it...
THE MISTAKEN APPEAL TO CULTURE
[This article is excerpted and updated from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
“Truth is straight, plain, clear, and stands out boldly in its own defense; but it is not so with error. It is so winding and twisting that it needs a multitude of words to explain it in its crooked form.”[1]
The above statement by Ellen G. White is applicable to the ongoing campaign within the Seventh-day Adventist Church to ordain women as elders and pastors. In this four-part article, I will argue that the issue of women’s ordination is a theological one, and as such it can only be settled by Scripture—not well-orchestrated political-style campaigns by pro-ordination church leaders, scholars, and liberal-feminist...
THE ROLE OF CHURCH LEADERS & SCHOLARS
[This article is excerpted and adapted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
In Part 1, we called attention to the unfortunate tendency by advocates of women’s ordination to trivialize discussions on the subject, by relegating the issue to one’s cultural preference, rather than to one’s fidelity to Scripture. In this second part of our discussion, we shall look at a carefully laid-out political strategy by church leaders in North America to domesticate the unbiblical practice of ordaining women as elders or pastors.
The Politics of Women’s Ordination
In C. Mervyn Maxwell’s article “How Money Got Us Into Trouble,” he followed the money trail, showing how the desire to enjoy...
THE ROLE OF LIBERAL-FEMINIST GROUPS
[This article is excerpted and adapted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
Part 2 of this present discussion revealed how church leaders and scholars in North America set forth a comprehensive agenda to push women’s ordination. As we shall soon see, they are being aided in their efforts by liberal-feminist groups within the church.
The Liberal-Feminist Campaign Continues
Today the leading organization most active in championing the cause of women’s ordination is the Association of Adventist Women (AAW), an organization that was begun as a committee of the Association of Adventist Forums (the liberal organization that publishes Spectrum magazine) and has since 1981 being operating as an independent entity...
HOW SHOULD A FAITHFUL CHURCH RESPOND?
[This article is excerpted and adapted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
In the first three articles, we detailed the well-choreographed campaign for women’s ordination by some otherwise well-meaning individuals, church leaders and scholars, and by some zealous liberal-feminist groups. What should we do in response to this campaign?
What Should a Local Church Do?
The strategy of those pushing feminism’s “gender agenda” seems to be to ordain as many women elders as possible, in the hope that the issue of women pastors will be a moot point in the future.
Readers should, however, note that there is no difference between elder or pastor (see my online article “Leadership in...
DID THE ADVENTIST PIONEERS ENDORSE WOMEN AS MINISTERS?
[This article is excerpted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
In our discussion of “Feminism’s ‘New Light’ on Galatians 3:28” (cf. entire article on this Web site), we saw how pro-ordinationists distort Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 to promote egalitarianism’s ideology of “full equality”— understood to mean the elimination of all gender role distinctions in the home as well as in the church.
In another article, “The Bible and the Ministry of Women” (cf. entire article on this Web site), I showed how Women in Ministry, the widely promoted pro-ordination volume by some scholars from Andrews University, resorts to questionable arguments to prove that there were women priests, women...
DID ELLEN G. WHITE CALL FOR WOMEN’S ORDINATION? WAS SHE ORDAINED?
[This article is excerpted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
In Part 1 of our discussion of early Seventh-day Adventist history, we showed how some of our scholars “manufacture facts” to promote women’s ordination. Among other things we refuted the oft-repeated claim that: (1) There were women ministers (preferred term, “leaders”) in the early Seventh-day Adventist Church (at least prior to 1915); (2) our pioneers wrote strongly in support of women ministers; and (3) the early Seventh-day Adventist Church voted at the 1881 General Conference session to ordain women.
In this Part 2 of our discussion, we shall call attention to two other areas where pro-ordination scholars attempt to revise SDA...
FEMINISM, EQUALITY, AND THE CHURCH
[This article is excerpted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Ordaining women as elders or pastors is new light which the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church is being urged to embrace.[1] Crucial in the push for these new leadership roles for women is feminism’s concept of equality.
Though many are not aware of it, the most powerful ideology driving the campaign for women’s ordination is feminism. This ideology is very seductive because it is rooted in the pervasive thinking of egalitarianism, which holds that full equality between men and women can be achieved by eliminating gender role distinctions in the home and in the church.
Proponents of women’s ordination who have embraced feminism’s...
FEMINISM, EQUALITY, AND THE CHURCH
[This article is excerpted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
In part 1 we discussed some worrisome aspects of feminism’s campaign for full equality, showing how the movement’s fundamental opposition to Scripture’s teaching on role distinctions between male and female in the church leads some feminists to embrace lesbianism and witchcraft, to redefine and feminize God, to indiscriminately push for gender-inclusive language, to question the Bible’s inspiration and authority, to adopt higher criticism to reinterpret the Bible, and to transpose Women’s Ministries into feminist ministries. In this present article, we shall look at feminist egalitarianism, discuss the nature of equality in the Bible, and examine feminism’s forced...
MISUSE OF ELLEN G. WHITE TO SUPPORT FEMINISM’S “FULL EQUALITY”
[This article is excerpted from the author’s book Must We Be Silent?]
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
Director, Public Campus Ministries, Michigan Conference
Introduction
In addition to the worrisome aspects of feminism to the biblical faith, in parts 1 and 2 of our discussion we called attention to feminism’s misinterpretation of Galatians 3:28, Paul’s “neither male nor female” statement. Contrary to the assertions of our feminist scholars, Galatians 3:28 does not teach full equality, in the sense of obliteration of gender role distinctions established by God at Creation. Instead, the context makes it very clear that men and women are equal only in the sense that they are:
--both equally justified by faith (v. 24),
--equally free from the...
A Very Surprising (and Interesting) History About Women’s Ordination
By
C. Mervyn Maxwell, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Church History,
Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University
[This article is a reprint of chapter 13 of Prove All Things: A Response to “Women in Ministry” (2000), a work that compellingly refutes the arguments being used to support women’s ordination. It was first published in Adventist Affirm 1998, pp18-22.]
As you read this story, do remember that administrators are human, like the rest of us, and need our prayers. Remember too that the money they attempted to save at a crucial point in this story was God's tithe; it was not their own money.
It is a story which shows how the NAD [North American Division] leadership came to the position that (a) ordination is merely a matter of church policy, not of sacred obligation, and (b)commissioning is...