@Cindy Tutsch: Cindy&#032Tutsch: I find the following citation thought provoking …

Comment on Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference by Bob Pickle.

@Cindy Tutsch:

Cindy&#032Tutsch:
I find the following citation thought provoking in light of current controversies:
“It has been a necessity to organize union conferences, that the General Conference shall not exercise dictation over all the separate conferences.” EGW in 4 MR 292

Hi Cindy.

Would not this statement be talking about the GC rather than a GC Session?

In some discussions I’ve seen, it seems like some are applying counsel regarding the GC to a GC Session, which is understandable given that the names for each are almost identical. But the GC and a GC Session are quite different.

If the above quote were to be applied to a GC Session, that would be like saying that the decision of the council of Acts 15 was optional, and local churches, James, Paul, and the Judaizers could take it or leave it. That just doesn’t sound like what Acts 15 is all about.

Bob Pickle Also Commented

Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, you above state: “… a lack of a specific statement in the GC’s Working Policy that explicitly forbids the ordination of women as pastors. As far as I’m aware, such a statement simply doesn’t exist.”

Try BA 60 10 which states: “The world Church supports nondiscrimination in employment practices and policies and upholds the principle that both men and women, without regard to race and color, shall be given full and equal opportunity within the Church to develop the knowledge and skills needed for the building up of the Church. Positions of service and responsibility (except those requiring ordination to the gospel ministry*) on all levels of church activity shall be open to all on the basis of the individual’s qualifications.”

The footnote makes clear that the exception regarding ordination to the gospel ministry is one of gender, not race or color.

Also, B 10 22: “All organizations and institutions throughout the world will recognize the authority of the General Conference Session as the highest authority of the Seventh-day Adventist Church under God.” Here we have part of the Working Policy saying that there is no higher authority under God in the Adventist Church than the sessions that voted down WO in 1990, 1995, and 2015.


Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Thank you for writing, Sean. I would suggest that you get input from the GC as well.


Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, in your update you write:

Sean&#032Pitman:
“On the other hand, it also seem clear that on the issue of ordination, in particular, that the “final authority” has been given to the Union level of governance within the church (not to the level of the General Conference) to act as a buffer against too much centralized power within the church. …

“In any case, since honest confusion remains between many honest and sincere members as well as leaders of the church, ….

There certainly is honest confusion regarding this, but I can’t see how everyone is honestly confused.

1. Local churches decide who will be members and who will not, but local churches do not have the authority to make tests of fellowship. Thus the criteria for membership is decided by the world church, while that criteria is applied to individual cases by the local church.

Similarly, though unions decide who will be ordained, they don’t unilaterally determine the criteria for ordination.

2. If unions could unilaterally determine the criteria for ordination, there would have been no reason to bring the matter to the GC Sessions of 1990 and 1995. Particularly in 1995, it seems clear that church leaders understood that without GC division authorization, unions could not approve women for ordination, and that without GC Session authorization, GC divisions could not so authorize.

3. The first I remember hearing that unions could act on their own was after Dan Jackson’s open letter of, I think, Jan. 2012. Maybe we can find this idea being promulgated prior to that date in left-wing journals, but maybe not. Since there certainly has been discussion in some circles about getting rid of unions, it seems difficult to have simultaneous promotion of the idea that we need unions so that women can be ordained.

How it comes across to me is that some want their way no matter what, and are grasping at anything they can to justify their position. For those some, I don’t think the label “honest confusion” fits. Now if they can come up with some sort of historical documentation that local churches can unilaterally determine the criteria for church membership, or that unions can unilaterally determine the criteria for ordination, OK. But I have yet to see any such documentation.


Recent Comments by Bob Pickle

The End of “Junk DNA”?
Thanks, Sean, for this informative article!


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: I have already cited DA 465 and Ed 14 where “stars” is limited to objects within our solar system. Therefore, I do not understand why you would base an argument on the “stars” of Day 4 without making some sort of effort to prove that “stars” on Day 4 cannot be limited to the “stars of our solar system.”

Showing that God formed woman from Adam’s rib does not address the point that Ellen White made: God formed our world and created the earth out of nothing. After He did that, then certainly He could have formed man and the animals from something. But thus far you have not given any reason for concluding that Ellen White was not referring to creation week when she said what she did in MH and 8T.

The available texts do not leave open the question of whether the sun and moon existed before Day 4. That is an idea that comes from outside the Bible. It isn’t in the text.

You assert that Gen. 1:1 can be interpreted to mean that the sun, moon, and Jupiter existed before creation week. How so? It uses the Hebrew word for heavens, but says nothing about the sun or moon or Jupiter. It is Day 4 that explicitly says that God created the sun and moon on that day. It is Gen. 2:1 that says that the heavens were finished after creation week. Gen. 1:1 says nothing about the heavens already being finished before creation week; the verse does not use the word “finished” at all.

Did the scholars you cite arrive at their views of Gen. 1:16 solely from reading the text? Or are they trying to get the text to accommodate the conclusions of scientists that believe differently than what the text states? Two sources tell me that “made” in vs. 16 is an imperfect, not a perfect. Why then does Grudem say that an imperfect should be taken as a perfect? Is his basis for thus amending the text solely the Bible, or is it something else?


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: The post’s date isn’t important to me. I was just trying to understand what happened.

I don’t think you answered my question: “Do you think it possible that Ellen White’s 1897 statements were a rebuttal of Wilcox’s sentiments as he expressed them the following year?” She obviously was addressing some sort of ideas that had come into Adventism. If these ideas weren’t what Wilcox expressed, what were they?


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: Please read MH 414 and 8T 258 again, and see if you think those particular quotes leave the question open.

We could come up with a long list of points that Ellen White, perhaps (since there might be an unpublished letter), never personally corrected this one or that one on, so we can only take that so far. For example, some held that an atonement was made at the cross, some held that no atonement was made until Christ ascended to heaven, and some held that no atonement was made until 1844. I do not recall Ellen White rebuking proponents of two of these three contradictory positions, even though she did support one of these positions in her writings.

Do MH 414 and 8T 258 really leave the question open?


Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: In what ways are the He/Pb retention rate and Po halo evidence not solid?

Where does Ellen White allow for the existence of our earth and our solar system long before creation week?

“It could easily be that Moses was writing Genesis from an Earth-bound perspective and only wrote down what became visible to him from that limited perspective on a given day of the creation week.”

And from that perspective, Moses wrote that God “made” the sun and the moon on Day 4, and “set” them in the heavens. He also wrote in Ex. 20 that God made the heavens and all that in them during the first 6 days.

It just seems like a slippery slope. Why then couldn’t we conclude that God only made the “dry land appear” on Day 3, but that it really existed before that day? If the sun and moon can exist before God “made” them, why can’t animals exist before God “made” them too?

In what way is saying that God “made” the sun and moon on Day 4 an “interpretation”? Isn’t it just taking Gen. 1 and Ex. 20 as they read?