De Facto
The Wikipedia entry describing the phrase "de facto," states,
A de facto government is a government wherein all the attributes of sovereignty have, by usurpation, been transferred from those who had been legally invested with them to others, who, sustained by a power outside the forms of law, claim to act and do act in their stead.
The North American Division (NAD) Year-end Meeting (YEM) discussed the voted action of the 2019 General Conference Annual Council. A suggestion was made there which some think solves the women's ordination debacle. But would it?
For those still coming up to speed, last month the General Conference Executive Committee--the body holding the highest agreed upon authority of the world church except that of a General Conference Session--voted to issue a warning to six unions which are actively opposing the decisions of the General Conference in Session. In the NAD, the Pacific and Columbia Unions, and conferences in those Unions, have acted unilaterally to ordain women to the gospel ministry. The Annual Council recognized the persistent non-compliance of those entities and voted a warning to them.
The present leadership of the North American Division, under whose authority Columbia and Pacific Unions and subsidiary Conferences operate, rather than supporting world church decisions, has refused to correct these entities for which the NAD bears responsibility. More than this, the NAD has insulated them from accountability to the world church decisions. In floor debate on Nov. 3 there was discussion of “protecting” these errant union leaders.
In the November 3, 2019 NAD YEM business meeting, current NAD president Dan Jackson stated,
I will say this plainly: we respect and love the leaders of the Columbia and Pacific Unions and their membership. They are in good standing in the North American Division and will continue to be so, unless they start worshiping on Sunday. But they are as accepted as any other Union, and loved as every Union is. So, in terms of the NAD, we have no way to relate to the warning idea, nor will we.
And
My prayer would be that on the other side of General Conference [2020] we would never see this thing again.
And
I think it would be wise on the part of our brethren, who are our brethren, [the General Conference] to say, 'Let's pull the world church together, and let's quit on this business'. . . I am saying, in the grand scheme of things we have to recognize that Jesus is coming. And while people are dying around the world, we're fighting about this? . . . This is becoming a colossal waste of time and energy in my opinion. I am not advocating for or against women's ordination in saying that. I am just merely saying, it's time to move on.
In other words, the NAD president is proposing that in spite of several General Conference Session voted decisions, the world church should do nothing to those entities which are acting in opposition to the world church. In effect, the result of this course of inaction would be the de facto adoption of the practice of women's ordination.
How convenient.
Rebel Unions and Conferences have usurped authority. By ordaining women to the gospel ministry they have enshrined the golden calf of women's ordination. Similarly to how the unbiblical practice of ordaining women as elders was subtly integrated into policy through winding maneuvers, the NAD president now proposes that the church "move on" regarding women's ordination.
Are advocates of women's ordination willing to have their preferred practice at this price? Are they willing to enact women's ordination by this maneuver? Do they think the Church at large will accept this backdoor slither?
It may be, God forbid, that this rebellion will succeed. It is not as though this was not premeditated. In a recent webcast, Gerry Wagoner, stated,
You hear language about, they don't want to split the church. I'm here to tell you, and I say this with sadness, the church is already split; it was split when these people decided to violate the General Conference Session vote, from that point on.
The Church is Split
It has been split since the day the pro-women's ordination faction decided that it would disregard voted General Conference Session decisions.
By the pro-women ordination faction's choice to act on their own authority, and to disregard the world church's authority, authority has been usurped. The ordination of women to the gospel ministry can only be engaged in on the basis of the illegitimate exercise of power. Every woman ordained to the gospel ministry is accompanied by the smell of usurped authority. The same odor clings to entities condoning and protecting these allegedly ordained persons.
We are not saying these women are insincere. No doubt many are sincere. But if there is a legitimate way to embrace the ordination of women, this is not the way. In today’s thought climate we must realize that perceived sincerity is often used to overrule facts. But the church of God cannot operate in that way.
The pro-women's ordination faction has seized its longed-for credentials. They have made the cold calculation that the world church will decide that it can live with this usurpation.
Usurpers of authority usually have a plausible cover story. No surprise then, that the pro-women's ordination faction in our church does too. Supposedly, the Unions have the right not only to determine who qualifies for ordination, but what the very requirements for ordination are--independent of the world church! Supposedly, the entity from which they derive their authority, the world church, somehow lacks authority to countermand the decisions of its subsidiary parts! That is logically impossible.
Let there be no misunderstanding. The North American Division is sharply divided over the practice of women's ordination. Many Conference, Union, and Division leaders support it; and many of the Division's staunchest members disagree with it. Non-compliance in the North American Division has divided the church.
Into that situation the NAD president now voices his proposal that the church henceforth leave the topic alone; that the practice of women's ordination be permitted to continue with no further action.
Church members in the NAD are deeply grieved by the example of rebellion seen in their Division leaders. If nothing is done to stop this illegitimate practice of women’s ordination, and such ordination of women to the gospel ministry continues to be practiced, those ordinations will now be seen to occur clearly on the basis of usurped authority. This will trigger reassessments, possibly quite sweeping ones, by North American church members and others.
American church leaders may feel they face a crisis of legitimacy now. Wait until it dawns on members at large that rejection of the authority of the world church here means the same rejection the next time one of the NAD's darling practices comes into conflict with the Bible sensibilities of the world church! What then?
We already know the answer.
Then, as this time, the decisions of the world church in Session will be disregarded. Then, as this time, and at every other time to follow, the pro-whatever-the-issue-is-then faction may recycle the claim they must disobey the world Church in order to obey God.
When pro-women's ordination faction entities decided they would disregard the General Conference Session decisions on women's ordination, they set in motion then--not now, but then--a sequence of events which are now in process.
While North American leaders may have the hubris to dare the GC, as the Pacific Union president did at Annual Council, to dissolve them via Working Policy B95, and while the GC may or may not in the end be willing to do that, the members themselves have options at their disposal about what they will do.
Decisions which would be unthinkable under normal circumstances have a place at the table when legitimate authority has been usurped. There is danger of members veering off into an ill-advised plan B.
There is a better plan:
The practice of women's ordination to the gospel ministry must be ended in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Larry Kirkpatrick serves as pastor of SDA churches in Muskegon and Fremont Michigan. He has been employed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a minister of the gospel for a quarter of a century.