Jesus is our “brand” so truth is our “brand.” How do we know what truth is? We study the Bible, we think, we preach and teach. “Christians should stand ready to accept all the light which may shine from God’s holy word.”(The Great Controversy, p. 297)

We preach and teach in groups. We gather to preach and teach. When we gather we listen. When we listen we are listening to a presenter. To broaden our understanding of a topic we often bring in guest speakers. We want to hear different viewpoints from presenters who are experienced Christians and have a depth of knowledge in and are drawing from the inspired Scriptures. By listening to a variety of voices we seek to correct for possible bias in our own views.

Advent Movement Founded on Guest Speakers

Consider the experience of William Miller:

As his work tended to build up the churches, it was for a time regarded with favor. But as ministers and religious leaders decided against the advent doctrine and desired to suppress all agitation of the subject, they not only opposed it from the pulpit, but denied their members the privilege of attending preaching upon the second advent, or even of speaking of their hope in the social meetings of the church. Thus the believers found themselves in a position of great trial and perplexity. They loved their churches and were loath to separate from them; but as they saw the testimony of God’s word suppressed and their right to investigate the prophecies denied they felt that loyalty to God forbade them to submit. Those who sought to shut out the testimony of God’s word they could not regard as constituting the church of Christ, ‘the pillar and ground of the truth.’ Hence they felt themselves justified in separating from their former connection. In the summer of 1844 about fifty thousand withdrew from the churches. (The Great Controversy, pp. 320-321)

William Miller, a Baptist, was a sought for presenter. He preached thousands and thousands of times as a guest speaker. God uses many different persons to share His truth. Miller’s preaching was eventually suppressed. By suppressing a speaker, one suppresses the message of the speaker. What we would today call Miller’s seminar presentations spread important biblical insight across all of America’s northeastern seaboard. Until, that is, he was suppressed.

We should be alert and interested whenever we are made aware of a desire to suppress information. A chief characteristic of the Papacy was that it engaged in suppression. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth; it is not intended to be an agency of suppression.

A Change in the Church Manual

A change of substantial and destructive import was introduced into the latest edition of the Church Manual. This change seems to grant conferences veto power over which guest speakers local churches might be able to invite. Although intelligent and impassioned warnings were voiced against the adoption of this far-reaching change, it was voted into the Manual in 2022. The chief changes are worded as follows:

The local elders or church board may also invite speakers, in consultation with the pastor, and in harmony with the conference guidelines.(Church Manual, p. 126)

No one should be allowed to speak to any congregation unless he/she has been invited by the church in harmony with the guidelines given by the conference.(p. 35)

These changes, in the way they now are being employed, signal a new denial to church members of the privilege of attending preaching, by removing the liberty of local church congregations and members to hear for themselves in the churches where they hold membership Bible messages which contradict preferred opinions.

No Restriction by List

As one continuously employed in pastoral ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church for three decades I can describe to you how things work. Normally, the pastor of a congregation has charge over its preaching schedule:

The pastor, with the assistance of the elders, is expected to plan for and lead out in all spiritual services, such as Sabbath morning worship and prayer meeting, and should officiate at the communion service and baptism.(p. 33)

A pastor is often assigned to serve a district of churches. He may be responsible for serving two, four, or more congregations in his district. It is common for pastors to have the head elders of their churches assist with preparing the preaching schedule. Often the elders do the scheduling and arrange for speakers for sabbaths when the pastor is preaching at other churches in his district. In a four church district, on any given sabbath, three of the speakers may have been selected and scheduled entirely by elders. Thus, members who are not pastors are often involved in selecting guest speakers.

Conferences usually make available to their pastors a list of conference officers, retired ministers, and other capable laypersons local to that conference who can be called upon as potential speakers in their churches. These lists have never been understood as designating the only persons allowed to preach. Indeed, usually only a few of the names live close by; sometimes none are close enough. Their service is mostly in the congregation where they hold membership. Rare indeed is the pastor who can populate the pulpits of his churches with substantial spiritual messages without heavy reliance on his congregation’s elders and laypersons, supplemented by other laypersons and guest speakers!

Priesthood of all Believers

Seventh-day Adventists believe that church members are part in a priesthood of all believers. Some serve in one office, some in another, but all are priests. All have a direct line to God, pray to Him, receive grace and help from Him, encourage and strengthen one another, and labor to build up the Church. God gives to every member spiritual gifts to build up the Church—more voices not less.

We unite in prayer, worship, fellowship, and in church governance. Some of the authority the Father gives to Jesus, Jesus passes on to the membership of the church (Matthew 28:18-20). All believers are watchmen on the wall (Isaiah 62:1-2, 6-7). From the membership at the individual and local church some of this authority is distributed onward. Some are made pastors, some presidents, and lent in limited measure part of this authority.

Rights Not Given are Rights Retained

This limited flow of authority from the bottom of the structure toward its top in no way undermines the authority remaining in the root of the structure—the members of the local church. Nor is this a novel conception. The same view on authority is enshrined in the United States’ Declaration of Independence and its Bill of Rights.

The Declaration of Independence recognizes that all humans have natural, or unremovable rights. These are rights we have because we are human. We all partake in a fundamental liberty which cannot be negotiated away or auctioned off for convenience. The tenth amendment in the Bill of Rights points out that those powers not delegated to the nation or to the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people.

Rights not lent in trust to another body are rights retained. In like manner, if the church membership has not granted an authority to the conference or other church entities, that authority is retained at the level of the individual church member or local church.

Remember, Jesus has all power. Some of this power He has lent to the church membership. From the membership, some authority is lent onward to pastors and representatives and presidents. None deny that those in church leadership are granted an implicit authority to address error that is plain.

And yet, the authority that the membership lends to a conference president is not a blank check or a license to strip away other authorities not lent. Church membership has never granted church administrators power to cancel speakers whose opinions concerning disputed matters the administrator would prefer to suppress. Unless the membership has intentionally ceded an absolute and complete control over the appointment of guest speakers in the local congregation, that absolute authority has never been consciously given to the conference. The members of the church have never appointed conference leaders to serve as thought police or to do member’s thinking for them and even decide which opinions they are permitted to hear in their own churches.

Recently there has been a fundamental degradation of the liberties of church members. The principle of religious liberty protects not only conscience but freedom of thought. In the Church we value Spirit-led free thought; we do not suppress it.

Long-standing Wording

Bearing these things in mind, let us review that wording in the Church Manual which remained unchanged for the 90 years from 1932 through until the 2022 edition (pp. 120-121):

Unauthorized speakers. —Our churches have often been imposed upon by having unworthy persons invited to speak to them. Under no circumstances should a minister, elder, or other church officer invite strangers or any unauthorized persons to take any service, or to speak in or take part in a public way in any service or meeting of the church. Sometimes men who have been dropped from the ministry, or who have been dismissed from church fellowship in other places, or designing persons who have had no connection with the church, will appear and with great plausible words gain admittance to our churches. Great care should be exercised to prevent this. Every one worthy of the confidence of our churches will be able to identify himself by producing proper credentials. All others should be excluded. No deviation from this rule should be permitted. It is the duty of every elder, minister, and conference president to see that this rule is carried out.(1932 Ed., p. 168)

Here is the changed wording in 2022:

Authorized speakers—Only speakers worthy of confidence will be invited to the pulpit by the local church pastor, in harmony with guidelines given by the conference. (See “Terms used in the Church Manual,” pp. 19-20.) The local elders or church board may also invite speakers, in consultation with the pastor, and then in harmony with conference guidelines. Individuals who are no longer members, or who are under discipline, should not be given access to the pulpit.

At times it is acceptable for government officials or civic leaders to address a congregation, but all others should be excluded from the pulpit unless permission is granted by the conference. Every pastor, elder, and conference president must enforce this rule. (See p. 34, 124-125.)(pp. 126-127)

Wording similar to pp. 126-127 does not appear in the 1942 Manual but is found in the 1951 edition (p. 167). In 2022 the new concept of “conference guidelines” is added.

Example Implementation of Guest Speaker Guidelines

The result of this change has been the rapid development by conferences of individualized policies. Consider one conference’s “Guest Speaker Guidelines” policy (I have omitted the name of the conference as their policy is here presented merely as an example):

AC-2022-99 Policy - Inviting Speakers of Independent Ministries

There are several independent ministries within the North American Division, and indeed, in other territories outside the Division. It is essential to understand that there are independent ministries that are ‘adversarial’ and ‘controversial’ against the values of the _____ Conference, rather than ‘supportive’. There may be instances when the leaders of independent ministries are invited to speak within the territory of the _____ Conference. We must use caution as we consider inviting the leaders of these independent ministries to speak within the _____ Conference. Here are some principles to help you guide your congregations when inviting someone as a speaker.

(a) Are they critical of the Adventist Church as an organization?

(b) Do they support the return of the tithes and offerings to the local church? Or do they encourage the tithes and offerings to be diverted to their ministry?

(d) What has been the track record of the result of their messages? Does it create division? Or does it bring unity?

(e) Is the message in harmony with the fundamental beliefs of the SDA church?

(f) Please remind your remembers to speak with you first before inviting someone.

(g) If in doubt, please contact the VP for pastoral ministries or the VP for Administration.

A friend of mine was recently barred from speaking in this conference. He was informed by the conference in question that it had “no confidence” in his ministry. As I reviewed the “guidelines,” I realized that he supports the world church position against the ordination of women to the gospel ministry. He is an exemplary church member and a careful worker who intelligently presents the teaching of Scripture and seeks to turn hearts to Jesus.

Since when is a conference encouraged to have its own values different from those of the global church? In General Conference Sessions in 1990, 2005, 2015, delegates have voted no, no, and no, to initiatives that would have in one way or another approved the ordination of women to the gospel ministry. This is the highest level decision-making voice of the Church. And yet, the guest speaker policy of a conference whose leadership has by actual vote implemented “values” stand directly in opposition to those of the global church sought to bar his presence. Guest speakers from outside the conference are not permitted who support the voted world church position.

Consider further the extreme subjectivity of the “guideline” asking whether division is the result of the messages of that speaker. If the values of this conference are different from the values of its own world church, then no surprise when that speaker’s content doesn’t match its “values.”

Additional observations:

• If barring unworthy guest speakers has been such a crucial issue in the Church, why did the wording remain dormant and unchanged for 90 years?

• Is this a “rule” or a “guideline”? Guidelines have no penalties attached; they encourage cooperation. A “rule” usually comes with penalties. In the conference whose policy we reviewed, the 2022-added “guideline” is being enforced as a rule. One congregation, after inviting a speaker its conference claimed did not fit its guidelines, has been threatened it will be disbanded if it disregards conference “guidelines” again. Another had its member’s memberships threatened by its pastor, access to its six-digit bank account blocked, and equipment funded by membership carried away.

• The shift from barring unauthorized speakers to allowing only authorized speakers is a change from blacklist to whitelist methodology. Since a whitelist is a list of only approved names, it is immeasurably more restrictive than a list of forbidden names.

• The guest speaker guideline as implemented in the example above has been arbitrarily enforced, as institutions connected to that same conference have, in recent time, hosted other guest speakers advocating positions contradicting the decisions of the world church.

• For the past 90 years of church governance we have one denomination-wide standard; now, in 2022 comes a dramatic shift to conference-specific standards.

Although at first blush there seem to be no guardrails or safeguards provided by the Church Manual for the new option for “conference guidelines,” there exists, in fact, a crucial safeguard in the Manual:

No attempt should be made to set up standards of membership or to make, or attempt to enforce, rules or regulations for local church operations that are contrary to these decisions, adopted by the General Conference in Session and that are set forth in this Church Manual.(pp. 17-18)

By this measure, the “guidelines” of that conference include a provision exactly contradictory to the world church at the question of women’s ordination, and are therefore null and void.

A Warning

Whether all parties involved understand it or not, the new approach reaches out to intercept authority Jesus has given to the membership, and reset the power, so that instead of resting in the membership it rests in the administration. Then, it employs power from above to achieve a political object. Currently (2023), it is being used to suppress voices which have opposed women’s ordination. If this reset continues, this new power to suppress will be employed to oppress members and workers when new agendas rise to prominence.

Once the reset has fully taken hold, machinery that was created to lead hearts to Jesus and present truth will be turned to oppress members. This new big-brothering of members and suppression of guest speakers has brought into the open the rapid politicization of the Church—not by conservative zealots but by “progressive” new modelers. Naked authoritarianism is now on display as faithful workers are singled-out for suppression.

If this new approach takes hold, it will mean that hundreds of unique “guidelines” will arise, each different from the next. In effect, this will mark the end of the unified church; it is congregationalism but on the conference rather than local congregational level. This change not only upends the authority of the Church but is a new tool to bypass checks and balances. Changes desired by elements within church administration, which they know the global body in General Conference Session would never directly permit, are now being accomplished piecemeal on a conference-by-conference basis. Accountability to the membership is being bypassed while the Church is suffering.

This new change is destabilizing in the extreme and is, in effect, a self-inflicted attack on the unity of the Church. This new wording as written lends itself to abuse and is speeding fragmentation within the denomination. It is a de facto lockdown against guest speakers who support the decision of the world church.

Conclusion

Authority rests in the membership. While members anticipate that the presentation of plain error would be prevented by church leaders, the membership has never granted administrative elements of the Church authority to suppress that which falls within the range of accepted opinion.

I request that the Autumn Council of the General Conference, meeting October 5-11, 2023, act to denominationally freeze all development of “guest speaker guideline” implementations while the matter can be more carefully studied and obvious abuses which so immediately have come to light can be corrected. I am asking for the General Conference to revisit the wording in the Church Manual on pages 35 and 126 and to act preserve the liberty of local churches to invite guest speakers who are members in regular standing, who sustain the fundamental beliefs of the Church, and who support the decisions of the church voted in General Conference Session.

****

Larry Kirkpatrick serves as pastor of the Muskegon and Fremont MI Seventh-day Adventist churches. His website is GreatControversy.org and YouTube channel is “Larry the guy from Michigan.” Every morning Larry publishes a new devotional video.

Articles