The Oklahoma Conference of Seventh-day Adventists holds their regular Conference Constituency Meeting this Sunday on April 18th.
Delegates received a paper outlining bylaws changes just a couple days ahead of the meeting. One of the proposed changes affecting the relationship of the Oklahoma Conference to the world Church is substantive.
Constitution & Bylaws Changes
Notice how the proposed changes (line 19) inserts the North American Division (NAD) in lieu of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as the source of working policy ‘harmony’ for Oklahoma.
Notice how line 22 scrubs the General Conference (world Church) completely from the Constitution as the epitome of Oklahoma’s mission, substituting in its place the NAD again.
I am told by sources that I trust that the NAD is recommending these changes to local Conferences (pressuring them).
If the NAD was ideologically and theologically aligned with the GC, then this change—while odd—might be no big deal. However, under the current circumstances, this is a real bad thing to do. It also raises the question, why alter the relationship of the Oklahoma Conference to the world Church after all these years?
These changes appear to be an attempt of the NAD to separate smaller entities of the Seventh-day Adventist Church from the world Church. I hope it fails.
The Oklahoma Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has many good people in it. My prayer is that informed delegates will reject any attempt to align their Conference with a mere Division instead of the worldwide Body that we are all part of.
Full page documents:
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“Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, But a just weight is His delight” (Proverbs 11:1).