On May 16th, the Texas Conference will hold their regular Biennial Constituency meeting. Among the regular agenda items, there is a controversial bylaws change that is proposed.
Article IV - Officers and Their Duties
Observations
Under Section 1, a. the Texas Conference is trying to make the qualifications for Conference resident gender-neutral AND add the term ‘commissioned’ as a requirement to hold this office. This is about women’s ordination, friends. The Texas Conference is seeking to defy the will of the Seventh-day Adventist global Church, which states that a Conference President must be an ordained male (E-60).
(See above) the E-60 section in the GC Working Policy states that only ordained ministers can be president of a Conference or Mission Field. In 2010 & 2011, the NAD attempted to change this policy and add “commissioned” to the requirement—at their year end meeting(s). (This idea originated through 2009 collusion between the previous NAD president and previous General Conference President Jan Paulsen.) After it was voted and approved by the NAD, the legal department informed Dan Jackson that the NAD could not legally make that change, because a Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not have its own constituency—Divisions are the direct bodies through whom the GC carries out its policies. And, as the Divisions are bound by the policy of the GC, so the Unions are bound by the policy of the GC and the Divisions. The theory circulating that Unions have some inherent right to create their own ordination standards is simply false. They have what in the law is called ‘ministerial authority’ to carry out and apply the standards created by the GC, which has discretionary authority to change or vary the standards. So, Divisions are the direct bodies through whom the GC carries out its policies, even though the NAD tried to break from that obligation in 2010 (the same year that Dan Jackson was elected).
On January 31, 2012, Dan Jackson sent a letter of apology to the NAD Constituents saying they would reverse that change. Since then, the NAD has kept the same policy as the GC. This means that the Texas Conference is—at minimum— out of policy with the NAD by making these changes to its Constitution, and also out of policy with the entire worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The gender-neutral language of these constitution changes reveals without any doubt that this is about advancing female headship.
In Article III — Relationships, the constitution states that the Texas Conference “shall pursue the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist church in harmony with the . . . . initiatives adopted and approved by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.” Yet, the Texas Conference is trying to do just the opposite with Article VI changes.
As observed in the Oklahoma Conference’s recent attempt to distance themselves from the GC, much of the impetus for these changes is coming from the North American Division.
The Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has many good people in it. My prayer is that informed delegates will reject this unbiblical attempt to place their Conference out of harmony with the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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“Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us” (Isaiah 8:10) .