Union and conference executives attending the October 1993 year-end meeting of the North American Division in Silver Spring, Maryland, were surprised to find that the subject of women's ordination had been removed from the agenda. At their spring meeting they had voted to place it on the agenda, and now they asked by whose authority they were denied the opportunity to discuss the issue. A source tells Adventist Today that Robert Folkenberg, church president, asked that it be taken off this agenda because a favorable action on it at this time would assist opponents in marshalling resistance at the 1994 Annual Council.

The whole story began on September 20,1992, when delegates to the regular Constituency Session of the Southeastern California Conference authorized its Executive Committee to "devise a plan by which qualified women ministers whom we employ be ordained for ministry within our jurisdiction of the world church" and to "eliminate further discrimination in our conference by uniformly conducting all future ordinations of qualified men and women ministers."

Of the 17 women currently serving in Southeastern as ministers, several are fully qualified for ordination and certification. Southeastern, therefore, considers their ordination an urgent moral imperative.

Pursuant to the constituency's resolution, the Executive Committee, "recognizing the necessity of implementing the September 20, 1992, SECC Constituency Session non-discriminatory resolution of gender inclusiveness," voted in February, 1993, to invite the North American Division and the Pacific Union Conference to support Southeastern in implementing the resolution.

As long ago as 1989 the Pacific Union Conference Executive Committee had voted"to eliminate gender as a consideration for ordination to the gospel ministry" and endorsed "the ordination of qualified women to the gospel ministry in divisions, unions, and conferences where deemed helpful and appropriate." In response to Southeastern's February request, the Pacific Union voted in May, 1993, to "reaffirm our support for the ordination of women into gospel ministry" and requested the North American Division to place this item on the agenda for consideration at its year-end meeting in October.

In view of the fact that in June 1989 the NAD union presidents had endorsed the ordination of women to the gospel ministry "in those divisions where it would be deemed helpful and appropriate," there was every reason to anticipate that NAD would respond favorably to the Southeastern California and Pacific Union requests. It did so at its spring meeting earlier this year, voting to place the ordination question on the year-end agenda.

Such was the process by which the issue of women's ordination had found a place on the year-end meeting agenda, and when the union and conference executives met in October they expected to find it there. When and by whose authority had it been removed?

An authoritative source that wishes to remain anonymous informs Adventist Today that on the day before the year-end meeting, Robert Folkenberg asked Alfred McClure, president of the North American Division, to remove it. Anticipating cultural problems in several world divisions of the church, such as Inter-America, South America and East Africa where the ordination of women is stoutly opposed, Folkenberg's request appears to be primarily in deference to this opposition.

Explaining his request to McClure, Folkenberg was heard to state his emphatic personal approval of ordaining women but said that if the NAD were to vote its approval at this time, those who are opposed would have a year in which to mount an offensive that might derail the proposal at the 1994 Annual Council of the General Conference. Our informant said the president feared "a blood bath."

In some of the world divisions, other questions regarding ordination need to be taken into account, Folkenberg said, such as one division's requirement that a minister serve for 25 years before being ordained. His plan is to introduce the broader subject of all these various questions about ordination at the 1994 Annual Council, with the proposal that ordination and other matters be decided by each division in harmony with what it considers best for the church in its part of the world. Folkenberg foresees that a favorable vote at that time will refer the recommendation to the 1995 session of the General Conference for approval.

The issue was last voted on by the 1990 General Conference session and, in deference to those divisions that oppose ordination, ordination of women was not approved. However, that vote did not forbid such ordination and any action taken by a local conference to ordain women would not be in violation of any action voted by either the North American Division or the General Conference.