EDITORIAL NOTE: From the AT Archive; Sep/Oct 1993

AT exists, in part, to call our church to live out her high ideals. This article by co-founder and editor emeritus, Raymond Cottrell highlights a systemic change that could help us achieve a more just church society.

Our July-August issue presented statements by the Arizona Conference (AC) as plaintiff and Adventist Health System/West (AHS/W) as defendant in a case before the Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. Each claims jurisdiction over proceeds of the sale of Tempe Community Hospital (TCH) to St Luke's Hospital of nearby Phoenix.

In essence, the crux of the issue is whether the arrangement by which the hospital became a member of what is now AHS/W, in 1973, involved a transfer of ownership (as AHS/W maintains), or an agreement by which AHS/W was to operate the TCH for the conference (as it maintains).

Both litigants agree that proceeds from the sale were dedicated to the medical/health outreach of the church in Arizona. Subsequently AHS/W invested the proceeds in an Arizona project that failed financially. AHS/W maintains that the failed project fulfilled its responsibility with respect to investing the proceeds in Arizona; the AC maintains that in accepting management of the hospital, AHS/W is still obliged to establish and operate a medical or health-oriented facility in Arizona as originally agreed, or return proceeds of the sale to the AC for that purpose.

There are several as yet unresolved questions, and a judicial decision in the case has yet to be made. In the meantime it is appropriate to ask why the conference considered it necessary to take AHS/W to court--why the issue could not have been resolved amicably between the litigants themselves, or by arbitration--within the church. This is probably the first time one entity of the church has entered into formal litigation with another church entity.

Inasmuch as AC and AHS/W are both entities of the Pacific Union Conference (PUC), why was the PUC not able to resolve this issue in a way acceptable to both? One reason is that the president of the PUC is also the chairman of the AHS/W board, a fact that inevitably gives rise to a conflict of interest that would tend automatically to result in a decision against AC. The effect of this conflict of interest became painfully evident at the AC constituency meeting early this year.

Why, then, did the litigants not appeal to the next higher echelon of church organization--the North American Division--to mediate or adjudicate the dispute? The answer is simply that there is no adequate mediation or adjudicatory mechanism in church polity by which the division, or even the General Conference, could do so.

The United States constitution provides for a separation of powers--legislative, administrative, and judicial--with a system of checks and balances that prevents any one of the three from exercising arbitrary authority. Each of the three is independent of the other two, yet subject to them.

Questions that have not been or cannot be resolved on the legislative or administrative levels, or by a lower court, are referred to the nine justices of the Supreme Court. For all practical purposes the Supreme Court is independent of Congress and the executive branch of government, and this relative immunity to political pressure invests its decisions with a level of credibility we accept as a practical working arrangement even when we dislike its decisions.

In striking contrast, the Seventh-day Adventist hierarchical system of church polity gives its administrators almost complete legislative and judicial, as well as administrative, authority. There is no effective separation of powers. Those who make policy administer it, and when questions arise as to whether they have done so properly, they are the ones who sit in judgment. There is no independent, and thus credible, adjudicatory apparatus.

Why has the church not developed a credible adjudicatory system? As a member of the Southeastern California Conference Constitution Committee from 1986 to 1992, I was asked to draft the constitution under which the conference has operated since 1989. My original draft included an article that provided for an independent judiciary composed of dedicated, competent, respected persons, to be elected at the same time and in the same manner as other conference officers, and like them, responsible to the constituency. That article was eventually eliminated from the document because administration feared it would lose control.

In summary, the Tempe case underscores the urgent need for an independent judiciary at each level of church government, to resolve otherwise unresolvable issues without bias or favoritism, in a way that is not only fair and just but that is perceived as fair and just. Such a system would enhance rather than diminish the role of administration in the life and mission of the church. It would prevent conflict of interest situations. It would spare administration the unhappy necessity of making decisions that tend to undermine respect and confidence in church leadership. It would enhance confidence in the integrity of administrators and thus tend to unify the church.

An independent judiciary has been a major factor in the success of the American system of government; a similar body at each level of church organization would do the same for the church. As history has demonstrated, the twin autocratic principles, "the divine right of kings" and "the king can do no wrong," are incompatible with democratic principles and a democratic society. As the Tempe lawsuit unfortunately demonstrates, they are equally inappropriate and counterproductive in the governance of the church.