···ORDAINING WOMEN Faculty Debates at Andrews
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Bleeding Silently iI]. South Africa Letters on Azaria, Education i ................................ , Journal of the Association of AdventisfForums Volume 17, Number 2 ···ORDAINING WOMEN Faculty Debates at Andrews . Arguments Against Ordination Critiquing the Critics SPECTRUM Editorial Board Consulting Editors Roy Benton Earl W. Amundson Margaret McFarland Editor Chairman. Mathematics Department Church Administration Attorney Columbia Union College Karen Bottomley Washington. D.C. Roy Bransqn Roy Branson History LaVonne Neff Ethics. Kennedy Institute Calgary. Alberta . Publishing , Senior Editor Georgetown University Bonnie L. Casey Downers Grove. Illinois Tom Dybdahl Molleurus Couperus WriterlEditor 'Ronald Numbers Physician Washington. D.C. History of Medicine News Editor Angwin, California Raymond Cottrell University of Wisconsin Bonnie Dwyer Gene Daffern Theology Gary Patterson Physician Lorna Linda. California President Manuscript Editor Frederick. 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Litho USA In This Issue Vol. 17, No.2, December 1986 Articles Bleeding Silently-Adventists in South Africa Roy Branson 2 Special Section: Ordaining Women Women Elders: The Education of Pioneer Memorial Church Stella Ramirez Grieg 14 Ordaining Women: The Andrews Faculty Responds S~entA1ovement 20 The Ordination of Women: A Plea for Caution Bryan Ball 39 Adventists Against Ordination: A Critical Review John Brunt 55 Responses 63 ted to the 1988 Spring Council. About This Issue Papers for the commission included the first essays by Adventist academics opposed to the ace relations and the role of women ordination of women. Those are reviewed in this R are two of the moral issues con issue by John Brunt, a New Testament scholar fronting both society and Adventism. who is dean of the school of theology at Wana This issue reports on what some Adventists, Walla College. One of the essays he discusses particularly black laypeople, are doing inside South appears in this issue-that by Bryan Ball, the Africa regarding apartheid. The journal welcomes president of Avondale College. comments that expand or clarify the picture Stella Grieg reports on the outcome of the debate presented here. at Andrews University over whether women The central symbol of how the church regards should be ordained to the post of local church women has understandably become ordination of elder, a step already accepted by the General Con women to the ministry. In the early 1970s the ference. We also reproduce lively and extended church encouraged women to enter the Adventist exchanges from issues of the campus newspaper Seminary, convened the Mohaven conference appearing during that time among members of the where treatises by denominational theologians faculty concerning ordination of women to the favored ordination of women, and hired female gospel ministry. graduates of the seminary to serve as associate Finally, a table in the previous issue intended to pastors. But in the mid-1980s the General Con indicate the population growth of Asian/South ference forced one conference committee in North Pacific peoples in North America was incorrectly America to stop its women pastors from perform titled as referring to Asian/South Pacific SDAs in ing baptisms. Just prior to the 1985 Spring Coun North America. Asian/South Pacific Adventists in cil the General Conference Commission to Study North America number approximately 15,000 the Ordination of Women to the Gospel Ministry while the total number of Asian/South Pacific decided the matter should receive still further peoples in North America is close to 3.5 million. study, with commission recommendations submit- We regret the error. -The Editors Bleeding Silently Adventists in South Africa by Roy Branson he homes of more than 20 black black Southern Union Mission. Black Advent T Adventist families in South Africa ists are the members suffering the most. were burned to the ground from the end of 1985 Toward the end of 1985 one member, looking to the middle of 1986. During that time, at least out of the window of his home at police firing six Seventh-day Adventists were shot or "neck on rioters, was killed by a police bullet. In early laced"-their hands tied behind them, their 1986 a female colporteur in Soweto, who kept necks put through a tire, their bodies drenched several cats, aroused the fear of superstitious with gasoline and set ablaze until they were neighbors. They branded her a witch and she nothing but ashes. was necklaced. During April 1986, in the city of While Adventists share in the agony of South Bloemfontein, the young Adventist consul Africa, the official Adventist church-black and general for Ciskei, one of the so-called indepen white-remains virtually silent about the moral dent homelands for blacks, drove with his girl issues embroiling South Africa. That, at least, friend back from an alumni meeting of Bethel was the situation I found during a visit in College-the black Adventist college in South August 1986 with church leaders, labor repre Africa Both were shot and killed. sentatives, and academics in the cities of Johan Also in the early part of 1986, a black Advent nesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town. ist, working for