Why the Push for Women’s Ordination?

screenshot from http://christorculture.com

 ”Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”— Isaiah 58:1

Did you ever wonder why it is that discussions on the ordination of women into the ministry continue within the higher levels of the Seventh-day Adventist church leadership, especially the North American Division? This despite the fact that many church leaders and members, especially outside of North America and Europe are steadfast to uphold the Bible standard of ordination for men only. Why is it at the 2010 General Conference Session in Atlanta, Georgia that the theology of ordination was once again made the subject of research and discussion. As a considerable amount of time, money, and effort is expended on this seemingly endless narrative one must wonder that something is behind all of this. For most Adventists the theology of ordination is as straight forward as the theology of marriage and the family if we simply take the Bible as it reads. So why does the topic of women’s ordination keep arising when the flock starves for real spiritual food? The bottom line answer is money. Yes the love of money is the driving force behind all of this. Let us look at the evidence from the mouth of the church leaders themselves.

“Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight [thereof], not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;” — 1 Peter 5:2

The severely flawed unscriptural reasoning that is used to justify the full ordination of women into the ministry has been thoroughly refuted by conservative Adventist theologians and will not be addressed in this post. We recommend an excellent presentation from Adventists Affirm that exposes the feminist ideology that has infiltrated the church to get acquainted with the subject, also a new website that focuses on this issue from many perspectives, christorculture.com.

What we would like to draw your attention to is the underlying motivation for this senseless undermining on the fundamental Bible doctrine of ordination. A research paper by Bert Haloviak, former director of the General Conference Archives, entitled: “Money and Theology: IRS and Redefining SDA Ministry” provides the answer. According to the paper, ever since the 1970′s the church leadership has been in a desperate struggle to redefine the theology of ordination in order to keep the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) out of the church coffers (see also: “How Money Got Us Into Trouble” by C. M. Maxwell). Herein is the trouble, the Seventh-day Adventist church has been incorporated with the state ever since the late 1950′s in order to gain favor from the government in the form of tax exemption status as an IRS 501c3 organization. As a result once you bow to Caesar for a favor then you must follow Caesar’s laws. The IRS defines that ministry (i.e. employees) must be “equal” for men and women and insists on compliance or else you will lose the tax exempt favor and could be liable for up to ten years in back taxes. For the corporate Seventh-day Adventist church this would amount of tens of millions of dollars! So how can the church uphold the Bible standard on ordination when the government demands something different? It called politics and it has been going on for over four decades as church leaders desperately attempt to appease the hand that grants them the favor while at the same time trying to keep the church membership in the dark. Hence we have a long history of discussions and research into the theology of ordination for one purpose—to redefine the role of women so that they can be made “equal” with men and keep the IRS off their backs and risk losing a whole lot of tithe monies. So it seems that our church leaders have completely left God out of their decision making. Is it little wonder that they are in such a strange and unmerciful trap?

The troubles with going to Caesar (the government) for favors is that in reality you forfeit the Lordship of Jesus Christ and by asking Caesar to be your head. The legal implications of church incorporation are enormous. In essence by becoming a state incorporated entity the church loses all its legal rights under the United States (US) Constitution (common law) and becomes subject to corporate law, the law that governs corporations. For a full perspective on this most serious act of treason to the government of God, please investigate some of the papers at the following link which make plain the dangers of church incorporation and the Biblical implications. We have also published a thorough research into the dangers of church incorporation from the perspective of Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy directed at various Seventh-day Adventist religious associations and ministries that have wholesale fallen into this trap as well. This is particularly ironic since most independent Adventist ministries are staunch to defend the the Bible in regard to ordination, yet on the other hand are almost all IRS 501c3 organizations! A strange paradox indeed, especially for Seventh-day Adventists who are supposed to warn the world of the emerging mark of the beast system in which the US constitution will be thrown into the proverbial scrapheap. Why is it that we are leading the charge by voluntarily giving up our constitutional protections of free speech and freedom of religion and then turn around and tell the world not to accept the mark of the beast? Do you really expect anyone to believe us?  

Truly if there ever was a time for revival and reformation amongst God’s people, it is now. What will it take to awaken us from our slumber?

Tagged as: church leaders, compromise, equality, feminism, Galatians 3:28, incorporation, IRS 501c3, male priesthood, oridination, Seventh-day Adventist church, women's ordination