Gender Discrimination

Titus 1:5-7

King James Version (KJV)

⁵ For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.  For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God.

My great-grandfather was an Adventist.   In his later years he lived with my grandfather.  My grandfather was an itinerant preacher in the Michigan conference.  His brother was sent by Ellen White as a missionary to freed slaves in the South.  My father spent 42 years as a missionary to Africa.  He founded a university at Solusi Mission.  He spent 18 years teaching and being an administrator at Helderberg College.  He carved an Adventist Academy for over 700 students from virgin bush in Zambia.  So I am at least 4^th generation Adventist.

When I was born in the first years of World War II, I was reared in the strictest form of Seventh-day Adventism.  I attended Adventists schools from my first year in school through a Bachelor of Science.  I was taught that the Bible is the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy was given to point us to the Bible.  The Bible is the foundation of both individual Christian life and the Church.  I gave my life and career to the Church as a foreign missionary and educator. 

I have watched the Church grow and prosper where it followed the council and guidance of Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy.  It has grown from an insignificant American sect to a vast Spirit-led worldwide denomination.  It has worked its way from a works-based theology to a grace-based dynamo of spiritual power.

Following the example of Ellen White, the Church has encouraged all members, male and female, to contribute as witnesses to the world.  Over the years I have been interested in how we have ordained men and women as elders and deacons as Bible sanctioned officials of the Church.  We have interpreted “husband of one wife” (KJV) to mean “faithful in marriage” (CEV).  This choice has stood us well.

The Church has a group of officials whom they pay.  The rest of the officials perform their duty as many did in early Christian times, namely voluntarily and without pay.  Now the Church has become of two minds.  The Church is happy to ordain the volunteers without reference to gender even though many of them are mentioned as elders and deacons in Titus.  The majority of Church leaders have decided to not be consistent and insist that those whom the church is paying must now follow the instructions above and be husbands, i.e. males.  On the contrary a strong minority of Church leaders have decided that they will be consistent in their Christian belief and treat and pay the officials equally without reference to their gender.  This disagreement is fast escalating into a rift.

The Church, my Church, is racing down a road to self-destruction and significant loss of human souls to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.  My soul weeps to see the leaders of the Church, to which I have given 47 years of service, doing their utmost to destroy the very Church I love. 

May the all wise, all powerful, gracious Lord Jesus Christ be able to convince my church leaders to be gentle in their leadership and totally fair in how they treat everyone whom He has called to be His officials.