Loyalty

Memories of Cohutta Springs in July, 1989 do not bring happy feelings to me. I wonder if other members of the commission feel satisfied, not just with the outcome, but with the deliberations themselves and the methods of arriving at a decision.

Our Purpose

We had gone to that beautiful retreat in Georgia at the request of the General Conference to serve on its Role of Women Commission. We were to try to work through the issues and problems facing the church regarding women in ministry and make a recommendation for the Annual Council to act on. The responsibilities were big and solemn. Perhaps I was naive, but I expected a less pragmatic, more spiritual approach. Aside from the morning devotions and ensuing prayers, the group did not spend time praying. Neither did we spend time searching the Scriptures. In fact, all the papers so painstakingly prepared were not really ever discussed either, in this Commission or at the earlier one in Washington, D. C.. Pages and pages were written offering different viewpoints of the roles of women from a Scriptural or historical perspective. But really, one need not have bothered to read them, for they were rarely referred to. By contrast, the Biblical Research Institute, for example, has papers read aloud at its meetings and then has the papers discussed in an orderly focused manner under the leadership of the chairman. But the Women's Commissions I attended went about their work in a very different manner.

Confusion

The best way I can describe the open forum discussion is an "orderly confusion". That is, each of us were allowed to vent our feelings and viewpoints without any real direction. No train of thought was pursued or followed up. A participant would often eloquently express a viewpoint, the chairman would make a positive remark or comment, and then the next person on the floor would be off on some other tangent. With great feelings and gusto the words spewed into the void and seemed to float around helplessly with no direction or ultimate force. Excellent thoughts were thus brought to the floor, only to dissipate with the next tangent. These days of discussion allowed for the venting of individual feelings, but the group arrived at no conclusions because of this mass humbo-jumbo, willy-nilly.

After a couple of days of this frustration we were suddenly confronted with having to make some kind of decision. We had no group consensus, because we had not even attempted to come to the bottom of the Scriptural injunctions, or even to follow to their logical conclusions any of the arguments presented. Behind the scenes someone had composed a statement that was pressed upon us as our only hope for accomplishing anything during this Commission.

Compromise

The proposal was a compromise; I doubt anyone was too happy about it. To please those who don't believe women should be ordained to the gospel ministry, it recommended that women should not be so ordained. To please those who want women to function as ministers, ordained or not, it recommended that they could function fully as ministers without being ordained. Suddenly it seemed we were in a terrible rush to be done. We were divided into small groups, each with a General Conference administrator in charge, and given only thirty minutes to discuss the proposal's ramifications. And we were so much as told that the proposal could not be altered, or its parts voted on as separate components. It either flew as a whole package or our time at Cohutta was in vain. And really, there was no time to think it through.

Vote

When the whole group reconvened, the proposal was brought for action. Very few were allowed to speak to the matter before "question" was called and a vote taken. Yet, despite all this terrific rush, there were still a day and a half of Commission time left! (It was used to discuss other aspects of the role of women.). When the vote was announced 56-11 in favor of allowing women to perform essentially all ministerial functions without ordination, I was stunned. I could not believe that there were only eleven persons against what, at best, I saw to be a mixed bag. First, I could not believe that all those delegates who I knew opposed ordination had voted for the compromise in hopes of thus settling the matter. Could they really have felt that this proposal was a final No to women's ordination?. Through one swift vote, the bottom was deftly cut out of the whole issue. Ordination to the ministry was not to be determined on a theological/scriptural basis but merely on the basis of gender. A woman may have full ministerial privilege—in other words do as any male colleague—but because she is woman, she is denied ordination. Second, I absolutely could not believe that anyone who favored ordination would stoop to vote for a compromise so blatantly sexist, even if it was considered a stopgap, a temporary expedient. How could anyone have conscientiously voted for such a proposal?.

Politics vs. Principle

Naively, I expected people to vote on principle—on different principles certainly, but to vote consistently with their own decided principles. I had fully expected the proposal to be shot down entirely, or at least modified considerably. Political process, otherwise known as rubber stamping, has always bothered me. Truth seems black and white to me, especially an issue Biblically oriented. If the Bible can be applied (or Spirit of Prophecy, for that matter), that is "end of argument" in my book. One just does not bargain with truth. Truth and politics do not mix—tit for tat, give a little, take a little. At the 1888 General Conference, a controversy arose over the identity of the tenth horn of Daniel 7. Some wanted to bring the issue to a vote—to decide truth through political process. E. J. Waggoner felt that truth should not be voted on. If the Bible made something sufficiently clear, it was not a voting matter; it was already decided. Ellen White continually urged that the Bible was to be the arbiter to settle controversies.

At the commission, we had spent so many days together and yet taken so little time to study deeply, to think carefully together about what the Scriptures said.

A Real Danger

I was disappointed in colleagues and leadership around our circle. And with disappointment comes a shift in attitude—towards people, towards the leadership, and ultimately towards the church. First comes sorrow, but one does not grieve forever. Pain turns into something else, and that something else determines one's outlook on life forever. The all-too-easy course is to go cynical, to become bitter to look on others' attempts to defend proceedings or to uphold leadership with a sneer and a bit of "consciousness raising". And cynicism is infectious. One does not tend to keep it to oneself. But bitter people are hardened people. They have seen too much, and all of life is colored blue. Their bitter experience becomes the basis of interpretation for all the rest of life. No, I do not wish to become bitter, cynical.

Loyalty

Perhaps the flip side of cynicism and bitterness is loyalty, a standing up for in spite of, not necessarily because of. To be loyal to others in spite of disappointment or perceived betrayal is at best difficult. At what point does one give in and stand behind (or at least become silent on) some issue that one has conscientiously stood against?. Ironically, the loyalty question may all be part of the larger picture of submission. I believe in submission—in the home, in the church, in the country the way the Bible has delineated. So in the end, perhaps the same principle applies here. We are loyal, we are submissive to authority, even in disagreement to a certain point. But there is a bottom line. "As is fit in the Lord," and "We ought to obey God rather than men," necessarily become the final measure of our actions (Col 3:18; Acts 5:29). We submit, we are loyal, as long as loyalty does not interfere with the principles that the Lord has given us in His Word.

Do we throw out the church or its leadership in attitude or practice?. Do we start sending tithe money elsewhere to show disapproval? Do we overtly criticize and mumble? Do we start an offshoot?. In the home, "As is fit in the Lord" would not give me reason to divorce my husband just because I did not see eye to eye with him on an issue. I may not "obey" a certain injunction he would ask of me (if opposed to God's Word), but I certainly would not leave him, nor would I spread abroad our disagreement. Loyalty, submission, would still hold us together. Because of love. You see, love is at the bottom of loyalty.

Loyalty's Faces

But love and loyalty do not necessarily mean agreement. At times loyalty requires crying aloud and sparing not—not in a crude, destructive way, but in an all-out effort to salvage. When the enemy approached, the watchman on the walls of Zion had the unpleasant task of waking people in the middle of comfortable slumber. If the slumberers wished to sleep on after being warned, that was their privilege. But if the watchman held his mouth and people died because of his silence, their blood was required at his hand (Ezek 33). So loyalty does not always mean smiling and assenting. Sometimes it can be confrontational ("brother, you have bad breath," or "sister, your slip is showing"). Up to a certain point—the point of no return. And then just maybe it behooves us to hold our mouth and be supportive when there is no hope—and not blast on. If not, conscientious loyalty sours into rebelliousness. Defiance speaks of force, of disobedience, of pushing on in one's way, despite.

To talk of "unity" and the "Spirit's working" is a farce when smiles and handshakes and hugs are external actions with no internal reality. True unity cannot be mandated, because it is an experience of love. And as long as differences remain with bitter overtones, unity is at best an illusion. Illusions may have their political advantage but fall short of true loyalties, for there is still talk, there is still a critical spirit, there is still the bad report.

Be Loyal Now

The church is in flux, and now is the time to stand. Now decisions are being made that will forever affect the way we interpret Scripture and Ellen G. White. How we interpret the Bible on the structure of the leadership of the future will forever leave its stamp on the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Not yet, I think, is it time to sit by and knit. Loyalty yet means action. And if my loyalty is perceived as pernicious, I feel sad, for it is born of love, great love for the church that I have always known and defended.

Shaking Coming

We have been told of a great shaking that will come upon us as a people, one that will rattle us to the depths of our spirituality. "All that can be shaken, will be shaken". God help us as a people to be the agonizers in prayer, so deeply committed to the Word and principle (see Early Writings, pp. 269-273) that we cannot be "bought or sold". What we do today will determine how we act when