Gender Neutral Ordination

The 12 year long debate in the Adventist Church concerning women's ordination is heating up. Just recently the Southern California Conference of SDA Executive Committee voted to ordain women in that conference. Also, they recommend to the Pacific Union Conference, the next higher authority to take up the issue anew. The Pacific Union Conference Executive Committee voted to call a special constituency meeting this year to vote on this. A General Conference document has surfaced stating that the local conference has the authority to place pastors in churches and the Union Conference has the authority to decide who gets ordained as pastors. Apparently that document does not state the candidate has to be a male, so on the strength of that document, the Union will decide whether to ordain women. As stated above, this has been debated for at least 12 years. Until now all governing agencies have reluctantly accepted the General Conference vote to not ordain women. This new movement by Southern California and the Pacific Union may create a new precedent. This is something worth watching for those on both sides of the issue. As I understand it the strongest argument against women ordination has been the lack of biblical evidence for it. People sometimes ask me for my response. It is very simple. What we do now does not have complete biblical precedent. In the New Testament, local elders were ordained to lead the churches. There is no example of a pastor being ordained apart from local elder leaders. Yet, in the Adventist church women can be ordained as local elders, but not as pastors. Where is the biblical precedent for having an ordination of pastors which is "superior" to that of local elders? So, what I say we need is a clear biblical theology showing why we ordain pastors differently then local elders. I have read some attempts at such a theology. The conclusion in these attempts state this is based upon Ecclesiology, or the church has been given authority to do certain things which are not spelled out in the bible. If that is the case, then the church can decide to ordain women on that basis. Since there is no biblical evidence of women ordination and the church sees need for it today, it can vote to ordain women and not be outside the realm of a biblical mandate. As a pastor I have much appreciated the helpful ministry of local women elders. There are already women in the Adventist church who serve as senior pastors upon a local elder ordination, yet without the benefit of pastor ordination. It is time to ordain women, giving them the same authority and support as men who do the same ministry.