Prove All Things:
A Response to Women In Ministry

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Chapter 14

Great Flying Leaps:
The Use of Ellen G. White's Writings in Women in Ministry

Larry Kirkpatrick

The use of the writings of Ellen G. White in the book Women in Ministry often suggests wishful thinking instead of sound analysis.

I was present at a meeting of pastors and other church workers held at La Sierra University in late 1995, a few months after the Utrecht General Conference session rejected the request of the North American Division to allow divisions to decide for themselves whether to ordain women as pastors. There I heard my colleagues share their professional opinion that what was needed was a change in the way most Seventh-day Adventist members think, a re-education in the way they interpret the Bible, a distinct change in their hermeneutics. Dissatisfaction and dismay seemed to be the common feeling toward the supposedly hardheaded, ignorant parishioners in the pews. According to many of my fellow pastors, many Adventists were too caught up in a "fundamentalist" reading of the Bible and were unaware of their narrow, legalistic, ingrown biases and spiritual immaturity. What was needed, we were told, was a good dose of enlightenment which, it was said, "the seminary is working on." The consensus was that the manner in which ordinary Adventists interpreted Scripture was in need of a carefully orchestrated readjustment. When the scholars provided this "help," the church would finally move forward. The solution envisioned was your re-education.

I did not agree. Not long afterward, I was sent to the Seminary. There, one day, Women in Ministry was introduced at a special chapel service. I secured my copy and over the next several weeks read and considered its arguments and assertions. I have to admit that reading Women in Ministry has had an impact upon my viewpoint. My conviction has grown clearer that the ordination of women to positions of pastoral ministry identical to those of men is unbiblical and also insupportable by the writings of Ellen G. White.

Since others contributing to Prove All Things have undertaken to address other aspects of Women in Ministry, this chapter will address the use of Ellen G. White's writings in the book. We will consider some of the "great flying leaps" that the authors of Women in Ministry have found themselves compelled to make in their attempt to support women's ordination from the writings of Ellen White.

Among the 20 chapters which constitute Women in Ministry, four of them--fully one-fifth--give significant consideration to Ellen White's counsel. In spite of this, her writings do not ring out prominently. In order to make her sound as though she were saying what the authors wish she had said, her writings had to be used with great selectivity, and elaborate explanatory constructs had to be devised. Although I am convinced that the authors have done their work in earnest, we must look closely at their conclusions. If the church should swallow their ideas without chewing, Adventism itself would be revised. A wholly different approach to Scripture would shift our perception of every doctrine and erect an ideological structure alien to Adventism.

Ordination in the Writings of Ellen G. White

Chapter seven of Women in Ministry, "Ordination in the Writings of Ellen G. White," attempts to reconstruct Ellen White's thinking on ordination in general and then apply it to the present-day issue of women's ordination.¹ In the process, the fundamental sense in which the church is understood to operate takes an alarming turn.

One issue that marks the thinking of those in favor of women's ordination is their perception of the church's degree of autonomy. Does heaven simply rubber-stamp whatever the church decides, or is the church's relationship with heaven better understood as a seeking to discover God's will through the inspired sources He has made available to it? If the rubber-stamp view is correct, then the church is left with virtual autonomy to decide what to do about issues such as women's ordination. But if the second view is right, then the church should invest its energies, not in thinking up its own solutions apart from inspiration, but in discovering heaven's solutions through the inspired writings. The line dividing these two churchly self-perceptions is sharp and black, and the hallways of history demonstrate the tendency of each.

In the chapter we here discuss, its author holds that Ellen White's understanding of ordination is best described under two headings: through an evaluation of God's purpose for the church, and by the priesthood of all believers. The author highlights what he sees as Ellen White's emphasis on the "pragmatic," "adaptable," and "practical" attitude of the church in carrying out its work.² But such heightened emphasis on the pragmatic could mislead us. It could lead us to the conclusion that heaven is almost indifferent to how the church functions. In contrast to this idea, Mrs. White repeatedly pointed to the necessity of order. In speaking about the early days when the battle was fought to move from pragmatism to organization, she noted that "The first-day Adventists were opposed to organization, and most of the Seventh-day Adventists entertained the same ideas. We sought the Lord with earnest prayer that we might understand His will, and light was given by His Spirit that there must be order and thorough discipline in the church--that organization was essential. System and order are manifest in all the works of God throughout the universe. Order is the law of heaven, and it should be the law of God's people on the earth."³

Indeed, when the great controversy began, it was the adversary who suggested that an adaptation in heaven's order be made.⁴ The motive? To "preserve harmony" and to "remove dissatisfaction."⁵ Yet there was nothing wrong with heaven's order. The difficulty was in the minds of the rebel angels.

The author of the chapter under discussion sees the New Testament church's "creation of new ministries"⁶ in the appointment of the first seven deacons as evidence of the church's adaptability. He suggests that the early structure of the church failed to provide for new ordained ministries. Yet Mrs. White discusses the ordination of the first apostles by Christ in terms very similar to our present understanding.⁷ It is difficult to see where there was a lack of provision for ordained workers in the New Testament church. The further "perfecting" of gospel order mentioned in Mrs. White's writings⁸ does not portray a church that was pulling a brand new ministry out of thin air, then demanding a divine "yes" response. Instead, her description of this "further perfecting" illustrates how God guided the early church into heaven's revealed order. The apostles were not a free-wheeling band of merry pragmatists, but a prayerful and responsive group of listeners seeking heaven's guidance.

What proponents of women's ordination have identified as the church's pragmatic adaptability is better understood as heaven's use of situations to further reveal God's plan for the optimum organization of the church. The "adaptability" of the apostles was actually their willingness to interact with heaven and respond in harmony with the organizational plan revealed by God. This area of understanding becomes especially important when a misunderstanding of it is used to propose that if she were alive today, Ellen White's response to the issue of women's ordination would be founded on pragmatism. Rather, perhaps the reason that her responses seem so pragmatic and common-sense to us is that they were founded upon her Scripturally-informed life. Her day-to-day living carved out a habit of consistent, positive response to God's will. Assertions that the New Testament church or the early Adventist church functioned in a pragmatic manner need to be carefully reconsidered.

The trouble with the adaptive view is that it is used to give the church carte blanche in its approach to the Bible. Once it has been determined that the church can adapt to situations according to its own authority, apart from Scripture, all controls given in inspired writings are neutralized. The church may then pragmatically define its own theological workspace, its own boundaries. The standard, "to the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa 8:20), is removed, and the church places itself where there are no effective controls by which the Holy Spirit can protect it from itself. In essence, the church can decide whatever it wants, and heaven is thought to be under obligation to stamp the decision "approved."

One is startled to recall a passage in Peter Geiermann's The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine: "Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

By contrast, the Adventist pioneers consistently found the authoritative basis for their beliefs not in councils, creeds, theology, theologians, or academicians, but in the Word of God. They operated under hermeneutics in which heaven defined the workspace and the Scriptures were given full weight. If these had not been their principles, it is unlikely that our spiritual ancestors would have accepted the seventh-day Sabbath. The authority of Scripture is our only real foundation for observing the Sabbath. If the authority of Scripture is undermined in any way by the church, the church strips itself of its own authority, for its authority is derived from Scripture.⁹

The author of the chapter suggests that James White moved from holding the view that what is not made explicit in Scripture is forbidden, to his holding the view that what is not made explicit in Scripture is not forbidden. But in commenting on this method of approaching Scripture, Ellen White makes the following observation:

"The English reformers, while renouncing the doctrines of Romanism, had retained many of its forms. Thus though the authority and the creed of Rome were rejected, not a few of her customs and ceremonies were incorporated into the worship of the Church of England. It was claimed that these things were not matters of conscience; that though they were not commanded in Scripture, and hence were nonessential, yet not being forbidden, they were not intrinsically evil. Their observance tended to narrow the gulf which separated the reformed churches from Rome, and it was urged that they would promote the acceptance of the Protestant faith by Romanists."¹⁰

But in the paragraph that followed Mrs. White went on to make this point: "The very beginning of the great apostasy was in seeking to supplement the authority of God by that of the church. Rome began by enjoining what God had not forbidden, and she ended by forbidding what He had explicitly enjoined."¹¹

The author of the chapter "Ordination in the Writings of Ellen G. White" leans on another scholar's doctoral dissertation.¹² However, there is little evidence that either James or Ellen White ever moved to the position suggested in it.

Ordination Formal and Informal

It is not difficult to gather from Ellen G. White's writings her understanding of ordination. In The Acts of the Apostles she discusses the ordination of Paul and Barnabas: "God foresaw the difficulties that His servants would be called to meet, and, in order that their work should be above challenge, He instructed the church by revelation to set them apart publicly to the work of the ministry. Their ordination was a public recognition of their divine appointment to bear to the Gentiles the glad tidings of the gospel."¹³

No magical power accompanies ordination.¹⁴ And yet Paul considered the event of his "formal ordination"¹⁵ or "sacred appointment"¹⁶ "as marking the beginning of a new and important epoch in his lifework."¹⁷ We thus suggest that "formal ordination," as Ellen White uses the phrase, has reference to ordination in the sense of recognition by God's visible church that the one ordained operates under God's sanction. In a general sense, all believers are called and ordained to work for the salvation of others; but ordination to the congregational leadership role of pastoral ministry is specifically reserved to those meeting the Scriptural requirements, including 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6, that an elder be "the husband of one wife."

The idea that Paul and Barnabas were "already ordained" suggests the spectre of an unfortunate grey zone, in which individuals affirm in their own mind that they are ordained as well as called. Such would almost inevitably perceive themselves as waiting in line for the slowly-grinding wheels of an inept and unjust church to confirm their call. But it is heaven that affirms the call through His church, not the one waiting to be ordained who affirms it to oneself. The hazard here is the shift from recognition by a community of faith to self-recognition by the individual; thus perceived, God's church becomes a ponderous bureaucracy standing in the way of service, rather than the facilitator of recognition by the body. The shift is from recognition through the church to obligatory affirmation by the church. The author has misunderstood Ellen White.

The Priesthood of All Believers

Women in Ministry repeatedly implies that the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers in some way provides a hermeneutical highway supporting the ordination of women.¹⁸ When the author of "Ordination in the Writings of Ellen G. White" discusses the priesthood of believers, he notes several Ellen G. White statements insisting that all who become church members are to be actively involved in working for the salvation of others. Mrs. White persistently warns against leaving this work to "only ordained ministers."¹⁹ She even states that "All who are ordained unto the life of Christ are ordained to work for the salvation of their fellow men."²⁰ These statements make clear that there is a sense in which every Christian is a minister for God, and every Christian is ordained by God. However, the context of these repeated statements makes clear her double concern: that ordained pastors not hinder the ministry of church members, and that church members not sit idly on the sidelines while much work remains to be finished! Mrs. White never minimizes the work of pastoral ministry. She wants leadership to be carried forward efficiently and looks hopefully for the active participation of the whole body of the church in soul-winning. But where in Ellen G. White's writings do we find a formal ordination ceremony required for anyone to work for others? Nowhere.

In the fifth volume of Testimonies for the Church, pages 617-621, we find some of Ellen White's most specific statements regarding the selection of leaders for God's church. Here there is no mention of the priesthood of all believers, but we do find specific biblical guidelines such as Titus 1:5-6 and 1 Timothy 5:22 receiving primary attention. Again, the compilation on pages 437-445 of Gospel Workers makes no mention, not even implicitly, of the priesthood of all believers in this connection; but we do discover a concern for the kind of men to be chosen for service in the gospel ministry. Ellen White was plain when she discussed leadership and when she discussed the priesthood of believers. The readers of Women in Ministry should ponder why Ellen White never blended pastoral leadership with the priesthood of believers as the Seminary's book does.

The reason why Ellen White did not blend these two teachings may be that she saw clearly the distinction between the general believer's commission and the specific office of leadership. All are priests, but not all are pastors. All are to work for the salvation of others, but not all are to lead in the work of salvation for others. When these doctrines are blended together in an attempt to sustain the present drive for women's ordination, confusion is inevitable. What about children? Are children priests? Yes! Then does it logically follow that children should be ordained and function in the headship role of pastor? A great flying leap takes us to unexpected places, doesn't it?

Upon their baptism, believers are recipients of the great commission to work for the salvation of others. Specific ordination to the leadership role of pastoral ministry is to a position called in the Greek episkopos, a role scripturally reserved to males. The general "ordination" which all receive to work for the salvation of others and which flows from one's initial baptism does not negate the exercise of headship and submission in congregation or family. Christians are not called into a mob but into a church. It is a church operating under system and order--not our system and order, but heaven's. The "priesthood of all believers" argument for women's ordination is vague and ill-conceived.

The author says that Ellen White favored women as laborers in the gospel ministry. But what does he mean by this? He appears to believe that God was leading the church toward women's ordination in the role of pastoral ministry and administrative leadership.²¹ On what basis? Precisely upon the basis of the church's "adaptability." Having read the chapter several times now, I still have difficulty gathering anything concrete from the reference to the priesthood of all believers. Unfortunately, it seems that this author has misunderstood Ellen White's teaching in several ways. This results in a misguided ecclesiology suggesting that the church is its own theological master. This result in particular opens the door for the subjective interpretive methods that are used to justify the ordination of women to headship roles denied them by Scripture. It is the diving board from which to make great flying leaps.

A Power that Exceeds that of Men: Ellen G. White on Women in Ministry

We now direct our attention to an entirely different chapter from Women in Ministry. In "`A Power that Exceeds That of Men': Ellen G. White on Women in Ministry," a different writer has examined the evidence and taken an interesting tack.²² Highlighting Mrs. White's counsel concerning ministry options optimized for women, he presents positive insights into special opportunities uniquely tailored to women. Here, there is no press for any one-size-fits-all plan that would ignore gender-role differentiation. An exhaustive evaluation of Ellen White's thought concerning women in ministry shows that she repeatedly emphasized the value of team ministry by husband and wife.²³ This article also calls attention to the concept of specialized ministries. Having considered the evidence in this chapter, it is apparent to me that substantial benefit would accrue to God's church if Ellen White's counsel regarding women in ministry were taken more seriously. But a concept that would warp heaven's arrangement, insisting that women function in roles identical to men's, would effectively hinder the church's service to Him.

In this chapter the author is clearer generally than others in the book when considering Ellen White statements that have been presented as evidence in favor of the ordination of women. For example, the author presents the counsel given by Ellen White to Mrs. S. M. I. Henry when she became a Seventh-day Adventist. What was this counsel? To go forward and not let others "prescribe the precise way in which she should work." The chapter's author here notes that Sister White's counsel to Mrs. Henry "does not primarily concern participation in the organized church, but in a parachurch women's organization [the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU]."²⁴ Whereas some authors leave the reader unaware that the women mentioned who were laboring in gospel ministry were pastors' wives giving Bible studies,²⁵ this author identifies the exact situation.

One weakness in this chapter is the emphasis placed upon Ellen White's statement that "It is not always men who are best adapted to the successful management of a church."²⁶ The author concludes from the passage that "the primary determinant of fitness for church leadership is not gender, but character."²⁷ But the same document that he has quoted from points out that the man in question, a brother Johnson, although a church member, was unconverted, besides being controlling and dictatorial.²⁸ Perhaps a more accurate conclusion would be that conversion is a crucial prerequisite for church leadership. An interesting parallel exists with some of Ellen White's counsel regarding family worship. To one dilatory father, she wrote the following:

"You have not zealously performed your duty to your children. You have not devoted sufficient time to family prayer, and you have not required the presence of the entire household. The meaning of `husband' is house band. All members of the family center in the father. He is the lawmaker, illustrating in his own manly bearing the sterner virtues, energy, integrity, honesty, patience, courage, diligence, and practical usefulness. The father is in one sense the priest of the household, laying upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice. The wife and children should be encouraged to unite in this offering and also to engage in the song of praise. Morning and evening the father, as priest of the household, should confess to God the sins committed by himself and his children through the day. Those sins which have come to his knowledge, and also those which are secret, of which God's eye alone has taken cognizance, should be confessed. This rule of action, zealously carried out by the father when he is present, or by the mother when he is absent, will result in blessings to the family."²⁹

Here we see that primary responsibility for spiritual leadership in the family rests upon the father, but that the mother is also involved, exercising spiritual leadership in the father's absence. Clear preference is given to the father. The mother's role is one of support.

The author of this chapter correctly suggests that the Ellen G. White writings support specialized ministries.³⁰ He makes no call for the ordination of women on the same basis as for men. He does not suggest that Mrs. White's writings support the ordination of women to pastoral ministry in the sense of the contemporary pastoral leadership role, but he does find that she would approve of an ordination/consecration service in connection with specialized local ministries.³¹ Mention of the specialized nature of women's leadership in ministry is utterly lacking in the other chapters composing the book. Here is an article that does not take a great flying leap. Its author appears to have looked before leaping, and conspicuously avoided many of the pitfalls of other contributors to Women in Ministry.