Participants: Mario Veloso
Series Code: WOHII
Program Code: WOHII000003A
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00:14 It is a real pleasure to part- icipate in this symposium
00:21 We're talkin about the subject which is very sensitive 00:27 at this time, and it would be sensitive at any time. 00:33 I guess from the very beginning it was. The first time when 00:42 the church began to talk about it was in 1881. We don't say 00:52 much about that occasion because there is not much to say. 00:57 We just came in it was discussed at the session, a GC session 01:06 and then it was taken to the administrative committee at the 01:12 General Conference through a small committee and that issue 01:20 never came back again. So what to say? Only this and that's it. 01:27 The real history of this matter in the church came late 01:35 in the last century, I mean in the middle to the end of the 01:42 last century. And we're talkin about Mohaven, but Mohaven 01:48 was in 1973. The meeting in Mohaven was caused by a question 02:02 that came to the General Conference from Europe. 02:10 From one of the northern countries of Europe came 02:14 a question. And that was could we ordain women? 02:21 Is there in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy anything that 02:30 would prevent us from ordaining women? 02:34 So the General Conference appointed a committee of three. 02:41 Three scholars and let me tell you scholars have been always 02:46 involved. And they took not too long, they gave a unanimous 02:55 report and the report was very simple and straight. 03:06 There is no base in the Bible or in the Spirit of Prophecy 03:18 which are the two most authoritative sources 03:21 for all Adventists in the world 03:27 of ordaining women to the gospel ministry, there is no 03:31 authorization at all in either one of the two sources. 03:39 I think that was the nicest report that the church 03:44 ever got on the subject. And to me that was enough. 03:54 At that point it should've been closed. 04:00 The answer went to Europe and it should've been said 04:07 this is what we find in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy 04:12 therefore no need to get into anything related to the subject 04:20 anymore. But you know how it is. Whenever human beings ask a 04:26 question pretending to get the answer what they have in mind 04:32 they never get any other answer. If they get it then they begin 04:42 to create new questions, actually many questions. 04:48 And then we got into the many questions. Because, 04:59 the General Conference listening to these people appointed 05:07 appointed a committee in 1973. That was the beginning of the 05:16 discussion. It was called the Committee on the Role of Women 05:25 in the Church. I want to call your attention. The question 05:32 was on the Ordination of Women And that was already answered 05:38 So to call a committee for the Ordination of Women 05:43 was very awkward and this diplomacy of the higher levels 05:53 that would not be proper. So the Committee on the Role 06:00 of Women in the Church was very appropriate because in the whole 06:06 world we were all clear that there are many roles that 06:14 women could play in the church. And that Committee was supposed 06:21 to say what were those roles. Guess what? The Committee was 06:31 appointed. Names of members was specified, 23 members 12 women 06:40 11 men. The Chair who was the Vice President of the GC 06:51 Pr. Willis Hackett who was a man of God, a good man to be the 07:01 President of the Committee and the Secretary was Gordon Hyde 07:09 at the moment BRI Director which seemed to be very appropriate 07:19 to produce a good study and an excellent report. 07:28 But there is one thing I want you to keep in mind. 07:36 The Committee was appointed but no terms of references 07:41 for the Committee. This is very unusual for the GC. 07:46 And I know this because I used to work as an Assoc. Secretary 07:51 of the GC and I know very well how we do when we appoint 07:59 the committee. The Terms of Reference is the mandate 08:07 what the Committee should do. It was an open mandate. 08:13 An open mandate is no mandate. 08:20 That way could come in whatever other things which is not 08:25 in the name of the committee. And that is what happened 08:32 because these members didn't do anything about the role of women 08:44 They began to discuss ordination of women. 08:50 So all that what was needed 08:57 to say this is open for women became still closed 09:06 And the objective of the study was changed. 09:13 But actually we never said we're changing 09:19 And from there on there were committees, groups, commissions 09:25 appointed one after the other, all of them under the name 09:32 of Role of Women in the Church. 09:38 But what we were doing in reality was discussing 09:43 ordination. I didn't attend the first one in 1973. At that time 09:53 I was just out of the Seminary Andrews University, back in 10:00 South America. So I could not be a member of such a high 10:06 profile committee. But next time I was included and from there on 10:16 I became a member in all the committees up to TOSC 10:23 So there are few guys, very few that today are old enough 10:30 to have been in all the commit- tees, because others passed away 10:37 already, I guess George Reed is one of them and I cannot recall 10:46 any other one who was in all these meetings. 10:51 Anyway, I'm going to pay atten- tion to the 1973 Mohaven meeting 10:59 because this was the foundation for all the discussions 11:04 of Women's Ordination. Here is where the tendencies of thinking 11:10 where the strategies for this matter were established, 11:18 everything that actually came after has its roots 11:25 in this meeting and in this committee. 11:31 That to me is very important. 25 papers were written 11:38 for that committee. And it is to me very, very interesting. 11:52 Only 4 of them had a title that somehow related to ordination. 12:00 Like, for example, A Theology of Ordination Inside of a Social 12:07 Scientist on Ordination of Women Considerations on Issues related 12:14 to the Ordination of Women. Types of Roles available 12:21 for Ordained Women in the Church That to me was very strange! 12:28 Because there is no mystery once you ordain a woman 12:33 What is her role. It has been in the history of the church 12:42 ever since there was the first ordained minister 12:48 in the Christian church. We know what they were doing. 12:54 So, it was a very strange kind of thing to say 12:59 the roles available for ordained women. And the rest of the paper 13:06 they were all under the heading of the Role of Women, but none 13:11 of them actually tackled the subject. 13:17 They were all on Ordination. 13:24 This was one of the trends beginning at that time. 13:33 This was the case all through the 14 years that we've been 13:40 studying from 1973 Mohaven meetings up to 2013 TOSC 13:58 40 years. Doing the same thing you know because you cannot 14:08 invent too many things but could you go to search the Scriptures 14:16 about Women's Ordination they've been using a few Biblical texts 14:26 and those were repeated in every single committee that came after 14:35 as if we could find anything new in this old Bible 14:44 which is always the same coming from our God who never changes 14:55 and trying to be faithful to Jesus Christ who is always 15:00 the same and trying to follow the inspiration of 15:06 the Holy Spirit who never contradicts Himself. 15:10 He would always say the same, even when He at this late time 15:17 would inspire us into anything He would never contradict 15:23 what He has already said in the Scriptures. So what new could 15:29 come in this repetition. No new thing. 15:35 But anyway what was needed something. 15:46 There was the majority of papers in favor of ordination, and 15:51 the majority of the members of the Committee were in favor 15:55 of ordination. You may guess this happened in every single 16:04 committee that was appointed from thereon. 16:08 Majority of members in favor and majority of papers in favor. 16:18 Probably the closest occasion in which the papers were 16:27 just about the same from both sides was from TOSC. 16:32 But not the members. The members kept the trend. 16:39 But that is too far away in our consideration. 16:44 Let's go in order of time. So this paper, one of the paper was 16:54 entitled The Role of Women Today A Theology of Relationship 17:00 Men to Women. And I'm going to take this one as an example 17:08 of what began to become a trend. 17:15 Because this one deals with Biblical material. 17:21 Particularly there are three Biblical texts that are taken 17:26 in the paper. 1 Peter 2:9 which is very well known 17:34 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 1 Tim 2:11-15 17:47 Later on in the paper you will find also Gal 3:26-28. 18:00 These texts are going to be always present 18:07 I mean you cannot avoid them. If you are coming from the side 18:13 that is in favor of ordination I mean. 18:17 So they found their Biblical base right here. But they were 18:24 quite honest in their papers. This paper I'm talkin about 18:31 was written by, I would say the most beloved Andrews professor 18:38 at that time. He was my professor on that generation 18:47 He covered everybody and we all talked about 18:53 the nice way he would present his classes. 18:58 He was very clear in his exposition of the material. 19:04 And usually very close to the Bible. 19:11 So it came to many of us as a big surprise what he did 19:18 at that committee with this paper. 19:22 The first part which was a discussion about the material 19:28 He was very fair. But he came to the conclusion 19:39 that this paper was written to defend the dignity of marriage. 19:51 And then he comes to the following Biblical conclusion 19:55 which is, in his own words, women share in the universal 20:03 priesthood of the people of God and in the evangelism 20:11 of the world. They do not seem to share in the ministry of 20:19 of the church. This is his conclusion. 20:23 After doing exegesis of the text 20:30 not in the ministry. But then he built up a theological 20:39 argument. I'm lookin at trends. 20:50 The theological argument in favor of ordination of women 20:54 built on the public ministry of a prophetess. 21:01 That was his way to bring in what he didn't find 21:08 in the Biblical texts. So now it's not a Biblical text 21:14 No Biblical content. What he is working now is with 21:22 a theological argument 21:27 based on a similarity that he attributed 21:35 to the higher authority of the prophet compared to the 21:45 minister of the Gospel. He came this way to say, It is true that 21:57 in the family the man is head of the woman 22:04 in the church, however, which is the body of which Christ 22:10 is the sole head, it is different. 22:15 You see we have heard in TOSC this argument. 22:19 Nothing new, the same argument The same thing 22:27 I read recently somebody saying in a kind of history 22:34 of the headship in the church, that the headship was never 22:38 studied before nor considered in any discussion 22:43 but later in TOSC we came in with this 22:51 rather new argument. It was in 1973 first committee 23:01 Then he points to the use of Gal 3:26-28 23:10 And he did two things with this text. 23:13 First he said it is a theological statement. 23:23 Second, it is the hermeneutical principle to interpret 23:35 all the texts related to women. 23:42 So now we have a new hermeneutic and an understanding 23:51 of the content of Galatians which is not 23:55 the one Paul is talkin about. What Paul is talkin about 23:59 is the equality of men, women slaves, and everyone referred 24:08 in the text for salvation. 24:15 They're all equal as to salvation. 24:21 I'm going to just reads what Paul actually says. 24:29 I'm beginning at chapter 3, verse 26. 24:33 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus 24:42 This is clear for everybody. No one would contest 24:47 such a declaration. Then, for as many of you as were baptized 24:56 into Christ have put on Christ. That is reference to baptism. 25:06 And then he goes on to say, There is neither Jew nor Greek 25:12 there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female 25:18 for you are all one in Christ. 25:27 If you are Christ's then you are Abraham's seed and heirs 25:36 according to the promise. Sons of God 25:43 His heirs to the promise. This is the context. 25:50 For that you are one. No reference at all about 25:58 ministers. So how could anybody take this sentence as a 26:07 hermeneutical principle to get to the conclusion 26:12 that here woman is authorized to become a minister of the Church? 26:23 You can understand how some of us were shocked. 26:30 That from the mouth of this kind of professor we admired 26:34 came such a thing. He was a theology professor 26:39 but very much close to the Bible and we respected the way he 26:45 treated Biblical texts. But this time he was way off 26:52 the text. For us it was unbelievable. 26:58 And we talked, a few guys who were his former students 27:07 And we even had the occasion to evaluate when we came to 27:16 the next meeting in 1975. We said to ourselves, you know 27:23 how students speak about their former professors 27:28 So you professors watch out! Students keep talkin about you 27:33 for generations and I'm talkin about 40 years later 27:38 about this professor. It was amazing. 27:43 Because it wasn't his way of doing regularly his theology. 27:50 But at this time, it seems to me that this guy 27:56 all of them came to the feeling that they had 28:01 to come with this conclusion. Somehow they had to 28:07 favor ordination of women. 28:17 He would say this, it was for this reason the apostolic 28:23 church, the good news by preaching by behavior 28:33 the church guarded among other things against the regular 28:40 participation of women in the ministry because they wanted 28:44 to have a good behavior to impress people for evangelism 28:50 evangelistic purposes. Not because God was telling us 28:56 anything. The church wanted to be politically correct 29:02 with the community. That was the reason, and then 29:07 he adds, the reason of the church 29:11 that is the New Testament time church I think, 29:22 probably, were based on that which is proper 29:31 and fitting, did you get it? He was not saying God told us, 29:43 he was saying we are doing what is proper and fitting 29:47 He is not concluding I am based on Biblical text. I think 29:58 This is a built up way of reasoning parallel to Scriptures 30:08 It is not the Scripture content. 30:13 It is another thing that theologians are used to doing 30:20 in general, not everyone. But he was doing this 30:28 And what is amazing, more amazing even 30:33 is the fact that he knew what he was doing. 30:39 He could not ignore because he was a very smart person. 30:45 When you depart from the text and build up another reasoning 30:49 you have to know it and he knew it because he says it 30:55 in the paper. So how could you, any one of us who has the Bible 31:02 the way we understand the Bible in our traditional hermeneutic 31:09 how could somebody do this kind of thing? 31:14 Anyway it's a mystery. You know, the human mind 31:19 sometimes has motivations that nobody else can discover. 31:28 And we're not allowed to super impose our motivation on a mind 31:33 that didn't express clearly his understanding but he 31:40 actually said, because he says 31:45 that, I think, this is not from the Bible. I think 31:50 he said probably, I'm not sure, but probably this was the case. 31:57 So it is clear. In that 1973 Mohaven meetings 32:05 there were only two papers against ordination of women 32:13 Only two. These two were written by women. 32:23 And you can smile and think whatever is in your mind 32:30 but these women were very strong in their views. 32:37 One presented a comprehensive study on Old Testament 32:44 and New Testament material and Spirit of Prophecy. 32:48 And she came to this conclusion although there are vast areas 32:52 where the women of the church can serve with distinction 32:59 an ordained ministry is not one of them. 33:05 After going through the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy 33:09 this was her conclusion. The other one 33:15 I don't go through the whole argumentation because 33:18 you already know how it goes when a person comes to 33:25 this conclusion. It is in harmony with what is 33:29 clear in the Bible. The other woman who was against ordination 33:40 said, specifically, 'I do not suggest any of the following 33:50 1. That women be ordained to the ministry. 33:58 2. That women be placed in preponderantly administrative 34:05 roles where men must work under their direct supervision. 34:14 All of the rest we could do. 34:22 And these two women were very well known in the church. 34:28 Very influential. One was at the Seminary 34:34 The other one was at the Review. 34:42 So you may imagine all those who attended the Seminary 34:46 were influenced by the first one I mean in that generation 34:53 and those who read the articles of the second one 35:00 were influenced by somebody who writes frequently in the Review. 35:10 Ok, this is as far as papers are concerned. 35:14 Now we go to Role of Women according to 35:21 the church, the report of the church committee, 17 pages 35:30 And those 17 pages, the report says 35:42 is that men and women are equal 35:51 and then there is silence in Scripture 35:58 about ordination of women. There is no evidence 36:04 that they could be ordained or that they could not. 36:15 This has been another trend. We've always been talking 36:20 that the Bible doesn't say anything about it, Yes or No 36:24 ordination of women to the ministry. That is not true. 36:32 And the report would say that there was no agreement 36:37 among the members of the Committee but giving the 36:40 impression that were not being in agreement to the text 36:49 actually there were many of us 36:56 in all these committees that were entirely in agreement 37:02 with the fact. There is no reference, therefore there is 37:07 no authorization for ordination. But then they take the silence 37:16 and the silence became another open door for 37:20 the discussion to continue. 37:32 At that moment whoever was behind this, 37:35 let me tell you, there were members of the committees 37:42 there were those who were leaders of the committee 37:47 but we always had the impression that there was somebody behind 37:53 I'm not talking about one person probably there were many 37:59 but someone who was not leader of the Committee 38:03 neither member of the Committee who was pressing the leaders. 38:11 Because at that moment when we came to the conclusion 38:16 that there was silence, we could've read the Spirit of 38:21 Prophecy advising about the silence in the Scriptures. 38:27 When questions arise upon which we are uncertain 38:33 let us ask, What saith Scripture 38:40 And if the Scripture is silent upon the question at issue 38:46 let it not be made the subject of discussion. 38:54 This is Ellen White, very clear and it is in Gospel Workers 314 39:03 But we didn't pay attention to this. 39:06 We just kept on going. 39:15 The only real thing that this Committee did was to advise 39:20 for further study (laughter!). 39:28 Not a word on any other imp- ortant matter, but further study 39:34 So, another committee was appointed. 39:47 Carry on, was the information we got from this Committee. 39:53 This trend we are talkin about to the ones we already 40:01 referred to, now we add this one. 40:05 They use as a different hermeneutic and one that 40:12 I've not said anything yet, but from now on it will become a 40:19 constant. They need to educate the world church 40:28 to accept ordination of women. 40:33 It was said in these meetings and from there on 40:38 in almost every meeting that we needed to educate 40:45 the world church. You see those of us coming from outside 40:54 got the feeling that we had a first class members of church 41:02 the leaders, and a second class. 41:08 Those from the first class, no matter whether they were 41:13 many or just a few, they were right. 41:18 And the other guys who came from the under developed world 41:23 those guys don't have a mind. They don't know how to study 41:27 the Bible. They don't know how to come to conclusions 41:31 they are superficial ignorants. 41:37 And that came even at the meetings in TOSC. 41:44 This time, not talking about geography, but talkin about 41:48 those who would not accept women's ordination. 41:53 All of them in the group that I was in, it was said plainly 41:59 that those who were in favor they were serious students 42:04 of the Bible and those who were against were superficial 42:09 students of the Bible. That was said now plainly. 42:14 You know why they changed the geographical concept into 42:18 positions on ordination? Because now they cannot say 42:26 the other divisions in the world are all ignorants. 42:32 Because there are more theology doctors out of these 42:37 highly developed countries than here. 42:43 So what do you do with those? Are you going to tell them 42:48 you cannot think? Those guys have been writing books 42:55 producing tons of material, and I will say, much more 43:02 than many who are highly developed. So now 43:07 they had to change a little bit. Not the intention, but yes 43:14 they're going to say it. Then came 1975. 43:21 This was Role of Women study group. The BRI organized these 43:28 studies and the reports were given at the meetings of the BRI 43:37 BRI Executive Committee is a rather large group 43:43 made up of people coming from all over the world. 43:49 Every Division had the right at that time to appoint one. 43:58 It happened at that time that I was that member. 44:03 At BRI from the South American Division. It wasn't because I 44:10 was somebody important because in my area there were very 44:16 few who would be able to understand English 44:20 I don't say to speak because we speak very bad! 44:23 But we understand it. And since there were so few 44:31 I was the lucky one to participate and this report came 44:36 to these meetings. Again, papers were presented 44:46 repeating the same subjects and one of the papers 44:53 was Exegesis of 1 Tim 2:11-15. The same pattern 45:03 going through the text itself the writer would come to the 45:09 conclusion that there was no base for the ordination of women 45:16 But then he went on into the second part of the paper 45:23 which he called implications. 45:26 And in the implications he came up with the idea that 45:35 the hermeneutic principles were based on Galatians 45:46 So certainly he communicated with the other professors 45:52 from Andrews because this one also was Andrews professor. 45:56 So it kept going in the same direction. And the same texts 46:05 were again presented. Another paper deals with EG White 46:14 counsels. And this was a lady. She said there was not much 46:22 material in Ellen White about ordination of women. 46:26 Actually there are only two texts that could be taken 46:31 seriously. And she took one of those, the one that 46:43 was published in 1885 in the Review. Sorry, 1895. 47:09 She went totally ignoring the content but takin up only the 47:15 fact that the position of hands could be made on women. 47:20 Not talkin anything about the temporary job, about the 47:25 specific job that was said that women could do 47:30 And then she went on to quote another text about 47:44 the characteristics that are taken into consideration for the 47:50 ordination of men. And she did something very interesting 47:56 she crossed out all the references to men 48:01 and put in brackets women and actually applied to women all 48:10 that was said by EG White about men. 48:15 I do not want to get into details here, but if anyone 48:21 would like to see if we could give the reference. 48:29 That was the way it developed. This process at that time 48:34 Then it came 1985, the Role of Women in the Church committee 48:39 this one was in preparation to the Session that was coming 48:46 The meeting of the Committee happened in March 48:50 The session was coming in July. And then the recommendation 48:59 of the Committee was to take no action. 49:04 The report went to the 1985 GC Session 49:09 and actually the decision was a little bit long, but 49:14 it was not allowed too long a time for this, but the decision 49:21 was to take no action. They took an action to take no action. 49:31 The big battle would come five years later. 49:35 In 1990 and after that 1995. Those are the two Sessions 49:43 that normally everybody takes as important. 49:49 But you see we are just here keepin on with trends 49:56 that began in 1973. We kept the same subjects, the same texts 50:02 the same Spirit of Prophecy quotations and the same 50:07 intention to educate the world. Even when we decided in 1990 50:16 not to ordain women, it was said in the preamble that this was 50:23 the decision of the General Conference at this time 50:29 making room for it to come at another time. 50:36 And certainly the time came in 1995 with the request of the 50:43 North American Division, this time to allow certain Divisions 50:49 to ordain women and others who do not like to ordain women 50:56 could go on with their historical stand. 51:01 Well that was not approved either. So we have actually 51:11 three Sessions, we talked mostly about the 2 more important ones 51:16 in which larger discussions were made, but there were three. 51:21 1985, 1990, 1995. In every one the answer was NO. 51:31 Now we're talkin about the next Session. TOSC came in 51:36 with the same texts, with the same hermeneutic 51:43 These are hermeneutics based on principle from 1973 51:49 is coming in. This intention of educating the World is still 51:56 going on and let me tell you I have the feeling that if we 52:03 do not allow women to be ordained in this next Session 52:08 which I think maybe the case 52:13 the subject is going to keep on. 52:17 Because somebody is thinking, or a group of people are thinking 52:27 that they are right even if the whole world is wrong. 52:36 could it be in this way that we do business that the whole world 52:42 is wrong and we who think that are right has to carry the day? 52:50 That is very amazing. We need to go 52:56 and find a way to end this conversation. 53:02 And the only way to end happily, to have a happy end 53:09 is to follow the Scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy. 53:15 Any other intent is going to put us again in difficulties 53:24 as has been the case all through history. Whenever 53:29 the people of God did anything in opposition to God's Word 53:37 the result was confusion, destruction, and, 53:44 to say the least, destruction from the mission. 53:50 Israel was 40 years in the desert just because they didn't 53:57 want to do what God was telling them to do. We could save 54:03 all this time, all this energy we could save all this money 54:11 by just making one small, big decision to keep the 54:22 orientation from the Bible. To do what is the will of God 54:29 But this is the question we normally don't ask 54:34 in the 40 years discussion we seldom say 54:40 we want to do the will of God. Let's look for the will of God 54:47 in the Scriptures. We don't say that. 54:52 We pick other subjects, but the right question is still pending 55:00 I hope that this coming Session will finally, the delegates come 55:08 to the realization that what we need to do is the will of God 55:16 And do it, no matter the consequences because 55:23 doing the will of God, the consequences are always blessed 55:30 by God. And with His blessing this church could go very strong 55:39 in fulfilling the mission. It is not going to fulfill the mission 55:45 on authorization of women's ordination. That is clear 55:50 in what is happening right now in the world. 55:54 Wherever this subject is not being under discussion 55:59 the mission is going fast and full speed ahead. 56:05 Wherever the discussion is present, the mission has 56:11 actually stopped. And we need to come to that realization 56:17 and keep on going with what God wants 56:23 the church to do at this time. 56:31 One anecdote, just to finish. 56:35 We were at a TOSC meeting at noon, you know. 56:42 It was a pleasant moment, talkin people from one side and another 56:52 Mark Finley was to my right and he said to me, 56:57 Mario, tell me what is the strongest argument 57:01 in opposition to ordination of women? 57:06 And I said, I don't look for any argument any more 57:12 at this time I'm looking for attitudes. 57:18 And the attitude to obey God is the only one 57:22 that is going to solve the matter. 57:25 And I prayed that God will help us to have an obedient attitude 57:33 of children of God to go through this problem, and actually |
Revised 2015-08-27