The Role of Union Conferences

[Gregory Matthews]

George Knight has written a paper on the role that Union Conferences should have in relation to the larger church.

See:

http://atoday.org/the-role-of-union-conferences-in-relation-to-higher-authorities/

[Gregory Matthews]

From the above paper:

At this point we need to return to the General Conference action of 1877 that stipulated that a vote of a General Conference session is the highest authority on earth “when acting within its proper jurisdiction.”50 Since the selection of who to ordain was in the 1860s made a prerogative of the conferences and in the early 1900s was transferred to the unions, it does not fall into the jurisdiction of the General Conference except in the areas that the worldwide church in session has voted as policy. Thus rulings by the General Conference on the gender issue are outside its jurisdiction until such an action is taken. From that perspective, the unions in the North American Division made a major mistake when they asked the General Conference for permission to ordain women. Rather, the unions should have followed the logic of James White who repeatedly noted that all things are lawful that do not contradict scripture and are in harmony with common sense.51

Before moving away from the topic of policy we need to listen to another point made by Gary Patterson. “There is,” he wrote, “a perception existing that the General Conference cannot violate policy, that whatever it does constitutes policy, but this is not so. The General Conference can violate policy just as well as any other level of the church, if and when it acts contrary to the provisions of policy. Unless and until the General Conference changes its policy by vote, any action contrary to that policy is a violation. Thus, the unions are not out of policy on this matter of gender inclusiveness in the ordination of ministers. The General Conference itself is out of policy by intruding where it does not have authority.”52

 

[Gregory Matthews]

The above document is probably the most important paper that our SDA members should read, in my opinion.