Growing_Cloud.jpg

The number of male Seventh-day Adventist ministers relinquishing in their ordained minister credentials in favor of commissioned minister credentials—the credentials available to their women colleagues—grew again last week as pastors in the North Pacific Union Conference handed in their ordination credentials. Exchanging ministerial credentials represents one of many ways Adventist pastors have worked toward gender equality after a vote of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists last July disallowed the denomination's thirteen world divisions making provision for the ordination of women within their respective territories. Because the General Conference voted no on the question, it remains the prerogative of unions and conferences—the structural units below the division level—to recommend and approve ordinations (General Conference leadership has disputed this).

Moves to achieve gender parity in the face of the General Conference's intransigence concerning women's ordination have included continuing with previous policy to ordain women (Netherlands and Southeastern California), abolishing ordination altogether (Norway, Denmark and Belgium-Luxembourg), continuing working to implement women's ordination (Berlin-Central Germany), and making commissioning equal in function and in pay to ordination (Washington, Oregon and elsewhere). For more actions, see "2015: The Year of Regional Autonomy."

Since San Antonio, male pastors have sought commissioned credentials instead of ordination credentials as an act of solidarity, and conference and union leaders who have made commissioning equal to ordination have helped smooth the way. However, nine professors from the Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University requested commissioned credentials from the General Conference last Fall, but were told that current policy does not allow it. For the professors, the matter was one of conscience and integrity, arising from a deep sense of injustice and unfairness done to women colleagues who also serve in ministry.

UPDATE: It has also been called to my attention that in September 2015, the Trans-European Division executive secretaries issued a statement that disallowed ordained ministers from exchanging their credentials to commissioned minister credentials. The statements said, "Once a pastor has gone down the ordination route and is ordained, there is nothing which opens the door to 'undo' the ordination and opt for a 'commissioned' status. Within the TED we have done everything that we can to ensure equality and will continue to work within the structures to achieve this. Given the current situation, we are unable to support that ordained pastors return their credential and are issued with a commissioned credential."

During its regular meeting on March 2, the North Pacific Union Conference Executive Committee approved the request of 10 pastors to exchange their ordination credentials. In a public notice reporting the meeting, the NPUC wrote,

In other action, the committee approved the request of 10 pastors—eight within the Oregon Conference and two in Washington Conference—to voluntarily relinquish ordination credentials and accept instead commissioned minister credentials. Both conferences have recently voted to allow both ordained and commissioned ministers within their territories to fulfill the same responsibilities. This action acknowledges the wish of these pastors to be assigned the same credentials as female pastors under current world church policy.

The pastors whose requests have been granted are:

Oregon Conference:

Greg Brothers
Chad Carlton
Steve Lemke
Tim Mayne
David Smith
Monte Torkelsen
James Wibberding
Lonnie Wibberding
 

Washington Conference:

John McLarty
Mark Pekar

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Adventist_Women_Who_Lead.jpg

The Pew Research Center has released information about women in top positions of religious leadership. Pew’s finding: women as top religious leaders are rare. When it comes to Adventist leadership, women are extremely rare.

The study “looked at nine major religious organizations in the U.S. that both ordain women and allow them to hold top leadership slots. Of those organizations, four have had a woman in the top leadership position. And, so far, each of these four has had only one woman in the top position.”

Here’s more of Pew’s analysis:

Currently, the American Baptist Churches USA and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are the only groups in our analysis with women in their top leadership positions. Susan Gillies is interim general secretary of the Baptist churches and Elizabeth Eaton is the presiding bishop of the Lutheran group.

The Episcopal Church had a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, serving as presiding bishop from 2006 to 2015. In the United Methodist Church, another woman, Rosemarie Wenner, served two terms as president of the council of bishops, an international body charged with providing spiritual leadership to Methodists around the world. (The church does not have its own governing body in the U.S.; Wenner, who is German, is based in Europe.)

The Unitarian Universalist Association has had women running in the past three elections for president, but, so far, no woman has won. This year, there are two women candidates.

The Union for Reform Judaism, the central leadership arm of Reform Jewish congregations in the U.S., has never had a woman president. However, a woman, Denise Eger, serves as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the principal organization for Reform rabbis in the U.S. Additionally, another woman, Daryl Messinger, is the chair of the North American board of trustees, which is the top lay leadership post in the organization.

Likewise, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has never had a woman as its CEO, the professional leader at the head of the organization. However, a woman currently holds the office of the international president, a lay position. Margo Gold is the second woman to serve in this capacity.

Many churches, including many of the largest denominations in the United States, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and the Southern Baptist Convention, do not allow women to be ordained or hold top church leadership positions.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church fits into that latter category, at least at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which last summer voted not to allow divisions to make provisions to ordain women within their territories. However, a diversity of practices persists.

Within the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s official administrative structure, women in top leadership positions are extremely rare, even given a generous definition of “top leadership positions.” In my analysis, I have included officers at the General Conference, Division and Union levels, and Conference presidents, as well as department heads and field secretaries at the General Conference level and ex-officio members of the General Conference Executive Committee, who serve by virtue of other leadership positions. Obviously, I could have counted other positions—like GC associates, department directors at various layers of church strata underneath the General Conference, or women in senior pastor positions—and by so doing, included more women leaders that way. My excluding those positions from this analysis is not meant in any way to diminish the contributions those individuals make. My goal was simply to analyze Adventism’s top administrative leaders in light of the Pew findings (and because of Adventism’s refusal to ordain women, I went looking further than Pew did).

My numbers are based on the current information given in the online version of the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook.

The tallies I came up with reflect a stark reality: barring women from being ordained means barring women from leadership, plain and simple. This is not saying anything new, but the numbers are striking:

Out of 221 total leadership positions in my analysis, 9 positions—4% belong to women (and Nancy Lamoreaux serves in two of those positions simultaneously). Out of 850 conferences and missions, there is a grand total of one woman president (0.12% of conference/mission presidents are women).

General Conference
Officers: 3 (0 women)
General Vice Presidents: 6 (1 woman)
Secretariat: 2 (0 women)
Treasury: 2 (0 women)
Chief Information Officer: 1 (1 woman)
Field Secretaries: 6 (1 woman)
Human Resources: 1 (1 woman)
Departmental Directors: 14 (3 women - children’s ministries, women’s ministries, education)

East-Central Africa Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 10 (0 women)

Euro-Asia Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 9 (0 women)

Inter-American Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 23 (0 women)

Inter-European Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 11 (0 women)

North American Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 9 (0 women)

Northern Asia-Pacific Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 3 (0 women)

South American Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 16 (0 women)

South Pacific Division

Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 4 (0 women)

Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 10 (0 women)

Southern Asia Division
Officers: 2 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 6 (0 women)

Southern Asia-Pacific Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 9 (0 women)

Trans-European Division
Officers: 3 (1 woman)
Union Presidents: 11 (0 women)

West-Central Africa Division
Officers: 3 (0 women)
Union Presidents: 10 (0 women)

General Conference Attached Field
Officers: 1 (0 women)
GC Ex-Officio Members: 17 (1 woman - Andrea Luxton, Andrews University)

Things look significantly better (though still nowhere near parity) for women in Adventist Higher Education. Of the 13 North American colleges and universities that make up Adventist Colleges and Universities, 23% of presidents (3 out of 13) are women (including newly-appointed Andrews University president Andrea Luxton, who takes over later this year). If Atlantic Union College (whose president Dr. Avis Hendrickson was appointed in 2014) were included (AUC is not currently accredited), the number would grow to 28.6% (4 out of 14).

There are approximately 100 Adventist colleges and universities outside North America (102 by my count), but none with women in top leadership positions, as far as I could tell.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has ensured through its stance on women’s ordination that female leaders in the church will serve, by-and-large, in subordination to male leaders. That reality notwithstanding, in the few positions where women do lead, their leadership is exemplary.

Here are the women leaders included in my analysis:

Ella Simmons, General Vice President, General Conference

Nancy Lamoreaux, Chief Information Officer, Field Secretary, GC

Ruth Parish, Human Resources Director, General Conference
Linda Mei Lin Koh, Children and Family Ministries Director, GC

Lisa Beardsley Hardy, Education Director, General Conference

Heather Dawn Small, Women's Ministries Director, General Conference

Audrey Andersson, Secretary, Trans-European Division

Sandra Roberts, President, Southeastern California Conference

Avis Hendrickson, President, Atlantic Union College

Heather Knight, President, Pacific Union College

Vinita Sauder, President, Union College

Andrea Luxton, President Elect, Andrews University

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Carson_Trump.jpg

Dr. Ben Carson endorsed Donald Trump this morning one week after ending his own presidential campaign. Carson’s move is seen by many as a play for the White House as a prospective vice presidential running mate to Donald Trump. Trump added fuel to that fire, saying that Carson would play a “big, big part” in Trump’s campaign.

Back in February when the Seventh-day Adventist retired neurosurgeon was still in the Republican primary race, he told Fox Business News that if he were asked to consider being Trump’s running mate, “I certainly would sit down and discuss it with him,” Carson said.

“I would have to have major philosophical alignment with whoever it was. I would have to have guarantees that I could do some substantial things,” he said. In his endorsement of Trump, Carson said the two have "buried the hatchet," likely a reference to Trump's calling Carson's Seventh-day Adventist faith into question. It was just "political stuff," Carson said.

Despite a Carson’s rapidly declining poll numbers following his brief moment atop the GOP field in October, Carson did lead one poll--a Morning Consult survey of likely voters asking whom Trump (assuming he wins the GOP nomination) should choose as running mate. Carson led that poll with 11%. In the poll, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio took 9% each, and Chris Christie, who also dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump, garnered 8% of the tally, as did Ohio governor John Kasich. The poll might not mean much; 38% of respondents had no opinion or declined to state a preference.

Since announcing a week ago that he was dropping out, Carson has served as national chairman of My Faith Votes, a Christian nonprofit aimed at getting Evangelicals to vote.

Should Trump win the nomination, and should he select Ben Carson to run with him on the Republican ticket, Dr. Carson’s bid for Washington D.C. will be invigorated, thanks to Trump’s coattails.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Wilson_Germany.jpg

Adventist leaders in Germany who have long supported women’s ordination had a chance at last to discuss the issue face to face with the leader of the Worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church, a longtime opponent.

Ted N. C. Wilson, President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Inter-European Division of Seventh-day Adventists (EUD) jointly reported yesterday on a meeting between Elder Wilson and leaders in the EUD, held on March 8 in Frankfurt, Germany. The meeting, publicized both on Wilson’s Facebook page and the EUD website, included leaders of the Inter-European Division, the officers of the North German Union and the South German Union, and the seven conference presidents from the two unions.

The EUD report noted the following topics of conversation at the meetings:

German leaders gave Ted Wilson a detailed report on the special concerns of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany. In the afternoon, a number of current issues were discussed such as the missionary efforts of the Adventist Church in Germany, the situation of the German Adventist churches, the high administrative structure of the German associations (unions/conferences), dealing with the world church decision on ordaining women as pastors, the relationship to other churches, dealing with various current trends in the Adventist churches and questions about the Adventist identity.”

The report went on to say somewhat opaquely, “Also the consequences of the decision of (not) ordaining women pastors, made at the last 2015 General World Conference in San Antonio, Texas, were discussed in detail.”

For his part, Elder Wilson spoke glowingly of the meetings, saying on Facebook,

The Holy Spirit was very much present as we prayed together and discussed many things. There was a very positive spirit as we focused on the great mission challenge of reaching millions of people in Germany with the Advent message—the love of Christ, His righteousness, His saving message, His three angels' messages, His sanctuary message, His health message, His prophetic message, and His soon second coming. The German leaders expressed a strong commitment to our fundamental beliefs and their desire to be very much a part of the world church and its mission.”

"The meeting was marked by mutual openness, unity, solidarity in the beliefs of our Adventist Church and a spirit of mutual respect," said Wolfgang Dorn, President of the Bavarian Conference. “Personally, I perceived Ted Wilson as a good listener, very spiritual, emphatic and a strong leader, a man of God," said Dorn. "It was striking to me his focus on mission, local communities and his emphasis on involvement of volunteers in missions."

The Inter-European Division recommended in 2013 to the General Conference Theology of Ordination Study Committee that women be ordained in the Adventist Church. The division's executive committee "voted unanimously to recommend the ordination of women to pastoral ministry, taking into consideration the possibility of applying it according to the needs of the fields." 

Elder Ted Wilson (Center) with leaders from the Inter-European Division, meeting in Frankfurt. Photo Courtesy Adventisten.de.

The Adventist Church in Germany has long been at the forefront of the issue of women’s ordination. In April 2012, the North German Union Conference became the first union in the Adventist denomination to vote to ordain women. Only weeks before the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas, during which delegates voted not to allow the denomination’s thirteen divisions to make provision for ordaining women within their territories, the Berlin-Central German Conference voted to speedily implement women's ordination in accordance with the North German Union Conference’s 2012 action.

In the months following the San Antonio ordination vote, the The Hansa Conference in the North German Union Conference also affirmed its commitment to the union’s 2012 action. The Hansa Conference issued a statement saying in part,

We continue to encourage female church members to opt for the pastoral ministry and hereby reiterate our intention, to act in accordance with the decision of the NDV [North German Union / Norddeutscher Verband] general assembly of April, 23rd 2012, which recommends pastors to the ordination in ministry regardless of gender.”

In Germany’s Southern Union Conference, Stephan G. Brass, pastor in a three-church district, was among the first male pastors to turn in his ordination credentials for commissioned credentials in solidarity with his female colleagues. Brass said that during a pastors’ family retreat soon after, “...our conference president asked all pastors not to follow my example and hand in their ordination certificates. He explained that our goal is not to give up our ordination but to support the ordination of women.”

These brief examples demonstrate the level of commitment to ordaining women among leaders in the Adventist Church in Germany.

While the specifics of the ordination discussion between Elder Wilson and the Inter-European Division leaders in Frankfurt have not been disclosed, the open dialogue on the generally-contentious issue reveals a collegiality not seen prior to San Antonio.

There is no indication in the reports that German leaders were asked to walk back their recent actions on women’s ordinations, suggesting a possible furthering of regional autonomy on the issue, the General Conference vote notwithstanding.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

Inline Images: 

Angwin_Crash.jpg

Pacific Union College confirmed Monday afternoon that one of its students was killed and six other students injured when a Ford Expedition SUV in which the students were traveling overturned on Deer Park Road. One female student was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident after being thrown from the car, according to the California Highway Patrol. As of Monday evening, the names of the students involved had not yet been released so that family members could be notified first. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Pacific Union College is located at the top of Howell Mountain in Angwin, California, and is reachable only by twisting, sometimes treacherous mountain roads. The two-lane, divided highway that passes through the campus has claimed the lives of Pacific Union College students before. In 2008, Luke Nishikawa, Boaz Pak, Chong Shin, and Simon Son were all killed in a car crash at the base of Howell Mountain on their way from campus to a grocery store at night. In 2015, Jayaram Notestine died when a car in which he was traveling went off the road and down an embankment, catching fire. Notestine was some 30 minutes from campus on Butts Canyon Road, on his way to Angwin.

Highway Patrol officers said the six surviving students in Monday’s crash--both male and female--were transported by ambulance to area hospitals; two went to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, three to Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa and one to St. Helena Hospital in Deer Park.

A section of Deer Park Road remained closed to traffic for about three hours as the Highway Patrol investigated and cleaned up the crash site.

Monday evening, Pacific Union College shared an update on Facebook saying that five student were being released with one being held for observation.

At the center of campus Monday night, Scales Chapel stayed open for prayer, conversation, and support. The Student Association and Campus Ministries gathered for prayer and fellowship at 7:00pm.

University president Heather Knight invited prayers for the campus and the students injured in the accident, and prayers and support poured in through social media.

Thousands of commenters on Facebook affirmed that they were praying, and several other North American Adventist colleges wrote messages of support and solidarity.

La Sierra University:
"We lift the Pacific Union College family up in prayer through this difficult time. We pray for a speedy recovery of the students involved in today's car accident and comfort for the family of the deceased student."

Southern Adventist University:
"Our prayers are with the Pacific Union College family and the students involved in today's car accident. May God's Spirit bring peace and comfort in this time of sorrow as we look forward to Jesus' return and the reuniting of loved ones."

UPDATE: Fen Pan identified as student killed in crash.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Fen_Pan_PUC.png

Yesterday afternoon, the tight-knit Pacific Union College community was hard-hit by the news that one of its students was killed and six others injured when a Ford Expedition SUV in which the students were traveling overturned on Deer Park Road on the way to the Angwin, California Campus. As of last night, the names of the students involved had not been publicly released in order to allow officials to notify the students' family members. Today, Pacific Union College updated the story, releasing the name of the student killed in the crash, Fen Pan from Beijing, China. The update was issued on the college's Facebook page. The official statement follows in its entirety:

Today, the PUC campus community mourns the loss of Fen Pan, an international student from Beijing, China, who died as the result of a car accident Deer Park, Calif., shortly before 2 p.m. Monday, March 28. Fen was one of seven people in the vehicle. The accident remains under investigation.

Injured in the accident were Yejin An, from Guam; Ruth Bahta, from Carmichael, Calif.; Soon Joo Hwang and Issac Hwang from Chino Hills, Calif.; Jihyun Kim, from Guam; and Jaeyeong Choi, from Colton, Calif. All have been released from area hospitals.

Fen, 20, graduated from Loma Linda Academy in 2014. She was studying music and pre-dentistry at PUC. On behalf of the entire campus community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, we express our deepest condolences to Fen’s family in Beijing; her host family, the Saesims, of Redlands, Calif.; and her friends, fellow students, and professors.

“Our campus community is saddened by the loss of our dear, sweet Fen Pan. Her love for life was contagious amongst her family and friends. Her beautiful smile, her ability to connect and make close, lifelong friends, and her genuine commitment to loved ones will always be a cherished memory,” says Lisa Bissell Paulson, vice president for student services.

PUC students have reacted with compassion and emotion to the news and are honoring and remembering Fen in many ways, as well as lifting up the others involved. Last night, members of the campus gathered in Scales Chapel to pray together. Students wrote personal messages and prayers and pinned them to a symbolic cross located in the front of the chapel. Pastors, chaplains, and counselors provided much needed support to the participants.

A memorial service is planned for this Thursday, March 31, at 10 a.m. at the PUC Church. More details will be announced as they become available.

“The atmosphere at PUC is very sad right now as Monday was the first day of the spring quarter, and this is a rather tragic way to begin this final quarter of an otherwise very positive school year,” college president Heather J. Knight told the Adventist Review. “We will continue to provide spiritual and emotional support for our campus community in the days to come,” she said.

Campus chaplains, residence hall deans, pastoral staff, and counselors remain available for students, faculty, and staff. The Career & Counseling Center will be extending their hours well into the evening this week for walk-in grief support services. Their hours are as follows:

Tuesday, March 29: 6-10 p.m.
Wednesday, March 30: 6-9 p.m.
Thursday, March 31: 6-8 p.m.
Friday, April 1: 1-5 p.m.

There will be a student grief support group co-sponsored by both the Career & Counseling Center and the department of psychology and social work Wednesday, March 30, at 6 p.m. Additionally, there will be a faculty and staff grief support group co-sponsored by Napa County Mental Health Services and the Career & Counseling Center Wednesday, March 30, at 12 p.m. and again at 1 p.m. The college’s regular on-call counselor is also available 24/7 at (707) 965-6789.

We ask for your continued prayers for Fen’s family, friends, and loved ones.

 

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Separate_But_Equal.jpg

In an attempt to elevate women ministers in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, many administrative territories have created workaround solutions to the problem of the General Conference's refusal to ordain women at the denomination's highest levels. One increasingly-common solution is to make women's credentialing functionally equal to men's credentialing by allowing commissioned ministers the same rights and privileges as ordained ministers.

The trend toward separate-but-equal-credentialing has created a situation in which male and female ministers may perform the same tasks and receive the same pay and benefits while remaining in distinct, gender-divided ecclesiastical categories. Within Adventism worldwide, ordination remains the highest ecclesiastical designation, and with a few notableexceptions, it continues to apply only to men. Some territories within the Seventh-day Adventist Church have been reluctant to extend even commissioning to women pastors though commissioning women has been a voted General Conference policy for many years.

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 29), the Executive Committee of the Upper Columbia Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (UCC), which encompasses Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and Northeastern Oregon, voted a policy to clarify the role of commissioned ministers who serve within the conference. UCC leadership clarified that going forward, commissioned ministerial credentials in the conference confer the same responsibilities and privileges as ordained ministerial credentials do, the key difference being that men may be ordained in UCC and women may not.

Explaining its executive action, the Upper Columbia Conference wrote,

The North American Division working policy states, 'A commissioned minister is authorized by the conference to perform substantially all the functions within the scope of the tenets and practices of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the members in the church or churches to which the minister is assigned…' L 32 10 NAD Working Policy.

The conference executive committee authorized commissioned ministers to perform the same functions as ordained ministers with in the UCC territory. This extends permission for them to perform weddings and baptisms, ordain local elders, deacons and deaconesses within their appointed district and to organize and unite churches in consultation with conference administration (as is the case with ordained ministers).

The efforts of the executive committee are to honor the decision of the world church to commission women rather than ordain them, and at the same time affirm and unify the gospel work of commissioned ministers.

The full policy statement, as voted by the Upper Columbia Conference Executive Committee, follows:

Upper Columbia Commissioned Ministerial Policy Voted 3-29-16 by Jared Wright (Spectrum Magazine)

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Principal.jpg

Douglas Allison, 55, the principal of the Seventh-day Adventist Mountain View Christian School in Sequim, Washington, has been arrested on charges of child rape and child molestation, according to the Clallam County Sheriff's Office. Allison and his wife are the only staff members of the school, which serves thirteen students. According to the Mountain View Christian School website, Douglas Allison taught grades 5 through 8. His wife is not under investigation.

Allison was arrested in his home Tuesday night and booked into the Clallam County Corrections Facility on four counts of first-degree child rape and 12 counts of first-degree child molestation. He is alleged to have repeateldy sexually abused two female students, aged 10 and 11. 

"Allison was arrested following an investigation into a disclosure made by a 10-year-old female student at the school that she had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Allison," according to the County Sherriff's Office.

Speaking to Q13 Fox News, Becky Meharry said on behalf of the Adventist Church in the area, "We just want you to know that the health and safety of our students is of course our priority." She said that Allison has been placed on Administrative leave, pending the investigation. The school's website has also been suspended. 

For more on this story, see the report by Q13 News.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

InJamaica.jpg

Everett Brown, the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica, said at an Editor's Forum of the Jamaica Gleaner that he hopes to soon employ the first woman pastor in Jamaica. Brown's remarks came during a conversation with the leader of the Jamaica Union Conference about the Seventh-day Adventist Church's 2015 vote on ordination at the San Antonio, Texas General Conference Session.

According to Erica Virtue, who authored the Gleaner article, Brown "is certain that it will only be a matter of time before women will stand on the pulpit as ordained ministers."

At the January 2014 meeting of the General Conference Theology of Ordination Study Committee, the Inter-American Division (IAD), the parent organization of the Jamaica Union Conference, provided a summary report of its study of the ordination issue, which concluded that nothing in Scripture prevents women from being ordained. The IAD report made the following points:

1. All the members of the Church of Christ are a "royal priesthood" to announce or proclaim the gospel of salvation.
2. We are all one body and God shows no partiality: we are all sons and daughters of God with the same access to salvation given by Christ.
3. God has distributed his gifts to both men and women without making any distinction. God grants opportunities and field for service to women in a wide range of ministries. The designation of deacons and deaconesses is grounded in Scripture.
4. There is no explicit mandate in the Bible for the ordination of women or men to church leadership, yet there is no command against the same.
5. The Inter-American Division is willing to accept the ecclesiastical decision taken by the SDA Church in plenary session.

Speaking to the Gleaner, Brown said he hopes to further the goal of promoting women in pastoral ministry by installing the first Jamaican woman pastor in office. "[The Adventist denomination has] female pastors ... and one of my goals, and it's time I am going public with this ... is to employ the first female pastor in the church in Jamaica," Brown told the Editor's Forum.

Dr. Lorraine Vernal, Director of Family, Women, Children & Adolescents Ministries for the Jamaica Union Conference, told the Gleaner that she expects "the time will come" for ordained women pastors in Jamaica.

Both Vernal and Brown took note of the cultural and ecclesiological considerations that currently prevent women from being ordained world-wide in the Adventist denomination, but both expressed optimism at the prospect of seeing women continuing to play an increasing role in pastoral ministry--even as ordained ministers.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Marruffo_World_Map.jpg

In a sense, Patricia Marruffo’s Sabbath-afternoon ordination service on March 26 was business as usual for Southeastern California Conference where she serves as Pastor for Children and Families at the Azure Hills Church. Southeastern, after all, has been ordaining qualified women to pastoral ministry since March 2012, and long before that issued the same ordained-commissioned credentials to both men and women. Southeastern was the first (and so far the only) conference in the Adventist denomination to appoint a woman president, and has for decades worked very deliberately to foster gender-inclusive pastoral ministry in its territory.

These days, ordination services for women are becoming almost as common as those for men in Southeastern. Sara-May Colón was ordained at the Garden Grove Seventh-day Adventist Church on February 27, and after more than three decades of pastoral ministry at the Loma Linda University Church, Shirley Ponder was ordained on December 19, 2015. Patty Marruffo’s ordination was one in a long line of services for highly-qualified women pastors in Southeastern California Conference. However, in another sense Marruffo’s ordination stood out.

Local Ordination, Global Purview
The decor in the foyer of the Azure Hills Church was the first indication that this service had an eye on the larger picture, literally. A large world map stood in front of the doors to the sanctuary.

Pins on the map represent Adventist women in pastoral ministry.

On the map, pins represented the women who serve as Seventh-day Adventist pastors around the world. The ordination service was an intentionally global event through which Marruffo wanted to highlight and celebrate all of Adventism’s women ministers.

Nandi Fleming, a pastor in South Africa, provided a welcome and invocation via pre-recorded video at Marruffo’s request. Fleming is creator and administrator of a private Facebook group for Adventist women pastors that has hundreds of members. Through that group, Marruffo began compiling a list of Adventist women who pastor around the world. In the ordination ceremony, Marruffo paid tribute to them all.

Pastor Nandi Fleming (right) in her video welcome shares images of some of the many Adventist women pastors.

“I want to honor and recognize my sisters in ministry across the world—female Seventh-day Adventist pastors—women whose call to gospel ministry is special, meaningful and sacred.”

She honed in on the bredth of the female pastorate in Adventism: “3176 female pastors in China, 15 in Cuba, 12 in South Korea, six in Japan, and countless others. Women whom God has called and continues to call to teach, preach and lead,” she said.

“Today from our corner of the world in Southeastern California Conference, I wish to acknowledge the ministry of these beautiful ladies,” Marruffo stated.

Women played a prominent role throughout Marruffo’s ordination service. In addition to Nandi Fleming who opened the service, Marlene Ferreras, who preceded Marruffo as Children and Families Pastor at Azure Hills, and Jessica Marruffo, Patty’s daughter, a pre-nursing student at La Sierra University, provided a life sketch. Newly-appointed associate pastor at Azure Hills Danielle Foré provided a Scripture reading. Kendra Haloviak-Valentine, a professor at La Sierra University, an elder at Azure Hills, and one of the first Adventist women ever to be ordained, offered the ordination prayer. And it was Southeastern California Conference President Sandra Roberts who officially welcomed Marruffo to ordained pastoral ministry and presented Marruffo her ordained minister credentials.

From a Catholic Upbringing
Patty attributes her eventual path to full-time ministry in large part to her upbringing in a devout Catholic home. (Her family converted to the Seventh-day Adventist faith after hearing radio programs on La Voz de La Esperanza and attending evangelistic meetings hosted by the media organization.)

Her first memories of church came from the Iglesia de Cristo Rey (The Church of Christ the King) in Oxnard, California in a community known as La Colonia where Cesar Chavez lived for a time. “This is where I learned about God,” she said.

Marruffo came from a family of campesinos who worked picking produce in the fields of Oxnard. She recounted some of that story in a Spectrum article, “Remembering My Struggles for Justice.”

Prior to the ordination service, I asked Marruffo to discuss the significance of ordination for her.

“Ordination has great significance for me,” she said, “because I understand it as an affirmation of what God is already doing.”

She explained why being ordained is different from simply doing ministry as a woman:

[The community comes] forward to say ‘We recognize, we see, it’s already evident, it’s tangible that God is doing something with you and in you and through you.’ And he does it with all of us, but when you’re in ministry someone steps up to say I recognize that. So it is significant for me. But I have to confess that it’s lost some of that significance only because I feel like it’s unfair that it happens for me but it can’t happen for [many others] in the world whom God has called to do something really specific for him.”

Marruffo, whose husband Dante is also a pastor at the Azure Hills Church, thought for many years that her calling was to assist her husband in his ministry, she told me.

“It was a passion for serving… I thought my calling was to be a pastor’s wife, but I loved hanging out with him and doing ministry together with him and being involved in everything. Church, mission, kids’ ministry...and I wondered lots of times what would it be like? I think I would really love to be a pastor.”

She enrolled in the (now discontinued) Master of Pastoral Studies at La Sierra University to equip her to be a better pastor’s wife, she said.

In the process of studying at La Sierra University and then Andrews University, she discovered a love of “digging deep into the Bible and learning about how God interacts with humanity and how she can contribute to the God movement in the world.”

Toward the end of her Master’s studies, a realization struck: “I would love to do ministry. I think God is calling me to do this.”

Reflecting on the Call
Marruffo described her ordination as an act of submission, saying, “I’m humbled and deeply thankful that in my part of the world, God’s sovereign will to use men and women—their gifts and their talents in ministry—is acknowledged, valued and affirmed. However this day cannot have this deep and special meaning unless I acknowledge and underscore the call to ministry of all men and all women who hear the voice of God and respond to that call.”

She reflected on the notion among some Adventists that God calls men to be ordained but not women.

“It seems to me that we have created certain lines of demarcation that for God don’t exist. We create barriers that God, I think, never envisions. We create parameters that are not God’s parameters, and we function within those lines of demarcation and those parameters thinking that this is how it ought to be.”

Marruffo has challenged the lines of demarcation and has discovered that they are not fixed. She said it felt like a revelation that God could could equip her to have a voice—a preaching voice. “It was like ‘Wow’ because that preaching voice didn’t belong to women. It was like ‘I can own this and it’s sacred.’ My next thought was ‘Where can I go from here?’”

It’s a question with many answers.

Along with her husband, Patty is a chaplain for the Riverside County Fire Department in California. They join first responders in times of crisis to provide public pastoral care.

She is also an inspiration to the young children she serves. A few weeks before the ordination, Brian and Maria Repelin posted a photo on Marruffo’s Facebook page of their daughter with the following note, shared here with their permission.

“Thank you Pastor Patty for being such a great role model for my daughter and many others. She set this up herself and said she was Pr. Patty and began her sermon. You touch the lives of even the youngest. Of course her younger sibling follows in her footsteps, the trickle down effect.”

Watch the Recording of Patty Marruffo's Ordination Below

9:30— Welcome Video by Nandi Fleming
15:15— Welcome on Behalf of SECC and Azure Hills by Ernie Furness
29:40— Biographical Sketch by Jessica Marruffo and Marlene Ferreras
35:40— Liturgical Reading / Congregational Affirmation (Examination of Ordinand)
42:25— Homily by John Brunt
1:10:10— Prayer of Ordination by Kendra Haloviak Valentine
1:28:20— Welcome to Ministry, Presentation of Ordination Credentials by Sandra Roberts
1:32:40— Response by Patty Marruffo

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Democratic_Process.jpg

Seventh-day Adventist college students from Oakwood University and Southern Adventist University have reported obstacles to their participating in the presidential primary processes, though for very different reasons. For Southern students, new voter ID laws prevented several from participating in Tennessee's primary elections. Oakwood students were kicked out of a Donald Trump events in Alabama. In both cases, students were impeded from participating in America's democratic process for the first time.

The Southern Accent, Southern Adventist University's student paper, reported that nine students enrolled in a government class taught by Kris Erskine experienced irregularities while attempting to cast ballots--most of them at the Collegedale City Hall. Writing for the Accent's News section, Sierra Emilaire stated that four students who produced out-of-state licenses were not permitted to vote. Two students were not given the option of returning with a passport and none of the students involved were offered provisional ballots. Two out-of-state voters were asked for ID, presented their out-of-state ID and were permitted to vote, and two other students were reportedly able to vote without producing ID. 

Tennessee is one of several states including Wisonsin, Texas and Indiana with voter ID laws in effect. Critics of the laws say they disenfranchise ethnic minorities and elderly voters. For Southern senior management major Natalia the law kept her from participating at all. “Here I am a 21-year-old college student attending a private university who wasn’t able to vote,” she told the Accent. “People make it seem like voting is easy, and if you wanted to you could, yet I couldn’t.”

For junior psychology major Hannah Odenthal, there was no problem. “It didn’t look like anyone around me was being asked [for ID] either and it was my first time voting, so I didn’t question it,” she said. “I thought it was really unfortunate that people in the same situation as me weren’t allowed to vote when I was.”

Read the rest of the story from the Southern Accent here: "Students experience voting irregularities."

In March, a group of students from Oakwood University attended a Donald Trump rally in Madison, Alabama, and along with students from Alabama A&M University (also a Historically Black University), were forcibly removed from the event. Oakwood student Jordan Michael Harris, the current vice president for the Alabama Youth & College Division of the NAACP, recounted the experience to Michael Timothy Nixon for Slant. Asked why he attended the event, Harris said, "I had seen on social media the way Black attendees were treated and wanted to experience it for myself in hopes that maybe there was some misunderstanding taking place." 

Harris said that when attendees began holding up signs supporting Donald Trump, an A&M student held up a sign that said "Black Lives Matter." 

"As soon as he raised his sign, the crowd collectively began booing, and flipping up their middle finger and yelling racial epithets at the Alabama A&M students, at which point, we held our fists in the air to stand in solidarity with them," Harris said.

The crowd grew more aggressive and confrontational, grabbing the sign and tearing it to pieces. 

Trump, grunting in disgust, shook his head, then said, “All lives matter.” The crowd began chanting “all lives matter, all lives matter!” Then from that, the chant turned to, “get them out, get them out!” the police asked everyone to leave. As we were escorted out by police, we heard racial slurs, “f*ck y’all,” “monkeys,” “Go scrub the toilets before you leave!” and everything short of the N word.

Donald Trump has been under growing scrutiny concerning violence at his campaign events, most often targeted at black attendees. In many instances, Trump has made statements seen as condoning, even supporting violence against protesters, whom he calls "very bad people." 

For Oakwood students, participation in the democratic process at that Donald Trump event meant being subjected to racist violence and being thrown out. "We stood talking for a few minutes and then the police said we must go immediately, so we left," Harris said.

Read the full story from Slant: "EXCLUSIVE: Black Student Kicked Out of Trump Rally Speaks Out."

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Survey.jpg

Loma Linda University Clinical Psychology student Alex Larson is looking for participants who can help provide data about Adventist views on religious disaffiliation. Larson describes the research project this way:

Attention Seventh-day Adventists! I need your help with my Masters thesis research. I'm conducting an anonymous, in-depth survey that focuses on Seventh-day Adventist attitudes regarding disaffiliation from the Seventh-day Adventist church, including the example of former SDA pastor Ryan Bell. This survey also allows for an analysis of the role of God and religion in the lives of Seventh-day Adventists, and their views on truth and religious disaffiliation in general. To participate, you need to be at least 18 years old and currently identify as a Seventh-day Adventist.

Larson, a graduate of Pacific Union College, says that several would-be subjects who call themselves former Adventists have inquired about whether they might participate in the survey as well. "What matters [for this study]," Larson says, "is if they currently still identify. This is because I'm looking at how people who have "stayed in the church" are viewing those who leave--I'm expecting that more than a handful of people who have responded have considered leaving at some point, and...I want to hear from them."

Feedback from ex-Adventists demonstrates the possibilities for research targeted more specifically at those who have left the Adventist denomination. I've been getting quite a few ex-Adventists who were wondering [if they could participate], which tells me that perhaps I need to look at future research in interviewing ex-Adventists on their opinions," Larson said.

The survey takes approximately 25 minutes to complete.

The letter of informed consent, included in the study, states the following:

If you participate in this survey, your answers will be anonymous and securely stored in password-protected research database. However, as with all internet communication, it is possible that through intent or accident someone other than the intended recipient could see your response. Please do not disclose any confidential or identifying information about yourself or others. In addition, when we receive the results, no information will link your answers back to you.

Although participation might not benefit you directly, the information gleaned from this study will potentially contribute to a better understanding of the perspectives of Seventh-day Adventists on an action that often causes distress to individuals as well as their church communities. Please see this study as an important way to anonymously provide your perspectives on this issue to your fellow Seventh-day Adventist church members.

In order to reach a wide cross-section of Adventist Church members, Larson has asked several Adventist media sites to share information about the survey. If you meet the criteria and would like to participate in this study, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Pathway_To_Health.jpg

LOS ANGELES - Starting one week from today, thousands of Angelenos will receive free health care at the LA Convention Center from a huge pool of Seventh-day Adventist medical professionals. At the Pathway to Health Los Angeles event, sponsored by Adventist-Laymen’s Services & Industries (ASI), full medical, surgical, vision and dental services will be offered to the public free of charge.

Your best Pathway to Health (YbPTH) is a Seventh-day Adventist organization that describes itself as using Christ’s methods to meet the physical, mental and spiritual needs of the underserved by providing free, mobile, multi-speciality clinics. The organization pulls together a wide array of entities; the official volunteer packet lists over 80 partnering organizations—from across the ideological spectrum—inside of the Adventist Church and outside. From Wal Mart to Weimar Institute, and from the University of Southern California to the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, organizations public and private are pooling resources to make the mega-clinic possible.

Among the medical professionals volunteering their time and expertise will be doctors, nurses and dentists from neighboring Southern California communities, including Loma Linda University Health and White Memorial Hospital.

A similar event took place prior to the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas, providing services to over 6,000 Texans, some from as far away as Houston and Dallas. The services provided were estimated to be worth over $20 million.

Volunteers with YbPTH served residents of Oakland and San Francisco, California in 2014, San Antonio and Spokane in 2015. An event is planned for Beckley, West Virginia from July 13-15.

Pathway to Health defines its mission as reaching the great cities of this planet with the love of God. Dr. Lela Lewis, a Maryland-based OBGYN and president of Your best Pathway to Health, said, “Over the last year, by focusing on the love of Christ and demonstrating his love to others by caring and praying for the needy citizens of Los Angeles, Christ has reignited in my life a deep, unprecedented love and dependence upon him.”

The week-long event starts next Monday with a training session at the White Memorial Church. Volunteers register on Tuesday, and on Wednesday at 7:00am, patient doors open at the Convention Center on Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Every day from Wednesday through Saturday will feature a plenary session with music and preaching. Speakers include North American Division President Daniel R. Jackson on Saturday and evangelist and former General Conference Vice-president Mark Finley on Wednesday evening.

The Convention Center will be transformed into a temporary clinic with services from hair styling to mammograms to colo-rectal surgical procedures available.

For more on this event, see the volunteer packet here.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Adventist_Logo_New.jpg

SILVER SPRING - The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has announced the first change to the denomination’s corporate identity in over two decades. General Conference Communications Director Williams Costa, Jr. circulated an image of proposed changes to the Seventh-day Adventist logo graphic at the 2016 Spring Meeting of the GC Executive Committee.

Costa said changes to the logo, characterized as being relatively small, will be voted during the General Conference’s 2016 Annual Council this October. The current Seventh-day Adventist corporate identity, a registered trademark of the The General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists®, was officially adopted at the 1996 Autumn Council (now Annual Council) of the General Conference Executive Committee.

The current Seventh-day Adventist logo on the left, proposed changes on the right.

The logo in its present form is the work of Adventist designer Bryan Gray, who serves as Creative Director for the Adventist Review.

When the denomination’s corporate identity was unveiled to the public in early 1997, GC Communications Director Rajmund Dabrowski said,

This new corporate identity for the Seventh-day Adventist Church reflects our deep and abiding belief in Jesus Christ as the center of our lives and our faith. My prayer is that this graphic representation of who we are will be used all around the world as a familiar symbol of our Church and its values.”

The logo includes elements that depict values and beliefs central to the Adventist faith:

The lines at the top of the design suggest upward momentum symbolizing the resurrection and ascension to heaven at Christ's second coming, the ultimate focus of our faith. The shape formed by three lines encircling an implied sphere represent the three angels of Revelation 14 circling the globe and our commission to take the gospel to the entire world. The overall shape forms a flame symbolic of the Holy Spirit. The symbol of the cross, representing the gospel of salvation, is positioned in the center of the design to emphasize Christ's sacrifice, which is the central theme of the Adventist faith. The Bible forms the base of the design and represents the biblical foundation of our beliefs. It is portrayed in a fully open position suggesting a full acceptance of God's word. It is our hope and prayer that though this logo is a very simple picture of the foundation of Adventist beliefs and values it may be a recognizable symbol of the Adventist message to the world.

The proposed modifications reflect a corporate zeitgeist that favors informal, made-for-web logo design. A sans-serif font replaces the current all-caps, serif font. Many contemporary brand overhauls have gone this route, favoring less formal modern fonts over classic typefaces.

In 2008, Pepsi paid Arnell Group many millions of dollars to redesign the cola company's corporate identity. Arnell described the change as "breathtaking." The public was far more critical.

The addition of a rounded square behind the Adventist logo calls to mind app icons ubiquitous on mobile devices and computers.

Abandoning the all-caps typeface provides a pragmatic solution to a frequent problem. “Seventh-day Adventist” is often incorrectly written “Seventh Day Adventist” in media reports and discussions outside of the denomination (occasionally within the denomination as well). The use of upper and lower-case lettering makes clear the correct capitalization of the name.

The current version of the logo bears a passing resemblance to the way the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) configures its name.
Note the similarities in typeface and layout of the wording. While there is nothing to suggest the similarities have had any bearing on the redesign, Adventists and Mormons, both young, American-born denominations, are occasionally confused for one another. Adventists seek to distinguish themselves and their unique understandings, and the proposed corporate makeover would provide another opportunity to set themselves apart.

When unveiling modifications to the logo at the Spring Meeting, Costa gave no indication that public input had been sought (we later learned that the update had input from Bryan Gray, the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists—which already has incorporated a new typeface for the words “Seventh-day Adventist” in its official publications—and designer Clayton Kinney of 316 Creative).

Initial social-media sharing of the logo’s redesign drew uniformly unfavorable reactions. Both on Spectrum’s Facebook page and on the Adventist News Twitterfeed, Adventists voiced dismay. Critics of the new look particularly took exception to the addition of the “box” surrounding the logo. “I don't like the ‘black box’ or any kind of box!” said one commenter. “It's blocky. It has lost the grace of the original logo,” said another. “The ‘new’ logo will require a whole lot more ink to print because of the black background,” suggested someone else.

Others suggested the cross should be made more prominent, and some disliked the font choice.

One commenter compared the redesign to a disastrous attempt by clothing company Gap to recreate its logo.
After overwhelming public outcry and derision, Gap scrapped the changes and reverted to its classic logo design.

If anything, the comments may point to a resistance to change when it comes to such a strong symbol of the Adventist faith. Clearly, feelings concerning Adventism’s corporate identity run deep.

It remains to be seen what additional changes may be made in advance of Annual Council, when members of the General Conference Executive Committee are slated to finalize the (slight) branding changes.

For more on the Adventist Corporate Identity and usage guidelines, see the Global Identity Standards Manual.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Paul_Charles.jpg

An article published in a South African newspaper concerning the qualifications of two top Seventh-day Adventist leaders has created waves from the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division all the way to the General Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland.

On April 14, The New Age, a national daily newspaper with a claimed daily distribution of over 100,000 copies that covers the nine provinces of South Africa and international news, published “Church degree scandal,” an exposé on the alleged falsification of doctoral degrees by Paul Ratsara, president of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID), and Paul Charles, director of communication for SID.

The allegations in the article could prove particularly problematic for Paul Charles, who at the 2016 General Conference Spring Meeting was tapped to fill a vacant General Conference Associate Director of Communication position.

The New Age’s article presents charges from South African church members who allege that both Charles and Ratsara have used false qualifications to ascend to well-paying, powerful leadership positions within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.

The article called into question Paul Ratsara’s 2014 PhD from the University of South Africa (Unisa) and Paul Charles’s Master's and PhD degrees from the seemingly non-existent Freedom Institute for Theological Studies and Research.

SID leaders have issued a response to the allegations, vigorously defending Ratsara’s qualifications and have circulated pictures of his graduation ceremony from Unisa and his PhD certificate. The response states, “Dr. Ratsara received his Doctor of Theology Degree in Systematic Theology in 2014 from the University of South Africa (UNISA). UNISA is the largest university on the African continent with more than 300,000 students ‘The degree was conferred at a congregation of the University on 8 September 2014,’ wrote IH Brown, Manager: Division Graduations, University of South Africa in a letter dated 17 April 2015.”

Ratsara has also produced an image of an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Solusi University, an Adventist institution in Zimbabwe.

In contrast, SID has only said of Charles, “Dr. Paul Charles earned his PhD in Missiology from the Freedom Institute of Theological Studies and Research in India, private, non-denominational institution.”

The scrutiny of Charles’s allegedly fraudulent doctoral degrees has only increased since the publication of the article in New Age. Charles, whose new job as Associate Communication Director for the General Conference would likely entail handling difficult public relations situations on behalf of the Worldwide Adventist Church, has declined to comment on the specific allegations against him, and has thus far produced no evidence that his degrees are legitimate aside from pictures of the degrees. Charles did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Hitting out against the charges through his personal Facebook page, Charles wrote on April 22,

Every time the Lord changes my appointment, somebody is disturbed and some are excited because I am a constant reminder of what might have been for some and what is possible for others who trust in the Lord. My new appointment has caused some to raise the same questions again. For some time - I have received threats of going to court, exposure in the media, etc because of some allegations that my PHD is not genuine. Even though I was cleared many times by due process. The people who studied with me know otherwise and my documents prove otherwise as presented and accepted in my church. I have been exonerated officially and am free from guilt and blame...I did complete my PhD in an honest way and have no intentions of answering questions that were raised and answered satisfactorily by and to the church.”

(NOTE: prior to this story's publication, we found the post no longer appeared on Charles's Facebook page.)

Paul Charles’s questioned degrees (a second doctorate, purportedly from Canterbury University, has not been produced) play a key role in his personal narrative, a story of his overcoming significant challenges to become a top leader in the Adventist denomination.

“Paul Charles—From Poverty to PhDs,” a segment released in 2013 by the Hope Channel’s “Let’s Pray” program (which operates under the auspices of the General Conference), describes Charles as holding two PhDs—in missiology and leadership, respectively—with studies underway for a third degree from the University of South Africa. The video description on YouTube says, “Paul Charles holds not one, but two, PhD degrees and is an active leader in his church in South Africa. This is true, in spite of the fact that he grew up in extreme poverty. Hear his story of God's power to lift and transform."

For its part, the General Conference refrained from commenting on the situation publicly, despite the fact that Charles has been appointed to serve at the General Conference. Williams Costa, Jr., Communication Director for the General Conference, was asked for this article whether Charles has accepted the position and if so, when he will begin work. Costa was also asked whether the General Conference has taken steps to verify Charles's degrees and whether there would be a statement of support of Charles forthcoming.

Costa replied by email, "Mr. Charles accepted the position and his job offer has not been rescinded at the GC. Carefully the Church is searching about the accusations but the research has not finished; this is why, at the moment we (SID and/or GC) don't have a final statement to issue."

Liberty Institute, the university from which Charles claims to have received both his master’s and doctoral degree, has no physical address and no website. It is not an accredited institution in India, according to Dr. Shaheeda Essack, Director of Private Higher Education Institutions for the South African Department of Education and Training.

The primary mentions of the Freedom Institute online pertain to The New Age’s article in which the charges of fraud first surfaced publicly.

Bernhard Ficker, a lay member of the Adventist Church in the Cape Conference, shared the following concerns regarding Charles’s degrees:

1. The institution known as Freedom Institute cannot be traced anywhere.

2. The two degree certificate forms are identical, with only different wording hand written in.  For many decades, no degrees have had hand-written contents; All are fully printed to prevent fraud.

3. Anyone can print certificates, write in contents by hand, and stamp on signatures as has been done here.

4. All doctoral degrees have the title of the dissertation printed on them. There is no dissertation title in this doctoral degree certificate, indicating it is fake.

5. The name Freedom Institute by itself indicates that it is not a university. Only universities (or equivalent) can award doctorates. Then they must have a research department, since a Doctor of Philosophy is by definition a research degree. Other degrees like DMin are not research degrees.

6. As such, the name of the study leader (doctoral supervisor) normally also appears on the degree. There is no indication of any study leader on this document."

The two certificates Paul Charles claims he earned from Freedom Institute. 

Dr. Dewey E. Painter's identical signatures appear on the two certificates over the words "Dewey E. Painter, Chancellor Freedom University & Seminary (U.S.A.)."

On his LinkedIn profile, Dr. Painter lists work with "American Indian peoples," but makes no reference to India or to Freedom Institute. When contacted about his signature on the certificates, Painter flatly denied any involvement:

Have no idea how my signature was on these documents.  If you look at them closely you will see the signature on both are identical.  I can never sign twice the same way if I tried.  Suggest you contact them to explain?  Also if you have their contact info I will contact them asking why they used my name?

Dr. Dewey E. Painter, Sr., CEO
Mission Harvest America, Inc.

The International Christian Education Association (ICEA), which according to the certificates accredits Freedom Institute, maintains a very sparse website with no mention of Freedom Institute anywhere on it. The address ICEA gives for its headquarters belongs to the Ward Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Northville, Michigan.

On his Facebook page, Charles has removed information about his doctoral work from his profile. At present, his education bio reads, “Studied Religious philosophy at Spicer Memorial College.”

Alvin Masarira, a lay member from Johannesburg, South Africa and an Engineer at Structural SIMTech Consulting, has noted that fake degrees have become a scourge on large organizations in South Africa.

We have had cases of academics in Universities who don't have the PhD they listed. There was the case of the Vice-Chancellor of Tshwane University of Technology, Johnny Molefe, whose PhD turned out to be [fraudulent]. Then there was Mohau Peko (South African ambassador) who also had a fake PhD. Then Pallo Jordan's phantom doctorates (from University of Wisconsin-Madison or the London School of Economics), and ‘Dr.’ Mthimkulu, Chief Engineer at PRASA.”

The New Age stated that another Seventh-day Adventist, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State President Clifford Nhlapo, lost his position as president two years ago after the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) confirmed his qualification was falsified.

“Nhlapo confessed that his postgraduate qualification was obtained from an unaccredited institution and urged other leaders to come clean on their qualifications,” The New Age reported.

Both Ficker and Masarira contend that there should be an independent inquiry into Charles’s degrees and his alleged protection by the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division leadership. Masarira goes further, saying that given the perception “that this matter has been ignored (in spite of calls to look into it) I would like to propose that all our church leaders (SID and Unions and Conferences in SID) have their academic qualifications verified. This is not to embarrass anyone but to restore the trust we church members should have in our leaders,” Masarira said.

Clinton Plaatjes, another South African church member, has stridently called into question the veracity of the degrees and has shared the story with news outlets, but declined to provide comment for this article.

Ultimately, the allegations of falsifying academic credentials do not suggest a lack of qualification to serve since terminal degrees are not an absolute requirement for holding high elected office in the Adventist Church, nor do they suggest a lack of competency (we spoke with members of the General Conference Communications Department who suggest Paul Charles would be a competent departmental associate). The allegations raise questions of personal integrity and of trustworthiness—the good-faith selection of Adventist leaders presumes uprightness in how candidates present themselves. Secondarily, the episode may suggest the necessity of more stringent vetting criteria for committees that appoint denominational leaders.

UPDATE: Just before this article's publication, New Age published a second article on its website stating that according to Khaye K. Nkwanyana, Media Liaison Officer for South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training, the falsification of a degree violates section 66(2) of South Africa's Higher Education Act of 1997, and could lead to charges of criminal fraud.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

Inline Images: 

Charles_Accredited.jpg

In response to a spate of articles published in Adventist and secular media concerning allegations of fraudulent doctoral degrees being used by Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division of Seventh-day Adventists (SID) Communication Director Paul Charles to advance his career, SID leaders have written a Statement On Pastor Paul Charles' Qualifications. The statement, attributed to the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division, is published by the division's communication department of which Paul Charles is still acting director (he has been appointed Associate Communication Director for the General Conference, but has not yet made the move to the United States).

Church members in the division have also raised questions about the doctoral degree obtained by Division President Paul Ratsara, to which SID leadership responded, categorically denying accusations of foul play. The Paul Charles' Qualifications statement comes over two weeks after the division's response to an initial report in South Africa's New Age newspaper alleged that both Charles and Ratsara had acquired their degrees fraudulently.

In the Paul Charles' Qualifications statement, SID leaders note that "a consulting committee [whose task it was] to inquire into these allegations, has come to the conclusion that Pastor Charles undertook his studies at unaccredited institutions and consequently, he does not possess any accredited qualification." The statement goes on, "Even though in its practice SID does not encourage its employees to study at unaccredited institutions, Pastor Charles has not misrepresented facts about where he obtained his qualifications to the Church."

Seventh-day Adventist Church members in SID have asked to know the composition of the consulting committee charged with looking into the fraud charges. Citing confidentiality concerns, SID leaders have declined to provide that information.

The statement's three primary claims are significant: 1) a committee was formed to investigate the allegations concerning Charles' qualifications, finding that 2) Charles does not hold degrees from accredited institutions, and 3) the statement asserts that Charles did, in fact, study at Freedom Institute for Theological Studies and Research, and therefore did not mislead the church concerning the degrees he obtained. 

In a letter dated April 29, 2016, Gordon E. Christo, Director of the Adventist Heritage Centre in the Southern Asia Division of Seventh-day Adventists and former Dean of the School of Theology at Spicer College, has come forward to corroborate the existence of Freedom Institute from which Charles states he received a master’s and doctorate degree.

“To Whom It May Concern:

This is to state that I [Christo] was acquainted with Freedom Institute in the 1990s. I had agreed to serve as a doctoral research guide for them and received a prospectus which included all the courses, subjects and degrees which they offered through distance education. A few students on the campus of Spicer College registered for various programs listed. Paul Charles was one of them.

[...]

Freedom Institute definitely existed. I can confidently testify that Paul Charles did not produce his own certificate nor forge any signature on it.”

By putting the issue of "accredited qualifications" front and center (a letter from the South African Department of Higher Education and Training on this matter stated that purporting to hold a degree from an unaccredited institution could constitute criminal fraud in South Africa), the statement ignores other problems.

Primary among the problems pertaining to Freedom Institute is that the institution has no physical address and no online presence at all and that the man whose signature is apparently stamped onto the degrees Charles has presented, Dr. Dewey Painter, has denied in writing having had anything to do with the degrees. Nor does the statement address the fact that Charles has gained significant institutional capital by using two claimed PhDs—in missiology and leadership, respectively—as evidences of God's leading in his compelling personal narrative of overcoming hardships. Documentation of the second PhD, purportedly from Canterbury University, has not materialized. Charles also stated for a 2013 interview with the General Conference-owned and operated Hope Channel that he was working on a third doctoral degree from the University of South Africa (Unisa). No evidence of his enrollment there has surfaced thus far.  

A growing group of concerned church members in the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division has expressed further worries about SID’s characterization of Charles’ qualifications. Rather than validating the legitimacy of Freedom Institute, they see Gordon Christo’s statement of Spicer’s collusion with Freedom as impugning Spicer’s legitimacy.

“Did they have authority to work with Freedom Institute? It seems unlikely that the SDA accrediting system would have allowed them to be contaminated with this fly-by-night and partially fake Freedom Institute where you can get 'quickie' doctorates,” the group said in a statement.

Going on, the church members note, “All academic institutions which have closed down still have a web presence and the failure of of Freedom to have any presence points to it being a farce (although it had a farcical presence at one stage). Why did Spicer not point out their working relationship with Freedom when enquiries were made a while ago?”

The church members also assert that they have not been shown evidence that Charles completed his studies at Spicer Memorial College before pursuing graduate studies elsewhere.

Implicitly, the Adventist Church in South Africa concedes that Paul Charles has been improperly (at least in the eyes of South African law) presenting himself as a double PhD. The SID statement on Paul Charles' qualifications indicates that Charles has agreed to no longer represent himself of a holder of two doctoral degrees, but states nevertheless that the division finds nothing that disqualifies him from serving:

However, in view of the sensitivities of studying at unaccredited institutions with our national education system in South Africa, the church has requested him to cease and relinquish the use of any titles associated with those unaccredited degrees. And further, to complete his studies at an accredited institution. Pastor Charles has agreed to do so in respect of the South African national standards. While respecting the issues of national education standards, the fact that Pastor Charles has elected to relinquish the titles associated with those degrees does not, in our view, diminish his calling as a Pastor within the Church." 

Paul Charles has duly ceased listing his PhDs on his Facebook page, which now says under education, "Studied Religious philosophy at Spicer Memorial College." Likewise Paul Charles' wife Caroline Charles has changed her Facebook profile's education information, which previously said, "Studied List of counseling topics at Open International University." Her profile now says simply, "Studied at Spicer Adventist University."Open International University for Complementary Medicines in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has been characterized as the largest degree mill in the world. 

UPDATE: Since this article's publication, a flyer has surfaced for a 2012 Adventist-layman's Services and Industries (ASI) South Africa Union Conference event at which Paul Charles provided devotionals. The event flyer lists Charles as holding a PhD in Management (no mention of degrees in in missiology and leadership) and as being the author of many books including: The Wheelbarrow Kid, Unlocking the Secret of Oprah Winfrey, Dynamic Christian Leadership... in a Secular world, Revolutionary Preaching ... in a Secular World.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org. 

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Demonstration.jpg

RIVERSIDE - A group of La Sierra University students and alumni demonstrated for three hours today outside the gate of La Sierra University for changes to how La Sierra implements Title IX. Title IX is a federal law in the United States that applies to colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education, including from state and local educational agencies. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces Title IX claims dealing with claims of sexual harassment. According to its website, "OCR evaluates, investigates, and resolves complaints alleging sex discrimination. OCR also conducts proactive investigations, called compliance reviews, to examine potential systemic violations based on sources of information other than complaints."

Juana Muñoz, one of the demonstrators and a senior Religious Studies major at La Sierra, said she got involved in the event because she knew one of several victims of sexual abuse on campus. "The victim shielded her trust in me," Muñoz said. She kept silent until now because she wanted to respect the victim's ongoing Title IX case on campus, she said.

Muñoz said the demonstration was meant to call the attention of students, community members, and passersby to the website www.unsilenced.us. The website includes several candid stories of unnamed victims of alleged sexual assault on La Sierra's campus who have come forward. So far ten students, past and present, have shared their experiences, several of them reporting frustration with university officials who were slow or dismissive in handling complaints. The website also includes a petition that makes seven very specific demands of La Sierra Administration:

Demand One: The Title IX coordinator position must be increased from part time to full time, as mandated by the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (2015).

Demand Two: Publish reports of Title IX activity on a quarterly basis.

Demand Three: Reform the Title IX Investigative Team and Judicial Committee.

Demand Four: Develop, publish, and publicize a Survivor’s Bill of Rights to be provided to each survivor with a hard copy upon reporting.

Demand Five: Clarify, organize, and unify sex discrimination and sexual misconduct policies within the La Sierra University Student Handbook and the Faculty Handbook with the Title IX policy.

Demand Six: Develop and implement a research-based comprehensive sexual assault prevention strategy.

Demand Seven: Conduct bi-annual town hall meetings with students.

Before the public demonstration, held at the intersection of Sierra Vista Avenue and Pierce Street between La Sierra University and the La Sierra University Church, the petition had been signed over 440 times. Signatures included current students, alumni and faculty members. Demonstrators say they received hundreds more signatures during the demonstration, as students walked to and from this morning's chapel service held at the University Church.

Current and former La Sierra University students demonstrate outside the campus.

One LSU alumna, Taryn Davis, said she joined the demonstration because she cares about the university "and because we can do better," she said, referring to how complaints of sexual harassment are dealt with.

Katie Cicchetti, a student at nearby California Baptist University who attended La Sierra Academy, said "I'm out here because I believe in supporting victims or giving voices to those who feel like their voices have been taken by those who aren't enforcing the codes that are in Title IX." Cicchetti said she hopes the demonstration will bring awareness. "I hope it will bring awareness to students that you are safe here and you have rights--legal rights and human rights."

During the morning chapel, campus chaplain Pastor Sam Leonor spoke out in support of the petition, calling it to the attention of the student body. 

A letter circulated by campus email to La Sierra University faculty members provided a response from university president Dr. Randal Wisbey and Dr. Joy Fehr, Associate Provost responsible for the Title IX Office:

Recently, you may have received detailed communications from certain individuals about a Title IX case at La Sierra. Accuracy matters, and it is troubling to see blatant inaccuracies disseminated as if they are facts. However, La Sierra University ethically and legally cannot and will not engage in a point-by-point response about a situation concerning students at this school. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prevents us from doing so, now or in the future.

What we can say:

• The petition and other messages calling for La Sierra University to “reform” sexual misconduct policy are based on outdated information. The university voluntarily updated its Title IX policy last November. You can read it here: https://lasierra.edu/fileadmin/documents/sexual-misconduct/title-IX-policy.pdf. But despite this policy change, there are some who choose to distort our positions by citing our now-defunct policy.

• A decision has now been reached in the appeal of the Title IX case on campus. That decision affirms some but not all of the points raised in the appeal. We expect the process to be completed soon.

• Again, because of confidentiality obligations, we are legally prohibited from providing any additional details about the case, now and in the future. We do want the entire campus family to know, though, that we take seriously the safety and well being of our students, faculty, and staff.  We look forward to continuing to foster candid and constructive dialogue on the prevention of sexual assault and harassment on our campus.

As a learning community, our deeply-held values speak of our commitment to justice and wholeness.  We work diligently to connect students to important causes that they can give their lives to, and we celebrate faculty and student commitments to make the world a better place.  Ending sexual violence and harassment is something we care deeply about. We are proud of our long history of educational work on these issues on our campus and in our community, and we pledge our continued commitment to support these efforts.

Let us, as a campus community, continue to embrace our commitment to justice and equality and to find new meaning in the words of Micah: “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.”

President Wisbey has agreed to hold a Town Hall Meeting at 5:00pm this Thursday at the Troesh Conference Center in the Zapara School of Business to allow students to make their voices heard on the issue. 

This initial news report is part of a larger ongoing story at La Sierra University. We will provide further in-depth coverage of the event as things unfold. Please check back in the coming days for more on this story. 

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

FreePUC_March.jpg

A student demonstration made its way across the campus at Pacific Union College today ending at the President’s Office where President Heather Knight met with the students. She praised them for their peaceful march and prayed with them for the college. The students were responding to the resignations of several faculty members in the Department of Psychology and Social Work and requesting more open communication between the administration and the student body.

Tuesday night, a group of students sent out the following message to peers:

As students of PUC it has come to our attention that Administration has not been transparent about the issues in the Psych/SW Department. We want our voices to be heard in an open dialogue with Administration. Meet at Alice Holst in Stauffer at 11:30 a.m., and we will walk together to Dr. Knight’s office to PEACEFULLY request a Town Hall. Send to 10 friends at PUC.

The student movement adopted the hashtag #FreePUC and corresponding websiteFreePUC.info. The site listed several objectives that students brought before college administration. J.J. Reynolds (pictured below left in plaid) presented the list to President Knight on behalf of the students. The president set a town hall meeting for 8:00 Thursday evening at the college’s Scales Chapel to answer student questions.

In an image from the Free PUC website, students march on the campus of Pacific Union College.

Meanwhile negotiations continue between representatives for PUC and psychology professor Aubyn Fulton, whose stance on academic freedom set in motion the actions by the other faculty members and students.

Fulton announced on April 28 through a Facebook post that he received notification he would be fired at the end of Spring Quarter. His impending exit follows a string of related faculty departures.Of the 6.5 faculty members who comprised the Psychology and Social Work Department two years ago, four have left or are leaving because of institutional policies and actions perceived to be inconsistent with academic freedom. Fulton will be the fifth.

In January 2014, Monte Butler announced his resignation from the department and his acceptance of a position at  Loma Linda University’s School of Behavioral Health. Bruce Bainum was the next professor to leave the department.

On April 6 of this year, Fiona Bullock resigned as BSW Program Director and Associate Professor of Social Work in protest and stated her support of Fulton. Bullock wrote on her Facebook page “the lack of compatibility between Academic Freedom and my ability to teach the social work values of diversity, compassion, inclusion, and acceptance as outlined by NASW and CSWE is at the heart of it.”

Charlene Bainum also announced her departure in April. In a letter to college administration also posted to Facebook, she said, “This administration’s efforts to silence, control, and then terminate this professor are in direct contradiction to PUC’s mission statement, and make it impossible to maintain the high educational standards that our students expect and deserve. I am obligated to speak out in protest at this grave injustice that has resulted in the dismantling and destruction of the Psychology and Social Work Department.” At the Western Psychology Association meeting in Long Beach last week, professors, alumni, and students gathered to honor Bainum. Many filled Facebook with photos, appreciative comments, and with discussion of Fulton’s situation.

Early in the school year, Fulton got into an academic freedom dispute with President Knight when he invited Ryan Bell, an alum of the college who has become a noted figure in atheist circles after a very public “year without God,” to speak at a colloquium class for departmental majors. The president intervened and uninvited Bell prompting Fulton’s charges of academic freedom violation.

The October squabble led to threats of possible firing of Fulton, but no action was taken. As the calendar year came to an end students of Fulton were requesting his assistance on long-term projects, so he sought guidance from the administration on its plans for his future employment. He did not find the administration’s silence reassuring. And by the beginning of the current spring quarter, he had pretty good information that the president did intend to fire him. According to one of his friends, he went to the administration and asked that some sort of settlement be reached. A lawyer was retained by the college to negotiate with Fulton.

Students and alumni have been discussing the issue at great length on Facebook. PUC Academic Dean Nancy Lecourt has met with students who are majoring in psychology and social work to reassure them of the college’s commitment to them and their educational program. The job postings for the vacant positions were shared with students, and Lecourt said the students provided valuable suggestions for the search for new faculty.

The students who marched on campus expressed support for their professors and their desire to have their voices heard. Student Association President Nic Miller said, "From my perspective the march was about making students' concerns tangible." For Miller, the demonstration signaled a willingness to place dialogue above classes and studies and showed students' attentiveness to the issue. "With that in mind I do think today [was] a success and a stepping stone toward really meaningful dialogue," Miller said.

As negotiations with Fulton continue, the consequences have been heavy on both sides. The college has seen a strong department decimated. For Fulton, who has spent nearly thirty years teaching at Pacific Union College, this is not the way he wanted his career to end.  

Bonnie Dwyer is Editor of Spectrum Magazine.
Additional reporting by Jared Wright, Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Social_Justice.jpg

Dr. Greg Schneider, Chair of Pacific Union College's Psychology Department, has confirmed that yesterday afternoon he submitted to the Academic Dean his letter of resignation as department chair. Of the department's six full-time faculty, four have resigned or retired within the last two years, protesting what is regarded as the college administration's curtailing of academic freedom. A fifth member of the department, Aubyn Fulton, has stated that he received notification that he will be fired at the end of this term, though that has not happened yet. Pending Fulton's termination, Schneider is the last remaining full-time faculty member in the department.

The news that Fulton would be let go, along with the resignations of professors Fiona Bullock and Charlene Bainum within the last month, shocked many students and sparked a campus-wide student demonstration. On Wednesday students marched across campus to the office of President Heather Knight with a list of requests, including a request for a town hall meeting. Last night, President Knight was joined by administrators Dave Lawrence (financial vice-president), Lisa Bissell Paulson (vice president for student services), Jennifer Tyner (vice president of enrollment and marketing), and Walter Collins (vice president for advancement) in a town-hall meeting hosted by Chaplain Jon Henderson. It was President Knight who did most of the talking.

Animated Town Hall Discussion
In the sometimes-animated town hall meeting during which students applauded and spoke passionately, Knight asserted that students' faith must be protected above all. "I think there is a journey that we have to take our students on intellectually and spiritually," Knight said, "but we've gotta hold their hands and we've gotta bring them back to a place of faith." Concerning academic freedom, she said, "There are some rights, there are some responsibilities. There are some limitations."

Much of the town hall discussion focused on Knight's decision to disinvite former Adventist pastor-turned-atheist Ryan Bell, whom Aubyn Fulton had invited to speak for a psychology class. Knight said Bell was too controversial of a figure to be a suitable guest lecturer.

"So was it more about public outcry?" a student asked. The student suggested that a more important consideration than how the public might react was the question, "Is this tied to our education?" The student said the Psychology and Social Work Department has produced results that demonstrate quality teaching.

Left to right: President Heather Knight and Vice Presidents Dave Lawrence, Walter Collins, Jennifer Tyner, and Lisa Bissell Paulson during the town hall meeting.

Knight responded that it matters what happens outside of campus because PUC is set up, operated and funded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. If Ryan Bell, who had been "defrocked" by the Pacific Union Conference, were to come to campus as a speaker, PUC's reputation would take a hit, Knight said. She also noted that the union provides Pacific Union College $3.6M a year. Later, when pressed on whether money were the issue, Knight said she wasn't concerned about money because "God provides." She noted that the college had just received a $1.1M check from a community member who passed away and left money to the institution.

The president did not express concern at the mass exodus of professors from the Psych and Social Work Department. "The school will go on," she said. 'There are fine candidates (to replace the professors) out there. PUC has been here since 1882 and we will continue to be." She indicated that the issue with academic freedom was limited to one department and to one individual in the department. Rejecting the idea that the concerns from within the Psych and Social Work Department had "spilled over," Knight said, "It hasn’t really happened anywhere else. We have 100 faculty members. We’ve had issues with one particular faculty member, and you know what I’m talking about."

When asked why she seems able to "unilaterally and singularly decide" the limits of academic freedom, Knight responded that she has been tasked by the college's board of trustees with "the very tough job" of providing direction for the university. The student went on, saying that the Psych and Social Work Department "has existed as it is for 20 years before you got here, so what changed?" Knight said that the department has been here and will continue to be here. "I'm doing the role that I've been brought here to do," she said.

Several students from the department expressed concern about what would happen to them and to the department. Knight expressed confidence that the department and the university would go on strong and that God would send the right people to fill faculty vacancies. "I'm really sorry that you guys have had to go through this. I'm really sorry."

Responses to Town Hall Meeting
During and after the town hall meeting, students, responses to the event poured in through email and social media indicating a mix of support for administration and frustration. Former PUC faculty member Brittnie Sigamoney commented during live video streaming of the town hall meeting, saying, "What the President is saying about it being one department isn't true. I resigned from the Communication Department March 21, 2016 because of Academic Freedom issues and the President's unwillingness to support free speech and the practice of journalism!"

Tara Hattendorf, editor-in-chief of PUC's student publication, Campus Chronicle, provided this feedback from students:

"We were expecting answers, we were preaching transparency, but we did not get that. We just got more questions."— Madison Greene, Psychology sophomore

"It was basically a ploy by the administration to pacify the students without any damage to themselves and without having to answer students' complaints."— Dominique Townsend, English sophomore

"For Dr. Knight to suggest that a faculty member should 'consult' with her, an administrator, when creating a curriculum really shows me that she no understanding of what academic freedom is."— Jonathan Chow, Psychology and English senior

"It is disingenuous to say that the disinvitation of Ryan Bell was not damaging to our education. I was in the class Bell was supposed to come to, and it was much less enriching experience than if Bell had come. Considering this and the notorious reputation of Bell, I think disinviting him was motivated more by public relations concerns than academic concerns."— Edward Stockton, Psychology senior

"From the time of Wednesday's peaceful demonstration to Thursday night's Town Hall, PUC's administration demonstrated that they respected students' time as well as the request for a Town Hall. Their answers to questions at the meeting were thoughtful, and while many students were left wishing for more, I appreciate their willingness to publicly dialogue with us." — Tara Hattendorf, History, Political Studies and Ethics senior

Mitchell Cameron, a PUC graphic design student, also expressed appreciation for the administration's willingness to talk: "Sad thing is that no students know at all what it takes to run a college. Respect to admin for getting up there and taking questions when they didn't have to."

For alumna Becky Galvez-Nelson (B.S. Psychology, '06), a Clinical Social Worker in San Bernardino County, California and contract instructor in La Sierra University's Social Work program, the town hall event was a cause for sadness. She shared this reflection:

I don't understand why my tenured professors with decades of experience couldn't be trusted with their teaching content and topics. These same professors provided me with an education and mentoring that only made me a better professional and Adventist today. This situation saddens me deeply. It makes me grieve the loss of a place I once called home. PUC's Psych and Social Work Department is where I found myself, my calling, and my faith.

Galvez-Nelson's statements about her professors in the Psych and Social Work Department have been echoed in hundreds of social media comments of appreciation for the faculty members who have left and are leaving the department.

Greg Schneider has declined to comment on his resignation as department chair, but confirmed that he intends to stay on next year to teach capstone courses that graduating seniors generally are required to take. 

WATCH: PUC town hall recording on YouTube.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: 

Sanctuary_Conversation.jpg

A new resource is available to congregations seeking constructive ways to address LGBT+ issues. Open Dialogue Resources, the publisher of “A Sanctuary for Conversation: Living, Loving and Learning” materials and workshops, fills a growing need for churches that want to begin discussion of the range sexual identities, but may be unsure how to proceed.

At the 2015 North American Division “Called” Ministerial Convention in Austin, Texas, a large convention hall full of Adventist ministers worked through the “Sanctuary for Conversation” materials together. Chris Blake, Associate Professor of English and Communication at Union College, led the workshop, which included exercises in listening, dialoguing in small groups and examining case studies and synopses of leading literature from a variety of disciplines on sexual identities.

Blake has not only led “Sanctuary for Conversation” workshops, but has also developed the materials through conversations with LGBT+ individuals and as a result of lots of reading. Blake recognized a need for materials and processes that helped move beyond simplistic, binary thinking about homosexuality and other sexual identities. Instead of engaging in the church's frequent arguments over the rightness or wrongness of allowing homosexual individuals a place in Adventist congregations, the workshop focuses on genuine dialogue among church members.

Participants in past workshops, including an event at the Berkeley Seventh-day Adventist Church, have provided anonymous comments on their experiences. These are samples of participant feedback:

“I have grown because of the time I spent listening to the presentations, discussions, and panel. As a result of this workshop, I have taken away an understanding of how to become a better minister to all.”

“The spirit of loving, humble discussion was filled with opportunities to sense and share God’s Holy Spirit.”

“We asked them to become more empathetic, not to change their beliefs, and as we showed tangible ways to do that they seemed very receptive, which was incredibly encouraging.” (a gay Adventist presenter)

“Thank you for the courage to hold this event.”

“Especially enjoyed the interviews with actual LGBT+ people.”

“I came today asking God to make me a student, and my prayer has been answered.”

“During my 27 years in Adventism, I have never seen such a spirit of humility expressed from the leaders of the church. No one came to prove ‘I’m right, you’re wrong,’ or to ‘school’ someone else on their theology. Instead, we all came to learn, be honest, and work together to improve the lives of our LGBT+ youth.”

“If you want your church to be a true community that is loving and compassionate, then do this workshop—it will make everyone more aware of their humanity.”

An excerpt from one of the handouts that accompanies the workshop.

“Our agenda,” Blake has said (and it’s part of the workshop materials) “is this: we aim to create safe spaces for positive, healing, informed, authentic conversation.”

The Pacific Union College community in the area around Angwin, Napa and St. Helena will have the opportunity to participate in the workshop this weekend at the Deer Park Community Hall in St. Helena. On Saturday, May 14 at 3:00pm, the Haven Adventist Church will host a “Sanctuary for Conversation” workshop free to the public. Organizers hope the event will attract at least 144 participants. Participants may RSVP on the Open Dialogue Resources website under "Events." The website includes free sample materials and introductions to the workshop process for churches interested in hosting an event.

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

Inline Images: