Part Five: Other
Considerations
The Bible must remain the basis for a decision to ordain
or not to ordain women to ministry. However, in the late 1990s other
factors contribute to the discussion, especially in North America.
Many view the action of allowing women to pastor and yet denying them the
recognition of ordination as gross injustice; this topic is considered in
chapter 18. White slaveholders used the Bible to sustain their
subjugation of their Black brothers and sisters; chapter 19 explores the
similarity between those arguments and the ones used to exclude women from
the ordained ministry. In the last 1990s the Seventh-day Adventist
Church is culturally, racially, and socially diverse; each member is part
of a culture and thus views issues—even the Bible—differently.
Therefore, we must remember that we are not culture-free in our own
interpretation and must commit ourselves to study differing positions and
prayerfully seek the Spirit's direction to resolve the issue of women in
ministry (chap. 20).
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