Status of Female Pastors Debated

The president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has voiced his “regret” that the church’s Southeastern California Conference has decided to issue the same credentials to male and female pastors.

Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said the decision by the Southeast California Conference makes a unified position more difficult on the matter of male and female clergy.

The southeast conference serves five counties south and east of Los Angeles.

“The issue is not the rightness or otherwise, ethically, morally or biblically, of the position,” Paulsen said. The California church group should have waited, he said, “knowing that the church makes her decisions sometimes frustratingly slowly, but in a very deliberate manner with an eye to many issues.”

The Adventist Church traditionally has had a two-tier credential system, recognizing males in gospel ministry as “ordained” and females as “commissioned.” Commissioned ministers are prohibited from organizing churches, ordaining deacons and elders and serving as conference president.