The July 2015 meeting of the Adventist General Conference was dominated by an often contentious debate about women’s ordination. Though founded by a female charismatic leader, Adventists were contesting women’s ordination by at least 1881, and the contemporary denomination has studied the question for more than four decades. Tension has burgeoned in recent years as some regional Seventh-day Adventist unions have ordained women despite the lack of movement-wide policy change. In July 2015, as delegates deliberated on a motion to allow each division of the world church to decide the question of women’s ordination for itself, the gathering saw an unusual degree of discord, and this disagreement about gender and women’s roles spilled over from the ordination debate into discussions of other agenda items. Despite a “No” vote on the motion, the controversy surrounding women’s ordination persists in Adventism.
University of California Press