The Feminine Mystique Mistake
by Shelley Curtis Weaver | 6 June 2024 |
Does the church’s failure to follow Joel 2:28-29 doom the NAD Pentecost Evangelism initiative?
When I moved to the Pacific Northwest, everyone warned I would be continuously engulfed in rain. As it turns out, the coastal weather is variable and often sunny. I’m reminded that many worries—even promises—remain unrealized.
This last week the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (NAD) reclaimed the promise of “latter rain.” Adventist Today reported that church leaders are rolling out “Pentecost 2025,” an evangelism initiative named for the first-century outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the upper room. The plan to train and fund outreach proposals throughout North America aims to recreate Pentecost’s inspiration and growth.
As Calvin Watkins, NAD vice president overseeing evangelism, emphasized, “We are urging total member involvement.”
Variations on a theme
That “total member involvement” motto isn’t new—nor are hopes of a second Pentecost. I first heard prayers pleading for the latter rain as a preschooler kneeling on sawdust floors at camp meeting, high on the rim of Casper Mountain, Wyoming. I have heard that prayer and expectation uttered dozens of times since—at every major gathering, every official program, and in the occasional potluck blessing.
I hate to say this—but it’s not coming. Or to rephrase for accuracy: I suspect the latter rain has been offered many times, and we’ve rejected the outpouring.
I do not mean disrespect for the sincere folks imagining, preparing, and praying for this campaign. I am touched by the love and concern they genuinely hold for their friends and neighbors.
However, early Christian believers welcomed and expected the Holy Spirit to fill and equip everyone equally. Our church has limited who is suited to receive it, building doctrines and policies as a hierarchy of exclusion. It seems pointless to call for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit when we’ve blocked and rejected it before.
Reasons for the drought
One example of our resistance was referred to in a May 23rd Spectrum report by Alex Aamodt and Alexander Carpenter, about Oregon Conference president Dan Linrud’s resignation.
The resignation itself, after a 1.9-million-dollar budget shortfall, wasn’t a surprise: it seemed unlikely they’d let the same administrator who was in charge when the mess was made, handle the cleanup.
What was surprising was an editorial update. In the first version, Spectrum’s article stated that Oregon Conference executive vice president for administration, Kara Johnsson, was serving as the “acting president” following Linrud’s resignation. But that was quickly changed at the request of the Oregon Conference, which wanted it made clear that Johnsson was not, in fact, “acting president” but merely serving as the “ranking leader in the absence of a president.”
The statement in the edit note underscored the point that her function was not in any way to be misconstrued as presidential. This clarification was made in not one, but two comments sent and noted in the Spectrum report on 5/23, and again on 5/24.
Whether officially an “acting president” or “ranking leader,” I imagine Johnsson’s hard work and personal sacrifice remains the same.
Splitting compliance hairs
This belaboring is odd. “Acting president” isn’t a term understood as an official designation. “Acting” means what it means: a temporary placement acting to fulfill the duties of someone until a permanent replacement is found. Occasionally, “acting” replacements are hired for the official position, but it’s understood this isn’t always the case, and that this trajectory is by no means inevitable.
Would these statements have been issued had the authors identified a male vice president for administration as “the acting president”? It’s hard to imagine so. I’ve seen many transitional church leaders referred to as “acting” or interim without multiple disclaimers stressing he is doing—but not officially doing—the job at hand.
It’s not hard to connect the dots. My guess doesn’t even strain credibility. Hip-deep in financial hemorrhage staunched by cutting pastors and canceling this summer’s camp meeting, Oregon Conference is understandably risk-adverse. Already beholden to its union conference for a hefty cash transfusion, Oregon didn’t want to draw any scrutiny from above.
Oregon Conference and the world church have already borne witness to the decade-long testing of General Conference tolerance. In the Southeastern California Conference, Sandra Roberts, a duly-elected, qualified woman, spent her presidential term unrecognized at official meetings and omitted in directories. Her continued tenure past the 2015 GC vote likely factored into the attempted censure and discipline for non-compliance at the 2019 Annual Fall Council.
Growing weary of reasoning—
I will not rehash the biblical precedent for female leadership, or argue that the priestly function of a male levitical tradition was transformed into an equal priesthood of believers when the temple veil was torn. A whole taskforce of excellent theologians and Bible scholars did that and much more, and reported their findings to the world church. It changed nothing. Afterwards, a broad constituency of the church gave reasoned objections and that, too changed nothing.
The apologetics and policies of gender hierarchy prohibiting female leadership are not a biblical mandate, or theological command. They are a power trip. They are the broken human urge to (barely) submit only to God, while grabbing for the important spots at the right and left hand of Jesus. It is a spirit detached from the reality of following Jesus, listening to the Holy Spirit, or serving others. Jesus described the cancer of the human power struggle, and commanded us, “but not so with you.”
We Adventists are proud of our loud voices proclaiming the end of the world. A Pentecost outpouring for the next evangelistic drive claims to equip us for our prophetic role. However, an earlier prophet defined that outpouring in a way that excludes our church as its policy stands:.
“Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (Joel 2:28-29 NRSV).
I would ask the male leaders determined to block female ordination and leadership whether it bothers them to consider that their resistance and down-votes in 1974, 1989, 1990, and 2015 might have grieved and quenched the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Why call for “total member involvement” in Pentecost 2025, only to minimize and block the work God equips our female leaders to do? When a conference must fear and tremble at the mere suggestion a woman might be working as conference president, we are literally refusing the latter rain at that moment.
It’s not a girls-only issue
I am female. And I am, clearly, hurt and offended. We continue to labor, minister, and bless our church with our gifts and calling. We continue to hear, “We love and value your efforts—but now will you please stand over here to the side and let us give you a different name and endorsement, even though you are called, gifted, and doing the exact same work. Because, girls, you lack the sacred anointing of a Y chromosome, and so even the call of God is not enough.”
I want to be clear: despite my obvious frustration, this is not a hurt based on ambition or even rejection by our fellows. It is about one human being looking at another and saying, “God does not find you acceptable.”
If I were to limit this blocking of the latter rain to only the rejection of women, I’d miss the point yet again. Though Pentecost marked a remarkable growth phase, embrace of the Great Commission did not become universal until Peter dreamed about a net of unclean animals offered for his consumption. In that dream, God commanded Peter to abandon the last barrier to full ministry to the world. Female believers are only the leading edge of those excluded from equal standing in our community. As in Peter’s dream, the Spirit commands we not reject what is reclaimed by sending Jesus to all of humanity.
The umbrella of exclusion is blocking what God offers to all of us again and again. Maybe it’s time to gather on the common ground of our humanity and equality as beloved, redeemed, and called to receive the latter rain.
Shelley Curtis Weaver lives in coastal Washington state. She is a clay-artist, writer, wife, mother, grandmother, and a frequenter of Columbia River crossings. She has edited and contributed to The Journey to Wholeness addiction recovery curriculum from AdventSource.
To comment, click/tap here.
