The Case for Fresh, New Leadership
13 September 2024 |
Recently one of my friends, noting the new optimism generated by a fresh presidential candidate in the United States, wondered, “Could that happen to the Adventist Church?”
“With Harris-Walz, it seems like the nation is starting to breathe again, seeing hope, sensing joy. Does the church need the same? Who could accomplish that?”
My friend went on,
“Elder Wilson never misses an opportunity to play on fear: of heresies, of apostasy, of anticipated persecution—enemies within and around. We’ve been plunged into spiritual depression.”
Indeed, the last sermon I listened to by Elder Wilson, at the autumn 2023 Executive Committee meeting, was a bellicose sixteen-point gumbo of accusations, warnings, and disappointments.
I have spent a lifetime in and around Adventist representative democracy, and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it would be very difficult for an open-minded, optimistic, rational, and gospel-affirming candidate to make his way into top church leadership. Part of it has to do with how decisions are made.
But it also reflects the expectations most Adventists have about what their church is supposed to be: our faith is, by its nature, pessimistic and exclusive, and we mostly expect our leaders to reflect that.
Decision-making 101
Have you ever wondered why, when your conference or union conference gets together for a constituency meeting, everything is spelled out, the agenda is tight, nothing new can be brought up except what’s in the agenda, and the group is left with some simple yes-or-no, a-or-b, choices?
It’s not because the leaders start out wanting to restrict you. It’s because a big group that gets together for one day can’t design great policies and propose new solutions from scratch, in a matter of a few hours. The compromise is to offer you a few previously considered choices, and let you decide on those.
Yes, this can favor manipulation, for those leaders so inclined. Remember Elder Wilson’s convening of the Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC)—then at the 2015 General Conference (GC) session acting as though it had never happened? Instead, he rose to his feet to say from a floor microphone (as though that made him a regular delegate) that he disapproved of ordaining women.
That’s manipulation. He knew it, and so did everyone else. Most of the delegates were on the church payroll (read on) and they followed orders: the boss said it, so they made sure everyone voted for it.
But even if you don’t have a manipulative leader in the chair, you will still get simple choices at a meeting of thousands of delegates from around the world. Because if you didn’t, nothing would get done.
Simple choices
The central issue, of course, is who sets up the choices. If they were democratic choices, fair choices, they’d be crafted by a team representing many different church constituencies.
That rarely happens in our church. The one time when it did—the aforementioned TOSC—the chief executive officer didn’t like the outcome, so he ignored the committee’s findings.
You must understand that every initiative that makes it to the floor of the GC session will have started out in Elder Wilson’s office. He has an administrative committee made up of people who work directly for him, who substantially agree with him; their only question is how to spin it to win it.
From there he will take it to the General Conference Executive Committee that meets twice yearly. That group is almost entirely church workers. It’s not hard to get agreement from a group where most of them work under you.
You might say that we need more lay voices: there are in fact lay people on this committee, but my experience is that they’re more compliant than the employees.
The nominating committee that selects the next GC president will also be mostly church workers. Even that committee is so large that everyone will look to a few strong voices for recommendations. And whomever that committee nominates will be elected the next GC president—the floor vote is merely a rubber stamp.
The GC president will be a member of his own nominating committee for all but the few moments it takes for people to raise their hands, yea or nay, to select him. He will, after his election, tell them all who to nominate for the rest of the officer positions—and they will obey.
A better way?
Of course there could be better ways of doing all this. My friend Ed Reifsnyder, who has spent his life in senior level executive searches, has outlined them here. I recommend this piece to you not because I think it will happen, but because it should. Ed makes the case that for a business this size, there should be resúmés and interviews starting months—maybe even years—before the GC session.
But that’s not going to happen for this reason: people in church executive positions aren’t selected for skills and competencies.
I remember when a man was elected to be the president in a conference in which I was serving, who very quickly proved himself to be a poor leader. I would go so far as to say that the stress of the job made apparent that he had some emotional problems. At a certain point even his executive committee didn’t want him anymore.
I remember asking a friend in the union conference, “How did this guy get selected?” His response: “It just seemed to everyone that he’d been waiting, and it was his turn.”
That’s the kind of reasoning that goes into electing Adventists to executive offices. Here are a few more:
- “He’s got the right theology.” For whom? For me? For you? Being theologically safe is a big part of why someone gets a top church job, leadership competence aside.
- “He’s in an office job already, so he must be capable.” Ever heard of the Peter Principle: that a person rises to the level of his incompetence and gets stuck there?
- “We’ve not heard anything bad about him.” Yes, I’ve actually heard this said. He might be in a lower position somewhere, and he’s not been there long enough to get a reputation. Ignorance about him means he’s worth taking a chance on.
- “He’s an awfully nice guy. Everyone likes him.” There are worse qualifications! But that doesn’t mean he’ll be good in a crisis.
- “He’s from a well-known church family.” If you are a Nelson, a Watts, a Wilson, a Venden, a Maxwell, a Cress, a Halverson, or a Folkenberg—or even related by marriage to any of these—you have no doubt been proposed for executive church positions because you come from a dynasty family.
- “We need someone from a certain part of the world.” It probably is time for a GC president from somewhere other than North America. But does a different first language, a different shade of skin, or a different nationality automatically mean a person can be trusted with the authority we’ve invested in that office?
- “He’s my brother-in-law.” As good as “It’s his turn,” I suppose. But generally speaking, nepotism isn’t a good way to run a company.
Anyway, I think you get the idea: executive-level vetting probably isn’t in the cards.
Can something different happen?
It does occasionally—usually by accident.
At the 1990 GC session, the nominating committee couldn’t make a decision. The man who had been chairing the committee was a returned missionary who was president of the Carolina Conference. People were impressed enough by his demeanor that Robert Folkenberg was elected as GC president. That didn’t end well.
His successor, Jan Paulsen, was both an academic and an administrator. When Folkenberg was forced to resign, Paulsen was selected not by a GC session, but at an Executive Committee. Paulsen, a humble and kind man, was one of the most beloved presidents of my lifetime.
It would be lovely should such a happy accident happen again. If we really believed in prayer and the Holy Spirit’s leading, perhaps it could.
But because I don’t want you to be disappointed, I suggest you not get your hopes up. You can pray, and should—but I suspect that the selection of the next GC president has probably already been made, if not by Elder Wilson, then by influential operators close to him.
Many wish we could design a less centralized church, where division and union conference leaders decide they are going to do what is best for their region, not for Silver Spring. That happened when North American and European leaders decided to ordain women (even though Elder Wilson was furious at them—and no, that’s not too strong a description).
We have, by theology and tradition, an authoritative structure that perpetuates itself, to go along with dark expectations for the future. An optimistic and progressive leader is desperately needed—but don’t hold your breath.
Loren Seibold is the Executive Editor of Adventist Today.
