Conclusions from Our Roots

We have, from the beginning of our protestations about the governance debacle at Takoma Park, insisted that the changes were not just a bad idea poorly implemented, but a change antithetical to Adventism itself. That is a grand claim, which we have undertaken to substantiate through the post series, Our Roots. Having proceeded through that historical exploration we are now prepared to tie together all the strands and prove this claim.

We have begun this process already with several earlier posts. The Lessons from Our Roots (posted January 18, 2011) highlighted the fact that as our church founders began the conversation about organization they took care to allow adequate time and discussion on the matter and to maintain a respectful tone toward all those participating in the discussions. The Principles of Organization (posted March 2, 2011) showed that those early attitudes of openness and mutual consideration were formalized in the principles of free discussion, consensus decisions, representative government, transparency, simplicity, utility, stewardship, and coordinated effort which characterized the system of government that was eventually established. These basic principles have continued to be the basis of Adventist governance at all levels of the church organization since it was first established.

In Principle Over Form (posted July 1, 2011) the question of the changeability of the Adventist governance system was explored. It was seen that the principles which are the basis of the Adventist governance system are not to change. It was also seen that the practice of those principles can become corrupted over time, in which case the practices may periodically need to be reviewed and revised if such a drift is found to have taken place, but no one should ever entertain the thought that the principles themselves are open to revision. The Spirit of Prophesy is very clear on this.

Principle Over Form also pointed out that there is a distinction between principles and form. While the principles are nonnegotiable, God allows church members to choose the form of governance for themselves, provided it is 1) in harmony with the principles, 2) furthers the mission of the church, and 3) is established to be the will of the world church by being duly processed and voted on through the proper channels. This distinction was borne out as we saw the unfolding of the Kellogg/Jones situation. Ellen White had nothing to say about proposed changes to the form of governance until the proposals began to include changes to principle, at which time she became very vocal in her opposition to them.

Throughout Our Roots we have seen a tug-of-war over the balance of power in the denomination. We saw the bottleneck of power in the General Conference during the 1880s and 1890s which was broken when a group of leaders, supported by Ellen White, got together at the 1901 General Conference Session and insisted that the Session address the matter of reorganization. We saw the strengthening of the position of the General Conference at the 1903 Session, after the previous two years proved that the changes of 1901 had made it too weak in some respects. We saw the Kellogg/Jones challenge to any kind of formal organization at all, to which the denomination responded by presenting the membership with rational arguments explaining the hazards of their position and disproving the lies which supported it. We saw another movement to delegate power in 1913 through the creation of the divisions, and how that power shift was tempered in the adjustments of 1918.

One thing we have never seen in this examination of organizational history is any situation in which leadership simply ordered members to accept a change decided on by administrators alone or take their word for the truth of a position. In every instance of power shift mentioned above, the options, issues, and positions of the participants were freely discussed and openly considered in appropriate forums without any accusations of disloyalty or disobedience to the church or church leadership because of the expression of those differing opinions. Even Kellogg and Jones were given every opportunity to express their positions and support them as best they could. It was only after it was clearly seen by all that those positions were wholly incompatible with those of the denomination, and that the gentlemen refused to change their positions, that they were removed from membership.

There are four basic conclusions we take away from this historical exploration of Adventist governance:

1) The Adventist system is unlike any other standard pattern of church governance. The church founders had two primary concerns as they initially considered organization which continue to impact the nature of Adventist governance. The first was a desire to have an organization strong enough to effectively conduct mission. The second was a fear of having an organization so strong that it could become a dictatorial “Babylon.” The desire for effective mission suggested a top-down form of governance that could efficiently make decisions and wield resources, but this would have the disadvantage of possibly leading to the very Babylon they feared. Babylon could be prevented with a bottom-up organization in which the voice of the people would be paramount as safeguard and driving force, but bottom-up religious associations tend to be very weak on top, which could impede the effective mission they desired. So the founders of Adventist governance created a system which was neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather took elements from both models to act as checks and balances for each other and form an organization that was effective in mission without becoming overbearing.

Under this hybrid system of governance power is derived from the vote of the people, but some of that power is voluntarily surrendered as each unit of the church organization chooses to join a larger unit of organization (congregation joining conference, conference joining union, etc.). That surrendered power is in the form of rules and policies the unit agrees to be bound by and counsel it agrees to accept from the organization above it. In turn, the direction of the higher organization in these matters is controlled by the fact that the constituent entities elect the officers of these higher organizations.

2) The Adventist system of governance assumes—and depends on—integrity throughout its components. Because of this, there is little to nothing by way of systemic checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. It is simply taken for granted that by designating certain functions to the voice of the people and others to the clergy/higher organization that these two elements will hold each other in balance and all parties involved (being Christian, after all) possess sufficient integrity to not seek more power than they are allotted.

Realistically, this doesn’t always work so well. While it is fine to say that if one side of this balance is getting too strong the other side should step up and pull them back, if one side is too strong it is generally because the other side is too weak to pull them back. This makes it extremely difficult to correct an imbalance in either direction. The intervention of a higher level of governance is generally required, but even then there is only so much a higher level can do without overstepping its authority. (The situation is somewhat easier if the imbalance is caused by an excess of pastoral/system power—assuming the higher organization is willing to pull back their own agents/efforts—but that’s a subject for a different post).

Certain limited options do exist for the higher organization to take disciplinary action against individuals (or even entire church units) in extreme circumstances. There are no such safeguards against excesses of power by the higher organization except for constituents to vote out of office the personnel engaging in those excesses.

3) Local Adventist governance is inseparable from global Adventist governance. The system of governance in the local Adventist congregation is the same hybrid system which balances the power in the higher levels of Adventist organization. This system is realized in the local congregation through its local officer elections and the say-so of these officers in running the congregation through the church board. It is also realized in the power of the people’s voice being limited by having that governance body chaired by a pastor of the conference’s choosing and on the conference’s payroll, by being obligated to remit all tithe to the conference, and by adhering to the Church Manual. In this way the voice of the people can present many different ideas and opinions and give the people “ownership” of the resulting decisions, while the voice of the professional clergy gives solid theological and missional foundation. This being a working out of the pattern to be found throughout Adventist governance, it cannot be altered without unbalancing the system in some other part of the organization.

Why should breaking away from this system make the higher organization fall apart? Without a strong higher organization the focus of a congregation tends to turn inward rather than being on mission. And even if mission continues, it tends to be strictly local, losing the big picture of worldwide needs and thereby losing the outreach identity of the denomination. But if the higher organization is so strong that clergy dominate every facet of local church life, freedom of conscience is subordinated to the leader and the people no longer “own” the purpose and plans of the church. This creates formalism and spiritual stagnation. Adventist governance must maintain the balance between the strength of the organization and the voice of the people at all levels of the governance structure if it is to carry out its missional purpose.

4) The church is not a chasm, on one side of which are the people who command and on the other side of which are the people who obey. There is no caste system within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. All members are part of the royal priesthood of God and as such are not only invited but required to be thinking, active, and knowledgeable participants in the operation of the denomination. No one gets to sit on the sidelines and let someone else direct their religious experience for them.

The integrity of the Adventist governance system is dependent on an active membership which thinks. A thinking membership that acts according to those thoughts—rather than blindly following the lead of the clergy—is the designated balance for excesses of power by the clergy. We cannot say this strongly enough. It is not the job of the higher organization to stop a misuse of power by clergy. They may seek to guide and counsel their subordinates who have gone astray, but the primary task of reigning in such excesses belongs to the lay membership. The way the membership does this is by exercising their right to speak and vote in the meetings of the church.

To summarize our conclusions even more succinctly, Adventist governance is a delicately balanced system designed to maximize missional effectiveness while minimizing the risk of power abuses. Messing with any small part of the system is messing with the whole system, so unless the changes are made globally the results can be devastating.

Having examined the governance philosophies of Paul Borden in depth in the post series Bullseye (posted between April 12 and June 11, 2010) we won’t detail them here beyond what is necessary to explain the results of implementing them in Adventist congregations. Borden assumes that a church is starting with a classic bottom-up governance system—congregationalism. Under this system a local church may have loose ties to a higher organization, but they are strictly voluntary and all real decision-making power is retained locally. Borden recognizes that this arrangement lacks the strength to move forward purposefully, so he seeks to balance the situation by giving greater strength to the clergy. The problem is that he goes about this in exactly the opposite way of how Adventist governance does. There are three essential opposites:

1A. Borden assumes that pastoral assignments (and the hiring, paying, directing and firing that go along with them) are controlled by the congregation.
1B. Under the Adventist system pastoral assignments are controlled by the conference rather than the congregation.

2A. Borden gives local operational decisions to the pastor.
2B. Adventism gives local operational decisions to the democratic functions of the church board, which is populated by lay leaders.

3A. Borden assumes that any higher levels of organization have no legal or operational control over the congregation.
3B. Adventism specifies that conferences exert certain legal and operational limits over the local congregation.

Either system on its own has a certain balance. Borden gives the work to the pastor and the inducements to make the pastor work to the congregation. Under this system the higher organization avoids getting involved in local matters. Adventism gives the work to the congregation and gives them a pastor to help them get it done. Under this system the higher organization gives the pastor the inducements to get the work done.

But when Bordenism is introduced in Adventist congregations, you give the work to the pastor, the congregation is expected to stand back and let the pastor act however he chooses, and the higher organization which controls the inducements refuses to get involved. This half-of-one-and-half-of-the-other system leaves no balance, no control, and no accountability.

How much more clearly could we possibly say it? Bordenism destroys the delicate balance of the hybrid system of Adventist governance. For this reason, Bordenism and Adventism simply do not mix.