Ellen White and the Role of Women in the Church

3. The 1881 Resolution to Ordain Women

Two Resolutions. A resolution to ordain women came from the Committee on Resolutions at the 1881 General Conference session. Some have suggested that it was not the only one pertinent to the issue, since the preceding resolution reads: EWRWC 14.1

Resolved, That all candidates for license and ordination should be examined with reference to their intellectual and spiritual fitness for the successful discharge of the duties which will devolve upon them as licentiates and ordained ministers. ¹¹

This resolution was adopted. It expands the 1878 mandate for examining candidates for license to include candidates for ordination. It has been suggested that this was enacted in connection with the following resolution, which would authorize ordaining women to the ministry. But such would be putting the cart before the horse. If the intent of this resolution had been to address the question of what to do with the women licentiates, one would expect it to be considered after the resolution calling for their ordination. Then the argument might have been: 1) Yes, it is proper to ordain them; and, 2) We should examine their qualifications before doing so. But it does not make sense the other way around. As I see it, one is only at liberty to conclude that the resolution was addressed to those who were already candidates for ordination (as well as license, which is included here). EWRWC 14.2

The Concern of the Resolution. What is more, those who claim that this resolution was intended to provide for prudent advancement in ordaining women overlook the provisions of the resolution itself. It differs from the 1878 action, not just in including candidates for ordination, but in the criteria that are to be applied. The 1881 resolution stipulates “That all candidates for license and ordination should be examined with reference to their intellectual and spiritual fitness....” ¹² The 1878 action had specified only that candidates for license be examined “in regard to their doctrinal and educational qualifications.” ¹³ There is a clear shift in emphasis from doctrinal knowledge and amount of education to intellect and spirituality as the areas of desired qualifications. EWRWC 14.3

This echoed Ellen White’s expressed concerns about the prevailing conditions among the ministry of the church at that time, conditions that led her to call for reform. In “The Cause in Iowa” testimony cited above and published the year before the General Conference adopted this resolution, Mrs. White makes an explicit call for a change in the examination of ministerial candidates’ qualifications. She writes, “There must be a decided change in the ministry. A more critical examination is necessary in respect to the qualifications of a minister.” ¹⁴ She made it clear that the problem was spiritual. In the next paragraph she wrote, “The ministry is corrupted by unsanctified ministers. Unless there shall be altogether a higher and more spiritual standard for the ministry, the truth of the gospel will become more and more powerless.” ¹⁵ It was spiritual qualifications that she was calling for. Is it only coincidental that the 1881 resolution revised the criteria to call for examination of these qualities before giving a license or credentials to a minister? It seems clear that the real concern of this first resolution was the condition of the ministry, not whether the church should ordain women. EWRWC 14.4

Resolution on Women’s Ordination. The 1881 General Conference resolution that does address the ordination of women deserves another look, as well. It reads, EWRWC 15.1

Resolved, That females possessing the necessary qualifications to fill that position, may, with perfect propriety, be set apart by ordination to the work of the Christian ministry. ¹⁶

Some have thought that the resolution was passed at the General Conference, but was sidetracked by the General Conference Committee. This is not the case. The first resolution, calling for spiritual qualifications for church ministry, was adopted, but this one on ordination for women was referred to the General Conference Committee. Referral to committee is a way of providing for more careful study of something on which the whole body is uncertain. It has also functioned at times as a means of dealing with something that will not pass, without having to vote it down. The committee never returned it to the General Conference session. EWRWC 15.2

Yet to conclude that a three-man committee killed the resolution does despite to the facts. Those who would maintain that three recalcitrant men were thwarting the will of the church in 1881 are obliged to explain why no one even brought the matter up again at the General Conference in 1882, or in 1883, or in 1884. In fact, General Conference sessions were held yearly until 1889, when they became biennial. Yet, to my knowledge, no one ever reintroduced the resolution. EWRWC 15.3

Unlike today’s situation, the issue apparently created little stir. The minutes of the session record not only the resolutions and their outcome, but the names of those who spoke to them. The first resolution, calling for examining ministers’ qualifications, does not seem controversial. Nine people spoke to it, and it was adopted. The next resolution, calling for ordaining women to the pastoral ministry, had eight people speak to it, and it was referred to committee. ¹⁷ When this fact is combined with the one noted above, that the measure was never reintroduced, it seems clear that the idea of ordaining women had little support in the church at that time. EWRWC 15.4

Ellen White’s Silence. Ellen White was not present at that General Conference session. She likely read the report of the resolutions in the Review a few weeks later or heard about them from her son Willie, but we have no record of her making any comment one way or the other on the matter. This is harder to explain from the position that she favored ordination than from the position that she opposed it. Proponents of ordination today that I am acquainted with do not try to explain her silence, one calling it “a mystery still to church historians.” They simply deny that her silence lent approval to the handling of the matter, or they claim that her silence must least be construed as permissive in light of her responsibility to warn the church against error and her encouragement to women to participate in the work of the church. EWRWC 15.5

One must beware of arguments from silence, which are incapable of giving proof. Ellen White’s silence, by itself, neither promotes nor refutes ordination for women. But if she favored it, her silence is indeed a mystery. Why did she not speak out when the church veered away from ordaining women on the other hand, if she did not favor it, then some reasons for silence come to mind. She may simply have felt that the issue was not important. Or, if she felt that the church should not ordain women, she may have made no comment on the resolution simply because none was necessary. The church was not about to begin ordaining women, so no corrective was needed. EWRWC 16.1

Indeed, we know of another time when the church faced real dangers that Mrs. White was warned of in vision, and yet she kept silent. In connection with the crisis over pantheism that came to a head with the publication of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s book Living Temple, she wrote the following: EWRWC 16.2

About the time that Living Temple was published, there passed before me in the night season, representations indicating that some danger was approaching, and that I must prepare for it by writing out the things God had revealed to me regarding the foundation principles of our faith. A copy of Living Temple was sent me, but it remained in my library, unread. From the light given me by the Lord, I knew that some of the sentiments advocated in the book did not bear the endorsement of God, and that they were a snare that the enemy had prepared for the last days. I thought that this would surely be discerned, and that it would not be necessary for me to say anything about it ¹⁸

Had the church leaders discerned the danger of the concepts in Living Temple and moved against it, evidently Mrs. White would have said nothing. Yet her silence would not have been permissive in regard to pantheism. Only when it was clear that the error was gaining ground did she speak out. By contrast, when the church considered a resolution in 1881 to ordain women as pastors, that view did not prevail, and Mrs. White said nothing about it. But if, on the other hand, the error were in the rejection of women’s ordination, and such error had triumphed at the General Conference, then we might well expect her to have spoken out against that rejection. EWRWC 16.3

Charged to Protest Injustice. Especially would we expect Mrs. White to have spoken out against denying ordination to women if such denial were (as some today claim) arbitrary, unjust and oppressive. She stated, EWRWC 16.4

I was charged not to neglect or pass by those who were being wronged. I was specially charged to protest against any arbitrary or overbearing action toward the ministers of the gospel by those having official authority. Disagreeable though the duty may be, I am to reprove the oppressor, and plead for justice. I am to present the necessity of maintaining justice and equity in all our institutions. ¹⁹

The women we are speaking of here were licensed as ministers of the gospel, but church officials did not see fit to permit their ordination. Mrs. White spoke strongly in favor of the women workers being paid and paid fairly, even from the tithe; she spoke about the importance of supporting aged ministers; ²⁰ she protested against unfair treatment of black ministers; ²¹ but she had nothing to say when the General Conference declined to ordain licensed women ministers. Perhaps the instruction to protest unfairness came after 1881 (her statement is from twenty-five years later, in 1906). But even so, the practice of not ordaining women prevailed through to the end of her life and beyond. Evidently she did not see this as “arbitrary,” “overbearing,” or a matter of “justice and equity.” She had been “specially charged to protest” against such things, but on this she had no protest. EWRWC 16.5

Again, one must be careful not to claim too much on the basis of silence. Yet Mrs. White’s silence on the ordination issue, especially in light of the related data we have looked at, should make one slow to claim that she gave her support or influence to the cause of bringing women into the ordained pastoral ministry. EWRWC 17.1

Active Personal Ministry. The final claim of the scenario we have been examining is that Ellen White called for women to be ordained and for them to be paid from the tithe. We have already examined the passages that are used to say that Mrs. White called for women to be ordained to the gospel ministry (especially the “ordination” statement from 1895), and we have found that they do not make such a call. Yet we must recognize that Mrs. White did call for women to be involved in an active personal ministry, especially to women and families, and that she envisioned paying from the tithe the women workers who gave themselves whole-souled to this work, “although the hands of ordination have not been laid” ²² upon them. But there is no basis in that statement for saying that Mrs. White called for women to be ordained in the usual sense to the gospel ministry. EWRWC 17.2