Ellen White and the Role of Women in the Church

2. Licensing of Woman Ministers

Until recently it had been largely forgotten that a number of women carried a ministerial license from the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Most of these were the wives of ordained ministers, and most of them apparently were engaged in the kind of personal labor (a Bible Instructor kind of work) that Ellen White described in passages such as those we have already cited. In general, they do not seem to have served as the leaders of churches or even, very often, as public speakers. There are some notable exceptions to that latter point: Minnie Sype and Lulu Wightman, and apparently Ellen Lane, are examples of women who functioned effectively as public evangelists. But to date I have seen no evidence that women served as the leaders of churches. Perhaps further research will shed more light on this matter. EWRWC 11.6

It is now being suggested by some that the circumstances surrounding the licensing of women as ministers comprise a mandate for ordaining women today. The argument, in brief, is this: EWRWC 12.1

Women were first licensed as ministers the same year (1878) the church first called for an examination to be made of candidates for license, it being understood that licensing would put women on the path to ordination. Ellen White took an active part in examining the qualifications of candidates for license, some of whom presumably were female. The church considered ordaining women shortly after it began licensing them. Though the proposal was not adopted, Mrs. White did not oppose it or warn against it. She in fact called for ordaining women to church ministries and paying them from the tithe.

Some Inaccuracies. Several inaccuracies appear in this scenario. First is the assertion that the decision to examine the qualifications of candidates for license coincides closely with the licensing of the first woman, Ellen Lane, in 1878. Advocates of this view say that the church thereby showed that it recognized that licensing put these women on the path to ordination, and it was going to be careful whom it licensed. EWRWC 12.2

The facts are that Ellen Lane was first licensed not in 1878, but three years earlier in 1875 ² The minutes of the Michigan Conference Annual Session show that Sister Roby Tuttle was licensed at the same time. Further, these were not the first women to receive the ministerial license. That honor seems to belong to S. A. H. Lindsey, who received a license from the New York and Pennsylvania Conference at a conference session on August 9, 1871 ³ The licensing of these women therefore cannot demonstrate that the church at that time assumed licensing of women would likely lead to ordination. The policy calling for an examination prior to licensing anyone came seven years after the first woman licensee, and the question of the propriety of ordaining women would not be considered until 1881, ten years after their first licensing. EWRWC 12.3

The second inaccuracy is the assertion that Ellen White took an active part in the examination of candidates for license (one public speaker has included female candidates), even recommending that some of them not receive licenses. This is based first upon the fact that Mrs: White attended certain conference sessions at which women were granted the ministerial license, ⁴ and second on a comment she wrote about her stay at a camp meeting in Oregon. “I was unable to sit up yesterday, for with much writing, reining myself up to meet different ones who put in requests for license, speaking in public, and showing the unfitness of different ones to attempt to teach others the truth, it was too much for my strength.” ⁵ But the statement does not say that she took part in examinations or that she recommended that some of the candidates not receive licenses. It merely lists things she had been doing and makes no connection between “meeting” certain license applicants and “showing the unfitness” of certain unnamed individuals to teach the truth. Her lack of intent to connect those two elements is shown by the fact that they are separated by another item on the list—“speaking in public.” And there is not a hint here that any of the candidates for license are female. EWRWC 12.4

If Mrs. White’s “showing the unfitness of different ones to teach others the truth” was not in the context of an examination for a license, then what was it about? A possible clue occurs later in the same paragraph, where she describes her sermon of the night before: “I here brought in genuine sanctification and the spurious article which is so common.” ⁶ Was she counteracting false doctrine that was already being taught there, and showing the unfitness of those who were already teaching it. Certainty on that point may not be possible, but it goes beyond the facts to assert that Mrs. White here said that she recommended that certain applicants not receive licenses. EWRWC 13.1

A more likely interpretation of the Oregon situation is that it parallels an experience Mrs. White published in Testimony No. 29 that same year. ⁷ Under the title, “The Cause in Iowa,” she spoke about danger to the work from unsanctified ministers, singling out two for special notice without whose work the cause would be better off. She considered them unfit to teach the truth to others: “Not having experimental godliness themselves, how can they lead the people to that Fountain with which they themselves are unacquainted?” ⁸ And again, “Brother F is not fitted for his work.” ⁹ And the problem was broader: “The ministry is corrupted by unsanctified ministers.” ¹⁰ Here the same elements (unfitness of some to teach the truth; lack of genuine sanctification) that are mentioned in Oregon appear again. And the problem is not with candidates for license, but with those already in the work. EWRWC 13.2

The third inaccuracy in the scenario is the claim that the Adventist Church considered ordaining women shortly after it began licensing them, indicating that licensing was understood to put them on the ordination track. We have already shown above that rather than three years (which would correspond roughly to today’s typical time between licensing and ordination in the Adventist ministry), it was at least ten years after the church started licensing women that it considered ordaining them. And the events of that consideration need some further explication. EWRWC 13.3