Eclectic Christian

This is the first in a series of posts on the theme “Alternatives to Division.” When facing discord and division in your church, what are some of the alternatives to simply dividing?

The first case study that I wanted to examine was that of the role of women as elders in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. This is an issue that was one of the key concerns of the denomination for 1982-2000, and one on which little agreement could be found.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) in Canada became independent from the U.S. body in 1981. While it adopted many of the US policies as its own, it was now a separate entity and responsible for making its own policies and decisions. One of the structures that was changed was moving from a two board system in the local church to a single elders board. Under the two board system, women often served on the Executive board, but not the Elders’ board. So under the single board system women were restricted from serving in leadership positions.

As a result of the change in board structure the question of whether or not women could serve on Elders’ boards was raised at the General Assembly in 1982. As little notice had been given of the issue, discussion was deferred until the next Assembly in 1984 and the Board of Directors of the denomination commissioned a report to study the issue.

In 1984, delegates to the assembly were clearly divided on the issue. The debate was intense and emotional, so much so that apologies had to be offered the next day. Votes were very close, and the final decision of the assembly was to postpone any final decision until an exegetical study could be prepared on the issue by those familiar with the original languages.

In 1988, the new study was presented, and much debate and discussion ensued. However this time assembly was able to pass a motion on the issue. It read:

“It is recognized that the historical and biblical pattern has been that elders in the church have been men. The weight of evidence would imply that this pattern should continue.”

Unfortunately this statement did little to end the conflict as many interpreted the statement to mean that women could now serve on Elders’ boards. This interpretation was based on some of the ambiguous wording in the text of the statement, along with the fact that stronger wording that outright banned women from serving had been defeated.

Over the next eight years a number of churches began to have women on their boards despite the disapproval of a new national leadership which wished to be more restrictive on the issue. In 1996 the issue came to a head again with a nomination of a woman to the denomination’s board of directors. Again there was acrimonious debate and the woman nominated withdrew her name before a vote was taken.

In 1998 the issue was debated again, this time in a more civil manner. Motions were narrowly passed which allowed women to serve in a variety of national and district leadership levels. Pictured at top left is Miriam Charter, who was the first woman elected to the Board of Directors since the very early days of the denomination. The issue of women as elders was deferred to 2000.

In 2000 the Board of Directors of the denomination presented this statement:

For some time Alliance Christians with a high view of Scripture have been unable to arrive at a consensus on whether women can serve as Elders. When we have approached this with our best views of Scripture and our personal illustrations we have only increased our inability to arrive at a consensus.

They then proposed that churches could choose, by a two thirds vote to have women on their elders board as long as the majority were men. This motion was defeated as it was not acceptable to either of the contrary positions for being either too permissive or too restrictive.

The committee on general legislation was asked to help propose some guidelines to help further the discussion. They proposed:

a) That in any resolution we adopt a position which does not explicitly
or implicitly convey a negative inference that those who hold to an alternate view are holding an inferior position.
b) That any resolution must respect the right of people and local churches to hold to their convictions on this matter without recrimination.
c) That we adopt a position which our people will be able to affirm with as much integrity as possible.
d) That we adopt a position that does not force local churches to address this issue unless or until they choose to do so.

Finally Pastor Paul Little proposed that “The local church may by a 2/3 majority choose to have women on their Board of Elders.” This motion was passed.

Paul Little’s motion was a stroke of genius. Although many were not happy with the decision, it largely ended the debate at the national level. The unity of the denomination was preserved. Churches that wished to continue to be more restrictive could choose to do so. Churches who wished to be more permissive in this area could chose to do so. The denomination has been able to focus on other things, and in fact over the last eight years we have seen a much clearer focus on the mission priorities of the Alliance.

The whole point of this post is this: This model of allowing the local church some flexibility when there is not a national consensus is perhaps a unifying model that can be applied to other issues as well. Instead of churches dividing they can perhaps to agree to disagree on a particular topic. There may be local or regional differences within the denomination, but if that helps the denomination to stay united to further the gospel of Christ then this is a good thing.

A couple of final notes: I had been meaning to write about this topic for some time. When researching it I came across a Master’s thesis is the form of a book that had been written on this very topic. Alexandra Meek Sharman goes into the topic in much greater detail that I was able to in this short post. I depended quite a bit on her book to verify dates. It is well written and she discusses a number of the important side issues like inerrancy and culture that helped frame the debate. For those interested in reading further about this debate you can download or purchase a paperback copy of her book from www.lulu.com

Finally, I should note that there are other issues on the horizon for the C&MA. Up to this point in time the Alliance in Canada has not had a well defined theology of ordination. Discussing ordination has been pushed to the side while the issue of the role of women as elders was being settled. This topic will be front and center during the Alliance’s next national assembly next month. I am sure that the sub-topic of how ordination relates to women will generate some discussion.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 11:20 pm and is filed under division, role of women, unity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.