What They Don't Know Won't Hurt Them:
Pacific Union Action Not Carried by Denominational News Service

Several days have gone past since on August 27 the Pacific Union Constituency Meeting was held and voted to amend the Union constitution and bylaws so that a non-ordained individual could serve as Union President--in contradiction to the will of the world church. The world church accepts only that ordained ministers will serve in primary leadership capacities (Presidents of Conferences and Unions and General Conference). SDA news services have had two weeks to publish the happenings of that meeting but have not.

Just today (Friday 7 September 2001) the "Monday Fax" went out for 10 September. This document, again, contained nothing on the action by the Pacific Union. (Note: The above link will be out of date in a few days as it recycles whenever they replace one document with the next Monday Fax.)

Indeed, it has been confirmed to us that a conscious decision was arrived at by certain parties not to give broad publicity to this item. How helpful, since this vote was such that it dramatically advanced the agenda of those advocating the goals of women's ordination.

That is, what your own church news service thinks, is what you don't know, won't hurt you, won't agitate you. It is understood by some that it is easier to bring change if the masses are kept out of the loop. We object. This is the Lord's church and we are the ekklesia, the "called-out." We are called out of the world to be part of God's pillar and ground of the truth. According to Scripture, each member is a part of the temple God is building--not just an intelligentsia or crust of the educated appointed to determine what we should know or not know. "All ye are brethren." We are the constituency. Do not withhold from us decisions with broadly based implications. Don't try to sneak something past our attention. In doing so you will lose your influence, for then how can we trust you?

It may be thought by some that what we don't know won't hurt us, that those who know better will just drag the church forward and that the less we know about where we are being taken, the better it will be for us all. That might work, right now anyway. Yet it is short-sighted. Our church isn't supposed to work that way. We are to be the remnant, not the fragments. We are to be a team, an army, all aboard the platform of the third angel.

Since we think you might wish not only to know about what has happened, but even to contact your church leadership to urge them to respond to what Pacific Union has done, tomorrow we'll be placing contact information online for you in a new document updating the situation. It could be that what happens in regard to this question will ultimately decide whether women's ordination sneaks past us and, in spite of the decision of the world church, passes into being. Will the decisions of even a General Conference Session stand or not? Will there be a remnant or just fragments? Let all come up to the battle.

Other items on this topic:
5 Sept 2001: Pacific Union Conference Defies World Church
6 Sept 2001: Supporting the World Church in Crisis
7 Sept 2001: SDA News Services Hide Union Action
8 Sept 2001: Express Yourself and Lift Up the Hands of Moses and Aaron
9 Sept 2001: Will This be Another Case of Institutional Paralysis? by Kevin D. Paulson
9 Sept 2001: What is at Stake
9 Sept 2001: Action That Could be Taken by Kevin D. Paulson

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