Talk:Government of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

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	Government of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is within the scope of WikiProject Seventh-day Adventist Church, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Seventh-day Adventist Church and Seventh-day Adventist Church-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
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WikiProject Seventh-day Adventist Church To-do: edit  Expand "Glacier View Controversy" section, to include more background, history, theological issues, and details of the Glacier View meeting itself Add to "Adventist Responses to Criticisms" section, ideally with material from Adventist scholars etc.

[edit] Unsure about polity

Is it not a sign that someone is unsure about how to categorise when they suggest three distinct and separate categories to fit one element. Maybe there needs to be thought as to why there is three there. Ansell 14:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

No, not really... But of course you are right... This situation is complex. Traditionally there are three sorts of Christian church polities: episcopal, presbyterian and congregational. These are abstract ideals and real, concrete churches don't embody them perfectly. Then along come new churches who decide to do things their own particular way, and what they end up with just doesn't exactly fit the traditional catagories.

Looking at the SDA Church as I've known it, I see that it is episcopal/presbyterian from the top down, and it is congregational/presbyterian from the bottom up. Does that make sense? Perhaps that makes it mostly presbyterian... but I'll have to think about it some more. Since that General Conference owns all property and through its branches, directs the posting of the ministers, this would argue for being episcopal. Since ministers are ordained by groups of ministers (and not by bishops) this suggests a presbyterian model. The committees and voting on the local level, and to the degree it filters up through to the General Conference meetings/delegates etc. suggests a congregational model. You see, none of them fit perfectly. If I had to pick one, I guess I'd go for presbyterian. But I'd feel I was cheating. I'll keep working on it. I believe that I was the one who introduced the notion of "Polity and Structure" into the main SDA article while ≠"Bob" split it off into it's own article. Emyth 00:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I dont mind having it in its own article. It increases the depth of the discussion. Especially for something this complex, which looks totally different from the top down as opposed to the bottom up we need to have depth to keep the article from losing its meaning. Maybe its not appropriate to pick one single polity, it was worth discussing though. Clears things up for me and anyone else who reads this in the future. Ansell 01:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists article doesn't really have much detail and is more or less a list of member organisations. Would it not make more sense to consolidate information into this article? -- Whpq 15:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought that this page was more focused on the explanations for why different church structures and "polities" exist. The General Conference page is about the entity and what functions the general conference specifically has, as well as its history. I realise that the General Conference page is not that advanced currently, however, it could have a more specific role than this page, hence, I am removing the merge tags. Feel free to start up the discussion again though if you still feel that a merge is viable. Ansell 03:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it just California?

I don't know if it's because I live in California, but some of the policies at my church differ from the ones here. For example, deacons are not ordained by the pastor, rather, to become a deacon you just have to contact the person in charge. Also, there are ordained (I think) women ministers here. --TorriTorri^{Talk to me!} 03:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)