Cons. Anabaptist ordination practices

[mike]

Mike, in your experience, could the presiding bishops basically override the congregation’s choice of nominee?

Do you mean by replacing a nominee with someone else who didn't receive enough votes to qualify?

Yes, such as for example:

- One of the bishops or overseers nominates a person they like. Now they have 1 vote.
- They decide the threshold for being in the lot is just 1 vote.
- They decide to skip the lot and just pick the nominees they want.

I strongly doubt they would do that. 1 vote is not enough to qualify a person anyway. It would be against conference policy.

Now, do they ever go against conference policy to just do what they want? Sure, and I'll provide a recent example. Our written discipline makes no statement forbidding the wearing of moustaches, but that's only because the original drafters never envisioned anyone ever wearing a beard, let alone a moustache. Just like there is no prohibition of blue dyed hair. So a few years ago some people started growing mustaches. Now, it takes 75% majority of the vote from the ministerial body (followed by 75% majority vote in all the lay membership in all churches) in order to change something in the discipline. They took a vote to change the discipline to outlaw the mustache, and they did not have enough support to advance. So it could not be added to the written discipline.

However, there must have been a simple majority that wanted to outlaw them, because the conference simply issued what they call a pastoral letter to all the churches, where they stated that they were going to abide by the time honored practice in our conference of not permitting mustaches to be worn. And so the policy was officially created without the 75% majority support that is normally required. And this is nothing new; there are other rules that are created by pastoral letter rather than through the official process. So this could be seen as the leadership going against their own stated policy. However in this case it was simply affirming a practice that was an unwritten tradition while not being a written practice, so I assume they would argue this was an exceptional case, they weren't technically violating policy in order to create a new practice, but to affirm an old one. This leaves us in a position where there are categories of church rules: 1) officially created policies with 75% leadership & laymembership support written in the published statement of discipline, 2) officially created policies without 75% support written in pastoral letters, and 3) unwritten policies that must be found out by word of mouth, observation, or a tap on the shoulder.

Anyway, despite all that, I do not believe that our leadership would manipulate an ordination in any of the three ways you listed.

[steve-in-kville]

On the Brethren side, we do not use the lot. One person needs to get 2/3 majority of a vote. Very rarely is this deviated from.

It is interesting that Holdemans and Apostolics do it almost identically.

Does your group share the total vote numbers?

Our current fellowship does not. We actually changed the way we notify the congregation, though. Instead of announcing it right away, they notify the individual in private first to make sure he accepts it, then they send an email/phone tree out to the congregation.

[Signtist]

Midwest Fellowship.

Everyone votes, husbands and wives are a separate vote. But, if you and your dad and your brother vote for the same guy, or your best friend and your brother-in-law and you vote for the same guy, that's one vote.

The leadership is very open about "looking for patterns" not numbers. First time I heard that I was surprised. Next time I heard that, I was disgusted. It seems to me like that is opening things up pretty far to just trust leadership, and allows them a little more freedom than I'm comfortable with.

Our church, at least, does not believe in the lot. We say we do, but we don't. The lot is nothing more than the final vehicle to choose between leader approved candidates, if there happens to be 2 or more acceptable candidates. We do not trust the Holy Spirit to guide people to nominate according to God's will, though there are plenty of sermons surrounding ordinations that say we do and need to.

[mike]

In our conference, I believe everyone of a certain age votes in an ordination. Are there any CA churches where voting is restricted in any way other than by age?

Hutterites restrict it to men over age 25 or married men.

Interesting. Presumably having both men and women both vote is generally a wash for married couples, who probably vote alike anyway. But this system would eliminate the votes of single women.

[Neto]

On the Brethren side, we do not use the lot. One person needs to get 2/3 majority of a vote. Very rarely is this deviated from.

It is interesting that Holdemans and Apostolics do it almost identically.

Does your group share the total vote numbers?

Our current fellowship does not. We actually changed the way we notify the congregation, though. Instead of announcing it right away, they notify the individual in private first to make sure he accepts it, then they send an email/phone tree out to the congregation.

I think that is a good idea. (I forgot to mention that at Gospel Haven, when the ministers meet with a potential candidate, they also consider the wife's response. A minister needs to have his wife's support, and if she has misgivings, no one would know better than she.)

[mike]

Midwest Fellowship.

Everyone votes, husbands and wives are a separate vote. But, if you and your dad and your brother vote for the same guy, or your best friend and your brother-in-law and you vote for the same guy, that's one vote.

That is absolutely amazing to me. Essentially that is disqualifying votes. I wonder if this practice is widespread in CA churches. I have never heard of it.

[Signtist]

Midwest Fellowship.

Everyone votes, husbands and wives are a separate vote. But, if you and your dad and your brother vote for the same guy, or your best friend and your brother-in-law and you vote for the same guy, that's one vote.

That is absolutely amazing to me. Essentially that is disqualifying votes. I wonder if this practice is widespread in CA churches. I have never heard of it.

I had never heard of it either. I don't trust it. There. I said so publicly. Now I guess I should also let my leaders know how I feel about it.

[Neto]

Do you mean by replacing a nominee with someone else who didn't receive enough votes to qualify?

Yes, such as for example:

- One of the bishops or overseers nominates a person they like. Now they have 1 vote.
- They decide the threshold for being in the lot is just 1 vote.
- They decide to skip the lot and just pick the nominees they want.

I strongly doubt they would do that. 1 vote is not enough to qualify a person anyway. It would be against conference policy.

Now, do they ever go against conference policy to just do what they want? Sure, and I'll provide a recent example. Our written discipline makes no statement forbidding the wearing of moustaches, but that's only because the original drafters never envisioned anyone ever wearing a beard, let alone a moustache. Just like there is no prohibition of blue dyed hair. So a few years ago some people started growing mustaches. Now, it takes 75% majority of the vote from the ministerial body (followed by 75% majority vote in all the lay membership in all churches) in order to change something in the discipline. They took a vote to change the discipline to outlaw the mustache, and they did not have enough support to advance. So it could not be added to the written discipline.

However, there must have been a simple majority that wanted to outlaw them, because the conference simply issued what they call a pastoral letter to all the churches, where they stated that they were going to abide by the time honored practice in our conference of not permitting mustaches to be worn. And so the policy was officially created without the 75% majority support that is normally required. And this is nothing new; there are other rules that are created by pastoral letter rather than through the official process. So this could be seen as the leadership going against their own stated policy. However in this case it was simply affirming a practice that was an unwritten tradition while not being a written practice, so I assume they would argue this was an exceptional case, they weren't technically violating policy in order to create a new practice, but to affirm an old one. This leaves us in a position where there are categories of church rules: 1) officially created policies with 75% leadership & laymembership support written in the published statement of discipline, 2) officially created policies without 75% support written in pastoral letters, and 3) unwritten policies that must be found out by word of mouth, observation, or a tap on the shoulder.

Anyway, despite all that, I do not believe that our leadership would manipulate an ordination in any of the three ways you listed.

It sounds to me like they took a gamble, and lost. They should have just sent out the 'pastoral letter' to start with, since it was already a long accepted standard. Or, they might have sent out a proposal, then require 75% in order to defeat it, that is, to change established practice.

(So, what about the blue dyed hair? How did that one go? )

[mike]

Midwest Fellowship.

Everyone votes, husbands and wives are a separate vote. But, if you and your dad and your brother vote for the same guy, or your best friend and your brother-in-law and you vote for the same guy, that's one vote.

That is absolutely amazing to me. Essentially that is disqualifying votes. I wonder if this practice is widespread in CA churches. I have never heard of it.

I had never heard of it either. I don't trust it. There. I said so publicly. Now I guess I should also let my leaders know how I feel about it.

That brings up another question. Obviously in your case the leaders know who is casting the votes. Is it always the case among CAs that votes in an ordination are cast in such a way that the ministry knows who is voting for who?

[mike]

It sounds to me like they took a gamble, and lost. They should have just sent out the 'pastoral letter' to start with, since it was already a long accepted standard. Or, they might have sent out a proposal, then require 75% in order to defeat it, that is, to change established practice.

(So, what about the blue dyed hair? How did that one go? )

Nobody has tried it yet!