I heard voices of Ted Wilson, Mark Finley, GT Ng, G. Biaggi and Juan Prestol-Puesan masquerading in faces of lay members. I’ll have to check-in with my psychiatrist.
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You do that, Elmer…you’ll be fine as long as your psychiatrist also doesn’t have any of the aforementioned faces! 
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Juan Prestol-Puesan confessed to voting in favor of WO each time the matter was brought up. Thrice.
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I thought he urged the NAD for being uncompliant with tithes or GC contribution?
“Though true that the vote was preceded by years of study, the video neglects to mention that the Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) overwhelmingly agreed that no biblical reason exists to prevent women being ordained to pastoral ministry. The video also implies that the 2,000+ delegates to GC Session 2015 were provided with the TOSC reports to aid their study of the matter, though it has been previously reported this did not occur.”
TOSC was not overwhelming, quite the contrary it was inconclusive on the committee support and the other point of passing out the report being hindered is also not true.
It was conclusive that two thirds voted or approved to ordaining women. Only one third said no.
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The TOSC was so much conclusive that TW rejected to even mention the results during the GC/2015. What can be more conclusive than that???
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Robert –
What you fail to know [because the facts were hidden], the TOSC report was ONLY
available in ENGLISH.
If delegates could NOT read, or were poorly Literate in English, there was NO other
translations for them to consult in their OWN Language.
So a wide group of World Delegates had no way to understand the TOSC report or
its Meaning.
And the VIDEO, probably purposefully left out that a LOT OF EMPHASIS was made
of the fact that “No Biblical reason exists to PREVENT women being ordained to
pastoral ministry.”
Again, a PLOY to keep the House of Delegates from having the FULL TOSC Report.
AND, to ENSURE that the Delegates Voted THE CORRECT WAY.
The INTENDED WAY.
AND THEY DID!!!
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Juan Prestol-Puesan responded to allegations of GC non-compliance regarding use of Extraordinary Tithe. I believe it cleared the air.
The silent majority don’t, are unable to, cast their votes, it seems. Which means we should listen to each other more. We already know we’re divided on issues that matter to us.
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"The silent majority don’t, are unable to, cast their votes, it seems."
Perhaps, but they are also the ones that won’t have to live as long under disastrous or ill-conceived church-related issues. Listening is wonderful and should be happening more…but unless an openness to “change” occurs it won’t matter.
Steve,
Fact of the matter is majority of the house delegates were members of each division’s TOSCBRC. IOW, those who voted were mostly the same people who produced the documents. I see no reason why official translations to their respective native languages should have been an issue. Either they had some reading knowledge of English or they were properly informed in their own language in the course of their deliberations within their own region’s TOSCBRC. Most of them were prepared to vote, their minds up, rather than listen.
Regardless of the language we use, it seems there was no proper emphasis on the report that says: There is no biblical reason supporting our SDA practice of ordination.
Joselito
Hi.
I am now officially ‘without the gate’ of the SDA church that abandoned me, and enjoying keeping up with rapid developments in the ‘outside’ world that the SDA GC should have been discussing at the Annual Council 2018, instead of proudly dividing itself into ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ camps and thereby falling unitedly.
After doing a bit of ‘homework’ I discovered the most likely reason that the current SDA GC administration was unprepared to deal with those developments involving the Khashoggi dissection, Crown Prince ‘MBS’, Neom, etc. You see these developments also closely involve the re-discovery of Mt. Sinai in Arabia, located in the midst of the planned Neom construction zone, along with other ‘Exodus’ sites. A former American SDA colporteur named Ron Wyatt, and his 2 teenage sons spent 75 days in a Saudi prison for entering the country illegally to find and take pictures of that Mt. Sinai area decades ago. The American news media broadcast their story upon their return. (Now, even non-SDA ‘PhDs’ are confirming Ron Wyatt’s re-discoveries.)
Ron Wyatt also tried to get the SDA GC to help him publicize the things he was stumbling across. This was at the time of the emergency transition between Robert Pierson’s GC presidency and that of the father of Ted Wilson ( Who, if I recall, mentioned in one of his acceptance speeches that his father had located the Red Sea crossing site.). At first Ron Wyatt was pleased to learn that the GC would help him and work with him. (I’m assuming this was due to the outgoing Pierson’s influence.) Then, Ron got a phone call from the GC telling him how bad it would look if it got out that an amateur like Ron had made such important re-discoveries instead of better-educated ‘official’ GC archaeologists. ( So, we discredit the Dead Sea Scrolls because a Bedouin shepherd discovered them ?) The GC caller then said if Ron would agree to lie and say that the official GC archaeologist had made the re-discoveries, then they would give Ron a church to pastor. (I’m assuming this was due to the influence of the replacement of Robert Pierson.)
Of course Ron refused to step into that trap, where the SDA GC (Neal Wilson, President ) would have complete control over his words and actions. And then is when SDA ‘scholars’ began attacking Ron Wyatt, even in ‘Review’ articles, and the man who had formerly agreed to work with Ron turned against him, instead. A friend of Ron’s told me that was when Ron stopped attending SDA church services. Once bitten, twice shy.
So, while the world watches a dramatic scenario that continues to involve the U.S. president’s son-in-law, the Saudi Crown Prince, Neom, Mt. Sinai, and the former SDA colporteur, Ron Wyatt . . . The SDA GC administration still can not afford to ride that wave of publicity, and comment in any significant way, since you can’t embrace what you have already driven away beyond reach, especially if it was your own family who was involved in such ‘disuniting’ behavior. So, Ron’s re-discoveries are now serving the ‘3rd Temple’, false Millenium . . . adversaries of Ted Wilson’s SDA GC, instead. What a loss to perpetuate, just to save face !
Never mind. God and the world move forward despite the SDA GC.
The attached You Tube video has exceeded in just 3 days the number of You Tube viewers attracted to the ‘UNITY#GCAC18’ . . . Thank God !
And this one shows that even the world understands what’s going on in these ‘end times’ better than the SDA GC, since the ‘world’ has no ‘face’ to ‘save’ by denying past denials of truth. When will the SDA GC catch up to the ‘world’ in understanding ? When it confesses its many ‘snow-balling’ sins, instead of denying them until the white snow runs out, leaving only filthy, bloody mud. . . . but, then, I’m not a Seventh-day Adventist. The SDA GC has driven me away, too.
The Wyatt Family is prepared to meet current world events, and is producing more You Tube disclosures. Keep an eye open for them. They’re coming ASAP.
Just curious, when was the Oregon Conference notified that the GC had received monies from someone from Oregon, immediately or only when caught?
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As early as 2007, before this was even presented to the Annual Council that same year during Jan Paulsen’s presidency. The Extraordinary Tithe wasn’t a one time contribution but was spread over a period until the final installment in 2018. In the meantime, regular GC treasury financial statements included the activity over the same period. At the same time, there has been a turnover of local conference officials, including the people in charge at the GC. The current Oregon Conference officials heard about it from GCAS. Since GCAS do their work, SOP, without any of the GC Executive Officers present, the misunderstanding could have been avoided had someone approached the GC Treasurer. So, who was hiding the truth? Nobody.
I was an auditor prior to medical school. Organizations have policies to abide by. Turnover of officers and employees do not relieve officers of their responsibilities. If I were auditing the GC, as it stands, I would have cited them for negligence.
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What? Negligence? On whose part? What officers are we talking about? Oregon Conference or GC officials? Who failed to do their homework before releasing this misinformation to the public? Sorry, am I missing something? I said, “Sorry.” Perhaps, it’s Juan Prestol-Puesan who deserves an apology from whoever.
Joselito
There was a policy in place and I believe the GC had the responsibility of informing the OC of the transaction once it began and not wait for the end of the transaction, no matter how many years it took. The fact that they failed to do so is evidence of negligence on the GC part. It only came about when OC discovered the transaction. Someone in the GC had the responsibility and failed to exercise it. And to make it worse, they got caught with the proverbial “with their pants down.”
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Or sneakiness…
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Sorry, Elmer, I’m not very good at explaining stuff. In my mind, it’s the Oregon Conference officers who didn’t do their homework. All the information they needed was out there in the open for anyone who have eyes to see. Sorry.
https://spectrummagazine.org/news/2018/oregon-conference-calls-gc-comply-tithe-policy
OREGON CONFERENCE CALLS ON GC TO COMPLY WITH TITHE POLICY
https://spectrummagazine.org/news/2018/annual-council-diary-unintended-consequences
ANNUAL COUNCIL DIARY: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
On Sunday morning, when Treasurer Juan Prestol-Puesan reviewed the usual financial reports, he spent extra time explaining the most recent extraordinary tithe, including distributing a separate financial report on it. In 2007, he explained, when a family sold an international business and wanted to pay tithe on the proceeds… And, since, the family that gave the extraordinary tithe in 2007 indicated that there would be future payments based on sales of various parts of the business, when the General Conference received the 2017 payment, it simply concluded it should be handled with the same variance.
However, since 2007, many if not all of the various people who had handled the first tithe payment were no longer around. Conference, union, and division presidents and treasurers had changed. The new people were not familiar with the details of the 2007 variance, and thought that the General Conference was “out of compliance” with the way it handled the money. The Oregon Conference Executive Committee wrote an open letter to the General Conference questioning what had taken place.
https://www.adventistreview.org/archive-1431
OCTOBER 16, 2007
Annual Council Update 4
Lemon also presented a special report on an extraordinary amount of tithe the church’s world headquarters received earlier this year. Council delegates voted to receive it and have it used for the church’s worldwide work.
Lemon referred to the contribution as an "extraordinary" blessing and also as a "unique opportunity for advancement of His work."
“The reality is, the way we intend to use these funds we will have a greater need than we’ve ever had,” Lemon said. "I think to miss this opportunity to move a half a generation ahead of what we would have been able to do is something the Lord will hold us accountable for if we don’t do.
“Tithe is for support of the ministry and evangelism; it’s not for endowing and then just using the interest,” Lemon said in answer to a question form a floor. "The Lord, when he rewarded the widow for having fed the prophet, he didn’t fill up her flour barrel and oil every time she used it, but only replaced what she had used.
"We have consulted with many on this issue and we want it clearly understood that there is no change in our position that tithe … should be turned into the local conference through the local church," Lemon said.
"It would have to be an extraordinary amount for us to consider this again."
The council decided that proposals on how to administer the tithe would be submitted by regional world leaders and administrators at the church’s headquarters before being reviewed by the president’s council in January 2008.
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I would agree with it being sneakiness. I had a similar experience as treasurer of the church when I was still a member.
A nonmember who admired the work of the local church community service center left a sizable donation in her will. The director of the center received a letter from the estate attorney notifying him of it and stating the money was sent to the local conference to be distributed. After several months nothing arrived and the director was upset and saying the conference stole the money.
I happened to have a working relationship with the lawyers due to my job and contacted them. I was given all the information and called the conference treasurer to inquire about it. Soon after that, they sent the money to the church. I asked why I had to call before it was distributed according to the will and was told that it would have been discovered eventually and sent. The attorney’s office said a letter was sent with the check explaining how it was to be distributed and if not, they would be in trouble with the courts. I wonder what would have happened had I not investigated it.
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