Memory, Meaning & Faith

A Short History of Ordination (Part II)

By Darius Jankiewicz

In the Part I, I explored the origin of the word “ordination” and how its pagan undertones began to influence Christian thinking on ministry during the second century of the Christian era. Most importantly, I noted that already by the second part of the second century it is possible to detect growing clericalization of the Church (i.e., separation between clergy and laity), something not present among the early New Testament Christians.[1] At the same time, the Christian minister became a priest.[2] Ironically, this understanding of Christian ministry arose from a sincere desire to protect the church from heresies and guard its unity. In the end, notes historian Pierre Gy, Christian pastors assumed the role of the ancient Roman ordo senatorum.[3] Other developments followed during the third century.

Hippolytus (ca. 170‒ca. 235 AD) and Apostolic Tradition

While no Christian thinker from the first or second century mentions the ministerial laying-on-of-hands ceremony, it is reasonable to assume that Christians practiced the rite during the second century.[4] The first complete description of the Christian ceremony of ordination appears at the beginning of the third century and is found in the Apostolic Tradition, a work attributed to Hippolytus of Rome.[5] In this work, we find a detailed description of early Christian ordinations, complete with a detailed theology of ministry and the liturgy to be followed in the ordination service.[6]

All three orders of ministry— bishop, elder, and deacon—had their own ordination services through the laying-on-of-hands and a separate set of prayers; each order of ministry now required a higher order to place hands upon the lower order.[7] This is probably the root of the common Christian practice, both Catholic and Protestant, of only ordained clergy ordaining candidates for ministry

A Short History of Ordination (Part I)

by Darius Jankiewicz

With few exceptions, most contemporary Christians consider ordination a legitimate rite of setting selected members apart for the purpose of pastoral ministry and oversight in the Christian Church.  It is also generally assumed that the rite finds its foundations in the Old and New Testaments.  While this is correct, it is also true that the modern rite of ordination, as, for example, practiced by Seventh-day Adventists, does not find its exact equivalent in the Scriptures; nor do we find a New Testament requirement that such a rite should take place when selected members are asked to fulfill the office of elder.  All this raises the question: from where do we get our way of understanding and practicing ordination? In this first part I will explore the etymology of the word “ordination” and then briefly address the evolution of the rite within Christianity during the second century.  In the next essay, the second part will briefly touch on third and fourth century developments.

Origin of the Word and Concept of Ordination

The modern term “ordination” comes from the Latin ordo (order, class, rank), and its derivative ordinatio appears to refer in ancient Rome to installment or induction, appointment or accession to rank.[i]  It is well attested historically that pagan Roman society was ranked according to various strictly separated classes, which were called “orders” (from the Latin plural ordines).[ii]  The historical evidence points out that already during the early phase of the Roman Empire’s existence (second century BC), society had evolved into three basic orders.  Thus historians speak of an ordo senatorum – the highest class, ordo equester (the knights), and plebs—the lowest class of the society.  It was eventually accepted that within Roman society there was ordo et plebs, i.e., the higher class of citizens and the lower class.[iii]  If, by any chance, a person was destined to move upward in rank, he was to go through the process of ordinatio.  Thus, in Historia Augusta, it is stated that Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) would never ordain anyone to senatorial rank whom he did not know personally.[iv]  Ordinatio appears to have also been used as a classical way of installing imperial officers.  Roman historian Seutonius (ca. 69-ca. 122 AD) reports therefore that, at one point of his rule, Emperor Domitian (51-96 AD) decided to ordain Mettius Rufus as prefect of Egypt. [v] At other times ordinatio was also used to promote officers to a higher rank in the army.[vi]  Finally, the idea of ordination appears to have also been used in the cultic context of pagan Roman Society.  Here, a person would be appointed to the cultic office received from the gods of the ancient world.[vii]  All this suggests that when the word ordinatio was used in the ancient world, it clearly indicated a movement upward in rank and status.[viii]  Once a man was ordained, he held some kind of office that not only separated him from ordinary people but also allowed him to exercise governmental, jurisdictional, or cultic authority that demanded submission of others.  Through the work of second-century Christian writers, and especially the writings of Latin apologist Tertullian (ca. 160-ca. 220 AD), these concepts and ideas seeped into the Christian psyche.  Eventually, the post-Constantinian Church wholeheartedly embraced the ways in which the Roman Empire was governed and adapted the structures of the latter to its own needs.

2012 Ellen White Issues Symposium: "Threads from an Old Fabric: New Discoveries Regarding the Holy Flesh Movement in Indiana (1899-1901) and Ellen White's Response"

Presentation

Katrina Blue* presented her research on the topic of the Holy Flesh movement in Indiana (1899-1901) and Ellen White’s response. The following text is a summary of the main points of her presentation.

 

Introduction

Around the year 1900 a revival took place in the state of Indiana that many contemporaries considered as a special outpouring of the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit. However, quite a number of Adventists, including Ellen White, were disturbed and shocked from what the saw or heard. In emotionally charged, out of control worship services people were yelling prayers and praises accompanied by erratic playing of musical instruments. She viewed it as a counterfeit revival and throughout the years many Adventists were afraid of new worship and music choices since she had predicted a resurgence of these elements in the Seventh-day Adventist Church near the close of probation.

Ellen White nicknamed the movement “Holy Flesh movement” whereas its advocates called it “the cleansing message.” She warned not to pick up any points of that doctrine and call it truth. The presenter, Katrina Blue, pointed out that while White’s response to the movement is well documented, the arguments and views of its proponents, especially of its main leaders (S. S. Davis and R. S. Donnell), have been shrouded due to a lack of primary source material. It was not until 2010, when the estate of the deceased William Grotheer (who had owned such primary sources for many decades but consistently refused to allow anyone access to these documents) forwarded these materials to the Center for Adventist Research at Andrews University, that primiary sources became available. Blue stated that it was the purpose of her presentation to provide an overview and to analyze these newly-found primary sources.

2012 Ellen White Issues Symposium: "D. M. Canright and Inspiration: The Origin of a Crisis"

 

Presentation

Jud Lake* presented his research on the topic “D. M. Canright and Inspiration: The Origin of a Crisis”. The following exposition summarizes his presentation, rendering the main points of his findings.

 

Introduction

Dudley M. Canright (1840–1919), formerly a well-known Seventh-day Adventist minister, became the most significant detractor of Seventh-day Adventism and Ellen White during the late 19th century and early 20th century. One year after Canright left the Church he published the first edition of Seventh-day Adventism Renounced (1888). In this book he laid down six reasons for his rejection of Ellen White’s prophetic gift and divine inspiration: (1) she rewrote statements she had originally written; (2) her husband made suggestions which she incorporated in her writings; (3) she employed editorial help; (4) she used the writings of others in her books; (5) she suppressed some passages from her earlier works; and (6) when the Testimonies were revised in 1885, approximately 24 “changes” of words were made on each page. Lake concluded that these points show that Canright obviously had a mechanical view of inspiration. In the course of his presentation the speaker looked at the pertinent models of inspiration, the broader 19^th-century background, the role of the French theologian Louis Gaussen and his reception in Adventist publications, the Adventist crisis in the mid-1880s, Ellen White’s own views of inspiration in comparison to Gaussen’s view, and the origin of Canright’s conceptions.

 

Models of Inspiration

Lake gave three definitions of divine inspiration that are relevant to his study: (1) the verbal-plenary model of inspiration—while it distances itself from the mechanical view of inspiration, it nevertheless declares that it is the entire biblical text with its verbal relationships that is inspired; (2) the dictation model of inspiration—while there was some overlap with the first view of inspiration, it declares primarily that the Bible was dictated word for word by God, a view that was obviously used by Canright to critique Ellen White; and (3) the whole-person model of inspiration—this view focuses on the inspiration of the whole person rather than only the words or the thoughts of the prophet, a view that was espoused by Ellen White.

 

2012 Seminary Scholarship Symposium: "Reception of Ellen White’s Trinitarian Statements by Her Contemporaries (1897–1915)"

Presentation

Denis Kaiser, Ph.D. student in Adventist Studies and Historical Theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, MI, presented his research on the topic: “The Reception of Ellen White’s Trinitarian Statements by Her Contemporaries (1897–1915).” 

Introduction

Kaiser pointed out that various scholars had already done historical research on the semi-Arian position of the early Seventh-day Adventists, the development to the Trinitarian position, and Ellen White’s role in that developmental process. Researchers who had looked at Ellen White’s writings paid primarily attention to the content of her Trinitarian statements and the authenticity of the original handwritten and typed manuscripts containing her own interlineations. What has not been done so far and what Kaiser aimed to do through his research is to focus on how Ellen White’s contemporaries received her Trinitarian statements during her own lifetime. The study examined the reception and use of her two famous statements that (a) the Holy Spirit is “the third person of the Godhead” and (b) there are “three living persons in the heavenly trio.”

Adventists and Ecumenism: The Good and the Bad

By Dr. Nicholas Miller (Department of Church History, SDA Theological Seminary, Andrews University)

• This article renders the response of Dr. Nicholas Miller to Dr. M. Kinnamon's address "The Ecumenical Movement and Why You Should Be Involved" at the Seminary Scholarship Symposium, February 2, 2012 at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, MI. 
• M. Kinnamon is the former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. A summary of Kinnamon's address can be found here. 
• N. Miller is professor at the SDA Theological Seminary and director of the International Religious Liberty Institute. 
• Please note: Since Miller responded to Kinnamon directly, terms like "you/your" are directed at Kinnamon, not at the audience and not at the readers of this blog. 

 

Adventists and Ecumenism: The Good and the Bad

A Response to Dr. Michael Kinnamon

Thank you, Dr. Kinnamon, for your challenge to our complacent and even lazy thinking about interchurch fellowship. As Adventists, we all too often show apathy towards other Christians and their churches, and mentally justify it on vague theological grounds, such as “standing for the truth” or avoiding “compromise.”

But all too often it is simply an unwillingness to move beyond the familiar and the predictable of our comfort zones. You have challenged us to think carefully about our view of God’s church, in both its visible and invisible aspects. We need this challenge, because in many Adventist circles, “ecumenical” has become a dirty word.    

Caution is needed on this topic, but too many of us throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is, I believe, a positive ecumenism, and a problematic ecumenism. I would like to explore both the positive and the problematic in reacting to your paper.   

Are Children Born Sinners?

 By Edyta Jankiewicz, Ph.D. cand.*

 

Although Adventists reject a purely Augustinian conception of original sin, the official teaching of the church affirms that Adam’s sin “resulted in the condition of estrangement from God in which every human being is born. This estrangement involves an inherent tendency to commit sin.”[1] This must, of necessity, include children. Despite much discussion regarding the nature of humanity, however, little of the contemporary Adventist debate has pertained directly to children; thus, Adventism does not have a complete or systematic theology of the nature of children.

Historians and the Supernatural

By Lisa C. Diller (Southern Adventist University, History Department)

It keeps cropping up in my classes. Perhaps we’re studying about reported visions that the Aztecs were said to have had which predicted the arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere. “Do you think this really happened, Professor Diller?” someone is bound to ask. And then we stop to have the conversation about miracles—a conversation it seems I have almost every semester in all my courses.

I see my work as a historian as service to God—an act of worship. But that doesn’t mean that in all my studies I am seeing God’s will and activity in the world. Even within the theological framework of the Seventh-day Adventist historian we tend to see God’s work as supernatural, based on faith, and therefore a bit more mysterious than we’d like our own professional evidence and arguments to be. As a practicing historian, I need to have some sort of consistent principles by which I assess what “really” happened, to the extent that I can. That’s part of what makes disciplines different from each other—the nature of the evidence that each one uses.

Predestination - Necessary for Freedom? (Kyle A. Pasewark)

  

There is hardly a theological doctrine more universally despised or subject to speedier contemptuous dismissal than that of "predestination." It is nothing short of an embarrassment. . . .

It is at least worthy of pause, however, that many of the giants of Western thought, from Augustine to Thomas to Luther and Calvin, were driven to affirm some form of what has come to be called "predestinarianism." Despite their differences on other theological and philosophical issues, partial agreement on this most distasteful assertion remained. . . .

. . . . Does our usual manner of discussing the doctrine of predestination, to the extent we bother really discussing it at all anymore, have anything to do with how its advocates understood it? Moderns believe that predestination is but another word for strict determinism, albeit a divine determinism above one operating merely through finite causes and effects. . . .

This equation between predestinarianism and determinism is one point at which twentieth-century thought should be questioned. Does the classic understanding of predestination fit neatly into debates between determinism and free will or has it been miscast by being placed within the scope of these disputes? Is predestination another name for inscrutable and inevitable external causalities or does that interpretation force our own notions upon the history of thought? And if predestination means something other than deterministic causality, does it mean something valuable for the late twentieth century?

The claim here is twofold—first, predestination need not be principally a claim about divine causality and second, predestinarianism has much to teach us about the conditions and limits of freedom. Far from being the negation of freedom, some notion of predestination is a condition of meaningful freedom.

(Kyle A. Pasewark, “Predestination as a Condition of Freedom” Lutheran Quarterly 12 (1998): 57-58)

 

Questions:

• Does predestination limit human freedom? If so, how does predestination limit human freedom?
• Does predestination facilitate human freedom? If so, how does predestination facilitate human freedom?

 

Is Divine Love Altogether Unconditional?

By John C. Peckham

What is the nature of divine love? From a deterministic perspective God is the only active agent in the universe and, consequently, divine love is unilateral and altogether unconditional. If divine love is altogether unconditional it is predicated solely in the eternal divine will independent of conditionality. This complements classical theism’s supposition of the divine nature as immutable and impassible wherein love is necessarily nothing more than unaffected, unilateral, indifferent, and wholly subjective, beneficence. However, the biblical data challenges such a   conception of the God-world relationship and in such a way that it is misleading, at best, to refer to divine love as altogether unconditional. Rather than trying to address this issue comprehensively, I will focus on divine love in the OT.

Augustine and the Nature of Divine Love

By John C. Peckham (Southwestern Adventist University, Religion Department)

Augustine is representative of the classic view of divine love as unaffected, unilateral, indifferent, and wholly subjective, beneficence. He writes, “In what way then does He [God] love us? As objects of use or as objects of enjoyment? If He enjoys us, He must be in need of good from us, and no sane man will say that; for all the good we enjoy is either Himself, or what comes from Himself . . . He does not enjoy us then, but makes use of us. For if He neither enjoys nor uses us, I am at a loss to discover in what way He can love us.” Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.31.34 (NPNF, 1109). For Augustine, “to enjoy a thing is to rest with satisfaction in it for its own sake. To use, on the other hand, is to employ whatever means are at one's disposal to obtain what one desires …” Augustine, 1.4.4 (NPNF, 1090). Even in Augustine’s view of use love (uti) God does not love any external goodness, but only his own goodness. In God’s use of humans there is “no reference to His own advantage, but to ours only; and, so far as He is concerned, has reference only to His goodness.” Augustine, 1.32 (NPNF, 1109-1110). “But neither does He use after our fashion of using. For when we use objects, we do so with a view to the full enjoyment of the goodness of God. God, however, in His use of us, has reference to His own goodness.” Augustine, 1.32.35 (NPNF 2:1109).

Questions

• Is God impassible, that is, unable to be affected by any external stimuli? Does God enter into real, mutual, relationship with human beings?
• Can God’s life be improved or, conversely, worsened, by the actions of other agents? Is it possible for God to take delight in, or enjoy, his creatures?
• What are the potential implications for one’s conception of God and the divine-human relationship if Augustine’s perspective is accurate?

 

Origen - The Great Controversy Is Ended

There is a tension that arose clear back in the second century between the justice of God and the eschatological restitution of all things, which is the final state of atonement. The apologists Tatian, Irenaeus and Theophilus of Antioch all insisted on the dependence of the human on God (i.e., there is no natural immortality of the soul) and also on the God-given freedom to choose between obedience and death. This strong free agency demanded a robust judgment of those who choose disobedience, tending toward unending punishing of the wicked. Tatian called this a deathless death (immortal mortality). This conception of eternal punishing mitigated against the sovereignty of God in restoring all things (the final state of Irenaeus’ recapitulation and Theophilus of Antioch’s apokatastasis). You can’t have all things set right when some remain in punishment for rebellion.

From Universalism To Dualism

Tertullian and Origen, in the next generation, posited an effective immortality of the soul. This released some of the tension from the robust punishment (Tertullian’s concept of hell) but created an even stronger tension between this judgment and God’s final restoration of harmony. Origen solved the problem through universal salvation: if the soul cannot die, and Eph. 1:23 insists that Christ must be the all in all (=apokatastasis, the setting of all things back to their original harmony), then all must be saved, including the Devil and his angels. As time went on, this universalism was rejected as untenable with biblical representations of few rather than all choosing the narrow path to salvation and the finality of the punishment of the wicked, especially the Devil.