Act of solidarity

Some male pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are changing their credentials in an act of solidarity. The protest has occurred in several U.S. states after the global denomination voted last summer not to allow regional church bodies to ordain women. Despite the ban, several U.S. conferences have ordained women, who hold an informal “commissioned” credential and can’t preside over regional conferences, organize churches, or ordain elders, deacons or deaconesses. Kymone Hinds, a pastor in Memphis, Tenn., accepted the loss of certain privileges of ordination, saying, “We realize that our female ministers do the same work and have the same education but there is a glass ceiling over them.”