Rhetoric Race and Religion
Sandra Roberts on Sunday, Oct. 27, became the first woman to lead a Seventh-day Adventist conference, a controversial move the worldwide church says it will not recognize.
Roberts, who last year became one of the first women ordained as an Adventist minister in the United States, was elected president of the five-county, Riverside-based Southeastern California Conference by a 72 to 28 percent margin. A conference is similar to a diocese.
Delegates at the meeting in Riverside’s La Sierra University Church of Seventh-day Adventists stood up and applauded loudly after the result was announced.
“I think this is an idea that’s past its time,” said Robert Edwards, former pastor of San Bernardino’s All Nations African Church of Seventh-day Adventists, after the vote. “I’m grateful she can be the first, and she won’t be the last.”
The vote puts the Southeastern conference at odds with the worldwide Adventist Church, which does not recognize the ordination of women.
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