Marcia Moore, a lay member from the Allegheny East Conference, recently shared a story at the North American Division (NAD)Year-End Meetings, that has people talking online.
She said, “My great-grandmother was a Seventh-day Adventist who moved her family from New York to Virginia. She and her children went to worship at the Seventh-day Adventist church nearest to their home, but they were turned away. They were told to go and worship at the church for colored people across town. My great-grandmother could not travel that distance with her children every week, so she decided to join the Baptist church that accepted her family. Many of my family members never came to accept the truth about the Sabbath after that experience.”
She added later, “We will never know the full impact of the decisions of our church to discriminate” [on the basis of gender] and called on other NAD entities, who regularly talk about discrimination, “but still go home and say that their hands are tired because they can’t go against a General Conference vote against women’s ordination.”