OSLO, Norway — In a surprise announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced that for the first time a Seventh-day Adventist has been awarded the much-lauded Nobel Peace Prize.
Explaining its rationale, the committee said that Michael L. Ryan, a retiring Vice President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, was chosen due to his work on July 8, 2015 in “successfully executing the Herculean task of moderating the final debate on the issue of women’s ordination on the day the Seventh-day Adventist denomination voted on future policy regarding the issue.”
Although members of the Nobel Committee expressed their disappointment with the “unfortunate discrimation in the final vote against allowing regional autonomy on whether to allow women’s ordination,” Ryan was roundly praised for “superb handling of a frequently-belligerent gaggle of delegates on both sides of the issue as well as a crowd of tens of thousands that was packed into the San Antonio Alamodome for the entire day of discussion.”
The committee’s announcement stressed that “a lesser man would have let the pressures of the day get to him, but Ryan kept an even keel, not once allowing pandemonium to erupt.”
The committee said that the clincher in handing Ryan the prize was the fact that “not once was he seen to reach for so much as a cup of coffee.”
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