Women's History Month #3 - Silvia Scholtus

In November 2024, the Association of Adventist Women held its annual Woman of the Year awards banquet, honoring Adventist women around the world who have made significant contributions to the church and their communities. One of these women is Silvia Scholtus from Argentina, who was awarded Woman of the Year for church leadership and scholarship. She is a faculty emeritus at Universidad Adventista del Plata in Argentina, where she has taught and conducted research since 1990. She holds a doctorate in theology from the same university. She talked to Spectrum about researching Adventist history in South America, the changes for women in ministry, and new academic projects she is working on.
We want to introduce you to this amazing scholar and researcher who was interviewed by Alita Byrd. Receiving the award was a surprise for Silvia Scholtus, and she accepted it with a feeling of gratitude for the recognition of her ministry, mixed with sentiments of humility and unworthiness. Silvia has written more than 30 book chapters and more than 100 articles in multiple languages on theology and history. In its citation, the Association of Adventist Women said that it recognizes the legacy she leaves in Adventist history, theology, and leadership, and her work in chronicling the events that have shaped the Adventist church in South America. Silvia humbly says that she has always maintained a constant desire to do the best for God in all the areas she has worked in and that without God, she would not have been able to do anything.
For the final three years of her career before her retirement in 2020, Scholtus served as the first director of the Adventist Historical Center of the Argentine Union of Seventh-day Adventists, located on the River Plate University campus. She did research on local Adventist history and wrote books and chapters of books on historical topics. In short, she had to organize everything that has to do with the rescue, the preservation, the showcasing and the dissemination of the history of the South American Division. She was also a librarian and archivist at the Ellen White Research Center-Argentina and gave seminars and talks on history and the life and work of Ellen White, among other tasks. Her work in the Ellen White Research Center and the Historical Center gave her extensive knowledge of several of the topics needed for the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA) and so she also became a part of the ESDA project.
Silvia Scholtus studied theology and received her first degree [bachelors] as Licentiate in Theology in 1982. She never expected to study for a doctoral degree, although she was a professor in the School of Theology. But the laws of the country required university professors to have postgraduate degrees. So the University voted to let her do a doctoral degree. She finished in 2014.
She decided to study theology because she felt that she needed to know more about Seventh-day Adventist beliefs to explain them to others. But she never planned to be an academic. She was surprised when she received the call to teach in the Faculty and also to have the privilege to be part of different research teams.
The option of becoming a pastor never crossed her mind. It was not possible in the South American Division (as it is today), and in other places of the world church. She mentions how shocked she was when, after working for a few years as a chaplain in the local Sanatorium (River Plate Sanatorium), and after carrying out a personal project to spread Adventist beliefs among patients, giving more than 6,000 Bible studies per month, her boss told her that women could not be chaplains and assigned her to another task. It was the first time in her life that someone said that because she was a woman, she could not do the things she was doing for the Lord. But the Lord didn’t let her become discouraged at that time. He allowed her to work at the University and gave her other opportunities to grow professionally. God gave her the great opportunity to show that women can be not only spiritual leaders, but also complete postgraduate degrees in theology, teach theology, write articles and books, give theology lectures, and more. She hopes that more women will study theology and not be discouraged from doing their best for the Lord in this field.
When asked what she would say to young women who feel called to ministry, Silvia Scholtus said: “Women can be valuable role models for young women, and even young men, to build their confidence in themselves as free moral agents. The church needs women who can help other women spiritually. Without women to understand and counsel, there is a greater possibility of sexual abuse in ministry. We need the ministry of women as pastors and also as professors of theology, to help students avoid biased interpretations of the Bible.
“A woman who feels the Lord’s call to ministry, but does not answer her calling because she is discouraged from doing so by others who tell her ministry is not for women, will then be discouraged and dissuaded from doing other things for the Lord and the mission. Whenever there is an effort to silence women, ignorance and fear grow too.”
Silvia Scholtus plans to continue giving lectures, writing, and teaching private classes as long as God gives her health and strength, but above all to continue being a collaborator in His cause.