Spectrum Voices

White has been so central to Adventist self-understanding that any perceived diminution of her status could only be viewed as a threat. Resistance to Numbers—or any individual who suggested a rethinking of Ellen White’s prophetic role—was inevitable.

What do you consider the most significant book ever written regarding Adventism? Possibilities are many. Perhaps the 1950s Questions on Doctrine (to which an entire conference was dedicated a few years back). Or more recently (and certainly the most perceptive work on our church ever penned), Bull and Lockhart’s Seeking a Sanctuary. Or a title largely forgotten now, but which shaped popular perceptions of Millerism through the middle of the twentieth century, Clara Sears’s 1924 work, Days of Delusion.

I nominate Ronald Numbers’s Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White. It appeared in 1976, and for those of us who remember its appearance the fortieth anniversary of that event is a melancholy reminder of life’s passage. But it should also be a moment to ponder Numbers’s impact on Ellen White studies. I won’t revisit here the book’s quite interesting publication history or personal impact on its author; Jonathan Butler did that admirably in a preface to the second edition, which appeared in 1992. (A third edition appearing in 2008 further bespeaks the work’s staying power.)

Why Prophetess of Health? First, because it brought Ellen White scholarship to a much broader non-Adventist reading audience than previous works had. An article in Time magazine about our prophet was not something the Adventist community had known. We were being paid attention to in ways not totally comfortable.

Second, because Numbers gave White’s writings a cultural context. Non-Adventist scholars, of course, would not be surprised–indeed would expect–that White’s ideas on health would be influenced by time and place. Assumptions of cultural influence, however, were not common among life-long Adventists, for whom White and her work floated effortlessly above the social landscape.

So what impact did Prophetess of Health have on the Adventist community? Forty years later do we regard White’s work differently? I would argue, yes. Although change is slow-paced and met with resistance, there are indications of a more sophisticated grasp of her prophetic office.

To begin, let’s recall what Numbers provocatively wrote. He asserted that White’s health message was influenced by her exposure to mid-Victorian health reformers such as James Jackson, Russell Trall, and Larkin Coles; indeed, that her 1864 sojourn at Jackson’s water cure resort in Danville, New York, importantly shape her health message. Water treatments, Graham flour, dress reform, and phrenology all made their impression. The Whites determined that Adventism needed its own sanitarium where a gospel of health would be added to the message of the Sabbath and the Second Coming.

The subsequent emphasis on health and medical institution building has become a signature feature of Adventism. Moreover, we are now generally untroubled by the fact that other health reformers were promoting similar ideas. But what we weren’t ready for–and what is still troubling and disputed–was the other reformers’ degree of influence and White’s insistence that no borrowing had occurred.

It didn’t help that Numbers knew he was lobbing a grenade over the entrenchment. He made little effort to reassure the Adventist public about his startling conclusions or suggest reassuring new hermeneutics. The Adventist community had known only two sorts of writings on White: either one wrote in her defense or one wrote to attack. What were members to make, then, of Prophetess of Health’s ringing phrase in the preface that it sought “neither to defend nor to damn.” From Numbers’s perspective, writing for the general, non-Adventist public, this grandson of a General Conference president was obliged to apply different presuppositions. Scholarly conventions precluded his assuming her writings were inspired, nor could he automatically dismiss her critics as unreliable. Many in the Adventist public continue to struggle with the distinction between apologetic and objective historical treatments. In 1976 such distinctions were utterly unknown outside a small group of Adventist academics.

The hubbub resulting from the book’s publication (and, lest we forget, from previous revisionist work by Peterson and McAdams, as well as later works by Rea, et. al.) is well known. These were not just tempests in the Adventist teapot. The subsequent controversy (including the broader Ford brouhaha) led to many pastors and lay people leaving the church. Our prophetess appeared under attack, and the proper response seemed to be to circle the wagons. From the late 1970s to the present a steady flow of critique and defense has poured forth in print and on the web. Some of the attacks on White are scurrilous and not worth a response. Conversely, there has also been a widespread defensiveness that views even reasoned arguments as a threat. These folk believe that a remnant church must have a prophetess uniquely called and unerring in judgment. For paleo-Adventists, even A. G. Daniells is unforgiven generations later for having the temerity of organizing a conference in 1919 to consider the nature of her inspiration.

But the extreme reactions on either side do not define the impact of Numbers’s work. Rather, the important shift has been in the middle and right-of-center ground. The change might best be characterized by our having put behind us (in Charles Taylor’s term) a “naive” understanding of White’s work. Not that we no longer accept her prophetic role. But now we can understand it only with complexity and some effort. We have entered a more reflective phase of church self-understanding. Simple assertions of infallibility and freedom from cultural influence will no longer suffice.

Evidence of this is widespread in denominational publications of recent decades by scholars with unquestioned loyalty to church and prophet. George Knight is Exhibit A. This highly popular Adventist author has done more than anyone to nurture a realistically appraised, historically grounded Ellen White. (I develop these thoughts on Knight more fully in my Introduction to Adventist Maverick.) A thoughtful Adventist reader would gain from him a view of her writings more sophisticated than anything available before the 1970s. Prophetess of Health carved out for Knight a “safe space” in which he could extend the conversation on White in ways that both revised and ennobled our conception of her work. Similarly, the controversy Numbers endured enabled Gil Valentine to produce a book on White in her political role (The Prophet and the Presidents) that would have been previously unthinkable.

Australian Adventists (such as Valentine) have been disproportionately involved in E. G. White debates. Among the most helpful has been Graeme Bradford, who in 2007 published More Than a Prophet: How We Lost and Found Again the Real Ellen White. Bradford, a pastor, seeks to secure loyalty to White and Adventism through a nuanced definition of prophetic function and influence. Bradford incorporates a wide range of White scholarship, including Numbers’s work. He concludes that Adventism needs a prophetess truly understood as fully human (and not simply the usual lip service paid that notion) and thus limited in understanding and capable of error. He concludes that her writings must be used with “discernment,” meaning that every generation must decide which of her counsels still merit application.

Another Australian, physician Donald McMahon, responded to Prophetess of Health most directly. His Acquired or Inspired: Exploring the Origins of the Adventist Lifestyle (2005) identifies White’s major health claims, compares them to other leading health reformers of mid-nineteenth-century America, and then establishes a score of comparative accuracy. McMahon concludes that White’s work stands up much better to twentieth-first century medical knowledge than does her contemporaries. I must leave it to others to judge the soundness of McMahon’s methodology. The interesting point here is what McMahon–as thorough a White apologist as one could find–concedes. In White’s explanations for how the body works, the “why” behind recommended health practices, she was no more advanced than her contemporaries. Her embrace of vitalism or her sense of mind-body relationship, for example, was thoroughly grounded in her age. This may seem common-sensical, for we understand that Bible prophets also wrote within their cultural understanding of science. But through most of our church’s history few traditional Adventists would make such a concession of her limitation. It took Numbers to nudge the needle.

Even so official a publication as The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia (2013) offers evidence that naïveté has given way to complexity. There is no doubt about the editors’ commitment to a high view of White’s inspiration. But in so doing, the work covers aspects of her life and career (such as her finances) with a thoroughness that once would have been deemed not only unnecessary but unseemly. Merlin Burt’s bibliographic essay on writings about White is both exhaustive and impressively candid. One can find no better overview of both critics and supporters of White. Although he places Numbers among the critics of White, Burt offers a fair-minded review of his book’s impact. The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia represents an important moment in our church’s new efforts to present members with a complete prophet (the White Estate’s opening of previously closed files and the online access of the bulk of her writings being other evidences of this openness).

Likewise, two multi-authored apologetic works that appeared in 2015, the centennial of White’s death, betray marks of Numbers’s long-term influence. Essays in The Gift of Prophecy in Scripture and in History and Understanding Ellen White, both sponsored by the White Estate, speak to issues such as the appropriate use of sources, that have become urgent only in the wake of Numbers and Rea. The Gift of Prophecy, like Bradford’s work, opens with a series of essays on Biblical prophets, the point being to show that issues of inspiration are really no different with them than with White. Understanding Ellen White is an even more useful volume, with candid appraisals of the complexity of the prophetic gift and acknowledgments of the genuine issues scholars have raised. Jud Lake, for example, offers the most sympathetic discussion of White denouncer D. M. Canright ever given by an Adventist historian (Lake’s future biography of Canright should be well worth reading). In another essay Dennis Kaiser describes in some detail the team approach to White’s writings. If even just this had been provided to the Adventist public in 1919 much subsequent conflict might have been avoided.

I contend, then, that in the wake of Numbers’s work we are seeing greater sophistication on three points. First, most American Adventists (at least those who care to think about the issue) now accept that Ellen White borrowed significant amounts of material in writing her manuscripts. Second, most allow that the nineteenth-century culture of her day substantially affected her attitudes on many things. Finally (though less widely accepted), many perceive that her theological views changed over time, generally in the direction of a more mature, Gospel-centered message. I say “less widely accepted” (despite efforts of Knight, Bradford, Alden Thompson, and others) because for many Adventists the notion that a prophet’s teachings could change still seems tantamount to saying God changes. To these might be added a fourth. Even some staunch supporters of Ellen White’s ministry now concede that certain of her denials of being influenced by contemporary health reformers seem counter to the evidence.

Despite all my claims, the question remains: What do members in the pew believe? What is heard from the pulpit? What views of her inspiration dominate Sabbath School discussions? In the lesson quarterly? What do academy Bible teachers tell students? The answer, of course, is a wide range of opinion. Many still hold an essentially verbal inspiration model. This has the virtue of simplicity. It also supports comforting feelings of being part of the remnant. Others familiar with the controversies have quietly let Ellen White go. Probably a larger group, young and not so young, simply find the Victorian prose and categorical opinions of White to be irrelevant or even off-putting, and thus they rarely peruse her. Prophetic ennui rather than liberal attack, as I think church leadership knows, is our greatest problem. Thus, the stream of articles in the Review exhorting members to revisit their prophet.

Some might ask if serious retrospection of White couldn’t have come about without the provocation of Numbers. The answer to this is easy: No. If so stalwart a leader as A. G. Daniells felt unable—because of conservative blowback—to bring to his Adventist constituents uncomfortable truths about White’s work, then no subsequent church leader would hazard revisionism. It took an outsider, one not only unafraid of controversy but who took delight in kicking over the traces. After a half century of a largely fundamentalist/literalist understanding of White’s authority, Numbers forced official Adventism to confront difficult questions about her. In other words, he (with others) changed the conversation. There will be no going back.

In closing we should acknowledge the dilemma church scholars and leaders face. White has been so central to Adventist self-understanding that any perceived diminution of her status could only be viewed as a threat. Resistance to Numbers—or any individual who suggested a rethinking of Ellen White’s prophetic role—was inevitable. To mitigate this guardedness requires couching discussion of her gift in terms of loyalty to and enhancement of the Adventist mission. It’s not a matter of who is “for” or “against” her. We should all recognize that Ellen White is a treasure and a resource. The best use of that treasure is not as “a continuing and authoritative source of truth” (wording removed from Fundamental Belief #18 at San Antonio). Rather, her gloss on Scripture and her theological statements provide a baseline from which we continue to develop our present truths.

Prophetic inspiration remains a high mystery. But we can now say with some confidence what it is not. That understanding clears the way for a new phase in Ellen White’s ministry of spiritual nurture to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Ben McArthur is a Professor of History at Southern Adventist University who specializes in American History, especially late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cultural history.

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Is it too much to ask the Adventist community—whose growth numbers and tithe totals we non-white members pad—to consider us important enough to defend us?

Like many people in the United States, I woke up shocked to discover #Brexit had gone from clever hashtag to reality one month ago. On the morning of the E.U. referendum vote, I found a few articles on Twitter to help try to make sense of what had happened. Most people agreed this was bad news that placed the global economy at risk. Moreover, the health of Europe’s ever-so-fragile peace was disrupted now that far-right nationalist groups from France, the Netherlands, Greece, and others saw an opportunity to incite anti-E.U. platforms.

After processing for a bit, I wondered if maybe Facebook might have something to add. One post stood out: a friend had published a status appearing to make light of the entire situation and saying that #Brexit was simply a manifestation of “they shall not cleave together” (see Daniel 2:43).

As the day went on, this public position was assumed by a number of friends—all of them writing that this whole event was just another fulfillment of end-time prophecy and, although not said in so many words, it carried a subtext of “don’t be alarmed,” which began to feel dismissive.

I became upset; to casually dismiss the very real ramifications of the event seemed short-sighted at best and rude at worst.

What of the thousands of lives who will be de-stabilized financially?

What of the thousands of refugees that the “Leave” campaign targeted and scapegoated?

Were we really going to ignore how #Brexit furthered the power of an ever-growing xenophobe, nationalist, and populist public?

The Seventh-day Adventist church is a worldwide community whose top leaders have historically been and continue to be primarily white men. The Seventh-day Adventist church is also a worldwide community primarily composed of “colored” people, and the plight of colored people—including Adventist people—both around the world and here in the United States has recently become even more problematic.

We have seen Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations galvanized as a result of the tragic deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Before their deaths, we had not quite finished grieving the horrific hate crime against the LGBTQ Latinx community in the Orlando shooting at the Pulse Nightclub. On top of all this, the GOP nominee, Donald J. Trump, has tapped into the worst of Americans through his blatant immigrant bashing.

Since the Internet has made it easy for organizations to quickly and promptly address their members, I think I speak for most Adventists in saying that we hoped and expected to hear from our church. Wonderfully enough, Ted Wilson did address the global Adventist community. However, what we got from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was disappointing.

In the face of tragic events against minorities this summer, and the persistent racist and xenophobic rants from Donald J. Trump, which do a lot more for fueling race wars than anything BLM does, the address made by Ted Wilson, President of the GC, was one that only loosely alluded to doing something about our current social issues. The address focused on admonishing Adventists—encouraging them to study prophecy. Focus not on this world, but be comforted by the Christ who will guide us through even worse end-time tragedies was what Wilson’s message distilled into. Because Ted Wilson failed to acknowledge the events affecting a large part of his constituency, the address did not sound like a call to action. It sounded distant and dismissive.

It hurts for the issues affecting me as a Latino Adventist to be dismissed with prophetic texts.

I know Adventists are loathe to discuss politics, but I am not asking anyone to become politically explicit—or God forbid, Democrats (As Clifford Goldstein once quipped, “So many Republicans?"). All I ask for is recognition and justice.

There is nothing Republican or Democratic about leaving the religious comforts of this-is-all-in-keeping-with-prophecy-nobody-panic and saying, “Hey scapegoating Latinx immigrants is un-Christlike,” or “We recognize this country developed laws and policies weighted against blacks, and we should seek to repair them out of love for our neighbor without taking vengeance against cops.”

Apparently, a large portion of white Americans do not consider minorities integral to their communities; if this was not so, then Donald J. Trump would not be sitting on the Republican presidential bid. But is it too much to ask the Adventist community—whose growth numbers and tithe totals we pad—to consider us important enough to defend us? I am weary of being around Adventist laity and leaders afraid of standing up for an important part of their community because they are afraid to be political or because Hillary Clinton is undesirable.

We minorities know Hillary Clinton is not that great, but what we do not know and want to know is if you see the troubles and issues that plague those with our skin color and are willing to help us fix the issues.

My heart has been encouraged by preachers like David Asscherick who have been willing to acknowledge that yes not all cops are bad, but all black lives matter. My heart was encouraged when NAD churches in Florida offered support and service to the LGBTQ community of Orlando. My heart is encouraged as I see the NAD respond to the race issues of our time. And yes, my heart is encouraged by prophetic insights, by proclaiming the gospel, by the age to come, and by Jesus the Christ.

However, eschatology cannot change my present reality, nor is abstract truth-telling a proper substitute for incarnational truth-living.

Top-level leadership speaking against social injustices would be nothing new; in fact, they would honor the legacy of one of our founders: Ellen G. White boldly condemned this nation for its slavery and racism in the 19^th century. Let all our present-day leaders follow in this legacy and speak a popular word addressing and acknowledging the racial pains of today.

As a minority Adventist, this is my plea and this is my cry.

Look at us. Experience with us. Feel with us.

Yes, it may simply be a reflection of clay and iron not mixing when #Brexit, #PulseShooting, #PhilandoCastille, #AltonSterling, #PrayforDallas, and #PrayforNice trend, but for some of us, the issues surrounding those experiences will be with us long after they stop trending on Twitter, and when Twitter no longer speaks on our behalf, who will if not our faith family?

Bryant Rodriguez is a Theology student at Southern Adventist University who in 2013 completed an internship at the Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism Europe.

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This is the second post in a seven-part series for Spectrum’s 2016 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Flourishingby Miroslav Volf. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

We live in dark times. Wars and rumors of war are ever on the horizon. As economic globalization binds more and more people in a single garment of destiny, conflicts and struggles seem to proliferate. Environmental degradation, climate change, the instabilities of the global market place, religious intolerance, failed states, belligerent nationalism, and the mass migration these problems cause are among the hot-button issues no one can fail to notice. Even if we are not directly suffering the effects of globalization, someone we know is.

It is within this context that I think Miroslav Volf’s latest book is especially relevant. Volf begins the first chapter with Karl Marx’s prescient description of market globalization. Now, Marx is widely known to be a harsh critic of capitalism—an economic arrangement marked by the concentration of the facilities, tools, and machines of production in the hands of a few capitalists. However, few know Marx was also a great admirer of capitalism’s internal dynamism.

Marx celebrated market economy’s unprecedented ability to upset the old political status-quo, overturn outdated cultural values, and destroy archaic social hierarchies. The profit incentive is the energy behind innovation, expansion, and the will to transcend traditional morality and arbitrary social boundaries. The most revolutionary aspect of capitalism, for Marx, is its ability to generate new desires, desires that we do not even know we had: who would have guessed that smart phones would be consider a social necessity a mere decade ago? Volf rightly points out that regardless of what one thinks of Marx’s solution to the problems of capitalism, one could hardly deny that Marx was at least a great analyst of economic systems.

But as a good dialectician, Marx also knew that few blessings are without corresponding curses. Capitalism’s dynamics also generate tensions, struggles, and recurring problems. Problems that we are tired of witnessing today. In addition to the concentration of wealth and thus political power in the hands of the few—a possibility that even Adam Smith recognized—the primacy of market ethos is also “transmuting all values so as to place them in the service of monetary worth” (31). In other words, the market has the tendency to reach into places where it should not. Therefore, human labor and other non-economic goods, such as political power, risk being reduced to mere commodities with a price tag. This market impulse to commodify everything has, for Volf, tremendous implications for human dignity.

To demonstrate just how integrated the world economy is, Volf discusses the production process of an iPhone. An iPhone, he writes, is “designed in the United States…assembled at a furious pace in China in a factory of a Taiwanese firm…An international workforce of some seven hundred thousand in Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States produces the parts of the device” (32). Again, there are two sides to iPhone’s success story: while the production of the iPhone generated many jobs and enriched a few people, it also made use of minerals collected by unprotected children working under shameful conditions in Congo, enriched the warlords that ruled over the same children, and created the largest sweatshops with cruel labor practices in China.

Market globalization is indeed connecting more and more people. It is generating a global civil society at an unprecedented scale. But Volf wants to remind us that this connectivity also comes with social, moral, and cultural costs. Costs that those who consider themselves religious cannot simply ignore.

For instance, Christians have been witnessing the trivialization of religious identities. Many churches are now organized like corporations and worship programs often produced in order to generate an emotional experience rather than to spread the Gospel. Church institutions seem to be more concerned about attendance than genuine discipleship. In short, religion is becoming a market commodity. Spiritual consumerism is rendering the gospel impotent and meaningless, precisely at a time when society is falling deeper and deeper into the abyss of consumeristic nihilism.

For Volf, the primary reason market globalization is creating these negative cultural and spiritual consequences is that the market is not morally neutral. He insightfully argues that the market, if separated from a broader moral framework that delineates its limits, also promotes a certain vision of reality that is incompatible with the vision of world religions.

For instance, the market’s operation encourages its participants to “organize human interaction through the calculus of costs and benefits.” It also presupposes that “human beings [are] acquisitive, insatiable in their thirst for both profit and consumer goods” (40). As theologian Stephen Long also points out in Divine Economy: Theology and the Market these anthropological assumptions are not simply natural facts, but value-laden claims that capture how people are expected to operate in the capitalist marketplace, barring other moral considerations. Human beings do not naturally make the acquisition of goods and wealth the final end of their ordinary activities; they are trained by the market culture to do so.

Volf explains that the scope and nature of the market is always socially determined. Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang made a similar point and famously wrote that “there is no such thing as a free market” in 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. What Volf and Chang mean is that the market is always governed by norms and institutional consideration that go beyond the market itself. Consider the issues of child labor, labor rights, and the current debate of whether human organs should be objects of economic exchange. Markets are not given. They always exist within a social and moral context. But if the market and its ethos are allowed to colonize other areas of life, it would begin to corrode and chip away at the moral fabric of society, turning everything and everyone into a commodity.

Market globalization promotes a set of alternative norms that can come into conflict with that of Christians and adherents of other religious traditions. Therefore, Volf believes it is paramount for Christians and members of other faiths to jointly reflect on how market globalization might be undermining our humanity precisely in and through all of its blessings and curses. More important still, Volf believes the greatest contribution world religions can make to push globalization in a more humane direction is a vision of human flourishing grounded in a transcendent end.

Borrowing from philosopher Charles Taylor, Volf argues that a central organizing principle of market globalization is “the affirmation of ordinary life” (42). By the affirmation of ordinary life, Volf means that globalization enjoins us to devote all of our physical, intellectual, spiritual, and artistic energies to advance our earthly prosperity. Modern life is associated primarily with living a life of relative prosperity and freedom from illnesses and wants. According to Volf, this stands in sharp contrast with the vision of world religions and ancient philosophers, which subordinates the mundane world to a transcendent end. He states that world religions “are concerned with the good that goes beyond ordinary flourishing and contend that attachment to the transcendent realm is in fact the key to ordinary flourishing,” while market globalization is exclusively about ordinary life (44).

At this point, Augustine’s City of God comes to mind. For Augustine and, I suspect, for Volf, it is only by orienting ourselves toward God—who alone is truly infinite—can we overcome our tendency to treat worldly goods as final ends and so relate to them in twisted ways. Volf argues that human insatiability and mortality render the pursuit of worldly goods as final ends futile.

Market globalization promises that commodities and wealth would make us happy, but no matter how much wealth we acquire, we are never satisfied. Human desire is insatiable, precisely because it anticipates the transcendent. Pursuing worldly goods as ultimate ends thus “robs us of feelings of contentment and joy” and “subverts love and compassion” (53).

Intrinsic to this never ending pursuit of worldly happiness is the illusion that abiding meaning and significance is to be found in this world. But Volf argues that human finitude and mortality renders all human achievements meaningless. In death, all that we have acquired is lost. Therefore, it is by orienting ourselves toward a transcendent goal that “abiding significance” can be found (55).

I am largely in agreement with Volf’s analysis. But I am slightly uncomfortable with the way he treats the world religions as a unitary whole by assigning them a common denominator, namely being concerned with the transcendent—a category used in Western philosophies of religion. My discomfort notwithstanding, I think Volf is right about globalization and what Christianity might offer as part of the solution to globalization’s problems.

In short, Volf thinks world religions confront globalization with these two questions: 1) Does globalization affirm the human dignity of every person, or does it subject some to oppression while enriching the others? 2) Does globalization distort our vision of reality and encourage us treat worldly goods as the final end of life?

The answer to the first question is obvious, given Volf’s analysis so far. While he believes globalization brings many blessings and promises, he also acknowledges the injustice and conflicts that it generates. Here, world religions are to remind us that living well means living within certain moral boundaries, because life serves a higher end than the acquisition of power and goods. Volf calls us to therefore challenge the utilitarian logic of market globalization and imagine ways to foster more solidarity and love. To make his case, Volf draws from the social ethics of John Paul II and the Dalai Lama. Both, according to Volf, urges their audience to reach beyond the ordinary and toward a “mystery that transcends our ordinary experience:” God for John Paul II or the realm beyond desire for the Dalai Lama (50).

Although I admire Volf’s generous attitude toward other religious traditions, I am not certain we can treat every “world religion” as equal partners in the same mission without doing violence to them. I am worried that in Volf’s attempt to advance his ambitious project, he might be tempted to downplay the differences between religious traditions. There are significant tensions between the traditions he mentioned and some of them have incompatible metaphysical systems that might not support Volf’s overall moral vision.

John Paul II’s Christian personalism, for instance, is rooted in scholastic philosophy. His metaphysical belief that everything that exists has a purpose or telos is what enables him to affirm the intrinsic worth and dignity of every human being. However, in other traditions—some of which would be reluctant, to say the least, to acknowledge the very idea of objective purposes or ends—where might the moral principles of equality, dignity, and solidarity emerge? His framing of world religions as being fundamentally about a transcendent “goal” might not sit comfortably with these other less goal oriented traditions. Perhaps, this is the topic of a later chapter.

Yi Shen Ma is Assistant Pastor of L.A. Chinese Seventh-day Adventist Church and a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont School of Theology. Prior to this, he served in the United States Navy as a religious program specialist and volunteered as development director of Adventist Peace Fellowship.

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Don Otis, founder of Heritage Health Food, has bought Worthington's frozen food line back from the Kellogg Company, as well as acquiring the Cedar Lake food company, and is working to bring back many well-loved veggie food brands to Adventist consumers and beyond.

Question: Heritage Health Food Inc recently acquired the Worthington frozen food and Cedar Lake brands. When were the deals finalized? Why did you decide to take these brands on?

Answer: We finalized the agreement with The Kellogg Company to acquire Worthington Foods around the end of February, and finalized the agreement with Cedar Lake in April.

Is it a coincidence that you acquired both at the same time?

Yes, I would say so. Honestly, we didn’t even have Worthington on our radar at the time.

But it was something I had previously thought might be a possibility.

I used to manage the Worthington brand for Kellogg for about 14 years. As the director of natural and specialty foods for Kellogg, I oversaw all the natural brands: Kashi, Gardenburger, Loma Linda and Worthington. I knew that someday Kellogg may decide to divest of the legacy SDA brands.

I had that thought in my mind when I left Kellogg and started Heritage Health Food in 2009. (I made an offer for Worthington then, but they didn’t take me up on it.)

I called my company Heritage when we first started because I thought there might come a day when we could get these old Adventist brands, if the Lord saw fit, and I thought they would fit under the name “Heritage” really well.

Last year Cedar Lake contacted us, said the company was for sale, and they wanted to keep it an Adventist company.

We started negotiations that went on for about six months. And right in the middle of acquiring Cedar Lake, Kellogg called. I made an offer and was successful in acquiring Worthington, too.

So you didn’t see eye to eye with the Kellogg bosses about the direction of the natural food lines when you were working there?

When I was there, I could see that market trends were for healthier, non-GMO products. But Kellogg decided to make all their products with genetically modified soy, and used artificial flavours and colours. I couldn’t even sell to the EU anymore, a huge market, because Kellogg products didn’t adhere to the guidelines. They were just going in a different direction.

If market trends clearly showed a move toward healthier, non-GMO food, what was Kellogg’s rationale for not going that way?

Kellogg saw these smaller brands as a niche market that they weren't interested in investing in.

Kellogg is a good company. They are good at cereals, pop tarts and Eggo waffles. They are a $16 billion company. And our products were just a few million. We were just a small fly to the Kellogg giant. They didn’t want to put the energy into transforming these brands in the health food arena.

They did decide to keep the MorningStar brand because it is vegetarian, but does not proclaim itself a natural health food.

So I saw the potential to get these brands back.

I didn't want Adventist food to be the worst vegetarian food out there. It is slightly embarrassing. Especially when our mission is to lead with healthier foods!

Kellogg didn’t have that interest — and I do.

What traditional products, which may have been discontinued, are you bringing back (to the delight of Adventist consumers)?

Worthington slices: chicken slices, turkey slices, wham and all that will be back right away. Golden Croquettes. And there are several other things we are looking at, but can’t name yet.

What does “right away” mean?

We are planning to start manufacturing the slices around August 15.

You have a lot of experience working in food. Is this where you always saw yourself?

I started out in publishing work for the church, and worked for the denomination for years. I never thought I would go into food and manufacturing. I always just thought selling food could help to finance the publishing ministry. I had success in selling food in my ABC over the years, and saw the benefits of using the food to assist with financing the publishing side.

As I got more into food, I saw more clearly the importance of the place of healthy food in our Adventist health message. I saw that the Adventist health message prompted the beginning of our food business in Battle Creek, Michigan, at about the same time as we received the doctrinal message. God had it in mind that the health message and spiritual message would go hand in hand.

But our church in North America had sold it off, and was not successfully using the traditional food companies as ministry partners.

At Kellogg, I saw Worthington being taken in a less and less healthy direction, and being minimized as a food market leader.

Our Adventist health message prepared us to become leaders in the industry, as consumers look for healthier options, but instead we have become followers.

That is why I started my own company — I want us to get out there in front again.

Heritage is a fairly new company, while Worthington and Cedar Lake are both very old Adventist brands. How does their acquisition change your company and its size?

Yes, Cedar Lake has been around since 1949 and Worthington since the early 1940s. They are legacy brands, and they both have a loyal following. We will work to improve them, but we don’t want the products to go away. We will see what we can do to re-energize these popular brands.

We are going from about a million dollars a year to $12 million a year in sales, with potential for much greater growth.

How were you able to finance such significant acquisitions?

We operated for our first seven years with no debt. Now we have both private equity and some bank debt. We financed with about 50/50 using bank financing along with some private equity investors.

So you won’t change the brand names of the Worthington and Cedar Lake products?

No, Heritage will continue to manufacture four separate brands: Heritage, Kim’s Simple Meals, Worthington and Cedar Lake. The corporate company umbrella will be Heritage.

One of the most confusing things that we have found for people, is that two years ago Kellogg sold the Worthington and Loma Linda canned products to a non-Adventist health food company called Atlantic Natural Foods. They are now manufacturing them under the Loma Linda brand. (So eventually Worthington Veja-Links will become Loma Linda Veja-Links, and so on.)

We bought the brand Worthington. Atlantic Natural Foods can use the name for another few years, but at some point it will belong to us, and we will own the brand Worthington as part of Heritage.

And actually, the fact that we were only buying Worthington’s frozen brands, and not the canned, is one reason we wanted Cedar Lake. Also the fact that Cedar Lake products are already ahead of the curve by being more natural.

We also have our own, new Heritage canned line, which all-natural, mostly vegan, and is selling very well.

I believe you are closing your plant in Tennessee and moving all of your manufacturing to Michigan? Will all of your staff go there too?

Our corporate office will remain in Collegedale, Tennessee. But we are making a pivot now from a small family business to a multi-million dollar food company.

And yes, our manufacturing is all moving to the Cedar Lake plant in Cedar Lake, Michigan. We are moving up some of the Worthington equipment from Ohio, and also adding our equipment from Tennessee.

Does your marketing strategy focus more on Adventist consumers, or non-Adventists?

With Heritage we focused more on the mainstream market. We are less than eight years old, and we don’t have as strong a following as Worthington and Cedar Lake. But we have distribution of our products in Whole Foods, Sprouts and many other major stores across the US. All the big health food distributors carry our products. So now we have products that will play in every market: the traditional Adventist, the natural vegetarian consumer, and in the mainstream market.

Will you be marketing Worthington and Cedar Lake to non-Adventists?

Probably the Cedar Lake products, which already have some all-natural foods. For instance, we can introduce Cedar Lake to the deli at Whole Foods, where they have no vegetarian slices for sandwiches. So we have two marketing emphases: keep growing the Adventist market, and keep going hard after the mainstream consumer.

Of course the Adventist market is changing. Many traditional Adventist outlets aren’t there anymore. Adventist consumers are also shopping at mainstream stores, so you have to reach them there as well.

You mentioned the Adventist health message, and its importance, but feel that the church had walked away from its health food business. Is there an opportunity the church as a whole is missing?

When I left Kellogg to start Heritage, I flew to Australia to meet with Sanitarium Health, one of the country’s largest food manufacturers, and wholly owned by the church. Through the profits of food sales, they are writing checks to support much of the mission work in their part of the world.

Heritage supports ASI, and a ministry that digs fresh water wells in remote parts of Africa. We are on our third or fourth Heritage-sponsored well. As we grow and become more profitable I want to look for ways that we can support God’s work and mission work throughout the world.

Don Otis is founder and president of Heritage Health Food. For the first 22 years of his career, Otis managed Adventist Book Centers in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Massachusetts. He then went to work for Worthington Foods, and when it was acquired by Kellogg, he went too. He started his own health food company in 2009.

Read Alita Byrd's 2009 interview with long-time president of Worthington, Allan Buller (who passed away in 2013), here.

Read her article about the Atlantic Natural Foods' acquisition of the Worthingon canned line here.

She wrote about Sanitarium Foods' CEO Kevin Jackson in a Review cover story in 2005.

Editor's Note: This article was updated on July 25, 2016.

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We should also admit that Christ's command for us to love our neighbor as ourselves - a love equal to the amount that we love God - should motivate us to speak out for those who are hurting immediately.

On July 8th, an Adventist publication asked me to write an opinion piece exploring how we as Adventists should respond in the wake of the police-involved shootings that occurred across the country earlier in that week. I very quickly accepted. After struggling with the painful realization that I didn’t know what to say in the midst of my frustration with yet again having to address this issue, I managed to get a draft submitted by the end of the next week.

After some back and forth discussions as well as a few subsequent drafts, the publication that asked me to write this article decided not to publish it. I will not go into all of the reasoning behind that and I will not reveal which publication it was, but needless to say though I was disappointed with their decision, I understand and respect it. In the wake of that experience, I decided to prayerfully give this article another look. After doing so, I was convicted even further of the need for it to be published…somewhere…anywhere.

I did not come to this conclusion because I am the author of it, or because anything included here is groundbreaking or new. I came to it because I believe that in order for us to have a meaningful discussion regarding how we should respond to these kinds of issues going forward, we cannot be afraid to analyze and critique (constructively) the way in which our church (leadership and members) responds in the present. If we back away from this responsibility, we will never truly find our “prophetic voice” that speaks to the atrocities we see around us with Spirit-infused boldness and discernment. It is my hope and prayer that some of the things I say here can assist this church that I love so much get to that place.

Will this time be any different?
I have participated in conversations & panels on race relations & social justice. The panels hosted by the Compass Magazine on race relations in the Seventh-day Adventist Church were great, but sadly, it seemed that participation & interest dwindled after the first one was held. In our church we tend to warm up to these issues for a season, only to cool back down like the Fall giving way to the Winter.

Cynicism crept in. What words could I possibly find that are adequate enough to motivate readers into meaningful action? Am I too angry to say anything that won't do more harm than good? Will this still even be a relevant topic to our church by the time this article gets published? After years of seemingly banging my head against the wall, I was not sure if I even had the energy to engage in this all too familiar dialogue any longer.

In the days that followed the shootings, I truly felt numb. Other than a few social media posts, I really didn't feel motivated enough to do or say anything. So many words and thoughts poured into my mind, but the silence of my tongue was deafening. That lack of motivation was rooted in the fact that we have been here before and now we are here again - searching for a relevant voice in the midst of so much chaos and noise. I kept asking myself, "will it be any different this time?" The helplessness that I felt paralyzed me. In fact, it scared me. I could not stay in that place.

An Unlikely Source
In my search for hope and a renewed sense of my voice, I turned to an unfamiliar source. Rather than read articles from my media outlets of choice, or tuning into my favorite news programs for motivation and guidance, I opened up this quarter's Sabbath School Lesson. The question I had been tasked with answering is should we as Adventists be involved in speaking out against injustice, and if so, how? Rather than re-invent the wheel, I would like to share a few of the passages/excerpts found there that I believe will help us in finding our voice.

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice." (Proverbs 31: 8-9, NLT).

"Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed." (Isaiah 1:17a, NLT).

July 13th's Lesson Study entitled Prophetic Voice: Part 1 put the previous two passages of scripture into their beautiful perspective:

Though, of course, many of the Old Testament prophets pointed to future events beyond their lifetimes, they also heavily focused on spiritual and moral reform and unselfish service in the present. The prophetic voice of God’s servants rang loudest when His people made extravagant efforts to worship but did not reflect God’s compassion for the suffering of those around them. One can’t imagine a worse witness than those who are too busy 'worshiping' God that they don’t have time to help those in need. Might not a form of 'worship' be revealed by those who are serving the Lord by ministering to the needs of others?"

Two Approaches to our Response
There appears to be two schools of thought amongst those in our church when it comes to engagement in social justice issues. I think they were reflected by two different statements put out by church leaders.

One was released on July 8th by Daniel R. Jackson and G. Alexander Bryant, the president and executive secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America. The other was released on July 11th by Pastor Ted N.C. Wilson, President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

I will not post the content of the statements in full, but I want to deal with the NAD's statement first. After expressing condolences for the families of those who lost loved ones in the three senseless acts of violence our country witnessed last week, the statement got directly to the heart of the matter:

“This week has been an extremely difficult week as we wrestle with the senseless loss of life. It is past time for our society to engage in open, honest, civil, and constructive conversation about the rights and equality of every member of our community. Having an open discussion means talking about difficult topics in a productive manner. However, we must move beyond the talking stage and begin to actually develop practical ways of dealing with racial intolerance in all of its forms—whether subtle or overt.

“This week we continue the struggle with what it means to fear for your life because of the color of your skin. We struggle with the pain that the African-American community feels. Last night we struggled seeing a hate so evil, so intense, that it led to the murder of those who were attempting to protect the right of American citizens to peacefully protest."

The statement ended by discussing the ways in which we as Adventists can personally and corporately respond:

"Now is the time to listen, to hear, and to understand the cry of those living in fear. Now is the time for the men and women of the North American Division to stand up and link arms together, in peace and love, to say “NO” to racial inequality; and demonstrate that love is stronger than hate. Now is the time for our local congregations, for our state and regional conferences, for our educational and medical institutions to pray together, to engage in creative thinking together, and then to work together to strengthen what we have in common and bring the hope and healing compassion of Jesus to our communities."

President Jackson & Secretary Bryant did not stop there. The NAD decided to put those words into action and partnered up with NAD church members and pastors to participate in a march that was coordinated on July 9th. This was Proverbs 31:8-9 in its essence! They decided to speak up for the voiceless - right now. They did not merely point towards some utopia far off into the distance that we can sit on our hands and look forward to. As Pastor David Franklin of the Miracle City Church in Baltimore, Maryland said under the shadow of the Martin Luther King Memorial - the march's final destination - “We need this to be the beginning that creates an avalanche of change that continues until Jesus comes.” They exuded a commitment to speak out and fight for these issues until that glorious day when we see the face of Jesus. Our work will not be complete until we see His face!

The actions by the NAD demonstrated that this approach is holistic in its nature. It is one that addresses the present condition of our world as well as views all things in light of the future realities of the coming of Christ. It sees the prophetic ministry as an active participatory process, not passive and detached.

I was encouraged and motivated after seeing the NAD's words & actions in response to these senseless tragedies that initially made me feel so down. It was refreshing to see our church - lay members, pastors, employees & leaders - all united in a commitment to no longer be silent to the issues that affect the communities that we worship and serve in. President Wilson's July 11th statement appeared to reflect a different school of thought (or tone).

He did not directly reference the shooting incidents that were on the minds of so many in this nation (and around the world). To be fair to him, I am not entirely sure if he intended for his statement to address those incidents. He merely referenced that the "winds of strife" have increased all across the globe, including the United States. One portion of his statement said the following:

"We know from prophetic understanding of Daniel and Revelation that this world will degenerate into chaos and opposition to God’s Holy Word, but that does not mean that we cannot be strong sentinels of God’s grace and heavenly power to focus people’s attention on the Lord’s soon return.

I appeal to Seventh-day Adventists worldwide to focus your attention on Christ, His Word, His righteousness, His sanctuary service, His saving power in the great controversy, His three angels’ messages, His health message, His last-day mission to the world, and His soon second coming."

There is nothing inherently wrong with these words. I have heard some version of them my entire life growing up in the church. At times messages like this can be used to urge church members to focus on what is "really important." In the opinion of those who give messages like these, the ills of this world are merely a distraction from our heavenly calling to uplift Christ and call everyone's attention to Him.

This is approach is dualistic in its nature. It views the world through two lenses – one secular and one sacred. Political and social issues are seen as secular with no spiritual implications that prophecy speaks to other than to use these socio-political events to confirm our prophetic accuracy without addressing the conditions of society. Those who hold to this approach feel that the church has a “higher calling” to point people to the soon return of Christ which leaves us no time to address the violence and injustice that we see around us.

In my view, what I have always found lacking in such calls is a realization of what the implications of such an approach may be. How will those around me react to my insistence on them ignoring that which is currently causing them pain? Will spiritualizing the pain of others help lead them to Christ, or cause them to resent us for being out of touch? The church has to be mindful of these implications, regardless of what the actual intention of this approach may be. Our true higher calling can only be realized when we find our true prophetic voice. I understand our need & obligation to point humanity upward because, as President Jackson said at the march:

“We will not find political solutions to these problems. Jesus says, ‘My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ [John 14:27]. We must make personal determinations — we personally will commit to the ideals that Jesus taught."

Personal Responsibility
That idea of personally committing to modeling the ideals that Jesus taught is what is key here. There have been white Adventist members who have appealed to other white members asking them to speak up, be informed, get involved, and stand alongside black members who are hurting. There have been conference calls geared towards addressing how we can advocate for changes in policies surrounding the training and tactics of the police. Facebook interest groups are forming to create a space for Adventists who are interested in putting our faith into action and advocating for a better future for our church and our communities.

Ultimately, the number one way that you as an Adventist can get involved is to do the following: "And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31, NLT).

Some are interested in developing a guide or model for churches as they approach social justice. I think that is a good thing to consider, but we should also admit that Christ's command for us to love our neighbor as ourselves - a love equal to the amount that we love God - should motivate us to speak out for those who are hurting immediately. Complacency equates to complicity, and we cannot be complacent with our status quo any longer.

The prophetic words of Isaiah 58 cry out to our church today. After lamenting the state of Israel's worship in the beginning of the chapter, he puts into perspective the true worship that He was calling them (and us) to:

"[T]his is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.

"Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. 'Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors! Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.'" (Isaiah 58:6-12, NLT).

I am committing myself to being known as a rebuilder and a restorer, not just of walls & homes, but of relationships, communities and lives. We can walk & talk at the same time, and both should be done in love. We can do better, we must to better, and by God’s grace, we shall do better. Will you join me?

Michael Timothy Nixon is Legal Coordinator at the Fair Housing Justice Center in New York, NY. His website is michaeltnixon.com.

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It is no exaggeration to say that Donald Trump’s road the Republican nomination was paved with the denigration of religious minorities. If Trump’s rhetoric proves a portent of things to come, a Trump presidency will mean the prioritization of the dominant white, evangelical Christianity and the marginalization of minority religious groups.

When Donald J. Trump addressed the Republican National Convention one week ago today in Cleveland, Ohio he promised Evangelical Christians that for their support he would work to remove the wall separating Church and State:

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits. An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans. We can accomplish these great things, and so much else. All we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again. It is time to show the whole world that America is back, bigger, and better and stronger than ever before.”

The statement brought wild cheers from the Republican audience and foreshadowed a Trump White House in which the religious majority (Evangelicals made up just over 25% of the U.S. population in 2014) would enjoy greater prominence and empowerment.

By contrast, Donald Trump has on several occasions disparaged religious minorities for his political advantage, notably Muslims and Seventh-day Adventists.

Donald Trump’s Islamophobia
Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric goes back to at least 2011, when he spoke with Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor.

Bill O’Reilly asked, “Is there a Muslim problem in the world?” Trump responded, “Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center.”

Trump later expanded on his comments in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network:

“I mean I could have said, ‘Oh, absolutely not Bill, there’s no Muslim problem, everything is wonderful, just forget about the World Trade Center.’ But you have to speak the truth. We’re so politically correct that this country is falling apart.”

He then turned to the Qur’an, casting suspicion on Muslim sacred texts:

The Qur’an is very interesting. A lot of people say it teaches love. . . But there’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe. . . You have two views out there. You have the view that the Qur’an is all about love, and then you have the view that there’s a lot of hate in the Qur’an.”

Since announcing his candidacy for U.S. president, his sideways glances at the Muslim community have turned into outright aggression. He issued a statement in December, 2015 calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” which would include students and tourists, and remains a plank of his presidential platform.

Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric has played well with Republican voters who have an overwhelmingly dim view of adherents of Islam.

In the fiercely-fought Republican primary race, Donald Trump similarly maligned Seventh-day Adventists to dispatch Ben Carson, the only GOP candidate to (briefly) overtake Trump in polling. In early November, 2015, Carson temporarily knocked Trump from atop his perch as GOP frontrunner. Trump responded—effectively—by questioning Carson’s Adventist faith.

“I’m Presbyterian. Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about. I just don’t know about.”

Trump’s words were seen not as a statement of ignorance—“I don’t know much about the Seventh-day Adventists”—but as a statement about the suspiciousness of the Adventist faith. For many in the Adventist community, it called to mind Adventism’s long stigmatization as a non-Christian cult.

The Adventist Church in North America capitalized on the dismissive remarks, turning Trump’s aspersion into Adventism’s 15 seconds of fame. North American Division Executive Secretary G. Alexander Bryant went on a media offensive, defining Adventism in terms of its Christocentrism and Protestant ethos. But for Carson, the damage was done. Trump’s missive (accompanied by a series of Carson gaffes, to be fair), saw Adventism’s first presidential candidate collapse spectacularly.

Hillary Clinton on Religious Minorities
Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who tonight will accept her party’s nomination for president, has sought to provide a contrasting vision, calling for inclusion and collaboration. Speaking after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Clinton said,

Here’s what we absolutely cannot do: We cannot demonize Muslim people. Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror. It’s no coincidence that hate crimes against American Muslims and mosques tripled after Paris and San Bernardino. Islamophobia goes against everything we stand for as a nation founded on freedom of religion, and it plays right into the terrorists’ hands. We’re a big-hearted, fair-minded country. We teach our children that this is one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all—not just for people who look a certain way, or love a certain way, or worship a certain way.

However the Clinton campaign has not been immune to criticism on its stance toward the Muslim community. Hillary Clinton’s top surrogate, husband and former president Bill Clinton elicited anger with his convention speech two nights ago when he reprised Hillary’s “freedom-loving Muslims” rhetoric.

“If you’re a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want you.”

The implicit assumption, for which President Clinton drew condemnation, was that being a Muslim, loving America and freedom, hating terror, and “staying here” might be mutually exclusive. Whether intended or not, Clinton implied that Islam doesn’t automatically overlap with love of country.

Those remarks notwithstanding, a Hillary Clinton presidency looks to embrace rather than demonize Muslims. Her campaign tweeted, “Let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people…”

Clinton has directly addressed Seventh-day Adventists, too, though not recently. In a 2003 video, she said, “The thing I admire most about the Seventh-day Adventists...is your commitment to preach, teach and heal.” She called Adventist education “a model for all people to follow.” She also highlighted Adventist work promoting religious freedom. Remarking on the role religion should play in society, she said, “When I think of what a good and decent society should look like, I imagine one in which the government does not hinder faith, but rather recognizes what people of faith do to make our communities stronger…” She acknowledged Adventist emphasis on family and on Sabbath-keeping.

(President George W. Bush also recorded a video message for Adventists. His message was recorded in 2002 and acknowledged the 150th anniversary of the denomination, saying, “The Seventh-day Adventist Church has enriched America, sustained the faith of millions, and provided comfort for many in need.”)

Both Trump and Clinton have selected running mates who reflect their stances toward religious minorities. Trump running mate Mike Pence initially rejected Trump’s call for a total ban on Muslim entry into the United States. However, today Pence stated that he now supports Trump’s (revised) position preventing Muslims from “terror states” to enter the United States.

Just before being named Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine moderated a conversation on immigration and on faith held at an Islamic center in Sterling, Virginia. Kaine extolled the value of religious tolerance in front of an appreciative crowd.

Adventist attorney and blogger Michael Peabody has compared Pence and Kaine on their religious liberty stances, examining their statements and actions on hot-button issues of interest to many people of faith. Peabody concludes, “Both are Catholics who are unlikely to shake up the status quo in terms of protecting or infringing upon the religious liberty rights of individuals or religious organizations.”

Look to the top of the ticket—to Clinton and Trump, respectively—for what religious communities can expect from Democrats and Republicans in this election, and expect more

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

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This is the third post in a seven-part series for Spectrum’s 2016 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Flourishingby Miroslav Volf. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

Our species' global proliferation, travel, and communication have caused us to rub up against more diversity than at any point in human history. This globalization is the inevitable result of a population explosion facilitated by agricultural and industrial revolutions and catalyzed by modernity’s technological wizardry. In this chapter, Volf argues, that globalization can be good for religions, helping them, “in some regards to be truer to their original visions” (61). Just as religion can help globalization (See last week’s post.), globalization can help religion. It’s a two-way street.

Despite predictions that modernity would extinguish religion, the same religious spark that facilitated our ancestors search for meaning as it comforted and structured their private and communal practices continues to inspire billions of humans in our postmodern and secular age. Volf points out the surprising growth of religious adherents both in absolute numbers and relative terms over the past five decades (61-62). He describes this increase as evidence of the abiding relevance of world religions (63).

By “religions,” Volf has in mind world religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He distinguishes them from “local” religions, identifying six common features. I want to highlight five that are central to understanding Volf’s argument in this chapter.

1.“Two Worlds” account of reality. While local religions view gods and spirits as aspects of our one world, world religions posit two realms giving primacy to the transcendent over the mundane.

2. Universal claims. Local religions mark social boundaries and are focused on the flourishing of the group. World religions offer universal insight on the human predicament and the way out.

3. The good beyond human flourishing. Local religions are concerned with ordinary human flourishing. World religions on the other hand are more interested in the good that can be attained despite or even through “failing.”

4. Religion as a distinct cultural system. Local religions are tied to local culture while world religions transcend cultures enabling transplantation into other cultures.

5. Transformation of mundane realities. Local religions are characterized by an assent to the realities of life while world religions seek to align mundane reality with the preferred transcendent realm (67-69).

As Volf describes them, these features are present more or less in all world religions. Rightly understood, the primary religious affirmation of the transcendent leads naturally to care for the mundane and a desire to transform it in positive ways. However, when religion is discussed and debated, all too often the transcendent emphasis of religion is neglected to focus entirely on the supposed efficacy of religion to explain phenomenon just as well as science or manipulate the material world in lieu of technology and human ingenuity. Volf points out that to expect religion to compete as an explanatory and manipulative force is misdirected (80). Rather, religions at their best claim that to be “free, full, and flourishing, life must be lived in relationship to the divine [transcendent], which gives meaning, orientation, and unique pleasure to all our mundane experiences and endeavors (81).” Therefore, “World religions stand or fall on their ability to connect people to the transcendent realm and thereby make it possible for them to truly flourish, to find genuine fulfillment in both their successes and failures, and to lead lives worthy of human beings, lives marked by joyous contentment and solidarity (82).”

This aspirational description of religious flourishing is sabotaged more often by malfunctioning religions themselves than by a-religious critics. Religion generally malfunctions in one of three ways. Practice malfunctions occur when religious adherents perpetrate great evil in opposition to the very religion they represent. Teaching malfunctions are less visible but more insidious distortions and misinterpretations which lead to injustice such as Christians who have offered religious justification for slavery, suppression of women, and exclusion of outsiders. Belonging malfunctions occur when religious zealots define themselves in aggressive terms against others such the current national rhetoric against Islam in America (76-77).

These particular malfunctions may lead to the profane mixing of religion with political power. This morphs world religions into hybrid local religions seeking to spread cultural particularities as universal norms—a situation Volf describes as a serious and violent malfunction of religion (86). This is where globalization can help. It offers an opportunity for religious adherents to express the true beauty of their faith by putting them in contact with those different than themselves. In this way, globalization reminds religions of the original universal scope of their visions which extend to everyone beyond particular cultural expressions. From the Christian perspective, it is through engaging the other that our own hearts expand to the point that we may even live up to Jesus’s call to love our enemy.

Yet, while an appropriate response to our pluralistic society could save religion from its malfunctions, the global economy may prove the downfall of religion. The lure of market-driven capitalism distracts religion from a transcendent perspective to focus on the mundane. In doing so, the misnamed “prosperity gospel” eviscerates the heart of religion and turns otherwise prophetic people into chaplains for the invisible hand of the market economy (87-88).

As an Adventist, I wonder how this relates to Adventism. Being a Christian denomination, Adventism of course shares equally in the common features Volf identifies with world religions as well as the malfunctions common to all religions.

Our Adventist religious movement has historically tried to separate from the world. This separation is one of three general religious responses to globalization described by Peter Berger. When a religious tradition that has formerly been taken for granted becomes de-centered by other vibrant practices of faith, religious believers can choose to either engage with the new traditions around them, create sectarian subcultures in which they continue to take their values for granted in isolation, or attempt to forcibly restore their single religion to dominance.

Our early Adventist pioneers seem to have chosen the narrow way of sectarianism. Given the bewildering cultural and ideological pluralism surrounding our religious communities, some continue to retreat into isolated communities. Furthermore, some seem to think that members must be tightly constrained in order to maintain the necessary separation and uniformity. Others choose the first option, seeking engagement and solidarity with the many religious and a-religious traditions in the world. Still others make the third choice and conflate religion with the state leading to religious intolerance and even violence. Movement in each direction is evident in the increasing polarization between progressive and traditional Adventists.

Not surprisingly, this difference in how we relate to religious diversity mirrors the current political divide. The recent Democrat and Republican national conventions epitomize the polarized responses of pluralistic engagement and inclusion versus forced uniformity and exclusion respectively. These diverging political responses have also been intensified by expanding globalization and increasing diversity.

While the “prosperity gospel” has largely been avoided by our Adventist community, the all-encompassing influence of capitalism has blunted our radical emphasis on the past, present, and soon coming Kin-dom of God. Having built an alternative empire of hospitals, schools, camps, churches, conference offices, and church hierarchy, we have found that maintenance of these structures too often limits our opportunity to engage society. All too often, we yield to the temptation to give up on religion’s own “deepest and most salutary insight and concern—an account of the good life whose focal point transcends the flat plane of mundane existence and its concerns for ordinary flourishing (90).” In doing so, we become enamored with building and sustaining our local empire, losing sight of love.

Adventism arose at the height of the enlightenment as a renewal movement to restore religion to its original purity and correct the corrupting influence of secularism. The Enlightenment predicted that religion would become mute, marginal, and mild; but, instead Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says in The Dignity of Difference, “It is fire and, like fire, it warms, but it also burns and we are the guardians of the flame.”

If Volf is right, globalization presents our greatest challenge and opportunity. We are living so close to difference with such powers of destruction that we have very little choice. As W.H. Auden wrote, “We must love one another or die.” Some might find this hopeless; but, my friend Samir Selmanovic says that religion is all about “learning to love well.” Reminded of this, I have a great sense of hope as together we face the challenges of our time.

________

Brenton Reading is a board member of Adventist Forum, the parent organization of Spectrum Magazine. He lives with his wife and three children in Shawnee, KS, a suburb of Kansas City where he practices Pediatric Interventional Radiology.

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Historian Ruth Crocombe talks about her research into the relationships Adventist missionaries had with Chiang Kai-shek and his family in the early 1900s, the sex scandal that sent Harry Miller home, and how history was framed.

You wrote your master's thesis last year about the political connections of the Adventist missionaries in China during the early to mid 1900s, including their relationships with Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his family members. What inspired you to write about this subject?

I spent a year working in China as an English teacher during the mid-1990s and when I returned to Australia I began reading the biographies of Seventh-day Adventist missionaries to China that I found in my local church library. The Adventist missionaries’ portrayals of Chiang Kai-shek and his regime were at odds with the history I had studied and I became interested in the topic. Further research revealed that no one had really investigated these relationships, so I decided it would make a good research topic.

You noted in your paper that there were more Adventist employees of the China Division before World War II (1937) than any other division of the church, except the North America Division. China was a major focus of the Adventist church, with many missionaries sent, and various schools and hospitals opened. Why was it so important? Why were the connections with the political elite so important?

China was the most important mission field for most of the Protestant churches during the mid-to-late 18^th and early 19^th century. Part of this had to do with ease of access; China was more hospitable (climate-wise) to early missionaries than Africa was, for example. The Seventh-day Adventists were very late entrants to China, not arriving until 1902, but the work there grew very rapidly, particularly after the building of the Shanghai Publishing House and the Shanghai Sanitarium and Hospital.

The connections to the political elite were important because they brought both monetary donations and prestige. The Guomindang (Nationalist) government cultivated connections with missionaries from all denominations, using them as public relation tools for the American people, particularly after the invasion of China by Japan in the 1930s. However, my research showed that Seventh-day Adventists were receiving much larger donations from Chiang Kai-shek, his wife Soong Meiling and Zhang Xueliang, for example, than other missionary groups.

Within the church, missionaries who reported contacts with the political elite were much more likely to be featured in denominational biographies than those who were not.

Harry Miller, the "China Doctor" was well known to generations of Adventists, and served as president of the China Division for a while. But you mention a sex scandal that resulted in his recall from China, and his credentials being revoked. What happened there? Why don't we seem to know anything about that?

In early 1939 Harry W. Miller was placed on permanent return and had his ministerial and missionary credentials removed by the General Conference. There were multiple and credible complaints about Miller’s behavior with the nurses that he worked with. The trigger for his dismissal was a letter from a young nursing student who wrote to her fiancé to break off their engagement as she was “not a pure, clean girl any longer.” She was very clear in her letter that she attempted to avoid Miller by hiding in patients’ rooms, but one night while she was on night duty “he did something bad to me…” Her fiancé agitated for Miller’s dismissal.

Miller, when confronted with her letter by Elder William Henry Branson [who was president of the China Division at the time], admitted that “he could not deny any thing that was contained in the letter.”

Her fiancé told the church administrators in China that he had a signed complaint from another nurse who was also willing to come forward. Additionally Branson, in his letter to the General Conference about the matter noted that a few months previously another letter had come to the Division office “written by a nurse in Hankow which also charged the Doctor with the same offense.”

In 1942 Branson (who was then vice president of the General Conference) turned down a request from the Ohio Conference (Miller had relocated to Ohio) to reinstate Miller’s ministerial credentials. However, by around 1950 attitudes towards Miller seem to have mellowed. According to his biographer, Raymond S. Moore, Miller was on a buisness trip to Hong Kong when he was asked to go to China to investigate the situation. This appears to have been an unofficial request and appears to have been a result of Miller’s connections on both sides of the political divide. (I have received funding from the McAdams Research Grant to return to the USA later this year in order to do further research into the process of Miller’s rehabilitaion.) Miller is said to have treated both the Guomindang (Nationalist) and Communist elite during his time in China. At this stage the church was concerned for the safety of their missionaries, the future of the work in China and retaining control of their institutions.

In 1953 Miller was called to Taiwan to help establish a hospital there. The Adventist church had followed the Guomindang regime into exile on Taiwan. Milller was quickly able to re-establish his political connections and cut through the red tape in order to get the hospital up and running. I argue that Miller was rehabilitated specifically to do this. Of concern is that Miller was called to this position by Ezra Longway who had been a missionary in China at the time of Miller’s dismissal. There is no way that Longway could not have been aware of the reasons behind the dismissal and yet Miller was placed in a very similar role that he was in when the “incidents” occurred.

We don’t know about this because Miller was an excellent manager of his legacy.

Also traditionally Seventh-day Adventists have not discussed unpleasant aspects of our history. Moore’s work China Doctor: The Life Story of Harry Willis Miller was very influential in establishing Miller as an SDA hero. Also Miller did a lot of volunteer work around the world following his time in Taiwan.

This photo is significant because it is evidence of the close relationship Adventist missionaries (in particular Harry W. Miller) had with Zhang Xueliang (The Young Marshall). In 1936 C.C. Crisler died in a remote area in China. Zhang Xueliang's plane was borrowed to take Crisler's wife, daughter and other members of the funeral party to the funeral. This photo is documentary proof of Miller's claims that he had regular use of the plane.

From your research, would you say that the official church reporting about the China missionaries has been fair? Or more of an exercise in public relations?

I think it has been fair for the most part. There are some missionaries who I really admire such as Elizabeth Redelstein and Paul Quimby. It has been claimed that Seventh-day Adventist missionaries had closer connections with the political elite than missionaries from other denominations. This is not entirely accurate; certainly the church was highly valued for its hospitals and educational institutions, and the church did receive substantial donations for that aspect of its work. But I am yet to find records of SDA missionaries being invited to minister to the Guomindang political elite, unlike Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries who regularly gave sermons at the church services and daily worships held by Chiang Kai-shek and his wife. (Chiang Kai-shek was a baptized Methodist and his wife was from a prominent Christian family.)

Interestingly, as new documents have come to light in the last few years there has been a sympathetic re-evaluation of the Chiangs and several historians now paint a picture of Chiang Kai-shek that is closer to Adventist representations than has been the case in the past.

Surely the missionaries' connections with the political elite was a huge help to them as they labored to convert Chinese people and baptize them into the Adventist church. Would you be critical of those connections? Did the missionaries cultivate relationships with the Communist government as well?

I think the church needs to be careful of aligning itself too closely with one political regime and not be over-awed that those in power value what we do. I think this has relevance in today’s political climate as well.

There are reports that Miller did treat Communist leaders -- especially Zhou En-lai -- during the 1920s and 1930s but this claim is much harder to substantiate. All foreign missionaries from all denominations were expelled from China by 1952, so it was not possible for the church to cultivate relationships with the Communist government after 1949.

What is apparent is that the Seventh-day Adventist church was seen by the Communists as being an American church and as being closely aligned with the Guomindang regime. This did make life more difficult for the average member after the regime change in China. Joseph Tse-Hei Lee at Pace University has done some interesting work on the Adventist experience following the success of the Communist Revolution.

How would you characterize the state of the Adventist church currently in China? Have you visited? How has it been impacted by the missionary work carried out before Communism?

I am an historian and my area of expertise is the past. I have not visited mainland China since 1994 though I hope to visit again one day. I have had limited contact with SDA church members in China and am not really qualified to talk about the state of the church today.

I believe the church is all decentralized in China. What does that mean in practice? Why are the pastors women?

Protestant churches in China operate under the umbrella of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). The congregations are self-governing within the structure of the TSPM. The principles of the TSPM are self-governance, self-support and self-propagation. Under Chinese law a denomination cannot have ties financial or otherwise with an organisation outside of the country or receive foreign missionaries. This means that while the members call themselves SDA, the General Conference has no administrative or financial control or connection to these churches.

Under Communism in China women have done many jobs traditionally held by men. Women are pastors in China because they feel the call to minister. There are actually more male than female pastors; however, the fact that the Chinese church is ordaining women has caused a focus on female pastors in China.

Has there been much other scholarly research on Adventist missionaries anywhere?

Traditionally Adventist writing about missionaries has taken the form of memoirs, biographies and autobiographies. However, this is changing. Ron Lawson has done some interesting work on SDA missionary practice elsewhere. There are also a number of scholars who are researching the SDA church in China and a group of us presented as a panel at the 2016 Winter Meeting of the American Society of Church history in Atlanta, Georgia.

You are part of a research network called Adventism in China. What is that group all about?

The network brings together scholars who are researching Adventism in China. It’s a place to share ideas and get feedback and promote the study of Adventism in China. There is a website here.

You are a lecturer at Pacific Adventist University in Papua New Guinea. What is it like there? What classes do you teach? Who are your students?

It’s hot year round. I miss having a winter. It’s interesting and challenging and also humbling. The PAU campus is beautiful; my friends from town who live in compounds are very envious of the green space that we have at PAU. The campus is a bird sanctuary and we receive lots of bird-watching tourists. Port Moresby is a rapidly growing city, since our arrival in 2012 we’ve seen the growth of shopping malls and new supermarkets. Of course this rapid growth brings problems of rural-urban migration and social dislocation.

I teach history classes for the School of Arts and Humanities and also for the School of Theology. My students are Arts students, Education students (studying to be high school teachers) and Theology students. Most of the students come from Papua New Guinea but we also have students from around the Pacific. Last semester I taught students from Nauru, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

It’s an exciting place to work. Pacific Adventist University currently has approximately 1100 students. Some of my students are the first in their family or village to attend university and it is an honor to help provide an education to them.

Scenery at Pacific Adventist University

Do you have other big topics you are interested in?

I’m planning to begin my PhD next year. My proposed thesis topic is “Seventh-day Adventist use of Indigenous Australian and Pacific Island missionaries in Papua New Guinea during the first half of the 20^th century.”

You and your husband Jeff are originally from Australia. You were at Helderberg in South Africa for a while, and now in PNG. Where do you think your future plans will take you?

I have no idea where we will go next, I’ve learned to be open to change. We have a little while left on my husband’s contract here. However, we do need to start considering our daughter’s education. Right now she’s in an excellent international school, but we will need to be in a country with good secondary schools soon as she is starting to get closer to high school age. I’d like to be somewhere that has four seasons. We are open to offers.

Ruth Crocombe teaches history at Pacific Adventist University in Papua New Guinea. She earned her master's degree from the University of Queensland in Australia.

Interviewer's Note: On this day 100 years ago my great-grandparents, Lyman and Ella Mae Bowers, sailed for China on their first mission appointment. - Alita Byrd

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An old-fashioned diagnosis and an old-fashioned cure for strangely familiar social ills. Might these ideas usefully inform attitudes today?

New diseases. Strange weather. Abroad, shifting alliances, dwindling possessions, and terrifying new enemies. At home, a dangerously fragmented population, some embracing new ideas spread via cutting-edge technology, others suspicious and alienated. The economy is destabilized by government intrusions. Support for primary as well as higher education falls precipitously. Previously straightforward markets are newly monetized, widening the gap between rich and poor. A constitutional transition of power devolves into a tug-of-war: while the elite fight to protect their power, a populist demagogue cultivates his influence by signaling to the angry and dispossessed that their grievances will finally be heard. And true believers are certain that an ancient book offers simple answers to entrenched societal problems.

The 21^st century? The current presidential election cycle? No, late 1540s and early 1550s—the years after Henry VIII of England died, leaving his 9-year-old son Edward on the throne.

As an associate professor of English at Penn State Lehigh Valley, I read old books and teach writing to first-year college students. I’m not a social commentator. Nevertheless, it’s been a vertiginous experience, spending the early months of 2016 reading sermons preached during the reign of King Edward VI. The preachers’ complaints seem so familiar, the recommended solution so alien.

International cooperation may yet address climate change and contain the spread of Zika, but it’s hard to see how 16^th century Europeans could have avoided bad harvests and sweating sickness. Alarmed as some may say they are at the prospect of a President Trump, few are nostalgic for a political system in which a constitutionally-designated office-holder like the arrogant and overbearing populist Edward Seymour, the king’s uncle, might be executed as a felon by his fellow-councilors.

But some self-inflicted wounds to the mid-Tudor body politic seem eerily relevant. Late in Henry’s reign, king and council seized church wealth in the form of monastic holdings. Edward’s council completed the job of abolishing chantries (private endowments funding masses for souls in purgatory). Nuns and monks were pensioned off, while priests were assigned work in the parishes. The King’s Supreme Headship of the English church provided a legal justification for the massive redistribution of resources; the denial of purgatory offered an ideological one. Designated by law for education and other social goods, some of the revenue had funded Henry’s failed effort to reestablish Plantagenet dominance in France. In both Henry’s and Edward’s reigns, much church wealth flowed into private purses: agricultural lands—and their tenants’ rents—enriched new landlords (imagine a fictional Tudor ancestor for the fictional Robert Crawley). Monastery buildings (like the fictional Downton’s original abbey) were available for purchase by groups or individuals, who often dismantled or even burned the largest structures to recover lead roofs and building stone.

When England’s long-established religious institutions changed hands in the 16^th century, the powerful became richer while social services in rural areas dried up. Preachers held land-hungry local gentry responsible:

[Where] fifty tun-bellied Monks (a tun is a large barrel for ale or wine) given to gluttony filled their paunches, kept up their house and relieved [the poor] round about them, there one of your greedy-guts, devouring the whole house and making great pillage throughout the country, cannot be satisfied.¹

Universities suffered as well: most students and professors had been supported by monastic endowments. Large numbers went home; the remaining few reportedly subsisted on salt beef and oatmeal porridge, and “being without fire … run up and down half an hour to get a heat on their feet when they go to bed.”² The now-dissolved monasteries and chantries had also provided primary education to rural children. Without replacement arrangements being made, warned another preacher, such schools’ disappearance “will bring the Realm into a very barbarousness.”³

In the absence of tun-bellied monks, different beasts are starved in 21^st century America. Contractors assure small municipalities that certain government functions can be made to pay for themselves. Health-care chains buy up small hospitals and nursing homes. For-profit educational chains recruit public school children as well as adults seeking academic degrees and vocational training. Fines for traffic and parking violations; Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance payments; local property tax revenue and federally guaranteed student loan dollars now flow to private corporations. Now as then, we need not defend the gluttony, laziness, or ideology of tun-bellied bureaucrats to recognize that at least some of the citizens, patients, and students formerly served by “inefficient” systems of law enforcement, medical care, or public education are worse off when corporations profit from the work of the teachers, nurses and doctors, and security and clerical personnel employed to interact with them.

In Edward’s reign, the dissolution of monasteries and chantries was not the only economic change. A lucrative market in wool exports motivated landowners to diversify into sheep farming, fencing off portions of their holdings previously shared among their tenants as common pastureland. “Enclosure” forced tenant farmers to repurpose cropland or feed grain to livestock that had previously grazed for free. New “leasemongers” intruded between the lord of the manor and his tenants, raising rents, while speculators and wholesalers, “regrators … of corn, victuals, and of all manner of wares” inserted themselves into the supply chain between the farmer and the merchant, reducing payments to growers while raising market prices, making “dearth and scarcity” for working people.⁴

One preacher, the 62-year-old Hugh Latimer, outlined the real-life consequences of agricultural depression to a congregation that included the 11-year-old king and wealthy aristocrats on his council (imagine a public cabinet meeting doubling as a revival service): “My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds by year at the utmost,” the preacher recalled. As a boy, Latimer had helped his father buckle on his armor before the elder Latimer rode his own horse (and provided his own military equipment) to the muster as a volunteer against rebels in 1497. “He kept me to school,” first at the local grammar school and then at Cambridge University where Latimer won a fellowship, “or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now.” The elder Latimer helped his six daughters get their adult start in life by providing marriage portions of “five pounds, or twenty nobles apiece, so that he brought them up in … fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors. And some alms he gave to the poor, and all this did he of the said farm.” In the good old days, around the turn of the 16^th century, a tenant farmer could make a decent living, provide for his family and contribute to the good of his community and the nation.

By contrast, says Latimer, the same farm’s current tenant “pays sixteen pound by year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor. Thus all the enhancing & rearing [raising of agricultural rents] goeth to your private commodity & wealth”⁵--that is, into the pockets of powerful aristocrats.

Today’s observers would speak of wages stagnating or even falling (as wages must, if profits for corporate shareholders are to show a healthy return on investment) while living expenses rise. Many of today’s unskilled wage-earners work two or three low-paying jobs to stave off eviction or foreclosure, leaving them with too little time or energy to bond with and guide their children. We hear warnings that daughters of the poor will become single mothers; sons will run afoul of the law rather than going to college. Latimer made the same dark prophecy to his country’s leaders 467 years ago: “For if ye bring it to pass, that the yeomanry be not able to put their sons to school … and that they be not able to marry their daughters to the avoiding of whoredom, I say ye … utterly destroy the realm.”⁶

Disruption of long-established systems to educate the young and deliver social services. New ways to monetize other people’s work. High prices, low wages, shuttered schools, families turned out of homes, and beggars accosting solid citizens on the streets. Court preachers like Thomas Lever, Hugh Latimer, and Bernard Gilpin assigned the blame to covetousness, the sin of desiring for oneself what belongs to someone else and God has seen fit to withhold. Covetousness was forbidden by the Tenth Commandment and identified as the “root of all evil” in the New Testament. This sin explained everyone’s bad behavior, from the “carnal gospellers” who embraced the new religion and enriched themselves through confiscated monastic property, to the leasemongers and regrators, to the small farmers who violated public order by tearing down the fences enclosing pastures where their cattle used to graze.

And what, according to the preachers, was the opposite of covetousness, the cure for the social damage it wreaked? “[C]ovetousness hath banished from amongst us Christian charity,” lamented Bernard Gilpin early in 1553. (King Edward, perhaps already sick with his final illness, missed this sermon preached at Whitehall Palace.) “Charity” is familiar to us, especially as we itemize deductions before filing our tax returns, but Gilpin meant more than giving to organizations that help the poor: “we have forgotten Christ’s last [words], when he so often before his passion did inculcate love: love, love, love one another.”⁷

Covetousness. Love. An old-fashioned diagnosis and an old-fashioned cure for strangely familiar social ills. Might these ideas usefully inform attitudes today?

Though I very seldom miss church, I cannot recall ever hearing a sermon denouncing covetousness, and only a few exalting love—love for the people I interact with, live among in the Lehigh Valley, or hear about on the news—as a motive for socially productive activity. In 2016, professors of marketing and of communication design teach future advertisers how consumer desire can be created. Cities like Allentown and universities like mine collaborate on “business incubators” for entrepreneurs who develop new services or new objects of desire for consumers. Covetousness, or something closely resembling it, is an important engine of our mostly-capitalist consumer-driven economy. How might love, or something closely resembling it, extend that economy’s benefits to more of our fellow citizens while shielding the vulnerable from some of its cruelest excesses?

Margaret Christian is Associate Professor of English at Penn State Lehigh Valley.
______________________

NOTES

Thomas Lever, A sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the xiiii day of December (London, 1550), sig. D7^v. STC (2nd ed.) 15546.3.
Ibid, sig. E2^v.
Latimer, The seconde [-seventh] sermon[s] of Maister Hughe Latimer (London, 1549), sig. P7^v. STC (2nd ed.) 15274.7
Ibid, sig. G2.
Latimer, The fyrste sermon of Mayster Hughe Latimer (London, 1549), sigs. D5-D6. STC (2nd ed.) 15272.5.
Ibid, D6^v.
Bernard Gilpin, A godly sermon preached in the court (London, 1581), p. 66. STC (2nd ed.) 11897.

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Lowell Cooper, long-time General Conference vice president, shares insights about governance, leadership and our changing church from his years of accrued wisdom.

In this exclusive interview, Lowell Cooper, long-time General Conference vice president, shares insights about governance, leadership and our changing church from his years of accrued wisdom.

Question: You retired as general vice president for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but later it was announced that you had been appointed as one of the special assistants to the president of the General Conference, Ted Wilson. Has this new role meant a significant change in your responsibilities and focus?

Answer: I “retired” in the sense that I chose not to be available for election at the General Conference Session in San Antonio. I was subsequently asked to serve on a part-time basis as a Special Assistant to the General Conference President with specific attention to continued service as chair of the boards at Loma Linda University Health. This assignment will end in December 2016.

You have held the position as chair of the Loma Linda University Health and affiliated institutions since 2001, I believe. The position holds significant responsibility and influence. What has been your primary goal as Loma Linda board chair?

I had the privilege of serving for over 16 years as a General Conference vice president. I deliberately chose not to be available to continue in that office. I have advised others that one can be too long in one position and merely hold office rather than lead. I thought it best to listen to my own advice.

It has been a highlight of my career to serve as chair of the boards at Loma Linda University Health for 15 years. I would happily continue. But this position is normally held by a General Conference vice president and I realized that my “retirement” from my General Conference post would mean a change in the chair role at LLUH. This was discussed openly with the LLUH Board of Trustees and with the General Conference President well in advance of the 2015 General Conference Session. The Board, University leadership and General Conference leadership wished for me to remain as chair until after the bond financing for the new hospital at Loma Linda was completed. This was accomplished in April 2016. I will resign as LLUH Board Chair in December 2016. A very capable individual is already identified to become the next Board Chair.

My primary goal as Loma Linda University Health board chair? Accountability, transparency and competence in institutional governance. If that is done with care and due diligence LLUH would be faithful to its mission, to its identity as a Seventh-day Adventist institution and to its impact in the local and global community.

What has been your biggest challenge as Loma Linda board chair?

Embracing an understanding of healthcare in the United States. This is an incredibly complex, changing and highly regulated industry.

On top of that is the challenge to maintain dynamic alignment and synergy of an academic institution (Loma Linda University) and the several hospitals usually spoken of collectively as Loma Linda University Medical Center. The cultures of academia and business, in this case healthcare, have considerable difference. It is a testament to the marvelous and self-sacrificing leadership at Loma Linda University Health that over the years the corporate structures and leadership thinking has drawn closer together instead of diverging into competitive pathways.

My training and career experience has been in ecclesiastical leadership. Being asked to serve as LLUH board chair was something for which I had very little training. I had to immerse myself in reading, studying and attending conferences on higher education and healthcare. After 15 years I still feel I am in the novice ranks.

You mentioned the complexity of healthcare in the US. How would you say American healthcare has changed in the last 10 years, and what have you done as board chair to ensure that Loma Linda stays current and relevant?

There is a much greater focus on population health as compared with an earlier emphasis on treatment of disease. Along with this, and perhaps as a direct result of the change in emphasis, has been a change in hospital reimbursements. Instead of payment for procedure (the number of X-rays, consults, lab tests, etc.) the movement is towards payment for value-based service (How well has the patient recovered from disease? Is the patient staying in good health?).

Over the years we have intentionally added more healthcare professionals to the LLUH board. We want the deliberations of the boardroom to be informed and influenced by the practitioners in this rapidly changing environment. Board members are provided access to top industry publications in education and healthcare. In addition to continuing education events during board meetings every LLUH trustee is expected to attend at least one professional conference on education or healthcare per quinquennium. Attendance at such events is a factor in whether or not a trustee is elected to serve a subsequent term on the board.

You have also served as board chair of a number of other major Adventist institutions, including Adventist Health International, Pacific Press Publishing, ADRA and more. Governance has been a particular focus for you and you have spoken extensively about it in seminars and presentations globally. What are some of the key lessons you have learned about governance during your work? Why is it so important for the church and its institutions specifically?

One of the great features of Seventh-day Adventist structure is that authority resides in groups rather than in individuals. Our most important decisions are made by groups. But groups do not automatically make good decisions. Effective group decisions are the result of careful attention to group competence, group dynamics and meeting room culture.

As a church we have unfinished work in this area. Most everyone in a leadership role these days has some specific training for the role (treasurers have training in finance and accounting, secretaries have training in policy and record-keeping, presidents have training or at least some exposure to administration). However, few if any of us have had or will have specific training in working with groups. I wish that this were the only challenge. It could be remedied readily. But the lack of group-process training also extends beyond leaders to those who are elected/appointed as members of decision-making bodies, from local church boards to executive committees and boards at the highest levels of organization.

Best practices for good governance deserve more attention in church and leadership life. From a human standpoint organizational or institutional success is ultimately the responsibility of the board.

What strengths do you feel the Adventist church has when it comes to governance? What areas of weakness?

Seventh-day Adventists have developed a participatory and representative form of governance. We are neither hierarchical nor congregational in polity. Perhaps the best word for now is that we are “interdependent.” At no point in denominational structure do we see the center of final authority for everything. I see this as a very positive feature of organization.

Our pattern of governance comes not from government, business corporations or military models. Authority is distributed. Connectivity is reciprocal. Representation is valued.

That is the good news. I think we can do much better in actual practice of these ideals. The point at which I sense the most need is in creating strong boards and executive committees.

What counsel do you find yourself giving most often to board members and church leaders?

For a number of years I worked on a plan of developing “ten commandments” for board leaders. I went through several versions and ended up discarding all of them. Now I stress four ideas:

Intentionality in the composition of boards and executive committees. The group must have the right combination of competencies and expertise to deal with the business of the entity. Further, bigger boards don’t automatically make better decisions. In the interest of broad representation our denominational boards tend to be rather large but this can be a deterrent to good decision-making.
Cultivating the right culture in the boardroom. The most important matter here is to make the boardroom a safe place to talk. This is not as simple as it sounds. Members of a group can easily become ensnared in “groupthink.” Assumptions go unchallenged, there is fear that disagreement will ruin the meeting, and expressing a differing opinion is often interpreted as a sign of disloyalty to leadership. We need to learn that the best decisions require rigorous and respectful debate.
Compliance with fiduciary obligations — the duty of care in decision-making, the duty of loyalty to the organization’s purpose (including attention to conflicts of interest), and the duty of obedience to corporate documents, relevant policies and law.
Deliberate attention to the essential tasks of governance. A board needs to understand the range of its responsibilities — and attend to all of them. Unless consciously resisted, the law of gravity in boards will drift from governance to management, from proactivity to reactivity, from long-range to short-term thinking.

You also asked about counsel to church leaders. I see that as very different from counsel to boards and executive committees. Here the message point is very brief: build trust! Trust is the most important human resource for the Church. Where trust in leaders is strong all other resources become available. Where trust is weakened all other resources begin to dwindle.

There are two kinds of trust that leaders need to be aware of. The first is personal trust. Am I a trustworthy individual? Do I fulfill my commitment? Can I maintain confidentiality of sensitive information about another?

The second kind of trust is organization trust. Can the organization I represent be trusted? Is its communication timely and truthful? Does it have systems, policies and practices that ensure fairness, equality and accountability? Does the organization demonstrate its values rather than merely define them?

In my opinion, the first task of every leader, regardless of the post in which he/she serves, is to build trust in leadership and in church organization. Here actions speak louder than words.

What changes have you seen in church governance practices over the last 20 years?

It seems to me that we have made some progress in expanding the presence of laity on denominational boards and committees. Though I believe there is much more we can do in these areas, I see a greater presence of women and young people in our decision-making forums.

In spite of our policy claims to the contrary, I sense that we exhibit more of a presidential system than we are willing to admit. Our denominational institutions have traditionally operated with a presidential system and I believe there are reasons why that is so. We espouse the committee system and three-officer leadership team in our ecclesiastical structure, but my sense is that we have failed to maximize the merits of such a system.

A good deal of my career has involved working with institutions of various kinds. My perception (as opposed to a formal evidence-based conclusion) is that institutional governance does a more thorough job of holding leadership accountable than does the ecclesiastical system. The challenge as I see it is that though we have a good governance system we lag in good governance practice — especially in the training of boards and executive committees.

In San Antonio last summer, you made a speech from the floor supporting a Yes vote on the women’s ordination issue. How did you react when the vote went the other way?

I was disappointed but not surprised at the decision. In my opinion the question of division permission to decide matters of ministerial ordination became encumbered by several other political and tangential concerns and the mood of the body shifted more towards conflict than consensus.

What did surprise you about San Antonio? What most disappointed you? What encouraged you?

The number of votes in favor of the proposal surprised me. I expected that the proposal would be defeated by a larger majority than actually occurred.

I was disappointed by the tension that seemed to pervade the room — as evidenced in part by the many points of order that were raised. Parliamentary procedure is meant to assist a body in an orderly process of making a decision. But in a tense environment parliamentary procedure can become a master rather than a servant. Chairing a General Conference Session can be very challenging.

The multi-year study about ordination produced a good statement on the theology of ordination. I wish that the Theology of Ordination Study Commission had given more reflection on the practice of ordination in our Church in the light of spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. Some may choose to differ but it seems to me that the New Testament teaching about spiritual gifts has extremely important implications for the practice of ordination.

What encouraged me was the movement in voting (toward recognition that in some areas of the world Church women may receive ministerial credentialing) when compared with earlier General Conference Session decisions. I was also pleased to see that around the world members are interested in their church. I have had the opportunity of extensive travel around the world and found that this question of ministerial ordination was “top of the list” everywhere. I don’t feel we have arrived at the best resolution on the matter but I am glad that out church membership is not complacent in matters relating to leadership.

What trends or issues do you see dominating the conversation among Adventists for the next 10 years? How do you see the church changing during that time? What topics are we not talking about, that we should be discussing?

Seventh-day Adventists tend toward a minority mentality where differences (from others) and distinctives are stressed. As a result, the Church’s relation to or interface with other faith communities and with society in general will continue to generate a lot of discussion and disagreement among Adventists.

One cannot presume prophetic insights. But the probable trajectory of current events in several parts of the world will bring certain issues to the fore for church leaders and members. Among these I expect we will encounter:

Issues impacting freedom of religion — from matters affecting worship, evangelism, speech, employment policies and the operation of institutions.
Social issues such as marriage, abortion, assisted suicide, justice and equality.
Sexual identity issues. It will be a huge challenge for SDA churches, and the Church as a whole, to engage in a discussion of how to relate to persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and allies (LGTBQIA). Official Church statements such as the one on homosexuality that was released some years ago are helpful but not sufficient. Ultimately local churches, families and individuals must wrestle with how we relate to persons who see these matters differently from us. Silence, avoidance and a spirit of condemnation will only fuel further misunderstanding.
Global issues such as the environment.

Some of these will be very difficult topics for church consideration. But the church cannot remain silent and uninvolved while expecting that the world will listen with rapt attention to an evangelistic proclamation.

Do you believe the church is becoming less tolerant and open overall, as some have commented?

I think it would be unfair to generalize because a perception of more tolerance/less tolerance is often subjective and issue specific. The Church is a marvelous and mysterious assembly of Spirit-led people from all directions of the compass, from all pathways of human experience, and from a wide spectrum of cultural and political environments. The danger for me is to think that the Church, in order to be true to God, should reflect my way of thinking and do things according to the way “we” have always done them.

There is room for all of us to grow and the Church itself is on a growth curve where changes take place, some changes to be adopted and others to be handled with great care.

What is the biggest challenge for Ted Wilson, and the next General Conference president?

The General Conference president has an almost superhuman task: to be the president for the whole Church. Though the Church is a spiritual community it also participates in Church “business.” The role of the president can have a long-lasting impact in many ways. All the GC presidents I have known and/or worked with (six of them) have looked upon their role as being more of a pastor than a CEO.

The challenge is how to be a servant leader for a worldwide Church with such diversity of culture, context and convictions. The president needs to be able to “hear” the whole Church, even those voices that seem unpleasant and unreasonable. The president has a huge influence in facilitating the internal conversations of the Church on the tough questions of being a family.

But the president must also demonstrate leadership in a way that helps the Church engage with its community and the world. An isolationist mentality is not fitting for a Church that believes the gospel is good news for the whole world.

In today’s world of secularism, radical ideologies and suspicion about religion the Church needs to earn a hearing. It has to become known more for what it affirms than for what it denies. It needs to demonstrate the values of what it proclaims.

Leadership, not by the General Conference president alone, must help the Church to engage in community life, in dialogue about difficult social issues, in sorting through questions of liberty, freedom, justice and equality. There is an enormous opportunity for the Church to be seen as the most healthy, most helpful, most thoughtful, most peace-promoting institution in the community — simply because God intends for His people to be a light in the world.

Can our current church structure embrace the increasingly global reach of Adventism? What changes need to be made to make the church more effective in fulfilling its mission?

The larger an organization grows the more likely it is to experience the forces of fragmentation. So it is not surprising that church growth is accompanied by the need to embrace more and more diversity and dissimilarity. Seventh-day Adventists need to consider carefully what holds the Church together — and indeed even to understand what togetherness means in a global organization.

The temptation will always be there to address growth and diversification through centralizing authority. That is not the ethos of Seventh-day Adventism. Kent Hansen, General Counsel for Loma Linda University Health drew my attention to a statement of Eugene Petersen: “Because leadership is necessarily an exercise of authority, it easily shifts into an exercise of power. But the minute it does that, it begins to inflict damage on both the leader and the led.”

As the Church grows there is need to strengthen pathways of communication, vertically, horizontally and inter-organizationally. Consensus must be more prominent than control.

In this growing phenomenon it seems to me that the role of the local church pastor becomes increasingly significant. He/she serves as a primary connection agent between the local congregation and regional/global church structure. So in my opinion, local church pastors need to be given a more prominent place in the deliberative forums of the global church.

If you were to change one area of church policy (an area you are extremely knowledgeable about), what would you change?

More work needs to be done in enunciating the theology and philosophy that undergirds church organization and the operating procedures that reflect our values and mutual commitments to each other. We could benefit from fewer policies if we had better consensus on the purpose of structure and the operating principles that need to inform or practices.

Policy is not some magic medicine that corrects or repairs our deficiencies. Rather, it is an attempt to codify our agreements. Policy does not create unity. It can, and should, be an expression of unity provided there has been wide consultation in its development. In organizations where participation is voluntary, such as the Church, policy needs to be seen as constructive rather than a means of regulation and control.

What do you plan to do when you actually do retire?

Retirement seems rather elusive — if by that one means an open calendar and unstructured days. I have been much busier than I ever imagined. It is because I have accepted invitations for unremunerated service from several divisions and church entities. It is a privilege to be of service in this way but I expect the frequency and duration of these occasions to decrease in the next 6-12 months. My wife and I have become more heavily engaged in a local church and commit 10-12 hours per week to the community food bank operated by the church.

What books are you reading right now? Any good recommendations?

Take your pick. They are all worthwhile. In recent weeks I have finished:

•Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015.

•Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, Schoken Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.

•Sigve K Tonstad, God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense, Wipf & Stock, 2016

•Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally –Linz, Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote With Integrity, Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016.

Next up: Reinder Bruinsma, Facing Doubt: A Book for Adventist Believers ‘On the Margins’, Flanko Press, 2016

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From the very first chapter, I wondered whether Volf’s focus on the “major” religions to the exclusion of “local” and indigenous religions would be a disadvantage to him. This chapter may be one area of his model where It is. Non-universalizing religions have had millennia of practice in engaging the competing claims of other faiths, and they’ve often lost bitterly to religions that end arguments with the point of a sword.

This is the fourth post in a seven-part series for Spectrum’s 2016 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Flourishingby Miroslav Volf. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

Friday, August 5 marked the 4th anniversary of the day Michael Page gunned down six Sikhs at the Oak Creek gurdwara in Wisconsin. Until Dylan Roof murdered 9 worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Oak Creek was the largest mass killing at a place of worship in the US since the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Nothing highlights our need to establish mindsets and cultures of respect than these and so many other instances of Othering, religious exclusivism, and terrorism in the US and around the globe. People literally die when we fail to respect each other.

Chapter 3 of Miroslav Volf’s book Flourishing tackles the mutual respect that religious traditions need to give and also be given in a plural society. Volf explores two themes: (1) the “global security risk” of religious intolerance, and (2) relationships within religions, between religions, and between religions and host societies that mutually honor religious freedom.

On the question of religious intolerance, Volf cites data from 2012 and 2013 on global religious freedom, and these data present quite a dire, violent picture. While data from just a year later show an increase in religious violence, they also show a “five-year decline” in severe global restrictions on religious freedom, and the percent of people around the world living with high or very high social religious hostilities falls from 46% when Volf wrote to 23% in 2014. Volf outlines religious violence against Christians, Muslims, and others, but does not address “intolerant attitudes and practices” that Christians direct toward others (p. 98).

Volf acknowledges that the major world religions all have poor global track records with religious freedom over the centuries and within our own century. He mentions the Christians who baptized the Western hemisphere in blood at the start of the colonial globalization era, the Muslims who conduct terror campaigns or use their states to repress other religious groups today, and mutual stereotyping among some Christians, Muslims, and secular Europeans: minoritized religious groups in every culture can testify of dominant groups’ intolerance.

The religions that Volf argues share the trait of exclusivist intolerance also share the practice of universally describing and asserting moral claims about all people. “Universal claims” is one of six criteria that Volf uses throughout the book to frame his discussion of world religions (pp. 68-69), and I still have my doubts about restricting the discussion of “religions” to those religions that possess this feature.

Like most Spectrum readers, my personal experience is with intra-religious debates in Christianity, not intra-religious debate in Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, or Judaism, or inter-religious debate in non-Christian-dominant nations. From experience I know Christians don’t share the same moral assumptions. I sometimes even catch myself wondering whether Russell Moore and Franklin Graham worship the same God I do. Within Christianity, Christians don’t agree on “what is true, just, and good for all human beings,” or how to correctly diagnose and resolve humankind’s problems. That’s why our conflicts are as rigorous and perennial as they are.

Volf rightly notes that some intolerance naturally follows from adopting timeless, universal claims about all people: “When world religions are publicly engaged, they threaten to exclude all competitors; when they are pushed into privacy, they themselves are objects of exclusion (p. 101, 133). Religions and non-religious people aren’t going to vanish, so we have to establish whether, despite our substantive disagreements, we can learn to manage life together without exclusion, without marginalization, without dehumanization, and without violence.

“Can adherents of a world religion learn to respect adherents of other religious and humanistic ways of life even while strenuously disagreeing with them? Second, can adherents of world religions embrace freedom of religion and a-religion and support pluralistic democracy? Finally, can democracies be ‘religion friendly’—set up such that they are equally fair to religious as to a-religious ways of life—and therefore genuinely pluralistic?” (p. 102).

As part of his own answer, Volf reviews John Locke’s 17^th Century principles of religious tolerance. Locke diverged from the dominant theocratic views of his era and proposed limits to states’ ability to advance sectarian laws, restrict religious expressions, or punish variant theologies and religious practices. He didn’t believe that piety made coerced thought or behavior permissible for religion or the state. Locke also discouraged efforts to honor sectarian religions’ universal moral claims by requiring the rest of society to comply: “True and saving religion,” he wrote, “consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God” (pp. 104-105).

Most importantly, Locke anticipated Seventh-day Adventists’ traditional distinction between the church’s authority over the spiritual/moral sphere of life and the state’s authority over the civil legal/ ethical sphere, between our right relation to a transcendent God and our right relation to one another. Our church promotes this distinction most clearly in discussions of the Decalogue.

Perhaps Paul, Tertullian, and Locke were right about free conscience and the primacy of voluntary commitment; perhaps there’s “absolutely no such thing under the Gospel as a Christian commonwealth,” a society that combines the church’s authority with the state’s authority. If so, then historical and modern efforts to reform civil law and culture to create or recover a “Christian nation” that minoritized and non-Christian populations must yield to are deeply mistaken. These state-Christianizing efforts also undermine the individual freedoms that Locke and Volf argue are fundamental to all other freedoms, including religious freedom and freedom from religion.

Volf notes two reasons that a world religion might not adopt either Locke’s model or his own: exclusive truth claims that praise people for joining a religion but punish them should they ever de-convert; and enmeshment with domineering forms of social and political power (pp. 111-117). Even within Adventism, adult converts often gain significant community credibility (e.g. Ivor Myers, Walter Veith, and Doug Batchelor), whereas adult heterodox, “heretics,” or de-converts can attract significant community opprobrium (e.g. Desmond Ford, Aubyn Fulton, and Ryan Bell). And our dynamic is bloodless; other religions’ membership policing process is not.

Unlike religious adherents who perceive membership accessions and decessions as wins, losses, achievements, or attacks, Volf encourages us to receive others’ witnessing as an invitation to weigh our beliefs’ validity. He shares his wish to hear Jewish people challenge his belief in Jesus’ deity because “[these challenges] nudge me to reexamine whether what I think is true isn’t in fact a kind of fundamental error” (p. 116). Implicit in this wish is the reciprocity principle we teach as the Golden Rule: as much as Volf wishes to hear others’ witnessing, he also wishes to be able to witness to others. Genuine openness to others’ convictions and willingness to learn from them is a great ideal. It just requires a lot less existential angst than communities with exclusivist and universal truth claims regularly produce.

Adventist community rhetoric often shows us struggling to parse the distance between people’s beliefs and their characters, or as Volf says, between people’s persons and their work (pp. 118-120). Review any comment section of your choice: Adventists who have few questions about the 28 Fundamental Beliefs or the church’s ordination policies are framed as loyal and respectful of the church’s authority; people who question how we’ve traditionally interpreted the Genesis chronologies or advocate for women ministers are framed as disloyal and untrustworthy.

On the other hand, there’s obviously a way out of the person/work dilemma because people are already living beyond it. LGBT+ parents in the film Seventh-Gay Adventists can sew Pathfinders patches on uniforms as carefully as heterosexual parents can when their congregations allow them and their children to serve; heterosexual parents who disagree with the morality of their son’s relationship can still discern ways to participate in his family life without abandoning their beliefs. As Volf puts it, “we respect persons by virtue of their humanity, but we respect their work—their actions, convictions, character, and basic orientation—by virtue of its excellence” (p. 120). Serving a local church ministry and establishing a mutual and stable home life are both works that most onlookers can perceive as excellent. Our freedom doesn’t hinge on denying that works like these positively impact the people participating in them, and so indirectly benefit the communities they’re part of.

My favorite version of the soul classic “Respect” is sung by the 1960s band Rotary Connection. Unlike Aretha Franklin's punchy celebration, the Rotary Connection’s choral/blues guitar version explains more plaintively, “All I’m asking is for a little respect.” In both cases, though, the song is only about the respect we want to be given. It never acknowledges the respect we also have to give.

And this is the basic challenge that adherents of the world religions described in Volf’s book keep confronting because of our universal claims, exclusive commitments to truth, and struggle to generously observe the positive contributions other religions and philosophies have on members’ lives or wider world. We ultimately benefit from legal contexts that are biased towards dignity, religious freedom, and civil liberty for all, for these are societies that recognize that permitting discrimination and marginalization for one group creates vulnerabilities for all groups.

After all these centuries of missional globalization, it would be curious if marginalized religions had something to teach the dominant world religions about how to live through difference with respect, and the always-centered universalizing religions couldn’t resolve this issue without the lived wisdom of the communities they’ve so often violently failed to tolerate.

Keisha E. McKenzie lives and works in Maryland, and writes at mackenzian.com.

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Tiffany Llewellyn, an Adventist social worker from New York, has tapped into the frustration many young black Adventists are feeling this summer, and is harnessing it to create a vibrant organization to fight for positive change.

Tiffany Llewellyn, a 29-year-old Adventist social worker from New York, has tapped into the frustration many young black Adventists are feeling this summer, and is harnessing it to create a vibrant organization to fight for positive change.

Question: You are the co-founder of an organization called Adventists for Social Justice. What inspired you to start this group? What is it all about?

Answer: Following the death of Alton Sterling by police officers [on July 5, 2016], I was frustrated. I was hurting, and other members from church were over-spiritualizing the issue on social media. I just wanted a place that allowed for Christians to hurt together when these incidents happen.

[Co-founder] Jermaine Anthony and I had a conversation shortly after. We were conflicted because we wanted to get involved, we wanted to march, protest, advocate to city officials -- we felt overwhelmed with the need to simply do something. On the other hand we felt crippled by the church's silence on issues such as these and we weren't sure how to proceed.

We decided to start a Facebook group to see if there was anyone else who felt similarly; within two days the group had grown to about 2,000 people. The following day I woke up to another death by police: Philando Castile. It was heartbreaking. There had been many similar deaths in history that ripped just as deeply. I had struggled through Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and all the other profiled innocent lives lost at the hands of police brutality. I had learned how to mask my emotional trauma to simply push through another day, and another one. Eventually I couldn’t continue as usual.

We decided to host a conference call to gather ideas and develop an action plan. That call maxed its limit, and people could not get on. It was then we realized we were feeding a hunger of many Adventist youth who shared our passion for getting involved in social injustices around our country.

Who are the members of Adventists for Social Justice?

ASJ’s membership is comprised of anyone who has a passion for social justice issues, is open to partner with us, wants to uphold our church’s values, and feels the importance of getting involved. We understand that allies exist within various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic classes. We are intentional about remaining all-inclusive.

Why is such a group necessary?

I would have to ask how it cannot be. Whether we choose to accept the responsibility or not, this group is long overdue. Our denomination must experience a paradigm shift in our identified goals internally and externally as it relates to the community. The church is a hub -- when a community is hurting the question is asked “Where is the church?” We have been given a mandate by God, which also happens to be our organization’s mission to “do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow’s cause.” This should be the focus of the church on a micro and macro level. We cannot seek to evangelize without first understanding the implications. We cannot misrepresent Christ as if He is not burdened by the injustices within society. We cannot preach passionately about Esther and Joseph, confident about what God called them to do, and be silent when it matters most. No, this group is not only necessary, it is overdue.

What has your group accomplished so far?

We are still in the developmental phase of building this organization; however, we have been able to mobilize and organize across states. We have encouraged our members to explore their communities and get involved in events and movements that share our vision. We have succeeded in providing resources for education and training within our Facebook page -- the wealth of information shared there is unimaginable. We have been able to identify various chapter leaders across some states, develop an action plan, and are getting ready for a multi-state launch in September. I think a crucial aspect has been providing a place to belong, to hurt, to be angry, to be empowered. This is just the beginning!

What are your short term and long term goals?

Our short term goals include the official launch of our organization, which will include town halls, church trainings, and community events across various states. This will occur in September. We are also in the process of planning our first annual Social Justice Summit in November, which will be a training ground for those seeking information on how to effectively get involved in social action. We will also identify one core goal we can centralize around for the next quarter, such as Voting Education. We want to be intentional in how we measure success.

Long term, we are in the process of becoming a non-profit organization. We want to collaborate with community leaders, other organizations and city officials to meet the needs of each neighborhood. We intend to work within the law and policy arenas to advocate for improved policing laws; we also want to be channels to restore trust between the police and civilians. We intend to help create businesses within communities to increase our economices and boost financial freedom, in efforts to restore and build resources needed for minority communities. We aim to develop mentorship programs, health programs, and educational programs. Social justice is multi-layered and comprehensive, and we want to ensure we are not narrowly focusing on the issues at hand.

Internally, we want to encourage our churches to open up the dialogue. We plan to work with church leadership to develop a theological framework for social justice. The Sabbath School quarterly has done a phenomenal job with beginning the discussion; now where do we go from here? With a framework developed and implemented in our churches and schools, members can feel comfortable knowing that as a denomination we understand the importance of getting involved.

Do you think social media (Facebook) made it possible to form Adventists for Social Justice?

Absolutely! When we decided to start the Facebook group, the idea was to invite our friends who may share our burden. We never imagined it would grow to over 3,000 people within such a short time. That is the beauty of social media.

What topics or issues has the online group mainly focused on?

Education, policies and law, police reform, community development, economic empowerment.

Have you started any groups like this in the past? What experience do you have with activism? Social justice issues? What skills do you have that have helped you to organize this group?

This is my first group of its kind. I have marched and protested in the past around various issues; for example, housing, gun violence, lack of resources for minorities, etc. I believe I have the leadership and organizational skills that will help make this group sustainable. Social action, social justice, and meeting community needs have been my priority from the age of 13. I also work with an amazing team of people who really take this group to a new level. Passion will drive any vision, and we have both in abundance. With access to resources the sky is the limit.

What is your day job?

My career is in the field of social work where I am licensed to practice. I work as a clinical social worker as an in-home individual and family clinician, doing therapy for children and adolescents with severe psychiatric disorders. Previously, I worked in New York City as an in-home multi-systemic therapist for juvenile offenders. Every single day I go into these same communities I serve, with nothing but a computer and a folder between me and the residents. I see the needs of my clients and their neighborhoods first hand, and have always been at the front line advocating for more resources to be poured into under-resourced neighborhoods. These same kids that are gunned down because they appear “dangerous” represent any of the youth I work with or speak to daily. This is not only real -- it’s personal.

How would you rate the Adventist church on issues of social justice? Are we doing well or not so well?

To be fair, some churches and pastors are involved and doing a fantastic job. They simply “get it.” I have had the pleasure of conversing with some of them; but sadly they are in the minority. As a church, I think we have quite some way to go. Hopefully Adventists for Social Justice can be a channel to get us where we need to be.

How did you become an Adventist? How involved are you in your church?

I was raised within the Methodist religion, and came into Adventism through my mother, who was Adventist at the time. She placed my brother and me in Adventist school at Northeastern Academy, and I never left. I currently attend the Mount Zion SDA Church in Hamden, Connecticut, although the majority of my spiritual training occurred at Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve been involved in Youth Ministries for the entire 15 years I have been in the church. I serve as the Youth Leader at my church. I’ve served as a chaplain for the Brooklyn South Staten Island Youth Federation. I’ve served on multiple committees. I was recently asked to serve as a Young Adult Member on the Atlantic Union Executive Committee. I remain very much involved as I believe in order to see the change I desire, I have to be present and accounted for.

Tiffany Llewellyn, 29, is a clinical social worker. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Social Work at Medger Evers College and her Masters of Social Work at Hunter College.

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In this 20 min. interview, 2016 Adventist Forum conference keynote speaker Greg Boyd discusses the Christus Victor theory of atonement, violence, open theism, systematic racism, metal music, and Donald Trump.

Welcome to a summer edition of The Adventist Podcast. In this 20 minute interview with our 2016 Adventist Forum conference keynote speaker, Greg Boyd discusses the Christus Victor theory of atonement, violence, as well as open theism, systematic racism, metal music, and Donald Trump.

Greg Boyd is an internationally recognized theologian, preacher, teacher, apologist and author. He has been featured on the front page ofThe New York Times, The Charlie Rose Show, CNN, National Public Radio, the BBC and numerous other television and radio venues.

Greg received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary (summa cum laude 1988), his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School (cum laude 1982), and his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota (1979). He is cofounder of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota where he serves as Senior Pastor, speaking to thousands each week.

Greg has authored or co-authored 20 books and numerous academic articles, including his best-selling and award-winning Letters From a Skeptic and his recent books Repenting of Religion and The Myth of a Christian Nation.

Here's the book he recommends in the podcast for those of you coming to converse with him at the Adventist Forum conference Sept. 16-18: The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

Audio:

Greg Boyd episode.mp3

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The most important part, Bruinsma’s answers to and suggestions for dealing with doubt are both tried and tested and innovative.

"I know that the Adventist faith community is far from perfect. But God is putting up with it – and so should we." This final paragraph of my friend Reinder Bruinsma’s latest book is by far my favourite. By writing this book, Facing Doubt: A Book for Adventist Believers ‘On the Margins,’ Bruinsma has done the Adventist church and many thousands of Adventists world-wide a great service.

Bruinsma shared a copy with me, both in Dutch and English, and I read the English copy quickly and with much interest. The book is well-written and reads easily. Bruinsma has written this book for the people in the church who place themselves on the margins and who seriously doubt if they should or even want to remain in the church. From personal experience, I know that this target audience is large and growing by the day. It is commendable that Bruinsma has taken their plight to heart and through this book attempts to minister to these believers on the margins. Admittedly, Bruinsma is not straying too far from his own field of experience, as he writes ‘I expect this project will also be good for my own soul! For I myself am as much the target for this book’ (p 18).

Indeed, in the introductory chapter Bruinsma shares that he himself has these doubts, but that he wants to keep his faith and he wants to stay in his church. He then – humbly admitting that he does not have all the answers or any ‘instant remedies’ (p 17) – spends the rest of the book putting doubt in perspective and offering some reasons and ways for believers ‘to persevere in their attempts to believe’ (p 18).

Part 1: Questions, Uncertainties, Doubts
After the introductory chapter, the book consists of two parts each containing four chapters. The second part is the most interesting for the topic at hand. In the first part the stage is simply set. In ‘Christianity in crisis’ Bruinsma analyses the exodus from church, that is taking place in the West. Not just in the Adventist church. Bruinsma sketches how history, touching on postmodernism and the reformation, has led to this point.

‘Recent Trends in Adventism’ focusses on the current state of the Adventist Church. In Bruinsma’s eyes, it is very clear that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. He highlights some trends in contemporary Adventism, always placing them in their historical context, that are worrying for him and many others. Bruinsma truly believes the Adventist church is in a crisis, and that this crisis is not about one or two issues. Fortunately, as history shows us, change is possible.

The topic of evil and theodicy is next in ‘Is There a God, Really?’. The suffering and evil in the world have been part of the New Atheist debate on the existence of God, and Bruinsma tackles this difficult topic head on. Giving a good overview of possible answers, he ultimately admits that ‘I realize that for most people the why-question will not be solved by any academic debate’ (p 69), and concluding that the best answer is probably not rational. The best answer to this non-intellectual doubt is given in a later chapter ‘The Leap of Faith.’ Bruinsma then moves on to other intellectuals doubts that many have, creation and miracles are at the top of that list.

By this point Bruinsma has piled doubt upon doubt, and if the reader was not in doubt before reading the book, she probably is now. Bruinsma rightfully asks ‘What do we do with all this doubt?’ (p 80). Before getting to the meat of the matter and giving some suggested solutions to doubt, Bruinsma leads his readers once more unto the breach.

‘Can I Still Believe This?’ discusses specific intellectual doubts one might have with Adventism. First, the role of the Fundamentals is treated, and then various theological points pass by in review: the trinity, the nature of Christ, the Sanctuary, 1844, end-time prophecies and Ellen White. Bruinsma discusses these in reasonable depth and raises the right questions. The last topic is a strange one, life style issues such as ‘food, jewelry, recreation, cohabitation and sex’ (p 104). Bruinsma does not discuss this topic at all just concluding ‘At this point I simply want to mention this area of concern. And let me just say that, in all honesty, doubts in this category may (at least to some extent and in some cases) reflect a desire to justify one’s own behavior and are often not really a thoroughly considered, theologically rooted doubt’ (p 104). This statement is, in my view, a bit blunt and falls rather short as compared with the generally excellent discussion. It’s a pity, as this is the last topic in the chapter and leaves the reader on a low note.

Part 2: Facing Doubt and Finding Answers
In the second part, Bruinsma gives the meat of his message, and his answers to doubt and his reasons for staying in a church. In ‘The Leap of Faith’ Bruinsma points out you are meant to have doubts, and that doubt is part of faith. He then suggests a surprisingly simple solution: take a leap of faith. Just go for it. If you are doubting whether you should or even could believe, why not give it a go and see where you end up. This may sound simplistic, and in theory it might be, but the discussion of this option is neither simplistic nor superficial. Ultimately, Bruinsma understands faith to be a gift that God will give to those who try to believe.

In ‘Why We Must Remain in Church’ Bruinsma describes the second part of the problem of being on the margins: do you still go to a church? Emphasising that we often talk about the Church, meaning some kind of big organisational structure, in reality all anyone ever is is a member of a local church in a local city or town, nothing more, nothing less. Now admittedly, local churches can be not so great, but you can always try to find one that is better. Bruinsma discusses how a local community and one’s personal faith interact, and the essentiality of belonging to growing in faith. Each believer needs the church, and the church needs each believer.

Having dealt with doubt and staying in or going to church, Bruinsma moves on to the modernist meat: ‘What Exactly Must I Believe?’ Or better yet, if I don’t believe X, am I still a true Adventist. In a chapter that was perfect for including a reference to badventist, Bruinsma shows the traditional adventist aversion to doctrine and how that changed. He argues that not every Fundamental Belief is fundamental, and that being Adventist is not defined by one’s adherence to a set of beliefs. Bruinsma admits that he himself is not a ‘real’ Adventist, and points out that whether or not he agrees with each minutia of the twenty-eight has absolutely no implications for his membership in his local church. Ultimately ‘I am the one who must determine […] whether I have sufficient affinity with the Adventist interpretation of the Christian faith and with the Adventist faith community, to refer to myself as a “genuine” Adventist’ (p 169). In other words, there is no need to be chased out the church because you have some troubles with specific parts of the Fundamental Beliefs. You are the one to decide if you identify with the Adventist heritage sufficiently to remain part of the church.

Finally, in ‘Dealing With Our Doubts’, Bruinsma gives some useful advice to living an Adventist life of doubt. He suggests, to my great satisfaction, giving up studying the Bible and to start reading it. He argues that we need to focus on the message of the Bible, especially when reading hard to accept texts, not on the details. He reminds us that we need to keep thinking and using common sense. He points out that while many people in the church abuse Ellen White’s writings, that does not disqualify their usefulness. He reemphasises how important prayer is, and gives suggestions to start it again. And he shows the reader how she can take a journey of doubting and questioning without being overcome.

In the end Bruinsma shares his personal list of fundamentals, as he’s shared before on his blog. An insightful list to show the reader what freedoms she may take in dealing with the twenty-eight. He finishes with the best part: the quote that I put at the beginning of this review. ‘I know that the Adventist faith community is far from perfect. But God is putting up with it – and so should we’ (p 191).

Some conclusions
All in all, Bruinsma has done an excellent job with this book. Naturally there are some minor typo’s, but for a non-native English speaker surprisingly few strange turns of phrase. The prose reads easily, and Bruinsma makes the reader feel that she is included in a journey together with him. The rather extensive footnotes are enlightening and useful for interested readers looking for more answers; or maybe more doubts. And, of course the most important part, Bruinsma’s answers to and suggestions for dealing with doubt are both tried and tested and innovative.

My only true problem with the book, is one that is not Bruinsma’s fault at all. As I read the book, I didn’t feel that I was the audience. Not because I lack doubt, not because I haven’t thought of leaving the church, but because my worldview and thus my reason for doubts are different. Ultimately, I would estimate that this book answers more questions for Baby Boomer and Generation X readers, than for younger ones. Having said that, given the chance to go back in time, I’d still read the book. It enriched my faith and my commitment to my church and I truly believe it will do the same for thousands of others.

Tom de Bruin is a lecturer in New Testament Studies at Newbold College.

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William Johnsson, editor of the Adventist Review for more than two decades, is one of the speakers at the upcoming Spectrum conference. He talked to us about his book on Jesus’ radical teachings, his greatest insights about the Christian life, and how Adventist media has changed (in a way that he says would make Uriah Smith apoplectic!).

William Johnsson, editor of the Adventist Review for more than two decades, is one of the speakers at the upcoming Adventist Forum conference, which will examine the atonement and the character of God. Here he answers questions about his book on Jesus’ radical teachings, his greatest insights about the Christian life, and how Adventist media has changed (in a way that he says would make Uriah Smith apoplectic!).

Question: You are on the list of presenters for this year’s Adventist Forum conference in September. I heard you speak about your imam friend at the Adventist Forum conference in Chattanooga in 2013. How would you say that friendship has affected the way you read the Bible, and how you think about Jesus?

Answer: He was more than an imam; he was a Sufi sheikh with a following of millions in the Middle East and Europe. He loved Jesus, believed passionately that Jesus is coming soon and that Allah had instructed him to join with Seventh-day Adventists to tell the Muslim world. Our friendship was deep, at the human level and also at the spiritual. I miss him keenly.

And this week you are in Australia to speak at a One Project gathering. Have you spoken for the One Project before? I believe they are using your book on Jesus as a focus?

My involvement with the One Project is recent. We were invited to speak at the Seattle gathering in February of this year and were enormously blessed. So when the organizers asked us to join them in Oz this August we gave an immediate Yes.

Any time or place where the focus is on Jesus is where we want to be.

Yes, the material of my new book will be the focus of the the One Project in Oz.

Do you still travel frequently? Do you plan to slow down anytime soon? Would you mind if I asked your age?

I am 82. I have slowed down! I have become very selective in taking appointments.

My days are built around writing, gardening, and spending time with Noelene — we walk together every day. For me writing is a creative outlet; it makes me tired but it exhilarates me. To have unfettered time at last to write — I'm a happy person.

Your two-volume book Jesus of Nazareth, published last year, is the culmination of a lifelong academic passion for studying Jesus. What would you say is the greatest insight that came to you when researching and writing the book?

Yes, in several respects it is the culmination of a lifetime of reflection, teaching, preaching and writing about Jesus of Nazareth.

Greatest insight: how radical Jesus was/is! He shocked the people of His day; He shocked/shocks me.

Have you been planning this book for much of your life, would you say? How long did it take to actually write it? Are you happy with how it turned out?

At least 50 years of reflection; actual writing about two years. The work was completed in 2014, my annus horribilis — heart attack, bypass surgery, complications. I believe it was God alone who made it happen.

I'm very happy with the result. It came out pretty well as I'd hoped, maybe even better. I gave it everything I had; it had to be the best I could do.

What was the most difficult thing about writing the book?

The primary evidence: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They agree and they disagree. Most people who write on Jesus focus on just one account, or they cherry-pick to support a pre-conceived portrait of Jesus. I tried to be true to all the evidence.

What new insights about the Christian life came to you in your research?

So many. How dynamic, how disturbing Jesus was/ is. He's the no-baloney Man. Organized religion breeds a lot of baloney, in the first century or the 21st, in all religions, Adventism included. Jesus was real, authentic, wonderful, refreshing.

And another insight: the kingdom of God isn't the same as the church!

How has the book been received?

Very well. Only positive responses so far — no nasty letters or ugly calls.

When I planned to write the book I mentioned it in passing to my dear friend Dr. Angel Rodriguez, who at that time was director of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference. He asked me to consider writing with college reading classes in view. BRI would publish it and promote its use worldwide. I thought about it for awhile and said Yes. So they are the publisher; they paid me a one- time fee; I receive no royalties. The book already has been translated and published in German.

I wrote it as one volume, BRI split it into two — wisely, I thought, because 350-400 pages is pretty daunting for many readers.

You are the author of more than 25 books and over a thousand articles. How has this book been different? What books are you most proud of?

All my previous books have included material on Jesus; this one's totally focused on His life, teachings, and Passion. Every published work is precious to someone who loves to write. It's difficult to decide on favorites.

For example, my Wising Up, which was simply a fun book never intended for the public, is something I still like to pick up and read.

Among the more substantial works, Jesus: A Heart Full Of Grace, has been my favorite up to now. And not just because it proved to be a best- seller: translated into Portuguese and marketed in South America, it sold some 130,000 copies. The royalties, totally unexpected, enabled Noelene and me to purchase our small but lovely retirement home in Loma Linda.

But maybe Jesus of Nazareth will soon rise to the top of my non-existent chart.

You served as editor of the Adventist Review for a remarkably long 24 years. How do you feel the Adventist church changed during that time?

For better, for worse. Wonderful ministries, wonderful initiatives, creativity, more inclusive, greater involvement with society. Along with more materialistic, more involved in internal politics, still alarmingly racist and sexist.

But you need to know that I'm bullish on this church.

What differences do you see in today's Adventist media landscape compared to when you were at the Adventist Review?

A mixed bag. We're great innovators — look at our history of utilizing the media — so of course we have global TV, satellite networks 24/7.

I'm afraid, however, that content hasn't kept pace with advances in the technology. As far as official church publications are concerned, I'm distressed. It seems as though the official press has been muzzled. Uriah Smith would be apoplectic!

What do you see as the most important issues for the Adventist church in the next decade?

Well, check out my new book, due to come out later this year! I'll let you have the title, but no more: Where Are We Headed? Adventism After San Antonio. This isn't a promo — I'm donating all royalty receipts from the work.

What advice would you have for Adventist media, like Spectrum?

The Seventh-day Adventist Church needs you to get out the news and to foster constructive dialogue. So tell it straight and tell it honestly. Don't get caught up in muckraking or personal agendas.

And be positive, help the people cope in these stressful times. Make hope your bottom line.

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Facing Doubt was written, ostensibly at least, to help Adventists “on the margins” not to jump ship. That’s fine, except that, given his views on what the church should be—in contrast (thank God) to what it is—Why would anyone with those views want to belong to it to begin with?

Let me say right off that for decades now I have known and liked Reinder Bruinsma. We have worked together on a few occasions, and I especially remember one fond time on the Island of Malta 20 years ago when we both were in religious liberty work. He is smart, articulate, charismatic, and committed to the church—at least as he understands it.

Which is precisely the problem: his understanding of the church is reprehensible.

Facing Doubt was written, ostensibly at least, to help Adventists “on the margins” not to jump ship. That’s fine, except that, given his views on what the church should be—in contrast (thank God) to what it is—Why would anyone with those views want to belong to it to begin with?

Though Bruinsma had been open, even before retirement, about his positions, in this book he seems to be covering himself. Instead of flat out saying this is what I don’t accept, he talks about the Seventh-day Adventist teachings and beliefs that those “on the margins” struggle with, even though he does admit that “I am extremely worried about a number of developments and have serious questions about some of the official beliefs I am supposed to subscribe to.”

What, then, are the “official beliefs” that either he and/or those “on the margins” find so troubling?

For starters, since I have known him, Bruinsma has expressed doubts about the Adventist understanding of last-day events, especially the role of Rome in biblical prophecy. He has dissed our end-time prophetic scenario, deeming it just nineteenth century nativism and, as such, of no relevance today. Besides, many on the margins find this stuff, he says, “a major source of unease and doubt.”

The only problem? The Seventh-day Adventist understanding of papal Rome is founded not on nineteenth-century American bigotry, but on the prophecies of Daniel interpreted through the historicist method, the method that the texts themselves demand. The chronological sequence of Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome prove that the prophecies unveil a successive progression of world history, which is why the historicist interpretation had been used by Jewish and Christian scholars centuries before Adventists adopted it.

In the statue of Daniel 2 itself, Babylon (gold), Media-Persia (silver), and Greece (bronze) are all followed by the iron in the legs that extends through the toes to the end of time. What power comes up after Greece and, though eventually changing form (the iron mixes with clay in the feet and toes), remains the same power until supernaturally destroyed at the end of time? Of course, it’s Rome—solely, totally, and only Rome, which rises after Greece and ends only when the world does.

In Daniel 7, after Babylon (lion), Media-Persia (bear) and Greece (leopard), a fourth beast appears, one that comes up after Greece and extends to the end of time when supernaturally destroyed, just like the iron in Daniel 2 (the little horn power that arises in the head of the fourth beast is still part of the fourth beast). What power comes after Greece and remains (in another form) until the end?

Solely, totally, and only Rome.

In Daniel 8, after Media-Persia and Greece (which are named!), another power arises and remains until destroyed “without hand” (verse 25). What power comes after Greece and endures until the end?

Again—solely, totally, and only Rome. And because Scripture often depicts pagan and papal Rome as one power, and because the pagan phase has long disappeared, papal Rome alone remains the entity unmistakably depicted—and condemned—in Scripture.

Bruinsma simply brushes this off, taking the über-dubious (though über-popular) position that this power is not Rome but Antiochus IV Epiphanes—even if in all three chapters in Daniel that power is an entity of global proportions that remains to the end of the world, while Antiochus (a local hegemon only) vanished 150 years before Christ.

How seriously does Bruinsma take Daniel, anyway? In other context, one about the “extremely shaky” assumptions behind our 1844 doctrine, he wrote that that even though Daniel dates itself in Persian period (about sixth century BC), “most experts on the book of Daniel believe that this section of the book was actually written in the second century BC.” Daniel puts itself in the sixth century, the “experts” put it in the second.

Also, were he correct about Antiochus in Daniel 8, then the entire sanctuary message, including the justification for our church’s founding, and Ellen White’s credibility—it all, of necessity, gets flushed down the toilet. Which (one gets the impression) is where he thinks most of that should go anyway, even if, in talking about Ellen White, he conceded that her books, at least the ones that aren’t compilations, should be treasured “as devotional reading for the enrichment of our spiritual life.”

Bruinsma also bemoans the fact that Adventists are falling back into what he calls “enemy thinking,” a pejorative way of depicting our end-time scenario—which warns about persecution, violence, and apostasy. Sure, conspiracy nuts exist in the Adventist church, and anti-Catholic billboards do us no favors. But does not the book of Revelation, in the context of final events, warn about religious violence, persecution, and even a decree (Revelation 13:15; see also Rev. 12:17; 13:16-14; 14: 9-11; 16:16; 17:1-7)? All this apocalyptic stuff, he worries, gets in the way of Adventists forming “any close ties with other Christians communities or inter-church organizations.” In other words, our end time message doesn’t help foster ecumenical relationships, which seem so important to him.

Referring to Adventists who, unlike him, actually believe in our end-time scenario, he asks: “Should I not rather focus on Christ as my Friend than on other Christians as my enemies?” A catchy but cheap caricature of the vast majority of members who take our prophetic message seriously.

Bruinsma also wrote about “another tragic example of the steady slide into an utterly fundamentalist reading of the Bible” that he fears has been overtaking our church. What, pray tell, is this “tragic example?” It was the vote, in San Antonio, in 2015, to strengthen the language of Fundamental Belief #6, regarding creation. The Adventist Church, in session, thought that maybe those who take the name Seventh-day Adventist ought to actually believe the name that they take for themselves. And because the “Seventh-day” in our name points to the six days of the creation and the seventh-day Sabbath rest, the idea that you can reject this belief in favor of billions of years of evolution and still be a Seventh-day Adventist, is not only illogical—it is dishonest, and it is wrong.

Also, if the “Seventh-day” in our name can be spiritualized away, what about the “Adventist” part? To be consistent, shouldn’t that too be allegorized into something radically different than what the texts themselves say? Also, at the Second Advent, the dead are resurrected. Is this an instantaneous re-creation, or will God use billions of years of evolution, this time to recreate us, as He (supposedly) did when He created us the first time? And, if not, and He does resurrect us “in the twinkling of an eye,” (1 Corinthians 15:52) then why didn’t He do it like that the first go around?

Facing Doubt, however, gives the impression that Bruinsma doesn’t worry about much of this because he doesn’t believe much of this. In a very troubling section entitled “Miracles,” he questions the validity of the biblical stories about miracles. Lest I be accused of taking him out of context, here is the complete final paragraph in that section:

Must all of these biblical stories really be taken at face value? including the ‘mother-of-all-miracles,’ the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Or is there perhaps another way of looking at what happened to Jesus? Must the resurrection perhaps be understood in a spiritual sense? Could it mean that, in spite of the tragic death of their Master, the disciples began to understand the great significance of what he had taught them and the values he represented, and that, as a result, Jesus became alive again, as the Christ, in their hearts?”

He spends a lot of time on what the Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches that he doesn’t agree with, or that he has doubts about. Toward the end of the book, though, Bruinsma does give a summary of what his own Fundamental Beliefs would look like—things like belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that Jesus came to earth and has” radically solved the sin problem through His death and resurrection” (even though, as we just saw, he has some interesting views on just what the resurrection means).

His list also includes the statement “that, together with all true Christians, I can be a member of God’s church,” even if he hasn’t said what “false” Christians, as opposed to “true” ones, are. (What? Bruinsma might have doctrinal criteria that could marginalize others the way that he and other like-minded ones are marginalized by the Adventist Church?) Though nothing’s here that any three-martini-a-day Episcopalian couldn’t agree with, conservative Baptists might wonder why he said nothing about the biblical teachings of sin and judgment (Acts 14:25; Ecclesiastes 12:14; James 1:15; Matthew 12:36; Romans 6:16). The only thing distinctly “Adventist” is when he writes: “that every seventh-day Sabbath I have the unique opportunity to experience the rest that God provides.” Well, at least that’s something, but it hardly sounds as if God commands this rest. It’s just, well, an opportunity that He gives. Thus, even Bruinsma's one distinctly Seventh-day Adventist belief is turned into Pablum. Nothing in his Christianity seems countercultural, nothing in his faith causes him, it appears, to challenge the Zeitgeist. The sentiment seems to be: This is what our culture is now into, so let’s find a way to make our religion fit it, period.

As does most left-wing writing in the Adventist Church, Facing Doubt gives us a fascinating insight into how early Christianity—compromising with the culture instead of challenging it—switched from Sabbath to Sunday. We can see the same principle, right now, play out before our eyes, Facing Doubt being one of the more in-your-face manifestations.

In short, this book confirms what I’ve believed for decades: the Seventh-day Adventist Church would be better off burnt to the ground and rebuilt from scratch than to have an iota of the left-wing’s vision implemented in it. And, as far as all his talk about reaching out to those on the margins, that’s a joke. These people are not “on the margins”—they’re out of the ball park.

Bruinsma is too; he just needs the intellectual honesty and moral integrity to finally admit it.

See also Tom de Bruin's "Facing Doubt: A Review."

Clifford Goldstein is Editor of the Adult Bible Study Guide.

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Research shows that group identity based on a common focus on the sacred can make people kinder to each other, both within the group and without it. Secular identity does not allow for this level of practical kindness. Volf is arguing that we need religion to help us deal with the problems of modernity.

This is the fifth post in a seven-part series for Spectrum’s 2016 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Flourishingby Miroslav Volf. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

This summer I took 15 undergraduates on a Holocaust Study Tour in Central Europe. The students were asking the same questions that are frequently asked in such settings: “What causes people to do such violent things to each other?” and “What can be done to prevent this?” Miroslav Volf’s personal background and much of his scholarship is taken up with such questions. Coming from the former Yugoslavia, which also went through its own genocide, he has invested a great deal of time in analyzing and proposing answers to that second question—how can reconciliation and peace be achieved in spite of deep differences and past tragedies?

Chapter Five of Flourishing, “Conflict, Violence, and Resolution” builds on Chapter Four’s assertion that religious exlusivism need not (indeed, for our world to work well, must not) negate a commitment to political pluralism. In fact, while religious exclusivism has the potential to incite violence, it isn’t inherently violent, and in a highly globalized world, we need the reconciling potential of world religions.

Volf basically accepts Steven Pinker’s work on the decline of violence in the world, though not completely his rationale for why it has occurred. Still, Volf writes, globalization has resulted in widespread agreement on the importance of the free market (Mammon), pluralistic states with representative governments (Leviathan), and human rights (Iusticia)—and all of these elements reduce both the benefit of violence and its frequency. Vitally, Volf does admit that the pacification of the world through the increased power of the state has happened at great cost and even oppression to many people groups.

While much of globalization has reduced violence, it has also caused “three dark clouds” that the contemporary world faces: diversity with competing notions of the good life, the gap between rich and poor, and ecological catastrophe (p. 168). He argues that the world’s religions can help with the latter two ”clouds” by promoting devotion to the transcendent. Having a greater sense of what matters in the world beyond the material can mitigate class war and also lessen ecological footprints. But Volf is primarily concerned in this chapter with the power of religious identity and commitment to motivate and assist with reconciliation.

Volf’s work in Exclusion and Embrace is famously effective in highlighting the elements that are needed for reconciliation and he provides a quick summary of them here. It is in the world’s religions, although not those alone, that Volf roots the models and motivations for repentance, apologies, forgiveness and then reconciliation. I highly recommend this chapter as quick survey of how Volk thinks this is best done. We live, he reminds us, in a world where demographic realities mean we live cheek by jowl with people whose visions of the good life are different from ours. How are we going to deal with the conflict that (inevitably) comes?

I am one of those people who do not believe in the myth of a secular enlightenment that invented toleration. I do not think that getting rid of religion will solve conflicts, or even most of them. The Holocaust Tour that we just finished in May was very convincing in this regard: all of the countries we visited had enforced secularism for most of the 20^th century and yet continued the process of ethnic cleansing for totally “secular” reasons. Like Volf I am also optimistic about the role of religion to “attend to the wrong-doing of the past, preventing it from colonizing the future” (p. 194). We desperately need this attention to something beyond raw power and self-indulgence to mitigate these conflicts.

Volf’s description of how globalization has reduced violence is thin and contested. As a historian, I would like more evidence beyond the anecdotal, though I do not disagree with his articulation. I think another weak point is his reliance on “rightly held” religious beliefs—on the “original articulations” of the world’s religions that he thinks can somehow stand up to the threat of violence and conflict and promote reconciliation. We have ample evidence that many people don’t hold to those original articulations.

Still, as a pragmatist, I’m inspired by the idea of allowing the visions of the transcendent to counter the ugly economic challenges and ethnic conflict we daily experience in our globalized world. The diverse worldviews aren’t going away and neither is the human mash-up that is most large cities and almost all countries. I’m convinced, like Volf, that the main source of violence is a commitment to state power. Religions, with their possibility of looking beyond the state for succor, can be a great counter to political exclusivism.

For myself, the Christian vision of the Body of Christ and the language of the priesthood of all believers, has done a great deal to help me attend to the full humanity of others. As a Seventh-day Adventist, being part of a world church has dampened my nationalistic ardor enough to help me imagine having more in common with my SDA brothers and sisters in (for instance) Kenya than I might sometimes have with my atheist neighbors in Chattanooga. This doesn’t mean that I am alienated from my local neighbors who don’t share my vision of the transcendent, just that my world religion allows me to expand my heart and imagination.

And it was this same sort of imagination, often of the religious kind, that helped some people at various times during the Holocaust (as my students and I learned, over and over on our tour), resist going along with genocide and ethnic cleansing and the ceaseless round of reprisals. In this context, “love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” and the language of unmerited forgiveness are all powerful antidotes. Research shows that group identity based on a common focus on the sacred can make people kinder to each other, both within the group and without it. Secular identity does not allow for this level of practical kindness. Volf is arguing that we need religion to help us deal with the problems of modernity.

I wonder about the readers of this site. Has your faith contributed to your own flourishing and that of others, or has it led to barriers? I would like to say “yes” to this, though the realities of the globalized, demographically dense world Volf described to challenge me. I pray that my claims to a vision of the transcendent as seen in the life and death and forgiveness and resurrection of Jesus help me reconcile with the people I most need to each day—the ones I rub up against on the roads, at work, on my street, in my church—who offend or annoy me. And I live each day so grateful that I get to receive unconditional love and forgiveness within a local church, that expression of the Body of Christ that is practice ground for both the whole world and all eternity.

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Lisa Clark Diller lives with her husband Tommy in Chattanooga, TN where she is a professor of history at Southern Adventist University.

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PUC theology professor Jean Sheldon offers a preview of her presentation at the upcoming Adventist Forum conference: two different models of atonement explain why the Old Testament God of violence contrasts so strongly with Jesus, who taught his followers to turn the other cheek.

Question:You will be presenting at the upcoming Adventist Forum conference with a theme of "non-violence and the atonement." What is the main message you will bring to the conference?

Answer: The issues involved in the theme of “non-violence and the atonement” are both timely and basic not only to our relationship with God but our relationship with others. My presentation, entitled, “Babylon and the New Jerusalem: Two Models of Atonement” will examine two sets of contrastive models for how relationships operate and for repairing broken relationships (atonement). One of these two sets of models, non-violent in nature, stems from creation and is exemplified by Jesus’ life and teachings; the other set of models, violent in nature, derive from ancient Mesopotamia and are featured in Assyro-Babylonian culture.

To the extent that people insisted on the Babylonian way of thinking, forcing God to communicate with them in language they would understand, the Old Testament reflects Babylonian constructs and thought forms. It was this tendency to lean toward Babylonian ways that was to shape formative Judaism during and after the Exile. Jesus counters Babylonian modes of thinking and social constructs in ways that led those in Jewish leadership whose preoccupation with Torah and oral law (that eventually became the Babylonian Talmud) to reject Him and His message.

In examining Jesus’ trial, we can find evidence for borrowing from Babylonian ritual and judicial processes so that in one sense, we can attribute His crucifixion, in part, to Babylonian influences.

You have studied the atonement in the Old Testament in some depth, I believe. Did you study issues around the atonement as part of your graduate studies in theology at Berkeley? Or where and how has it been in your research sights?

I studied for the Joint Ph.D. in (ancient) Near Eastern religions. This program allowed me to choose my own areas on which to focus. For my major, I chose “Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law,” which allowed me to study legal matters from their earliest beginnings. For my two minors, I studied “Sumero-Babylonian Religions” and “Theodicy in the Context of Cosmology.” These two minors allowed me to familiarize myself with Babylonian texts dealing with atonement issues as well as cosmology. In the end, I brought together law and cosmology as the two sides of debate in the book of Job for my dissertation.

Regardless of the rigors of such a doctoral program, the field is vast, and as my Beginning Akkadian (the ancient Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform language) said in class one evening, “We have too many tablets!”

Consequently, I have continued researching both the Bible and ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Assyro-Babylonia in an effort to understand the unique contribution that the Old Testament makes to that part of the ancient Near Eastern scene including the area of atonement.

How does the Adventist understanding of the atonement differ from other churches?

I must confess that this is a loaded question because there’s more than one view within the Adventist Church! As I began my formative years, I was taught that Jesus came to give us an example of obedience to the law.

When I was twelve, I encountered for the first time the view of the atonement that I believe comes close to the current preference by a majority in the Church. The pastor of a church that I sometimes attended gave a series on the death of Jesus and how His death satisfied the claims of the law and divine justice.

That same year, I also encountered for the first time the concept that Jesus came to reveal the Father. Since I had difficulty understanding the pastor and making sense of what he said, and found the notion of Jesus having revealed the Father attractive, that is where my path led me. I believe that the pastor’s views are very much in harmony with a stream of Adventism that prefers the theory of forensic atonement and is also in harmony with evangelical Christianity.

Perhaps the reason I never could embrace this view was that, in the way it was presented, Jesus became a legal means to an end: satisfaction of a penalty, and not a person who loved people, what that love meant, how Jesus revealed that love, and its significance. Of course, I was taught that God loved the world and sent His Son, but His love seemed to have little to do in actuality with why Jesus died or what His death signified.

I actually found Jesus to be stern and unapproachable at times as a child. When I encountered personally the love of God experientially culminating at the foot of the cross, everything changed for me. Jesus and His Father became dynamically persons I could trust and love and that view has influenced my lifelong journey since.

So back to the question of the difference between Adventist atonement and that of other churches, it depends on who you talk to. But if we truly keep the seventh-day Sabbath, and worship the God who celebrated a finished creation as the same God who cried, “It is finished” and then rested on Sabbath in death, our views of atonement should harmonize cosmologically, from a divine perspective, as non-violent demonstrations of the character of God as the embodiment of His descriptive law of love. The Sabbath points us to a unique view of atonement in relationship to evangelical theology.

Are there things we are not clear about when it comes to the character of God in the Old Testament? Maybe you have kind of answered this already, but lots of people want to know: How can we square the vengeful God of Noah and Moses and Jeremiah with the loving God of John and Paul?

Yes, thing are not clear about God in the Old Testament. Two students came to me separately to tell me that the Old Testament God is the biggest deterrent to their peers’ having a close relationship with Him.

As I see it, God was forced to communicate His character to people who believed whole-heartedly in violence. So violent ways of dealing with human relationship and violent ways of making wrongs right seem acceptable in the Old Testament. Had God talked more gently from Sinai, tried reasoning with the people from our frames of reference, He would have been ignored or rejected. A vengeful god who would retaliate against abuse and bring retribution on one’s enemies (which in the ancient Near East, as in the Middle East today, were many) was a god that people anciently felt they could trust. In fact, in some ways, I find evidence in the Old Testament that God was slighted for other gods because these gods were gods of power and Yahweh was viewed as too “weak.”

Sometimes in my classes, I use Kohlberg’s stages of moral development to help my students understand God in the Old Testament context. According to Kohlberg, a person on a particular stage cannot comprehend more than one stage above their own. Once a person gets to stages five and six, the stages of altruistic love and moral principles, they can comprehend every stage. What this means is that Israel starts as a nation pretty much on stage one (power). Because they cannot understand stages five and six, God meets them within their preferred context of violence.

More recently, I have acquired a new tool for understanding the Old Testament view of God. I have chosen to read the Old Testament as Jesus does in His treatment of divorce in Matthew 19. Jesus notes two principles: 1) the people of the Old Testament were allowed certain things because they had stiff necks and hard hearts but 2) in the beginning it was not so. This allows us to hear two voices in the Old Testament—the voice of God’s preferred will, which is tied to creation and which is often first in a narrative sequence; and the second voice of God’s will acquiesced or adapted to the will of the people. Most of the Old Testament I find to be in the second voice, a voice that Jesus counters in the New Testament, speaking predominately in the first voice.

You have been teaching at Pacific Union College for 21 years. What classes do you teach? What do you most enjoy about teaching theology there? What are the biggest challenges?

For the first 10 years, I taught ethics and theology (outside of my field). Due to changing departmental needs, I shifted to my field of Old Testament and Hebrew language courses. I have also taught by Independent Study Aramaic and Beginning Akkadian to about three students. As of this coming year, due again to changing departmental personnel, I am voluntarily shifting to biblical studies and ethics. So I have taught and am teaching a broad range of courses: Books of Moses, Kings and Conquest, God and Human Suffering, Introduction to Christian Ethics, etc.

What are your main areas of research interest?

Almost anything biblical and ancient Near Eastern, but occasionally I delve a little into church history.

You were ordained as an Adventist minister in 2013. How did that recognition make you feel?

I think it provided me with a lot of hope for the future of women in ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, at least in some regions. The support of those who attended and those who knew was affirming and reassuring as well.

Were you disappointed by the ordination decision at the General Conference in San Antonio? How do you see things changing for women pastors in the Adventist church in the future?

I was deeply disappointed, but not really surprised. What disappointed me the most, I think, was the way in which it happened and the implications for the future of the Church, both in retaining the next generations, and for what it portends for its theology. Many women pastors have suffered from the fallout of that event and the spirit and decision in San Antonio may lead to wider and wider division within the church.

What keeps you in the Adventist church?

After serving outside North America for three years, I came home weary and discouraged with my church because of the legalism that I found where I had served. I told my mentor, a theologian well-known for his views on the atonement, that I could just as easily walk away from the Church as to stay. He looked me straight in the eye and referenced something I’d mentioned once in one of his classes from Zephaniah 3:3-5 (NRSV). After describing scenes of violence done to people and to the law, the prophet says, “The Lord within it is righteous; he does no wrong. Every morning he renders his judgment, each dawn without fail.” My mentor said, “And where do you think God would be if you left the Church?” His question, bringing back to my memory my own use of these verses, stayed my thoughts from ever leaving the church.

If we keep going the way we are as a church, the question, “Where would God be?” may have to be answered, “On the cross.” But I would rather stay with Jesus through His darkest hour than to walk away in disillusionment. One of the things that keeps me in the church is that I have a strong appreciation for its history, the development of its theology, and have found its message anew in the Bible, in revitalizing language and thought forms, by careful study.

What inspired you to study theology? Is being an Adventist theologian like you thought it would be? What advice would you have for Adventist theology students today?

In Andre Hall, room 325, as a college student at Pacific Union College, in May, 1977, God called and anointed me after the manner of the Levitical priests to be a theologian. Though I questioned the nature of that call (what did God mean by “theologian”?), though many tried to block the fulfillment of that call, I am currently a testimony that when God calls, if we cooperate, He takes on the responsibility of ensuring that the call is fulfilled. Back then, I didn’t imagine much that I would find theology in such conflict. I did know at some point that the way might not be easy for me. But at the same time, teaching college students remains my joy, privilege, and pleasure.

My advice for Adventist theology students today is to seek to know God for yourself both intellectually and experientially in the Bible, and learn to question everything you are taught and to test it for yourself, using the Bible. Do not let anyone do your thinking for you. Rely on the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of freedom. That will keep you from forcing your views on others. Finally, nurture a strong personal relationship with God and a strong sense of personal mission for Him. This will keep you focused, without letting controversies consume you, and will ensure that God can use you to make Him known.

You can register for the Adventist Forum Conference at which Jean Shelden will be a respondent by followingthis link.

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Beltsville_Adventist.jpg

The District Court noted in its ruling in Curl that a religious employer only needed to prove two elements to demonstrate that it has a ministerial exception. First – the employer must be a religious institution. Secondly – the employee must be a "ministerial employee."

On August 15, 2016, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a 56-year-old injured music teacher at a Seventh-day Adventist school on the basis that, as a "minister," she had no right to pursue federal claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. (Curl v. Beltsville Adventist School)

Doris Curl served as a music teacher for 25 years at the Beltsville Adventist School, a school with 200 students and 20 full-time teachers located in Beltsville, Maryland. On February 6, 2013, she was seriously injured in a fall at work. The court's decision describes her as having sustained "serious physical and neurological injury, which limited the operation of Plaintiff's brain, neurological system, and musculoskeletal system." The court's description of the injury sustained further stated that the injury "made it difficult for Plaintiff to see, concentrate, and think, as well as care for herself or perform manual tasks."

Ms. Curl filed a workers' compensation claim. When she was unable to return fully to work several months later, in March or April 2013, the Vice President for Education of the Potomac Conference of Seventh-day Adventists sent her a letter "invit[ing] [her] to share [her] ministry" with students for the 2013-2014 school year. The letter also made it clear that her sharing of ministry would, of course, be contingent on her meeting the standards of "loyalty" to denominational teachings.

On June 28, 2013, a human resources director for the Potomac Conference sent her a letter telling her that she needed to report to work on August 12, 2013, with a physician notice, and if she couldn't return, they would give her a "generous" one-month severance. A month later, on July 30, 2013, the conference terminated Ms. Curl, but she did not get the letter. On August 8, 2013, her doctor sent a note saying that she could, in fact, return to work with some modifications such as a 15-20 minute rest after two to three hours of work, and if the symptoms were exacerbated she might need to "be allowed to be relieved of her duties for that day."

On August 11, the conference informed her via email that she had been terminated but that they would look into the doctor's note. On August 14, she was told that they could not accommodate her restrictions, and the Conference posted an ad for a new teacher that did not specify that the replacement needed to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

When she sought to assert her legal rights under several federal acts designed to protect employees, the Potomac Conference asserted that she was a "minister" and therefore had no such rights. A legal concept called the "ministerial exception" acts to prevent these kinds of cases brought by clergy against their employers on the theory that such litigation would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The concept behind the exception is that churches should have broad discretion to make employment decisions regarding ministers for faith-based reasons. The exception, as defined by the Supreme Court, is broad enough to cover general employment issues as well and creates a loophole for religious employers to escape all kinds of liability so long as the employee is loosely defined as being a "minister."

Although much of Ms. Curl's job duties were secular, she was a Seventh-day Adventist who had taught religious music and led in prayer services. The Conference had required her to agree to abide by the organization's "Education Code" (developed by the Columbia Union Conference) which required schools only hired Seventh-day Adventists who lived in "complete harmony with the beliefs and practices of the Church" and part of her money came from tithe donations of local church members.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Hosanna-Tabor v. Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), federal discrimination laws do not apply to religious organization's selection of religious leaders. In Hosanna-Tabor, Cheryl Perich, a teacher who led students in prayer and taught a religion class among some secular activities, was placed on disability for a period of time. When she was cleared to go back to work, the school said they had already hired somebody else. When she threatened to sue, the school fired her for "insubordination and disruptive behavior." Perich sued because, in any other employment context, this termination would have been a glaring violation of the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Since it was a religious institution, and since Perich met the definition of a "minister," the Supreme Court determined that she, in fact, had no rights.

The courts are notoriously reluctant to challenge the assertion of either of these two elements or, as the Supreme Court said in Hosanna-Tabor, "adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister." Since 2012, religious employers have been taking pains to make it clear that as many employees as possible are identified as "ministers" as a way to limit liability.

Given the clear guidelines, the ministerial exception applies, and the Potomac Conference "won" in court. Teachers working in religious schools should recognize that part of the "sacrifice" that parochial teachers make includes an implicit waiver of the legal rights if they did the same job for a secular employer. Employees of religious institutions who can even tangentially be defined as "ministers," including most teachers, cannot expect that they will receive some other analogous benefits because they work for a religious institution. As far as the secular courts are concerned, a church's "moral" standard of care does not need to meet the secular "legal" standard. However, religious institutions should remember that they must eventually answer to a much Higher Authority.

Michael Peabody, Esq. is a regular Spectrum contributor and editor of ReligiousLiberty.TV, an Adventist jurisprudence website celebrating freedom of conscience, where this article first appeared. It is reprinted here by permission.

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Sometimes things get so bad in the church you just have to speak out. Right now there is a sickness in Adventism and no one seems to be dealing with it.

Noelene and I are happily retired in Loma Linda, where the sun shines every day. We live the good life—walking, gardening, writing, teaching classes for the School of Religion, spending lots of time with each other. Silver Spring, the Review and Adventist World are far away, out of mind, but not out of prayer. Recently we became aware of stuff going on in the Adventist Church that we find appalling. If I don't say something, I'll blow a fuse. More important, one day, perhaps very soon, I'll have to answer my Lord's question: " Why did you stay silent when you knew what you knew about the One project?"

Our acquaintance with the One project (TOP) is recent. I won't attempt to enter into discussion of what did or did not take place prior to the current year, 2016. During this year, however, we have gained abundant knowledge based on firsthand experience, not on hearsay. What we have seen and heard has crystallized into several distinct conclusions about TOP and the people who are involved with it.

The One project is from the Lord. It is something to encourage, not to vilify. Those who feel constrained to attack it should tread exceedingly carefully lest they be found fighting against God.

I'll tell you how we arrived at this point.

In late 2014 I was surprised to receive an invitation to be one of the speakers for the TOP gathering that would be held in Seattle in February 2016. Since I knew almost nothing about the One project, I checked out its website. What I found there—the goal of making Jesus the center of Adventist proclamation and life—led me to agree to the request. The theme of the gathering would be the events of the Passion Week. Speakers would trace the footsteps of Jesus from the Triumphal Entry through Calvary to the Resurrection. My topic was to correspond with the Sabbath when Jesus lay in the tomb; I was to speak on the meaning of Christ's Death. The organizers of the event obviously considered this topic of great importance. I was allotted 40 minutes, whereas the other presenters had only 16 minutes. All speakers were required to send scripts of their sermons three months ahead of the Seattle gathering in order that the messages could be checked—no criticism of the church or leaders—and so that discussion questions might be generated.

Noelene accompanied me to the Seattle gathering. It convened at the Westin hotel, a major facility in the center of the city, and ran Sunday morning through Monday noon. The organizers had planned for 700 attendees, but so great was the interest that they extended the number to 1,200. With that increase not another body could have been shoe-horned into the large ballroom. Everything was superbly organized: sound, visuals, coordination, keeping to allotted time. No introductions of speakers—the focus was Jesus. The audience was multi-generational, with Boomers and Millennials predominating. Speakers were evenly divided male and female. I was two to three times older than the other presenters, but it didn't seem to matter to the audience. Their focus was on Jesus, not on me. Everyone mingled freely, pleasantly, joyfully. Dress was business casual, with a few men wearing jackets and ties. We expected the music to be loud and not to our liking. We were wrong—it was beautifully worshipful, blending contemporary gospel with classics like Amazing Grace and Jesus Paid It All.

Only one aspect diluted the joy we felt: the group was overwhelmingly White. When it came my turn to address the gathering, I gently noted that concern and the audience broke out in applause. Later the organizers sought me out to recount the efforts they had made to include more diversity, but they had been largely unsuccessful.

Now, more than six months later, the spiritual exhilaration of Seattle is still with Noelene and me. But one thing bothers me: Will someone, anyone, please enlighten me as to what is the problem with the One Project? It seems as though most everyone has heard that there's something not quite right, but no one can inform me where the problem lies.

I've inquired of many people including some at church headquarters in Silver Spring, but all I get back get back is smoke—rumor, suspicion, hearsay, allegations of conspiracy, what others are saying, what they read in some book or viewed on a website, DVD, and so on. On the other hand, those who have actually been to a TOP gathering are glowingly positive in their evaluation.

So blest were Noelene and me by Seattle that when the organizers later asked us to join them for TOP gatherings in Sydney and in Perth, Australia, we immediately said Yes! As I write we are just back in the U.S. after the two-week trip. The meetings were like Seattle all over again, but on a smaller scale. Same Spirit. Same love. Same focus on Jesus. We came home weary but with cups overflowing. Different topics were presented in Australia, all built around the teachings and Passion of Jesus. We heard presentations on what Jesus taught about the Trinity, about the End, about Discipleship, about the Kingdom, etc. I was asked to present twice—on what Jesus taught about genuine religion, and on what Jesus taught about the Sabbath.

The trip afforded us opportunities to observe the organizers up close and personal. In Sydney we all stayed, not in a fancy hotel but in a rented Airbnb home in order to reduce expenses.Noelene and I couldn't help noticing the uplifting conversation, how easily and often it was about Jesus. And how hard the TOP people worked, up long before the light in order to care for their ministries back in the U.S. and the added responsibilities in Australia. The One project brings no material gain or benefit to these devoted men and women—only work, care . . . and, unfortunately, vitriol.

The final meeting in Australia, held in Perth late on Sabbath afternoon, opened for us a revealing window on their ministry. This meeting was an add on for those who wanted to ask questions about the One project. Although the meeting was calm and matter-of-fact, the material was powerful and disturbing. We learned that criticism of TOP started soon after its inception when a European with a checkered history in his relationship to the church, launched a full-scale attack and circulated it far and wide. His claims were blatantly in error: he based his work on material he found at the1project.com, a now-defunct website that is a totally different outfit from the Adventist the1project.org. The false allegations made in this initial attack continue to circulate. In recent years, as conspiracy theories have taken root, the allegations have grown more strident, more extreme. The One project has been linked to Satan: I saw a graphic that portrays a serpent labeled "The One Project" swallowing the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Opponents have shouted out "You're a witch!" to leaders as they drive away from gatherings. In one city two young men donned sackcloth and ashes and sat outside the venue of the TOP gathering.

It gets worse. Even the children of the organizers have been targeted and vilified on Facebook. That is despicable.

Could this be happening among Seventh-day Adventists? I am mad at such lies, such shameful behavior, and mad that no one is speaking out.

An attorney who works in a law office that deals in litigation was present at that late Sabbath evening session. She expressed the opinion that in Australia such egregious charges would not enjoy the protection of the law and she posed the possibility of recourse to the courts as the best way to bring the attacks to a halt.

Our visit to Australia was wonderfully inspirational, but we came away with a troubling question on our hearts. In Sydney the attendance was 170, in Perth about 100. But all those who came only heard about the event through private channels. By order from church headquarters in Silver Spring, no mention of the gatherings was permitted in official church media, From those who came we learned of people who had quit attending church but as a result of the TOP gathering were planning to give it another try, of others who had heard negative rumors and hesitated to attend but who received a wonderful blessing, and so on and on. I'm delighted with those accounts, but what about the hundreds of others who might have attended if church media channels hadn't been closed?

For more than a year the leaders of the One project have requested church leaders to tell them where they are out of line—if they are out of line—in order that they may make corrections. So far they have received no response.

(Spectrum has learned that the One project has been subject to a secretive, General Conference-sanctioned theological inquiry by members of the Biblical Research Committee, who as it turned out found nothing objectionable in the theological message of the One project, according to several sources. -Ed.)

That is not right.

There's a sickness in my beloved church. We've permitted extreme views to take control, views that play on fear, that weave conspiracy scenarios around End-time events and unsettle the hearts of the saints, that are light-years away from the sane, thoughtful teachings about the End that we find in Scripture and in Ellen White's writings. Some of these wild views circulate widely by means of books, websites and DVDs prepared by independent ministries. Overall, I strongly support independent ministries, but only so long as they do not make their living by preying on trusting members' fears.

Where are we headed in this church? Is no one else mad like me?

The 13-hour flight from Sydney to LAX goes on forever. As the Boeing Dreamliner cut through the darkness over the trackless Pacific Ocean 40,000 feet below, I had lots of time for reflection. An overwhelming sense of grace rolled over me, of thanksgiving for the wonderful followers of Christ whom we met for the first time and for those with whom we had served. And most of all for Jesus, who is incomparable, whose love we can never exhaust.

But along with blessed reflections, a sense of incredible irony. What, vilified for proclaiming Jesus, just Jesus, with no ifs and buts? Vilified. Not by unbelievers, but by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Incredible!

Maybe not so incredible. Whenever and wherever Jesus and His righteousness are proclaimed, ugly things happen along with the good. As among the churches of Galatia in Paul's day. As in Minneapolis in 1888.

As in 2016.

William G. Johnsson is the retired Editor of Adventist Review and Adventist World Magazine, and the author of numorous books including the recently-published, two-volume Jesus of Nazareth. He spoke with Spectrum about the publishing of those books in an exclusive interview.

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