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Loma Linda's Live It: In the Kitchen, a series of short cooking videos, has garnered lots of hits from people looking to eat more healthfully. Chef Cory Gheen talks about how the show came to be, the next 20 episodes that will be released soon, and the bright future of vegetarianism.

Question: You created a series of 14 very short online cooking videos called Live It: In the Kitchen, helping people learn to create easy, nutritious meals at home. These were posted beginning in April. Are there any more coming?

Answer: Yes! That was the first season, and the only season we have been able to get onto the website so far. But more content has been filmed, which is in post-production right now. Soon we will have 20 more episodes ready to go out.

When will we be able to watch the new cooking videos?

We have run into a production glitch, but we want to get it out there as soon as we can.

Ideally, we will eventually have a continuous release of episodes — one per week. Our goal is to have the content available that would allow us to show 52 episodes throughout the year.

We’ve been trying to get some sort of culinary media out into the world for several years now, but this is the first one that has really gotten any traction. When we got the green light to go ahead with a second season, we were really excited. 

Why were you given the green light?

I don’t know specifically. I think this is just the right show at the right time. The format has worked well with Vision 2020 and with Dr. Richard Hart’s [president of Loma Linda University Health] vision of bringing healthy living guidelines from Loma Linda out to our local community and the general public.

I suppose creating content in this short format makes it attractive for people to share on social media — which seems to be filled with short cooking videos.

Yes, we had previously proposed a full 30-minute segment, but they liked the one-minute format. They were looking for content that could be sent out in an email, aired on campus, and shared on our digital boards. 

And, of course, social media gives us an even better base to distribute. We are certainly trying to leverage this popular format. It’s nice we can provide a product that people can email, text, and pin. It makes it that much easier to get to the public.

So how many people have been viewing the videos?

We are seeing 10,000 to 20,000 hits on some of those videos. And our YouTube channel has been the most popular portal for people to access them. The videos have been up for about six months, but we are still getting lots of hits.

The recipes you demonstrated in the videos include ones for avocado fettuccine, dark chocolate pomegranate bark, bean burgers, and granola. How did you decide which recipes to include?

At first, our show Live It: In the Kitchen was conceived as part of the broader Loma Linda Live It series. That show, which focuses on wholeness and health, would give us a list of specific ingredients to go along with their theme. Our show was going to be little cooking episodes connected to the bigger show. 

But now we have been allowed to go off and do our own thing. So our ideas come from everywhere. Families and friends might make requests, our producer Jackie might suggest a theme, or we might just make something we think would be interesting to people. 

Which recipe has proved to be the most popular?

The dark chocolate pomegranate bark. I guess people just really like chocolate.

In all our recipes we have tried to incorporate a specific ingredient with a known nutritional value. Here it is the dark chocolate, but also the pomegranate, with a reputation for health benefits.

It’s nice to see people curious about foods that can help them to live better.

What reactions did you get to the online cooking show? Did you get lots of feedback from viewers about the recipes?

We haven’t gotten as much feedback as we expected. I can’t say why that is, except that we don’t have a very good mechanism to receive feedback. There is no link for people to go to. So far the only feedback we get is what is provided on the YouTube channel. But our show is still very new. 

Was the series expensive to produce? Was it totally underwritten by Loma Linda?

Yes, the cooking show is completely funded by the university, mostly by the School of Allied Health Professions. Our dean, Dr. Craig Jackson, has been wanting to do a cooking show for a long time. So they cover the budget, which includes paying for ingredients and for a few people. But that is not inclusive. My time is donated by my department, and most of the other team members are the same. Our graphic design, marketing, and post production are all being donated in a cooperative effort between the various Loma Linda schools. 

We would certainly love to a have a sponsor — a corporate entity to work with — but at this point the university wants to keep it in-house.

What kinds of food are you passionate about making?

My passion is as a food educator. I love talking about food, making food, researching food, and being around food. I am fascinated by food in different cultures, their different flavor profiles, and how they got to where they are. 

From a vegetarian perspective, what do we do to match the food culture we find ourselves in — or do we do something completely different?

I have thought for a long time that it would be great to research the history of Adventist food and how it varies among different cultures.

Many people ask: “If you don’t eat meat, then what do you eat?” This is an odd question to me because I eat everything else which is a lot more than you might even realize.

I tell my students: If you walk through the produce section of the grocery stores, you might see between 150 and 300 different items. But there are thousands more that we could be eating things we never see in our grocery stores. 

I am trying to open people’s eyes to variety and different eating patterns — and not only from a nutritional perspective but also from a gastronomic perspective with so many more tastes and flavors.

It is an interesting journey and very fulfilling.

Have you always been a vegetarian? 

Yes, I grew up as a vegetarian — or maybe more accurately a flexitarian or choicetarian. I will always choose a vegetarian dish whenever it is available, but I might eat something else if that is what is served.

You wrote your thesis for the Culinary Institute of America about the future of vegetarianism in America. So what is the future of vegetarianism in America?

It is very positive! I wrote that 18 years ago now, and a lot has changed in that time. My thesis did prove valid, but the shift toward vegetarianism has been even more dramatic than I predicted. Now there are so many more people thinking vegan and alternative proteins — it’s so exciting to see what is going on. 

Of course, there are a variety of reasons that make people turn toward vegetarianism: humane reasons because of animal welfare and also ecological reasons. People are realizing that we won’t be able to use meat proteins to provide for all of the people on the planet. So yes, we will be forced toward vegetarianism in the future, but so many people are already pursuing it on their own.

Vegetarianism has a very bright future. 

Multiple companies are providing meat analogs now that are way beyond what we ever suspected could be done. 

Can you give us an example?

There are companies working on a ground beef simulant which is a completely vegetable-based patty for a burger. But not only does it taste and feel like beef, it is essentially a full simulant of ground beef, down to the liquid that looks like blood that seeps out onto your plate. We would not have even considered that possibility back in the heyday of Worthington and Loma Linda Foods.

I know that some people love nothing more than a juicy burger. But to me, that sounds absolutely disgusting. Do we really need to keep trying to simulate meat? Can’t we just move on?

We have been eating meat for too long. You can’t take a society that's been eating meat for generations and just say: We are all going to be vegetarians now and be happy about it. Our culture isn’t set up that way.

Restaurants have to provide food that people recognize. If they serve items that simulate meat, people might try them, and that might persuade them to then try other things.

What made you decide to go into food as a career?

I was at Vacation Bible School one summer when I was four or five years old. The teacher brought in some bread dough and gave us each a lump which we made into our initials. She baked them and brought them back, and we all got to eat them. 

That really got my attention. From that time on, I knew I wanted to work with food. 

What is your go-to quick and easy meal you make for yourself when you get home after a long day?

I am so blessed that when I go home after a busy day at work cooking in the kitchen, my wife takes care of dinner. She loves to cook and is wonderful in the kitchen. My wife is also a dietician.

People always ask me this question, but if I am cooking, I don’t have one go-to thing. It just depends on my mood, the weather, what I have been researching, and what is in the fridge. On a summer’s day, I might light the barbecue before I even know what I will make on it. Sometimes I want to experiment with savory flavors — trying to figure out how the Japanese do it. Sometimes it’s all about bread — what about these natural yeasts? You don’t need to use those commercial yeast packets.

Do you have kids? Are they interested in food, too?

I have a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a one-and-a-half-year-old son. And yes, they have both shown passion for the kitchen as well. They always drag the step stool over to the counter so they can watch us cook. 

When my daughter was only two, she walked into our room early in the morning, bringing a mug with water and a tea bag in it because she wanted to make me tea!

Can you tell us one thing about nutrition that we probably don’t know, but should?

Well, there is a lot of new research coming out about coffee, and a lot of it is positive. Two recent studies have established a link between coffee consumption and longer life. I think we will be looking at this a lot more. It doesn’t necessarily agree with Adventists’ take on coffee, but it’s very interesting. 

Adventists have been vegetarians since way before it was a popular lifestyle choice. Do you think that we have taken proper advantage of our head start? Should we and could we do more to be leaders in this area, as it continues to gain in popularity?

No, I don’t think that we have done as much as we could. The reason is because it is so much a part of our culture that we take it for granted. We don’t even realize the amazing benefits in the culture we have established. We don’t know how to capitalize on this, and we are only now starting to realize what we have. The Blue Zone study published in National Geographic, showing that Adventists live longer, put our healthy lifestyle out in front of people all of a sudden. 

Vegetarianism got such a bad reputation in the 1960s and 1970s. But now all of a sudden it’s gone mainstream. Within Adventism, we have been taken aback. So now people are okay with what used to be a really alternative lifestyle?

A lot of work is being done at Loma Linda to try to capitalize on what we have.

Our little show is certainly trying, as is the Live It show, and other people around Loma Linda are working on diet plans and protocols that the wider public might be interested in. 

Of course, on the other hand, we have been vegetarian for a long time, promoting a simple lifestyle and a simple diet. But simple doesn’t sell. 

If food doesn’t have some flair, or some complexity — or maybe more fat, sodium, sugar, or spice than an Adventist might think appropriate — a restaurant might have trouble selling it. So where do Adventists find the sweet spot? Do we need to meet people halfway? We are trying to figure this out.

Right now, I am just encouraged that so many more people now are paying attention and that this discussion is happening.

BONUS RECIPE from the Kitchen of Cory and Krystal
Butternut Squash Enchilada
Portions: 6

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into ¼” x 3” sticks

 

1 onion, medium cut into long slivers ¼ inch thick

 

1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼ inch strips

 

3 Tbspvegetable oil

 

½ tspsalt, kosher

 

¼ tspblack pepper

 

½ cupvegetable oil

 

12 corn tortillas

 

1 ½ cupsenchilada sauce, red

 

½ cupqueso fresco, crumbled

Method:

1. Toss the squash, onion and pepper in the first oil to coat

2. Roast in a 375ᵒF oven until soft and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes

3. Heat the second oil in a skillet and dip each tortilla in the hot oil 10 seconds per side

4. Fill each tortilla with squash, onion and pepper. Roll and align in a casserole dish

5. Pour the red sauce over the enchiladas

6. Bake 20-25 minutes until heated through

7. Garnish with queso fresco

Alita Byrd is interviews editor for Spectrum Magazine.

Image Credit: Jim Dorsey

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Canonical Theology: The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method, published by Eerdmans in late 2016, was written by John C. Peckham, an Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Philosophy at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He has his doctorate and masters from Andrews University, and his undergraduate degree from Atlantic Union College in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

In the forward to Peckham’s book, Craig G. Bartholomew, the H. Evan Runner Professor of Philosophy at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, writes:

The issues involved in the canon debate are complex and multiple. At their heart, however as John shows in this book, they come down to where we locate final authority, whether in Scripture or some version of ‘the community.’”

The complex subject of what constitutes the Canon has been debated since the early centuries of the Christian era. Today, the debate takes on a scope unparalleled in Christian history, especially between the two prominent views of community versus intrinsic canon models.

In my opinion, the debate should have been settled with Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria in the Third Century when he defined the 27 Books (Writings) of the New Testament. In his Easter Letter of 367 he categorically wrote:

In these [27 writings] alone the teaching of godliness is proclaimed. No one may add to them, and nothing may be taken away from them."

These writings were recognized by the early church fathers as the Canon in addition to the 39 books of the Old Testament. Their acceptance was based on the concept that the Holy Spirit had established the canon of these 66 Books, and there could be no addition to the Canon since Jesus Christ was the final revelation of God to His people, and thereby the Canon was closed.

On page 19 of Canonical Theology, Peckham writes, “I define the intrinsic canon as the corpus of writings commissioned by God to be the ‘rule’ or ‘standard’ of Christian faith and practice. Thus, the intrinsic canon refers to those writings that are intrinsically canonical by virtue of what the canon is as the result of divine action.”

In the book, he proceeds to defend his position and to contrast the intrinsic model against the communitarian model, which is where the community defines the canon and its applicability based on time and circumstance. For him, as it was with Athanasius, the canon is closed with the 66 Books as found in the Protestant Bible.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have both included additional Apocrypha-Deuterocanonical writings in their Bibles. These books, like First and Second Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, etc., are not viewed as intrinsically canonical in nature by most evangelical scholars.

This raises some serious questions for an individual who is seeking the true path of knowledge. How is a person to know what to do when so many voices are clamoring for his/her attention?

Peckham states:

. . . the canonical approach faces no difficulties in relation to the question regarding which community or tradition is adequate because the canonical approach denies that any community, tradition, or creed should operate as hermeneutically authoritative rule in biblical or theological interpretation. Moreover, the canonical approach maintains that each individual has a right to religious freedom and a duty to engage and interpret Scripture and theology in accordance with the individual’s own conscience. The question regarding which community of faith one should be a part of, then, is left to each individual’s decision. Everyone must ultimately choose which religious beliefs to accept (if any) and which community most closely allies with those beliefs. With a canonical approach, the question becomes which community of faith possesses a system that appears to best correspond to the canon, with internal consistency” (190).

Peckham addresses the Trinity Doctrine, which has stirred controversy in many circles. What is the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and can a definite answer be found in Scripture for this doctrine? It is a complex subject, which he examines based on the intrinsic model. 

In addition, in the last chapter he examines the nature of divine love toward humans. He discusses five aspects of divine love: “the volitional, evaluative, emotional, foreconditional, and ideally reciprocal” (253).

Canonical Theology concludes with the following statement:

One of my goals in this work has been to lay out a plausible and workable canonical approach to systematic theology, which can be practiced by others across the vast range of Christian communities who recognize the common canonical core and might engender dialogue via a common starting point and preliminary approach. Thus, while I do not expect this canonical theological method to be endorsed by all readers, I do hope that this treatment might stimulate thought and advance the conversation regarding the role of canon and community in theological method. In this regard, I hope this work illuminates some avenues toward continual retrieval and implementation of the guiding canonical principles, ‘To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn’ (Isa 8:20), and ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness’ (2 Tim 3:16). As such, we might together proclaim along with the psalmist: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’ (Ps. 119:105)” (259).

The brevity of this review does not render justice to this fine book. It would be a welcome addition to the collection of any serious student of theology.

G.D. Williams is recently retired after working in Adventist higher education for 30+ years. His pursuits include photography, genealogy, collecting antique books, and working on his old farmhouse.

Image Credit: Eerdmans Publishing

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Minister of Music Richard Hickam talks about the forthcoming album his church has produced, showcasing the diversity of the congregation.

Question: You are working on recording an album with Lifelong Music, the musicians of the Florida Hospital Seventh-day Adventist Church. What can you tell us about the album? Why did you decide to create an original album? 

Answer: This album is very unique; it is an intergenerational, multicultural worship album. This is the DNA of Florida Hospital Church.

Our church has an incredible team of songwriters and musicians. Using our gifts joyously for God's glory has created a number of original songs that showcase the diversity that is uniquely Florida Hospital Church (FHC). In this process, we believe we are serving God, the local believers, and those beyond our walls who may connect with God in a new way through the vehicle of music. 

How did you decide on which songs to include? 

I wanted to use the "best of" songs from my time at FHC that covered the wide variety of genres that we include in worship. I went with five completely original songs and five reimagined hymns or gospel songs.

Are you happy with how the album turned out? What do the other musicians think?

I am thrilled with the results and can't wait to share the music. 

It was a unifying experience. We didn't just try to make an album; we decided to make great art. This may not be the best album ever made, but it definitely is one of the most interesting, certainly in the genre of Christian music. There is nothing like it out there of which I know.  

You serve as the full-time Minister of Music for the Florida Hospital Seventh-day Adventist Church. Can you take us through your responsibilities any given week? What are your responsibilities for the Sabbath church service? What other music are you responsible for? 

I guide the musical ship at the church, providing the theological and philosophical reasons for why we do what we do. I then facilitate an amazing team of leaders with weekly programming, musician development, choir, orchestra, jazz band, youth, children, reaching out into the community, and more.

How many musicians do you work with each week? How much time do you spend rehearsing?

It varies. Most weeks is something different: big choir, CCM, folk/bluegrass, a capella, etc. For our regular rehearsals we meet on Thursday or Friday night for an hour and half. We then meet on Sabbath morning at 8 a.m. for a musician touch-up; at 8:40 a.m. we run through the entire service minus the preaching.

What kinds of music are played at the Florida Hospital Church? What instructions have you been given about styles of worship music?

FHC is a multiethnic, intergenerational church. We play a broad variety of styles that are in harmony with a God who created us all so differently. I'm not aware of any instructions that I have been given about not using any styles of music. I work for an amazing senior pastor who doesn't micromanage what I do but who encourages creativity that honors God and is intelligible to his people.

What has been your top favorite/most inspiring/most enjoyable musical performance/experience in your job at the Florida Hospital Church since you started in 2011? And has there been one that flopped?

We have a number of people in our congregation from the Carribbean. We had the steel drum band from Walla Walla University visit our campus. The director, Brandon Beck (my former college band director at Southern), and I put our heads together about combining our ensembles in a worship experience that really resonated with our congregation. Besides the music, it wasn't a “here are our guests from somewhere to perform for us today”; it was a creative opportunity to do something original that was “us together” and fresh and different. 

Another similar experience was having our local Angklung ensemble (Filipino bamboo instruments) as well. 

We have had an in-house iPad ensemble from time to time. (You can watch a performance on YouTube here.) One time the person with the melody on a hymn tune had a faulty connection, and so it just sounded like a jam session. The rest of us eventually just had to laugh because it made no sense to the congregation, but we were helpless.

I believe you are also now working for Adventist Health System and are responsible for music and arts in ministry for the organization. What does that mean? What do you do in this job? Did someone hold this post before you or are you the first? 

I now have additionally been hired by Adventist Health System and Florida Hospital as Director for Arts in Ministry (Mission & Ministry Department). This is a brand-new position, and I feel extremely honored to be involved. In the short term, I cover music/worship/programming events for the mission department and the president. 

As a part of the mission and ministry team, I am an advocate for mission and wholeness throughout the company. I am creating ensembles within the company to serve as needed and will eventually work on those to serve the community at large. I will also be involved in the near future with helping provide resources for the arts to churches connected with our hospitals and those communities as well.

You have an impressive track record in the world of Adventist musicians, mainly in the Southern community, working as music director at Collegedale Academy, serving as assistant director of the Southern Adventist University symphony orchestra while still a student, working as music director for the university's classical music station, and founding and conducting the East Tennessee Symphony Orchestra. Why did you stay for so long in the Southern community? What keeps you working for the church? Have you considered branching out into the non-Adventist music world?

My father and his side of the family are from the Smoky Mountain area in East Tennessee. It is a beautiful place with it's own rich musical traditions. 

When I was in high school, my mother passed away from breast cancer. The good people in the Collegedale community helped nurture me at a difficult time in my life. I love the people and the work there. I had the most amazing group of teachers, pastors, and professors that influenced who I have become. 

I believe that I have worked my professional career wherever I have felt God calling me. Each place I have worked has been a joy and difficult to leave. Although my employer has always been the denomination, my work has always taken me into the world. Isn't that what we are called to do? I freelance outside the denomination occasionally and if I felt impressed that God was calling me to work elsewhere, it would have to be considered. 

Do you feel the Adventist Church has a strong musical tradition? What do you like about Adventist worship music? Do you find Adventist taste sometimes too artistically conservative?

The Adventist denomination has put its focus on classical music education. There are many well-known benefits here that have served the church well until recent decades when church music has had a change. Music is never static; it is always changing. 

We have an amazing liturgy of music throughout church history and also in Adventism. We should reach into the great works of the past and realize it is the year of our Lord 2017. We should utilize the best of today's music that will contextually fit into a local congregation. I appreciate that we have a great deal of flexibility in our local congregations for worship. 

Whenever you deal with an institution, you have to adapt to make something work within its framework. I don't spend too much energy worrying about the naysayers within ultra-conservative Adventism about music. I choose to take the advice of Isaac Watt's father (also Isaac) when young Isaac was complaining about the sad state of Psalm singing in his day. His father told him to quit whining and do something about it. Isaac was teased that his hymns were “whims,” but he persisted. 

There is much to be improved upon praise singing and contemporary writing. There is also some better writing that is coming out; it is a young art form that is developing. I want to be part of the solution, not looking back to the “good old days” and shunning the current and future generations. 

What do you enjoy most about music? Composing? Conducting? Playing with an ensemble? Listening? Performing? 

I enjoy all of those things immensely. I am often asked which instrument I enjoy the most. It's like choosing between my children. There are elements of each that give enjoyment. I think the thing I love most about music is the shared experience in its many forms. 

What other projects are you working on? What musical dream projects do you have? What would be your dream performance or concert to give?

I am in the last year of my Doctor of Worship Studies program. I have a stack of musical projects to dive into when this season finishes. Just about everything that isn't work, school, or family-related is on hold for the moment. 

To change your question slightly, I would love to be a part of a project that is so visionary that it would help other music educators, artists, and leaders to see the potential to lead through change and creativity. I believe currently we have a last-day message with no last-day music. "We Have This Hope" was written in 1962. It’s a gem, but now we need to educate and empower this generation and the next to have a song that stirs their hearts as well.

What inspires you?

Witnessing selfless acts, great stories and art, nature, people who overcome tremendous obstacles. 

What is your favorite song of all time?

Tchaikovsky Symphony #6.

How can we get your album when it's finished? I believe it is to be released January 1?

iTunes, the Florida Hospital Church website.

Alita Byrd is interviews editor for Spectrum Magazine.

Image courtesy of Richard Hickam.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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We love titles, even in Christian circles. Whether it is Pastor, President, Professor, or Pope, titles are common currency in the church’s vocabulary. Inherent within some of those titles is the concept of hierarchy, authority, control, and very often, privilege. The obvious, or unseen, but well-known underbelly of titles is often church politics.

A classic example of church and politics is the Church of Rome. The Head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, has nine titles: His Holiness the Pope, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God. (Incidentally, Pontifex Maximus was originally the high priest of the pagan mystery religion of Rome. It was held by the Roman Emperor himself as the chief priest of the Roman State Cult.)

In stark contrast to all of that is the Apostle Paul’s favorite title, “Paul a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle” (Romans 1:1).

Servant (diakonos) is a key word in the New Testament which nails down our calling and status as Christians and, indeed, is one of the biblical titles, par excellence, which all followers (disciples) of Jesus Christ. It ought to be carried with humility and dignity and is not just meant for deacons and “deaconesses.” (There is no Greek equivalent word for “deaconesses” in the New Testament since diakonos is both a masculine and a feminine noun.)

Diakonos occurs 31 times in 29 verses in the Greek concordance of the King James Version. It means someone who executes the commands of another, especially of a master, a servant, attendant, or minister, and refers to men and women alike. In our church usage, a deacon or “deaconess” carries out a number of duties and responsibilities assigned to him or to her by the laying on of hands. 

In Acts 6 we read that seven men were set apart by the laying on of hands. I am intentionally avoiding the use of the word “ordination,” as there is no original word for “ordination” in the original languages of the New Testament.

The most important qualification of those seven men was being Holy Spirit-filled and having a good reputation within the church community. They were the cream of the crop, spiritually speaking. Two of them went on to serve in amazing ways, Stephen and Phillip.

In Acts 7 we read of Stephen’s first and last sermon. He didn’t mince his words. He was not a crowd or congregation pleaser. No prosperity gospel, feel-good factor for him. He was such a spirit-filled preacher that he drew a large crowd who, instead of saying a loud “Amen” at the end of his powerful sermon, took him outside the city and stoned him to death. One sermon and you are dead! Stephen’s servanthood came to an abrupt end, but his reward will never end. His brief stint as a preacher shaped the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Let’s never underestimate the impact a spirit-filled servant of the Lord—yes, a church member, a deacon turned evangelist—can make.

In Acts 8 we learn of Philip. He traveled up to Samaria and planted at least one church there. He was such a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus that God chose him to convert AND baptize an important Ethiopian official. An “ordinary” church member, a deacon turned evangelist, and soul winner, who baptizes. There are many scholars who believe this Ethiopian may have influenced the spread of Christianity in Africa.

Servanthood is what the church, its vitality, its growth, and its modus operandi to carry out its mission to the world is all about. How beautifully this is illustrated and evidenced in the lives of New Testament deacons and deaconesses, the servants of Jesus Christ.

Servanthood in Our Time

Servanthood as exemplified by Paul and by Jesus Himself, when he knelt down and washed His disciples’ feet, is what makes the church of the living God the uniquely effective and vibrant Body of Christ.

When I went to SFTS (San Francisco Theological Seminary) in California to study for my D.Min, it took me a little while to get used to the seminary’s culture where they lived Paul’s words in a very practical way:

…there is neither Jew, nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

We were all on same first-name basis: president, professors, office staff, and students. Men and women pastors and lecturers functioned as equals, serving one another. Quite a few of them were eminent scholars and theologians in their own right who authored textbooks, wrote in encyclopedias, and had doctorates from prestigious universities such as Harvard and Oxford.

Where this simple but beautiful spirit of equality prevails, that of servanthood thrives. We cannot afford to struggle with the dissonance of being servants of Jesus Christ and yet expect or even crave to be addressed by our respective titles.

Wherever I have served my church in different parts of the world, in any capacity, I have consistently asked to be called by my first name. There were times I was introduced as, “Pastor, Doctor, President.” I would then stand, thank the brother or sister for their kind words of welcome and introduction, and state that I preferred to be addressed by my first name only, following in Paul’s footsteps.

When nominating time comes around and the church elects its “officers,” at any level of the church organization, we would do well to remember that what we often call church office, with its respective titles, is actually a ministry gifted to us by the Holy Spirit, recognized and acknowledged by the church. More importantly, no ministry is higher or more prestigious than another. At the foot of the cross, where we all take our various mantles of servant leadership, the ground is level. The General Conference presidency is not more important in God’s eyes than the servant ministry of the little old sister who visits her neighbor once a week to give her a Bible study in her home or takes her a loaf of freshly baked bread to show God’s love in her time of need.

If we fully embrace the biblical title of servants of Jesus Christ, at least three things will happen: we will minimize politics, or power struggles; we will rejoice and prayerfully support those who are elected as servant leaders in any capacity, paid or unpaid; most important of all, we will make a real impact on our world as was the case for servants Stephen, Philip, Paul, and others.

Claude Lombart writes from the village of Binfield, UK, where he is in active retirement. He holds an emeritus pastoral credential from the BUC. Lombart has served in several countries in francophone West Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand, Scotland, and England in leadership, departmental, teaching, pastoral, and counsellor roles. He is a regular contributor to several church papers and has recently published a book on successful relationships.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch by the Deacon Philip

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Editorial Note: This article was first published by the North American Division Ministerial Department of Seventh-day Adventists. NAD Ministerial’s focus is “supporting and equipping the ministry and role of the local pastor in the congregational setting.” Spectrum appreciates the opportunity to republish this article for a wider audience.

I watch in horror and amazement as high-profile celebrities and politicians fall like the leaves of autumn; horror at the tsunami of sexual misconduct, and amazed at the Silence Breakers who no longer allow perverts to do harm with impunity.

Pastors are not immune from sexual misconduct and the clergy/member relationship presents unique opportunities for abuse. One case of sexual misconduct can erode the sacred trust that congregants have in all pastors, to say nothing of the irreparable harm to the victim. I served in a congregation where more than one of my predecessors had engaged in sexual misconduct and it took me years to regain the trust of the congregation, and some never would trust a pastor again. Because of the far-reaching consequences of clergy sexual misconduct, I thought I would take this moment to share seven myths about clergy sexual misconduct that need busting as well as seven tips to avoid clergy sexual misconduct.  

Myth #1: Clergy sexual misconduct is only when a pastor has sex with a minor.

Clergy sexual misconduct (CSM) is not limited to pedophilia. CSM also includes adult sexual abuse and sexual harassment. It is CSM when any person in a ministerial role of leadership or pastoral counseling engages in sexual contact or sexualized behavior with a congregant, client, employee, student, staff, member (etc.) in a professional relationship. CSM can include rape or sexual assault, sexualized verbal comments or visuals, unwelcome touching and advances, use of sexualized materials including pornography, and stalking. 

Myth #2: Adventist clergy do not engage in CSM.

CSM is a widespread problem in congregations of all sizes and occurs across all denominations, including Adventists. A Baylor University study found that 3.1 percent of adult women who attend religious services at least once a month have been victims of clergy sexual misconduct since turning 18. Between 1994 and 2013 Adventist Risk Management processed 75 claims of CSM including child abuse, clergy malpractice, and sexual harassment.

Myth #3: Pastors sometimes have “affairs” with church members.

The word “affair” implies “mutual consent” between two adults. Because of the asymmetrical role of pastor and congregant, any sexualized relationship between a pastor and a congregant (except for the pastor's spouse) is clergy sexual misconduct and cannot be considered “mutual consent.” Even if it is not physical coercion, the clergy is the one in a position of spiritual and emotional power and must be held responsible for the abuse of power.

Myth #4: Clergy sexual misconduct usually happens unintentionally.

In a landmark study, 46 victims of CSM from a wide range of religions, including Adventists, were asked to tell their stories of abuse. In most of the cases the clergy offenders, in a series of small acts, broke down the natural defenses of the offended, and took advantage of a position of spiritual power to eventually sexualize the relationship. Victims, families, and the congregation, did not seem to notice, or if so, refused to confront the clergy about the inappropriate attention given to the victim. Other contributing factors of CSM included a lack of accountability for the clergy, intimate knowledge of the victim’s personal challenges and secrets, and almost all the stories included multiple counseling or spiritual direction sessions.

Myth #5: Spiritual pastors are above temptation.

Pastors have unique temptations. The role of pastor may attract a congregant to perceived power, fame, spirituality, caring, and implied holiness — any of which may fill a void in the congregant. As the pastor ministers to the attracted congregant, the pastor’s need for validation in ministry is increasingly fulfilled. The mutual satisfaction of needs may be conflated with a personal attraction in both the minds of the pastor and the congregant. The mutual attraction can easily become sexualized.

Myth #6: Adventists have largely been silent about abuse.

Since 2008, Adventists have championed ending abuse with the End it Now campaign in which over 600,000 signatures were placed on a petition of solidarity with the United Nations campaign against violence toward women and girls. The campaign continues in the North American Division with a Summit on Abuse in 2011, 2014, and a streamed summit in 2017 where thousands of pastors attended virtually.

Myth #7: There is equal gender representation in decision-making groups that oversee CSM policy and CSM allegations against pastors.

Most of the decision-making positions within the Seventh-day Adventist church are restricted to those with ordination credentials, which at this time, according to General Conference policy, can only be men. It is possible to empower women now to address CSM whether they are in positions of leadership or not. This though, relies on responsible men to intentionally include women's voices. 

Seven Tips to Avoid CSM

Tip #1: Don’t engage in therapeutic counseling.

The formal training of pastors in the NAD does not equip them to engage in therapeutic counseling. Counseling should be limited to assessment and referral to professionals. Core Qualities suggest that pastors “build a network of mental health care providers and make appropriate referrals.” Only those who have received specialized degrees in therapeutic counseling, and are licensed, should engage in long term counseling.

Tip #2: Discuss relationship questions with mentors or colleagues outside of the congregation.

If you have any question about ambiguity in relationships or boundaries with individuals in your congregation, discuss the nature of the relationship with a trusted experienced colleague outside of your congregation. Be honest about sharing your personal feelings with your support group/mentors about a relationship. Naming temptation to others takes away its power over you and enables you to construct effective boundaries.

Tip #3: Avoid meeting alone with anyone.

Find places to meet people where you can be observed by others. Meet people in your office only if you leave your door open and someone is within eyesight. Meet at a public place. Make sure you choose the setting. Don’t go on frequent drives alone with someone else. Don’t go by yourself to a home visitation.

Tip #4: Keep messaging professional.

Email, text messaging, phone calls, and other forms of personal communication can be channels of CSM. Avoid conversations of a personal nature by having more than one person in on the communication. 

Tip #5: Keep physical contact professional.

Avoid physical contact with individuals unless it is in a public setting. And even in a public setting keep physical contact short and appropriate.

Tip #6: Beware of giving and receiving personal gifts.

In some cultures, gifts can be misperceived. They may take on more meaning than you intended.

Tip #7: Keep current on the best practices to prevent abuse.

Attend sexual harassment/abuse classes. Take the Sexual Abuse – Reclaiming Hope course from Adventist Learning Community. Become familiar with the resources available from www.enditnownorthamerica.org.

No one is above temptation. If you say, “it is different for me” or “the rules don’t apply to me” then you are exposing yourself to false accusations, or even worse, engaging in CSM yourself. As pastors, let’s take the momentum of the #MeToo campaign to heart, and let this be a reminder that our role as pastors also makes us vulnerable to the temptation to hurt others. Let us take the steps necessary to guard our reputation and our congregants, and use our roles as pastors to end sexual abuse in our communities. 

Here are some resources for further study: 

http://www.ourstoriesuntold.com/sex-pastor-affair-abuse/

http://www.ashleyeaster.com/blog/pastors-dont-have-affairs

http://www.faithtrustinstitute.org/resources/learn-the-basics/ce-faqs#What%20is%20it?

http://thehopeofsurvivors.com

Special thanks to Carla Baker, David Fournier, Ernie Furness, Erica Jones, Esther Knott, and Willie Oliver for their research for this essay.

The opinions in the essay are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the North American Division Ministerial Association.

Dave Gemmell is Associate Director of NAD Ministerial Association, and volunteer pastor at New Hope. This article was originally published on the NAD Ministerial website. It is reprinted here with permission.

Image Credit: Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University has publicly rended its garments, in the paradoxically understated way careful scholars do, by producing a video series of lectures on the Trinity. This series of sixteen lectures is introduced by a sobering observation: “In the last two decades, there has been a resurgence of Arianism and anti-Trinitarianism, not only in the Seventh-day Adventist Church but also in the wider Christian and Evangelical world.” I opine that many Seventh-day Adventists do not possess a conscious realization of what they believe about the nature of God; they will articulate that they believe in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, but if you engage them in dialogue, you can gradually discern that they incline toward one or more anti-Trinitarian heresies. Furthermore, most Seventh-day Adventists do not realize that anti-Trinitarianism is inextricably linked to opposition to women’s ordination. Although this stealthy linkage is not expressly set forth in the lectures, the scholars provide a thorough biblical, historical, and practical discussion of the Trinity.

Jiri Moskala, Dean of the Seminary, gives a general introduction to the lectures. He claims that the doctrine of the Trinity relates to the practicalities of life. Specifically, a proper understanding of God informs our understanding of redemption and how we relate to each other. He offers that the three distinct persons of the Triune God are co-eternal and equal.

Denis Fortin, Professor of Historical Theology, provides a more detailed introduction. He notes that study of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity has been relatively neglected. Consequently, the recent surge of anti-Trinitarianism is affecting many of our local churches. He concedes that the word Trinity is not in the Bible and that 1 John 5:7 is a later insertion that is not contained in the early manuscripts. Furthermore, the modern mathematical and rational mind is troubled by the notion that three can be one. But the Old Testament’s numerous suggestions of a Trinity formulation are overwhelmingly confirmed in the New Testament, notwithstanding problematic texts that Fortin acknowledges. The Church Fathers in their Christological disputes clarified the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and codified it in the Nicene Creed although Fortin is careful to note that we do not accept the Platonic worldview that predominated in the past. Augustine affirmed that the Three are equal and bonded by love. He rejected any form of subordinationism; the Son and Holy Spirit may appear to be subordinate in history (with respect to the plan of salvation) but are not subordinate in eternity. Thereafter, the Reformers focused on salvation and ecclesiology rather than the Trinity. The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, undermined the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, leading many nineteenth-century churches (and certain Adventist pioneers) to reject the doctrine. Fortin offers the intriguing insight that rejection of the truth about the Trinity can lead to disbelief in the reality of God. He further suggests that the pantheism of John Harvey Kellogg can be regarded as a development that naturally follows the Arianism of the early Adventists.

Jo Ann Davidson, Professor of Theology, surveys the biblical texts that teach the Trinity. She discusses the biblical evidence that there is only one God, that there are three persons who are one God, and that the Three work together. She links marriage to the Trinity by showing that the same word, echad, which means a oneness composed of a plurality, describes the marriage couple (Genesis 2:24) and the Triune God (Deuteronomy 6:4). Marriage helps us understand “heavenly math” that sets forth that 1+1+1=1. She observes in various texts a “rocking back and forth” between the singular and plural in the way God is identified. She explains why Subordinationism, polytheism, and Modalism are to be rejected. She advises that we study other important doctrines, such as salvation, through the lens of a correct understanding of the Trinity.

Moskala, in his capacity as Professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Theology, identifies hints of the Trinity in the Old Testament. He mentions five texts that contain divine plural expressions. He shares seven interpretative approaches to those texts and explains why the first six are problematic and the seventh one is meritorious: (1) mythological reminiscence, (2) reference to Christ, (3) addresses earthly elements, (4) plural of majesty, (5) addresses the heavenly court, (6) plural of God’s self-exhortation, (7) God speaks within the community and fellowship of the Godhead. There are other hints of a plurality of God: (1) echad; (2) texts that show that God sends someone who is God, (3) Angel of the Lord texts, and (4) texts that contain two divine persons and texts that contain three divine persons.

Moskala in his next lecture focuses on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. He observes that there is no reference to the concept of Spirit in other Ancient Near Eastern texts. He argues that the New Testament does not reveal anything new about the Holy Spirit that is not set forth in a nutshell in the Old Testament. He engages in a statistical analysis of ruach, which occurs 389 times in the Old Testament, 105 times for natural meaning, 130 times for human spirit, 11 times for supernatural spirit, 10 times for abstract meaning, and 123 times for the divine Spirit. Three texts speak specifically of “Holy Spirit.” Other texts speak of “Spirit of the Lord” and “Spirit of God.” He then devotes the rest of the lecture to a survey of various texts that describe the Holy Spirit’s functions and characteristics of personhood.

Richard Davidson, J.N. Andrews Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, grapples with Proverbs 8, one of the most disputed passages in the Old Testament. He provides a historical overview of how that text has been interpreted and explores the question whether Wisdom in Proverbs 8 refers to the Son, poetic personification, or the goddess Sophia. The language of birth in Proverbs 8 was often cited by Adventist pioneers in support of their contention that the Son is divine but not eternal, but Ellen White’s citations of Proverbs 8 affirm His eternal existence. Davidson provides numerous lines of biblical evidence in support of his claim that Wisdom refers to the Son, that He is eternal, and that He is not eternally subordinate to the Father. Specifically, he shows that there was a discrete event that occurred before sin when the Son was installed (nasak III) as a mediator between infinity and finitude and that the language of installment explains and is linked to the language of birth.

Paul Gregor, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology, discusses references to the Trinity in the Book of Daniel. In Babylon, Daniel is introduced to different depictions of polytheistic gods. But Daniel describes God in various ways that do not incorporate polytheistic characteristics, and he is understood by his contemporaries to be speaking about a God who is not to be confused with their gods. Gregor identifies these Trinitarian hints: the Son of God in the fiery furnace, the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days, Prince of the Hosts, Prince of Princes, the Anointed One, Michael, and Man in linen. He elaborates on four of them. He notes that “Spirit of God” is used four times by non-Jews: Nebuchadnezzar (twice), the Queen Mother, and Belshazzar. We see the three members of the Trinity in references to the Ancient of Days, the Anointed One, and the Spirit of God.

Ranko Stefanovic, Professor of New Testament, presents a simplified overview of the Trinity in the Bible. He stresses that when we talk about God we are standing on holy ground and thus should be reverent and shun all speculation. The being and nature of God is a mystery. The word Trinity is not in the Bible, and the Bible is not a systematic theology textbook. There are ambiguous texts, but there are also clear texts. Elohim expresses plurality in singularity. Echad expresses oneness in plural form. He discusses various Old Testament texts in which the singular and plural together describe God. Moving to the New Testament, Stefanovic talks about various texts that reference the Trinity. He notes that we are baptized in one name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The apostolic commission references the Trinity. The dispensing of spiritual gifts involves all members of the Godhead. He then discusses development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth and fifth centuries. He cautions that the doctrine of the Trinity is not Tritheism and that personhood of the Godhead does not refer to human personality (except for the incarnate Christ). By faith and in reliance on what the Bible teaches, we can know that Three are One while acknowledging that the mystery of the Trinity is beyond our human comprehension.

Stefanovic in his second lecture focuses on the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. John 14:16-17 establishes that the Holy Spirit (allos parakletos) is a divine person and not merely an impersonal force. (1 John 2:1 refers to Jesus as a parakletos). There is a difference between allos (another of the same kind) and the word not chosen by the biblical author, heteros (another of a different kind). John 14:25 evidences that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus Himself. There is a remarkable parallelism in numerous texts in which references to the Holy Spirit are literarily connected to references to God. Stefanovic engages John 7:39 and offers that the Holy Spirit had always worked in human history but the fullness of His glory and power did not become manifested until Jesus’ glorification after the Cross. He highlights numerous texts that illustrate the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Stefanovic in his third lecture discusses the Trinity in Revelation. He points out the book’s first reference to the Trinity in Revelation 1:4-6. He identifies all three persons of the Godhead in Revelation 4-5 and explains the linkage between Christ’s enthronement and Pentecost. He draws on Isaiah 11:2 and Zechariah 4:6 to explain that reference to the seven spirits is a reference to the Holy Spirit. The second half of the Book of Revelation describes the counterfeit trinity. Revelation 12 and 13 set forth the counterfeit trinity as dragon, beast of the sea, and beast of the earth. Stefanovic points out the numerous literary parallels between the Trinity and the counterfeit trinity. He then offers Revelation 14:7 as a literary “clear line of demarcation” that differentiates the Trinity from the counterfeit trinity. In closing, he offers a pastoral appeal that we resist Satan’s end-time deception, which includes a comprehensive effort to corrupt our understanding of the Trinity.

Jerry A. Moon, Professor of Church History, provides a broad overview of the Trinity. He identifies seven attributes of God: personal, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, immutable, good, loving. He notes that in the Old Testament Lord can refer to any three members of the Godhead. Numerous texts in the New Testament testify that Jesus is God. Acts 5:1-4 and Ephesians 4:30 are the clearest texts that testify to the personhood and deity of the Holy Spirit. The Triune God is depicted best in Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, and Matthew 3:16, 17 and, interestingly, echad is also illustrated by a cluster of grapes in Numbers 23:13. There is a oneness in relationship but oneness in being is beyond our ability to verify. Anti-Trinitarians were dominant in Adventism between 1846 and 1888. During the next decade, there was growing dissatisfaction. Between 1898 and 1913, there was a paradigm shift. From 1913 onward, the Trinity was largely accepted. In 1931 a fundamental belief on the Trinity was written and voted in 1946. There were six proposed reasons for why Adventists initially rejected the doctrine of the Trinity: (a) makes the Father and Son identical; (b) teaches the existence of three gods; (c) diminishes value of atonement, because Jesus as God could not have died on the Cross; (d) The Holy Spirit is referred to by the neutral pronoun It, (e) Jesus is not eternal because begotten. Moon demonstrates why these proposed reasons fail to persuade. He traces Ellen White and James White’s budding opposition to anti-Trinitarianism to 1869 and 1876, respectively. Moon makes two deductions: (a) the Adventist movement may have been derailed if the full truth about the Trinity had been pronounced early on and (b) Ellen White progressed in her understanding. The biblical doctrine of the Trinity differs from the medieval Christian doctrine of the Trinity that incorporates dualism of body and soul, timelessness, and impassibility.

John Reeve, Assistant Professor of Church History, focuses on the historical progression of belief with respect to the Trinity of the early Church Fathers. The best early book about the Trinity is written by Augustine, who admonishes after his presentation that we are not capable of defining God. Reeve stresses that we cannot understand through our contours of logic how one can be three. Reeve discusses the foreground provided by Plato, Philo, and Aristotle: Plato offers his One and Dyad, Philo describes one God and agents of God (Logos, Sophia, and others), and Aristotle sets forth the Unmoved Mover. Irenaeus sees Christ as the bridge between God and humanity, so he claims that Christ must be fully God and fully human but offers no explanation how that can be. Theophilus is the first to use the term Trinity, but he conceives of God and two hands, Logos and Sophia, with the Spirit coming thereafter. Tertullian pictures God as a monarch who has two lieutenants. God is the source of power of the two lieutenants who are subordinate to him. Origen does not see that the Father and Son have the same nature. Christ begins as Logos and ends up as all in all. Christ is God by participation, not nature. Christ would cease to be God if He were to stop contemplating the Father. Sabellius offers Modalism as a solution to the problem of the three in one, but Modalism is regarded as problematic because it contradicts what is taught in Scripture. Accordingly, Constantine calls a council to resolve the disputes that have arisen. During this time, Arius feuds with Alexander, whose secretary is Athanasius. At the Council of Nicaea, Sabellianism (Modalism) is confronted along with Arius, who believes “there was a time when he was not,” that Jesus is a created being. Homoousios (same substance) is agreed to at the Council to dispense of Arius, but a problem arises because homoousios can also mean same person, because homoousios does not dispense with Modalism.

Reeve in part two of his lecture notes two other perceived problems of homoousios: it is a philosophical term that is not found in the Bible. Constantine gets frustrated and changes his position by decreeing that anyone who holds to homoousios is a heretic. But Athanasius holds to homoousios, which becomes a pariah. About forty councils between Nicaea and Constantinople struggle with what terminology is best. Homoios (the Son and Father are similar) is proposed. The term is in the Bible and is sufficiently vague to please everyone, but the term is too imprecise for those who hold to homoousios. And Homoios is found to be contrary to what Scripture teaches. Heteroousios (the Son has a different nature than the Father) garners little support and helps swing the pendulum in the other direction. A new term homoiousios (similar nature but not similar person) is used. This new term rejects Modalism, also argues against Arianism, and is a compromise that those holding to homoousios might be able to abide. But Athanasius who in his lifetime was banned by five different emperors, thrown into a Roman prison and after being freed was forced to walk home in rags through Arian crowds, holds firm. In response to entreaties that homoiousios is better than homoios and heteroousios, Athanasius rhetorically asks, “If the Son and Father have a similar nature, what is different about their natures?” The debate results in a new formula in which hypostases supplements homoousios to aver that three persons share the same nature. This causes a problem for those who question whether the Holy Spirit, of whom very little is said in the Nicaean Creed, has the same nature as the Father and Son. Basil of Caesarea writes an important book that marshals biblical texts that establish that the Holy Spirit is the third member of the Godhead. A new council is convened in Constantinople in 381 and the new formula is voted. Reeve stresses that the formula is correct not because it was voted but because it is taught in Scripture. He observes that we too often emphasize the Three to the detriment of the One. He compares the Scriptural paradigm with the philosophical paradigm in how the Trinity is understood. The eternal generation theory of the Trinity is explained and rejected. We should not go beyond what Scripture has revealed; we should resist the urge to resolve the tension, the mystery, of the Three and the One.

Merlin D. Burt, Professor of Church History, identifies and discusses four reasons for recent anti-Trinitarian agitation in the Seventh-day Adventist Church: (a) proliferation of Internet sites; (b) anti-Trinitarian denominations; (c) perception that the doctrine of the Trinity is a Catholic doctrine; (d) Adventist Neo-Restorationism (a nostalgia for the “original purity” of the Adventist pioneers). He explains the differences between the biblical doctrine of the Trinity and the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. Before 1890 anti-Trinitarianism predominated in Adventism; Seventh-day Adventists believed that the Father is fully God, the Son is divine but a created or begotten being, and the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. William Miller was a Trinitarian, but his closest associate, JV Himes, was a member of the Christian Connexion, which was anti-Trinitarian. Two of the three founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, James White and Joseph Bates, also came from the Christian Connexion and thus were anti-Trinitarian. Uriah Smith’s early view of Jesus was extremely anti-Trinitarian; he wrote in 1865 that Jesus is a created being. In the 1890s, AT Jones began to embrace Trinitarian sentiments and wrote in 1899 that the Father is One, the Son is One, the Holy Spirit is One, and the Three are One. Ellen White did not articulate in her early years anti-Trinitarian statements. In her writings, she refers to Jesus as eternal in 1878 and later in 1887. Her most influential statement about the deity of Jesus is found on page 530 of Desire of Ages, published in 1898: “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived.” From 1900 to 1931, WW Prescott frequently wrote in support of the Trinity. The participants at the 1919 Bible Conference were divided with respect to the Trinity. Thereafter, FM Wilcox wrote numerous Bible studies on the Trinity in the Review and Herald. In 1931, a Trinitarian statement about God was codified. In the 1940s, a few notable Seventh-day Adventists were still stridently anti-Trinitarian. Questions on Doctrine published in 1957 accepts the Trinitarian view. Burt concludes with three observations: (a) the development of our theology has usually been corrective and progressive; (b) some doctrinal changes have required the passing of a previous generation; (c) we can be encouraged that our theology has been and is always supremely dependent upon Scripture.

Burt in his next lecture focuses on Ellen White’s understanding of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. She refers to the Holy Spirit tens of thousands of times in her writings. The early Seventh-day Adventists did not regard the Holy Spirit as a member of the Godhead. They did not believe that the Holy Spirit is a person but merely a manifestation of the presence of the Father or the Son. For example, JH Waggoner in 1877 refers to the Holy Spirit as an It rather than a He, as a power that proceeds from the throne of God. In 1889, MC Wilcox identifies the Holy Spirit as God’s power separate from His person and again in 1898 as the way God’s omnipresence functions. AT Jones in 1907 affirms that the Holy Spirit is a person. Against this background, Ellen White’s understanding of the Holy Spirit can be divided between the period before 1890 and the period after 1890. We see three emphases of hers before 1890: (a) the personhood of the Father and Son; (b) the practical and demonstrable work of the Holy Spirit; (c) rejection of the assertion of clearly unbiblical ideas about the mystery of the Holy Spirit, such as the idea that the Holy Spirit is Gabriel. She first explicitly affirms the personhood of the Holy Spirit in 1893. In 1896, she refers to the Holy Spirit as the third member of the Godhead. Burt shares other statements of hers that affirm the personhood of the Holy Spirit. He observes that she depicts the Holy Spirit not only as a person but as a representative of Jesus. He observes that Ellen White refers to the Holy Spirit as an It and a He before and after 1890 and offers that we should not read too much into this usage of language. He buttresses the veracity of a couple of her published statements with what her original hand-written manuscripts state.

Woodrow Whidden, Ph.D. in the final lecture discusses the practical implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. The overriding issue in the Great Controversy is the character of God. The members of the Godhead are mutually submissive, existing in a profound oneness, eternally sacrificing, and outflowing in creative and redemptive love. If this is the truth about God, we likewise should live in loving rather than selfish ways. The truth about the Trinity enlightens our understanding of personal salvation. Only God can redeem lost human beings. Only a Trinitarian love can be efficacious in redeeming lost human beings. And only a Trinitarian love can serve as a model for how human beings should love one another. He observes that those religious communities that are unclear about justification by grace through faith alone tend to be anti-Trinitarian.

The lectures make use of helpful visual aids and promote various written works for additional study. The video presentations range in length from 17 minutes to 2 hours 28 minutes. The occasional overlap that occurs reinforces important points and reflects consensus of belief. The scholars, who have engaged in ministry outside the classroom, exhibit a humble demeanor that is as much pastoral as professorial. An excellent way for a local church to escape the doldrums is to invite a Seminary faculty member to speak. This series of lectures can help overcome the perception that a divide exists between the scholarly Seventh-day Adventist community and the local church in the hinterland, a divide that is the opposite of what the Triune God models for the church.

The lectures provide no support for the anti-Trinitarian heresy of Eternal Functional Subordinationism (hereinafter EFS), which is the principal component of male headship theory. The lectures do not specifically address EFS but only vaguely allude to it in the Seminary’s introductory statement quoted above: “In the last two decades, there has been a resurgence of Arianism and anti-Trinitarianism, not only in the Seventh-day Adventist Church but also in the wider Christian and Evangelical world.” Consequently, many Seventh-day Adventists may not realize after watching the lectures that male headship theory, which undergirds opposition to women’s ordination, is anti-Trinitarian. However, the Seminary’s non-mention of EFS is probably wise from a pedagogical perspective. We can appreciate that a soft appeal can often be more effective than a direct accusation. We can also appreciate that we learn best when we have not been placed in a defensive posture. In addition, a thorough grounding in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity is requisite to an evaluation of EFS and male headship theory in general.

Ironically, I must now do what the Seminary in its lectures wisely chose not to do, which is provide at least a nutshell description of EFS. Sometime around 1980, male headship theorists reasoned that a new doctrine of God needs to be devised to bolster their belief that women are eternally subordinate to men. Theretofore, Christians possessed a theoretical understanding that the plural oneness of God is a model for the plural oneness of the marriage couple. Christians began to discern that this Trinitarian model for husband and wife refutes the cultural mandate that the roles for men and women be gender-based and different. And as women began to excel in professions previously denied to them, including the ministry, that cultural mandate quickly weakened and became obsolete. In response, male headship theorists reasoned as follows: We need a new doctrine of God. We need to find in the Godhead qualities of hierarchy, inequality, and subordination of an eternal (as opposed to voluntary or temporary) kind, so that we can argue that such qualities forever characterize the relations between men and women. But we do not want to second Arius and hold that the Son is ontologically inferior to the Father. If we disassociate ontology from function, we can instead claim that the Son is ontologically equal to the Father but eternally subordinate in function. We can then further claim based on that proposed divine model that women, though ontologically equal to men, are eternally subordinate in function.

That many Seventh-day Adventists have fallen for male headship theory and its principal component, EFS, does not need to be explicated. In 2015 at the General Conference Session in San Antonio, a vote opposed to women’s ordination prevailed by a margin of 58% to 42%. Clearly and demonstrably, anti-Trinitarianism is surging, is thriving, and is alive and well in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Moon and Burt raise awareness that the anti-Trinitarianism that predominated among the early Adventists was not a momentary lapse in doctrinal understanding, a lapse that Ellen White could easily correct with the stroke of a pen, but a heresy that has lasted for generations. Many children of the Adventist Movement, as Seventh-day Adventists, descended into the grave six, seven, and eight decades later believing that the Son and Holy Spirit are lesser beings. We should infer from Moon and Burt’s historical overviews that there is still a struggle between Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The dispute regarding women’s ordination is a manifestation of that ongoing struggle. This dispute, properly understood, is not a mere policy disagreement but a profound theological disagreement about the nature of God that has been ongoing for centuries.

As we consider Fortin’s observation that the Arianism of certain Adventist pioneers may have conditioned Kellogg to embrace a distorted picture of God, we too can observe that many Seventh-day Adventists today have been similarly conditioned. Many Seventh-day Adventists today have found it easy to lunge toward male headship theory and its exaltation of hierarchy, inequality, and subordination because of the anti-Trinitarianism in the waters they have drunk.

Jo Ann Davidson is correct in her assertion that God is not honored by our lazy thinking about Him. The painstaking exegesis shared by the theologians in their lectures models how we should study God. Reeve’s meticulous rejection of numerous imprecise and inaccurate representations of God impresses upon us that we too should avoid even the smallest error in our representation of God. We should accept Whidden’s invitation that we consider the practical consequences of how we picture God. And we should be sobered by the admonishment offered by Stefanovic, that we are not immune from the counterfeit trinity’s last-day effort to corrupt humanity’s understanding of the Trinity.

Let us no longer neglect the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Let us open our eyes and become cognizant of the anti-Trinitarian underpinnings of certain aberrant ecclesiastical practices. Let us demonstrate by our conduct a biblically informed understanding of God. Let us in the words of our Lord and Savior “be one just as We are one” John 17:22 (NKJV).

Phillip Brantley is an attorney who offices in Houston, Texas and lives in Sugar Land, Texas and Berrien Springs, Michigan. He is a graduate of Andrews Academy, Andrews University, and The University of Texas Law School. He is married to Marilyn Brantley, and they have one daughter Rachel.

Image Credit: https://www.andrews.edu/sem/sdlc/trinity/

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At the General Conference Annual Council meeting in October 2016, several people told me that Nancy Wilson, wife of Elder Ted Wilson, needed to talk with me right away. Later that day, we met in the foyer of the General Conference building, and she excitedly told me about a book that needed to be translated from German to English. She told me that it would be a powerful book in English.

She was right. The result of that conversation is Longing for God by Dr. Frank Hasel, associate director of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference. This powerful prayer journal is filled with spiritual insights as well as practical ideas for making your prayer life more fulfilling and drawing you closer to God.

Longing for God was released by Pacific Press in November 2017. Recently I had the privilege of interviewing author, Frank Hasel, about this book:

How did you get involved in prayer journaling?

Actually, I am not a great journaling person. Never have been. I did some occasional prayer journaling many years ago when I was much younger, but I didn’t continue on a regular basis. I started journaling again about eight years ago, after experiencing a significant loss in my life when my wife died of breast cancer in 2009. I came across another prayer journal that inspired me to pray in a more meaningful way using the words of Scripture, and that helped me in my own spiritual walk with Jesus. It became the inspiration for writing my book, Longing for God.

How did prayer journaling help you in this extremely difficult time in your life?

I practiced the very things I write about in my book. These are things that are tested and tried in my own experience—things that helped me as a single parent, working full time, to stay spiritually sane and even joyful by focusing on God rather than getting bogged down by my problems.

What do you find that keeping a prayer journal does for you personally? In what ways does it affect your life? Your walk with God?

I find that keeping a prayer journal is an exercise against spiritual forgetfulness. To write down encouraging promises or spiritual insights while reading the Bible helps me to fix them more firmly in my mind. To write down my prayers reminds me of my spiritual priorities and what is really important. A prayer journal like I describe in Longing for God is a wonderful tool to help me remember the many blessings, small and great, that I have received over the past months, and to recount them. It also helps me not to forget how God has led me in the past. To go back and read in my journal where God has answered prayer and how He has done it is a great source of encouragement and a strong motivation for me to continue to trustingly approach God in prayer. All this fosters an attitude of great gratitude and helps to make me a more joyful and hopefully also a more pleasant person. And it lifts me up to see that God did not leave me alone, even during those times when I had my questions or had to face challenges or struggled with discouragement. Journaling helps me to be more attentive to my own spiritual needs and to the needs of others.

When do you find is your best time to pray and journal?

I find the best time for me to pray and to journal is time that is undisturbed. Sometimes I deliberately have to switch my Smart phone to silent flight mode or even disconnect from the Internet for a while to connect with God and make those precious moments happen. I also find that I have to plan for such quiet time. Often it does not occur just by itself. If I want to have it, I need to schedule quality time and even have to be willing to cancel a few things in my busy schedule, if need be, to make room for it.

If the weather permits, I enjoy prayer walks in a nearby park where I am surrounded by the quiet sounds of nature. Ideally, for me the best time to journal and pray is in the morning before the hustle and bustle of the day starts. But then I also need the self-discipline to get up early enough when the day begins and to get to bed early enough to make this happen.

What advice would you have for someone who would like to keep a prayer journal but who has difficulty putting their thoughts on paper?

I would say: Why don’t you give it a fair try? Nobody expects you to write like a Nobel laureate. This is a learning process. It is better to start humbly and with just a few words than not to write at all. And remember: You don’t have to show what you wrote to anybody. It is your personal journal of your own journey with God. But writing down your thoughts has an amazing ability to clarify and order your thinking! And who knows, perhaps there will be even some precious gems to share with others, after you have practiced journaling for some time. Journaling does not mean that you have to write loooong entries every day. Often a short sentence is all it takes to write down something that has come to your mind or that is precious to you, or something that you are thankful for.

We sometimes say that God always answers every prayer—with "Yes,""No," or "Wait and Trust." As a theologian, how would you answer someone who says that view is basically meaningless—a rationalization that allows us to explain away prayers that seemingly have no results.

Often, we are too focused on prayer as an exercise to get something from God. As if it is God’s sole responsibility to fulfill our wishes and demands. We tend to love God mainly because He does something for us. With such a mindset, we quickly end up with exactly those kinds of responses if things do not work the way we envision they should. But real prayer is more, much more, than using God as a divine answering machine for our wishes, even if we wrap them in nice prayers that sound very spiritual. Often such prayers lack the most essential thing: enjoying the very company and presence of God. In my book Longing for God (see pp. 42-45) I have argued for a new and deeper understanding of prayer—a prayer “That Pleases God.” I invite every reader to have a look at this chapter in my book. I also wrote another chapter in which I deal with the tough issue of what happens when we pray and wait for an answer (see pp. 202-205). What I write in my book Longing for God might not answer all the questions we have about prayer, but I am convinced that it provides a great stimulus to practice prayer in a more meaningful way and to see prayer with new eyes from God’s perspective—a perspective that goes beyond a simplistic “Yes,” “No,” or “Wait” response.

Do you have a favorite "prayer text" or EGW quote on prayer? If so, what makes it special to you?

Currently one of my favorite Bible texts is Lamentations 3:22-24: “The Lord’s loving kindnesses indeed never cease, and His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’” This text is very special to me because it expresses how I have experienced God in the last couple years of my life.

One of my favorite quotes from Ellen White is found in The Desire of Ages, p. 330 where she writes: 

Worry is blind, and cannot discern the future; but Jesus sees the end from the beginning. In every difficulty He has His way prepared to bring relief. Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.” 

This quote has often been a great encouragement to me and has cheered me on to trust God’s amazing ways more fully and to believe that He literally has unlimited resources and means to accomplish His purposes and to provide whatever we really need. He can do things that have not even crossed our minds and that we do not even dream about. What a great God we serve!

What are some of the features in Longing for God that sets this book apart from other journals?

The book Longing for God has several features that make it unique and that set it apart from other journals:

• It focuses deliberately on God and His Word as the foundation of our relationship with Jesus and our spiritual life.
• It teaches you how to read and mark the Bible in a meaningful way. If you follow the simple Bible reading plan with passages from the Old Testament and New Testament for every day, you will have read through the entire Bible within one year. But you can also read at a slower pace at your own convenience.
• Longing for God is not just empty pages for journaling. At the end of every month, 12 times throughout the year, there are very practical suggestions that will invigorate your prayer life and spiritual walk. These are intended to be spiritual impulses rather than rigid prescriptions. They will inspire you to try out new things in your relationship with God and in your prayers. You will love it, and will be blessed.
• You will learn how to meaningfully pray for yourself, for your children, for other people, for missionaries, for your neighbors, etc. as well as learn how to pray with a prayer-partner or spouse.
• There are some chapters that deal with tough questions such as: What happens when we pray and wait for answers? Or how to get rid of bitter feelings and grudges? Or how to pray and fast.
• You’ll also find inspirational quotes about the Bible and about prayer sprinkled throughout the book. At the end of the book there are suggestions for special prayer emphases for each day of the week.
• Longing for God is written in such a way that it can be a blessing even to those who are not so familiar with the Bible or who are new believers.
• It is highly practical and easy to use and has an appealing layout and design.

Longing for God is available now at your Adventist Book Center. Why not start 2018 with this powerful, inspiring book that will help you put your prayer life on a whole new foundation?

Order a copy for yourself—and one for a prayer partner!

Available on AdventistBookCenter.com and on Amazon.

Dale E. Galusha is president of Pacific Press Publishing Association, where this interview originally appeared. It is published here with permission.

Image Credit: Pacific Press

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“Christianity has almost 2000 years of history in Malta. According to tradition, it was brought to the Islands by none other than the Apostle Paul himself around AD 60.

Paul was being taken to Rome to be tried as a political rebel, but the ship carrying him and some 274 others was caught in a violent storm only to be wrecked two weeks later on the Maltese coast. All aboard swam safely to land.”¹

Today, Malta is mostly Roman Catholic although there is freedom of religion and conscience. It is a member of the European Union. It is a well-known tourist destination for those seeking sun, sandy beaches, and ancient history. Tourism increases the population of nearly half a million to at least three fold in the summertime. Malta is bilingual: Maltese is the national language and English the official language.²

Malta is under the Italian Union of Churches of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There is only one Adventist church in the country. Sabbath attendance averages 50 individuals of various nationalities. Services are held in English.

The welcome I received on that first Sabbath of December 2017 was warm and friendly. Each visitor was asked to stand and say something about themselves. An Italian visiting pastor was scheduled to preach, in Italian, with English translation. However, after Sabbath School, he was more than happy for me to preach instead. The packed little church was attentive to the message.

Maltese born Lina, the church treasurer, told me she became an Adventist just by watching 3ABN! Another Maltese sister, whose young daughter had read the Mission story that morning, also shared God’s providences in how her family became Adventists.

Then there’s Bulgarian born Hristina whose story is truly inspiring. After a six-year marriage which left her a young widow at the age of 26, and another disastrous relationship which resulted in the birth of her son when her then boyfriend chose to abandon them, she tells how God led in her life all along. She too became an Adventist through a series of Divine providences. Today, her child-like and sincere faith in Him is as strong as it gets.

Hristina re-located to Malta from her country to look for work and start a new life, as a single mother with her young son. She started off cleaning houses. One day she fell six metres and ended up in hospital for two months, unable to move, with a broken back, broken ankles, and a broken wrist, not knowing if she would ever be able to walk or work again.

In her hospital bed she handed everything over to God, and has not looked back since. She tells me that people could not believe she survived that fall considering that a man had fallen from one floor previously and died.

The whole church, her family and friends, and the Italian Union, all rallied around and supported her with prayers, visits, and finances to help her through her ordeal. She had no insurance, and no savings, yet she was not on her own with so much practical love being showered on her.

She spent another two months convalescing, at the end of which she regained her mobility and was ready to go back to work. She was strongly advised to not return to her previous job and was given all the financial help she needed to train as a carer. At first she hesitated since her English was not up to scratch. She was finally persuaded to try anyhow, which she did, and succeeded.

She decided that she would never work on a Sabbath and prayed that she would find such a job. She said that God provided her with the right carer’s job, with Sabbaths off, looking after the elderly in a care home, a mere twenty minutes bus ride from her humble residence on the church premises where she is also the one and only church deaconess.

You will see her every Sabbath, on time, sitting on the front row eager to participate and receive the day’s blessings. She plays an active role in the kitchen for the fellowship meal.

Hristina is quite content living one day at a time in the assurance that since God took care of her in the past, He will continue to do so in the future.

With a serene smile she says, “I can’t wait for Jesus to come. I wish He would hurry up though!”

Notes & References:
1. https://www.visitmalta.com/en/st-paul-in-malta
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta

Claude Lombart writes from the village of Binfield, UK, where he is in active retirement. He holds an emeritus pastoral credential from the BUC. Lombart has served in several countries in francophone West Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand, Scotland, and England in leadership, departmental, teaching, pastoral, and counsellor roles. He is a regular contributor to several church papers and has recently published a book on successful relationships.

Images courtesy of the author.

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It’s clear from the opening chapters of Stories from Sunnyside, that this book was a labor of love for author Marian de Berg.

De Berg is an administrative assistant at the Ellen G. White/Seventh-day Adventist Research Centre at Avondale College of Higher Education, where she has served for two decades. She also leads tours and trains volunteers at Ellen G. White’s Australian home, “Sunnyside.” This makes her uniquely qualified to capture the everyday life of White’s nine years in Australia, from 1891 to 1900.

Drawing from primary source material, including the personal correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials that Ellen White wrote during this nine-year period, de Berg paints a robust portrait of the beginnings of Adventism in Australia and White’s direct role in building a thriving Adventist community, complete with numerous churches, schools, and sanitariums.

Seventh-day Adventism had arrived on the shores of Australia in 1885, just six years before Ellen White’s own arrival. With a fledgling membership of just 450 Australian Adventists, White had her work cut out for her. Though in her seventies when she came to Australia, White traveled extensively during her stay, attending and speaking at various camp meetings and newly established churches. By the time White left Australia, membership had grown to 2,100 strong.

As an American, I knew very little about Ellen White’s time in Australia. I knew only that she hadn’t wanted to go and did not feel God calling her there, but the General Conference made the decision for her. De Berg touches on this, including the stern letters White sent to GC President O.A. Olsen. In one such letter, White tells Olsen,

“The Lord was not in our leaving America…The Lord did not plan this, but He let you all move after your own imaginings…There was so great a willingness to have us leave that the Lord permitted this thing to take place. Those who were weary of the testimonies borne were left without the persons who bore them. Our separation from Battle Creek was to let men have their own will and way, which they thought superior to the way of the Lord” (74-75).

Despite the circumstances surrounding Ellen White’s arrival in Australia, after returning to America, she reminisced:

“…I may never see Australia again, though if it were the Lord’s will, it is the place where I should most prefer to be…I know of no place where I would rather be than Cooranbong…I know of no place on earth so dear to me as Avondale, where we fought so many battles and gained so many victories” (302-303).

Those “battles and victories” are woven throughout Stories from Sunnyside, though it is White’s day-to-day activities, which de Berg captures so well, that most drew me in. It was in reading about White’s daily life that I was able to see not the enigmatic prophet, but rather Ellen White the human being: woman, evangelist, and matriarch.

Ellen White’s hospitality, care, and compassion are all on display in this book. I enjoyed learning more about her Sunnyside home and the individuals who graced its doorstep: White’s family members, large staff, and visitors who needed both quick assistance and long-term care. I imagine de Berg must be a fantastic tour guide at the Sunnyside estate, because her ability to guide the reader through White’s home and expertly craft an accurate narrative for the comings and goings based on White’s own words is truly impressive.

With just ink and paper, de Berg has shaped Ellen White into a whole person for her readers. Within Stories from Sunnyside’s pages, we learn of a woman who personally invested in each new church (303), wore patched and frayed clothes because she gave away every new garment and piece of fabric to those in need (281), and who fed and offered work to every “tramp” who stopped by — of which there were many due to the depression in Australia at that time (214).

One of my favorite chapters in Stories from Sunnyside was Chapter 21: “Ellen White’s Table.” Here we learn that White, along with her family and staff, spent the summer months canning fruit from the orchard, harvesting fresh vegetables from the garden, picking wild blackberries, and baking bread and pies, “thirteen or fourteen pans at a time” in the outdoor oven (148). De Berg also shares the importance White placed on “making mealtimes a happy time together,” which White expressed in the following words:

“How many families season their daily meals with doubt and questionings! They dissect the characters of their friends and serve them up as a dainty dessert…When [you] gather about the table to partake of God’s precious bounties, make this a season of cheerfulness. Do not make it a season of grave decorum as though they were standing about a coffin, but have it a social season where every countenance is full of joy and happiness, where there is naught but cheerful words spoken” (149-150).

Truly, both the Sunnyside estate and the life of Ellen G. White come alive in de Berg’s capable hands. In the foreword, Dr. John Skrzypaszek, director of the Ellen G. White/Seventh-day Adventist Research Centre at Avondale College of Higher Education, sums up the importance of this book best when he says:

This book does not provide an explanatory framework of Ellen White’s prophetic role, nor a theological charter for argumentative debates. It recalls the narratives in the life of a person engrossed in the depth of God’s love. It recalls the memories, the colours and the sounds highlighting qualities such as personal uniqueness, giftedness and value. Perhaps it’s in the places where the rubber meets the road that one finds the authenticity of the prophetic voice—a voice that does not only speak but acts the part of God’s extended hands in the community” (vi).

I would encourage anyone with an interest in learning more about Ellen White’s life in Australia to read Stories from Sunnyside.

Alisa Williams is managing editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

Image Credit: Signs Publishing


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Dr. Michael Walter, class of 1966, who served in the military for 30 years and retired as an Army Brigadier General, was behind the new Upper Columbia Vietnam (War) Era Servicemen Monument, recently dedicated on the academy's campus.

Question: A monument dedicated to 124 boys from Upper Columbia Academy who later served in the US military during the Vietnam era was recently dedicated on the academy campus. You spearheaded the effort to build this monument. Why did you think this was important?

Answer: It has been about 50 years since the Vietnam war. Many involved were never thanked and too often scorned. It occurred to us that we should remember and honor those at Upper Columbia Academy who were (mostly) drafted and did their duty with honor.

As I said in my remarks at the unveiling of the monument:

The sixties was a divisive time in our history and those honored here are now part of the less than 1% of the population who served in the military. Our friends and classmates in most cases served not of their choosing and certainly not for fame, fanfare, recognition or money. In the shadow of Desmond Doss, they served in the military usually as medics in Vietnam, as Whitecoats and in numerous other places around the world. There is always a shortage of medics. With the values they were raised with in the northwest, what they were taught at UCA, and what they learned in their medical training in the military, they were successful in a unique mission of saving lives, not taking them. They were dedicated, unselfish Christian patriots who didn’t burn their draft cards or leave the country. In every place they were part of a team working together to support a cause larger than themselves. 

How many Upper Columbia alumni were killed during the conflict, or during that time? 

Two died in Vietnam: Tom Dutro and Ken Weitz.

I understand some more names are to be added later?

As we got into this, we were surprised at how many there were. In addition to the 124, we already have 20 more names to add. We are sure there are more and if anyone knows of someone we missed, they can get in touch with the alumni office at Upper Columbia Academy.

How many of the veterans whose names are on the monument attended the ceremony on September 29?

About 50.

What did they say the monument means to them? 

They were grateful and thanked the Academy for the recognition. For some, it was the first time they had been thanked and it brought closure to the bitterness that some felt.

How was the monument funded? How much did it cost?

The Monument was funded through donations mostly from UCA alumni. About $50,000 was raised to fund the monument and a video. 

Was the school very supportive of this project? Do you know if other Adventist academies have similar memorials? 

The two principles involved, Mr. Winslow and Mr. Johnson, and Vice Principle for Alumni, Julie Hagele, were supportive from the beginning and incredibly helpful.
I am not aware of other Adventist institutions doing anything similar to what we did.

When were you a student at Upper Columbia Academy? When and where did you serve in the military? Were you drafted? Did some of your classmates join the military at the same time? 

I was in the class of 1966 and voluntarily joined the Army in 1975 after medical school to do a residency. I was in the active and reserve Army for 30 years and lived in seven locations. I was deployed twice to the Middle East and traveled in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Several of my classmates served during the Vietnam era in Vietnam, in numerous other places around the world and as Whitecoats.

Were you all conscientious objectors or did some of you carry weapons? Do you remember that being an issue that was discussed? 

During that time all men were required to register for the draft when they turned 18 years old. The Seventh-day Adventist Church gave us all guidelines on how to register as conscientious objectors. Most who were drafted did not carry weapons.

What do you think the monument means to current students of Upper Columbia Academy? 

We want it to be a reminder that many Upper Columbia Academy students did their duty honorably when drafted into the military during a difficult time in our history. We want their service to be remembered. Many served in the Army as Whitecoats at Fort Dietrich and that history is too often unknown to the younger generation. The movie, Operation Whitecoat, needs to be shown to the current generation.

How do you think the school has changed between the 1960s when you attended, and now? 

We had a work/study program and I believe that has changed because of labor laws. The other big change is media. We only had the newspaper and no TV or radio or cell phone. I’m sure there are others.

What did you go on to do after serving in the military? How do you feel that your time as a soldier changed you? 

Over 30 years I became acquainted with and saw many incredibly dedicated patriots. They were disciplined and lived by an enviable value system that kept them mission-focused. I saw leadership at its best that all could learn from. It was a life-changing experience in so many ways. I worked at Loma Linda University until 2015 and now work at the Loma Linda Veterans Affairs. 

^{Dr. Michael Walter}

Alita Byrd is interviews editor for Spectrum Magazine.

Images courtesy of Dr. Michael Walter.

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This year — 2017— which is now slipping from our grasp, has been a year of anniversaries, celebrations, and simple commemorations of events which it would be inappropriate to celebrate.

In the UK it is 50 years, October 27, 1967, since abortion was first legalized under certain particular circumstances. But the law was loosely worded, liberally interpreted, and the consequence has been that the numbers of abortions carried out are vastly greater than the architect of the legislation, a devout Christian, intended. There have been serious unintended moral consequences.

On November 2, 1917 the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, made a public declaration promising mutually exclusive outcomes to two populations. The Balfour Declaration effectively sowed the seeds of today’s Israel-Palestine conflict. The unintended tragic consequences are still very much with us.

Martin Luther

More significantly perhaps for us at this time is the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation specifically symbolized by Luther publishing his 95 theses on October 31, 1517.

In that year Martin Luther thought, said, and did things in Wittenberg which had consequences he did not intend.

The Catholic dissident did not intend to cause a convulsion sufficient to destabilize Rome, or generate a so-called Protestantism, whose echoes ring loud down the centuries, even in our own lives.

He did not intend to create a church specifically named after him which today numbers 80 million adherents world-wide.

He did not intend to modernize and unify a language which hitherto had been a mosaic of dialects, and encourage mass literacy.

He did not intend to set in train a sequence of violent events which would leave hundreds of peasants dead, victims of civil conflict.

He did not intend to foster the idea that we are individuals before we are members of society.

He did not intend to act as midwife to modern Germany or to the idea of the nation state.

He did not intend to contribute to long conflict in Europe well beyond German borders.

He did not of course intend, could not possibly have anticipated, that his published views on the Jewish people should make him a poster-boy of latter-day fascism.

Luther’s life offers spectacular examples of the law of unintended consequences.

World War I

Along with Reformation celebrations we also are commemorating, perhaps more in Europe, the various centenaries of World War I.

1917 was a year of hellish carnage in Flanders, at Passchendaele, at Ypres, in which multitudes of men on both sides died in a very small geographical area, in a very short period of time, to very little effect.

Three years before in Sarajevo, on June 28, 1914, the driver of the car of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria did not intend to take a disastrous wrong turn which would present the assassin Gavrilo Princip with the perfect opportunity to do his murderous work, and so create for others a pretext for declaring war. The chauffeur did not intend to fracture Europe. He did not intend to unleash all manner of geo-political consequences in WWI whose deep awfulness no one could ever have imagined, consequences which continue to reverberate today.

It is the law of unintended consequences.

On April 6, 1917 President Woodrow Wilson signed a declaration of war by the USA on Germany. His message was cheered by Congress: “The world must be made safe for democracy,” he proclaimed, as so many have done. He went back to the White House and wept. He said: “My message was one of death for young men. How odd it seems to applaud that.”

It seems that he did understand, albeit only dimly, the awful possibilities of the law of unintended consequences.

WWI brought important unplanned social change, too. For example, many armies involved in the conflict issued condoms, prophylactics against the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases as soldiers had brief affairs with local girls. Disease was weakening the military machine. Theodore Roosevelt considered the issuing of condoms “race suicide.” Many moralists also condemned it. But condoms were widely used in WWI and returning soldiers were not easily going to surrender this newly-found enhancer of sexual freedom. WWI clearly hastened the use of condoms as the primary birth control method among respectable families, for good and ill. Many churches overcame their scruples within a decade or two. And later came other contraceptives. Their availability changed our expectations, changed our lives completely.

How odd that the obscenities of war could facilitate the tenderness of intimacy. It is the law of unintended consequences.

Brexit

And so to the present day…

April 2017 will be remembered as the time when the United Kingdom began the process of exiting the European Union. UK Prime Minister Mrs. Theresa May pressed the “trigger” for Article 50 to signal the beginning of the two-year transition period.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron had not intended that the referendum should lead to this — quite the opposite. He had wanted to unify his party and cement links with the EU. He achieved precisely the opposite. Prime Minister Theresa May did not intend to lose the majority she needs for effective Brexit negotiations in a general election.

Most of those who voted for Brexit do not intend to break up the United Kingdom. They did not vote for economic decline in their country. Most did not intend to make some EU nationals feel unwelcome on British streets. They did not intend to leave the public health service seriously understaffed. But many of the most important consequences of Brexit are likely to be quite unintended by those who voted and campaigned for it. It will be painful for us and will have consequences way beyond our own shores.

It is the law of unintended consequences.

Our Church

And so to our own church…

When Adventists first formulated the doctrine of the millennium, 1,000 years after the return of Christ, when peace would reign and all social injustices would be resolved, they surely did not intend that generations of Adventists following them would largely ignore the need to fight for the common good now. They simply wished not to dilute the evangelistic imperative of the church. They did not intend that we should for so long show so little interest in social justice, human trafficking, unemployment, poverty, debt, housing, environment, prison reform — any issues which involve civic engagement.

It is the law of unintended consequences.

In the year 2017 in the Adventist Church, various official actions have recently been taken by leaders, no doubt sincere in their intentions, to promote “unity” in the church. Women’s ordination has been the presenting issue but of course underlying this are the foundational issues of power, identity, authority, hermeneutics, unity, belonging, and much more. Those who fear that the drive for unity is really a demand for uniformity and central control, respond and will continue to respond by writing, meeting, leaving, and the various other forms which weeping can take. At present the outcomes are quite impossible to predict. But one thing is certain. Some of the most important consequences of this struggle for the Adventist church, our church, our home, will be quite unintended, and inevitably rather painful.

It is the law of unintended consequences.                

Newbold College

I often meet former students from my institution, Newbold College. They like to reminisce, they enjoy their memories. But the things that they remember are not always the things I intended they should remember, according to the objectives listed in my course outlines. Our time together in the classroom produced consequences for their learning, even for their lives, which I had neither intended nor anticipated. Some good, some not so.

It is the law of unintended consequences.

Unintended Consequences               

Unintended consequences are unanticipated outcomes of deliberate acts. The term “the law of unintended consequences” was popularized by American sociologist, Robert Merton, in the 1930s, though the idea can be traced back at least to Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke.

Of “Intention” Immanuel Kant said that moral value can only be established by reference to the intention of the person acting. And many philosophers have wrestled with the idea before and after Kant.

It is partly the legacy of Luther that we individuals have a newly-affirmed freedom to make choices and to shoulder responsibilities, to be accountable before God and our fellow human beings.

This freedom raises some impossibly difficult questions. Unintended consequences, it seems, are as old as humanity itself.

The Bible

To understand consequences and intention we can go all the way back to Eden itself. In Genesis 3 God said to Adam “eat…and you will surely die.” The serpent said to Eve “eat and you will have opened eyes.” Consequences, serious consequences. What did Adam intend? How should he be judged? How could he give any meaning to the word “die”? Was the fall an unintended consequence of creation? Was Adam’s use of the gift of choice an inevitable consequence of his condition? What did God intend? How can God not intend anything that comes about as a result of the gift of choice?

Religion teachers

Those of us whose business is “Religious Studies” face all manner of unfathomable questions whose core is right here, about our own agency and responsibility for our acts, for ourselves, and about God’s agency — what kind of God is this whom we worship? I know of few more essential questions than these.

But I find so often that in response to such questions, in the end I have to say: “I don’t know.” If said on occasion this may be a mark of humility in a teacher. If said too often it may be seen as a mark of ignorance and incompetence. We are paid to know.

I sometimes feel at this point that I have hit a rational brick wall.          

How to resolve questions about my intentions, God’s intentions, consequences both unforeseen and unintended, both in my own biography and in salvation history?

A clue comes from an unlikely source. On October 31, 2017, the editorial in the left-leaning British newspaper, TheGuardian, said “…one of the things which the Reformation makes clear is that progress does not proceed by rational means…[T]he actions of the reformers and their enemies were determined by their theological beliefs…about the ultimate purpose and goods of human life. They demand commitment…We may shrink from the dangers of such commitment, but we will accomplish very little without its power” (p 30).

The Emmaus Road

So I turn away from any theological maneuvers at this point, to get God or ourselves off the hook. Instead I go for help to a story, the story of the disappointed pair of followers of Jesus on the Emmaus road.

For they also had hit a rational brick wall, the brick wall of Golgotha every bit as impenetrable as today’s wall in Jerusalem. The place of the skull was not the intended destination of the disciples’ Galilean and Judean travels.

The two disconsolate figures were frantically re-running the deadly scenarios in their heads. They were devastated. Trying to make some sense of it all. It was not supposed to end like this. They felt now that they knew precisely nothing. “We had hoped that he was the one…but...” And the question of the stranger Jesus, apparently trying to make sense of their sadness, was divinely absurd: “What things?” Their response “are you the only one in Jerusalem who does not know…?” They did not intend to ask one of the most supremely absurd questions in human history. They certainly did not intend to offer the profoundest of insults.

So, he starts to teach them in such a way that the cold corpse of their faith begins to warm. Something stirs.

And then bizarrely, when they reach Emmaus He makes as if to go on, just as He had once on the Sea of Galilee. Absence had become presence and now presence threatens to become absence once again. What if they had allowed Him to walk away from Emmaus? What would the consequences of that have been? But no, they urge him to stay…stay… which is sometimes the only prayer that I can offer. “Please stay!” What an extraordinary moment of freedom conferred by the Christ!

And so it is in the simplest everyday gesture of welcome — the offering of a crust of bread — that they know! Know that it is Him. They know that they are loved. Loved beyond any shadow of doubt. He cares enough to return, to eat.

The Italian master, Caravaggio, depicts the scene in his painting “The Supper at Emmaus.” As Jesus raises His hand in blessing, the bowl of fruit on the edge of the table threatens to fall…into the lap of the viewer. It is, for all concerned, the tipping point. There will be consequences.

And then bizarrely, Jesus disappears suddenly. Are they loved still as Presence becomes absence once again? But it does not matter now because somehow they know beyond fear of contradiction that they are loved. Now they will have to revisit their understanding of coherence, of logic, of consequences. They saw Him executed…but here He is. They will have to interrogate their reliance on conventional rationality. They will have return to the questions of how they know things to be true and what things they know to be true.

Claiming to know

So, what can we purveyors of knowledge and wisdom claim to know?

I speak for myself. You may identify with what I say or not. What can I know in my deepest heart? I repeat, I answer the question for myself only.

One

I believe that, yes, I can sometimes be held accountable for those choices whose consequences I did not anticipate or intend.

The child’s final appeal to a parent is often: “I did not mean to.” It is not enough.

My answer would feature the expressions “it depends on…” and “might reasonably have been expected to know….” This matter raises important and complex questions but this is not the right place to address them.

Suffice it to say that yes, we are responsible for some outcomes of our deliberate action that we did not intend.

Two

But I also know this: I cannot allow myself to be paralyzed by fear of unintended consequences. I cannot live by fear. Jesus is very clear about that. I wish my Church was as clear.

As the Irish political thinker Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Doing nothing may also have unintended consequences, and may be a worse option than acting. As William James, a famous former resident of this city, once said:

In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark…We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow…If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces… What must we do? ‘Be strong and of good courage’. Act for the best, and take what comes…if death ends all, we cannot meet death better.”

Three

I must seek to live always intending the good.

I must live with spiritual resilience in a world where consequences seem increasingly difficult to predict both personally and in the wider world. Afterwards, I just have to live with the consequences of my choices, intended or otherwise.

But I must intend the good.

Four

I must acknowledge that I live in a world which shows a certain randomness, where it is often not easy to see God’s hand on the levers of control. This randomness is another side of the mystery of God. I must live, and help my students learn to live with a measure of uncertainty, and with that twin of faith which is called doubt.

Five

I must pray that God will be with me. Emmanuel, God with us. I must pray for God’s presence but sometimes have to face His apparent absence. Just like Cleopas in the Emmaus story. For Jesus sometimes appears when you least expect Him, and disappears when you most need Him. Or so it seems.

Six

I must live freely choosing among options and readily embracing responsibilities even those which are brought by consequences which I did not intend, and would not have wanted.

Knowing ourselves loved by God

Seven

But most importantly — and here we come to the heart of the matter — I, we, have to know deep inside ourselves that we are loved by God. As did Cleopas. We must allow ourselves to be loved by God.  It sounds very simple. But there may be many barriers to this in our own biography. For example, there are damaging relationships, relationships which might have served as the anteroom of intimacy with God but did not.

Some of these barriers may be painful. It may take a long time. We must be friends of time.

It is one thing to affirm that “God so loved the world…” but it is quite another to say, “I know myself loved by God.”

Yes, I can say all the right words — I have produced the right verbal formulae myself many times. I have sung karaoke carols to a kitsch Christ and even maybe meant them in some measure. I can affirm the doctrines of salvation, justification, sanctification — Luther’s many concerns — but to know myself loved by God, that is a different matter.

As we grow slowly into that interior recognition that we are indeed loved by God, we will then slowly shed burdens of unnecessary guilt, of wearying obligation, of debilitating shame under which we are prone to suffer. So much use of the tyrannical phrase “I should have…”!

Guilt, shame, exaggerated expectations of self and others produce many damaging unintended emotional and relational consequences.

We will manage, with love, the constant, daily felt need to justify, explain ourselves, to others, to God, to ourselves. We will avoid the need to compare ourselves in value with others. Less hounded by peer review! Then, maybe, the unintended harmful consequences will be fewer.

To know ourselves truly loved by God.

I find it is not easy.

I suspect I am not alone even among teachers of “religious studies.”

Maybe it is “the work of a lifetime,” to borrow a phrase.

Jeanette Winterson, a contemporary English writer, spoke these words over her father’s coffin: “The things I regret in my life are not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.”

Meister Eckhart, a forerunner of Luther, in a modern version says: “How can anyone be compassionate towards her neighbour who is not compassionate towards herself? This is why Jesus says: be compassionate! He wants our compassion to begin at home. He wants us to be compassionate towards our own body and soul.”

The invitation to us passed on by Luther is that we should know ourselves deeply loved by God, overwhelmed by grace. Not in some technical sense to satisfy a system of checks and balances. Loved “in the inward parts” – to use the psalmist’s phrase.

Then, and then alone, will we be able to live with the consequences of choices, intended and unintended, of our lives. If we do not know ourselves loved by God we shall always feel close to being overwhelmed.

True reformation

I wonder if Luther had any idea that his simple affirmation — that we are saved by grace, justified by faith — would be entombed by generations of church people who would try to make a thing, a system, concept, a doctrine, out of the love of God in Christ Jesus? Any idea that Jesus would be entombed a second time by churchmen? Such distortion has sometimes been a death-dealing and unintended consequence of Luther’s new life-giving understanding of faith in God.

Reformation…“Revival and reformation” is a slogan much loved by some in our Church. But reformation begins not in the strategic planning committee of any large ecclesiastical organization but in a monk’s cell, in a small provincial town, far from the seat of power, on the margins.

Named and known, known and loved

Scholars all, we need to know ourselves loved by God.

That is our main qualification for teaching our students.

To hear our own name spoken by God in the stillness.

Name me! Tell me who I am! Tell me why I was created! An old rabbinic prayer captures it well: “O Master of the universe, let me once before I die, hear my own true name on the lips of my brothers and sisters.”

Mary recognized Jesus after the resurrection when He spoke her name.

“I have called you by your name – you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

We need to have access to ourselves.

We must give God access to those parts of ourselves which we rarely visit.  

The simple prayer of the Welsh poet-priest captures it precisely: “Eavesdrop my heart.”

I believe I need to submit myself to a discipline, yes a regular discipline, of knowing myself deeply loved by God.

…Have I travelled across the Atlantic just to say that?

Yes I have.

Partly because there are many voices — even in the Church — telling us that we barely make it into the suburbs of God’s affections.

“You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” Psalms 51:6.

Or, as the two Emmaus followers said: “Stay! For our hearts were warmed on the road…”

2017…it’s a year for celebrating, remembering.

Perhaps the most important thing for us to remember is that we are, I am, loved by God.

To know ourselves loved by God.

All the rest is footnote. (And how we love our footnotes!)

To know ourselves truly loved by God.

I wonder what the unintended consequences of knowing that would be?

So, I pray that you may recognize the pulse of God’s fierce love beating in your hearts…

Now, and in what little remains of 2017, and always. Amen.

Author’s Note:

It is, in my view, not necessary to provide footnotes to a sermon as one would with an academic paper. However, some readers may wish to pursue some of the citations I have used. The words of Edmund Burke were slightly refashioned by Abraham Lincoln. The citation from William James is from a lecture he gave at Harvard and subsequently widely published as “The Will to Believe,” for example in J.Hick ed, Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970, pp 214-231, p 231. The words are not actually his; he himself is quoting from Fitz-James Stephen. Ellen White famously said that “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.” Christ’s Object Lessons, Washington DC: Review and Herald, p 65. Jeanette Winterson’s words come from her memoir Why be happy when you can be normal? New York, NY: Grove Press, 2011, p 210. The words cited from Meister Eckhart are from an unusual collection of his words, Simon Parke, Conversations with Meister Eckhart, Guildford: White Crow Books, 2009. The rabbinic prayer is from Rabbi Yehuda of Prague in the 16^th century. The brief prayer of R.S. Thomas is from “Requests,” in R.S.Thomas, Selected Poems, (London, UK: Penguin, 2003), p 236.

Michael Pearson is a retired ethicist living in the UK. This sermon was originally presented at the annual conference of the Adventist Society for Religious Studies (ASRS), held in Boston, Massachusetts on November 18, 2017.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

2017-12-31-books.png

It was a good year for Adventist authors. An Adventist nutritionist won a prestigious “Best in the World” award for her cookbook and another author saw his books banned by a conference president (and sales subsequently rise). Still other authors wrote on subjects as diverse as American history, philosophy, biblical commentary, Martin Luther, evolution, and emotions. Here we round up 17 books that were published in 2017.

1. Where Are We Headed? Adventism After San Antonio by William G. Johnsson

William G. Johnsson, retired long-time editor of Adventist Review, penned the title that arguably got the most buzz this year. In Where Are We Headed? Johnsson discussed the aftermath of the July 8, 2015 vote on women’s ordination at the General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas. He described it as “a truly sad day for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I am ashamed of what transpired.”

See:
Book Review: Where Are We Headed? Adventism after San Antonio
Six Young Scholars Review William Johnsson’s Book “Where Are We Headed? Adventism After San Antonio”
William G. Johnsson Explains Why He Wrote Where Are We Headed? Adventism after San Antonio
Roy Branson Legacy Sabbath School Class Responds to Johnsson’s Book

2. Adventist Authority Wars, Ordination, and the Roman Catholic Temptation by George R. Knight

It was a big year for prolific author and theologian George R. Knight. In addition to writing two of the church’s official Sabbath School quarterly companions used this year (on Romans and Galatians), he also caused a stir with a paper he presented at the London Unity Conference. His “9.5. Theses” — presented at the end of the paper — went viral and led to Michigan Conference President Jay Gallimore banning all of Knight’s books from the three Michigan Adventist Book Center locations. Amidst the kerfuffle, Knight released his book Adventist Authority Wars, which seems to be doing quite well despite the ban.

See:
Book Review: George Knight’s Reformation Tract
George Knight Talks About Trying to Slow Ted Wilson's Crusade
Catholic or Adventist: The Ongoing Struggle Over Authority + 9.5 Theses
Michigan Conference Bans George Knight’s Books from Its ABC Stores

3. Humanism and the Death of God by Ronald E. Osborn

Spectrum’s Summer Reading Group selection for 2017, Humanism and the Death of God asks, “Can we have a rationally coherent, morally compelling, and historically sustainable discourse, as well as practice, of humanistic values and human rights without a ‘thick’ metaphysical or religious framework?” To answer this question, Osborn engages with the writings of prominent religious critics including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

See: Summer Reading Group: Humanism and the Death of God

4. Steps to Christ, annotated edition by Ellen G. White, Historical Introduction and Notes by Denis Fortin

Ellen G. White’s much-loved and shared classic received an elegant, annotated update this year thanks to Denis Fortin, former dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University. Fortin’s meticulous work, which provides historical and theological context to White’s book through annotations and chapter introductions, is showcased in this 125^th anniversary edition that features cloth-covered binding with foil stamping and gilded edging.

See: Educating Readers about Ellen White's Writing Process

5. The Letter to the Romans: Paul Among the Ecologists by Sigve K. Tonstad

Prominent author Sigve Tonstad’s latest book was written for the Earth Bible Commentary series from Sheffield Phoenix Press. In a review for Spectrum, John Brunt described Letter to the Romans as “a magisterial work on the entire letter that not only embraces virtually all the issues in Pauline studies but also enters into fruitful dialogue with most of the major interpreters of Romans in both the past and the present. No one who is serious about the study of Romans can ignore this commentary.”

See: Book Review: Romans in Widescreen

6. Before We Call Them Strangers: What Adventists Ought to Know about Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus by Paul Dybdahl

Walla Walla University theology professor Paul Dybdahl believes that studying about other faiths can challenge, refresh, and bless, and says his book Before We Call Them Strangers was inspired by his theology students. This was Dybdahl’s first book and over the summer he chatted with Spectrum interviews editor Alita Byrd about his inspiration, process, and the reaction to his work.

See: New Book Urges Learning from Other Faiths

7. Il Principino Scomparso by Rolando Rizzo

Rolando Rizzo, an Italian pastor turned novelist, published his fourth novel this year through the Italian Adventist publishing house ADV. In an interview with Spectrum, the author told readers his latest work “follows a loved, respected, and happy Adventist family. There is a dad, a mum, and two young people who are very close to each other. All of a sudden, one of the kids disappears. The parents get a good private detective to search for their son. The search reveals a reality that they would have never imagined.”

See: Italian Pastor Turned Novelist Searches for Wider Audience

8. A Nation in God’s Hands by Jud Lake

Southern Adventist University professor Jud Lake’s second book tells the story of the American Civil War from the unique perspective of Ellen G. White's visions. Discussing the book with Spectrum editor Alita Byrd, Lake said, “When I finished my first book, Ellen White Under Fire…the sesquicentennial celebration of the American Civil War commenced (2011-2015), and I puzzled that there was no major publication on Ellen White’s contribution to Civil War literature. With White’s war essays on my mind, I attended the 150th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of First Manassas on July 21, 2011, and was fascinated. After a couple of years reading on the war, I began intensive research and writing in 2013 and finished [A Nation in God’s Hands] four years later.”

See: New Book Puts Ellen White Against Civil War Backdrop

9. Stories from Sunnyside by Marian de Berg

Marian de Berg is an administrative assistant at the Ellen G. White/Seventh-day Adventist Research Centre at Avondale College of Higher Education, where she has served for two decades. She also leads tours and trains volunteers at Ellen G. White’s Australian home, “Sunnyside.” With encouragement from her boss, Dr. John Skrzypaszek, she set out to tell the story of Ellen White’s time in Australia. Drawing from primary source material, including the personal correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials that Ellen White wrote during this nine-year period, de Berg paints a robust portrait of the beginnings of Adventism in Australia and White’s direct role in building a thriving Adventist community, complete with numerous churches, schools, and sanitariums.

See: Book Review: Stories from Sunnyside

10. The Wisdom of Your Heart: Discovering the God-Given Purpose and Power of Your Emotions by Marc Alan Schelske

“Your emotions are made in God’s image,” states author and Spectrum contributor Marc Alan Schelske at the beginning of his new book. In The Wisdom of Your Heart, Schelske takes the reader down his own road of discovery that emotions are a God-given source of guidance that can be used to deeper our understanding of self, others, and God. Raised Seventh-day Adventist, Schelske describes how his upbringing taught him to view emotions as untrustworthy and even sinful. In his book, he offers readers an opportunity to view emotions in a new light.

See: Book Review: The Wisdom of Your Heart

11. Longing for God by Frank M. Hasel

Longing for God was released in November 2017 by Pacific Press. Dale Galusha, president of the Adventist publishing house, recently discussed the journey of publication for Hasel’s book, saying “at the General Conference Annual Council meeting in October 2016, several people told me that Nancy Wilson, wife of Elder Ted Wilson, needed to talk with me right away. Later that day, we met in the foyer of the General Conference building, and she excitedly told me about a book that needed to be translated from German to English. She told me that it would be a powerful book in English. She was right. The result of that conversation is Longing for God by Dr. Frank Hasel, associate director of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference. This powerful prayer journal is filled with spiritual insights as well as practical ideas for making your prayer life more fulfilling and drawing you closer to God.”

See: Longing for God: An Interview with Dr. Frank Hasel

12. Out of Adventism: A Theologian’s Journey by Jerry Gladson

Jerry Gladson arrived at Southern Adventist University in the fall of 1972. He had just started a doctoral program in Old Testament studies at Vanderbilt University, and enjoyed sharing with his students what he was learning, encouraging them to think about things from multiple perspectives, with a goal of understanding what biblical texts actually said. Soon, Gladson found himself “caught up in the maelstrom of [the] church's greatest theological crisis. For him, the denomination's theology and practice agonizingly unravel[ed], forcing him to choose between loyalty to his church, his vocation, and his personal integrity,” state the publisher’s description. Gladson’s former student, Aage Rendalen, recently interviewed Gladson for Spectrum about his personal and poignant memoir.

See: Jerry Gladson on the Battle Between Text and Tradition

13. 500 Years of Protest and Liberty by Nicholas P. Miller

This year marked the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, and a number of new books commemorated the important milestone. One was Nick Miller’s500 Years of Protest and Liberty, published by Pacific Press. According to the publisher’s blurb, this new title “traces a direct line from Martin Luther’s powerful ideas about the equality of persons before God to more current debates about equal opportunity and the fundamental rights of humanity. Along the way, it asks tough questions about where the protestant church is headed today. Most important, 500 Years of Protest and Liberty is a reminder that Martin Luther’s powerful ideas, which shaped our thinking as Christians today, call us back to the fundamental principles of our Christianity.”

14. Here We Stand: Luther, the Reformation, and Seventh-day Adventism by Michael W. Campbell and Nikolaus Satelmajer

In this title, editors Campbell and Satelmajer have compiled writings from 25 scholars who compare and contrast Luther and Adventist theology. The book was published by Pacific Press which says this about the work: “Although separated in time by centuries, Seventh-day Adventists see themselves as heirs of the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther 500 years ago. This volume explores the various facets and contours of Luther and compares them with Seventh-day Adventism.”

15. Baptizing the Devil by Clifford Goldstein

Clifford Goldstein, editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, hopes his latest title will “free believers from the knee-jerk reaction that the only logical and rational response to the phrase ‘But it’s science!’ is to surrender one’s beliefs, even religious ones, to it,” according to the publisher’s blurb for Baptizing the Devil: Evolution and the Seduction of Christianity.

16. Old Testament Law for Christians: Original Context and Enduring Application by Roy E. Gane

Professor of Hebrew Bible & Ancient Near Eastern Languages at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University, Roy Gane is considered a leading expert in biblical law. In his latest book, Gane “explicates the often confusing legal system of ancient Israel, differentiates between time-bound cultural aspects of Israelite law and universally applicable aspects of the divine value system, and shows the ethical relevance of Old Testament law for Christians today,” according the publisher Baker Academic.

17. God, Land, and The Great Flood: Hearing the Story with 21st-Century Christian Ears by Brian Bull & Fritz Guy

Published by Adventist Forum, God, Land, and the Great Flood is a follow up to Bull and Guy’s God, Sky & Land. Lawrence T. Geraty, President Emeritus at La Sierra University, had this to say about the book: “Guy and Bull have done it again — translating the Flood Story the way it would have been understood by its original hearers! What a novel approach: using time, place, and circumstance to understand the message of the Bible.”

BONUS: Food as Medicine: Cooking for Your Best Health by Sue Radd

Though published in the fall of 2016, Sue Radd’s award-winning cookbook deserves an honorable mention this year. During the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, held in Yantai, China, May 26-29, 2017, Radd’s book was named “Best in the World” and awarded the Best “Health and Nutrition” Cookbook in the world for 2016. In a recent interview with Spectrum, Radd discussed her book and the big win in more depth. “More than 10,000 cookbooks altogether were entered, from more than 205 countries. At the 2017 award ceremony in China, more than 600 people representing 52 countries attended. These worldwide awards have been held annually for the last 22 years and are run by the family that runs Le Cordon Bleu cooking schools.”

See:
World Cookbook Award Winner Spills the Beans on Her Food Philosophy
Adventist Cookbook Named Best in the World

What was a favorite book you read this year, whether published in 2017 or before? Tell us in the comments below. And, if you appreciate the book reviews and author interviews we do throughout the year, please consider giving to support Spectrum. As a non-profit news organization, every gift — big or small — makes a difference. Thank you and Happy New Year!

Alisa Williams is managing editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

Images courtesy of the respective publishers.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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In Advent Hope,

Chuck Sandefur
Board Member
Adventist Forum

Adventist Forum, publishers of SPECTRUM and spectrummagazine.org, is an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to promoting community through conversation in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

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“Happy New Year” greetings bring all sorts of thoughts. Out with the old and in with the new. An opportunity for new beginnings, new habits, new choices, new resolutions to be better people. All of that is good until we realize our promises and resolutions are often no more substantial than the proverbial ropes of sand. With our human propensity toward evil, we are in bondage to a power we cannot break on our own. Scripture alone reveals the remedy for our condition. Our only hope is Jesus Christ — crucified, risen, and returning soon.

In many hearts, there is scarcely a breath of spiritual life. Our need is to look to Christ, who said, “I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:23). It is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that the Father loves us as much as He loves His Son.

More than 100 years ago, Ellen White believed that “a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work” (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 121). Imagine what she would say now. Satan fears nothing more than when God’s people clear the way for the Lord to pour out the His Spirit on a weak church. Why? Because every struggling Christian who prepares their heart to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit will be spiritually strengthened and renewed.

The Bible reminds us that spiritual revival is not something we muscle up on our own. It is the unique work of the Holy Spirit and will come only in answer to earnest prayer. The Spirit brings us the breath of spiritual life we are dying for. It’s the only way Christ can be in us and us in Him. Every church, every one of us, needs this, and the time to pray for it is now.

So, how do we do that? How do we change from lukewarm Christians and faltering churches to being fully alive in Christ?

Here are a few suggestions from Scripture that have richly blessed my life as I have brought my own failings to Jesus.

First, an earnest, sincere searching of the heart and confession of sin. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Second, united, persevering prayer and through faith a claiming of the promises of God. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke 11:13).

Third, deep humility — being willing to accept instruction and guidance from the Lord. God dwells “with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isaiah 57:15).

Fourth, allowing the Spirit to help us love others as Christ has loved us in acts of kindness throughout our neighborhoods. The Holy Spirit will communicate and bless all who are doing service for God. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34, 35).

Let this be our first work of the New Year. Create a process to follow throughout the year. Do not get discouraged. Remember, this is work our Lord delights in — to remake us from the inside out. He will bless all who come to Him in faith and trust in His goodness.

This article was written by John Freedman, president of the North Pacific Union Conference, and originally published on the union’s news website, GleanerNow. It is reprinted here with permission.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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How do we deal with disagreements in the church? When the combativeness of the political world spills over into the church, what should Christians do? James Calvin Davis’ book, Forbearance: A Theological Ethic for a Disagreeable Church(Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2017), attempts an answer.

Davis is a professor of religion at Middlebury College in Vermont and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. A scholar of church and state relations, and a theologian in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition, he is also the author of In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues That Divide Us. While he was raised in an evangelical environment he now identifies as a liberal Protestant.

Davis lifts up forbearance as a virtue derived from Ephesians where the writer encourages his readers in “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians. 4:2-3).” Forbearing, as the Greek anecho reveals, is “to bear with” or “to hold up,” in the sense of “actively carrying something or someone for a time…an active extension of concern for one another.”

In Colossians the writer exhorts us to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other . . . (Colossians 3:12-13).” The basis of our forbearance with one another is that God extends forbearance to us (Romans 2:2-4). Forbearance, says Davis, is the foundation for God’s grace toward us and is the bedrock of all our Christian belief.

This reliance on forbearance is a clear witness of the deep disagreements within the apostolic church. If the worshipping communities were uniform in their beliefs and practices there would be no need for this virtue. Yet these differences, while inevitable in any vital church community, need not drive a wedge between people who try to model the character of Christ. “In the practice of forbearance,” notes Davis, “Christians do not create unity; we confess it.”

Forbearance is defined as “the active commitment to maintain Christian community through disagreement, as an extension of virtue and as a reflection of the unity in Christ that binds the church together.” Davis explores the relation of forbearance to humility, patience and hope, wisdom, faithfulness, friendship, truth, and justice. A final chapter on “Forbearance as Social Witness” rounds out his exposition.

A quick glance at three of the chapters may illustrate the practical value of Davis’ book for the church.

Friendship

Using Aristotle’s three-fold distinction of friendship types—pleasure, utility, and character—Davis explores friendships based on character as those most worthwhile in the community of the church. His definition of friendship of this sort is typical of his care in choosing his words: “Friendship is a relationship of mutuality and intimacy rooted in shared interests, loves, or goals and characterized by genuine interest in the other person as a particular other.”

He examines the tension that many Christian writers claim exists between agape (love) and philia (friendship). Traditionally, theologians tell us that the ideal Christian love is disinterested love, agape, the kind that is inclusive and universal. Friendship (philia) is seen as a rival to agape and even as idolatry, according to Kierkegaard, because it is desire-based rather than duty-bound. But Davis believes that Christian suspicion of friendship comes from an exaggerated emphasis on the story of the Good Samaritan as the exemplar of Christian love.

While the love shown by the Samaritan is certainly to be emulated in our relations to the world, Davis points to Jesus’ command to the disciples to love each other. “By specifying love-in-community as the calling card of Christian discipleship, however, Jesus describes something different than the Good Samaritan love of the enemy and stranger. In doing so, he speaks to the importance of mutual affection among the followers of Jesus.” Simply put, community in the church arises from our mutual affection for the people we worship with and develop deep friendships with.

Jesus calls his disciples “friends” and implies that this is the kind of love he expects them to show to each other. “With the disciples,” says Davis, “Jesus establishes the church as a community whose central obligation is to share friendship with one another as Christ has befriended them.”

Truth

Practicing forbearance, the agreement to respect and love one’s fellow believers despite differences, faces its strongest test when those differences are deeply divisive issues such as abortion, economics, race, and climate change. Should the church speak the truth even if it divides the body?

Davis appeals to Calvin on what it takes to keep a community together through such disagreements. Christians have to figure out how to live within communities comprising both the elect and hypocrites, as Calvin calls those who participate in the church but do not have a saving relationship with God. We don’t have the option, cautions Calvin, to simply walk away from a church that disappoints us. He argues that “even deep disagreements about theology, morality, and worship are not grounds for division in the church.” In Calvin’s view, not all articles of doctrine are of the same sort: some are foundational and are not up for negotiation while others can be expected to result in disagreement.

But what about significant disagreements on the fundamentals of theology and morality within the church? We can’t leave, but neither can we allow such things to fester. Calvin offers three helpful hints. First, we must not fall into the arrogance of insisting that the church reflect our own perceptions of the truth. Second, he asks us to focus on our own imperfections and to avoid exaggerating the impact that others’ convictions may have on us. Finally, Calvin reminds us that “forgiveness is the backbone of the Christian community.” Baptism, our sacrament of forgiveness, is more than a one-time experience; it is the means through which we receive forgiveness continuously—and live with disagreements.

Protestants often choose doctrinal purity over a commitment to community. How do we practice forbearance and hold on to our convictions about that which really matters? The secret, says Davis, “to maintaining a commitment to truth while practicing forbearance is to allow the latter to shape the former.” Our deepest convictions are worthless if we cannot live them out in generosity and love.

Social Witness

The final chapter, “Forbearance as Social Witness,” speaks to how the church might relate to a contentious political and cultural sphere. “By practicing forbearance in their religious communities,” says Davis, “Christians model a better way for navigating differences.”

The virtues of civility—humility, integrity, mutual respect—create the possibility of a deliberative democracy. If those virtues sound familiar to Christians, notes Davis, it is because they correspond well to what he has been describing as forbearance. “Because of these connections, I think the modeling of forbearance is perhaps the best gift the church can give to a political culture that is desperate to learn how to navigate its own differences in healthier ways.” Churches that practice forbearance equip their members with the attitudes and practices needed in a healthy democracy.

If there is a weakness in Davis’ book it is that he tries to stretch the fabric of forbearance over too many virtues—humility, patience, wisdom, truth, justice—any one of which could fill a book. His method is to show how forbearance connects to and supports each of these Christian virtues. As a result, there is a good deal of repetition. There is also a stylistic turn in his writing that I eventually found grating, and it is that every idea is illustrated three different ways. He does not lack for fluency, however. Every sentence is neatly manicured, with no hangnails or rough edges.

These slight discomforts do not detract from the timely value of his insights on civil discourse, both inside and outside the church. If Christians were determined to make forbearance with one another their hallmark, despite their deep differences in social and political agendas, perhaps the prayer of Jesus, “May they all be one, so that the world may know that you have sent me,” could be fulfilled.

Barry Casey taught religion, philosophy, and communications for 28 years at Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist University, and business communication at Stevenson University for 7 years. He continues as adjunct professor in ethics and philosophy at Trinity Washington University, D.C. More of Casey’s writing is available on his blog, Dante’s Woods.

Image Credit: Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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In the latest edition of the Spectrum journal, linguistics professor Terese Thonus writes a personal article called "Guns in Church: No Sanctuary" about her fear of guns in churches, and her campaign to convince her local Adventist church to adopt a policy about firearms.

In this interview she talks about the background of her fear and why she decided to move her family from Kansas to Maryland.

If you haven't yet read the article, maybe this Q&A will encourage you to pick it up. If you aren't a Spectrum subscriber, you are missing out, not only on the thought-provoking piece from Terese Thonus, but 80 pages of reporting and essays, art and poetry, on topics from hermeneutics to young millenial Adventist beliefs to women's ordination. Click on the "Journal" tab above, and "Subscribe here."

Question: You have been concerned about our church's policy, or lack thereof, about guns in church. What can you tell us about your situation in Kansas, where you lived until recently?

My situation in Kansas became untenable both at work and at church. At the University of Kansas, we were told that as of July 1, 2017, our concealed carry exemption would expire. All campus facilities, therefore, would be accessible to those carrying firearms, unless such facility could provide armed security and metal detectors. (Practically, only Athletics has enough money to monitor access to the campus stadium and basketball hall.)

As state employees, we would be submitted to a gag rule: I could be arrested, for example, for inquiring whether someone was carrying before gaining access to my office since that would be a violation of his/her Second Amendment rights. I realized that it would be difficult for me to protect my students and employees, and to protect myself, if someone wanted to discharge a weapon. This caused me a great deal of anxiety, especially after I engaged in two active shooter trainings conducted by our campus police department. 

Out in public, I gradually became aware of how many people around me were carrying firearms. For example, one day in June 2017, I visited a Social Security office and was asked by uniformed security whether I was carrying a weapon, and my purse was searched. During my 45-minute wait for an appointment, the same officer asked four individuals who answered "yes" to his question to return to their vehicles and stow their guns. Two of these individuals engaged in arguments with the officer about their Second Amendment rights and had to be informed that they were now on federal, not state property. 

I am naive enough to expect that the churches I attend, especially Adventist churches, are places of refuge and safety, and I very much believe that the church sanctuary should be "a house of prayer for all people." I am smart enough to know that my beliefs about guns are not shared by all Adventists and that some members of my congregation no doubt own firearms. When I realized that those same people might think it okay to bring those firearms into a sanctuary, I was shocked. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but I was. I no longer felt safe.

Your article talks about your son, who is now 20 and diagnosed with autism, and the fascination he has with guns, even going so far as stealing your credit card to buy a gun on Amazon. What can you do as a mother to protect your son and yourself?

I believe that the best protection I can give my son is to urge him not to carry a weapon. As an adult living in Kansas, David may or may not be able to own a weapon in future depending on enforcement of statutes regarding mental health status and background checks. He has received basic training in personal protection as a student of taekwondo. His limitations make it difficult for him to understand nuances, such as the difference between a police officer carrying a firearm on the job vs. carrying a firearm in church. 

Last summer you moved to Baltimore from Kansas, partly as a consequence of the law permitting the carrying of concealed weapons almost anywhere in Kansas. How have you found Baltimore to be different from Kansas, and your local church in Baltimore vs. in Kansas? 

The local church in Kansas decided that sticking our heads in the sand was the solution. In Baltimore in particular, gun violence is wrapped around narratives of police brutality and race. At the University of Baltimore, where I work, more than half of the students are underrepresented minorities, and we often discuss issues of gun safety and control. 

Black Seventh-day Adventist pastors I have talked to are very much against firearms in their churches, and the pastor of the multiracial church where I currently attend is very much against them. I don't know whether the congregation would back a gun-free policy, and thus far I'm keeping my opinions to myself, perhaps out of a false sense of security.  

And it is certainly false. Last week in Harford County, north of Baltimore, several pastors approached their representatives in the Maryland House of Delegates to push through legislation permitting church members to carry weapons — this on the heels of the Texas church shooting. 

You strongly encouraged your local pastor in Kansas to develop a policy on guns in the church, and a plan in case of an active shooter. What response did you get? What response did you want?

My Spectrum article “No Sanctuary" includes emails I exchanged with two local pastors. Neither of the pastors was willing to bring up the issue of guns in church board meetings or to engage their congregation in discussion and training around possible active shooter events. When the Kansas-Nebraska Conference informed pastors that they should neither encourage nor discourage guns in churches, my pastor asked that I drop the issue. He found it difficult to separate my position on noncombatancy from my position on carry of firearms in churches. These positions are related, but separate, and my focus was on safety. I could not (and cannot) understand. 

Do you feel that a church should be treated differently than other public places when it comes to carrying guns? 

While a church may be open to the public, a church is not a public space. It is privately owned and managed. Any private space can be declared by its owners and managers a gun-free zone. In some states, including Kansas, any public or private space is considered open to gun carry unless designated otherwise. 

It is my opinion that some public spaces, including schools and hospitals, should also be designated gun-free. The irony is that the lawmakers who proposed and passed permitless firearms carry in Kansas — including in public schools and mental health centers — did so ensconced in a gun-free zone: the State Capitol.

You probably found yourself in disagreement with many of your neighbors in Kansas, with your strong antipathy to guns. Why do you not own a gun? What is your philosophy on gun ownership? How is that philosophy informed by your religious beliefs?

Jan Paulsen [former General Conference president] stated it best in a March 2008 Adventist World article: "When you carry arms you imply that you are prepared to use them to take another's life, and taking the life of one of God's children, even that of our 'enemy,' is inconsistent with what we know to be sacred and right" ("Clear Thinking About Military Service," p. 8).  

As an Adventist Christian, I believe that I should not carry a firearm, either for personal protection or as a member of the military. The release of Hacksaw Ridge was an excellent opportunity for the Adventist Church to address pacifism, noncombatancy, and gun violence. Instead, we focused on Desmond Doss's courage under fire and contribution to his country, all of which are noteworthy, but we completely missed the point.

You describe yourself as becoming more fearful in recent years. Why is this? Have you been in a situation personally where you were afraid for your own safety?

The poem in "No Sanctuary" refers to three experiences of violence in my life: personal assault (physical and sexual), consequences of war I've seen in refugees, and the shock of seeing firearms, both open and concealed, in churches. 

Do you feel that this issue is one that should be looked at higher up in church administration, at the union or division level, or is this an issue for the local church, dependent on local needs and culture?

I think that local churches should be allowed to decide whether and how to create their sanctuaries as weapons-free zones. Absolutely this is an issue that must be discussed "higher up" as well because of safety and liability issues. Adventist Risk Management insurance policies, for example, have a firearms use exclusion, which means that an employee or volunteer "protecting" a congregation is personally liable in legal actions. 

How long have you been an Adventist? 

I have been a Christian since 16 and an Adventist since 18. I was baptized at the Beltsville Maryland Seventh-day Adventist Church. Having been raised Catholic, I was (and am) particularly interested in the church's teachings on health, the priesthood of all believers, and a historically broad interpretation of "Thou shalt not kill." Some of the strongest and gentlest Adventists I know are pacifists and noncombatants, including three Whitecoats. As possession and use of firearms is now being cast as a public health issue, I think the church in North America has the opportunity to combine teaching about our "health message" with teaching about "bearing arms."

Where have you lived? 

As a child, I lived in Latin America (Colombia, Aruba), Europe (Britain, the Netherlands), and Asia (Japan, Singapore). As an adult, I have lived throughout the United States (Alabama, California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, and North Carolina) in addition to Brazil and Thailand. 

What advice do you have for parents of teens who may be interested in guns?

As an Adventist parent, I've tried to avoid "strain[ing] out gnats but swallow[ing] a camel" (Matthew 23:23). If our children have made a decision to follow Christ, I think it is important to share with them the multiplicity of views about the sixth commandment that exist in Christian and Adventist circles. Let them know that they can make the decision not to own guns or to use them for "self-protection." I use the negative here on purpose, since the norm in the United States is to own and use guns. According to BBC News, as of November 2017, Americans own 270 million guns — not including military and police weapons — that is, on average nine guns for every 10 residents. Information like this that is publicly available can become part of our conversations with teens about "camels"— frankly, how Jesus asks that we treat people, including our enemies or potential enemies.

Terese Thonus is an applied linguist who serves as professor and director of the University Writing Program at the University of Baltimore. Previously, she directed the Writing Center at the University of Kansas and taught at California State University-Fresno, Southwestern Adventist College and East Carolina University.

Alita Byrd is interviews editor for Spectrum Magazine.

Image credit: Pexels.

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Within Adventism, no topic matters more than the one Edward W. H. Vick addressed in his 2011 book, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully (available in paperback or on Kindle). Vick, who taught many years at Canadian Union College and now resides in Nottingham, England, earned degrees in philosophy and theology from three British universities, including Oxford, and took his doctorate in systematic theology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. During the 1960s he taught at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He has written a dozen or so books on a wide range of theological topics. The following interview, conducted by Charles Scriven, chair of the Adventist Forum Board, addresses themes from the afore mentioned reflection on the Christian doctrine of Scripture. 

Question: The title of your book on Scripture reflects one of its main themes, namely, that the metaphor of “inspiration” is a misleading way to discuss the status and importance of the Bible. Why is that so? 

Answer: Let me say, to begin, that I worked from two guiding principles. I first asked what happens with the Bible in the Christian community. What does the church do with Scripture? What is its practice? This requires faithfully reporting on how, in worship, devotion, interpretation and evaluation, the church actually approaches and treats Scripture. The second principle was that of explaining the church’s practice, or of putting the practice, so to speak, into theory. This means asking how the church itself has explained the status of Scripture, and seeing whether that explanation is consistent with what it actually does.

We notice at once that a certain process of interpretation determines how the Bible is read. Certain principles of interpretation become standardized and form a tradition for understanding the Bible. That hermeneutic tradition declares that the Bible is to be taken as the guide for doctrine and for practice. One result is a manifest concern for the authority of Scripture.

So now the question comes to mind: How is it that the Bible came to have the authority it has in the church?

Well, we must talk about the story of its composition, of its sources and how they were put together. How did what were at first oral traditions come to be put into writing, when, and why? What process, furthermore, governed how some written documents, but not all that were available, became part of the sixty-six-book collection we think of as the biblical canon? Finally, why does the contemporary Christian accept the decision made long ago about which books should be left in or left out?

The traditional defense of the Bible’s authority brings me to the title of the book, From Inspiration to Understanding. Many have said, and still say, “The Bible has authority because it is inspired.” That is the basic issue the book examines.

And this brings us back to my question: Why do you think the metaphor of “inspiration” is a misleading way to get at the status and importance of the Bible?

I said that we must first consider the practice of the church, then form a conclusion as to what it means. If the text of Scripture were lost or unread, it would have no authority. “Inspiration” is a relational term. Human agents are inspired. And if people say that a piece of writing is inspired, they mean that what someone wrote affects them in a certain way, and perhaps also that it had its origin in a certain way. But that judgment is subjective. We cannot say that the document itself, apart from reader reaction to it, is “inspired.” The Bible has authority because it has influence, not just because someone pronounces it “inspired.”

Again, how does the Bible come to have its authority, its influence in the life of the church?

The Bible is testimony concerning what God has done. Scripture bears witness to claims concerning God’s revelation in the story of the Hebrews and of Jesus; and of the acceptance, by the first Christians, of Jesus as the Christ. These are historical claims.

But Christians make another kind of claim, based on later and contemporary Christian experience. They recognize claims about the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as authentic because, in reading Scripture, they experience God’s revelation and find it a genuine reality just as the earliest Christians did. They testify to that reality knowing it is not amenable to proof. 

Yes! The revelation to which Scripture testifies cannot be demonstrated.

A theologian who was a chaplain in the army remarked that he constantly met soldiers who told him they could not have faith because as they read Scripture they could not identify with the ancient understanding of the universe that provided the context for the writings. So he answered by distinguishing between the framework, or worldview, in which a message is placed, and the essence of the message itself. You can hold on to that essence without supposing the worldview, as the ancient writers did, that the earth is flat, or that the sun moves across the arch of heaven.

So the Bible, the written word, is not identical with the divine revelation to which it bears witness.

Just think of Joshua, who demanded that the sun stand still. Astronomers today would have a lot to teach him. But again, what is the text of Scripture actually supposed to do? The point, Christians say, is that when the Bible is read it becomes the medium of a very particular event, or experience: the revelation of God through the influence of the risen Christ. And that is what matters. The words are inert and lifeless apart from the experience; they come alive when they mediate knowledge of a living reality.

To exert influence, the Bible must be read, it must be interpreted. But the church and its members are human and prone to error, so what really assures the authenticity of the Christian message?

Readers can approach the Bible devotionally, reading it for comfort, spiritual uplift, assurance, a relationship with Christ. They can also approach it with the purpose of establishing doctrine within a particular context, or church community. As the community develops, new questions arise, new concepts emerge, and new decisions have to be made. The text itself is established by means of skillful scholarship. It’s “there.” From such a text the church derives its doctrines. Then these doctrines come to be defined as orthodox, or what the church’s administration requires that you believe. And when questions arise, church leaders must defend their method of interpretation. They must explain how the doctrine was derived from the text. Please note that I am describing church practice. From what the church does we can make firm propositions about the position and status of Scripture. And we don’t have to speak of “inspiration” in order to achieve this result.

Yes, but what about authenticity? How can we assure, or at least endorse, the integrity of effort toward the establishment of doctrine?

Doctrine is derived from particular passages of Scripture. First there is selection of texts considered relevant. Then, when one or more passages have been interpreted doctrinally, the astonishing claim is made that this is “what the Bible teaches.” Such claims are sometimes made even when different passages from other parts of Scripture present contrary positions. Closed definitions of acceptable doctrine can restrict understanding by unduly confining the message of Scripture. An example is when the primary focus confines attention to certain selected texts that Adventists have focused on in a few favorite apocalyptic passages.

Say more about the Adventist tradition of prophetic interpretation.

Our forebears retained certain key features of prophetic interpretation they inherited from the Millerite movement. Miller saw all Scripture as on a level. He could draw proof texts from any part of it and place them in his system. He saw himself as a man of the concordance. He even used the term “promiscuous” of his method.

Following the Great Disappointment, believers who had expected the end of the world and their translation into “heaven” had to come to terms with their situation. Could anything remain of their beliefs? One group seized upon a new speculation from Hiram Edson. According to him, the expected cleansing of the sanctuary was happening in heaven, not on earth as Miller had thought. That would take time. The destruction of the earth would come later, in its turn. The idea that Jesus was now a priest in a heavenly sanctuary meant that they had time to reassess, and rebuild. Their hope in the Advent could be renewed. They were reassured. These early Adventists had to admit their dating error, or their hermeneutic error, or both. They admitted neither, but instead re-interpreted the reference of the key terms in their key text, Daniel 8:14. They thus decided to continue employing the same method of interpretation that had produced the Great Disappointment.

Over time, how has all this affected the way Adventists deal with the Bible?

Here are some rules of interpretation that have become accepted:

1) In developing doctrine from the text of Scripture, do not ask questions like the following: date of composition of the books, how the final text was compiled into “books,” what the relation is between passages which are duplicated within the books, how different versions of events are found in the individual books, etc. 

2) Treat all passages of Scripture as of equal value as sources of doctrine.

3) Accept the text as it stands, treating passages from any biblical book as equivalent in value to any other. Any chosen passage has an equal status with any other chosen passage, and all can be used as “proof texts.”

4) Attempt, where appropriate, to coordinate the text of Scripture with future events and so make predictions about that future, even specifying dates or periods of time in relation to those future events. This became a dominating concern. Adventists have, uniquely, the God-given mission to foretell the future of the world and to characterize God’s coming judgment.

In the course of all this, some themes, like that of the sanctuary, have taken on a shape quite different from what the original text suggests. What are some of your constructive suggestions for us as we struggle toward greater integrity in our interpretation of the Bible?

1) Let’s learn to show some humility in asserting our claims. That shows up in being willing to discuss, and if need be, revise them.

2) Let’s recognize the importance of considering talks and writing, by competent people, that develop ideas and methods that are new to us, or have even been overlooked or rejected. This will lead to honest and sincere discussion.

3) Let’s realize that we cannot retain all the results of the conversations that took place during the immediate post-Disappointment period.

4) Let’s allow that Scriptures consist of very diverse contents. Each of these requires its appropriate understanding. The apocalyptic elements are important, but cannot be the single, or even the primary, model for understanding the divine revelation.

5) Where discernment is required (and when is it not?) let’s be sure to appoint committee members who have some competence in their knowledge of Greek, in the history of the text and in the story of its acceptance as Scripture, some awareness of Hebrew and relevant historical contexts.

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Author Mark R. McMinn begins his book The Science of Virtue with a personal anecdote that sets the stage for the following chapters: when he was preparing to leave for graduate school, a concerned couple from his church approached with a dire warning that to pursue a degree in clinical psychology would likely cause him to abandon his faith.

It’s a story that rings familiar to many Christians who have pursued degrees in the sciences, myself included: as an undergraduate studying psychology at an Adventist college, I was told my chosen degree would lead me away from God.

The Christian church has had a tense relationship with science for centuries (to put it mildly), but McMinn’s intriguing look at positive psychology is an effort to reinforce the delicate bridge between the two.

To do so, McMinn draws upon current and recent research on virtues — much of which is being conducted by Christian social scientists. He writes,

While it might not be fair to say that the war between psychology and religion is completely over, I find it remarkable that…committed Christians author much of the scientific psychology literature I read. Not only can psychologists be Christians, and Christians be good social scientists, but some of the most thrilling developments in the field have taken place because committed Christians decided to wage peace with psychology (1-2).

McMinn offers four reasons for writing The Science of Virtue: 1) “positive psychology helps us reclaim, or redeem, the language of virtue,” 2) “positive psychology needs the church,” 3) “the church can benefit from positive psychology,” and 4) “positive psychology can help Christian counselors and pastoral counselors do their work in new and refreshing ways” (3, 8-10).

With these four reasons as a framework, along with the premise that “social science can enhance our faith just as faith can sharpen our science” (11), McMinn proceeds in discussing six virtues: wisdom, forgiveness, gratitude, humility, hope, and grace.

Before diving into the virtues, he offers a brief history on how the field of positive psychology evolved and the vital role Christian scientists have played from the very beginning:

In 1998 the president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, noted that we psychologists had done a very good job describing and treating what goes wrong with people, but had largely overlooked what goes right with people. Almost overnight a vibrant contemporary science of virtue was born, and since then many Christians have been involved in this new movement to study virtue scientifically. Many of the leading researchers on the topic of forgiveness are Christians, as are some of the world’s leading experts on gratitude. Almost every scientist currently studying humility is Christian. New research programs are being developed to study grace, and guess who is leading the way? It’s difficult to even imagine studying grace without knowing Jesus (2).

Each chapter (one for each virtue), discusses what the latest scientific research can offer in understanding each respective virtue, what Christianity can teach us about it, how the two can work together, and finally, how Christian counselors can incorporate this symbiosis into their work with patients.

McMinn begins with wisdom, which has received the most scientific study — at least three decades worth. Other virtues are still in their infancy where scientific research is concerned, including humility and grace, but McMinn proposes that though “science and faith may not be equal talking partners” yet for these particular virtues, “both have contributions to offer to the conversation” (115).

McMinn treads softly in his exploration, recognizing that a melding of psychological research with Christian principles may be met with resistance by some readers. Despite the challenges, which McMinn seems well aware of, he persists, and I think his gentle approach has the potential to win over even the most skeptical of readers.

McMinn does not shy away from discussing the limitations of science or the studies conducted, and his honesty is both refreshing and helpful in understanding what science can and cannot accomplish in the study of virtues. Nor does McMinn fail to confront the failings of the church in its own practice of the virtues it professes. In his study of forgiveness, he writes:

A church is a vulnerable place where we learn about one another’s foibles and weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And in the process we hurt one another with alarming frequency.

 

…

 

Where do we forgive? We forgive in lots of places, but perhaps especially inside the community of faith, where we have ample opportunities to wound one another and also to learn about and grow toward the character of Jesus. If the science of positive psychology can help us even a little bit with the mechanics of forgiveness, then the church stands to become a more beautiful reflection of God’s presence in this broken world (67).

As he concludes his book, McMinn offers the following appeal to Christians and their relationship with both faith and science:

Sometimes we act as if faith provides the final answers in life and that no further questioning or investigation is needed. This is neither good theology nor good thinking. Faith requires interpretation, and the lenses through which we interpret faith are always influenced by personal and cultural factors. Good theology — being sometimes called the queen of sciences — is premised on the assumption that mining the depths of faith is an ongoing dynamic process. We do not have all the final answers, but instead we have a God who longs to be known and who invites us into the mysteries and meanings of life. This is a humble posture, one that calls us to curiosity and hard work, rather than simply declaring to the world that we have everything figured out.

 

We Christians can resist science, standing defensively while looking for ways it contradicts or challenges our faith, or we can welcome science as a way to grow in humility. When science causes us to question our doctrines and presuppositions, then we are called into the adventure of working harder to understand the apparent inconsistencies and contradictions (164).

It’s an intricate balancing act, to be both scientist and Christian, and to attempt to weave those two sides together in a way readers will hear, accept, and take to heart, but I believe McMinn succeeds at the task in The Science of Virtue.

Alisa Williams is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org. This review originally appeared on the Englewood Review of Books and is reprinted here with permission. 

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Philosophy of religion is the branch of philosophy that explores the variety of religious phenomena including the idea or the concept of God and its relationship to reason or common sense. Though “philosophizing about religion” cannot be easily explained, I believe that the primary goal of philosophy of religion is to look closely at existing religious worldviews and traditions, rigorously investigating the traditional arguments for God’s existence, the problem of evil, religion and science, and justifications for the existence of religious pluralism, to name a few. Philosophy of religion is, of course, one of the most comprehensive areas of philosophy, for it includes studies in logic, epistemology, ethics, science, etc. It is also intellectually challenging and rewarding at the same time. The basic questions of philosophy—like where are we coming from? Or where are we going?—are investigated through the question of origins or afterlife in philosophy of religion. It is worth mentioning that the new book by Dan Brown, Origin, deals with these questions in a mystical-fictional-scientific way. Therefore, philosophy of religion again might become relevant even in the popular belletristic releases.

As we are all aware, philosophy of religion explains religious phenomena without personal engagement, based on rational arguments and some logical evidence. The basic strength of the analytical philosophy of religion is to provide sound argumentation as antidote for esoteric postmodern trends in thinking about language and reality. However, most of the analytical research in philosophy of religion looks more like a mathematical logic than philosophical treatises. The symbolic logic in the analytical tradition seems to be detached from the basic philosophical questions of origins, meaning, and destiny. Philosophy of religion, therefore, can be done in a rigid and detached way without asking the question of meaning or purpose of human existence which would be worth living. This “logical” and “objective” approach is viewed as a safeguard against the one-sided, biased and narrow-minded position of value-laden theology or religious studies (another assumed strength of the philosophy of religion). Nevertheless, it distances itself from the existential and axiological questions raised by humanity in every generation. I will try to tackle only one of these questions.

How does the very knowledge of divine realities and logical investigation of God contribute to the question: what sort of life is worth living? In other words, how does a religious phenomenon impact a person or a student existentially on the level of the life lived, not just what type of reality correspond to the religious phenomenon (something like Wittgensteinian transcendence of realism and non-realism)? Let me unpack this.

Philosophy of religion belongs to the realm of study called humanities. After all, it is a philosophy. Most of the humanities in contemporary higher education do not deal with the question of meaning or purpose. Unfortunately, as they have become instrumental in obtaining knowledge for the specific professions, ancient and deep questions of humanum have been lost. Students are rarely confronted with the fundamental questions of life and their impact on student’s daily living. Though philosophy as the most general discipline of humanities sits in judgment of all phenomena, as its definition implies, it still can be taught without reference to meaning and purpose of life worth living.

It is a challenge to teach philosophy of religion as a relevant discipline that raises questions of meaning or purpose especially of the issues of whether life is worth living and/or what sort of life is worth living. Humanities, in general, avoid discussing these issues. Intelligibility of the religious phenomena has been questioned recently by Wittgenstein and others. This is, of course, an assumed weakness of philosophy of religion. However, I believe that the basic challenge is to find the way to teach students why this life is worth living or what kind of life is worth living in spite of the irresolvable and complex issue of the problem of evil or (non)existence of God. We can find the perfect fine-tuning argument in cosmology or irreducible complexity in biology, but, at the end of the day, why and how will this knowledge contribute to my personal life in order to have a permanent value of life worth living? Can philosophy of religion become value-laden? Maybe looking at only Christian perspective of philosophy of religion is insufficient. Perhaps we should adopt a comparative approach and explore other religious traditions more deeply to find the ultimate permanent value of this very life as worth living.

My suggestion is to look first at this issue from the perspective of inquiry. Every human being desires to know and strives to have its life examined as the Greek tradition taught us. A holistic approach to human life includes this inquiry. We are intelligent and curious beings. The very fact that philosophy of religion raises critical questions of origins, destiny, purposes, and meaning contributes to this holistic inquiry as part of life worth living/life properly lived. Whatever is the result of the investigation of religious phenomena within the study of the philosophy of religion — what contributes to a life worth living — is the very ability and desire to ask questions and explore the unknown phenomena.

A life worth living is the life of expected flourishing that is the result of a search for a life a bit more than the ordinary. Asking questions, therefore, with openness towards life a bit more than the ordinary leads to a life worth living. These questions and potential answers transcend the instrumental approach to the study of human ideals like goodness, beauty, and truth. The value of human being as intrinsically given or defined by the transcendence we are searching for can be found only in the phenomenological search for a life a bit more than the ordinary or a sort of life worth living. I also believe that whatever is the result of the study of the philosophy of religion with its goal to “define” the Ultimate Reality (whether it makes sense or not), this craving for the unknown and desire to experience a bit more than ordinary, might provide the space for transcendence and recognition of the sacredness of human life. In my own experience the combination of openness to transcendence in the religious consciousness with rational inquiry of religious phenomena contributed to the discovery of a life worth living/life properly lived.

Philosophy of religion, therefore, if it is taught from the perspective of the quest for a sort of life worth living can stimulate students to search for the meaning and purpose of their lives and probably even open themselves to transcendence and that universal space of the ultimate meaning that contributes to a life worth living.

Aleksandar S. Santrac, DPhil, PhD, is Professor of Ethics & Philosophy and Chair of the Religion Department at Washington Adventist University, Extraordinary Professor of Dogmatics and Dogma History at North-West University, South Africa and Visiting Researcher in bioethics at Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. This article originally appeared on the Philosophy of Religion website and is part of their “Philosophers of Religion on Philosophy of Religion” series. It is reprinted here with permission. 

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Social media feeds across the country recently blew up with countless #MeToo postings. While many came from A-list celebrities, did you notice how many seemed to be posted by friends, colleagues, and family members?

I've thought a lot about how to respond. Or whether I should even join the conversation. Like too many others my life has been ravaged by sexual abuse, but it’s not something I enjoy talking about. I’m not an activist by nature. In the past I’d managed to avoid the issue for decades, knowing that, once I acknowledged it, I’d have to deal with the shattering impact it’d had on my life. Back in those days it was hard enough to just get through the day. As a pastor’s wife, raising two young children, I didn’t have time for a crisis. Besides, nothing would change the fact that it had happened — so why reopen old wounds, right?

Funny thing about crises. If you keep ignoring their knock on your door they will eventually break the door down. The day my door caved in I fell to my knees sobbing beside my bed. When I turned to my Bible it literally opened to 2 Kings 20:5. God spoke directly to me: “Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, ‘I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you.’” I came undone. And for the first time I was able to whisper, “Me too, Lord.”

It was a hard-won victory. Not a fist-pumping celebration. Rather, a brokenhearted recognition I’d survived unspeakable things. After being in denial for so long, just being able to say #MeToo was incredibly healing. I felt empowered and no longer bound by the power of the Secret.

If you are that person today please know I celebrate your victory with you! You’ve taken an important step. Acknowledging the trauma you endured and celebrating the fact that you’re still here to declare #MeToo is a vital part of your story. But I want you to know that your journey toward healing will continue as long as you live. Don’t be overwhelmed by the thought. It’s a wonderful thing even though it is not without pain.                                   

The courage to take a stand with #MeToo can be an important turning point from victim to victor. As I've followed the #MeToo threads and read so many of your stories, an old hymn keeps weaving its way through my mind. I've tried to silence it, afraid I will be thought of as insensitive or, heaven forbid, politically incorrect. But I can’t be quiet. I have to respond. The song keeps playing, and I feel compelled to share it in the hope that you might hear it too.

"I once was lost, but now I'm found;

"Was blind, but now I see."                                             

And herein lies my hope. You see, I once was so badly wounded I felt certain I would die under the weight of my pain. But now I wake up every morning and am so grateful to be alive. I watch the sunrise on my way to work and I feel the power of the promise that the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings.  

With the sharp edges of my broken heart I once hurt the people I loved the most. But now I'm no longer afraid of loving, and I’m learning how to receive love.

I once saw myself as a victim, deserving of the rejection and abuse life so readily dished out, but now I can look in the mirror and see who I really am: a miracle of God's kindness and grace.

But now! Oh, the power of those two simple words! Where #MeToo gave me permission to acknowledge my brokenness, #ButNow empowers me to walk in joy!

No one says it better than Job. In the final chapter of the book, after his friends had no more cold comfort to share, after his wife had told him to curse God and die, after Job himself had quit railing against God, in the silence Job finally gets it. “I had heard rumors about You,” he whispers, “but now my eyes have seen You” (Job 42:5).

Like Job we have to come to the end of ourselves. In the brokenhearted, openhearted mess of our barely audible “me too’s,” we acknowledge more than just our pain. We recognize the goodness, faithfulness, and tenderness of the One who witnessed it all and who wept with us.

I recognize our experiences are all different. My journey is not yours. We cannot rush the stages of grief, anger or recovery. But please allow me to speak this powerful truth into your life: There is a brave new world beyond #MeToo. There is so much more to God than mere rumors. I pray that someday, maybe even today, you will not only acknowledge the critical step of #MeToo but learn the joyful journey of #ButNow. May that be the moment the song soars within you: I once was lost, #ButNow I’m found, was blind, #ButNow I see!

Karen J. Pearson is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and loves to share stories of how Jesus heals broken hearts and lives. Find her on Facebook and Instagram @KarenJPearson.

This article originally appeared on the North Pacific Union Conference’s news website, GleanerNow. It is reprinted here with permission.

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