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Alvin Kwiram took his bachelor’s degrees—one in chemistry and one in physics—at Walla Walla College and earned his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology.  He became a member of the chemistry faculty of Harvard University, and in 1970 moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where he eventually became that university’s vice-provost for research, a position he held for over a decade.  In that role he was responsible for oversight of the research enterprise for the entire university, and was also responsible for the management of the university’s intellectual property, including patenting, licensing and ensuring that start-up companies complied with institutional policies.  Today the research portfolio of the University of Washington, at over a billion dollars per year, makes the University of Washington one of the top five universities in the US  for total external research funding.

In 2002 Kwiram took over as executive director of a national center for photonics, a position he held until his retirement in 2007.  In his retirement he continues to serve on several boards. The University of Washington recently honored him for his role in spearheading the creation there of a major institute for renewable energy research.

A member of the Green Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church in Seattle, Kwiram was, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, one of the group of Boston-area academics and graduate students who helped to create of the Adventist Forum (then: the Association of Adventist Forums) and to found Spectrum magazine.  He was the organization’s first president.

You know what is going on in science as well as any Adventist.  How would you describe the difficulties associated with being not only a scientist but also someone who, as an Adventist, trusts in God as maker of heaven and earth?

Historically, the Adventist church has been fairly circumspect in the way it has handled science and faith issues in official declarations, such as the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary and its statement of “Fundamental Beliefs.”  What is disturbing about the present effort to “tighten up the creed” is that it goes beyond what the Bible says. For a church that has long claimed the “sola scriptura” mantle, this is a dramatic departure. 

The mindset behind the present effort fails, unfortunately, to adapt to changing reality in much the same way that dogmatic thinkers have exhibited mental rigor mortis repeatedly in the past. Galileo is a nice parallel but there are many others in different fields. One case, from our lifetime, is reaction to the notion of continental drift set forth by Wegener. Thomas Kuhn (author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) has highlighted these tendencies pretty clearly. 

The position church officials are promoting regarding creation may well suffer the same fate as the Catholic Church’s action in the case of Galileo.  Will it take the Adventist church 300 years as well to come to grips reality on this matter?

However long it takes, the church will have in the meantime squandered countless opportunities to frame a more coherent world view and to give its members a strong foundation in faith and knowledge, one that that can help them speak to the larger society in a constructive manner. More tragically, it may drive countless numbers of individuals in future generations away from a life of faith, moral commitment and spiritual experience.

The difficulty seems not, then, to be uniquely Adventist.  People who embrace the Bible as the highest written authority for the understanding of their faith have often had a hard time relating to the work of scientists.

When faced with a diagnosis of a life threatening disease, individuals leave no webpage un-scrutinized in search of a way to overcome the possibility of a foreshortened life. We grasp at every straw—no matter the level of validation; no matter whether the researcher who came up with the putative cure is an Adventist, or eats meat or drinks coffee. Generally, the patient has not even the most rudimentary understanding of the science behind the proposed procedure.  If the treatment sounds even remotely plausible the patient is ready to sign up.

But when it comes to a literal and poorly informed reading of a few lines in the Bible that suggests an idea learned at the father's knee, no amount of evidence, however broadly validated, consistent and compelling, is accorded the slightest attention. Even worse, religious leaders are often willing to destroy the lives of faithful members for even considering the evidence. What does this say about a commitment to truth?

But many members and leaders who vilify the scientific community claim to be doing so precisely in the name of truth. 

The problem is that some who push most energetically for more restrictive language and greater thought control have little knowledge of even the most elementary scientific concepts. They seem unaware of centuries-long controversies on these various topics, and of how they were contested vigorously by people far more qualified than any of the present protagonists. It is discouraging and disheartening to see people with limited qualifications making pronouncements with great confidence on these subjects. But given a platform that provides a certain measure of artificial authority, they have undue influence on believers who have little or no understanding of the subject.

Of course, this is not limited to Adventists, or to the religious context.  It is a general phenomenon.  It is too easy to arrogate to ourselves the authority to declare what anyone else can think about a given subject, and then to vilify and demean those who hold differing views. Tobacco companies, for example, protested vigorously and deceitfully for decades that there was no scientific evidence for a link between smoking and lung cancer. 

Another critical example concerns climate change. Half the people of the U.S., which has the most advanced scientific enterprise in the history of humankind, seem to be opposed to the idea that our burning of fossil fuels is having an impact on the environment. They don't believe that we are facing a crisis of unimaginable proportions. And again, certain authority figures keep encouraging skepticism, promoting misleading information, and making personal attacks against researchers, all the while ignoring vast swaths of evidence of the growing crisis.  

To return to the medical analogy, if someone discovers an unfamiliar skin spot, that person may rush immediately to the doctor.  But if someone has a huge disfiguring growth on the side of the face, that person may respond (now think climate change), “Well, who knows, this is probably just a temporary T-rex zit and will go away if I give it a chance. I've heard someone say that eating chocolates can cure zits so if things don't improve a lot in the next year or so I'll try that remedy. But for now, let's just wait and see what happens.” 

If the analogy is silly, it still illustrates the mindset regarding climate change in this country. Whether in the secular or the religious worlds, we have unqualified authority figures failing to exercise normal investigative strategies to find the truth. 

To get at the truth of any matter you have to go to those who have thought deeply about the subject and have acquired the skills necessary to gain some insight into that reality. Then you have to test their views against other sources of comparable expertise, all the while keeping in the back of your mind the power of a reigning paradigm. It is not easy to do this. But it suggests that a healthy dose of humility is essential to avoid self-defeating error.  

Of course, if you only consult those who agree with your view and implicitly intimidate those who might have a different view, you have no chance to arriving at a legitimate outcome. Facing up to reality just seems hard, expecially when adjustments in your thinking may take a toll on what you prefer to be true or have long believed to be true.

This is the eternal challenge humans face. I know from firsthand experience how painful it is to come to the realization that a long held and cherished view is not really consistent with the ongoing development of human understanding. I think we have probably all experienced such adjustments in our respective world views, and we know how deeply wrenching conflicts can be when they involve our own sense of self and our belief in the nature of God’s will. Therefore we have to be patient with those who hold other views and continue to engage them with understanding and a generous spirit.

Among the countless examples of such adjustments is the attitude of Christians on race. Within our own lifetime we have witnessed the struggle that good Christians have had in coming to grips with racism, and on these issues we are not yet out of the woods. Still, many in the Christian community have made that adjustment to a greater or lesser degree. But should we stone those who have not?  That would not reflect a New Testament response. Should we dismiss them from our fellowship? That does not seem especially redemptive. Destruction, denigration, vilification, ostracism are not the kind of responses we would ascribe to Jesus. They are not even the responses of civilized people. Education, empathy, tolerance and love are far more appropriate responses. Our understanding is not improved with superficial slogans or attempts at intellectual coercion.  

What is desperately needed is sincere, respectful, intelligent dialogue. But neither a few white papers nor a carefully choreographed conference will settle the issues. For humans, the dialogue mus be perpetual. Engaging intelligently, with malice to none and charity to all, is a duty that we owe to ourselves, to our children and to society.

The people who claim to know better than the scientists do often say that it is scientists that arearrogant.  Is there even a grain of truth in this?  

Scientists are human with the same propensities as others. I referred earlier to Wegener’s theories on continental drift. It was the professional geologists who vilified his work and his character, not the average citizen who was barely aware of the scientific dispute.  So, yes, scientists can be just as arrogant as anyone else. What saves them, generally and in the long run, is that their enterprise is predicated on testability. Eventually, the scientific process tends to prevail even if it may take a generation or three for new ideas to gain acceptance.  

In science a few observations may support a certain hypothesis, but new observations may demonstrate that the current hypothesis is inadequate. At some point as the accumulated evidence piles up, you either have to close your mind in order to maintain your erstwhile position, or you have to change your view.  Persons who close their minds in the face of overwhelming evidence usually do so because they are committed to a non-scientific paradigm that they do not wish to abandon.  Their position is a matter of ideology, not scientific evidence.  That may be benign unless it is used to impose restrictions on the thoughts or actions of others. Then it becomes a conflict of ideologies that has little to do with truth.

Can you say more, specifically, about the particular challenges scientists in Adventist institutions are facing?

The difficulty is that in their scientific exploration for truth, faculty in our institutions are constrained. As a result, from astronomy to zoology the intellectual process is corrupted.

What one would like to have is a community of faith that is exploring the challenges of the modern world and trying to help the next generation to respect science while continuing to value ethics, moral behavior, intellectual integrity, compassion, empathy and many other Christian virtues. Instead, we distort the process, encourage dishonesty and character assassination, and thereby drive our brightest young people to reject both Adventism and spiritual dimensions of their lives. 

In the developed nations, our young people are leaving the church in disheartening numbers. And that pattern will be repeated in emerging economies as higher education becomes a more universal value. This is tragic because the world needs more individuals who have a highly developed sense of integrity, fair play, high ethical standards, tolerance and compassion. 

As a non-scientist, I notice that almost no Adventist scientists--certainly almost no scientists employed in Adventist higher education--express themselves freely on these matters.  This represents, it seems, real dysfunction in the community. How can the door to forthright conversation be pushed open a crack?

I have enormous sympathy and respect for the faculty in Adventist higher education who are put in an impossible situation. They have a responsibility to prepare the next generation for the challenges of a wider world than our forebears ever encountered, but are threatened with ostracism if they deviate from some notions held by those with limited understanding of the issues they are dealing with. They need greater freedom to explore ideas. Isn’t that what the search for truth implies? Their commitment to the church and their expertise need to receive a greater measure of respect in the church. There needs to be a context in which they can grapple honestly and freely with the enormous challenges facing society without fear of retribution.

That was the idea behind the Forum movement and Spectrum. The goal was to encourage serious conversation about the challenges facing the church in the modern world. But the countervailing forces have been overpowering and increasingly doctrinaire. Perhaps in the coming years, as enrollment in our academies continues to decline and our colleges continue to struggle with affordability challenges and even further restrictions on what can be thought and taught, a more prophetic generation may arise that will simply say, as some North American Unions have done on the issue of women in ministry, “Enough.” But it won't happen in my lifetime. There is a vastly smaller constituency in the church for facing scientific issues honestly than there is for addressing the role of women in the church, and the issues are more arcane and difficult to articulate to the general public. It is not easy to be optimistic about progress in the short term.

Charles Scriven, who conducted this interview, is the Board Chair of Adventist Forum, the organization that publishes Spectrum Magazine.

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During my first week serving as a teacher at Good Hope College near Cape Town a certain General Conference Vice President whisked onto campus. Staff and students were corralled into the hall and assured that they were doing a great job and within 20 minutes the gentleman was back in his car leaving a storm of dust in his wake. The Union Education Director was also on campus that day, to whom I suggested that such visits were a waste of time. "Oh Brother Pilmoor, men from the General Conference are very perceptive" he said. "I understand" said I. Eight years later at a parallel institution we received a GC AAA accreditation visit that lasted 10 days, after which we were invited to submit to the wisdom of the investigators findings. To our horror, through 90 minutes, absolutely nothing was to his liking. I recall concluding that those who visit for longer must somehow, be 'less perceptive'.

The episode still haunts me. Will people be encouraged as a consequence of my travel, or will they be relieved at my departure? After all, people remember not what we say, but how we make them feel.

The Drs. Valentine happened to visit our office in England last Friday. "Hey Gil, I was just listening to your Glendale speech last night," said I. "Oh dear" said they, "We didn't realise that Spectrum would broadcast," with a tinge a trepidation while reflecting on the consequence of speaking truth to power.

Together we spent an hour sharing our perceptions of the San Antonio General Conference Session. Not least among these was the cloud that concentrates the influence of ecclesiastical power on the one hand, and the paranoia of people who fear expressing themselves following the fiasco of public voting.

What have we come to? How do people get this kind of influence? How do we end up with people feeling insecure about the acceptance of their calling? How does a church that professes to be non-combatant, affirms religious liberty, freedom of speech and conscience get to be so riven with fear?

Let me offer an alternate context:

On the first Friday evening of the 2015 General Conference Session, I spotted a lonely bent old man shuffling his way through the Alamodome to the Southern Africa section. I recognised him as one of my boyhood heroes. Duane Brennaman was a 27  year old missionary when I first met him in 1961. He was Director at Liumba Hill Mission in Barotseland—Zambia's Western Province along the banks of the Zambesi. He even had to strap his Land Rover to a barge to get 500 miles into obscurity.  Next day, I met Ted Gilbert, Ron and Sharon Follett who together with Duane & Phyllis were our neighbours at Rusangu. All of these people were missionaries who simply did their job, no task beneath them, no glory, no vanity, no titles. These were people in circumstance with much to be feared, yet they exuded courage, fortitude and determination. For them abolishing poverty and ignorance through education was their motive. They taught Agriculture, Commerce, Industrial & Domestic Arts, not to speak of inventiveness and self-sufficiency. They also taught the Gospel, with humour and humanity. Phyllis and Sharon contributed to the musical tradition of those parts with some class.  These were for me, real Seventh-day Adventists—committed and  fearless, with no trace of 'hocus pocus', their official credential: Missionary.

Not for them the goal-hanging semantics of Advent corporatism, not for them the faux-celebrity of church broadcasts, not for them the fear of secret apocalyptic signals from Rome, Jerusalem or Washington DC, not for them the cap-doffing smarminess of hierarchical elitism.

So what would do we say to the 'men from the east'?

I would remind them that those with real mission mindedness are people who value hope more than fear. Indeed I would point out that power induced fear causes poverty of body, mind and spirit.

I would remind them that those who really crave God's kingdom, are not impressed by Dollar grubbing fantasists who are obsessed with the independence of their own ministry.

I would remind them that unity is no longer achievable through the control of official channels. It is achieved through openness, transparency, candidness and the confession of failure.

I would remind them them that 'the want of the world, is for men and women who will stand for the right though the heavens fall, people who are true to duty, like the needle to the pole'.  They will not be silenced or cowed by populist resolutions. Language can be massaged but the mountains will not move.

I would remind them that there are veterans who survived one wave of last-day perfectionist bullying, who are not about to be intimidated by the next.

I would remind them, that 'if you want to make God laugh, show him your plans'. No doubt he is amused by our strategic machinations.

I would remind them that being a courageous missionary was good for Paul and Silas, and it's good enough for me.

Victor Pilmoor is the Treasurer of the British Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists who served as a delegate at the 60th General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas.

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Dr. Lee Berk, associate professor at Loma Linda University, is a pioneer in mirthful or happy laughter research.

In two landmark studies, published in 1989 and 2001 in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences and the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, respectively, Berk found that mirthful or happy laughter produces very tangible, physical benefits.

In a conversation with Spectrum, Berk explains the importance of understanding mind-body connectedness and why happiness is not ethereal.

Question: Can you tell us a little bit about why a medical professional and researcher like yourself would spend time studying laughter?

Answer: The classic healthcare model has used a biomedical approach. “What is your disease? Let me try to cure it.”There is a physical or somatic orientation when we look for the causes and consequences of disease. We discover penicillin. 

But we now know many factors beyond physical ones are important. Lifestyle behaviors, diet, activity, and things like spirituality, attitude, gratitude, and forgiveness and so on also play roles in health and disease outcomes. 

We are all familiar with the scenario where when one elderly spouse dies, the other soon dies or comes down with a debilitating disease. We now know that in mourning the immune system can be compromised and suppressed. Depressed people have a greater propensity to have a compromised immune system. The question is how do we rebound? The main point here is that there is no behavior we have that does not have biological translations.

Once we start realizing that, we then see that all aspects of thinking positively have ramifications. We can drag in biblical concepts, like the Proverbs text: “A merry heart doeth good like medicine.”That is not just nice verbiage, but it is the medical science of psycho-neuro-immunology being stated in biblical terms.

Psychoneuroimmunology is a term that denotes a bi-directional relationship between the mind/brain, the neuroendocrine system and the immune system. They intercommunicate incessantly with one other. They talk back and forth (communicate) with each other at a molecular level. It was discovered that immune cells have a huge number of receptors for hormones and neuropeptides. So diet, behavior, and activity have the capacity to modulate various responses of immune cells. 

If I think a certain way, my body will respond. Depression causes physical anomalies. Happiness is a variable in and of itself, as important as cholesterol or saturated fats in determining morbidity or mortality in any given group.

Happiness is not ethereal. There is not one thought process that you or I have that does not have biological consequence — whether for better or worse. This is the reality of wholeness. 

The science of neurology brings the scientific evidence for this reality — the precursor for mind-body medicine.

In general in medicine and health care, we have compartmentalized education and teach in silos. This has been done for convenience.  We have physiology over here, endocrinology over there, and biochemistry in the other corner. We don’t typically connect them. But the whole human organism tells us that we had better start thinking more “interconnectedly.” If you have plans for a nice dinner in the evening, you start thinking about that dinner throughout the day. Your mouth waters and your physiology changes in anticipation. You are already bio-translating it, and you feel better and happier in expectation. For many individuals. shopping lifts their spirits. That’s not “nothing.” It’s real neurochemistry.

So hope is important?

To get a patient to have hope has potential psycho physiological benefits —it’s real!

We can even see this in the Bible. Remember the woman who came after Jesus, but the crowds pushed her away? She touched the hem of his garment, and he said: “Who touched me?”She said that she did and asked him to heal her. Jesus said: “Your faith has made you whole.” 

It bio-translates. Hope is a very real word physiologically. Anticipation and expectation are synonyms in the English language.

Are you the first researcher to look at laughter in a medical context?

The real interest in this subject began when a gentleman called Norman Cousins, editor of The Saturday Review back in the 1960s and 1970s, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease: degeneration of the connective tissue in the spinal cord. He had a life of massive stress and distress, and he came to the conclusion that things were not going to go well with his prognosis, so he thought he would try good stress (eustress) to see if it would make him well. 

He thought, “Laughter makes me feel good,”so he started watching Laurel & Hardy and humorous films he enjoyed. He eventually said that after watching a half-hour of comedy, he could get two or three hours of pain-free sleep. He also took large doses of Vitamin C, now known to have anti-inflammatory properties. He eventually wrote a book, which became a number one best-seller, as Cousins was a very well-recognized person. He was asked to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine—almost unheard of for a non-medical professional. Cousins profoundly influenced a large number of people, including the owner of the McDonalds food chain, who wrote him a check for several million dollars to help fund this new field of study.

I was fooling around with researching and studying laughter, and somehow Cousins heard about it. He came down to Loma Linda University, and asked me what it would take to show whether there was any physiological effect and benefits from laughter.

I was focusing on the positive aspects of laughter, and had found that the hormone system was benefiting. Laughter is a good kind of stress (eustress), and it decreases bad stress (distress). It reduces blood levels of detrimental stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, and other substances. And surprisingly, when those stress hormones are reduced, numerous immune system components are allowed to re-optimize and function more normally.

We are finding and understanding about more and more areas of interconnectedness. For instance, the part of the body with the most receptors for neuropeptides of emotion is not the brain, but the gut. There is a very intimate communication between emotion and the gut — which, by the way, is the largest immune organ.

Is Loma Linda known in the medical field for your research on the physiological effects of laughter?

I am a humble person, and a little embarrassed to say that we are probably the world’s authority on mirthful laughter and humor, and their psychoneuroimmunological effects and health benefits.

Do you prescribe laughter for yourself? How?

On the top of my desk and around my office, I have signs that say laughter is life’s best medicine, and laughter is an instant vacation, as well as a picture of prescription goggles with “Rx laughter,”and a bowl of “laughter pills.” 

The purpose is for all of us to remember that stress can be deadly. We live a lifestyle predominantly of stresses, and that has consequences. It is important for us to get off the merry-go-round and break that psychophysiological stress cycle. And, not surprisingly, this is also what we are encouraged to do from biblical wisdom.

One can accomplish this in many ways. Music for me is critical. I will crank up Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir on YouTube —amazing!  Or watch and listen to Andrea Bocelli sing the Lord’s Prayer with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  For me listening to that is a transitional brain gamma frequency moment.

You recently presented a paper abut a pilot study investigating the neuropsychological effect of differences in brain state from the use of mental visualization that results from the conditioning of prior exercise behaviors. Can you put that in simple terms? What did your study find? Is this a departure from your laughter research?

Yes, and no. You must realize that this all fits under the construct of “wholeness” and the scientific validation of our interconnectedness.

In one of our humor studies, we had the subjects watch humor of their choice, like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but different people find different things funny. To see their brains in distress, researchers watched the first 20 minutes of the movie Saving Private Ryan. The brain states are very different. We have become very interested in what the brain visualizes and hears and translates in all the brain frequencies for delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma (0 to 40 Hz).

So if one visualizes success, a golfer might see the ball going in the hole. We see a difference in brain state between athletes visualizing that they are exercising or that they are resting. You can put your brain to a state of rest if you visualize resting. If you visualize exercising, does your brain move to a brain frequency state of exercise? The answer is yes!

With digital technology, we are in a whole new arena to be able to look at brain state and frequency changes.

There are different levels of cognitive processing.

Delta is when we are basically asleep.

Next is theta, which is also subconscious.

Next comes alpha, which is a state of rest.

Most of the time we are in beta, when we are working, writing and thinking.

The highest level of cognitive processing is the gamma state which is associated with great memory and recall.

Gamma frequency is something we don’t yet totally understand in the world of neuroscience relative to the potential health benefits. Long-term meditators and mindfulness mediators would appear to achieve this brain frequency with practice.

In neuroscience, a term associated with gamma frequency is “binding”; what this means is the brain is in greater synchrony and, if you please, is talking or communicating with itself to a great extent. 

There are biblical implications there. We are told by Christ that if we are burdened and heavy laden, we should come for rest. That happens to be much like alpha frequency. After you achieve “rest,” your brain can more readily move into a gamma state and thus be more effective and “better” at problem resolution (remember brain synchrony).

We don’t really know very much about the brain yet, do we?

Right now our research is not the tip of the iceberg, but just a little ice crystal at the top of the top of the iceberg.

The medical community must accept your research about laughter and the brain?

In 2011 we were very fortunate to have been invited by National Institutes of Health to give a presentation on science of laughter. At first I declined the invitation to go among the elite of the research world. There was not much of an appreciation at that time for the reality that human behavior and lifestyle had any profound effects on morbidity or mortality.  Especially not positive lifestyle behaviors such as mirthful laughter/humor — or for that matter “a merry heart.”

How long have you been at Loma Linda?

Except for a short four-year hiatus when I helped to run the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative and Complementary Medicine in the School of Medicine, with Dr. David Felten, at UC Irvine, I have been at Loma Linda since 1969.  

I have a passion for this journey, and teach six courses on lifestyle medicine/health and wholeness, like Lifestyle Health, Managing Stress, Therapeutic Humor for Health Care Providers, Introduction to Psychoneuroimmunology, Music Therapy and Wholeness, etc.  

These courses are taught at a mechanism modulatory level so as to understand evidence-based practice and appropriate clinical application.

All of my academic courses are evidence/science-based. The response we have gotten from our students on these lifestyle subject materials and mechanisms are absolutely amazing. They are not very knowledgeable on the influence of lifestyle on health. Managing Stress is one of my courses that even faculty take.

However, surprisingly, funding is not easy. I am not studying and researching something that can be sold. Mind, body, and spirit, relative to lifestyle are not part of the classical research funding area that will provide substantial research monies. You would think there would be some interested Christian or Adventist donors who would want to support this kind of research in the 21st century. But we have not seen this kind of support yet. Other secular academic institutions seem to be leading the way. I find this quite a paradox.

It has been a long wholeness research journey but we are beginning to start seeing pieces of the puzzle fit together, and a true picture of the science of “wholeness” is beginning to emerge.

Dr. Lee Berk

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In 2011 I wrote an article entitled “The Closing of the Adventist Mind” (title borrowed from Professor Allan Bloom’s book and adapted) that Spectrum published. A few months had elapsed since the election of Ted Wilson as President of our church when I began to feel uncomfortable as I read some of the statements coming out of Washington.  It seemed to me at the time that some sort of straightjacket was not so subtly being drawn tight around the psyche of the church, which I was afraid would eventually close the Adventist mind to new ideas and concepts theological and otherwise. 

A couple of quotes will give today’s readers the gist of what I wrote back then. “…I have come to the conclusion that the general trend in our church leans more toward the closing of the mind than toward taking the risk of openness.  It has been my experience that Adventist leadership does not react positively when thoughtful members disagree with the official position on issues of concern to the church.  In actual fact, intentionally or not, much effort is put into making sure that that the church as a whole accepts whatever the leadership determines is valid…This has produced an ethos of silence, which effectively prevents church employees or church members from expressing what they really feel about issues.” 

Four years later I can find no reasons to believe that things have changed. The President and his men have used the official publications, the 3ABN TV network, personal websites etc. to promote and enforce a very conservative agenda that leaves very little room for new ideas.  It all coalesced into the overarching and tightly controlled atmosphere that prevailed in San Antonio.

I know that many will disagree but I remain convinced that much subtle and sometimes not so subtle manipulation and pressure occurred under the roof of the San Antonio Dome to keep debate in check.  This was evident on at least two occasions.

On Tuesday July 7, an amendment to Adventist Belief number 6 was to be debated. Specifically, the delegates were to debate the introduction and relevance of the word “recent” to the text. The president of the BRI clarified the research committee’s reasons for adding the word after which the debate was to start.  But for some unknown reason the Chair asked Ted Wilson to say a few words. I was stunned to hear him say: “…You all know where I stand on that question. The word “recent’ to me means 6000 years” (a reference to an obscure statement of EGW). 

My concern was not with the figure but with the inescapable fact that the president’s strong remark put a damper on a debate that might have otherwise brought into the open some concepts more in tune with the present scientific discoveries (and I am not referring to the evolution point of view). There simply was no debate after Ted Wilson’s intervention. Indeed, in my opinion the statement also put a huge dent in the credibility of our scholars in the minds of the Christian scientific community, let alone the secular one.

The second occasion had to do with the debate about allowing the respective Divisions to determine the relevance of ordaining women in their territories.

Right the start a number of high profile individuals who were known to be against female ordination began to make statements to the effect that the delegates should be careful not to do anything that might divide the church. This often happened during the debate on other motions that had nothing to do with that particular issue.

Of course there was no directive given as to how one should vote but the subtle hints that protecting the unity of the church was of paramount importance, determined the ultimate result even before the vote was taken. Nobody will say it but it is known hat it is almost impossible for some cultures to openly take a stand against the perceived position of the leaders.

I have tried to find a rationale to explain the ethos of the present leadership in Washington.  I believe that I may have found something in a text written by Mark Vernon a British journalist, broadcaster and author.  He authored the book “The Big Questions, God” and in the chapter about fundamentalism he endeavours to explain the mindset of fundamentalist/conservative church leaders. He borrows from an essay (Migration, Acculturation and the New Role of Texts) written by the Jewish scholar Haym Soloveitchick, describing what is taking place within conservative Jewish communities.

Mike Vernon argues that conservatism/fundamentalism reacts against the trend by seeking and finding refuge in rigorous codes and practices and in strict tenets of belief. The foundational texts, used narrowly without proper exegesis by the powers that be, become the weapons of preference. Almost no room is given to the “let us come and reason together.” Is that perhaps a telling sign that a war of meaning against authority is being waged?

It strikes me that the same is also happening within the ranks of the Seventh day Adventist community in the West as can be readily observed when one makes time for meaningful conversation with the 18 to 45 age group.

Until some fifty years ago, the believers of that age group were part of a tradition that found meaning in engaging with the texts of Adventist teachings, and by a process of mimesis they embraced a way of life handed down from the fathers.  But in the last thirty years or so that cosy world has exploded under the pressure of a society that is constantly changing.  Younger generations are altering their religious inheritance (beliefs and practices) because they are more and more at odds with the demands of secular modernity.

Challenging new ideas and concepts are threats and any compromise on these issues represents the dissolution of faith.  This may explain why a significant percentage of the world membership (not just the men) considers the issue of women ordination, as an insidious creeping in of feminism seen as a rebelling against God ordained male headship, and as such must be fought against.

It is also still a matter of considerable surprise to me that no one seems to have realised that the Bible has nothing to say on the issue if after some forty years of quoting Scripture no crystal clear conclusion is reached.

At the risk of sounding cynical I will add that in my view, the sermon on the last Sabbath was evidence of the closed Adventist mind. The content was nothing but a long series of Scripture readings laced with quotes from EGW that any church member could have put together with minimum effort. There was almost nothing that challenged one’s mind and spirit. The exercise smacked of anti intellectualism. Mind you, I hold both the Bible and the Sprit of Prophecy in high esteem.  But to have travelled almost ten thousand miles experiencing a mounting sense of excitement as the last Sabbath of the session approached, then having to go back home with one’s spiritual hunger not satiated still fills me with sorrow three weeks later.

I shudder to think that we may have to go through another five years of the same unless every person of good understanding and good will engages in an intelligent conversation that focuses on changing the present course.  

I am keenly aware that this piece is a diagnostic (yet another one) of the prevailing situation. Space constraints will not allow the elaboration of a possible solution in this article, but I intend to present some suggestions in the near future.

Pastor Eddy Johnson is the director of ADRA Blacktown and pastors two churches in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

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This is the third post in a ten-part series for Spectrum’s 2015 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Unclean by Richard Beck. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

A few weeks ago I experienced a thunderstorm—a real treat for a mountain girl residing in the desert.  As I stood gazing at the dark clouds emitting by turn elephant-size rain drops and subtle rumbles of thunder, I couldn’t help thinking of how the storm’s resemblance to my life must be part of why it held me spellbound.  Peaking out behind the billowing, tumultuous-looking gray clouds were patches of bright blue sky—a reminder that even in the midst of the storm, the calm is never far away.  The downpour was over just as quickly as it had drenched the unsuspecting exercisers on the sidewalk.  Storms of life may come unexpectedly or at inconvenient times, but when we just keep walking, we inevitably emerge on the other side and we may even have been cleansed or renewed in the process. This is a rather loose example of our human tendency to understand abstract concepts in terms of the physical. But whether or not one sees symbolism easily in daily life, metaphor is part of the very fabric of our existence. Our language reveals this—“I’m feeling down today,” or “She is on top of it.”  George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their seminal work Metaphors we Live By, explore this tendency and point out that metaphor influences not only our language, but our thoughts and actions as well.¹

Richard Beck takes up this theme in chapters 3 and 4 of his book Unclean, exploring how purity metaphors play an integral, and sometimes even privileged, role in Christian descriptions of salvation and life as a disciple of Christ. Consider these well-known lyrics: “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?” Ironically, as Lakoff and Johnson point out, what may appear on the surface to function simply as vivid language to symbolize or illustrate a larger truth actually plays a formative role in shaping our thinking and acting. Beck explains the Levitical roots of purity/pollution and clean/unclean metaphors and points out that purity metaphors are indeed an effective way to capture the “malevolent invasive danger of sin” (37). As is true for most metaphors, however, purity metaphors are only helpful to a certain extent.² If taken too far, there are serious implications, ranging from over-simplifying our understanding of salvation to inadvertently shutting ourselves off from the very people Jesus came to save.  

In exploring purity metaphors in the context of disgust psychology, Beck’s primary concern is how purity metaphors influence moral reasoning. Not only do people associate moral failings with physical dirtiness; they also tend to feel a sense of moral superiority if they are physically clean.³ These trends are true across religious boundaries, revealing a human tendency as pervasive as our use of metaphor.  This causal link between physical cleaning and moral purity has been termed the Macbeth Effect, based on Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth who attempted to get rid of her guilt by washing her hands.  When we are disgusted by something, we want to purify ourselves.  But issues arise when we act on our disgust reactions without carefully thinking through the implications of what we are doing and upon what our understanding of a situation is truly based (our hermeneutic).  

When put this way—that moral purity can be achieved through physical washing—our initial reaction may be to assert the absurdity of this notion.  But it nevertheless has a certain appeal and there are a number of ways this reasoning finds its way into how we see ourselves.  One of the ways protection from contagions is put into place is through quarantine.  This makes sense when dealing with infectious diseases.  But the concept is problematic when applied to maintaining moral purity—i.e., if I avoid contact with possible contaminants (people who think differently than me, people who are committing outright sins, etc.), it will be easier for me to remain pure.  This builds upon the “negativity dominance” rule of impurity (one drop of urine in a pot of soup, renders the entire pot unclean), which is certainly widely applicable.  But when seeking to live as disciples of Christ, its applicability should not be assumed.  In contrast to the religious people of his day, Jesus operated within a “positivity dominant” framework.  Rather than being contaminated by contact with the “unclean,” Jesus functioned as the drop of bleach in the water, so-to-speak, offering cleansing without fear of contracting impurity.  If we are infilled (“Christ in me, the hope of glory” Col. 1:27; “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” Gal. 2:20) we cannot settle for a life lived in fear of contamination.  Safety and certainty provided by hard and fast lines between pure and impure may be appealing, but Jesus calls us to step out of the safety of the boat into the water—even if it’s a bit mirky.    

Jesus also confronted the prioritization of the physical when making judgments of purity, arguing that “what goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them” (Matthew 15:11).  This difference in focus highlights another one of the implications of taking the purity metaphor too far. We sing, “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” And without realizing it, we can settle into a state of moral laxity. After all, if all my guilty stains are gone, I’m pretty much set…as long as I do my best to protect myself from contaminants. But this thinking is catastrophic in the dynamic process of growth in Christlikeness. If there is not a self-centered or non-Christlike thought in my head this moment, I will only have to wait a moment or two for one to appear. And if I am looking to Jesus as my model, I can grow for all eternity (in love and in sensitivity to the Spirit) without arriving.  

The use of purity metaphors in moral reasoning also impacts how we see other people, as well as how difficult it can be to understand where people with different beliefs regarding what is right are coming from.  Beyond the connotations of negativity dominance, where a little impurity goes a long way, there is also a connotation of permanence inherent in viewing sin as an impurity that needs to be washed away. The problem here is that our application of this permanence (once the pot is contaminated, it is never made edible again) is often applied unevenly in our assessment of morality. For instance, many sins are considered simply as a “fall” from which one can “get back up.” But sexual sins are often categorized as a purity violation. One of the implications of this association is that rehabilitation does not simply involve getting back up.  There is often a certain permanence associated with this kind of “fall.” And while we say with our mouths that all sins are equal before God, this selective application of purity metaphors in our understanding of certain sins inevitably impacts how we think of, treat, and talk about people who have not conformed to our understanding of purity.  

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with employing purity metaphors as one way to illustrate facets of salvation or sexuality. The issue is that the metaphor, which represents only one slice of the pie, may come to be viewed as the whole picture.  In this oversimplification, we risk missing out on the complex and nuanced nature of God and His interactions with His people. For instance, it is true that we stand as sinners unclean before God and that we do need to be washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. But as Beck points out, over-emphasis on this one aspect of salvation can cause us to ignore the “communal, cosmic and developmental facets of salvation” (41). In the same way, purity metaphors are useful to an extent in discussions of sexuality, and because of the strong connotations of permanence and non-rehabilitation the metaphor can be an effective way to motivate appropriate behavior. But over-application of the metaphor is problematic in that it skews the reality that our sexuality represents only one part of who we are.  If we believe a miss-step in the sexuality arena can render us permanently damaged and less able to sense the nudges of the Spirit, we may either throw in the towel completely or be overwhelmed with shame to the point of being unable to continue to grow in Christ or thrive within our community.  

One area of the discussion that could be expanded upon is the differences between guilt and shame and how these play out in our selective application of purity metaphors. Brene Brown, known for her research on shame and vulnerability, points out that guilt and shame are significantly different.⁴ Guilt is about behavior; shame is about our identity. Ironically, Brown points out that they are both equally powerful, but that guilt tends to be constructive, while shame tends to be destructive. In other words, when we feel guilty (i.e., we recognize something we have done or failed to do does not match with who we want to be) we are motivated to act—make a change, apologize, etc. When we feel shame, we feel that who we are is simply not enough. And feeling shame (“I am bad” vs. “I did something bad”) actually eats away at our dignity and the strength we need to believe we can change and do better. Recognizing these differences is essential in wisely determining when purity metaphors are useful and when they are not, since the very physicality of purity metaphors makes them potentially dangerous in the level of shame they can ignite in a human heart.  

The two most important points I believe we can take away from Beck’s insightful reflections on purity metaphors and morality, or our “divinity ethic,” are 1) we would do well to be mindful of how the metaphor impacts our understanding of sin and salvation, and to “stop while we’re ahead” in our acceptance of the various implications; and 2) understanding how purity metaphors are applied differently by different people is a ticket to being aware of when we are “talking past one another,” or, as Beck puts it, “dumbfounded” by each other’s interpretations and beliefs. Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” and He pointed out in His references to “white-washed tombs” the danger of shallow purity when our very being is in continual need of grace and transformation. May we be “positivity dominant” as we live as conduits of God’s grace each day in our communities!

_______________________

NOTES:

1. They explain that while many people relegate metaphor to poetic imagination or linguistic analysis, it actually plays out in our lives much more broadly.  “We have found…that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.  Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”  Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 3. 

2. In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor points out the inherent limits of a given metaphor in the context of another common metaphor—light and dark, taken in many Christian contexts to be synonymous with Good and Evil or God’s presence and the presence of the adversary.  She notes: “At the theological level, however, this language creates all sorts of problems.  It divides every day in two, pitting the light part against the dark part.  It tucks all the sinister stuff into the dark part, identifying God with the sunny part and leaving you to deal with the rest on your own time.  It implies things about dark-skinned people and sight-impaired people that are not true.  Worst of all, it offers people of faith a giant closet in which they can store everything that threatens or frightens them without thinking too much about those things.  It rewards them for their unconsciousness, offering spiritual justification for turning away from those things, for ‘God is light and in him there is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1:5).” 

3. Here Beck cites Chen-Bo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist, “Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing” (Science 313: 2006), 1451-52.

4. Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden, 2010), 72.

Jody Washburn is currently studying Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California Los Angeles.  One of her research interests involves the anthropomorphic representations of God in the Hebrew Bible, and metaphors such as God "hiding his face," or "making his face shine upon ___."  Jody's dissertation focuses on Hebrew cave inscriptions from ancient Israel.  

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 order to highlight the great feedback we often receive as comments to the articles on the Spectrum Website, the editorial team has introduced the Friday feature, The Best of the Comments. Spectrum editors select comments that exemplify respectful discourse and that further the conversations that begin with Spectrum's articles and news stories. Here are six comments we especially appreciated this week with links to the articles under which the comments appeared. -Editors

In response to "The Closing of the Adventist Mind" by Eddy Johnson

Comment by Chris Blake:
Eddy, you hit the nail on the head. We as a denomination cannot afford to cave in to authoritarian, fear-based uniformity. Certainly our Master didn't--and doesn't. The question is How. How to protest, to learn, to create, to embrace? (Looking forward to your next post.) Whether Adventist or not, Christian or not, each of us plays an important role in resiliently living out God's grace with defiant optimism and abiding peace and joy. #MyChurchToo

Comment by Tihomir Odorcic:
I'll make a try, let's see if my comment will "survive" the new policy I still remember a church business meeting some 20 years ago. There was a doctrinal issue on debate. One person was very active in his strange beliefs to impose them on others in that local church. The pastor was very patient and nice to him and at the same time he wanted to safeguard his parish. So he made appeals etc... And then one of brothers stood up and said something that reminds me very well on the stand presented in the article above. He said it in a naive and reassuring way: "I have locked up my heart and isolated my mind." I had laughed then and I'm still laughing today, but believe me, for them then it was a fabulous statement. He was credited for it. Locked heart and isolated mind may be a guarantee for an absolutist leader that his flock won't go astray, but at the same time it is a death sentence for every individual mind. If an 83-years old Michelangelo could declare that he is still learning (His famous "Ancora imparo") then why wouldn't a 150-years old organisation do the same?

Comment by Graeme Sharrock:
Thanks for your thoughts, Eddy! I often read here statements that state or imply some kind of impending disaster or degradation for Adventism because of its closed stance or fixed attitude on this or that. The writers assume that religious movements need to be transparent, truth-loving, and tender to thrive. I disagree. The number of people in the world who are willing to accept an irrational religious construct, especially during times of increasing turmoil and terrorism, is growing by hundreds of millions. Fundamentalist religions are adaptable forms of culture that thrive in such environments, as they offer a sense of certainty and security in exchange for a a small price--surrender of one's own thought and individuality to the group and its leaders. How many people at the Dome voted to endorse the word "recent" to mean 6,000 years because the Leader said so, but against their better judgment and common sense (I'm not even talking about the scientific evidence!)? Similarly the word "soon," as in "soon coming" now means something like "it's your fault it hasn't happened yet, but if you are good it will be even sooner " and the adjective "ordained" cannot be distinguished from "male". To enter this Orwellian world, cast away the past, the future, and accept what the present mind control offers. On that basis, I predict continuing growth and success to the SDA church, not demise or disaster.

Comment by CDAT:
Last Generation Theology is taking on a new meaning. The Last Generation of Adventism may not, as some hope, be precipitated by the 2nd coming of Christ but the last generation may become manifest because Adventism has run its course. Another bankrupt cult of personality. The World Wide Church of God imploded after the death of Herbert W. Armstrong. The Adventist Church has survived the death of its prophetess for more than 100 years in practices not unlike the pre-Inca's who brought out their mummies for an annual celebration. EGW can no longer speak but our tribal elders put words into her mouth in an attempt to convince us they can communicate with the dead. Let the dead bury the dead. We must choose to be among the living. No longer will the hopeful claim be that "I am a third, fourth or even 5th generation Adventist, but rather that I have chosen to be the last generation. Can anyone of good conscience support the present structure that would hasten the closing of the Adventist mind? The shackled prisoners building their own asylum.

In response to "World Authority on Laughter Talks Us Through the Research"

Comment by Sam Geli:
As a hospice Chaplain I can attest to the fact that Laughter and what Dr. Berk is saying is good medicine. Many patients I worked with benefitted greatly from laughter as part of their reflection and spiritual coping.
I can't help but wonder what the impact would have been if we had several "time outs" in so many of our "deep" discussions and tense deliberations. I believe that God had to be laughing at some of our activities in San Antonio.
Psalms 37:13
The Lord laughs at him, For He sees his day is coming.
Psalms 59:8 
But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.
Proverbs 1:26 
I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,
Psalms 126:2
hen our mouth was filled with laughter And our tongue with joyful shouting; Then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."
Luke 6:21
"Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

In response to "Summer Reading Group: Purity,  Moral Reasoning, Shame, and Guilt"

Comment by Sirje:
It seems to me, religion in its entirety is metaphorical. There is no other way to relate to what we call GOD. In turn, there is no other way GOD can relate to us - hence, the Biblical declaration that "no man has ever seen God". Leaving out all the OT concepts of God and how He relates to us, and we to Him, all the religious concepts that come out of the NT are also metaphoric. This is why focusing on Jesus is the only effective way we can communicate with God, and He with us. After listing several chapters of inadequate concepts we tend to apply to God, JB Philips in Your God is Too Small, describes Jesus as the "aperture through which we see God". God, as seen in Jesus, brings us revelation of a BEING, otherwise totally incomprehensible. This includes, what we call, "the plan of salvation", which is also metaphoric for an incomprehensible relationship between God and man. We, however, take the metaphors to an extreme and end up arguing about things like the Trinity - heavenly architecture - dates for God's activities, not only on earth, but also in heaven. Heaven, itself, is a metaphor for locating God - somewhere; and we look for gaps in the stars through which Jesus will return to earth. We are just incapable to be able to relate to CONCEPTS - we need the CONCRETE. We need a God with body parts - with feelings - a God within an earthly time-frame. And so we've created religion - a framework of metaphors through which we relate to the enormity of God. It probably can't be any other way. Some people, and some religions are more able to keep in mind that it is all metaphor; others have immersed themselves into the metaphoric, unable to go beyond it. To be honest, none of us can truly go beyond the metaphor; but, there needs to remain "the idea of the holy" - an awareness of a realm not totally open to us, only glimpsed through that aperture that the Bible calls, Jesus Christ.

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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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During the General Conference Session in San Antonio, David Ripley, Ministerial Secretary for the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, made a speech noting that the Adventist Church lacks a unified biblical hermeneutic (methodology for interpreting Scripture). Ripley said that this more than any other issue divides the Adventist Church, and he insisted that the church conduct a study of hermeneutics to clarify the denomination’s method of biblical interpretation. The following day, it was announced that the steering committee had considered Ripley’s recommendation, and in collaboration with the Biblical Research Institute, the General Conference would study the issue during the next quinquennium.

Spectrum asked Ripley to tell us more about his concern and proposal.

Question: When did you start feeling that biblical hermeneutics is an issue in the Adventist church, and why?

Answer: Twenty-five years ago while pastoring a church I met a challenge over eschatology, and the understanding of Daniel and Revelation. It became clear that we were reading the same Bible, but arriving at very different conclusions. We were using different tools for the understanding of the Scriptures. Therefore we started at separate points and so our ending points were very far apart. It brought church leaders and a group of church members to such different understandings of end time events that they actually left the church because they could no longer believe as Adventists.  

Through my years of pastoral ministry, several years of conference and division service, I have seen many occasions that have brought strange and unusual beliefs because people started their journey into Scripture with a different set of hermeneutics and presuppositions. 

People say, “I am staying close to the Word! Sola Scriptura. So my conclusions must be right!” But when people start with a different toolbox, the end results will be vastly divergent.  

That is why it is so critical that Adventists use the same hermeneutical approach. There will still be differences, and still be disagreements of understanding, but we will at least be arguing from the same points of reference to reach a conclusion.

Who had you spoken to and what processes had you followed already to bring this issue to the forefront before the GC Session in San Antonio?

I had spoken about this to others around me in the months and even years before GC session. I discussed with other pastors and administrators, and of course I discussed with the three other pastors in my family. My brother is a retired pastor, my wife is a Commissioned Minister who works as the Associate Ministerial Secretary of the NSD, and my daughter is an experienced pastor working in the Potomac conference in the USA. 

In the training I bring to pastors in the NSD and in the places I have been asked to share in other parts of the world, I have attempted to make it clear that where we begin and what we believe, or presuppositions, and hermeneutical tools, will make the difference between success and failure in mission. The greatest obstacle to successful mission in the local church is not the community, conference, finances, or infrastructure, but what we believe in our minds — the presuppositions we bring to the challenge of mission. 

Now this may sound like a different subject, but it is the same phenomenon that brings us to such inability to see the conclusions of others in understanding Scripture. Where we begin is just as important as our conclusions, because the place we begin is what drives us to predicable conclusions.

When and why did you decide to bring the issue of the study of hermeneutics to the floor of the GC Session?

After the presentations on Wednesday [July 8, 2015] over whether divisions can decide on their own about ordaining women it was clear that we were very polarized. Both yes and no speeches were coming from sincere Seventh-day Adventist Christians reading the same Bible, but their conclusions that were worlds apart.  

I also felt that the same thing was happening with other issues, such as the creation and marriage topics we touched on in the discussions about the Fundamental Beliefs and the Church Manual. All these divergent conclusions were showing we were not beginning with the same toolbox — or at least not using the same tools. Starting in different places gets you to different conclusions.

I felt that if we as a church did not get a better grasp of the starting point — our hermeneutics — then we would continue to be polarized; instead of arguing in the same ballpark we would be shouting from locations farther and farther apart until we could not even hear each other.

In your speech, you said that "this issue more than any other divides the Adventist church.” Why? How?

I was concerned about the polarizing effect happening in the church over the issues that would come to GC session. Most of the discussion has been about the end conclusions that each side has believed to be Bible-based. I think it would be helpful to step back and take a look at where each side is beginning its journey in the Scriptures. They are not the same place.  

I have come to believe that the journey through the Scriptures can be represented by a straight line, so in order to end with the same conclusions we must start in the same place, or nearly so.  This is where hermeneutics and presuppositions come in.  

By the way, these are driven strongly and influenced powerfully by culture. Now I know that when I say the word “culture” I could be getting into trouble. When I use the word culture in this sense, I am not talking about American, Korean, German, or Kenyan culture, but organizational culture. While organizational culture can be driven by our national culture, it is separate from and often, in the Adventist church, is counter national culture.

A culture in the context of a group is the system of values and beliefs a group holds that drives actions and behaviors and decisions. Our way of life — our organizational culture — is constantly with us; yet, it operates largely outside of our conscious awareness. We automatically participate in it. This culture is largely hidden from and invisible to the people within the system. It is like air: we do not notice it until it is gone. 

The good news is that the hermeneutics can be the same for the different cultural groups. It is the presuppositions that drive what tools we will bring out of the hermeneutical toolbox, which hand we will hold them in, and how we will apply the Scripture. We will surely be better off if we all start with the same hermeneutical toolbox and then bring our presumptions to a conscious level.

What do you envision for the study of hermeneutics you proposed? Something like the Theology of Ordination Study Committee? What do you think would be ideal?

I hope we don't go the TOSC route. First, it is too costly, and second it takes so much energy away from mission. Third, even after we spent a lot of money getting people together for TOSC, and a lot of time and energy, its conclusions were not used and only briefly mentioned during the discussion about ordination at the GC session. The people — delegates of the session who had not had the benefit of years of close study of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy — were asked to make a decision based on their personal study that did not take into account the TOSC years of work. I wonder what percentage of the delegates actually did an extensive study of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy? It was evidently quite low based on the content of the two-minute speeches I heard. 

Also we had a great document on a Theology of Ordination that was not used at all to guide the discussion, either. If we collectively could not remember to use these documents only created recently, it indicates how hard it is for a document from 21 years ago to influence us.

Now my memory may be faulty, but I think I tried to emphasize the need to educate on Adventist hermeneutics, not necessarily the need to reinvent the wheel!  I was a little flustered by the desire of the chair to push aside my concern, but he was just trying to get the business assigned to him done.

So you are referring to the 1986 Rio document. I was going to ask you why you feel this study of hermeneutics is important, since it seems that the church already addressed this issue with the Rio document. Is there something that still needs to be decided?

The Rio document is really an exceptional document.  I recently went back and re-read it. What we need is for it to become a document that is not just a statement, but a living document that is more fully understood and used as our starting place. 

When you read the document you can see that it was designed as counsel to both lay members and experts in studying the Scriptures. It is comprehensive and useful — if used.

If I could speak again to the world church on this proposal I would emphasize that we have a great document that is unknown to much of the world church. We are 21 years from Rio and it is time to develop a plan to bring this document to the radar of everyone in the church.  

The document should be discussed in college and seminary halls, in conference, union, mission, division, and General Conference offices, as well as in local churches. Perhaps even a curriculum of some kind could be developed to be shared with the different levels. 

It is obvious that we have different conclusions. We should focus our attention on the starting point so that our conclusions will begin to end up in the same local arena instead of worlds apart. 

Can you give us a specific example of when different understandings of biblical hermeneutics caused difficulties in a congregation you pastored, or a group you worked with?

One memorable time was when I was pastoring a local church and there were some church leaders who were teaching that the Bible revealed that Jesus was coming in 1996. They based this on their hermeneutic that Daniel is all about before the cross and Revelation only talks about things after the cross. Just think for a moment what that presupposition would do to so many Adventist conclusions interpreting Daniel and Revelation.

The Rio document spells out a different approach.

“(6) There are two general types of prophetic writings: non-apocalyptic prophecy as found in Isaiah and Jeremiah, and apocalyptic prophecy as found in Daniel and the Revelation. These differing types have different characteristics.”  

The document goes on to explain fully the difference between apocalyptic and non-apocalyptic prophecy.

Well, we are still here.  If they had understood the Rio document it would have saved them from this and many other unusual interpretations from Daniel and Revelation.

Why is a "unified" biblical hermeneutic important? Isn't it okay to disagree?

A unified Biblical hermeneutic is important. But we also need to educate on the presuppositions and organizational culture and how they influence how we will use our hermeneutical toolbox. 

It is okay to disagree. It has always been a part of our church history, and I suspect will continue to be. In fact discussion about our disagreements should be encouraged and supported. But it is also obvious to me that the disagreements are coming from positions farther and farther apart. This should be a concern and we need to look at the beginning of the study of Scriptures not only the conclusions. This means knowing our hermeneutics.

Would a unified biblical hermeneutic help you in your ministerial association work? 

In this information age the differences of the church are not all home grown in the local churches but almost any discussion we have about issues in the church are reaching everywhere.  When I visit a remote area of our division I am asked about the same questions that are being discussed across North America, across Europe, or in Africa. 

Independent ministries and even independent employees of the church are driving many discussions.  Sometimes, especially in remote areas, the sense of reality of what the church teaches and believes is driven by others, often on a different continent. The church needs to train its members, pastors, and leaders to carry the same hermeneutical toolbox and how to use it to ask critical questions about the many voices they hear.

A unified Biblical hermeneutic, or better, a unity of awareness, understanding, and application of a unified Biblical hermeneutic would go a long way toward allowing the church to pull together for mission and not look across the aisle with an eye full of suspicion.  This suspicion of each other keeps us from focusing on mission. Perhaps that is the plan of the enemy of God and man.  

As a pastor, when I found a theological divide I had to heal that wound before the church could even think of mission and vision.  After that is mended, then the church can go forward to accomplish great things for God. 

My wife, Lynn, and I have had the privilege of pastoring several amazing churches that have sometimes doubled in size. But it was after dealing with issues generated by differences in hermeneutics that we saw great blessings and growth.

Do your colleagues agree or disagree with you about the importance of this issue?

For the most part, most of the people who have come and talked to me have thanked me for speaking up and trying to steer the church towards the problem instead of the symptom. Of course there are those who say, “What about Rio?”  But when I ask them what the Rio document says and they really do not know, then it dawns on them that it is time for us to revisit it, and make it truly our working approach to Scripture as a world church.  

You were also prepared to speak on the floor of the General Conference session during the discussion about ordination, but time ran out and you did not have the opportunity to speak. What were you going to say? 

I had not written it out, but I had notes. I was going to share from Acts 11 the story of Peter going to the Gentiles, seeing the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. When Peter returns to the brethren he is confronted for spending time with them. It was against their theology, practices, and beliefs. Peter shares how the Holy Spirit worked in the Gentile lives and says, "Who am I to go against the Holy Spirit?" 

The brethren then went silent. They changed their theology, practices, and beliefs. 

Then I was prepared to share that over 50% of those leading churches in the Northern Asia-Pacific Division are women — more than 3,000. The best church planters in the world are Adventist church leaders who are women in China. Several of the largest Adventist churches in the world are led by women in China. The men are doing a mighty work there, but the witness of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the women leading churches is overwhelming and is an applicable witness to the argument.

I have witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit and who am I that I would oppose the Holy Spirit?  Only a vote “yes” would have been according to the evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.  How can we stand against the Holy Spirit working in the lives of these courageous workers for the Kingdom’s growth?  It is beyond my comprehension how we can, and how we did vote “No” on July 8, 2015 in the Alamodome.

In his career as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, David Ripley has pastored a number of churches, primarily in the Texas Conference, as well as served in the administration of the Minnesota and British Columbia Conferences, before joining the Northern Asia-Pacific Division as Ministerial Secretary.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

One more brief comment to add to my previous comments on the issues for consideration at your meeting today.  In addition to the opportunity to comment on Women’s Ordination in the North Pacific Union Conference, I want to respond to the “Unions and Ordination to the Gospel Ministry” document sent from Elder Wilson, presumably to shut down any action by the NPUC on women’s ordination.  In spite of the claims made in this document, I encourage you to fully engage the Union in its role in deciding how to move ahead on equality in ministry.  Whether or not the NPUC decides to ordain women pastors at this time, the NPUC should make full use of its entire decision making authority, including its constituency, in discussing these matters that are so critical to the NPUC’s mission.

My own impression of the General Conference document, is that the General Conference is attempting to maximize its own authority; pushing the limits to the point of sacrificing the full role of Unions. The document rests its arguments on traditional practice, and the lack of a gender inclusive reference to ordination. That’s it. There is no reference to a policy specifically limiting ordination to men, or specifically excluding women. If there were such a policy, it would have been stated. In the absence of such policy, the GC is inserting its own preferences, along with a claim for “highest authority.” The NPUC can respond respectfully to this document by making its own independent evaluation of the issues and policies involved – that is the Union’s role. There is nothing rebellious or disrespectful by a proper exercise of authority.

Seventh-day Adventist organization is not a hierarchy, with authority flowing from “corporate" (the GC) to the “subsidiaries" (Unions). We are a system of overlapping constituencies, operating within agreements of goodwill, recognizing and honoring the participation of each.

I’m an attorney, but not a church law attorney. I’m a former union and conference executive committee member, but not a church policy expert. Mostly, I’m a very concerned layperson looking for the NPUC to exercise its full role, involve its constituency, and move ahead with the full equality of its women and men pastors. (And forgive a bit of humor and overstatement – in the words of Lincoln – “save the Union.”)

Blessings in your work at the meeting.

Brent Stanyer
Spokane, WA

Brent Stanyer is a member of the Adventist Forum Board, which publishes Spectrum Magazine.

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In order to highlight the great feedback we often receive as comments to the articles on the Spectrum Website, the editorial team has introduced the Friday feature, The Best of the Comments. Spectrum editors select comments that exemplify respectful discourse and that further the conversations that begin with Spectrum's articles and news stories. Here are seven comments we especially appreciated this week with links to the articles under which the comments appeared. -Editors

In response to "Why Hermeneutics is Our Biggest Problem"

Comment by Adrian P:
I agree that our divisions are at their root, in part hermeneutical in nature. However, the desire for a 'unified hermeneutic' is well-meaning but unlikely for the same reason that folks were in such disagreement during TOSC: because one's hermeneutic is not just about methodology, but theology and philosophy. Further, the Rio document's assertion that all Bible students 'must be willing to submit all presuppositions, opinions, and the conclusions of reason to the judgment and correction of the Word itself' is a noble one. However, it is arguable that it betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of personal presuppositions and whether they can be winnowed by Word and the Spirit into some sort of idyllic uniformity. By way of example, I have just finished reading Fernando Canale's book, Vision & Mission: How a theological vision drives the mission of the emerging remnant. Here, Canale advocates the use of a sanctuary-based hermeneutic; a phrase/approach absent from the Rio document. He is critical of evangelical and postmodern approaches to interpreting the Bible... approaches, of course, adopted by some Adventists. How such differing views can be engineered so as to come under a unified hermeneutic would be interesting to watch. However, at the end of the day, the 'real' issue is that we need to be mature enough to agree to disagree and still live together as a spiritual community without losing a sense of what calls us together in the first place and constitutes identity. That is the challenge that folk from all ends of the spectrum have to contend with.

Comment by James J Londis:
The primary authors of the Rio document seem to have accepted what several have called a "presuppositional methodology." Translation: We must begin "presupposing" or "assuming" certain things about scripture and use them as our method for interpreting it. This approach is a "deductive" one, meaning that our assumptions determine our conclusions, unless those conclusions are almost impossible to sustain. Moreover, the complexity of engaging an ancient text whose language, culture and thought processes differ markedly from our own, is simply brushed aside by the "plain reading of Scripture." What amazes me, picking up on Sirje's comment, is that if we pay attention to Ellen White's ministry, we learn that she borrowed from other authors, had editors, wrote a considerable amount of counsel unrelated to visionary experiences, did not pretend to know geology or other scientific disciplines, relied at times on the best information available to her at that moment, and still convinced those closest to her that God was using her to guide this movement. We now know that this is equally true of the biblical writers, yet resist the hermeneutical implications of these findings. Ripley's appeal was a master-stroke of insight and he is to be commended for it. But the larger issue is: How will the effort to unravel this issue be structured and who will be invited to participate?

Comment by Julius Nam:
That we lack of a unified hermeneutic is a debate that is only meaningful to those who believe that there should be a unified hermeneutic and what that unified hermeneutic should encompass. This debate is one that the church has been engaged in since at least 1888. The debates of the 1890s, 1919, the church's foray into the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy of the 1920s and 30s, the Questions on Doctrine Debate, the great debate over soteriology in the 1970s leading up to the discussions about the heavenly sanctuary in the early 1980s—they all have been variations on the debate over what the "Adventist" hermeneutic should be, while presupposing that there should be an identifiable Adventist hermeneutic. At this juncture, a debate that spans the Adventist spectrum more broadly and in a more representative manner is whether there should be a unified hermeneutic. Is a unified hermeneutic desirable? Or is it more desirable to have multiple hermeneutical approaches? Must Adventism be connected by identical or similar hermeneutics? Or is Adventism a meta-hermeneutical phenomenon—that is, can Adventists with multiple, clashing hermeneutical approaches still be Adventist and identify each other as Adventist?
I would say No to the first question of each pair, and Yes to the second. THAT I choose to read the Protestant Scripture, interact with the Adventist tradition including Ellen White, and engage others within the Adventist community makes my hermeneutic Adventist—regardless of the content, methodology, and conclusion of my hermeneutic. I also interact with Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist, and postmodern secular thinkers and writers (to name a few) in thinking about Scripture, the Adventist tradition, and the present community, and I incorporate insights I learned from various sources in shaping my current Adventist experience and participation in the Adventist community. My approach is particular to my own life, but because I live out that approach in the Adventist context and in relation to the Adventist tradition, my hermeneutic is distinctly Adventist. I'm not sure searching and striving for a unified, magisterial approach—even if I happen to resonate with that approach—is either desirable or healthy.

In response to "General Conference Says Unions Exercise 'Delegated Authority' on Ordination"

Comment by Rich DuBose:
Misdirected Vision - When churches lose their first love for God, they become overly obsessed with behavioral purity and institutional preservation--which is why the Jewish leaders eventually killed Jesus! When a church becomes "leadership-centric,"as opposed to "Christ-centric," it places more emphasis on matters of self-governance and policy than on the original vision of its founders. When there is a loss of vision and mission, matters of ecclesiastical authority and conformity become the primary talking points.

Comment by Aubyn Fulton:
This development is consistent with everything that has come before, and it does not represent any change. President Wilson has long held that Unions do not have the authority to ordain women when the GC has specifically not allowed it. The Unions that went ahead with ordaining women anyway did so knowing that this was President Wilson's position (President Wilson made his case very passionately and directly at the Pacific Union meetings). The document titled: “Unions and Ordination to the Gospel Ministry: Brief Summary and Comprehensive Working Policy Explanation" is simply re-stating President Wilson's position. Nothing new here. Someone above commented that the "Working Policy Explanation" is the GC calling a supposed bluff by the Unions, but I think this has it the wrong way around. It is the GC, not the Union Conferences, which has made representations that may or may not be a bluff (essentially, there it will attempt to punish Unions that authorize ordination without regard to gender). It will be up to Union Conferences, not the GC, to test this claim, and see if it is a bluff. When Adventist leaders of conscience and courage authorize the ordination of women in the shadow of San Antonio, we will see if President Wilson really intends on taking punitive action, and if so, what kind. When President Wilson preached at PUC last month he did reference the image of "The Shaking", and there are lots of very conservative Adventists who are actively hoping that this conflict will begin the process of identifying the "True Believers" - perhaps that showdown is where we are headed. I hope and pray that President Wilson has been bluffing, and that this need not result in any profound organizational schism, and cooler and wiser heads find a way for us to communion together even when we disagree on important matters.

Comment by Phillip Brantley:
There are many reasons why I find the GC's legal argument to be weak and unpersuasive: The GC's legal argument is not substantially different or stronger than what the GC offered for consideration to Pacific Union Conference and Columbia Union Conference. There have been two adjudications in the NAD regarding the right of unions to ordain women, and in both adjudications the Pacific Union Conference and Columbia Union Conference considered and rejected as unpersuasive the GC's legal argument. The GC's legal argument is steeped in an empty formalism that is not sufficiently mindful of Stare Decisis; the reality that women have been ordained in NAD unions, in China, and in various unions in Europe is not addressed. More important, the reality that those ordinations of women have not been rescinded or disturbed in any way is not addressed. All of those ordinations of women, which have stood the test of time, are compelling precedents that stand in opposition to the GC's legal argument. The GC does not discuss the draconian consequences that necessarily result if unions do not have the right to ordain women. Women would be stripped of their ordinations, pastorates, and offices if the GC's legal argument were to prevail as Seventh-day Adventist Church law. Because such draconian consequences are unthinkable, as evidenced by the GC's refusal to offer one word of contemplation about them, the argument urged by the GC is impractical, injurious, and divisive. The GC's legal argument misconstrues and misrepresents the 1990 and 2015 GC session votes regarding women's ordination. Those votes were not policy votes that prohibit unions from ordaining women. The GC's legal argument does not sufficiently engage Gerry Chudleigh's excellent work that chronicles the importance of unions in the ecclesiastical structure of the Church. The GC's legal argument is theologically incoherent. It is well-settled Church law that women can be ordained as elders. Because ordination of an elder is theologically indistinguishable from ordination of a minister, acceptance of the GC's legal argument would result in theological incoherence and inconsistency. The Church should be spared such embarrassment. It is important also to note that male headship theory, upon which opposition to women's ordination is based, was soundly repudiated in the revisions to the fundamental beliefs. Ironically, the GC has an institutional imperative to argue for the most expansive understanding possible of its authority. I do not fault the GC for going through the motions of presenting a legal argument. But the unions also have an institutional imperative to similarly argue for the most expansive understanding possible of their authority. In a Separation of Powers context, adjudications of disagreement are political, not judicial. A consensus eventually develops regarding where authority lies. I make no recommendation whether or not North Pacific Union Conference should vote to implement women's ordination. But I strongly urge that North Pacific Union Conference assert its ecclesiastical authority to make that decision on the merits. In my opinion, failure to do so would contribute to a weakening of unions and cause significant injury to the Church's ecclesiastical governance structure.

Comment by Inge Anderson:
The apocalyptic vision generally accepted as the end-time scenario by the Seventh-day Adventist church, includes the building of an "image to the beast," with the beast being the papacy. In that scenario, Adventists have regarded the forcing of conscience as an identifying mark of "the beast." What I find most startling is that, from the highest levels of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, there seems to be a concerted effort to build a symbolic "image to the beast," both in structure and the exercise of authority to force compliance of conscience. Our church governance was purposely designed to be very different from the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, our forefathers were so afraid of the abuses that come with such a structure that they, at first, wanted to avoid structure altogether. When it became obvious that some kind of governance was necessary, they designed a structure in which authority rested in a Spirit-led membership, the idea being that, when members are led by the Spirit, the mind of the Spirit is met by the vote of the membership. Of necessity, some of this authority of the membership was delegated to elected leadership of churches and conferences. However, it became apparent that the elected leaders at the GC level had an alarming tendency to exercise "kingly power" (Ellen White's words). Perhaps they saw their authority derived from the GC in session, which Ellen White several times declared to be like the voice of God on earth? At any rate, Ellen White saw this tendency to "kingly power" as a problem. Thus she strongly encouraged the formation of local unions with a constituency that would elect its own leaders - leaders more familiar with the local situation than the world-wide leadership. The unions would derive their authority from their local constituency, and this would prevent the GC executive from exercising undue authority over them. I believe that Gerry Chudleigh was "right on" when he wrote that "unions were created to act as firewalls between the GC and the conferences, making 'dictation' impossible because: 1. Each union had its own constitution and bylaws and was to be governed by its own constituency, and 2. The officers of each union were to be elected by their own union constituency, and therefore, could not be controlled, replaced or disciplined by the GC." We need that kind of firewall if we are not to become something very much like an "image to the beast" which would have made our pioneers blanch in apprehension.
But this two-pronged attack by our current GC President and his Secretariat seems to me to be unprecedented in its boldness to exercise authority and force the conscience of members of the unions. I believe that if we are to maintain our current system of governance as well as liberty of conscience, it is imperative that our unions stand firm to defend the authority of their constituency to make decisions in harmony with their collective conscience. May God grant the leadership of the NPUC both courage and wisdom to stand firm in this crisis.

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Dr. Avis Hendrickson, the new president of Atlantic Union College, has a challenging role: resurrecting an institution that effectively closed down more than four years ago after repeated financial troubles and losing academic accreditation. She is working to attract students again to classes beginning August 24. In this exclusive interview, she explains where Atlantic Union College stands now, and where it hopes to go.

Question: Congratulations on your appointment as the president of Atlantic Union College. You were named as president last November. When did your contract begin? When did you begin sitting at your desk?

Answer: My position officially began on January 1, 2015. But I have not been sitting at my desk all that much. I travel quite a lot, as we reintroduce the college to our constituents.

What have you enjoyed most about your job so far? What has been the most challenging? The most surprising?

I have enjoyed seeing God answer prayers. It has also been wonderful receiving the well wishes of constituency members. My sense is that their hearts were broken when the college made the decision to suspend academic programs. It’s uplifting to be in an environment where people have said they are happy to see Atlantic Union College restart its academic programs.

The most challenging? I have to give more thought to that. My perspective is always to be thankful, as 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says. Whatever is happening, I trust God and act in faith.

The most surprising thing, in a very good way, is receiving applications from prospective students who are not graduating from high school until next year. This is an affirmation that there are students who really want to come here.

Classes are scheduled to begin August 24, after the college has been closed down since losing its accreditation in 2011. How many students do you have enrolled so far? How many do you hope for?

That’s right, we have offered no degree courses since 2011. To date we have about 11 students registered for the fall semester, but we are still processing about 50 more. There are other prospective students as well.

How many students do you need to have enrolled to make the college viable?

We need to have more. We are still working on increasing our numbers. But we are committed to offering our courses this academic year regardless of enrollment.

What degree programs is Atlantic Union College offering this year?

Students can enroll in two college-level programs: a B.A. in Religion/Theology, and a B.S. in Health Sciences/Biology. 

And will you be getting your lost accreditation back?

Our intention is to regain our accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. But we have to be in operation to even be considered for accreditation. As we work toward being re-accredited, we are authorized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Department of Education to offer these programs.

How long until you are accredited?

There is no guarantee for how long it will take. We are hoping to at least be in the process within two years.

Doesn’t the fact that you are not accredited make financial aid difficult for students?

Yes, it does. Students are not eligible for federal financial aid when we are not accredited. 

In addition to giving God the credit for taking care of Atlantic Union College, the Board of Trustees deserve great recognition for their work in God’s field regarding this college. The Board has decided to discount our tuition. In addition, we are working with a company to offer a payment plan for students, where no interest will be charged.

Atlantic Union College will also offer certificate programs?

We have the Northeast Evangelism Training School program. We have an ESL program (this is particularly helpful in our constituency where pastors from international congregations want to become proficient in English, and for international students). We also offer certificates in office management, a certified bookkeeper, enrolled agent (tax preparer), certified nursing assistant, medical billing and coding, computer training, and culinary arts. Our certificate programs are geared to students who are already in the workplace. We have eight certificate programs overall.

And how many students do you have registered for your certificate programs?

Registration for the certificate programs is not open yet. Some of these programs will begin late in September, and some begin in January. 

We are hoping to have as many students as possible in each of the programs.

Do you have a full complement of faculty and staff in place for this year?

We have the faculty for the degree programs, and coordinators for each of the degree majors. We are still recruiting for some of the certificate programs.

I suppose you have hired part-time, rather than full-time, teachers?

We are using adjunct faculty until we have enough money for full time. We are accepting applications for people who are interested in teaching, and we will expand as we have a need.

Did any of your new faculty previously serve at Atlantic Union College? Did they come back?

Great question. Yes. We have people who believe in Atlantic Union College and want to come back and make it be successful and work with our students. For instance, the chair for health sciences, Dr. Richard Brown, was the previous chair here. The chair for religion, Dr. R. Dean Davis, was also the previous chair. And the coordinator for certificate programs is Mrs. Barbara Fuller, who previously worked in adult programs. So we feel we are operating from a position of strength with the people leading these areas. We were known for our theology as well as our sciences before our programs were suspended.

Was the campus been kept in good repair during the time it was closed?

The Board of Trustees worked to make sure the facilities were kept up during the almost five years classes were suspended. They kept a skeleton crew to answer the phone, respond to requests for transcripts, and so on. They deserve credit for maintaining the campus during the hiatus.

And it was the Board of Trustees who got the approval from the Department of Education for the two degree programs.

Is Thayer Conservatory, also one of Atlantic Union College’s bright lights, still operating?

Yes, Thayer Conservatory, under Earl Raney, is still offering music lessons to students, as a community outreach program.

As the new president of Atlantic Union College, what have you concentrated most of your time and energy on so far?

Mainly building support and goodwill for the college. The Board of Trustees made a decision and created an affirmation: We are reframing Atlantic Union College to make sure we are known as a college surrounded by a culture of graciousness, dignity, Christian love and respect. I have been working with the Board of Trustees to communicate that to our constituency and the community.

Can you articulate your main goals for Atlantic Union College?

Absolutely. To regain accreditation, build our academic programs, and increase our financial stability.

This is a question I ask all college presidents: There are many other Adventist universities in North America. Do we as a church really need to support so many institutions?

I can answer for Atlantic Union College: Yes. There is only one college for the Atlantic Union and for all of our conferences. We have a constituency that prefers to send their children to this northeast corridor as opposed to somewhere else. We have a constituency who actually feel really good about Atlantic Union College being known as a cornerstone of Adventist education. 

Many of the parents are very close to their children, and it is more accessible for them to come and visit their children in Massachusetts rather than at any sister colleges (even though they are very good). They are at peace sending their children here.

The fact that much of our Adventist educational history has taken place at Atlantic Union College is very endearing to our constituency — not only in the Atlantic Union, but also worldwide. Groups come here just to walk on our beautiful campus, see Founders Hall, and be in an environment where there is such serenity and the the sense that the Holy Spirit abides here. 

Adventist colleges were started as a way of training students for service in the church. Do we still need church-trained church workers? What do you see as the primary function of an Adventist college?

We are here to be of service to God and mankind, as God as prescribed for us. That is what our focus is — still the original mission. All of our classes teach integration of faith and learning. There is great work that still needs to be done in our communities. We are training our students to be of service to God and humanity.

In the past, Atlantic Union College had explored plans for alliances with Washington Adventist University and other Adventist institutions. Have all of those plans for alliances been abandoned, or are you still looking in that direction?

From my perspective the alliances we are looking at are only “articulation agreements,” where students can move easily from one institution to another. For instance, a student might take general education courses here, then transfer to a sister institution to graduate with a degree in something we don’t offer.

I understand you have wide experience in academia, and hold a number of degrees. However, this will be your first time working for an Adventist college, is that right? How is it different?

Yes, that’s right. I am very pleased to be here at Atlantic Union College. We pray before meetings and sessions, and I like that very much.

Is there anything specific in your background that helped prepare you for this role?

I have confidence in God and his son Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I believe God has prepared me for this position. I think of Esther, who was prepared “for such a time as this.” When I look at all the experiences I have had and the knowledge I have gained, I can see how God was getting me ready. It is certainly through God’s intervention that I am here. Along my career path I had not thought about working for a religious organization, but I have a great desire to be in God’s service, and I can now see the sequence of events clearly led me to this.

Are you a lifelong Adventist?

No, I became an Adventist as an adult — more than 30 years ago. My mother (who passed nine years ago) attended an evangelistic effort in the Bronx. When I realized she was going to this place every day, I decided to go and see what it was all about — make sure my mother was okay. So I went to tent effort, and the evangelist was Raymond Saunders. He used not just one, but several scriptures to support everything he said. Everything was scripturally based, and that was the attraction. From that my children and I became Adventists.

And the Bronx church is still your home church?

The Bronx church created a mission called Better Living Mission, which became Hunts Point Church — that’s my church. 

Now of course I have moved to South Lancaster, and when I am not on engagements I attend the college church.

So you moved to South Lancaster for the position?

Yes, this is a commitment. I am here as long as I am needed. 

You are one of the few women to ever lead an Adventist tertiary institution. Do you feel your gender impacts your staff or the way you do your job in any way?

We are wonderfully and marvelously made. Yes, my gender impacts what I do. This is an environment that needs to be nurtured, with relationships that need to be nurtured. Not that men can’t nurture, but I believe my gender helps me do this. I think it is a positive contribution. 

There are no surprises for God. He made sure I was on a pathway to get this position even when I didn’t know. 

No negative aspects regarding my gender have been brought to my attention. Remember, we are in a Christian environment. And even outside that the environment is very aware that women can and have successfully maintained leadership roles. I am trusting God to lead and help me to follow his guidance.

Anything else you would like to add?

My sense is that generally people are very glad to know that Atlantic Union College will once again offer academic programs, and that is very nice. We have been affirmed by people actually registering for classes. And we have only just begun. We still have the spring semester, and  certificate programs later in fall. It’s a very exciting time here at Atlantic Union College. To have a Board of Trustees that is so supportive makes it a special blessing.

Avis Hendrickson has a doctorate in Developmental Education: Student Development and Personnel Services from Grambling State University. She received a master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling from Hunter College of The City University of New York, a bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Sciences from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a senior college of The City University of New York, and a professional degree in Administration and Supervision from Bank Street College of Education.

She has experience working in community colleges, senior colleges, and universities in urban, suburban, and metropolitan communities. The institutions were public, private, city, and state organizations. Hendrickson has also been recently invited to serve as an evaluation team member with NEASC (The New England Association of Schools and Colleges).

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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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This is the fourth post in a ten-part series for Spectrum’s 2015 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Unclean by Richard Beck. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

Ostensibly, this chapter was written for me: the critic who thinks Beck's argument is grounded on a false dichotomy between disgust/sacrifice/boundaries/holiness/priestly tradition and love/mercy/justice/prophetic tradition. Unfortunately, I find his answers to that charge not only failed to answer my critique but indeed strengthened my dissatisfaction with his analysis. While I laud his attempts to address the way Christians have generally responded to LGBT individuals and other outcasts, I find his argument in this book simplistic and ill-informed. Admittedly, my concerns may be addressed later in the book, but, at this point, all indications are to the contrary. In this article, I will outline my concerns and present an alternate framework for negotiating "love and boundaries."

To begin with, while I appreciate his attempt to address the underlying logic of Christ's encounter with the Pharisees in Matthew 9:10-13 in terms of a fear of contamination, his analysis has begun to do violence to scripture itself. While Beck rightfully points out a tension at play in the passage, he argues that it is a dichotomy, a zero-sum game. He reads Christ's quotation of Hosea 6:6 as literally choosing a side in a dichotomy. Yet, this reading neglects the context of Hosea 6 which is concerned with how Judah has polluted and defiled itself with idolatry—thus undermining the dichotomy (unless we are to read the Old Testament and the New separate from and even in opposition to each other).    

Furthermore, he disregards Christ's expulsive actions at the temple; the significance of purity and holiness to both Old Testament and New Testament writers, priests and prophets alike; the expulsion of Laodicea in Revelation; and various parables which point to a cleansing or purging, even with fire. Contrary to his claim that Jesus "decisively sid[es] with the prophetic impulse" (as if the prophets never spoke of contamination or defilement), Christ's involvement with this "dichotomy," like the priests and prophets before him, is far more complex than simply choosing one or the other.  Certainly, Christ is concerned by an expression of devotion which dehumanizes those deemed less devout, but this does not neatly map into Beck's dichotomy, nor align with one side against the other.

I believe much of Beck's trouble is in his wide application of disgust psychology to various issues of church practice and community. He conflates disgust with sacrifice, holiness, boundaries, the "priestly tradition" (whatever that is) and more as things to be completely overthrown in the name of mercy, love, justice and the "prophetic tradition" (an even more problematic phrase). This flattens a number of significant differences in the practice and deployment of these various terms. For instance, he fails to recognize how concerns for holiness or boundaries may be legitimate and loving, rather than mere emotional reactions grounded in disgust. He also fails to consider that holiness or identity may be grounded in anything other than a binary, bounded set.

In part, I believe this is due to an uncritical reliance on Western cultural and philosophical norms. For example, he suggests that the words Western English-speakers use to describe intimacy in terms of spatial closeness or an in/out binary reveal the inherent truth about how humans experience love. Yet, there are other ways, even in our own culture and language, to imagine the practice and/or experience of love—for instance as living alongside another, as sharing experiences, as sharing stories. None of these necessitate exclusion or boundaries in the way Beck suggests. A friend with expertise in First Nations languages explained to me that intimacy and relationships are commonly described in terms of doing things together, rather than in/out boundaries or close/distant spatial mappings. Yet, Beck fails to consider any of this, preferring to simply reiterate the (cultural) given-ness of these binary ways of conceiving the world in order to support his dichotomy.

Perhaps Beck will yet respond to my concerns, but thus far I find his analysis lacking. For myself, I appreciate Derrida's consideration of love and boundaries under the name of "hospitality." He identifies a tension in hospitality: in order to host someone, we must have a bounded and controlled place of our own to invite them into; yet hospitality also opens those boundaries and gives over control.  The answer is not to escape this tension but to learn to live in it—to realize that, as Solomon said, there is a time for everything. While Beck certainly identifies this tension in his exploration of love, his answer to it is simply to privilege one aspect over the other--as if they could (and should) be separated. Within Adventism, we have recently begun to consider and respond to problems of child abuse and predation with support and better regulation, rather than falling back on old stories about "love" and "acceptance." We must exercise reasonable control to prevent predation (especially upon our children) and other forms of violence against ourselves and our communities. Certainly this introduces a difficult tension into our faith, but it remains absolutely necessary.

However, these boundaries need not become the defining aspect of our faith, identity and community. I am reminded of a sermon I once heard from Ty Gibson in which he suggested that our faith—our Adventist identity—should be a centered set rather than a bounded set. In short, we should know and be known by our focus on Christ, rather than by who or what we include or exclude. Sometimes this may mean establishing boundaries to protect the vulnerable, while sometimes it may mean tearing down boundaries to reach the vulnerable.  The difficulty is in knowing when to do each. Our goal is not to be more exclusive or more inclusive, nor to be more "priestly" or "prophetic," but rather to be more Christlike—in all the beautiful, messy complexity of human existence.

David Barrett is co-producer of the Storying Life podcast, and recently completed an MA in English with a concentration in Cultural, Social and Political Thought.

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Ahead of headlining at our UltraViolet Arts Festival, award-winning recording artist Jennifer Knapp shares a little bit about her music and her advocacy for LGBTQ people of faith in this exclusive interview with Spectrum.

Question: You are the headline artist at our Spectrum UltraViolet Arts FestivalSeptember 12 and 13 in Glendale, California. Thank you so much for being a part of our event! What can fans expect from your concert on Saturday night?

Answer: I’ll mostly be playing songs from the “SET ME FREE” record, but I’ll also include some older music. Whenever I’m in front of an audience that is familiar with conversations of faith, I open up quite a bit about the spirituality within the songs. 

Being a queer person of faith comes into play as well, so elements of the concert will be in narrating what that journey has been like through the music. 

You are also scheduled give the keynote talk on Sunday during the festival. Without giving too much away, what do you plan to talk about?

I’ll be speaking more in depth about being LGBTQ inside of faith community. I’ll share about what my experience has been like, while also highlighting the importance of the support that needs to come from faith communities.  

You have toured all over the US, and played all kinds of venues, from churches and bars to big events like 1999’s Lilith Fair. What are your favorite kinds of concerts to play?

I truly enjoy playing intimate environments like clubs. They are usually small, packed, sweaty and very conversational. We’re all so close together, we can really connect with each other during the concert. 

But really, wherever I play, it’s the days when I get to meet people and feel like we can really hang out that are the best. I find that playing a gig and being a diva is all well and good, but it’s much more fulfilling when the circumstances allow us all to truly discover something about each other.

For any readers who are less familiar with your music, what are the three songs they should listen to? And why?

Oh, how do I choose? I suppose in the songs I’m playing right now, I’d pick “Remedy,” “Set Me Free” and “Mercy’s Tree.” In that order, it’s almost a cross section of my biography. Where I’ve come from, what I’ve been through to get here, and where my hope lies going forward.

After two hit records and a Grammy nomination in the late 1990s and early 2000s, you took a seven-year hiatus from music, traveling the world, including a long stint in Australia. You said you needed a break after an intense recording and touring schedule. Why did you decide to come back?

To make a long story short, I left having imagined that I had completely retired from music because I was, for the most part, convinced that I had nothing left to offer. My retirement, as it were, really just ended up being an exercise in choosing not to use my my gifts. It took seven years to figure it out, but I discovered that music was as vital as having air in my lungs. It’s a part of me. 

It finally dawned on me that I was spending a lot of energy in ignoring what I was inclined to naturally do, mostly because I was afraid that it would lead me into public spaces again. 

My sexuality was definitely one of the hurdles, knowing that returning, I’d be inclined to reveal it. I can’t imagine songwriting without a healthy transparency, but I needed time to get comfortable about being so public about something so intensely private. 

It’s a funny thing. Songwriting seems to consistently lead me on a journey toward social connection and vulnerability.  I think that after I’d somewhat regained my energy, and renewed my own confidence in what I had to offer the people around me, it was easier to open the guitar case back up. 

You were known as a Christian recording artist, but the two albums you have recorded since your return, Letting Go (2010) and Set Me Free (2014) have not been marketed toward Christian radio. Why the change? You have said that your faith is still important to you. Are you still asked to perform primarily at Christian events?

The most basic change is that I’m simply not writing about Jesus in every song, nor do I see my purpose as being exclusively “Christian.” 

When it comes to the specific genre and market place of Christian music, simply being a Christian isn’t enough. There’s a real necessity to have the content always pointing toward a language that is specific to Christianity. For me, personally, I feel the pull to rise to the challenge of couching the spiritual lessons I’ve learned into a broader perspective. 

I left Christian music, in part, because I didn’t feel comfortable creating music that predetermined a path of spiritual resolution for another person. Life is messy and getting through it, celebrating it or even challenging the status quo is part of growing as a human being. 

For those who are familiar to concepts like grace and forgiveness, I hope they can continue to see these common themes in my music in uncommon ways. And for the times that I speak more openly about my faith experience, I hope to leave space for the experiences of others. 

All that being said, these days, if and when you find me in a church, I’m largely talking about LGBTQ issues. That’s not a music career decision, it’s a personal choice I’ve made to engage my faith community in a very specific way.

You came out as a lesbian, and spoke of your long-term partner, in 2010, which sparked a lot of conversation in the Christian music industry. In the five years since then, I’m sure you have heard various reactions from your fans and others. Have they mostly been positive and supportive, or negative and condemning?

There was condemnation and it still comes across my radar in a fairly consistent trickle, but what is interesting is that it largely comes from faceless, anonymous voices. It lacks the potency of sincerity when you compare it those who are willing to be visible and positively supportive. As far as the ratio, it’s truly far more positive, audible, and visible support I’ve received that far outweighs the negative. 

I think what most people tend to rally around is the idea that it’s tragic to shame anyone into believing they are worthless. Religion or not, there’s really no excuse for limiting the potential of another human being. I’ve been so fortunate to have a fan base that lifted me up during the worst of the storm. They remind me daily that there is more to life than arguments over sexual orientation. They really care about the journey I am on and they are very, very vocal in celebrating the fact that it takes a lot of courage for any person to reveal their true identity to the outside world. 

You don’t have to be gay to understand what it’s like to be rejected by those you rely upon to love you. Nor do you have to be Christian to understand what anyone means when they say that God hates who you are. All I know is that, as a pessimist, I’m never truly surprised when I see the ugly side of people; but the upside is the exhilarating realization that we all have the ability to rise to the occasion to be agents of love.

You have said it can be hard to hold on to one’s faith, and to the person one loves (of whatever sex) at the same time. Why is that?

Maybe it’s just me, but somewhere along the way I think I was taught to believe that loving God and loving people were in two different categories. As if the love of another human being requires an entirely different skill set than that required in learning to love God; or that perhaps we must concede one for the other.  All I know is that if falling in love has taught me anything, it is that I would have never been capable of it without an insight into the love I had learned from a divine perspective. And at the same time, I don’t think I would have understood just how life-changing faith can be without the tangible, physical connection with other human beings. 

In a lot of ways, I feel like I m learning to undo a teaching that has challenged me to see love on earth and divine love as in competition, when what I have started to experience is that love is love. It is fragile, requires kindness, patience, faith — and the occasional reward of being able to touch the source of inspiration.

You have launched an advocacy organization for LGBTQ people of faith called Inside Out. Can you tell us more about that organization and your involvement with it?

The principle goal of Inside Out Faith is to advocate for the expression and inclusion of LGBTQ people in their respective faith communities. 

One of the challenges of facing faith communities is simply getting exposure to what it’s actually like being LGBTQ. The thought has long been that gay people are gay because they’ve lost their faith or that they’ve left their church because they’ve lost some spiritual battle. What we’re finding is that people leave their churches because their churches have exiled them, silenced them or have grown weary of being treated as less than. The reality is that losing a church is not the same as losing one’s faith. There’s also the opportunity to draw attention to those churches who have known this all along. 

These days, there is a a growing willingness from the pews to the denominations as a whole to be seen as actively inclusive. Inside Out Faith helps to put the face on the issue by using social media and speakers who are willing to live out what love can look like when we support our LGBTQ community.

IOF was born out of a need. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but when I came out, there were (and still are) so few people willing to risk offending their conservative peers by expressing both their faith and their sexual orientation.  Like so many others, I personally had to weigh the option of whether to leave or stay involved in faith community due to others’ reaction to my sexuality. As a former Christian artist, it was a shock to many that I would even show my face, let alone claim my faith. But what I discovered by opening up and talking about it was that I wasn’t just an anomaly. There have been faithful, spiritual LGBTQ people and their allies worshiping together for years, but in times of crisis, it can be dangerously stressful trying to find the spiritual support that’s needed if there isn’t a clear invitation. The sanctuary should be exactly that: safe and a place of refuge for all who enter.

What message do you have for Christians (especially young people) who identify as LGBTQ or have questions about their sexual orientation?

I think the first is to give yourself permission to be honest with where you are. You don’t have to have everything figured out in one day. It often takes a little time to for things to feel like they make sense enough to start talking about them with others. It’s also important to find someone you feel safe to talk to. 

There’s no timeline on coming out. You might be a teenager, or much, much older. I was a “late bloomer.” It took me a long time to figure out what was going on. Once I had a good handle on what my sexual orientation was, I started to educate myself. I read…a lot. I read up on what the Bible said and what some Christians say that it says. All across the board, Christians disagree with other Christians about a lot of different things, but one thing that should never be argued is that you are beautiful and worthy of love, just as you are.

Do you feel that the attitude of Christian churches toward LGBTQ members is changing? What do you think churches and church members need to do for the LGBTQ community?

I think that if we’re going to define a trend of “change” it’s not so much a theological shift from sin to not sin, but rather a willingness in faith leaders, believers and denominations to be abundantly clear of the affirming positions that they’ve previously kept close to the chest. 

Theological evolution is a touchy subject for some, but experience and contact with human need has a tendency to open the door to compassion. It’s not just that LGBTQ people of faith are coming out, it’s that their straight brothers and sisters are coming out as allies along side them, unwilling to leave them to exile.  I love what Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert has said, that ultimately he’s compelled by the Gospel to err on the side of love. “It’s possible that I could be wrong…but I doubt it.” 

As far as the direction we can go as church and church members, there’s the concept we have long valued in the form of testimony shared by people who have discovered faith. We don’t just encounter God in terms of religious tradition or solely inside the four walls of the church — we do so by the experience of living. We’ve silenced the story of our LGBTQ people of faith for so long, maybe it’s time we started to listen to the overwhelming stories of hope and faith and perhaps find something that can lift us all up?

What does Christianity mean to you, personally?

Even after 20 years of being on this journey, all I can say is that the word “Christian” is a single word that still challenges me perhaps more than any other. From the day this all started, I’ve wrestled with the expectations of the religion and suffered long episodes of complete doubt and skepticism, but I cannot escape the life-changing experience of having understood just a portion of the grace through the lens of Jesus. 

I am, to this day, compelled to be inspired to follow on if by nothing else, than by faith. That if I continue to seek to love as Christ is said to have loved, that it may, in fact, turn out to be Divine.

Singer-songwriter Jennifer Knapp has multiple Dove Awards and two Grammy nominations to her credit, as well as a memoir called Facing The Music: My Story (Howard/Simon & Schuster).

Since coming out as a lesbian — a noteworthy story that made her the featured interview subject of an episode of Larry King Live — Knapp’s willingness to speak on behalf of LGBT people of faith has created a new role for her as one of their foremost advocates.

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5:45am.  Half awake in an airport, I scanned the New York Times headlines (August 14) on my iPhone.  The very first headline caught my eye: ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape. I woke up. 

A 12-year-old girl describes how an Islamic State fighter would pray before and after raping her. “I kept telling him it hurts–please stop. He told me that according to Islam, he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. “He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God.” 

The article tells how, before their assault on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, ISIS had done extensive advance planning to capture, transport, isolate, warehouse, advertise, display and sell Yazidi girls and women into slavery, sexual slavery, partly as strategy to attract new fighters to ISIS.

It’s chilling—the foundation for this “100 percent preplanned” and systematic atrocity is theological. ISIS commissioned sharia scholars to render an opinion that the Yazidi girls and women were enemy women and it is halal to rape them and use them as they please. 

According to the Times, “In much the same way as specific Bible passages were used centuries later to support the slave trade in the United States, the Islamic State cites specific verses or stories in the Quran or else in the Sunna, the traditions based on the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, to justifying human trafficking, experts say. 

“Scholars of Islamic theology disagree, however, on the proper interpretation of these verses, and on the divisive question of whether Islam actually sanctions slavery…Many argue that slavery figures in the Islamic scripture in much the same way that it figures in the Bible–as a reflection of the period in antiquity in which the religion was born.

So obviously, Islamic scholars differ on how to interpret their scriptures: literally, without regard to context—like ISIS—or, taking cultural influences into account.

It didn’t take me long to start contemplating the current debate about hermeneutics within Adventism.

We have our devotees of a “plain reading,” a literalistic approach to scripture.  From this perspective, cultural influences did not make it into the Bible; the Holy Spirit screened all those influences out before words got on clay tablet or parchment.  In this view, the writers presumably had all cultural influences expunged from their minds; either that or the connection between brain and hand was lost while the Holy Spirit’s hand took over the pen.  Precedent is prescriptive, in this view.

Then we have those who believe that the Bible, and events in the Bible, were sometimes culturally influenced and not necessarily applicable forever. In this camp, precedent is not prescriptive. It is descriptive. 

As I read the Times article, I wondered whether the Bible has any parallels that would support the ISIS practice.

When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month.  After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.”  Deuteronomy 21:10-13.

Without splitting hairs concerning minor differences, these texts sound similar to the practices of ISIS described in the Times article. 

In both the Deuteronomy verses and ISIS practice, enemy women were taken against their will and subjected to sexual relationships, sanctioned by their relevant deity.  Let us not romanticize or sanitize the Deuteronomy text because it says, “she shall be your wife.” These were captive women, perhaps newly widowed or stolen young girls, spoils of war, taken by lusting men, unwilling participants in sex and servitude. 

I am neither a biblical scholar nor an expert in hermeneutics. But it seems to me that a reading of the Bible sometimes reveals that culture is inextricably embedded within Scripture. 

I venture that most of us view slavery, particularly sexual slavery, as unquestionably a moral evil. And yet, we find ancient Israel, the LORD’s chosen people, being given instructions on how to go about the sexual subjugation of captive women. So maybe sexual slavery is not actually a moral evil. After all, God does not change. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). 

Maybe living in a secular culture that has rejected slavery as immoral and illegal has influenced our views. Maybe sexual slavery is still valid.

No. I don’t believe that.

But reading the Bible without taking into account historical context could lead to the conclusion that it is.

This article is not intended to be about slavery. That just happens to be the vehicle to illustrate for one neophyte the challenges that surround hermeneutics.   

Edward Reifsnyder is a healthcare consultant, president of The Reifsnyder Group, and senior vice-president of FaithSearch Partners. He and his wife Janelle live in Fort Collins, Colorado, and have two daughters.

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This is the fifth post in a ten-part series for Spectrum’s 2015 Summer Reading Group. Each post will be drawn from chapters of the book Uncleanby Richard Beck. You can view the reading/posting schedule here.

The ugly, sneering villain commits an act of violence that disgusts us as we watch the beginning of a movie. Our reaction to him is deep seated and almost instantaneous. This person deserves to die. The rest of the movie is devoted to satisfying our longing for his extermination. The hero of the film does indeed vanquish his foe at the end of the film, usually in a dramatic one-to-one face off. And something deep in our gut rejoices to see the monster get what he deserves.

Most Americans have probably seen a thousand movies with this plot line. It is an old story, but one that still stirs us with passion at a pre-rational level. Our gut-level reaction to the despicable monsters we see in movies can serve as a warning to what we are capable of on a smaller scale. The temptation is to deny that we have a dark side capable of mistreating others. But Beck’s chapter “Monsters and Scapegoats” makes the point that every human heart is predisposed to dehumanize the “Other.”

Beck begins the chapter by citing examples of socio-moral disgust which are extreme and easy to observe. Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews is one example. The Jews were dehumanized by being compared to rats and other vermin and then scapegoated as the reason Germany lost Word War I. Most people can see that scapegoating itself is morally wrong. However, once the group feels fear and disgust towards ‘the monster,’ the scapegoating process can proceed without individuals feeling any pangs of conscience. Something more primal than thought has taken over the group and they will not be satisfied until the monstrous is forcibly exterminated.

All of this may seem very far away from where you and I live. We are not currently directly engaged in any kind of ethnic cleansing or violence. And yet, Beck argues, we would do well to look inside ourselves and become aware of our own tendencies of monster-making and scapegoating. Much like cancer, catching it early may save us in the end. As Christians, we should be very wary of the scapegoating process, because that is exactly what happened to Jesus, even though he was entirely innocent. He was considered a monster by the religious community of his day, and ultimately put to death. He was considered dangerous because of his friendships with those on the fringes, who were outside, of respectable society.

We can attempt to detect our internal “monsteritis” before it becomes destructive to ourselves and others by asking ourselves some simple questions: Do we have friends outside of our group? If you are a Democrat, do you have friends that are Republican? If you are a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, do you have friends who don’t go to church? Friends that are Muslim? Atheist? Do you have friends that have a different ethnicity than you? Pushing ourselves to grow in these areas is a great way to counteract our tendency to judge the “Other” as unclean and somehow subhuman. The more we can see others as part of the human family, the better we will be able to treat them. Theological reflection on God being the Father and all humans as God’s sons and daughters can go a long ways in helping us elevate the “Other.”

Here are other very helpful questions to ask: How do we treat service professionals? Do I see the girl ringing up my groceries as a human being or as part of the machinery? Is she only a means to an end? Or does she deserve a look in the eye and a smile? Beck uses a great story to drive this point home to his students. He asks them to imagine that one of their friends got a job waiting tables. They get together one night to go the restaurant where the friend is serving and ask to be seated in her section. However, when they arrive, they noticed she is flustered and running behind on everything. “How would you feel about this?” Beck asked his students. “We would tell her to take care of the other tables first and try to encourage her.” “How much of a tip would you leave?” “We would still leave a large tip.” Now, imagine the same scenario with a waitress who no one in the group knows. Is there any mercy or compassion? Probably not. Will the tip be high? Probably not. We naturally support our “own,” those we perceive as “in” our group. Those on the outside naturally receive lesser treatment. But the conscious act of treating a service professional according to the golden rule, as a fellow human being, is a great start for confronting the seeds of “monsteritis” that are waiting to grow inside of us.

When I was attending the Seminary at Andrews University, I was looking for a way to make a few extra dollars. A friend of mine hooked me up with a job as a golf caddy at a very prestigious golf club, called Lost Dunes about 30 minutes away. The membership for this club was $50,000, so it wasn’t for everybody. Some of the members would fly in on their private helicopters from Chicago to play. The rich and powerful were my clients. However, after about six months, I quit the job, even though the money was good. I just got tired of being treated like the golf cart. I wasn’t a human being to most of these golfers. I was part of the machinery that was only noticed when it malfunctioned. Ever since that time, I have had a soft spot in my heart for service professionals who live on tips. I have made it a practice to tip a set amount regardless of the level of service. I have tried to remember to smile and look people in the eye and to humanize everyone that I interact with. This is something I regularly fail in doing because I’m in a hurry or  distracted by thinking about something else. But I continue to try, because I recognize how important it is for me to practice.

In the end, although this chapter highlights the somber point that we all struggle with dehumanizing the other, I believe that Beck offers us hope and a way forward as well. When we get to know people outside of our group, it changes the way we view them. Instead of allowing religion to legitimize the scapegoating process, I envision a church filled with people who practice religion modeled after the example of Jesus who consistently looked for ways to reach out to and include those on the outside.

Will Johns is currently serving as the pastor of worship, community outreach, and discipleship at the Beltsville Adventist Church in Beltsville, MD.

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A few years ago, my dad announced that he had discovered a family relative that none of us knew, living in Pennsylvania. He made contact on Facebook with this long-lost (or more appropriately, heretofore unknown) cousin. They subsequently met in real life, and struck up a correspondence. Although the cousin was my dad’s age, I also added her as a Facebook friend. It was interesting to see, with help from social media, the ways she resembled my dad’s side of the family and the ways she was different.

Reading Oliver Sacks’ final message to the world—an essay in the New York Times on Sabbath—felt similar in a lot of ways to the discovery of a previously unknown relative. Sacks, a neurologist famous for his published case-studies, most notably “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” was raised an Orthodox Jew in England.

Sacks passed away on Sunday of this week, succumbing to cancer, in his adopted home of New York City. He was 82 years old.

In his final essay, “Sabbath,” published two weeks before his death, Sacks reminisced on an early life marked by religious peculiarities that, in many ways, sounded Adventist. Reading the essay made him feel like a (brilliant) older family member I had never known, but with whom I shared much in common—especially the rituals surrounding Sabbath.

We lived in a fairly Orthodox Jewish community in Cricklewood, in Northwest London—the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the greengrocer, the fishmonger, all closed their shops in good time for the Shabbos, and did not open their shutters till Sunday morning. All of them, and all our neighbors, we imagined, were celebrating Shabbos in much the same fashion as we did.

Around midday on Friday, my mother doffed her surgical identity and attire and devoted herself to making gefilte fish and other delicacies for Shabbos. Just before evening fell, she would light the ritual candles, cupping their flames with her hands, and murmuring a prayer. We would all put on clean, fresh Shabbos clothes, and gather for the first meal of the Sabbath, the evening meal."

The essay brought painful reminders of the ways in which religious communities, his and mine alike, have struggled with their gay and lesbian children. Sacks was gay, and his mother reacted to the news the way that many Adventist parents have done.

...the next morning she came down with a look of horror on her face, and shrieked at me: “You are an abomination. I wish you had never been born.” (She was no doubt thinking of the verse in Leviticus that read, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”) The matter was never mentioned again, but her harsh words made me hate religion’s capacity for bigotry and cruelty."

Sacks described the eventual extinction of religious rites in his adult life in a way that also felt familiar to me. When he became a man, he put the ways of his childhood behind him.

I did not embrace the ritual duties of a Jewish adult—praying every day, putting on tefillin before prayer each weekday morning—and I gradually became more indifferent to the beliefs and habits of my parents…”

But near the end of his life, Sacks experienced what some describe as a second naïveté—a new valuation of Sabbath, if not for its religious necessity, then for its ability to help him come to terms with an impending rest from his life's labors.

Finding breathing difficult, and his body wasting away from cancer that overtook him, Sacks remembered the Sabbath Day:

I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.”

Rest well, Cousin Oliver. Rest in peace.

READ: From the New York Times, Oliver Sacks, "Sabbath."

Jared Wright is Managing Editor of SpectrumMagazine.org.

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In the wake of the ordination vote in San Antonio, the question of biblical hermeneutics is on the General Conference agenda. It is not a coincidence.

What the Theology of Ordination Study Committee demonstrated conclusively is that the issue of ordination cannot be solved on a purely textual basis. My sense is that until the church is willing to engage in a critical encounter with its own, more or less hidden, philosophical-theological presuppositions, and prejudices, debates like these will be divisive, heated, and ultimately inconclusive.

A basic prejudice, as I see it, is the need to define human existence within an essentialist framework of “God’s divine order,” i.e., a strong and absolutist metaphysical theology. The debate over ordination illustrates this. At the one end of the debate, you have headship proponents who argue for a divine order of male headship, established as far back as creation itself. They argue that this is the naturally given, directly from the hands of the Almighty. On the other end of the spectrum, we find the opponents who argue that ordaining women is a moral-ethical issue of equality. They posit that it has nothing to do with a naturally given or divine order. Behind these two positions lies two completely different presuppositions and that is my task here.

My summer reading has been Hannah Arendt’s book “The Human Condition,” and Marieke Borren’s comments on Arendt’s philosophy. I discovered during my reading, unexpectedly, that Arendt has something relevant to say on the present debate over ordination and biblical hermeneutics in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She is a German philosopher, who after World War II spent a large part of her life in the United States, her writing deeply informed by Holocaust and by Totalitarianism.

A basic premise of Arendt’s philosophy is that human beings are primarily “worldly beings,” i.e., situated in concrete, lived experience. She stresses the intersubjective nature of human existence, and that our sense of reality depends upon “sharing a world with others.” Human understanding and knowledge is embedded in our practical dealings with the things of the world and with each other.  As “interpretive beings” we try to reconcile ourselves with the world and “to be at home in it.” She asserts that the world is the sole life-context within which human meaning-making unfolds. It is in the world that we live our lives and die. While Arendt shares Heidegger’s notion of the human lifeworld as “being-in-the-world,” she also stresses the component of human plurality: “being-in-the-world-with-different-others.”

From this starting point, Arendt’s launches her critique of (strong) ideologies, which claim a total and absolute explanation of reality. Her claim is that essentialist ideological systems have a tendency to suffocate plurality and leave us with a sense of “unreality.” Here she includes both political totalitarian ideologies and strong metaphysical theologies. Their “specialty,” she claims, is that they try to create a coherent system of rational propositional truths, which they subsequently projects onto history, nature and culture. In her view, the working principle of these ideologies is that they want to explain reality deductively from one (given) basic premise. In the case of the Holocaust, it was race, and in the case of San Antonio, male headship won the day.  

Their ideological-theological narratives are based on the premise of a “natural order.” While, on the one hand, these ideologies are seemingly logical, coherent, and consistent, they are, on the other hand, coercive and totalitarian in the sense that they shut off the dialogical aspect of intersubjective reality, i.e., a world constituted by the lived plurality of human experiences. Arendt claims that this may lead to a complete blindness to our common notion of lived reality, a devaluation of the dialogical aspect of life, and a denial of the situated character of our understanding of the world.

Furthermore, Arendt claims, that by asserting absolute truths as the given “natural”—“God’s divine order”—such ideologies annul the plurality of voices, which is constitutive of our common intersubjective world. Such totalitarian ideologies are only friends with unity as a boneless and faceless uniformity of submission, but enemies of unity in diversity of embodied “flesh and blood.” They disable discourse among people, shut off independent thinking, isolate people in their own minds, and undermine individuality. The world becomes one-dimensional and homogeneous.

To avoid this “illusory reality of sleepwalking,” she suggests we must distinguish between “equality” and “sameness.” For her, equality is not a descriptive notion of something “naturally given,” because “equality is possible only under conditions of plurality,” but a political “normative notion” that refers to a “moral ideal or task.”  Sameness, she claims, is about belonging to the same species—homo sapiens—of a shared biological and existential constitution. Equality does not make us the same, and sameness does not make us equal. Equality is not opposed to heterogeneity, but to sameness. If equality were a description of a given natural sameness, it would destroy the intersubjective plurality of lived experience.

As I understand Arendt, her answer to male-headship proponents would have been that by making their ideology into a strong metaphysical theology of “God’s divine order,” theology becomes coercive and destroys plurality—the “presence of others.” In addition, a natural theology denies the situatedness of the intersubjective aspect of human existence and meaning making, conditioned by time, history, and culture. She would also claim, based on her own first-hand experience with totalitarian ideologies, that by reducing “equality” to “sameness”; by naturalizing and ontologizing moral values, we ruin our notion of human freedom.

Hermeneutics requires more than an archaeological excavation of the “purity” of biblical texts. It is also about the uncovering of our own, often hidden, philosophical, theological and cultural prejudices underpinning our theologies.

____________________________________

Sources:

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), second edition, published by University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Marieke Borren, ‘A Sense of the World’: Hanna Arendt’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Common Sense, International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2013), Vol. 21, No. 2, 225-255.

Ole-Edvin Utaker writes from Norway. He holds degrees in Theology from Newbold College and in Sociology of Religion from The Norwegian School of Theology, along with studies in Divinity through Andrews University, Newbold campus.

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In order to highlight the great feedback we receive as comments to the articles on the Spectrum Website, the editorial team has introduced the Friday feature, The Best of the Comments. Spectrum editors select comments that exemplify respectful discourse and that further the conversations that begin with Spectrum's articles and news stories. Here are eight comments we especially appreciated this week with links to the articles under which the comments appeared. -Editors

In response to "Unions and the General Conference – What Happens Next?"

Comment by Andre Reis:
Thanks for the tour de force analysis. I'm convinced the founder and finisher of our faith never envisioned that his people would be embroiled in such petty disputes. What a terrible waste of energy, funds and human resources to impose authoritarianism on the church. As penitent Christians of old regularly chanted: Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Comment by Beth:
If only this view had been pursued further under the last administration. I'm sure there are quite a few administrators looking back and lamenting a missed opportunity. Well, hindsight is 20/20 and if you wait for a time when the conditions are better to do what is right, that time might never come. Lesson learned. Those thinking the issue could be punted to the next administration who would preside over a more welcoming environment were quite wrong. Those thinking it can be punted now because another new administration would create better conditions are quite possibly wrong as well. There is no time like the present to do what is right.

Comment by Victor Pilmoor:
A few observations: It needs to be acknowledged, that we are first and foremost a voluntary association of people, rather than being of statutory composition. As such, we all want mutual collegial consent. Talk of nuclear legal remedies are not that helpful either way around. The presumption about powers of coercion does violence to our being. This and other conflicts highlight the need for a separate judicial strand since endowing political appointees with such powers is fraught with danger. While many entities follow the model constitution to include hierarchical deference, some have not. Thus generalisations on legal interpretation must be taken with caution. Many national associations have public legal status independent of any canonical association. The GC might struggle to overturn the status of a legally formed Charity where they themselves have little standing. Playing the trademark game - well? At the end: We still depend on the voluntary consent of people to recognise the leaders they choose, and leaders are equally dependent on the good will of those who choose to follow them. We can play hard ball with each other on the WO issue, but no amount of legislation will invoke cooperation on a swathe of other responsive initiatives. You can't force canaries to sing.

Comment by Bevin Brett:
(After pasting in comment from another person and from the article). . . This is the attempt to show that the UC's have already agreed to follow GC WP on some point. You then argue, I think correctly, that GC WP does not currently forbid the ordination of women, hence the agreement is not important. On the contrary, Ted Wilson and others are making a big deal out of this because they are trying to get the UC's to agree that the GC and the GC President have control over them. The UC's have not agreed to this.
The LC's have not agreed that they are under the control of the UC's or the GC
The churches have not agreed that they are under the control of the LC's, the UC's, or the GC
The members have not agreed that they are under the control of the church. The issue is three-fold. (1) Who gets to decide whether the action is "in harmony"? 
Not the GC because the GC has no control over the UC and never has had. (2) Any UC that decides it no longer wishes to be "in harmony" is free to amend its constitution or by-laws to remove this phrase. It is the members that must do that, and the GC can't stop them. (3) As an individual SdA, I was never asked to cede this power to the GC president or his minions, and I never agreed to do it. I was never asked whether I would change my beliefs if the GC president changed hers. I agreed that I currently held a particular set of beliefs and wished to be a church member. I never agreed to letting the denomination control my mind.

In response to "Summer Reading Group: Monsters and Scapegoats"

Comment by David Barrett:
I continue to struggle with Beck's argumentation. This chapter, I found his position regarding "scapegoating" over-exaggerated. Your example is excellent in this regard. When we feel anger toward a villain, it may be about many things besides disgust. We might feel rightfully angry because the villain is cruel and/or unjust. We may wish to see him killed (or at least stopped) to remove the very real threat he poses to the hero. We may even feel sympathy for the villain, even as we recognize his death is narratively necessary. These reactions are not about disgust, but about other desires and feelings of in/justice, goodness, love, etc. The villain does not need to disgust us to be hated and/or feared. Fear of harm and death is not the same as disgust, although they may at times overlap. A monster can be beautiful and attractive and still dangerous. (Perhaps like the snake in Eden?) Conflating all these emotions into one basic "disgust psychology" does not deepen the conversation, rather it removes our ability to distinguish gradations and nuances and the complexity of life and emotion. 

In response to "Who or What is a Missionary?"

Comment by Philip Brantley:
Given that there are many Seventh-day Adventists who find the study of hermeneutics to be very much a mystery, I would like to offer some insights from this week's Sabbath School lesson: The story of Phillip and the Ethiopian illustrates that there is no such thing as a "plain meaning" of a text. Words do not declare their own meaning. Ability to read a text does not guarantee ability to understand the text read. A "plain meaning" approach to interpretation of the biblical text was of no help to the Ethiopian and is of no help to Seventh-day Adventists today. Who is Phillip? Luke makes clear that Phillip is Hermes, the messenger of the gods, not in a literal sense of course but in a figurative sense. The word "hermeneutics" is derived from Hermes' name. You cannot understand hermeneutics until you first understand Hermes, as depicted in Greek mythological writings. We see that the Greeks address Paul as Hermes and offer sacrifices to him. Acts 14:8-20. That biblical text demands that its understanding is dependent upon our understanding of who Hermes is. That our understanding of the biblical text is dependent upon a reading about Hermes in Greek mythological writings is illustrative of the "historical" prong of the historical-grammatical hermeneutic. Phillip is just like Paul, and is as deserving of being mistakenly characterized as the literal Hermes. So let's look at some of the characteristics shared by Phillip and Hermes, as set forth in the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian: a. Both Phillip and Hermes are messengers of the gods, as it were, in that they deliver divine messages.
b. Phillip, like Hermes, transcends time and space, as illustrated in his mysterious vanishing after his encounter with the Ethiopian. This mysterious vanishing echoes the mysterious vanishing of Jesus, after Jesus interprets the Scriptures to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Transcendence of time and space is a prominent motif in Luke's writings.
c. Phillip, like Hermes, bridges mortality and the divine. Hermes functions as a bridge in this way, in that he is the son of the divine Zeus and the mortal nymph Maia. Phillip functions as a bridge in this way, in that he is a mortal who has become a temple of the Holy Spirit.
d. Hermes bridges the realm of the gods and the underworld, in that he escorts souls to the underworld. Phillip bridges heaven and hell, in that he preaches the Gospel and helps fallen souls secure eternal salvation.
 e. A hermeneutic is like a bridge that helps us overcome distance that is manifested in so many different ways. The statues of Hermes were placed at boundaries, perimeters, and cross-ways, in recognition of his ability to overcome distance that separates. Phillip helps the Ethiopian overcome distance that separates, distance that prevents the Ethiopian from understanding the text. The Ethiopian is distant from the text by virtue of his culture, race, social standing, geography, language, physicality, sexual orientation, and how he is historically situated. Phillip's interpretation of the text overcomes all of those manifestations of distance. There are many other characteristics shared by Phillip and Hermes I could discuss if I had more time. I reiterate that an understanding of Hermes is vital to an understanding of hermeneutics. One final thought: Who is the Ethiopian? Before Phillip interprets the text, the Ethiopian is nothing. The Ethiopian does not exist in any meaningful way. To be is to understand. His being is dependent upon his understanding. The study of hermeneutics focuses not only upon the text but also upon what and who we are. Our interpretation of a text, especially the biblical text, changes us. The theological/philosophical focus of hermeneutics is just as important, and perhaps more important, than the methodological focus of hermeneutics.

In response to "Authentic Uncertainty"

Comment by Ole-Edvin Utaker:
Doubt, often seen as a negative attitude, is an undervalued quality and resource! Faith is always in tension - a Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” - in contrast to Cartesian mathematical certainty.

In response to "Perspective: Equality, Totalitarianism, and God’s Divine Order"

Comment by Graeme Sharrock:
Ole-Edvin's essay is a true gift, and reminder that truth is not contained in religious vessels alone. In my view, theology needs conversation partners in the humanities and sciences such as Arendt (and many others) which keep theology's sense of hegemony at bay and supply the humility that theology is unable to bring to itself. Without such dialogue, theology pretends, totalizes, and disregards the Other.
Whether we call it balance, or broadening or deepening--pick your metaphor--the pretensions of (esp. conservative) theologies with their self-aggrandizing sense of the "biblical", do not hold up under experience with the world and are found wanting in the scales of history. This point was made by Niebuhr many decades ago, after the world's experience with Nazism, the thoroughly ideologized theology of person, gender, race and nation. In our time, we see the terrible results of one-sided biblicism without human values in ISIS and radical Islam, yet the Christian versions of fundamentalist thought are only different in degree, not kind. We see it raising its ugly mug in so many places these days.

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Musician and composer Aaron Beaumont, a graduate of Andrews University, has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians on music projects of all kinds, and toured and performed around the world. On September 12, he will give a concert at the Spectrum UltraViolet Arts Festival. In this interview, he tells us about some of his projects, including the musical Behind Closed Doors,  and his philosophy of music.

Question: You are a musician who writes songs, film and theater scores and more. What do you like most about being a musician?

Answer: I would probably say just that: the variety. It can be exactly what you want it to be and/or what you make it. I have enough different plates spinning at any given time that it's gotten to the point where if I get up and don't feel like writing lyrics (which would be nine days out of 10!), I work on arrangement, composition, sound design, or production. 

You certainly have specialists and auteurs working in music, but I feel like it’s far more common for the modern musician to have many “slashes” in his job title and have his fingers in many pots. Which is not to say that you only work on something if and when you feel inspired — it's a job like anything else, and you get up and go to work… and the work never really ends. But it's a bonus that it can also accommodate every point in your creatorly tides.

Are you able to make a living as a musician?

It's always cyclical, but right now I do not have another "job," be it teaching, tutoring, or the other usual suspects by which many musicians pay rent. I do feel that it's probably always been difficult making a living as an artist, historically (even Mozart taught piano his entire life) and musicians have always depended on the generosity (or wealth) of their communities. 

I think the recent pop/mass media/recorded music phenomena of the past century or so have sort of redefined our conception of the professional musician, but I'm constantly surprised by the terrifically good living that many musicians you've never heard of have carved out for themselves — and conversely the fact that many musicians I assumed would be exceedingly comfortable are actually struggling. The arts market can work counterintuitively, and — insofar as we view art as a product — definitely favors the entrepreneurial.

You wrote the music and lyrics to the musical Behind Closed Doors, which played to sold-out crowds when it premiered in 2011, and won several awards. Was this musical your idea? What was it like to write a musical?

I was brought into the project by a filmmaker/playwright who had worked with my co-writer/bandmate Emma on a previous project. He had the initial concept, which looked nothing like the end result. My role mushroomed from a relatively manageable, more curatorial job into this big unwieldy undertaking, but in a fortuitous way, and it’s by no means “done” (nor have we abandoned it, as the old saying goes). 

I feel like we've really written three different musicals over the course of the development process — I hear theater veterans say the germination period for most projects from inception to Broadway is 10 years, and countless rewrites. Some days, that feels about right. Ha! 

But mostly, it’s super exhilarating; that kind of writing was a huge revelation to me, thinking both in terms of a broader narrative with deeper thematic material to mine and also a more limited scope for each song in some ways. Which is to say, you have parameters, the palette is limited, you know exactly the dramatic “job” that each song needs to accomplish in those three minutes — to me, this is far less daunting than sitting down at the piano with a blank piece of paper trying to think up something new to say about love. 

On top of this, and even more strikingly for me, you have a shared artistic vision on such a large scale between so many collaborators and specialists. It’s a really incredible dynamic to be a part of.

Behind Closed Doors addresses LGBT rights and social justice issues. Its website says: "The message at the heart of Behind Closed Doors is that silence in the face of injustice means complicity with the status quo." How did you come up with this concept? Why is this issue important to you?

Peter initially conceived of the show in the aftermath of Prop 8 in California. That ballot initiative [passed in the November 2008 elections, saying that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”] directly affected many of those closest to us, and we hoped to produce something that could provoke and inspire allies, and also simply express some of what we felt — how it affected us personally. 

Had we grown up in the 1960s, we would have written about the particular social justice topic we were handed. However, the specific issue in this case, LGBT rights, became more a vehicle by which to explore classism in general. A piece about discrimination, prejudice, and the absurdity of life as a second-class citizen can transcend the specific circumstances from which it originates, because the kind of institutions and ideologies behind these things don't seem to disappear easily — they just move along to other prey (which probably makes me sound more cynical than I am!). 

I really do feel like humans are learning and getting better at living with each other, especially given that we’re now helplessly interconnected and the collisions are more inevitable. 

Over the course of creating and recreating the show, it evolved from something bordering on polemical into something that hopefully starts an honest, broader conversation. This, I think, is the real key to overcoming our natural suspicion and understandable primal fear of the unknown or the Other. 

Social justice is still at the heart of show, but it is at least as interested in the dynamics of an increasingly polarized society and our capacity to ask questions and accommodate uncertainty in an era of sound bites and binary thinking. And its primary interest is simply telling a good story!

You have started a new project called SongLab, with Nick Zork and Jason Manns. What is it all about?

SongLab provides musicians of any level of experience a space for guided exploration and creative community, in which to play freely with a toolbox of fresh writing concepts and practices alongside creative peers. That’s the elevator pitch at least! Ha. 

The real story is that Nick, Jason, and I all love teaching music, and we’ve all done a lot of it. However, the life of a professional musician is not given to the fixed schedules and locations typically required by the traditional learning environment. So SongLab was simply our way to create an environment in which to continue studying music with fellow musical explorers and creating music together as part of a community. It allows us to literally tune in simultaneously from Los Angeles, Germany, and Australia for a live webcast with other musicians all over the world — each week we do a quick creative warm-up, observe and dissect great music, propose theories, draw out creative strategies, then apply them via weekly targeted experiments, which everyone who wants to can then share for feedback and analysis. It’s been super fruitful and inspiring so far!

You have toured around the world playing classical piano, trumpet in a jazz quartet, and bassist in a rock band, I understand. When did you do all this? What were some of your favorite touring moments? 

Yes, those are all things I've done at various times — my trumpet abilities were never especially impressive though, and are certainly nonexistent at the moment. . . although recently I've been in need of them for the first time in years, so maybe I’ll dust it off again. 

Another bit of trivia would be that my first paid gig as a “session player” in L.A. was actually recording tambourine for a Latin pop act. Never a dull moment. 

It's really hard to choose a favorite show or touring moment. . . they’ve ranged from a few thousand people to a just a handful (and usually closer to the latter!), and on that spectrum, the “special” ones always seem to be the intimate ones, like house shows. I would say what I like most about touring in general is that you get to form relationships with so many different people in so many places over a long period of time. I also love the rhythm of life on the road — it really clarifies everything, because you have one objective: get to the next town and put on a great show. So it affords a lot of mental space, and frees one from the everyday distractions, while simultaneously inspiring me with a lot of the things I love most: food, coffee, music. 

So, I guess my favorite things are the people and the clarity. If you pressed me for a least favorite, or biggest regret, it would probably be that time at a hotel in Salt Lake City when I shaved a nice full tour beard into a truly unfortunate mustache which I elected to keep for the rest of the tour. I looked vaguely like Luigi from Super Mario Bros. 

How did you get started with music? Piano lessons as a kid? What is your back story?

Both my parents were educators in the public schools. There were a lot of musicians on my mom's side (including a real jazz trumpet player and a rock 'n roll pioneer). My mom studied music at University of Illinois, and taught piano until I started grade school, when she started teaching in the school system. 

So while she was never officially my teacher, I guess I grew up around it, and started classical piano at an early age, which I continued through college. I performed the third movement of the Grieg A minor piano concerto with the Andrews University orchestra my junior year in high school as a finalist in the Young Artist competition there, which is where I met Nick Zork, and we've done a lot of music together since then. 

I didn't get my degree in music, but started writing my own material during my last semester at Andrews, and after graduation, my friend Aaron Roche invited me down to Nashville for a month while his roommate was away. I wound up recording my solo album with his roommate later that year, and a small label in L.A. contacted me about releasing the album, which is part of what led me to L.A. after the year in Nashville. I was still planning to go to grad school in economics at the time, but deferred for a year, after which I decided to continue doing music full time. That's the bullet-point version at least!

So what was your degree at Andrews, if not music?

I finished with degrees in just about everything but music (Economics/English Literature/Spanish), though I also studied music and performed throughout. I actually graduated from Andrews University in 2006, although I went abroad to Newbold and Sagunto, Spain during my program.

You play with a band called Mots Nouveaux. Your sound has been compared to the Beatles or even music from the 1920s. How would you describe your sound? Who are your influences? What music did you listen to growing up?

The Mots Nouveaux started as a throwback pop/swing project and gradually has evolved to incorporate 1960s pop, funk, R & B, and a lot of other influences. 

What we’re currently recording is a massive departure from anything we’ve done previously, though still pop in its melodic sensibilities. I think a weird breadth of influences is sort of inevitable for any fan of music who also makes music — there's so much incredible music being made now, and I listen to everything I can get my hands on. I was definitely immersed in the great American songbook growing up, and the popular music of the 1950s and 1960s, along with a lot of classical. I'm super grateful for my exposure to all of these, because they really form the basis of my melodic and harmonic inclinations now. Recently, however, I've gotten way more consumed by electronic music-making, production, and sound design — creating textures and timbres themselves — which is of course an entire universe unto itself. 

I write with a lot of different people for a lot of different projects though, so my “influences” would depend entirely on the context. Lately, for instance, I’ve been co-writing a dramatic song cycle with a French soprano for a one-woman cabaret, and listening to a lot of Scott Walker, Jacques Brel, and Kurt Weill as a result. 

My actual “recently played” on my phone consists of The Meters, Four Tet, Madvillain, Sondheim, Nao, Serge Gainsbourg, and the Theme from I Love Lucy (don’t ask). So. . .  I guess, “curious” would be the best way to describe my tastes? Desert island stuff would include Bowie, Sondheim, Beach Boys, Supremes, Harry Nilsson, P-Funk, Talking Heads, Dr. John, E.L.O., Beatles, Stones. . .  wait, how many suitcases can I bring to this island?

You have performed at many Adventist universities and colleges, including La Sierra, Loma Linda, Walla Walla and PUC. What is your message when you play to an Adventist student crowd? Is it different than at a non-Adventist venue? 

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I guess you always want to tailor the content to the context if you're going to communicate effectively (David Byrne talks about this in his fantastic book, How Music Works), and that applies right down to the venue. Which is to say, even from a strictly acoustic standpoint, I would play different songs in a church than I would in, say, a small rock club on the Strip, simply because the spaces themselves are suited to certain kinds of sonic “messages” I suppose. 

But more broadly, whenever I play, it will automatically reflect wherever I happen to be in my life and the kinds of things I’m working on. This means the songs I choose to play and how I choose to play them. It’s true that the beauty of being a writer and performer is it allows you to be a chameleon of sorts and inhabit various characters or personas (see Bowie), and listeners tend to interpret things autobiographically perhaps more than they should. But I won’t play a song or deliver a “message” that doesn’t represent me — whether it’s the silly me or serious me depends on the day! 

With respect to specific content or topics, I don’t really embrace the distinction between “Christian” and “non-Christian” art, just as I think the phrase “spiritual life” is redundant — life itself is a spiritual reality, so whether something is explicitly, topically “religious” has no bearing on its ability to represent any point on the broad spectrum of emotional, spiritual, numinous dispositions. 

How does spirituality or religion fit into your music?

I've never written explicitly religious music or anything topically theological, but nevertheless, music would probably be my best option for communicating, commenting on, and generally exploring my own spiritual life, which tends to be otherwise very personal and internal in nature. Much of the actual work I produce now is collaborative or commissioned, and therefore there is more a sense of detachment and craft, I guess — which is not to say that it’s not personally meaningful, but rather that the content is more pre-assigned. 

But as far as my own creative “faucet” goes, the things that come out on their own are inevitably from that place of spiritual exploration or wonder or what have you. And many of these things later form the basis of the “assigned” work — melodies, hooks, song concepts. To turn this in a different direction, I also feel like the very act or possibility of creating something from nothing — literally calling something into existence, whether it’s a song or a book or a piece of technology or civilization as a whole — is existentially soothing in the sense that it helps reaffirm and continue our heritage of creation and recreation. Maybe it makes our appearance on the scene here and the narrative of anything being called into existence from nothing, or from a delicate idea, a bit more plausible.

What is your dream project?

Such a tricky question. I’ve had three musical mistresses the last few years: pop/band, theater, and film, so I really have dream projects in all three areas, and a long list of actors, directors, and players I’d love to work with.

How has technology changed the business of being a musician?

Well, the “business” part is certainly up for debate — everyone has their own analysis and prediction in that department, but I would say as much as it has “apparently” precipitated a reduction in revenue (in the movement away from physical products), it has increased opportunity and productivity, and anyone who’s willing to put the work in and has some ingenuity can be the beneficiary of that. 

When I recorded my solo album, I could never have made anything that didn’t sound like a demo by myself, while this year, I’m able to essentially own the entire process. 

And the technology itself can be really exciting and inspiring from a musical standpoint; your options for timbre, tone, sound quality, and texture are literally infinite and at your finger tips. If there’s a drawback, it’s probably that technology can make the process of music-making more isolating and maybe less “physical,” and that’s a large part of what makes music fun — sharing it and creating it with others. 

Is there a song you are especially proud of that we can listen to? Please give us the link!

The answer to that is invariably “the last thing that I wrote or recorded!” And right now, I’m in the middle of four new musicals and a song cycle, all of which exist exclusively in demo form on a few laptops in a few different cities and aren’t yet available online. 

So I guess the “latest” thing I’ve actually made available anywhere (albeit semi-secretly) would be cues for a recent film score I did. . . which are not “songs” per se, and it doesn’t sound much like anything else I’ve done, but it’s still the kind of thing I love making! 

http://www.aaronbeaumont.com/film-music-audio-samples

What can attendees at the Ultraviolet Arts Festival September 12/13 expect to hear from you?

Musically, I’m actually planning to dig into my solo back catalogue for the first time in a while, which I’m really excited about, in a sort of self-indulgent way. I’ve written a lot of music for other people the last few years, but also have piles of my own songs sitting around bored and unrecorded, so it’s an opportunity for me to revisit and showcase some of that. 

I’m also planning to talk a little about my own experience and creative practices and some of the things I’ve learned from creative heroes, which is a little obsession of mine as a big music fan-boy — the actual “practice” of creativity, as a discipline you can consciously develop and grow in, just as you would exercise any other muscle. 

What are your favorite sorts of venues to play?

Solo piano/vocal: definitely someplace cavernous and washy and medieval. 

I really enjoyed putting up Behind Closed Doors at an off-Broadway proscenium theater here in NYC last summer — that particular size and space can feel grand and intimate at the same time somehow. 

For the band, just about anyplace you can fit eight people on stage and get really loud! Sometimes an awkward, uncomfortable space can actually be an unlikely boon - we played a huge boomy warehouse in downtown L.A. for Brokechella last year, and the sound was just terrible on stage — couldn’t hear a thing — but in the ensuing, aural equivalent of deer-in-the-headlights this inspired, the set actually wound up being a blast, albeit a terrifying one.

Aaron Beaumont grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and currently lives in Brooklyn, where he moved from Los Angeles last summer. He will be appearing in concert on September 12 at the Spectrum UltraViolet Arts Festival.

Find more information and register for the festival here.

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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Attendees of the Spectrum UltraViolet Arts Festival September 12 and 13 will see Mindy Bielas' paintings of biblical women; in this interview, she talks about how she uses her art in her academic work, as well as to help process social issues she is struggling with.

Question: You are a part of our UltraViolet Arts Festival September 12 and 13. What can attendees expect to see from you at the festival?

Answer: Attendees can expect to see my collection of art relating to the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. So far, this specific collection is of female figures, focusing on biblical stories I think are too often misinterpreted or ignored. 

I started off painting to process personal experiences, and so now, even though my artwork is more of an academic project, I still use it to process concerns and social issues I'm struggling with. 

That is to say, the art you can expect to see is just as biographical as it is an academic or intellectual statement.

You are a Master of Arts student at Claremont School of Theology, focusing on the Hebrew Bible and Feminist Theory. Why do you paint these female figures, in addition to your papers and research?

For two reasons: one is more personal and the other academic. First, I paint in order to understand what I think and the psychological reasons for my perspective and/or objective. Often a biblical story will catch my attention but I do not know why it speaks to me or what I want to say about it until I have painted. 

The second reason I paint is because I have found that art is a great bridge between the academy and everyone else. Whereas an academic paper or presentation often flies over the heads of my non-academic friends and family, artistic interpretation is understood (and often appreciated) to some degree by all. 

What do you think we can learn from women in the Hebrew Bible? Why were these women focused on so little in the Bible, and why do you think we should learn all we can about them?

I think we can learn much about society and human behavior from both male and female characters in the Hebrew Bible. Since the Church is working with humans in society, any information gleaned can be helpful, especially if said Church would like to make an impact on society. 

That said, there are centuries upon centuries of male-centric interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, and only very recently have female voices been heard and published. This means that most Hebrew Bible stories have been read with the male characters in mind — because we tend to focus on that which is like us — for most of interpretive history. When interpreters read stories with the female characters in mind, the whole story can take on a different meaning and communicate new and exciting messages. 

For example, I am currently studying the Tamar of Genesis (chapter 38). When interpreted in line with traditional interpretations, Judah is an unjust father-in-law while Tamar is a sneaky and manipulative woman. Feminist scholars have shown that Tamar had little resources and so any manipulative behavior would have been her only means for survival, legitimizing Tamar's behavior in the same way male characters' questionable behavior is very often legitimized by traditional scholarship. However, if one reads the story from Tamar's perspective, she does not seem to have any scheme prepared and is instead waiting at the city gate (verse 14), ready to be returned to her rightful place (Judah's household), by the man who is supposed to have her best interest in mind (Judah). Judah sees what he wants to see — a prostitute — and Tamar goes along with it, using Judah's self-deception and poor judgement for her benefit once it is clear he has no intention of treating her justly. Changing one’s interpretive focus from Judah to Tamar provides an almost completely different understanding of both characters. The meaning likewise changes from a story about a manipulative woman to one about power and the misuse of power to protect unjust self-interests. 

By studying female characters from the Hebrew Bible we gain new insight, not just on the text and the lesson or message we can take from them, but also on our personal and communal biases. If we can become a more self-aware community, our ability to do good in the world will skyrocket. 

So you believe that the Old Testament is really relevant to our lives today?

The Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, is relevant because much of Protestant theology, social theory, and communal values have been informed by an emphasis on and particular interpretation of the Bible. 

Seventh-day Adventists are no different, and even participated in one of the many "back to the Bible" movements that have occurred during Protestant history. Like many Protestant groups, historical Seventh-day Adventists wanted to emphasize parts of the Hebrew Bible in an attempt to ground themselves in the whole Bible, instead of just the more popular Christian Bible, or New Testament. For this reason, a particular perspective of the Hebrew Bible has informed Seventh-day Adventist thought in so many ways. This bias is one we inherit, and if we are not critically aware of this bias, we will be blind to its continued affect on our perspectives of ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. If we want to be a relevant community, we need to reassess our biases and reconstruct what is no longer serving us or our community. 

What are some of the most important things you have learned so far at Claremont? What do you like most about your studies? When will you finish? What will you do next?

The most important thing I have learned at Claremont School of Theology is to be more aware of and respectful of other people's religious traditions. CST's student body is very religiously diverse. Learning about other people's traditions in classrooms and books does not properly prepare you to be in a diverse community. Yet, there are many gracious students who have gently brought to my attention times when I am not remembering their time of worship, their important dietary restrictions, or when a particular view has potentially xenophobic implications. I am very grateful to have their support as I practice becoming more aware and respectful. 

My favorite part of my studies is academic debating, arguing over the most accurate meaning of a Hebrew word or for one feminist perspective over another. But it isn't just the banter, it is the practicing of newly informed ideas that really gets me excited. And everyone knows it is an academic practice, so usually nothing is taken personally.

I will finish this degree in May. I am not positive what I will do next. I have been in school for the past 21 years (if you include academy and my duplicated year of kindergarten), so I think I might take a break. If I do, I will probably get a non-profit job and attend a couple art classes at a community college. If I decide to blaze on, I will probably start a PhD in mythology. I am interested to see how I might apply some of the ideas I've been developing with the Hebrew Bible to other sacred stories. The ultimate goal would be to assess how more secular stories, like fairy tales and comic books, inform our society as a whole. We will see. 

You studied religion and theology at La Sierra University, both undergrad and graduate school, and also pastored for a while at Vallejo Drive Adventist Church. Did you intend to work full-time as an Adventist pastor? Do you see that in your future yet?

I graduated from La Sierra in 2012 (undergrad) and 2013 (postgrad). I pastored at Vallejo Drive Adventist Church for a year and a half, starting in July of 2012. I was interested in pastoral work when I was in high school and my first year or so of college and even did a pastoral internship at Redlands Adventist Church. However, I was not intending to pastor when Pastor Todd Leonard found me and invited me to Vallejo Drive. But I very much enjoyed my experience, Vallejo Drive was the perfect place to experience pastoral work and Todd was the most amazing mentor. While I am still interested in ministry in some form, I don't think that will look like pastoring in the future. I am currently more concerned with the academic biblical research that informs pastors. But who knows — I didn't intend to be a pastor in 2012 either. 

How did you get started painting? Have you had any commercial success as an artist? Where has your work been seen?

I started painting in 2011-12 to deal with some "ugly" feelings. I was very frustrated, angry and in pain, and like many in these sorts of circumstances, keenly felt the social pressure to act like everything was fine even though it wasn't. Painting was a time and space where I could be honest with myself and allow myself to process my experiences and the resulting emotions. It wasn't until late 2013 that I realized I could use my practice of painting to process my thoughts and feelings concerning my academic work. I painted for a class presentation, and that went so well I started incorporating my artwork in as much academic work as possible.

I don't know if you would call it commercial success, but I have sold much of the more academically inclined artwork I've created and have started succeeding in selling prints. I have shown my work at an art show at Claremont Graduate University, the Adventist Society of Religious Studies Conference, American Academy of Religion Conference, La Sierra University's Women's Resource Center, many church-related small groups, and soon at the UltraViolet Arts Festival. 

One of my favorite developments so far is the workshops I've started giving, where I teach my methodology for using art as a tool for interpreting the Bible, as well as to better understand our relationships to sacred stories. Everyone gets to pick their own story to focus on, and brainstorm how they can transform their perspectives into an image. Then we bring out the painting supplies and get to work. Afterwards we come together and share our paintings, our artistic process, and something we learned about ourselves. It is a very rewarding experience every time.

How do you feel women are treated in the Adventist church? How do we compare to other churches?

This is a tough question to answer, partly because every community is different, but also because this is such a charged subject. I think women are treated very well when they fit the roles their community has allowed them. However, I think there is way too much demonization, delegitimization, and scapegoating involved when a woman decides to act on her desire to practice a different role. This is of course is related to the ordination debates, but also so much more. And to some degree this happens to men in Adventist churches as well, but I would argue that the role options for women and other-gendered people are more limited than those options given to men in the community. While I think it is essential that we address issues around gender, I think it is equally important that the Adventist Church start better addressing issues around sexuality, race, class, age, ability, and more. 

Every community, no matter the denomination, has its own struggles, and there are plenty of churches experiencing similar growing pains as the Adventist Church is today. Nevertheless, I think the Unitarian Universalist Church is doing a pretty good job of being socially aware and sensitive. Perhaps the Adventist Church could take some notes from their communities. 

How do you think the role of women in our church will change during your lifetime?

Another tough question. I assume this question is more directly referencing our ordination debates. I think there will be different degrees of change for different communities depending on what the socially active of that community are willing to take a stand on and what the rest of the community is willing to address and adjust to. 

I think there will be some churches where the presence of ordained female pastors will be no big deal because they have moved on to other pressing social issues, while other churches will pride themselves is being more "authentic," or "traditional," or whatever word they use to describe their stance on minimal change.

What advice would you have for any aspiring Adventist artist?

Go for it! Do it! Don't let your fears of failure or of unbridled success bind you. Don't let others' perspectives limit the issues or ideas you wish to communicate. Don't ever take critique personally; instead use what you can and let the rest fall out of your brain. And most importantly be honest with yourself and create from the deepest parts of your soul. 

See more of Mindy Bielas' art at her website mindypaints.weebly.com. Read her previous articles for Spectrum: The Absent and Misrepresented Women of my Adolescence and Waiting for Jesus. . . I Mean Superman. 

Find more information and register for the Spectrum UltraViolet Arts festival here.

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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Freedom Restricted
I have given a lot of time trying to understand the possible reasons why the majority of Seventh-day Adventists so readily accepts being told what to believe and what to do by the higher authority. My concern is not about Fundamental Beliefs and lifestyle but more about those issues that are specifically relevant to one cultural environment or another, but are considered to be hugely divisive because they are given wider significance than they effectively have. The church has spent an inordinate amount of time, money and energy dealing with one such issue as if its very survival depended on every single believer having the same views on everything. San Antonio has left a sad legacy of how the church deals with such issues.

Unless one has a clear understanding of the reasons behind a situation one can hardly come up with ways to address it. I postulate that there are at least three reasons that explain the intellectual inertia of the Adventist membership at large. The first two are cultural whereas the third is, I believe, psychological. What follows is my personal analysis resulting from many years of working for the church in four different Divisions on different sides of the North/South and East West divide. 

1.  The Catholic Element
The Adventist Church has a worldwide membership of about 19 million. This figure is spread over thirteen Divisions that represent the major cultural and political areas of the world. The membership in the territories of Inter America and South America numbers some 7 million. If we add to that number the 1 million or so members in the Philippines, and the smaller numbers of Adventists that live in predominantly Catholic countries the total members coming from strongly Roman Catholic (including Orthodox) background and culture is probably close to 9 million.

Culture being something that is deeply attached to the human psyche, it follows that converting to a new faith does not necessarily remove all the trace of the culture into which one is born. Indeed one may be willing and able to adopt some or even much of the Adventist subculture without giving up one’s more traditional customs and habits that define one’s particular society. I remember pastoring a Haitian church in Montreal and was fascinated by the fact that most of the members still had a healthy respect, not to say fear, of zombies.

I will therefore postulate that the Adventists coming from a Catholic background will tend to see the leadership in terms similar to that of the Catholic hierarchical structure. A case in point: In 1972 Elder Robert Pierson, then President of the General Conference visited the mission fields of the Indian Ocean. The news agencies in both the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, splashed across page one of their newspapers something to the effect that Pastor Robert Pierson’s position in the Adventist hierarchy was similar to that of the Pope… “The Adventist Pope is visiting Mauritius” wrote a local newspaper. I am personally aware of many church members who referred to the event as the visit of “our Pope.”

The point is that the Catholic mind will readily submit to and unquestioningly follow whatever word comes from Rome. I submit that the majority of our brothers and sisters who live in the above identified territories unconsciously see the General Conference as some sort of College of Cardinals and the President as the Adventist Pope. Therefore it is culturally very difficult to take a position of belief and praxis that is not approved by the highest church authority. Of course the local leadership in those territories will not agree with this assessment but I would maintain that there was lot of that attitude in, for example, the vote taken to limit the freedom of the Divisions in the matter of women’s ordination.

2.  The Tribal Mindset
A similar overall attitude exists in some of the other territories but as the result of a different cultural value. It is no secret that tribalism is still a factor that must be taken into account to understand much of what Africa does locally and to some extent on the international stage.  Many of the early African political figures when their respective countries became independent were tribal leaders or highly placed individuals within the tribes.  The key to a long and successful political career, something very difficult to achieve, was their ability to get the different tribes to unite. This was mostly achieved by getting, often bribing the local tribal chiefs to join. When such did not happen the door was wide open to intertribal warfare and much killing.

It turns out that the church membership in Africa is over 7 million. If the number of members who come from non-African countries (Pacific Islands, India, South East Asia etc.) but still operate within the “follow the chief” paradigm were added to that figure, one would have over 8 million that would find it very difficult to refuse directives that were prescribed by the President and the President’s men.

And what about the members that live in former communist countries and who over the communist years were forced to submit to the Kremlin or Beijing  Have these members completely lost their powerful sense of allegiance to the powers that be? If not, I believe that they would easily transfer to the Adventist Church hierarchy the same kind of submission that they experienced in their lives under that regime. I witnessed some of that in Paris when a significant number of Adventists from Romania came over after the fall of Communism and began to worship in French congregations.

Of course, it is most probable that the younger generations of these territories have an attitude altogether different to that of the parents. But then, the Adventist leadership is not known to listen to its younger members unless they belong to GYC or some similar conservative body.

3.  The Human Condition
The third reason undoubtedly has to do with the human condition?  Human freedom is a value/reality that most human beings find very difficult to handle. In fact, the research in sociology shows that when called to choose between guaranteed security and personal freedom most people choose security.  Imperial Rome manipulated its citizens by offering bread and games.

In the great novel The Brothers Karamazov, the Russian writer Fedor Dostoyevski describes a conversation between the Grand Inquisitor of Seville and Jesus Christ who is visiting the city. It is not so much a conversation as it is monologue because the inquisitor asks the questions then answers them. Jesus does not utter a single word. The old man’s man accuses Jesus of having spurned the possibility of winning the whole world because he would not deprive people of their freedom by performing miracles like turning stones into bread and jumping from the temple tower. 

The Grand Inquisitor contends that: “Man prefers peace, even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil”.  The old man adds that the church had therefore corrected Christ’s mistake by taking away the people’s freedom and giving them bread, religious/spiritual security and miracles, in return.  People are weak and afraid to take the responsibility of freedom, therefore he and his church had had to work hard to fix what Christ had left undone. People, Dostoyevski writes, would rather have others decide for them than do their own thinking.

The Grand Inquisitor blames Jesus for his unwillingness to accept and use power and authority to impress and subdue the people, forcing their allegiance. Again, the Grand Inquisitor unapologetically states that the church has acted in ways to correct Christ’s lack of insight into the people’s psyche.

Granted that Dostoyevski was pointing an accusing finger at the Catholic Church Orthodox or Roman and maybe in an uncanny way predicting Communism. The point is that the temptation to use one’s position in the hierarchy to dictate conscience, thus curtailing freedom, always plagues the individuals who hold power.

My point is that what I have written so far is the actual reality in nine of the world’s Division, which account for 90% of the Adventist population, mostly conservative. Of the four other Divisions two, NAD and SPD are a mix of the traditional and non-traditional attitudes, whereas the two Divisions of Western Europe, the IED and the TED are mostly liberal. The demographics actually make it easy for the leadership to define policies with little or no opposition because the majority of the delegates chosen to attend the GC administrative sessions come from the huge conservative segment of the church.

I feel as though I am walking on eggshells when I write that the reality is unquestionably the source of much unhappiness in the four Divisions whose members wish for more freedom in matters that are specifically relevant to their culture. Nevertheless, the question is what can be done to give back to the believers the freedom of deciding how to live out one’s faith. 

Two Solutions, Difficult yet Achievable

1.  Redefining “Unity in Diversity”
It seems to me that the first issue that must be addressed is that of “Unity” because “Unity” in the deeper things of faith has alas morphed  into “Uniformity” in everything. 

The church has long prided itself in the slogan “Unity in Diversity.” But diversity is mostly understood only to mean people of different ethnic origins. At no point in its history has the church given a broader meaning to the concept of diversity. The traditional “Parade of Nations” on the last evening of a General Conference session illustrates what Adventist diversity looks like. People of all colours and languages, dressed in multi-coloured national garb, take a 30-second walk across the stage to the wild applause of the thousands gathered on the tiers of the sport stadium. Adventist diversity on centre stage and lauded.  These days, the “Parade of Nations” has lost its appeal, accustomed that we are to watch National Geographic documentaries that take us to all the corners of the world on TV.

But the church has never shown any desire and even less intention to expand diversity to include ideas, concepts and practices that might be culturally relevant and meaningful. Missionaries from the United States and Europe made sure that the Pacific islanders wore three piece black suits on Sabbath not withstanding the 100-degree (40 degree C) tropical heat. Telling the youth that it is not acceptable to go for a swim but OK to take a walk in the woods is another of those uniformity ideas that is the practice worldwide. Traditionally, every Adventist congregation the world over follows the same worship format as outlined in the Church Manual. That may help visitors from foreign lands feel at home on a Sabbath morning but in many cases the format does not reflect the local culture or emotional needs. None of the above practices has any biblical foundation but is expected all the same because it is the Adventist way.

I suggest that the Divisions be given the permission to address the non-fundamental matters in terms of how they relate to the local cultures and environments of the respective countries of their territories.  Divisions should establish independent research groups composed of theologians, sociologists, ethicists and knowledgeable members to research how beliefs and policies relate to the local situations. Such groups will meet when necessary and their recommendations passed on to the concerned fields. May I add that the presence of representatives of the GC is not required for such matters.

People are more and more culture conscious and culture impacts most aspects if not all of everyday life. I postulate that to decide how matters of faith relate to matters of culture should be the prerogative of the respective Divisions and Unions only.  Here again the General Conference should have no mandate to intervene in such issues and most certainly should not have the right to veto the recommendations and decisions.  To a large extent this would limit the type of letter recently sent out to the Unions reminding them that the General Conference ultimately retained the right to decide in all matters of governance.

The time has come for some form of regionalisation that gives autonomy to the Divisions to be put in place. This will reduce the constant travel at every level of the hierarchy savings much money. Another huge advantage is that it will save the church the multi-million Dollars that go into organising the quinquennal sessions which actually leave the majority of the world membership indifferent. The question is whether the Division and Union leaders are ready to take such a stand for the sake of better responding to the realities of their territories.

2.  Misusing Ellen White and Anti-intellectualism
A second suggestion is about how to fight against the anti-intellectualism that is quite prevalent in the church and threatens to take away the freedom of thought. Again, what I am about to write may be very controversial.

The church has a non-written belief that the final word in every situation and about every issue belongs to Ellen White. Many times this has put a stop to intelligent conversations because few believers dare to challenge the long held position.  How often one hears the statement, “I apply the Spirit of Prophecy as it reads,” not realising that in doing so Ellen White is placed above the Bible because large sections of the Bible are not taken as they read. Who today follows the prescriptions of Leviticus 20: 18; 15: 16, 19-35 as they read? 

The writing of Ellen White should/must be subjected to close exegesis and hermeneutics as is the case for Scripture. The cultural, religious, political and sociological contexts of her writings need to be taken into consideration before many things that she says are applied today. We readily do so for the Bible, why not for her writings? Is it wrong to believe that the church did Ellen White a disservice when it compiled her many one time statements and personal letters into books with titles, strongly suggesting that they were authored by her under inspiration? The danger of such use of Ellen White was demonstrated in the many times Ellen White quotations were used in an attempt to close the debate in San Antonio.

Ellen White wrote that holding a belief for a long time did not necessarily prove that it was correct. May I slightly alter the statement to also mean that it is not necessarily wrong to evaluate Ellen White’s statements themselves in terms of their relevance to present cultural and social realities?  I am of the opinion that cultural relevance is no threat to questions of morality and ethics when it is properly and intelligently addressed. 

Indeed, unless the gospel is relevant to the people that it wants to touch its impact will be insignificant. It is a cop out to sit back and smugly suggest that postmodern people have closed their hearts to the truth when in reality it is the church that has lost the art of talking to them in ways that they can understand, appreciate, and respond to.

To address the unease caused by the three actual realities described in this article requires bold and innovative ideas. Concerned believers who hunger for change need to be willing to go where no one has been before and be willing to accept the risks that are inherent to any new venture. There will be accusations of betrayal and breaking the ranks.  Pressure will be exerted not to overturn the apple cart.  But then, was Christ not accused of the same?  Luke records that the crowd accused Paul of teaching things against “our people, our law and the temple” (Acts 21: 28).  Paul did not back off from doing what he knew the gospel required him to do if he was to win the non-Jews to Christ. He summarised his approach thus in Romans 1:14: “I am owe myself both to the Greeks and non-Greeks…” Paul pushed the boundaries to reach that goal. “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel…” 

Are our leaders as willing to do what it takes in order to reach out to every cultural group by facilitating the conversation and being relevant?

Pastor Eddy Johnson is the director of ADRA Blacktown and pastors two churches in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

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. 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.