The Journal of the Association of Adventist Forums
Voyages of Discovery
SAILING FROM BYZANTIUM MISSIONARY FROM CATHAY: DAVID LIN'S OWN STORY CONVERT TO SCHOLAR: AN ODYSSEY IN HUMILITY SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON THE SDA CAMPUS
I'M SINGLE AND IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT'
A LAYPERSON IN CHURCH WONDERLAND
RESPONSES The Presidents and Anonymous Donors
December 1991 Volume 21, Number 5 Editorial Board RennIe Scboepftln Da ..dLanon Spectrum HisI Association of Adventist Forums Officers Directors Regional Representatives Northern Pacific Lloyd Summer. President Of Inll:mational Relations Atlantic Lsw Los Pitton Walter Douglas GaryiGllbert Lake Oswego. Oregon Vice President Church History Physician Shady Grove Adventist Hospital Andrews University Melrose, Massachusetts Southern Lsura Gladson Vice President Of Promotion Central Psychology Jerry Gladson Richard B. Lewis, Jr. Kay Claylon Atlanta, Georgia Psychology Advertising Cleburne, Texas Atlanta, Georgia Boston, Massachusetts Southern Pacific Canadian Region Jim Kaatz &ecutive Secrelaly Of Campus Relations Warren Trenchard Education Mary Halovfak Kendra Halovfak 1bcoIogy Lakeside, California Administtative Secrclaly Graduall: Student Canadian Union College Silver Sp SPECTRUM is a journal established 10 encourage Se';enth-day Adventist partici Editorial Correspondence: SPECTRUM is published by the Association of pation in the discussion of contemporary issues from a Christian viewpoint, to look Adventist Forums. Direct all editorial correspondence to SPECTRUM, 7710 Carroll without prejudice at all sides of a subj~ct to evaluate the merits of diverse views, and Avenue, Takoma Park, Maryland 20912; Fax: (301) 270-2814. ManUSCripts should be to foster Christian intellectual and cultural growth. Although effort is made to ensure typewritten,double spaced, oron either IBM and IBM-<:ompatible or Apple Macintosh accurate scholarship and discriminating judgment, the statements of fact are the disks. Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Letters to the editors may be responsibility of contributors, and the views individual authors express are not shortened before publication. necessarily those of the editorial staff as a whole or as indiViduals. Subscription Wonnation: In order to receive SPECTRUM, enclose a member The Association of Adventist Forums is a non-subsidized, non-profit organiza ship fee ($25 per 5 issues, $32 in Canada'and in other foreign countries, $18 for tion for which gifts are deductible in the report of income for purposes of taxation. The students) by check made to the Association of Adventist Forums, Box 5330, Takoma pUblishing of SPECTRUM depends on subSCriptions, gifts from individuals, and the Park, MD 20913. Phone: (301) 270-0423. Single copies are $5. For address changes, voluntary efforts of the contributors and the staff. send old address label along with the new address. © 1992 All righls reselVed litho USA FROM THE EDITOR Voyages of Discovery 2 FEATURES Sexual Harassment on the Adventist Campus 3 A year before the Clarence Thomas hearings, Andrews University learned about on-campus sexual harassment. I'm Single and It's Saturday Night 9 Singles go to church, listen to "good spouse/parent" sermons, and wonder what they are going to do that night. Ellen White In A New Key 12 James Walters offers a new model for understanding the role and authority of Ellen White for the contemporary church. SPECIAL SECTION: VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY Where Are They Now? The Movers, The Shakers, And The Shaken 18 Ron Graybill, himself a "shakee" of some years ago, sleuths out the doings of Adventist celebrities. In Search of A Giving World 26 How a world-class immunologist carne to be a consultant on Baby Fae and stayed to join the University Church. Sailing From Byzantium 30 From Piraeus and Greek Orthodox liturgy to a closer walk with God in a new-world religion. Missionary From Cathay: David Lin's Story 34 The best-known Chinese Adventist tells his story. Convert to Scholar: An Odyssey in Humility 43 Jerry Gladson set out to war against untruth. Studying the Old Testament taught him humility. DEPARTMENTS Reviews 52 Three books on the pain of leaving-and joining-Adventism. News Updates 57 Susan Sickler goes to the 1991 Annual Council in Australia. Responses 60 Readers respond to "The Presidents and Anonymous Donors." FROM THE EDITOR Voyages of Discovery "I N 1492 COLUMBUS SAILED THE OCEAN BLUE." Several of our explorers share their feelings iii We all learned the jingle in the first grade. mid-passage. They are still discovering what kin( It will reverberate in our heads this of Adventists they really are. For example, sev quincentennial year as we listen to debates about eral of the celebrities in Ronald Graybill's initi;J Columbus the fearless admiral, Columbus the essay are learning distinctive ways to understan( mercenary, Columbus the agent of historical and express their Adventism. Jerry Gladson i progress, Columbus the tyrannical slave-owner. carefully, if not painfully, finding a new role fe Whatever or whoever he was, Columbus and the himself within both society and the church. other great explorers of the period were not so Some of the stories in our special section ar, much leaders of change. They were more ser about departures, including treks away from th vants of a cultural consciousness that had already Adventist community. But departures can therr become globaL Their boats were launched by a selves be a form of tribute-if the community i social imagination that had already conquered itself a band of adventurers, wanderers after th the world, impatient for soldiers and other mer spirit, restless seekers of truth-pilgrims. Thos cenaries to fill in the details. who journey inward and those who journe In our special section we feature Columbuses outward have in common that they cannot abid of the spirit, as daring in exploring their indi boredom; they will search beyond all fla' vidual worlds as the great admiral his larger one. unvarying horizons. Several have traversed vast geographical dis That the sails and masts of many expedition tances, but much more arduous and dramatic are in this issue rise against the horizon is cause fe the shifts they have undertaken in their world celebration. Approaching explorers are alway views. Many recount journeys from rich and welcomed by a community of voyagers perpetL strong heritages-not only American Protestant ally eager to hear news of fresh discoveries. ism, but Greek Orthodoxy and Chinese Confu cianism; not only southern revivalism, but Big Science. Roy Branso 2 VOLUME 21, NUMBER FEATURES Sexual ent on the Adventist Campus A year before the Clarence Thomas hearings, Andrews University learned about on-campus sexual harassment. by Patricia Nash and David Lofthouse erhaps as many as 20 to 30 percent of "I went in one day to ask him something women students are sexually harassed about an assignment," she says. "He closed the Pby faculty during their college years, door and we talked about the project. Then just say several surveys at universities across the as I was standing up to leave, he kind of put his United States. If these figures were translated arms around me and kissed me on the lips." into Adventist college populations in the U.S., She, in this case, was a student. He, a from 1,942 to 2,913 female students would teacher. A married teacher. A married teacher have been harassed on Adventist campuses in at an Adventist university. 1990. Statistics for the number of male stu She was shocked and quickly mumbled dents harassed are not as readily available. something like "got to go now" and rushed out The Andrews University administration the door. "When I left his office I was shak has led the way in cooperating with its student ing-I felt disgusted .... I felt like washing my newspaper, the Student Movement. Perhaps lips," she says. other Adventist colleges and academy admin Another department, another married istrations willfollowAndrews' leadership and teacher, another student, but the same univer find ways to confront and prevent sexual Sity. The story is slightly different. Here a stu harassment in their schools. The follOWing dent says her advisor would shut his door and article is reprinted with permission from the offer hugs when he thought she looked dis May 15, 1991, Student Movement. couraged. "I thought at first that maybe teach - The Editors ers are more responsive and caring here be cause it's a Christian environment." When she wrote this article, Patricia Nash was a senior She says it took her two quarters to realize journalism major and editor if the Student Movement. David there was a problem. "I felt like he was trying Lofthouse, who assisted in research for the essay, was a senior communication major. Nash and Lofthouse graduatedfrom to be a dad, when in reality he was using his Andrews University in the spring of 1991. position to overcome people." She tells of SPEcmUM ______times when he would kiss her on the forehead What to Do and grab her hand to pray with her-always alone in a closed-door office or room. And yet another story comes from a student i~st, le~ the person know you don't appre who says she told her roornrilate for months F Clate 1t, says Wells. Say something like, that one of her teachers "was just too 'touchy "I'm not comfortable" or "I don't appreciate it feely.' " Then one day "he came up behind me when you touch me like that." and slid his hand down to feel my bottom." She "It doesn't have to be confrontational," says was so startled she didn't say anything. Meredith Jones, chair of the university's These stories have been compiled from Women's Concerns Advisory. "But that's Andrews University students and former stu where you have to start to stop the problem." dents and are based on their narration of real Tell someone. "To this day, I don't look at experiences. And these incidents, like all him," says one student of the alleged harasser. sexual harassment cases, cause real feelings. Later another student suggested she go talk to the chair of the department. "I didn't go be cause I was embarrassed," she says. What It Is Fear, embarrassment, and shame often do prevent victims from letting someone know exual harassment can be in the form of about their experiences. "Tell somebody," Stouches, jokes, pinups, as well as blatant says Wells. "Don't try to carry it alone. Eventu propositions, according to Patricia Wells, dis ally it will affect your studies or job productiv trict executive in the Michigan Department of ity." Civil Rights branch in Benton Harbor. Jones adds that "keeping it to yourself isn't In short, the legal definition, according to going to help anyone. Realize it's not your fault Michigan and federal law, includes unwel and go to a person you feel comfortable tell come sexual advances and verbal or physical ing." conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile Like rape, sexual harassment is often under environment for employment or education. reported. ''Women often deal with sexual har "The key word is unwelcome," Wells says. assment indirectly," says Stella Greig, university ombudsperson. "For example, if it is coming from a teacher, they would drop the class rather than confront the teacher; if it is coming from a boss or male colleague, they would avoid being near the individual at work or perhaps even quit their job." Greig also says another possible reason for not reporting a problem is not knowing whom to go to. Ifyou feel you are being sexually harassed by a teacher, Andrews University policy in the student handbook says you should report the problem to the chair of the department in which the teacher is working. If the problem is with a work colleague, you should talk to the supervisor of the aggrieving party. The policy also says that you should go to 4 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOClA1l0N OF AIJVEN1lST FORUMS the next higher authority, such as a dean, when help you decide what to do next, which may the department chair or work supervisor is the include filing a formal complaint. person doing the harassing. According to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, the university has a legal respon The Andrews Problem sibility to act on the complaint immediately "within 24 hours of when it was reported," reig says she has worked with three Wells says. The employer is liable in sexual Gsexual harassment cases, though two oc harassment cases, as are all parties to the har curred before she became ombudsperson two assment, according to the precedents set in years ago. "I am happy to say that all three court on sexual harassment cases, she says. problems were resolved," she says. Arthur Coetzee, vice president for academic administration, also says he has worked with Other Places to Go for Help two to three cases. All have been "satisfactorily dealt with in terms of what evidence we had omen who are sexually harassed often and the response of the offender." The prob W find it difficult to tell their experience to lems were discussed with the university presi a man in an authority position, so they don't tell dent, he says. anyone at all. Sometimes part of the problem is a lack of "Female students aren't going to go to the official complaints and notes to support a male teachers," says one teacher, who for a termination of employment, says Don Smith,* time was the only woman in her department. chair of a department at Andrews. "When I One female staff member says that "when I became chair, I began creating a paper trail. became head of the department I got a whole Though a lot of people thought it was the first flood of incidents reported to me." complaint, really it was only one of several that Now the university has a female ombuds had never been documented." person. And though the ombudsperson is sup Smith reported the problem to the dean and posed to be a "last resort," Greig is willing to be then to the vice president. "The administration consulted early on. took it very seriously," he says. "They didn't "I have found that even when speaking with brush it off at all." another woman, women are reluctant to dis According to Smith, a warning was issued to cuss and reveal the details of what has hap the teacher and he was told that "if there was pened," she says. "But after they have done so, another complaint, his job was on the line." they get some feeling of relief." In the two or three years following the Greig explains that she will help the student warning, Smith says he has not heard of any find the best way to deal with the situation. more problems. Sometimes she goes to talk to the department However, some feel that sexual harassment chair or work supervisor with the student, but problems cannot be corrected until the problem it is always the student's decision. causers are gone. "It's common knowledge and For help outside the university or job set it's gotten to the point where everyone makes ting, you may go to the Michigan Department jokes about how weird he is," says student Lisa of Civil Rights, or the civil rights branch in any Wilson, * who made a sexual harassment com area. plaint to her department chair about a teacher In the Andrews area, if you dial 925-7044, a three years ago. civil rights department field representative will ''1bere's been so many complaints, yet it seems to immediately listen to your complaint, and then the students that nothing has happened," she says. DECEMBER 1991 5 SPECJmUM ______ But according to one chair in a department In this situation as in others, it was common where several complaints were received, mea knowledge in the department among the stu sures have been taken to curb a sexual harass dents. "I found out afterward that they would ment problem. try to avoid him," Richards says. Though he declined to be specific, ChairJoe Unfortunately, this situation might have Michaels· says, "We've made some moves in been avoided: the teacher had previously the department, and since then we haven't had taught at another Adventist school and had the problems that we had before." The teacher been fired because of a sexual harassment was informed that if the problems appear problem. again it will be "serious grounds for dismissal," Most sexual harassment problems occur Michaels says. with a male harasser and a female victim; Since this situation was dealt with, no prob however, the reverse does happen occasion lems have been ally. And the harass brought to his atten- ment is not always tion in the last year. from teacher to stu- Firing a person dent. "There have for sexual harass Personal empathy is sometimes been times when ment is a very seri used as justification for physi I've felt sort of har ous matter, Michaels assed by students," explains, and the in cal contact. However, there's a says DougJones, as stitution should be sistant professor of able to back up its difference between the momen English. He explains decision in case it is tary touch ofempathy and the that to him harass faced with a lawsuit. ment means "any ''The problem may sustained amorous touch. time a person's not be totally eradi- physical or verbal cated and could sur- presence makes a face again," he says. But without enough evi person feel uncomfortable." dence, the school just has to wait. "The advice In particular, Jones recalls a former student from 'above' was to make these moves and see who was very aggressive and open to inappro what happens," Michaels says. priate behavior. "I just pulled back and turned In one case several years ago a teacher did on a whole lot of negative signs," he says. lose his job over a sexual harassment com plaint from a student, says Jan Richards: an Andrews teacher. The student told her parents, Only a Misunderstanding? who called the university. "The parents gave an ultimatum: 'you get him out orwe will sue, '" n some cases the "victim" is not the only one Richards says. The student reported that her I who feels victimized. In one such situation, teacher had called her into his office and an Andrews teacher was accused by a student hugged and kissed her. of making a suggestive comment. "The com ''The only reason that it got reported when it did ment was actually made to protect the student was because he did it to the wrong person," from what could turn into a serious problem," Richards says. "I don't think there are very many says the teacher, but it was interpreted by the who have the courage. Ifyou feel guilty, ifyou feel student to be a sexual advance. you did something to cause it, then you won't The situation was further complicated by report it." the teacher's reputation for being a touching, 6 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVEN71sT FORUMS back-patting, and hugging kind of person. "I Later, the chair of the department called to come from a loving family where touching is ask about the situation after several other com part of showing that you care," the accused plaints had been made, she explains. How teacher says. "Unfortunately, in today's soci ever, Campbell didn't tell the chair much be ety, school is not the place for that kind of cause "of my personal loyalty and feelings" expression, and I learned that lesson the hard toward her former teacher. way." Campbell, places part of the blame upon According to this instructor, no real changes herself. "I allowed myself to be in those situa were made in the department after the allega tions," she explains. tions, but the administration warned the Now that her teacher has been confronted teacher to be particularly careful for the next with the situation, "chances are he's at least a two years. "I am sure that if the administration little more sensitive or selective in his relation had any doubt as to my trustworthiness, I ships with students," Campbell says. would be canned. . . . The administration However, whether a sexual harassment doesn't put up with nonsense." case is a misunderstanding or not, Vice Presi Now the teacher says, "What concerns me dent Coetzee says he must proceed with the the most is that now I am afraid to touch assumption that the person is making a valid students and express my care and concern for complaint and investigate the situation. them like I used to." Faculty may use the faculty grievance "Good!" says one colleague, who says that policy if they feel they are unjustly disciplined. at least five people in the department told her they felt uncomfortable with the teacher's ac tions. "Personal empathy is sometimes used as How to Prevent It justification for physical contact," she says. "However, there's a difference between the eachers and students alike must realize momentary touch of empathy and the sus T that work relations and personal relations tained amorous touch. Even though the per are different, Wells says. "Men were accus son giving it doesn't sense it, the person receiv tomed to doing things they didn't realize were ing it has the right to feel uncomfortable and try illega1." to stop it." Her advice is: If you're not sure, don't do it. Not all students who feel sexually harassed Stifle a joke. Refrain from the touch on the actually hold it against the person. Sally Camp shoulder. bell,* an Andrews graduate, says she finally Coetzee gave a "word of caution to those told her boss that she felt uncomfortable with who are friendly and outgOing": Express your his touching. But the incident did not bring any feelings with reserve where no possible mis hard feelings in her mind. understanding can result. "I talked to him myself, but I never went any "I think teachers-male teachers in particu further because of my respect for him," she lar-need to be very aware of the possibility of says. "I know he has a genuine heart and that being misunderstood," says Doug Jones. He he doesn't know how to make a distinction explains that he rarely closes his office door, between affection with his wife and relation even if a student suggests it. ships with students." Cultural differences also need to be taken "Under no condition do I ever want to see into account, especially at a place like An any harm done to him because of his lack of drews. "We have a multicultural student body being able to make a distinction," Campbell and faculty, and we have varying expectations says. and norms regarding appropriate behavior of DECEMBER 1991 7 SPEcmUM ______men towards women and vice versa," Help Stop It Ombudsperson Greig explains. "One culture's way of showing friendliness exual harassment at Andrews is probably may be another's way of signalling a move Snot a rampant problem, but it does occur. towards intimacy. Whether the offender meant And one situation is one too many. Share this to offend or not, the offense is very real to the information with others. Encourage people to woman." be courageous enough to solve the problem. Coetzee agrees. "It is something we ought The Department of Civil Rights brochure on to be doubly careful with in a multicultural sexual harassment offers an additional advice: setting," he says. "The same action could be "Above all, don't be forced into 'going along quite acceptable under one culture and offen with the crowd' and accepting sexual harass sive in a different culture." ment as 'the way things are' or as a joking Of course cultural differences shouldn't matter." stop you from saying, "In my culture that's not acceptable." °A pseudonym. 8 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 I'm Single and It's Saturday Night Singles wake up alone, go to church alone, listen to "how to be a good parent/spouse" sermons, and wonder what they are going to do that night. by Kathleen Taylor "D 0 UNTO OTIIERS . . ." THE PHRASE KEPT unknowingly made a huge, life-altering running through my mind as I sat on choice. I hadn't met anyone during my first the edge of my bed. Boyfriend Num year at an Adventist college, and I couldn't ber 4 of my rather uneventful life had just afford to return. Now that I was a graduate handed me the famous death sentence: "You occupied with my profession, how was I to go know, you're a wonderful girl and you're go about meeting the Adventist men who hadn't ing to make someone a wonderful wife, but married their college sweethearts? we'd be better off as friends." I was thinking First, I went to local Adventist churches. about what the next step ought to be. "Move There were half a dozen in the area with away, or at least broaden your circle of congregations in excess of 350 members. In friends," was my father's sage advice. Terrific. the church in which I had been raised, I was How was I supposed to broaden my circle of one of only three single people under 30 years friends? of age; unfortunately, all three were female. At The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a fam the large churches there were, not surpris ily-oriented church. I was not aware of this ingly, very few members my age. The youth when I was younger, but as I graduated from a Sabbath school classes were comprised of public university and entered my professional "early college," or "Hey, I'm 45 but feel 25." life, I realized that if I wanted to marry an There was nothing wrong with these classes Adventist, I might have blown my only chance. and I made friends with both groups: in fact, I was supposed to meet a nice young man in an some of my best friends fit in the "45 but feel Adventist college and marry him. Since my 25" category. The smaller churches had few major wasn't offered by Adventist colleges, I'd young adults and 80 percent of them were married. Kathleen Taylor is the pseudonym of an Adventist who is After a couple of years, I came to the conclu active in her local church. sion that males my age didn't exist in the SPECffiUM ______ Adventist Church. I began to realize a hidden "You're too picky." "You'd better find some "price" of public education, and decided that one because you don't want to be alone when compromise might be the next best solution. I you're older." These quotes became very fa resolved to meet "Christian" men. It wouldn't miliar. And oh, how wonderful to have the matter if they weren't Adventist, so long as they writings of Paul at hand to volley back during believed in God. I reasoned that, as long as stressful inquisitions. they respected my religion, it would be OK to Of course, there were a few single men out go out with them. Getting into a more serious there whom 1 wasn't related to, or that my best relationship wouldn't be so bad. To protect friend hadn't already dated, but they were very myself from getting too involved, I got a part few. As their relationships evolved and they time job at a local Adventist hospital and became available, we would go out. Unfortu started working on weekends. That was a way nately, the special something needed for a life to get through the partner wasn't there. weekend and feel as 1 made some close though I was doing friends whom I some good, without No one wants to be different. Is wouldn't give up for being too lonely. anything. The single The people in the it any wonder that more and guys tell me how church I visited were more singles just drift offsome hard it is to find usually kind and said single women that "Hello."To be part of where where they aren't con they would want to a church family you stantly reminded of how dif- date, but they agree have to be involved, that it isn't nearly as so I got involved. I ferent they are? hard for them. So we did the lesson study all tend to group to for primary and later for kindergarten. I be gether a lot. That has been healthy for some, came a deaconess, sang in the church choir, but for others it has only dramatized the acute and involved myself in Pathfinders. All the loneliness that they feel. older parishioners loved me and assured me Many single young Adventists have good that I'd "find the right young man." As I ma health, lots of energy, few responsibilities, tured, I accepted the fact that there were ad money, success, and time to enjoy it. But on vantages to being single. I was happy. I did Friday night and Sabbath, families do things have a lot more time and less responsibility together. Church social events center around than my peers with families, but I also made family. Activities center around family and myself busy to keep from being lonely. children. Families are friendly, but they are I, along with other single girlfriends, pe also busy. Flashing a smile and chatting at a rused the writings of Paul and worked on potluck is about all the time for singles that they developing my character. We worked through have. Singles wake up alone, go to church childhood traumas that we would probably alone, listen to "how to be a good parenti have forgotten about, we bonded with one spouse" sermons alone (wondering what they another, and we feverishly tried to believe that are going to do that afternoon), and realize that we would be able to accomplish more in the they don't fit in. The unsolicited "kind" remarks world as singles, and that we weren't "bad" of a church member-"I'm sure you'll meet people because of it. someone soon"; or "How come a pretty girl Then the relatives woke up and realized like you is here alone?" or "I don't understand how old 1 was. "You need to get out more." these young men"-are just further reminders 10 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOClA110N OF AnVEN11ST FORUMS that you're different. Everyone seems to as tians and are eager to share God's message. sume that you're looking for someone and that Some of us want to do nothing else; some of us you can't possibly be content alone. They want companions. We're not different, how make you feel out of place and act surprised ever, just "family units of one" with many of the when you don't leap at the opportunity to meet same cares and concerns as other Christians. their nephews. We're not different; we're un Many women who don't marry after high married. school or college continue their education. Rumor has it that you might meet someone in school, so you keep going. Soon you have a oone wants to be different. Is it any Ph.D., but you're still alone. Now many of the Nwonder that more and more singles just people you meet are intimidated, or if you're a drift off somewhere where they aren't con professional and work in a large firm, your stantly reminded ofhow different they are? Can language and communication skills are differ you remember the last time you had to ask a ent. man to sit with you in church because people Often the educational backgrounds of two might think you prefer an "alternative life people create barriers that are almost impos style" since you always sit with your girl sible to break down. I know; I've tried. Using friends? How much more your reputation large words or catch phrases frustrates those means when you're single. You have to make not used to them. And don't ever use them sure that appearances are balanced. You don't when having an intense discussion or else want to be seen as fickle or too friendly by you'll get a response like this: "I didn't go to sitting with too many different guys, but you college; I don't know what those big words can't always be seen with the same girls either. mean. Can't you speak like the rest of us?" It gets to be complicated. Mentioning that a certain response had been Many singles feel that our church doesn't "negated" didn't seem like using too big of a focus as much on the essential message of word tome ... Christ's soon return, but rather on family is What can we all do about this? Well, next sues. We get excited when God's Word and Sabbath I'm having some "family units of two" gospel are preached in a manner that focuses over for lunch, and I'll ask how their week on the individual. Those of us that have re went. Don't think I'll ask about their love life, mained in the church are proud to be Chris- though ... They'll probably ask about mine! DECEMBER 1991 11 Ellen White In A New Key J ames Walters offers a new model for understanding the role and authority of Ellen White for the contemporary church. by james W. Walters WO WIDELY DISTRIBUTED PAINTINGS OF ELLEN nence. By the mid-20th century, this authori White capture two very different mod tarian model had gained pre-eminence in Ad T els of inspiration. The older, better ventism. Popular Adventist orthodoxy held known painting depicts Ellen White, pen in Ellen White's writings to be an indisputable last hand, meditatively looking to heaven, await word on church mores, policy, and doctrine. ing divine illumination. A more recent, more The live voice that played such a critical role in helpful picture appeared on the cover of the Adventist history had become a millstone Adventist Review: a desk top covered with around the church's neck. reference books in the background, an open However, in the past 20 years, two types of book in the immediate foreground, with a evidence have severely challenged the wide partially filled sheet of writing paper resting on spread authoritarian assumptions with which the book and a pen temporarily lying on the many church members have approached Ellen desk. White's writings. First, historical studies have The first painting reflects an authoritarian demonstrated that Ellen White's writings model of inspiration, in which Ellen White's their inspired character notwithstanding-are message comes word-for-word from heaven. culturally conditioned. Second, inquiries into It was a model that emerged after her death. Ellen White's production of texts have shown With its living prophetess dead, the Adventist considerable literary indebtedness. 1 This his Church succumbed to the temptation to el torical and textual research has not destroyed evate the prophetess' words to unhealthy emi- the credibility of Ellen White's prophetic min istry. It does mean that Adventism has to adopt James W. Walters is associate professor of religion and ethics another model for understanding Ellen White's at the School ofReligion, Lorna Linda University, and associ prophetic ministry; rather than authoritarian, ate director ofthe Ethics Center at Loma Linda. A graduate of Southern College, he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion Ellen White is authoritative. This model is cap from Claremont Graduate School. tured by the Adventist Review cover depicting THE}OURNAL OF mE ASSOClA170N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS Ellen White's inspiration as including other divine-which passes human lips can be au works. thoritarian; that is, every human statement is A new model ofan authoritative Ellen White culturally encased and thus subject to interpre should include at minimum the following as tation. sumptions: The necessity of interpretation is illustrated • The biblical gift of prophecy is one of by the fact that the early church, a few years various and important gifts with which God after Jesus' ascension, was forced to call a has blessed his church (see e.g. 1 Corinthians Jerusalem council to interpret the gospel in 12). The spectrum of spiritual gifts is supple light of changing circumstances. No one per mentaryand mutually beneficial in the healthy son determined church policy. Through mu church, with no one gift throttling the other tual exchange of points of view, an authorita avenues of the Spirit's continuing work. tive church position was reached. • The prophetic Various points of gift, as manifested in view are valuable Ellen White, is vividly even in understand seen in her speaking Ellen White's writings are an ing something as forth God's word central and personal throughout the first 70 important aspect of her pro- as a relationship to years ofAdventist his Christ. H. Richard tory. God used her as phetic gift, but they are surely Niebuhr's observa a dynamic founder not the only or necessarily most tion about our un leader-counselor in derstanding of the the denomination's important manifestation. . . . person of Christ has formative history. These writings . . . are an ele implications for our • Ellen White's understanding of writings are an im ment in the study of how God the authority of in portant aspect of her led thejledglingAdventistmove spired writings. prophetic gift, but Without compan they are surely not ment in the past. ions, collaborators, the only or necessar teachers, corroborat ily most important ing witnesses, I am at manifestation. These writings, regardless of the mercy of my imaginations. . .. If after the the findings of current research, are a constitu long dialogue with Mark, Matthew, John, and tive element in the study of how God led the Paul, and Harnack, Schweitzer, Bultmann, and Dodd, I come to the conclusion that whatever fledgling Adventist movement in the past. Christ means to others and requires of others this • If the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to is what he means to me and requires of me, I am remain Christian, the Bible must remain the in a wholly different position from the one in church's primary authority for faith and prac which I should be-if that were a· possible posi tice. However, if the denomination is to re tion-were I confronted by him alone. The Christ main Seventh-day Adventist, the legacy of how who speaks to me without authorities and wit nesses is not an actual Christ; he is no Jesus Christ God prophetically used Ellen White must con of history. He may be nothing more than the tinue to be a secondary authority. projection of my wish or my compulsion.2 The distinction between the authoritative and the authoritarian nature of the prophetic The issue of authority has been pressed to gift, so central to the proposed model, calls for the forefront in the Adventist Church. The elaboration. No single statement-human or question revolves more around the authority DECEMBER 1991 13 SPEcmUM ______~ ______of the Ellen White writings than the Bible decides to accept certain writings as divinely because the Adventist Church has tended to inspired and as those writings are interpreted. limit its understanding of the Bible to Ellen As the Adventist Church has become more White's perception of the Bible. Although the analytical about its beliefs, we increasingly church does not officially teach verbal inspira recognize the insightfulness of Ellen White's tion, many church members come close to observation that Bible writers "were God's following this view in their use of Ellen White's penmen, not His pen."5 A prophet relates his or writings. her divine message in temporal language, a Because recent historical research into the language that inevitably reflects a contempo cultural background of Ellen White and into rary historical setting. Inspired writings are not the production of her books has made the idea a divine encyclopedia dispensing absolute of verbal inspiration increasingly untenable, knowledge on every topic mentioned. They the church is facing a considerable dilemma of are an eternal fountain of living water satisfy authority. The words of G. B. Thompson spo ing the deepest existential cry of humanity: ken in 1919 seem prophetic: Who are we? Ellen White appears to subscribe to this It seems to me that if we are going to preach basic perspective on inspired writings when in the Testimonies and establish confidence in a related context she writes that "God alone is them, it does not depend on whether they are verbally inspired or not. I think we are in this fix infallible.,,6 God is not contained in the medi because of a wrong education that our people ate linguistic symbols and concepts to which have had. Ifwe had always taught the truth on this the prophets were limited. If God alone is in question, we would not have any trouble or fallible, everything less than God is fallible and shock in the denomination now. But the shock is therefore subject to interpretation. Hence the because we have not taught the truth, and have need for multiple sources of authority, other put the Testimonies on a plane where she (Ellen White) says they do not stand. We have claimed than inspired writings, in the Christian life. more for them than she did. 3 Inspired writings, reason, personal experi ence, and tradition are not new sources of The responsible way forward is for the authority in our denomination's theological church to abandon any idea of gaining relig deliberations. In fact, all four played a crucial ious security through giving authoritarian an role in the arguments given in the 1919 Bible swers meant to silence probing questions. The Conference regarding the authority of Ellen issue of authority in the church is complex, and White's writings. there is no single authority that can unilaterally provide neat, tidy answers. We possess no in errant golden tablets. Inspired Writings The Christian church has always used mul tiple sources of authority in its pursuit of truth. he Bible is the inspired record of God's There are four sources of authority that have T interaction with believers for more than a long served the Christian church and that are millennium. The climax of this record is the relevant to our denomination in this dilemma: revelation of God through Jesus Christ. As the inspired writings, reason, personal Christian eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry died, and as the experience, and tradition. 4 anticipated eschaton did not materialize, the Inspired writings are a vital source of au early church began the task of determining its thority, but their importance does not super authentic written testimonies of faith. The sede reason, experience, and tradition. The maturing Christian community-active in wor latter are vital as an analytical person initially ship, mission, and fellowship-found a diver- 14 VOLlME 21, NUMBER 5 THEJOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ADVENTIST FORUMS sity of materials eminently helpful. These writ ous sacred cows tumbling down. However, ings came to comprise the New Testament who is to say that the canons of reason that are canon. It is not that these materials exhaust the accepted today will remain unchallenged by meaning of faith, but they do genuinely and future cultures? Isn't what is considered "rea authoritatively reveal the nature of faith. sonable" itself culturally conditioned by cur Only God is unconditionally free from error rent philosophical and psychological notions? and partiality. Only God is infallible. But his The above consideration is not advanced to Word is the all-sufficient path to salvation. As deny the importance of reason, but to suggest Karl Barth observed, that it can never be a final authority. Nevertheless, while notions of what consti There is indeed only one single absolute fun damental and indestructible priority, and that is tutes reasonableness may vary culturally, the the priority of God as Creator over the totality of use of one's creative, God-given mind is man his creatures and each of them without exception. datory in all of life's endeavors. Reason is a Yet how strange it is that we learn of this very necessary part of the Christian's pursuit of priority ... only through the Bible."7 theological truth. The writings of Ellen G. White are an addi At the 1919 Bible Conference, the story was tional, yet secondary, norm of authority in the told of a Scandinavian missionary in Ham Seventh-day Adventist Church. These writings merfest who followed a stringent vegetarian tell the story of God's interaction with a mod diet. The missionary lived "a good deal on the ern-day Christian movement answering a north wind." The man, following strict Ellen unique, divine calling. A. G. Daniells, General White health counsel, appeared as though he Conference president in 1919, appealed to "had. hardly blood in his body." Later, when teachers of Bible and history to get their Mrs. White was told of how the Scandinavian theological bearings first from the direct study missionary had implemented her health coun of "the Book," and then from Ellen White. sel, she remarked: "Why don't the people use common sense? Why don't they know that we The earnest study of the Bible is the securify, are to be governed by the places we are 10- the safety of man. He must come to the book itself and get it by careful study, and then whatever he cated?"9 The value of common sense-the finds in the spirit of prophecy or any other writ most basic variety of reason-in applying in ings that will help him and throw light and clarify spired counsel was evidently an obvious ne his vision on it,-that is alright [sicl.8 cessity to Ellen White. Long-term General Conference President The Seventh-day Adventist Church can only A. G. Daniells felt that rational human reflec gain an understanding of itself and of God's tion was compatible with respect for Ellen particular guidance in its own history from White's inspiration. Daniells maintained that these writings. By appealing to the writings of Ellen White, Seventh-day Adventists maintain a rooted consciousness of their distinctiveness. The writings of Ellen White are an integral element in God's action of bringing the Sev enth-day Adventist movement into existence. Reason is a god of human culture whose cult is of immense proportions in the modern world. The strides of reason in the scientific world are truly awe inspiring. The reasonable ness of historical criticism has brought numer- DECEMBER 1991 15 SPEcrnUM ______ Sister White never claimed to be an authority on that was true even in the early church. The history, and never claimed to be a dogmatic apostle Paul counsels: "I urged you ... that you teacher on theology.... She gave out fragmentary may charge certain persons not ... to occupy statements, but left the pastors and evangelists and preachers to work out all these problems of themselves with myths and endless genealo Scripture and theology, and of history. 10 gies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith." (1 Timothy 1:3, 4, RSV). Paul wrote much more than is contained in Scripture. The epistles preserved Personal Christian in the canon were those that had proved useful Experience to the experience of the early church. These considerations have a bearing on the inspired writings of Ellen White and her au he church has always believed that God thority in the Adventist Church today. Not makes himself immediately known to in T everything Ellen White wrote in the Testimo dividual persons through his Holy Spirit. Of nies and in the Conflict of the Ages series is course, the Spirit illumines one's mind. But equally useful in the life of today's church. more importantly, the Spirit addresses the Which writings are authoritative in the church whole person, including one's affections. Per is significantly dependent on whether they sons are not merely rational beings. And the contribute to the church's actual experience; direction of one's active reasoning is deter whether they help the worshipping, working mined by factors of the whole person quite church to experience a life in the Spirit. beyond the narrowly rational. The early H. C. Lacy, in the same session at which American theologian Jonathan Edwards once Daniells gave his testimony, put the matter stated "that there never was any considerable succinctly: change wrought in the mind of any person, by anything of a religious nature that he read, In our estimate of the spirit of prophecy, isn't heard, or saw, who had not his affections its value to us more in the spiritual light it throws moved."l1 Edwards' emphasis on the "sense of into our hearts and lives than in the intellectual the heart" is an authentic touchstone of Chris accuracy in historical and theological matters? tian authority. Ought we not to take these writings as the voice of the Spirit to our hearts, instead of the voice of The later believers in the early centuries of the teacher to our heads? And isn't the first proof the Christian church had criteria for determin of the Spirit of Prophecy its spiritual rather than its ing which writings to include in the canon. historical accuracy?12 Personal claim to prophetic status obviously was not determinative. Even common ac knowledgment of prophetic calling was not Tradition solely determinative. And lack of ecstatic ex perience was not prohibitive. It was the qual he individual Christian does not encoun ity, integrity, uniqueness, and usefulness of T ter God in a vacuum. Assurance that a the writings in nurturing the personal experi believer'S experience of God and understand ences of the believing community that deter ing of the Christian faith are authentic is gained mined the contents of the canon. when one can point to exemplary Christians of In the Bible itself, not all the books and like experience and understanding in the tradi chapters are equally valuable to the church's tion. The task of contemporary theology as a life today. The long lists of the Chroniclers have discipline in the church is to relate the tradi limited value to the modern church. Evidently tional faith to the present generation. Theol- 16 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS ogy must not merely follow the dictates of the Herald: "The gifts of the Spirit should all have past. However, theology does need the nor their proper places. ,,14 Surely James White, writ mative role of tradition because it contains a ing 140 years ago, had no idea that future writings wealth of concepts that perpetually recur in of his prophetically gifted wife would eventually various eras of the church's existence. dominate the other gifts of the Spirit and even rival Adventism's own tradition is useful in un the Bible in practical authority in the church. derstanding the authority of Ellen White. In the In the late 20th-century Adventist Church, com 1919 conference F. M. Wilcox invoked the plex issues have at times received easy answers Adventist tradition to lend increased credibility because of our readiness to use abundant Ellen to a particular theological position. Introduc White quotations; our willingness to make Ellen ing a James White statement from the first White authoritarian. As we have recognized the volume of the Review and Herald, he said: inadequacy of this approach we have been tempted to abandon Ellen White as being authori I have a paragraph here I would like to read. talive at all. This is so completely in harmony with what Brother Daniells has expressed that I thought I The appeal here is to recognize Ellen White as a would like to read it. James White, in the Review person inspired by God to elaborate the Bible in a of 1851, wrote this, and it was republished again way that established the distinctive identity of Sev four years later, as expressing what he considered enth-day Adventism The continuing importance the denominational view with respect to the Tes of Ellen White's writings rests on persistent reliance 13 timonies back there. on Scripture, reason, personal Christian experi James White, reacting to those who singu ence, and tradition. Only in this way can an already larly prized the gift of prophecy, wrote in the discredited authoritarian Ellen White be replaced first volume of the Advent Review and Sabbath by a revered, authoritative Ellen White. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. E.g., William S. Peterson, "A Textual and Historical the General Conference of SDA's to deal with the ques Study of Ellen G. White's Account of the French Revolu tion of how Ellen White should be interpreted to the tion," Spectrum, Vol. 10 (Autumn 1979), pp. 57-69. church membership. Donald R. McAdams, "Ellen G. White and the Protestant 4. Dennis M. Campbell has written a most construc Historians," revised edition (Unpublished paper, Octo tive work, Authority and the Renewal of American ber 1977). McAdams' research is concisely and Theology (Philadelphia: United States Press, 1976). insightfully summarized in Eric Anderson, "Ellen White Campbell advances the four norms of church authority and Reformation Historians," Spectrum, Vol. 9 Quly which I now introduce, and he includes a fifth: creeds. 1978), pp. 23-26. Jonathan Butler, "The World of E. G. Campbell's discussion has been very helpful in the White and the End of the World," Spectrum, Vol. 10 development of my suggested norms. (Autumn 1979), pp. 2-13. Ron Graybill, "An Update on Ellen G. White's Literary Work," available from the Ellen 5. Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 21. G. White Estate. Walter Rea, The White Lie (Turlock, CA: 6. Ibid., p. 37. M and R Publications, 1982). Fred Veltman, "The Full 7. Church Dogmatics, I12, pp. 497,498. Report of the Life of Christ Research Project," Novem 8. Ibid., p. 31. ber 1988. Four volumes, 2,561 pages. Released by and 9. Ibid., p. 40. (Emphasis supplied.) available through the president'S office, General Confer 10. Ibid., p. 34. ence of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD. 11. Sereno E. Dwight, ed., The Works of President 2. Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Broth Edwards: With a Memoir ofHis Life, 10 vols. (New York: ers, 1951), pp. 245, 246. S. Converse, 1829-1830), v. 15. 3. Transcription of two sessions of the 1919 Bible 12. Spectrum, Vol. 10 (Autumn 1979), p. 38. Conference, published in Spectrum, Vol. 10 (May 1979), 13. Ibid., p. 33. p. 49. This highly significant conference was called by 14. April 21, 1851. (Emphasis supplied.) DECEMBER 1991 17 SPECIAL SECTION: VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY Where Are They Now? The Movers, the Shakers, And the Shaken A "shakee" of some years ago reports on the adventures of Adventist celebrities. by Ronald Graybill ECENTLY, I BELATEDLY READ MERIKAY'S BOOK mentioned here do not begin to represent all Betrayal, in which she describes her the prominent and well-known Adventists in Refforts to win equal pay for equal work whom people might be interested. They are at the Pacific Press, and the wrenching emo merely those I wondered about and about tional consequences of her successful lawsuit. whom I was able to get at least some current I wondered about her and all the other Sev information. Some are saints, others mere sur enth-day Adventists involved in controversy vivors. Some are vocal, some are silent. Some and change over the years. Where are they are famous in society, some within Adventism. now? How do they feel about the church and their changed relationship to it? What about Merikay Desmond Ford, Walter Rea, and Donald Dav enport? For that matter, what about entertain s for Merikay, she is still an active and ers Little Richard and Clifton Davis? Those A involved Christian. From time to time she will drop in on a young adult Sabbath school class in a nearby Seventh-day Adventist Afterearning his doctoral degree in American history atJohns Hopkins University, Ronald Graybill resigned from the White church. More often she worships with the Estate in a controversy over his doctoral dissertation. Today Society of Friends (Quakers), whose services he chairs the Department ofHistory and Political Science at La are largely silent, but whose religious activities Sierra University, and spends a part of his time teaching courses on Adventist history and Ellen White for the School of are highly practical efforts to help the hungry Religion. His relations with the White Estate have remained and homeless and promote peace in the world. cordial, and they have been generous, Graybill says, in Merikay is even pursuing a graduate degree in providing him with all the materials he needsfor his teaching. religion. They have, however, kept him at arm's length when it comes to projects relating to Ellen White, refusing his repeated Although Merikay still cherishes many requests to engage in scholarly editing and annotation of friendships among Adventists, she is beset by Ellen White's documents. a healthy and understandable paranoia about ______THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF AnVENI1ST FORUMS the Adventist zealots and crazies who continue Lorna Tobler to pursue her with pompous or awkwardly naive appeals and warnings. ut why is Merikay virtually out of the She expresses no bitterness over what hap B Seventh-day Adventist Church, while her pened at the Pacific Press. She sees it as a time co-plaintiff, Lorna Tobler, continues to be an of growth and eventual triumph, not only for active member of the Mountain View, Califor her, but for the Adventist Church as well. In nia, church? For one thing, Merikaywas much spite of the pain, the bigotry, and the betrayal younger, and probably much more naive she felt, she cannot see that period of her life as about the capacity of church leaders for venal a tragedy. Indeed, when Adventist lawyers ity and vindictiveness. For another, Tobler's gather early next year, they will be taking a steady, godly, and patient husband, Gus, suf- retrospective look at fered with her from the long term impact within the confines of the Merikay vs. of church employ Pacific Press case on ment, while the the church's prac trauma of the Pacific tices. Lorna Tobler points to the fact Press experience Merikay has con that she was reared in the broke up Merikay's tinued her interest in marriage. women's issues. She church, belonging to a family Lorna Tobler her served for three with long and extensive ac self points to the fact years on a county that she was reared wide Commission quaintance with church lead in the church, be on the Status of ers. Ifsome leaders turned out longing to a family Women and has with long and exten given seminars on to be cowards or liars, Tobler sive acquaintance how to identify and knew of generations of other with church leaders. stop sexual harass If some leaders ment in the work leaders who were devoted, turned out to be cowards or liars, place. She spoke friendly, and honest. Tobler knew of gen several times at last erations of other july's conference of leaders who were the Association of Adventist Women. devoted, friendly, and honest. Merikay continues to be an active writer. Merikay never made a decision to leave the She makes her living as an editor and writes in church. She simply felt that there was no her free time as well. Recently she has been church where she could go, no congregation drawing on her experiences in Czechoslova that wanted her in their fellowship. When 300 kia, producing articles on the "Velvet Revolu employees of the Pacific Press seemed to be tion" for local newspapers, an alumni journal, against her, and only half a dozen helped and and a magazine specializing in world affairs. encouraged her, it seemed clear to her that the Why Czechoslovakia? Where else are writers church did not want her. and artists so involved in government? How For Tobler, it was different. She had a big thrilling to hear the ideals of Jefferson and enough circle of Adventist friends and family Madison espoused as living realities! so as to be able to redefine "church." Church DECEMBER 1991 19 SPEcmUM ______was not those leaders who lied in court and Cecil Coffey Communications in Walla Walla, fought tooth and nail to deny women simple Washington, editing Health Science, a maga justice. No, there were still Adventists who zine that provides generic health-related sto stood for the right though the heavens fell. ries to which 150 hospital-clients add their own Yet in the final analysis, these two women's local news. differing responses can never be explained. People are different. Their reactions to hostil Walter Rea ity and rejection, to isolation and condemna tion vary. They judge their own hearts and alter Rea's current relationship echoes their own needs differently. Tobler and W Merikay's in some respects. Techni Merikay were the same only in the minds of cally, both are still members ofthe Seventh-day those who saw them only as parties to a law Adventist Church in that their names are still suit. carried on congregational rolls. Rea's problem Tobler currently makes her living as a para is different, though. The Long Beach church legal dealing with workers' compensation, re has been willing to send his "letter" to another searching for litigation and preparing for trials. congregation, but none of the congregations in Her Pacific Press experience provided a logical central California near his San Joaquin Valley transition to a new career. home in Paterson is willing to accept his mem bership. At least one pastor has even invited Max Phillips him to attend services, begging him to under stand why he cannot be accepted as a member. ax Phillips' job at Pacific Press provided a Rea doesn't relish that kind of fellowship. M benchmark for the Merikay case by After moving to Paterson from Los Angeles, showing what the press did for males who did Rea started a tax-preparation business from comparable work. Like Merikay, Max too went which he has since retired. He continues to through a divorce at that time. farm 400 acres of walnuts, apricots, and cher Phillips says he left the Adventist Church for ries, and financially he is better off now than he two reasons: he lost confidence in the integrity ever was as an Adventist minister. Rea has also of the leadership and he lost confidence in the been very active in community affairs. He has integrity of the doctrines, particularly the served as president of the county's Commis church's beliefs about Ellen White and its un sion on Aging for four years. He also spent four derstanding of Creation. He studied deeply in years as a member of the board of directors for geological literature and concluded, to put it the Del Parto Hospital in Paterson, and served simply, that "evolution is a fact." on the county grand jury. For seven or eight years he attended a Pres Rea's book about Ellen White's literary bor byterian church, but discovered that its right rowing, The White Lie, continues to sell, and wing is no more hospitable to those who be has been translated into several foreign lan lieve in evolution than is the Seventh-day guages. He is in touch with Adventists from all Adventist Church. Phillips says he likes over the world on a weekly basis, people who Adventist people and from time to time he call or write to request or offer information. attends one of the discussion-type Sabbath Rea, who is still an ordained Seventh-day school classes at Walla Walla College. Adventist minister, believes he was fired not After leaving the Pacific Press, Phillips over the Ellen White issue, but over his agita worked for a time at the Stanford University tion on the Davenport case. His book about School of Medicine preparing teaching materi church leaders' conflict of interest in investing als for medical students. Now he works for church funds in risky, unsecured loans to Dav- 20 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIA1l0N OF ADVEN1lST FORUMS enport, titled Pirates of Privilege, has been Ford characterizes the bulk of his support translated into five languages. Unlike The ers as "Gospel Adventists,'~ some of whom are White Lie, Rea circulates his Davenport book members of regular Adventist congregations, only among Seventh-day Adventists. In it he and some of whom belong to independent claims to demonstrate that it was this issue that fellowships. He occasionally appears in some cost him his job as a minister in the Southern of the larger Seventh-day Adventist churches, California Conference. - usually during the Sabbath school hour. On Still, Rea says he harbors no animosity to other occasions he appears at the invitation of ward the church and doesn't consider himself local chapters of the Association of Adventist an enemy of the church. "Adventism is the Forums. only thing I ever knew," he says. "I have no de Unlike Rea, Ford's ordination was officially sire to go to another church." revoked. However, his local church member ship remains with the Pacific Union College Donald Davenport Seventh-day Adventist Church. onald Davenport, whose dealings with the Southern College Alumni Ddenomination so provoked Rea, lives qui etly in retirement in Corona del Mar, California. outhern College of Seventh-day Advent For a time after his investments soured, he ists was also a hotbed of controversy in the returned to the practice of medicine. He has S early 1980s, what with self-appointed moth been so berated in the press that he prefers not ers-in-Israel and their zealous counterparts to talk to reporters. He still feels that much of eavesdropping on religion professors, eager to what happened was beyond his control. discard any who had escaped the assembly He and his wife were disfellowshipped by line cookie-cutters. their local congregation. For some time they Not a few of the refugees from that over remained close to a Southeastern California heated factory escaped to Southern California pastor. Then one of their adult sons died in where they live in balmy and productive con tragic circumstances. The pastor consoled tentedness. Ed Zackrison spent several years them as any good friend and clergyman would, teaching at La Sierra Academy before joining but paradoxically he reminds them of painful the School of Religion at La Sierra University. memories. The Davenports have had decreas Jolene Zackrison heads the Department of ing contact with him. Office Management for La Sierra University. Desmond Ford esmond Ford's activities are better known Dto many Adventists because of his "Good News Unlimited" ministry operating from Au burn, California. He speaks on daily and weekly radio programs throughout the United States and in several other countries, maintains half a dozen weekly television shows, and travels, preaches, and lectures widely in the United States and throughout the world. DECEMBER 1991 21 SPEcmUM ______ Both are very active in _church and school the Liberal Studies program in addition to his activities. Ed continues his interest in drama, continuing work in English. In his spare time leading a Christian drama group for the uni he operates one of the more successful versity and supervising the annual drama pro Kawasaki motorcycle dealerships in Southern duction at La Sierra Academy. California, and serves as the senior pastor of Teamed with Bill Allen and Melvin the Riverside Seventh-day Adventist Church Campbell, who are also both refugees from for $1 per year. Southern College, Zackrison leads out in a popular and effective Sabbath school class for Smuts van Rooyen university students at the La Sierra University church. Librarian Charles Davis, another Ten ctually, Pastor Kni!tle is rarely in the pul nessee transplant, is reference librarian at La A pit at Riverside anymore. That honorusu Sierra University and serves on the faculty ally falls to Smuts van Rooyen, who is officially senate. billed the congregation's minister of counsel Lorenzo Grant, another former member of ing. Van Rooyen, formerly a religion teacher at the Southern College religion department, Andrews University, left Adventist employ now pastors the University Seventh-day Ad ment because of his support for Desmond ventist Church near the University of Southern Ford. He even worked with Ford at Good California in Los Angeles. News Unlimited for two years after leaving Jerry Gladson, who was voted Outstanding Andrews. Then he went to South Africa for a Teacher of the Year at Southern College in year to sell real estate. Returning to the United 1981-1982, was forced out in 1987. He is pres States, he spent two years as a substance-abuse ently academic dean at the Psychological counselor at the Battle Creek Adventist Hospi Studies Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. This insti tal , then went back to Andrews to get his doc- tute is a graduate-level professional school in toral degree in counseling psychology. psychology and religion. Through it all, though, van Rooyen was Frank Knittle, erstwhile president of South unsatisfied. He felt a powerful calling to ern College, is a respected and beloved profes preach. He ~as, as he puts it, an organist with sor of English at La Sierra University. A former out an organ. Then came the opportunity to chair of the English department, he now heads serve in Riverside. Under van Rooyen's "coun seling," the Riverside church's attendance has swelled from a little more than 100 to nearly 500 each week. Membership has increased by 55 in the year he has been there. Tithe is up 42 percent over the previous year, with August 1991 tithe 100 percent more than August 1990 tithe. Like Ford, van Rooyen suffered the revo cation of his ordination. He now holds a min isterial license, but there is talk of renewing his ordination. It was said of the great English preacher George Whitefield that he could move a con gregation to tears just by pronouncing the word "Mesopotamia." Van Rooyen's earnest, loving, passionate preaching, which often 22 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOClA110N OF AnVEN11ST FORUMS touches on the tragedies and triumphs of the president of Andrews University from 1976 to Christian's walk, is like that, too. His power in 1983, when personal problems forced him out. the pulpit is even greater when one knows the Smoot is still in education, now as vice presi deep personal anguish he has experienced. dent for development at Pittsburg State Univer sity in Pittsburg, Kansas. Under his supervision is a public radio station as well as the alumni, Ronald Numbers public relations, and development activities of the university. Pittsburg State, with some 6,000 ne of the earliest individuals to shake the students, is one of six regional Kansas univer Seventh-day Adventist Church was Ronald O sities. The school prides itself in its fine pro Numbers, who taught medical history at Loma gram in marketing studies and on its athletic linda University until the mid-1970s, when his teams. Since his arrival in 1984, Smoot has book Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. increased the school's endowment from $2 White appeared. The book showed that, in her million to $10 million. health teachings, rather than being ahead of her Smoot says nothing has changed in his time, Ellen White was a product of her times. . relationship to the church, except that now, of Numbers has gone on to a highly successful course, he and his wife worship as lay persons career in academia. He is professor of the history rather than as leaders. of medicine and the history of sdence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; editor of Isis, the leading scholarly journal on the history of Donald McAdams sdence; andtheauthorofseveralbooks. Numbers' latest work, a history of creation sdence, will soon on McAdams is another former Adventist be published by the prestigious Knopf publishing Dcollege president with a new life. house. In it he covers the leading Adventist figures McAdams left Southwestern Adventist College increationsdence, from George McCready Price to of his own choice while going through a di those who have partidpated in the Geosdence vorce. Except for the entertainers I will men Research Institute. The book also deals with cre tion below, he has probably enjoyed the great ationists outside the Seventh-day Adventist est financial success through his change in Church, primarily Anglo-Americans. employment. McAdams lives in Houston, Numbers' book on Ellen White as a health Texas, where he works as an adjunct consult refonner is about to be republished with two long ant with the American Productivity and Quality additions. One, by Jonathan Butler, covers the Center, an organization of which he was previ impact of the book itself, including the controver ously executive director. His clients, which sies it sparked within Adventism The other, which Numbers co-wrote with his wife Janet, a clinical psycholOgist, is a discussion of Ellen White's personal mental health and her teachings on the subject of mental health. Numbers no longer professes Adventism, but he continues many friendships with Adventists from his past. Grady Smoot Iso a refugee from Adventist higher edu A cation is Grady Smoot, who served as DECEMBER 1991 23 SPEc.mUM ______include some of America's biggest corpora denly, McAdams the historian has become tions, call on him to teach them the techniques McAdams the civic leader, dealing with the such as those that have made Japan such a leaders of local and state politics. formidable competitor to American business. "Public education," says McAdams, "ties in His company helped design the Malcolm so well with what I do for a living and who I am Baldridge National Quality Award in 1987, and as a person." In a school district plagued with the techniques he now teaches to organiza the typical problems of crime, drugs, and pov tions could help them become winners of the erty, McAdams has found a mission that em award. ploys his knowledge of history, his expertise in McAdams remarried in February of 1991. management, his Christian compassion, and His wife, Anne Pace, is an attorney for Exxon, his Adventist zeal to better the world. whose chief responsibility is the Exxon Pipe Meanwhile, he has just obtained a huge line Company in Alaska. He has two grown contract to teach better management proce sons by his first marriage, and a three-year-old dures to the entire Veterans Administration Peruvian daughter he and his new wife have system--13 hospitals, including Pettis Memo adopted. rial, and 14 regional administrative centers. When McAdams quit working for the church, he says he found his mind free to be Little Richard "logical." He did not have to reach any set conclusions on the troubling scientific, histori hen there are the artists, entertainers, and cal, and theological issues Adventism faced. T celebrities who name Adventism as their He concluded that there was little or no evi religion. Richard Penniman, popularly known dence for some of the positions the church as Little Richard, has doubtless puzzled many holds. Although he maintains warm friend Anglo Adventists by his television appear ships with many Adventists elsewhere, he has ances during which he often plays the rock 'n' few Adventist friends in the Houston congre roll songs that first made him famous in the '50s gations, and his own participation in the and '60s, before he attended Oakwood Col church is largely confined to financial contri lege and became a Seventh-day Adventist min butions. ister. Appearances aside, Little Richard is still Despite his marked financial success, very much a Seventh-day Adventist. He regu McAdams is most proud of his public service. larly attends the Ephesus church in Los Ange He has been elected a member of the Houston les. In fact, some of the limousine drivers who School Board, which administers the fifth larg ferry him to church on Sabbath have them est school system in the United States. Sud- selves joined the church. During the intermis sions at his concerts, his aides blanket the audience with copies of Steps to Christ or Desire ofAges-Tutti Frutti meets Ellen White. Clifton Davis nd what of Clifton Davis, who played A Rev. Reuben Gregory on the NBC televi sion sitcom "Amen"? With the show now in syndication, Davis is in Chicago starring in the play First Lady, with Vicky Winan. 24 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVENTIST FORUMS Davis, who has a B.A. in theology from in Sweden, but also studied at Juilliard School Oakwood and a Master of Divinity degree and with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood's (1987) from the SDA Theological Seminary, Berkshire Music Center. He conducted orches served as an associate pastor at the Loma Linda tras in Sweden and Denmark before becoming University church for a time. He resigned from music director of the Dresden Staats-kapelle, that position because the pressures of his tele the world's oldest orchestra. vision series and other public appearances Blomstedt became music director of the San made it impossible to do justice to the job. He Francisco Symphony in 1985. Many. aitics have still does the radio show "It's a Celebration" on been favorably impressed with his work. National a Christian radio network, and has a gospel Public Radio called him "a model of old-world album, Say Amen, in circulation. As the tab integrity, and a conductor with an almost mystical loids have reported, Davis is currently going relationship with music. Still waters run deep ... but through a divorce, but his ties to the Adventist not too deep for Blomstedt" The New York Times, Church remain strong. reviewing one concert, said he "conducted with clarity and a sense of unswerving interpretive Archie Moore drive." Reviews ofthe recordings he has made with the San Francisco Symphony have been equally glowing. When Gramophone published its "Crit eanwhile, in San Diego, California, ics' Choice" selections of favorites from 1990, five MArchie Moore, once light heavyweight different critics and the editor himself named boxing champion of the world, continues both Blomstedt recordings. his sport and his devotion to Adventism. His faith continues to inform his artistry, al Moore works with inner-city youngsters, and though in ways that may not be apparent on the helps train and coach prize fighters. His ring surface. Consider, for instance, the story behind the exploits include helping to prepare heavy new symphonic work by Charles Wuorinin, Gen weight George Foreman for his recent unsuc esis. Wuorinin (WAR-nen), a MacArthur Genius cessful comeback bid. Moore is a member of Award recipient, was composer-in-residence with the 31 st Street church in San Diego, California, the San Francisco Symphony in September, 1991. although his attendance is not regular due to The choral parts consisted of excerpts of the Cre his travels. ationstorydrawnfrom the Latin version ofthe Bible. The work is dense and demanding, both on the Herbert Blomstedt orchestra and on the listener. Still, the San Fran cisco Chronick found it cast in a "striking and n a gentler note, what of Herbert profoundly thought-out form" The New Yorker OBlomstedt, the music director of the San noted how the setting for the Sabbath rest was Francisco Symphony? While Blomstedt may "treated calmly ... not in a busy flap and flurry of not be a household name for many Adventists, construction and manufacture but as a depiction his achievements are commanding wide of creation by dictate." But the message of the spread attention in the music world. composition that most impressed Blomstedt Blomstedt, a Swede, was actually born in was the shouted praise to the Lord who "him the United States. His father, an Adventist min self made us and not we ourselves." ister, pastored Swedish congregations in New He travels widely, conducting orchestras England before returning to Sweden to minis around the world, but when he is in San Frandsco ter when Herbert was only two. on Sabbath, he will be found at the Mountain View Blomstedt received his musical education Seventh-clay Adventist Church for services. DECEMBER 1991 25 In Search of A Giving World A star trek: Harvard surgical nurse, to world-class immunolo gist in Manhattan, to Baby Fae consultant in Lorna Linda, to member of the University church. by Gayle Saxby N mE LAST DAY OF 1940, SANDRA NEHLSEN that his employees in American Samoa were was born into a family that was rich in sick, and that no medical personnel lived O many ways, though her parents had there. Before three hours had passed, Sandra little money. When she left home to begin was aboard a plane bound for Samoa. nurse's training at Chicago's Augustana Hospi While there, Sandra learned that during tal, she looked forward to visits home when World War II, American soldiers had brought a she would sit again at her parents' feet, their virus to the area that had caused the deaths of knees touching her shoulders, and pour out many of the native Polynesians. The heart her heart to them. They, in turn, would pour valves of those who had survived the virus their hearts out to her. Always they would were badly deformed. Several physicians laugh together. landed there two weeks into Sandra's stay, and After finishing nurse's training, Sandra with her as first surgical assistant, they per wanted to see a bit ofthe world. She went to the formed closed-heart surgeries in a bombed new state of Hawaii and found a job on the out army barracks. surgical floor at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu. After traveling a bit more, Sandra moved to One of her patients there, Wally Boquist, was Boston as Boquist had suggested. She signed a nuclear physicist who was testing bombs in up for an advanced nursing degree program at the South Pacific. He suggested to Sandra that Boston University and landed a job as staff she move to Boston and look for work in a nurse in the operating room at Peter Bent large teaching institution, but he also told her Brigham Hospital. There she participated in the earliest open-heart surgeries performed, as well as in numerous kidney transplants. After Gayle Saxby earned a BA. in English from Walla Walla College and an M.Div. from the Seventh-day Ad~entist Tbeo each surgery, she would ask to be the patient's logical Seminary. She is currently an assistantprofessor on the private duty intensive-care nurse. She worked faculty of religion at Loma Linda University. two shifts four or five days a week; all the while ______THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOClA1l0N OF ADVEN1lST FORUMS she attended evening classes. National Institute for Medical Research near After Sandra had worked in Boston for two London. There she received her Doctor of years, witnessing the evolution oftransplanta Philosophy degree in Immunology. tion and open-heart surgery, she learned that While in England, Sandra was active in the Frank Veith, the chief surgical resident at United Church, just as she had been in the First Brigham, was about to set up a transplantation Congregational and Lutheran churches while unit and research laboratory in New York. She growing up. When she returned to the States, asked him if he would need an assistant there; however, she stopped attending church. She he was not sure he would be able to pay one. believed profoundly, but something was miss She went to New York and worked for him ing in the churches she'd come to know. without pay for two weeks, until he found In New York she did postdoctoral work at money for her salary. Sloan-Kettering Institute, and then, in 1978, be Sandra became the senior supervisor of the came the director of the Transplantation Immu surgical research laboratory in the Cornell Divi nology Division of Montefiore Medical Center sion of Bellevue Hospital, where Veith taught her and Albert Einstein College of Medidne. surgical procedure. In the laboratory she trans InJune of 1984, Sandra spent three and a half planted the kidneys weeks in China teach and some 300 other ing the immunology organs of rats. Mean of renal transplanta while, she was study Ralph Harris regaled her with tion along with phy ing for a premed sicians and nurses icine degree at New tales of his experiences as a from around the York University, but medical missionary in Africa. U.S. On this trip, by the time she com Sandra met Ralph pleted it, she knew (~t Loma Linda)" Harris said) Harris from the she wanted to be "we're all medical missionaries.)) Lorna Linda Univer come a research sci sity Medical Center entist, not a physi Tbis fascinated her; it hinted at in Lorna Linda, Cali cian. She also knew something she was lookingfor. fornia, who regaled she wanted to work her with tales of his in the field of immunology, as people were experiences as a "medical missionary" in Af doing transplants, but no one knew much rica. "At Lorna Linda," he told her, "we're all about how to make those transplants work yet. medical missionaries." This fascinated her; it In April of 1964, Sandra fractured her back, hinted at something she was looking for. hips, skull, and pelvis in a horseback riding On the flight back to the U.S., Harris also accident. The orthopedic surgeon who treated told Sandra, confidentially, that a pediatric her was about to take a sabbatical to study with cardiac surgeon at Lorna Linda, Leonard Bai Sir Peter Medawar, the Nobel laureate of 1960. ley, wanted to put a baboon heart into a human Later, when he returned from his sabbatical, he infant. Sandra had always believed that cross urged Sandra to allow him to talk to Medawar species (xenograft) transplantation was the about taking her on as his student. "He's the answer to the need for organ donors; she best in the world," he told her. agreed to be a consultant on the case. She She laughed. "The Nobel laureate? Take on spentJuly and Augustin Lorna Linda, then from little Sandi Nehfsen? Ha!" New York continued to help the hospital pre Take her on he did, however. She became pare to perform xenograft surgery. Medawar's only pupil from 1968 to 1971 at the Late one October evening in 1984, Bailey DECEMBER 1991 27 SPEcmUM ______called Sandra from Lorna Linda. "How are the After the surgery, however, she was offered experiments going?" he asked her. "Are they a job as director of the medical center's immu done?" nology center. Three months later, she re "Yes, we're all done now," she told him. "I signed her position at MontefiorelAlbert have the results of the last test." Einstein and took up her new duties at Lorna "Good," Bailey said, "because I have a baby Linda UniverSity. A while later, her husband and six baboons downstairs." Bud Cannarella, a professional photographer Sandra caught a flight from New York in New York, joined her and became a vice shortly after midnight that night, and, once in president of the Lorna Linda University Medi Lorna Linda, began working around the clock cal Center. preparing for the surgery. Six days later, Baby Through a series of experiences, Sandra Pae received her new heart. soon realized that the institution was not per Throughout the process ofpreparing for the fect. One physician informed her, rather omi surgery, Sandra had felt in the Medical Center nously, that "The only thing worse than a non a warmth akin to that which she'd felt in her Adventist is a rebel Adventist." The statement home while growing up. Also, Waldo Con was a personal attack, but this didn't concern cepcion, a resident working on the Baby Pae her as much as did the fact that it belied a case, had almost insisted that Sandra attend the "malignancy" within the institution. Lorna Linda University church with him, and On the other hand, Sandra reveled in the when she did, she sensed she had found some fact that working, worshiping, and caring for thing she had been one another were looking for-a com parts of a whole in munity of faith that Sandra attended the Loma her new commu embodied the kind nity. Throughout of ideals she had al Linda University church and her life she had been ways lived by. Her when she did, she sensed she troubled by people parents had not had who acknowledged much money when hadfoundsomewingshehad their faith only on she was growing up, Sunday mornings. but they had always been looking for--a commu At MontefiorelAl given of themselves nity offaith that embodied the bert Einstein she liberally. They had had been enriched taken in needy chil kind of ideals she had always by the way friends dren, worked for lived by. and colleagues of their community, the Jewish faith had taken under their wings friends of Sandra's woven their belief into every aspect of their who were from less loving homes, and even, lives, and this had come close to what she when there was no money to buy fabric or wanted in a worshiping community. In Lorna clothes, torn up their own clothes to make Linda, however, she felt even more that people outfits for Sandra and her sister. there were trying to live all the messages of the Sandra, too, had lived her life this way, and Bible in everything they did. The value placed thought it was the way the world ought to be. on giving through service to humanity, the In Lorna Linda she thought she had found a inclusion of a healthful lifestyle, and a day of corner of the world that was that way. She was true rest each week-these factors all blended troubled, then, at the thought of leaving and together to create for her the atmosphere she going back to New York. had known and sought since her childhood. 28 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOClA110N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS In 1989, after several months of Bible stud how involved in art or music or both. I live all ies, Bud and Sandra were baptized into the of them together. I never separate them. Never. Seventh-day Adventist Church. Sandra contin I can't. And that's how I feel about religion." ues her active and successful research at Lorna Some of Sandra's research reflects her com Linda University Medical Center. She sees an mitment to a wholistic view of life. When she integration of her religion with her furious left home, she always missed the fun, the pace of research and teaching (she sleeps only loving, the touching, the hugs, the laughter. three to four hours a night.) "Maybe I think I'm When she got into immunology in New York indestructible," she says. "I certainly rest. I rest she was so convinced of the fact that there was in different ways than other people, I guess. a link between laughter and the immune re Sabbath is absolutely to me a blessing I needed sponse that she started fooling around (in an because of the way I live. It truly is peaceful informal way, because she was doing mostly and I feel cleansed and refreshed and ready to clinical work) in the lab. She and co-workers go." would watch films, and see what crying or Ready to go, indeed. Sandra's 70 publica laughing did to the immune response. tions in scholarly journals included frontier When Sandra went to Lorna Linda, she met work on immunosuppressants (the chemicals Lee Berk, Bill Eby, Stanley Tan, and others who that keep surgical patients from rejecting trans had already started work on the effect oflaugh planted organs) and the effects of moderate tef. They sat down and had long discussions, exercise on immune responses. including passages in the Bible that supported "I find that doing creative things is very what they were doing. Then when they actu satisfying and also very restful," she explains. ally did the science, when they put numbers to "Sometimes it's creating an experiment in my it, they said, "We cannot deny this." Somebody head. Sometimes it's sitting down with clay and cracks a joke, says something that makes him creating sculpture. And sometimes it's a walk or her feel warm, and in five to 10 minutes, the through nature, because my sculpture is na response can be measured in real, hard, cold ture, too.... I also love music. I had a really figures. She thinks it's "so neat" that the re hard time trying to decide among science and search is coming out of Lorna Linda, that music and art. Every scientist I know is some- "we're" really leaders in the area. DECEMBER 1991 29 Sailing from Byzantium From Piraeus and the glory of the Greek Orthodox liturgy to a personal walk with God and a religion of the new world. by Demetra Lougani Andreasen GREW UP IN PIRAEUS, WE GREEK PORT AT AWENS. My mother, a woman with a limited formal World War II and the civil war, which education, had a tremendous influence on me. I threatened the country with Communism, She taught us the importance of self-respect, left devastating effects on the land and its integrity, honesty, and openness. Those values people. My father, an officer of the Royal Navy, were reinforced by the Christian principles was injured during a bomb raid and died from taught in church. a lack of prompt medical care. My mother had In my community there was strong loyalty to make a home for my two sisters and me (I to the three most important institutions of was the middle child). Greek society: religion, country, and family. As a child, I felt a terrible sense of helpless Ours was a homogeneous society, and one ness. Although I often felt sad and intimidated could not betray any of the institutions and be by the absence of my father and our constant considered worthy of respect. Our lack of economic hardships, I had a strong sense of money did not destroy our sense of self-worth, pride, a sense of direction, and a will that could our pride, or our integrity. Rather, it inspired us not be defeated by the misfortunes of war. I to strive for spiritual qualities, inner strength, even felt defiance toward the winds of adver and commitment to tasks well performed. sity blowing in my face. I was more religious and had a stronger drive for higher education than my other fam ily members. I attended church regularly and Demetra Lougani Andreasen, a medical social worker, is the took communion. I was drawn to Christ be Drug/Alcohol Prevention Coordinator ofWalla Walla College. She has dedicated this memoir to her sisters; her husband, Nils cause of his life of discipline, service, and ErikAndreasen, who, she says, taughthertolerance,patience, compassion toward the afflicted. I was im and a calm, practical way of facing challenges; her son, pressed with his strength and steadfastness Michael; and her adopted American family, whose financial support made it possible for her to stay two years at Newbold despite rejection by his peers and his commu College and then to move to the United States. nity. I liked to think of him cooking breakfast ______THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIA1l0N OF ADVENTlST FORUMS for his disciples that morning on the shore of often trace the beginning of my journey to the the Sea of Galilee, knowing how physically Adventist Church to their acquaintance. A tired and spiritually weak they were. They had cou pIe of years after we met, just after my high decided to return to their old professions, de school graduation, I received a phone call from feated and discouraged by his death. They had Anna, offering me her job in a law office in turned their faces away from the strong wind of Athens. She was soon to leave for a better disappointment. Christ understood and was position. I accepted eagerly, because it was compassionate. usually impossible to find employment How I enjoyed the Easter services, listening straight out of high school. to the deep male voices singing a cappella Oh, the innocence ofyouth! I had no secretarial Byzantine hymns. I could imagine Christ going skills or professional training; only enthusiasm, through the terrible test of full obedience to his energy, and a strong sense of commitment to tasks Father. The Greek well performed. How Orthodox Church did I really dare be had a tremendous come a secretary for reverence for the Cre The decision to leave home and four prestigious law ator of heaven and yers and a judge in the earth, and a sense of attend a Protestant college in center of the most so awe for his holiness phisticated section of and power. Some another country was an ex Athens? I taught my times I miss this type traordinary one. None of my self how to type, to of worship, when the answer the phone, human soul, assisted friends, neighbors, oracquain take longhand dicta by solemn music and tances had done such a thing. tion' and make sure beautiful art, ftnds i~ my Greek spelling self in awe in God's It had to be the Lord's leading. was correct. In one holy presence. month I tried to There were other significant influences in learn as much as Anna could teach me. Once I my life. While my father was alive, he used to worked until I passed out from exhaustion and arrange for my mother andus three children to lack of food; I had been so busy that I forgot to spend summers out in the country or on a eat. nearby Greek island. After my father's death, I kept that job for five years. I learned to my mother maintained this tradition, and we speak like a lawyer. I won discussions with my would go to the island ofSalamis to stay for two friends and family, using legal terms and rhe or three months in a lighthouse. There we torical arguments. As I worked for the lawyers, enjoyed swimming, hiking, exploring, and I knew that one day I would look for a job with staying up late watching the stars, the boats shorter working hours and medical benefits. I passing by, and the moonlight shining on the began to study English at a private school, calm surface of the Mediterranean Sea. The during siesta time, from one to five o'clock. At memories of our family togetherness are still a the same time I started to pray that God would source of strength and energy as I face tests in lead me to a better understanding of his will. I my life's journey. wanted to find away to serve him. While in One summer on the island my family be high school I had visited sick people in hospi came acquainted with another vacationing tals and participated in street demonstrations family. My older sister in particular became a organized by a priest, protesting certain ills of lifelong friend of their only daughter, Anna. I our society. Now that I was working full time DECEMBER 1991 31 SPEcmUM ______and studying English, I missed these religious there traveled by train through Calais to Lon activities, although I continued to attend don. Doctor Viggo Norskov Olsen had just church. become the principal of Newbold, and he The English we learned in those days was accepted my application with half of the re not conversational. We learned grammar rules quired tuition. The rest I would have to pay by and wrote compositions, but we could not praying and working. converse freely. I wanted to improve my En The decision to leave home and attend a glish speaking ability. Protestant college in another country was an I met a young woman at the National Gar extraordinary one. None of my friends, neigh dens in Athens one afternoon, and we started bors, or acquaintances had done such a thing. talking. I mentioned my wish to practice con It had to be the Lord's leading, since my family, versational English. "Oh," she said, "I know after my father's death, had neither the finan someone. She works for a Protestant church cial means nor the social exposure to take and she uses her English all the time." She advantage of such an opportunity. eventually introduced me to a young secretary Going to a Protestant school made me un named Aliki, who worked for the Adventist easy. I thought seriously of asking permission Greek Mission in Athens. from my priest, whom I greatly admired. I tried ... Aliki Grivas Snow was a bright young twice to visit him in his office, but something woman who translated the Sabbath school kept me from entering. I thought he would not lessons and some of Ellen White's writings into allow me to attend a Protestant school. So Greek. Aliki was not an Adventist at the time, instead of visiting the priest, I promised God and she would argue with the Greek-American that I would not let "those Protestant apostates" missionary leader about theological differ interfere with my faith. ences between the Greek and Adventist Two years later, I, like Aliki, joined the churches. Adventist Church. I had not known anyone Aliki decided to go to Newbold College, in before who could explain clearly and with a England. "Newbold," she wrote, "would be an personal testimony how to walk with God excellent school to study and practice speak daily in life's journey. To learn that God was ing English." She invited me to join her. She did interested in my physical and emotional not mention that by that time she had become needs, just as he was in my spiritual needs, was an Adventist. completely new. I started to save every cent that I could. In I knew that I could not possible turn my the fall of 1960, I sailed to Venice and from back on this new religious knowledge, but I was also painfully aware that in my family's eyes, I had betrayed them. I had sacrificed the bond that made us strong and loyal to each other, and I had shown disrespect to the memory of my father. My family was less angry than hurt-disappointed, embarrassed, aban doned. My sisters needed my support to cope with mother's illness and advancing age. They felt alienated by my strange new eating habits, Sabbathkeeping, and association with a hand ful of Seventh-day Adventist Greeks who sang foreign hymns and worshiped in churches that looked like public lecture halls. To them the 32 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOCL4110N OF AnVEN11ST FORUMS Greek Orthodox Church was the strong University, to be with my fiance. Again my mother church for almost all Greeks. They family felt betrayed and rejected. I had broken even invited a theologian friend to speak with the link that kept us together. me, hoping that he could persuade me to give My spiritual journey has been long since up my new faith. But my convictions became those days. I learned to rebuild my relationship even stronger as he failed to give me satisfac with my Greek family, based on the things that tory explanations for religious practices of my united us: memories of childhood, of our par . former church that had no biblical basis. ents, and of our heritage. My sisters have come My mother tried to encourage me to think of to look upon my family with respect and admi marriage. When I told her that I had met a fine ration, and wish that they could finance their Dane at Newbold, she said, "My poor child, of children's education in Adventist schools. One all the Greek young men, could you not find of my nieces has attended summer school at one here and stay in your country?" I tried to Newbold, and another is thinking ofcoming to explain that I could not marry a Greek Ortho Walla Walla College. The next generation is dox. Two years later I left Greece for Andrews continuing the pilgrimage. DECEMBER 1991 33 Missionaty From Cathay: David lin's Own Story A man who traces his ancestors back 2,500 years to the court of China's first emperor, becomes the best-known Adventist in China. by David Lin WAS BORN IN 1917, TIfE SECOND SON OF LIN BAO knelt in prayer and promised God that if he Heng, a graduate of Columbia University. healed me, she would bring me up as a I He was serving at the time as Chinese vice preacher. Before the doctor had a chance to consul in Manila. In the years that followed, my diagnose my case, I miraculously recovered. father was transferred first to Vancouver, Brit True to her word, my mother, from that day on, ish Columbia; then to Shanghai, and then to drilled into my head that I belonged to God and Surabaya, Java. While in Surabaya, my brother that I would one day become a preacher. Paul, and I attended a private school where we When Chiang Kai Shek came to power in learned to speak Malayan and to walk barefoot 1927, my father lost his official position under like the Java children. the now-defunct Peking regime. We moved My mother, Pan Cheng Kun, had, in her back to Shanghai for a time, and then on to childhood, attended a Christian school in Peking. I attended sixth grade at the Peking Suzhou, Jiangsu. While there, an American American School where Miss Moore was prin missionary, Miss Pyle, taught her to pray. Al cipal. One day she asked her pupils to tell what though for many years she neglected to do so, they wanted to be when they grew up. When the trials of family life drove my mother to her I told the class that I was going to be a preacher, knees. Once, when my brother, Paul, and I they were shocked. After that, I was regarded were small, I developed a high fever and was as an "odd fellow." rushed to the hospital. My worried mother On Sundays, my mother took us to the Methodist church where we made friends with David Lin, a former student ofPacific Union College and the Pastor and Mrs. Fred Pyke, whose children SDA Theological Seminary, sewed as secretary of the China were my schoolmates. In 1932 my father and Division during the Communist takeover. A former editor of mother moved to Hankow where he worked the Hong Kong edition of Signs of the Times, Lin is now retired for the Bureau ofInternal Revenue. I was left to and living in Shanghai, where he seroes as a pastor of the Adventist church in Mu En Tang. stay with the Pykes. ______THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVEN71sT FORUMS issionaries assisted the governments of Bible for himself, and created what he called Mthe countries from which they came in the "Peaceful Heavenly Kingdom," which had formulating treaties that provided for extrater as its aim the establishment of God's kingdom ritorial rights. This accorded aliens free access on earth through military conquest. A visiting to the hinterland under government protec missionary once asked his spokesman, "Do tion. These privileges were often abused by you keep the Sabbath?" "Yes," was the reply, missionaries, who pressured local magistrates "we observe the Sabbath. At midnight we offer to render verdicts in favor of Christian land prayer and praise. After peace is restored, we lords in lawsuits over land tenure. In disputes plan to enforce the Sabbath in earnest. Satur between Christians and non-Christians, the day is the Sabbath." latter always lost. Adding to this source of Missionaries first saw Hong Xiu-Quan as a aggravation, unfair treaties provided that Chi wonderful convert, but later on despised him nese courts had no as a radical ignora right to judge cases mus, theologically of felony committed speaking. Their by foreign civilians, Hong Xiu-Quan, the leading opinion of him in who were legally re fluenced the imperi sponsible only to genius of the Taiping revolu alist forces, who their respective con were already dissat suls. Foreign com tion, studied the Bible for him isfied with his pro munitites in treaty self and created what he called gram of dealing ports likewise pre with foreign powers scribed special privi the (Peaceful Heavenly King on equal terms. leges for aliens. One dom, "which hadforits aim the They could hardly park in the British count on him to concession in Shang establishment ofGod's kingdom honor the treaties hai posted a sign, "No on earth through military con- they had concluded admittance to dogs with the Ching Dy- and Chinese." quest. nasty. Hence they It takes little imagi decided to work nation to see why such bullying practices caused with the imperial government, which they widespread resentment. This bore fruit in 1900 knew would serve their purposes better, sup in the Boxer uprising of patriots, who aimed to pressing what they called the "Taiping Rebel drive out foreign aggressors and punish the lion." No less significant a figure than Charles corrupt Ching officials. Mounting animosity G. Gordon was enlisted to command the colo against imperialist aggression was also a cause nial forces to fight with the Ching army in its of the bourgeois revolution led by Sun Yat assault against Nanjing, the capital of the Sen, who finally succeeded in overthrowing Peaceful Heavenly Kingdom. Thus the first the Ching Dynasty. grand attempt by a Chinese convert to Chris An understanding of the political back tianize his country by force of arms was de ground of missionary activities requires men feated before it could be tested on a nation tion of the Taiping revolution, which agitated wide scale. China from 1850 to 1864. This movement left a Years of missionary expansion also pro dent in the history of the nation and of the duced rapid gains made by colonial forces. Chinese church. Hong Xiu-Quan, the leading Due to imperialist aggression, China had dete genius of the Taiping revolution, studied the riorated into a semifeudal, semicolonial coun- DECEMBER 1991 35 SPEcmUM ______try. China's economy was strangled by alien toms. Just learning to reach the soul of the powers that engendered a "comprador class" people and break down the wall of prejudice in the church as well as in trade circles. Instead was a great challenge. Some missionaries re of Christian fellowship, a master-and-lackey sorted to offering material benefits to draw an relationship arose between missionary and audience. But the bait attracted only "rice convert. Plans for gospel work were laid by Christians." Some wise missionaries lifted up missionaries, who put little stock in what Chi Christ crucified, but the imperialist curtain ob nese workers had to say. The guiding policy scured his image. So genuine conversions was, "He who pays the money decides how the were few. work should be done." Mission funds coming There was no Methodist church in Hankow, from abroad gave the impression that an abun so my mother began visiting different churches dance of money was available, and the offer in the city. One day an Adventist missionary ings of Chinese converts made little difference. came by, selling the Chinese Signs of the Still, they gave their "widow's mite," not aware Times. My father bought a subscription and that one day God would remove the extra talked with the missionary for some time. Soon burden of the missionaries' salaries, and pro thereafter, a Bible worker, Miss Abbie Dunn, vide for the creating of a truly self-reliant indig invited my mother to attend the Hankow enous church in China. Adventist church. Mother accepted the invita tion and was impressed to find Adventist be lievers reciting the Ten Commandments. dventist mIssionaries first landed in This made her recall an experience she had A China in 1902, when it was shackled by a had some years earlier. Her brother-in-law, a number of treaties forcibly imposed on it by lawyer, had questioned her regarding the rules foreign imperialists. Adventist pioneers in of the Christian faith. When she said that Chris China worked under the disadvantage of being tians lived by the Ten Commandments, he unfamiliar with a political and economic sys asked her, "Which ten?" She tried her best to tem for which they were not responsible. They recall them, but all she could remember and had to learn a new language and strange cus- repeat were nine precepts. Her brother-in-law smiled and remarked, "You've been a Chris tian for 10 years, and you can't even recite the Decalogue correctly." Mother was chagrined. The Adventist church's emphasis on the Ten L Commandments convinced her that they I taught the truth. During summer vacation, I visited my par F ents in Hankow. Mother explained the Sab E bath doctrine to me. However, when I re F turned to Peking, the Pykes learned of my new belief and tried their best to dissuade me. o Meanwhile, Abbie Dunn wrote to another R Bible worker in Peking, Lucy Andrus, who came to my school one day, introduced her C self, and invited me to study the Bible with her. E Thus began my internal battle: Would I or would I not keep the seventh-day Sabbath? The Chinese character for "lifeforce" Finally, in 1934, when my mother came back to 36 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THEjOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIAll0N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS Peking, I decided to attend the Adventist To pay my way through college I held church with her. numerous jobs, from canvassing in Chinatown Shortly after I graduated from high school in and working in the college cafeteria, machine 1935, my brother, Paul, was killed in a motor shop, and bindery, to cutting cord wood in the cycle accident, leaving me the only child in our forest. When I graduated in 1941, I continued family. Relatives tried to dissuade me from my studies at the Adventist Theological Semi studying for the ministry, pointing out that nary in Takoma Park. While there I spent my preachers in China are poorly paid, and I spare time canvassing. In the winter I worked would need a more lucrative vocation if I in Danville, Virginia, as a colporteur. planned to bear the family's financial burdens I soon began working on my Master's thesis. in the future. During this time I was called to teach Chinese at But the Lord arranged for me to attend an Pacific Union College, then spent a year as a Adventist junior college, the China Training colporteur in Honolulu. There, I gave Bible stud Institute in Chiaotouzhen. There I majored in ies to a Japanese family and won them to the Bible and was the Sabbath truth. Next, I only ministerial stu- was called to conduct dent to pay my own the Chinese Bible tuition. All my minis A Chinese worker presented a Corres pondence terial classmates School at the Voice of were beneficiaries of formal request to the division Prophecy. Since the a scholarship set up Voice of Prophecy to encourage young preSident to turn over the Divi lacked Chinese type people to train for sion administration to Chinese characters, I printed the ministry. (Any the lessons by hand student who could workers. The plan was rejected. and duplicated them. afford to pay tuition In a large meeting, the Ameri I returned to Shang took pre-med, busi hai with a group of ness, or the teaching can division preSident stated missionaries in De course. Only those that Chinese Adventists were cember1946, to work who could not afford with Milton Lee in the an education ap spiritually immature. radio department of plied for the ministe the China Division. rial scholarship.) In In 1947, when this respect, I was again an "odd fellow." foreign missionaries returned to China and the Then in 1937 came the Sino-japanese war, China Division held its first constituency meet and the school closed down. I went to Hong ing' a Chinese worker presented a formal re Kong. Funds from my parents subsequently quest to the division president to turn over the enabled me to obtain passage to Pacific Union division administration to Chinese workers. College, where I continued to study for the The plan was rejected. In a large meeting, the ministry. During the dreary war years, the American division president stated that Chi northwestern city of Lanzhou where my par nese Adventists were spiritually immature and ents were staying was badly hit in an air raid. financially unable to assume the burdens of All buildings around the house where my par church leadership. ents stayed were razed, but their home re Just as that first serious attempt of Chinese mained standing amid the rubble, a silent wit workers to run their own church was ness to God's care for his own. squelched, the Kuomintang forces were facing DECEMBER 1991 37 SPEc.mUM ______disaster on the battlefield. The victorious Red government's policy on religious liberty. He Army was making speedy progress toward explained that the country had just been Shanghai. through a tremendous shake-up, and might be By 1948, the liberation of Shanghai was likened to a patient recovering from a major imminent. Most of our missionaries had operation. Church closure and Bible confisca moved to Hong Kong, where a provisional tion were just normal "side effects" that could China Division headquarters was set up. The be remedied. He also pointed out that simply radio department moved to Canton, where it posting public notices would not effectively functioned for six months; then it, too, moved solve the problem. Chinese Christians must to Hong Kong. I was appointed editor of the examine themselves to discover the cause of Hong Kong edition of Signs of the Times. In the animosity of the masses against Christian December 1949, the provisional office of the ity. For more than a century Christianity had China Division turned over all duties to the been looked upon as an exotic foreign relig Chinese staff in Shanghai, and I returned there ion. The people had painful memories of as division secretary. atrocities perpetrated by imperialist forces In 1950, shortly before the outbreak of working hand-in-glove with "Christian" mis hostilities in Korea, a team of Christian work sionaries. ers headed by Y. T. Wu and L. M. Liu called on the new government to demand implementa tion of the "Common Programme," which he group of Christian workers got the guaranteed religious freedom to all churches. T point. They wrote the "Declaration for They requested that the government investi Reformation Through Self-administration, gate cases of violation and post notices on all Self-support and Self-propagation." This docu churches to assure the people of their freedom ment clarified the issue confronting the Chi to worship. nese churches and called on all Christians who Premier Chou En-Lai received this group of loved their country to stand on the right side. Christian workers, and conducted three ex Thus, the program popularly known as the tended talks with them concerning the "Three-Self' Patriotic Movement was inaugu rated. It set out to change the basic foreign essence of the Christian cause in China so that the masses would no longer look upon Chris S tianity as an unwelcome intruder. Premier Chou En-Lai's proposal was not a new idea. I Conditions were ripe for converting a foreign M proselyting agency into a truly Chinese relig p ious cause, so that the masses might recognize the change and lend their support. L Then, inJune 1950, the Korean War broke I out. As American GIs, fighting under the United Nations flag, drove into North Korea, C Chinese volunteer troops marched across the I border to push them back. Meanwhile, the T American seventh fleet was ordered to patrol \ Y the Taiwan Straits. The fleet was to block any attempt by the Red Army to liberate Taiwan. The Chinese character for "Simplicity" China and the United States were at war. 38 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOClA110N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS Since the Adventist mission was an Ameri attack. Our oldest daughter, Flora, had been an can organization, its assets were frozen in annoyance to her school because of her Sab December 1950. In time the organized Advent bath "truancy," so our home was the first to be ist Church disintegrated. Politically active ele attacked when the Red Guards launched a city ments among our workers got the upper hand, wide onslaught on the bourgeoisie. Our home and in December 1951 the division officers was ransacked six times through those tem were replaced. pestuous months. The Red Guards made it a For the next several years, a number of us point to come with their war drums on the who had been discharged got together to make Sabbath. All my books were piled in our alley slide rules for a living. At the same time, we and burned. began translating the Desire ofAges. Eventu At one point, a voice told my mother, then ally, we completed translation of the entire 72, to go stay with her aunt in Tientsin. She Conflict of the Ages series. These books were stayed in Tientsin long enough to escape the micrographed and distributed by a group of most dangerous months. During the time she young people from was away, my wife, the Shanghai Sev- Clara, was beaten, enth-day Adventist had her hair cropped, church. My Wife) Clara) was beaten) and was forced to In April of 1958, I stand in the street as a was arrested and had her hair cropped, and was public spectacle. She charged with being forced to stand in the street as a faltered under the a counter-revolu strain and for a time tionary, and given a publiC spectacle. She faltered lost her sense of 15-year sentence. I under the strain andfora time God's presence, but was sent to a water she rallied, repented, conservancy project lost her sense ofGod's presence, and served the Lord where I pushed faithfully thereafter. wheelbarrows, oper but she rallied, repented, and During my ab ated a power winch, seroed the Lord faithfully. sence, my wife man and served succes- aged, with God's sively as an x-ray technician, power station help, to nurture each of our five children in the switch operator, and tractor electrician on a way of the Lord. When our youngest daughter, state farm. However, during my entire impris Angelina,was quizzed by a panel of grade onment, I received humane treatment. At school teachers, they asked her, "Who taught times, I could even arrange my work so as to you to keep the Sabbath?" keep the Sabbath fairly well. My children were "The Bible," she answered. allowed to visit me several times. On one of "Do you mean that you will read only the these occasions, I had the privilege of baptiz Bible, and not Karl Marx?" was the next ques ing my son, Roger, in a moat. tion. During the "Cultural Revolution" my whole "No," Angelina replied, "I read the Bible and nation went berserk. The rumpus started with also Karl Marx, and I will obey what is true." the organizing of young people into the "Red We can only believe that the Holy Spirit Guard" to protect Chairman Mao from "bour gave her wisdom to answer as she did. If her geois elements." It was said that these elements mother had not taught her to love the Lord and threatened to undermine our socialist system. his Sabbath, the Holy Spirit could not have ReligiOUS people naturally became targets of helped her as fully in that crucial hour. DECEMBER 1991 39 SPEGmUM ______ However, our children's lives were not establishment in Huainan, Anhui, to translate without difficulty. For a time, three of them technical literature. There I worked for five succumbed to political pressure and signed up years, received regular wages, and enjoyed for the rustication program that was imple Sabbath privileges. Finally, on March 28, 1991, mented in 1969. Eva, Flora, and Roger an I was fully exonerated. Today, in retirement, I swered Chairman Mao's call for unschooled receive a pension and live in Shanghai, serving youth to go "up to the hills and down to the as one of the pastors in Mu En Tang. countryside." They went together to the hills of When the People's Liberation Army de Gweizhou. Life was difficult. Only Roger, who feated the Chiang Kai-Shek forces in the could cut wood in the forests, made a fair bloody battle along the Huai River and then living. He helped his sisters survive through crossed the Yangtze Riverto liberate the South, those eight dreary years. Of course, God did some Christians prayed that God would drown not forsake any of them. the hated Communists. But when the Commu When Eva returned, she found work in a nists came to power in 1949, they lost no time factory, where she determined to faithfully cleaning up the brothels, gambling casinos, observe the Sabbath. She was forced to relin and opium traffic. Stringent measures were quish the bonus paid to workers who put in full taken to stop the white slave traffic. hours, and this drastically reduced her pay Among moral values, God regards espe check. However, the management saw that cially highly filial obedience. The "first com she was truly conscientious, and arranged to mandment with promise" requires us to honor allow her to finish her weekly quota in five our parents. Among ancient peoples of the days if she could. The Lord gave her hands world, China is the only one with a book called speed and improved her productivity until she Xiao jing, whose contents are devoted to became the only worker paid a full bonus for teachings on filial piety. Its folklore boasts 24 working a five-day week. anecdotes to be taught to the younger genera tion on the meritorious acts of sons and daugh ters who honored their parents. uring these trying years, my family would China enjoys a rich heritage. I believe God Dhave suffered far more had it not been for has preserved this country for a purpose. Al God's protection through a rich aunt. When though China did not enjoy the privilege of she left China, she entrusted her funds to my direct revelation as did the Jewish people, it mother, asking that they be used to assist was not wholly ignorant of saving truths. The needy friends and relatives. When this aunt name Shang Di, the Chinese term for God, later died in the United States, her funds corresponds to the Hebrew El Shaddai, God which included not only a savings account but Almighty. Chinese linguists affirm that the . also several gold bars and some silver coins Cantonese dialect has preserved the ancient deposited in a bank vault-remained in my pronunciation of Chinese characters most ac mother's custody. When the notorious "Gang curately. Now the Cantonese pronounce the of Four" came to power and ransacked the word for God as " Sheong Dai," which is closer banks, the crypt containing the aunt's gold and to El Shaddai than the Mandarin vocalization silver was left intact. After the "Gang" lost given above. power and we were free to open the vault, China does not claim to be a paragon of bank clerks expressed surprise at the miracu morality. Itis afflicted with its share of social ills lous preservation of this one crypt. and moral decay. But when compared with When my term of imprisonment ended, I other nations, and despite its ignorance of Holy was transferred from the state farm to a mining Scripture, the annals of Chinese history do not 40 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOClA710N OF ADVEN7lST FORUMS record a single instance of the visitation of soted, and no government cadre sits in the G0d's wrath on a Chinese city for moral de committee meetings. The minutes are not sub pravity. In ancient Chinese art and sculpture mitted to the Bureau of ReligiOUS Affairs or the one does not encounter pornography, such as police for inspection. Adventists are free to was discovered in Near and Middle East exca preach all the cardinal doctrines of their faith. vations. The same is true of the congregation that Recently, the government launched a na meets on Sundays in the same building. tion-wide "Clean Sweep" campaign against The Chinese Christian Council is a nation obscene literature, films, and videotapes, raid wide organization in charge of the religious ing the secret hide-outs where these things activities of all churches. Denominational were produced. Results were gratifying. Even names have been discontinued, but their dif if these measures may not be thoroughgoing, ferent beliefs and practices remain and are such an ethical stance in itself puts the Chinese respected. The Shanghai Christian Council, ruling party on a higher moral plane than with the Three-Self Committee, arranged for professedly "Christian" nations that collect Adventist believers to worship in the centrally taxes from licensing brothels and casinos. located Mu En Tang instead of in separate Chinese churches made a fortunate deci homes. They worked out an agreement sion indeed when whereby Adventist they broke their ties services are con with foreign mis ducted by Adventist sionary societies Mu En Tang, the church in pastors paid from and thus "quaran Adventist tithe, and tined" themselves Shanghai where Adventist their freewill offer from Western deca members worship, is supported ings go into a com dence. However, mon pool for oper the full significance entirely by their offerings. ating expenses. The of the severing of first Sabbath service their ties with for Sermons in the Adventist was held on Febru eign missionary church are not censored, and ary 18, 1989, and boards is not limited since then four bap to this alone. This no government cadre sits in tismal services have self-reliance has the committee meetings. netted 360 converts. contributed to spiri According to the tual maturity. Chinese Christians have learned present arrangement, the Seventh-day to look to Christ instead of to men for power to Adventists in Mu En Tang are recognized as finish the gospel commission. Adventist believers (xin tu), not as the Sev Many people outside China think that the enth-day Adventist Church (hut). (This last Three-Self Committee is an institution subsid name would indicate the existence of a distinct iary to the government. This is not true. It is a ecclesiastical organization, which in fact does civilian organization that receives no money not exist. The China Division of Seventh-day from the government, but operates on funds Adventists, with its union and local missions, derived from church offerings and rent on ceased to exist in 1958.) church property. Mu En Tang, the church in A number of Chinese Adventists still refuse Shanghai where Adventist members worship, to have anything to do with the Three-Self is supported entirely by their offerings. Ser Patriotic Movement. Some complain that it mons in the Adventis.t church are not cen- smacks of a union of church and state. They DECEMBER 1991 41 SPEcmUM ______refer to Ellen White's statement entitled "Our do not accord with the principles of our faith .... Attitude in Regard to Politics" (Gospel Workm:s, These brethren cannot receive the approval of p. 391). But we note that these words were God while they lack sympathy for the oppressed colored race and are at variance with the pure, written in 1899 to teachers and managers in republican principles of our Government our schools in America, where party politics Cpp. 533, 534). created a situation of rivalry quite different from what exists in China today. Ellen White's Many forms of church-state relations have words in Testimonies, Volume 1 are more existed and continue to exist in different coun applicable here: tries. We cannot fully fathom the purposes of God. But as I review the past hundred years Many Sabbathkeepers are not right before God in their political views. They are not in and the history of China, Christianity, and the harmony with God's word or in union with the Adventist Church, I can only exclaim, "What body of Sabbathkeeping believers. Their views hath God wrought!" 42 VOLChWE 21, NUMBER 5 Convert to Scholar: An Odyssey in Humility Jerry Gladson set out to wage war against untruth. Studying the Old Testament taught him humility. by Jerry A. Gladson WAS NOT REARED A SEVENTII-DAY ADVENTIST. I serve, in some respects, as a case study of faith joined the church in my teens, through an development in the context of Adventism. I evangelistic crusade. I argued with anyone I have learned that faith is a struggle that who would debate me about Adventist doc inevitably takes place in a context of uncer trine. Adventists, I had learned, were people tainty. My doubts have often stimulated me to who had their theology straight. All that re broaden my understanding of faith, to seek mained was to persuade the world of this deeper levels of belief. I have discovered that extraordinary fact. I became obsessed with faith is an ongoing, dynamic experience, not having most, if not all, of the right answers. easily contained in creedal statements. Two I wore this viewpoint like a badge all events changed me from an Adventist with all through public high school, where I at the answers to one with less certainty and more tempted-against their will-to convince my humility. peers; on to college, where I scorned all but the study of theology; and out into the ministry, where I labored as a pastor-evangelist for al Reframing Faith most a decade. I felt myself to be a thoroughly convinced Adventist. But my faith has become began graduate studies in Hebrew Bible at more complicated, and that experience can I Vanderbilt University and, during my graduate work and afterward, found myself Jerry Gladson is vice president and dean ofacademic affairs serving on committees of the Biblical Research ofthe Psychological Studies Institute, an interdenomination Institute of the General Conference. I was a al graduate school of psychology and religion in Atlanta, representative of the religion faculty of South Georgia. Previous to this, he was professor of religion at Southern College, from which he received his B.A. Gladson ern College, where I taught from 1972 to 1987. holds anMA. and aPhD. in Old Testamentfrom Vanderbilt One of the reasons I went to Vanderbilt was University. to gather ammunition to hurl at the opponents SPEcmUM ______of Adventism. If I could learn opposing view ing, and significance of the biblical text, a points firsthand while mastering the method critical scholar analyzes the history of the tex ology that led to them, I reasoned, I would tual transmission, the literary forms, and the have an inside track to refute them. The more development of theological ideas, all against seriously I took my studies, however, the more the background of the ancient Near Eastern or I became aware there were issues I had never Greco-Roman world. Conservative scholars, considered. including Adventists, have generally opposed Vanderbilt shook my overconfident, arrogant the critical method because of its assumption Adventism. I began to realize my formative re that all events in history, including the miracles lationship with the church had been uncritical and other supernatural events mentioned in and painfully naive. I had-although I would the Bible, can be explained in terms of natural have vehemently denied it--blindly accepted cause and effect. Rudolf Bultmann expresses my tradition. I fmniy its critical viewpoint resisted the reframing as follows: of Adventism on This closed ness which I had begun. I means that the con passionately argued Vanderbilt shook my overcon- tinuum of historical with my professors fident, arrogant Adventism. I happenings cannot be and other students rent by the interfer over whether Moses began to realize my formative ence of supernatural, transcendent powers wrote the Penta relationship with the church and that therefore teuch (a view they there is no "miracle" in didn't accept), fought had been uncritical and pain- this sense of the word. with them over the Such a mir-acle would I ha~although I historical-critical fully naive. be an event whose method, all the while would have vehemently denied cause did not lie within history. I carefully keeping their theological con it-blindly accepted my tradi- While I could not clusions at arms' tion. bring myself to ac length. cept this closed view I pitied my profes- of reality, and thus sors because they didn't know the truth as I give up belief in a su pernatural Bible, I realized understood it. Wisely, they put no pressure on that critical scholars had noticed many details me to accept their opinions. "We'd be disap about the biblical text that conservatives, in pointed if you changed your views," James cluding Adventists, seemed to ignore. They Crenshaw told me. "We only want you to demon pointed out that ideas of authorship in the strate you can use modern, scientific methods in ancient world differed from ours. In the an analyzing the Bible. What you believe about cient Near East, authorship tended to be a those methods is your own business." Professor communal matter. An editorial modification, Crenshaw, a leading authority in Hebrew wis or even addition--sometimes even of an ex dom, was my dissertation advisor. tensive nature--in a writing did not disturb A highly complex methodology, the histori anyone. Regardless of who wrote them, an cal-critical method (or simply "critical" meth cient books were essentially communal prod- od for short), uses the scientific method ucts. adapted from the study of ancient documents. I also saw, as critical scholars often sug To ascertain more carefully the origin, mean- gested, that there was a bona fide development 44 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THEJOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIA770N OF ADVENTIST FORUMS of ideas within the Bible. Even when the canon boasted, "I read one page in Ellen White to reached its final status, these ideas were not counteract it. As a result, I've come through reconciled. A good example is Ecclesiastes, my doctoral studies with my Adventist faith mentioned below. This meant that biblical intact." faith was genuinely pluralistic, quite unlike the Of course! Whether he realized it or not, he monolithic claims of the Adventism I knew. had deliberately closed his mind! If Adventists To borrow Luther's words from his character fail to listen seriously to other theologians, I ization ofthe Eucharist, God, in inspiring Scrip wondered, how can they honestly expect ture, worked "in, through, and under" human these same theologians to take seriously their writing processes. As a result, the Bible is claims? The enormity of such a simple ques simultaneously human and divine. tion, with all its implications, towered menac I gradually came to what I considered a ingly before me. If I wanted to be honest, "modified" critical view; that is, a view of Scrip should I not listen seriously, not only to ture that fully affirms its divine element, while Bultmann, but to my professors as well? At recognizing the human methods used in its least, shouldn't I try to understand their point production.2 Eventually, I would discover that of view? many other leading conservative scholars had As a result of years of Adventist condition already reached similar conclusions. 3 ing, I instinctively grasped the dangers of such As with most internal conflicts, this sim openness. Horror stories of those who had mered beneath the surface for a long time. I drifted from the church after earning non remember the day-almost the exact time Adventist university degrees flashed before when it finally erupted. Sitting in an old stuffed me. And I was seeking a non-Adventist doc chair, a remnant left over from a living-room torate in Bible! I was studying the source set we had long discarded, I was reading document of the faith in such a setting! Al RudolfBultmann's essay, "Is Exegesis Without ready, my studies had generated many ques Presuppositions Possible?,,4 The reading was tions that I couldn't answer. But I knew, if I part of an assignment for a seminar on wanted to pursue truth, I had to take the risk. Bultmann, one of the last courses in my I had to get under Adventist presuppositions Vanderbilt curriculum. Bultmann pointed out to what one of my professors was fond of that no one approaches the biblical text with calling, "the question beneath the question."s out presuppositions that are determined by That spring afternoon was a turning point. It complex features in his or her life experience. was a metamorphosis that would lead me to One must take great care, however, not to look at my church of origin in an entirely allow these presuppositions to determine the new-and disturbing-light. interpretation of the text. It suddenly dawned on me that all along I had been allowing my Adventist presupposi Trials of Faith tions to filter out any new insights-particu larly of a theological nature-that I might have t first, these profoundly disturbing ques gained from my graduate studies. As a result, A tions didn't reach the inner core of my life I had not seriously listened to anything I had because I was sure an Adventist theologian studied at Vanderbilt. I remembered a com somewhere-had the answer. As questions ment often made by one Adventist scholar arose, I "filed" them away until I could find the who held a doctorate in theology from a non answers. When I was asked to serve on some Adventist university. "For every page I was ofthe Biblical Research Institute committees, I assigned in non-Adventist literature," he took heart. The institute's committees brought DECEMBER 1991 45 SPEGmUM ______together the finest Adventist theological minds tion for which I had no solution. To my great to research critical issues facing the church. surprise, I discovered that these dedicated Surely here, I thought, I would get the answers Adventist scholars, many of them far older and I desperately needed. more experienced than I, had few or no solu The first committee on which I worked tions either. Several years before Desmond studied the issue of women's ordination. We Ford's disclosure, the committee had identi produced nearly a thousand pages of biblical, fied, but not satisfactorily resolved, a number historical, and theological research, and finally of problems in our interpretation of Daniel concluded there were no theological impedi 8:14.7 ments that should keep the church from or Even more disconcerting was the way the daining women. After voting to send that committee was often compromised by church conclusion on to the General Conference, leadership. They seemed to expect the com some of us were crushed when the church mittee to provide impressive research to bol leadership announced that our committee had ster or reach already agreed-upon conclu concluded the exact opposite: there were no sions. I had been taught by my early Adventist theological reasons why we should ordain teachers that one should try to follow the women! Eventually, of course, the church set evidence wherever it led. One should be open aside our research completely and recom to new directions.8 Sadly, I did not often see missioned a new study. It was my first experi this spirit of honesty in the work of the commit ence with the way politics shapes and deter tee. mines theology-even Adventist theology.6 Although I enjoyed my work on the Biblical Research Institute committees, it was a disillu hile these inner conflicts tore at me, sioning time for me because I discovered that W critics of Southern College demanded the finest minds in Adventism had no better that its theology professors give clear and cer answers than I for the theological problems tain answers to many of the issues that had facing the church. My graduate training had begun to surface in the Adventist Church. already raised several problems relating to Many of these, such as the investigative judg Adventist interpretation of Daniel and Revela- ment and the nature of Ellen White's experi ence, had been on the agenda of the Biblical Although the best theological Research Institute for several years. When we tried to point out that things were more compli minds in Adventism had no cated than they appeared, these persons took convincing answers for the their campaign to the Southern Union admin istration and college board. For these critics, matters facing the church, certain some of them church administrators, genuine faith could not exist in tension with uncer members of the Southern College tainty. Although the best theological minds in religion faculty, including myself, Adventism had no convincing answers for the matters facing the church, certain members of were tried, condemned, and the Southern College religion faculty, includ tarnished for life because they ing myself, were tried, condemned, and tar nished for life because they could not bring could not bring themselves to themselves to deny that problems existed. deny that problems existed. They were caught between the "Yes" and the "No" Paul Tillich describes so eloquently: 46 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVEN7lST FORUMS The theologian is obligated to be critical of every Conjunctive, or paradoxical faith, where special expression of his ultimate concern. He life ceases to be black or white, and takes on cannot affirm any tradition and any authority shades of gray. except through a "No" and a "Yes." And it is always possible that he may not be able to go all Finally, universalizing faith, where one the way from the "No" to the "Yes." He cannot embraces humankind, with its welter of beliefs join the chorus of those who live in unbroken and religions, in an attitude of universal accep assertions. He must take the risk of being driven tance. lO beyond the boundary line of the theological Like all archetypal theories, Fowler's devel circle. Therefore, the pious and powerful in the opmental scheme fails in specific instances of church are suspicious of him, although they live ll in dependence upon the work of the former faith development. Not everyone's faith de theologians who were in the same situation. velops in precisely these stages. 12 Neverthe Theology, since it serves not only the concrete but less, after more than a decade of research, also the universal logos, can become a stumbling Fowler has provided a highly attractive model block for the church and a demonic temptation of what happens to a normal person over a for the theologian. The detachment required in lifespan, one that I wish to use as an interpre honest theological work can destroy the neces sary involvement of faith. This tension is the tive context for how my faith and that of many burden and the greatness of every theological others in contemporary Adventism has been work.9 nuanced. It is the sixth stage, the conjunctive, that is especially relevant. In this stage people gradu Stages of Faith ally come to realize that the answers they have received from their tradition, along with those ventually, I discovered James Fowler's hi they have worked out on their own, don't Eerarchy of faith stages, and learned that my always work. Questions and paradoxes experience at this stage of faith development abound. Fowler borrows from Carl Jung the was perfectly normal, whatever church leaders idea of conjunctio oppositornm, the "conjunc or college critics might think. Fowler identifies tion of opposites," to designate the new po seven stages of faith: larities that come to characterize this stage of Primal faith, a sense of intimacy and trust faith. Faith moves beyond either/or categories within the family developed in the first two to the richness and ambiguity of truth. It be years of life. , comes open to the truths in other faith com Intuitive-projective faith, a preschool stage munities. Truth cannot be approached from a in which a child, through appropriating the single perspective-even an Adventist one symbols, stories, and liturgical life of the relig but is best perceived in a dialectical interplay. ious tradition in which it is nurtured, begins its Even then, the paradoxes can neither be rec first efforts to find meaning. onciled nor comprehended. Alluringly, at the Mythic-literal faith, a childhood accep heart of reality a mystery persists. tance of the rules and impliCit values of the Such a paradoxical, yet mature, developing family's faith community. faith ought to be celebrated in the church as an Synthetic-conventional faith, in which an evidence of spiritual growth. Provision should emerging self-identity seemingly compels an ado be made in our polity and local church pro lescent to challenge her or his tradition and to try gramming to meet the spiritual needs of out alternative patterns of belief or nonbelief. people in the various stages of faith. Individuative-rejlective faith, a reappro Persons hung up in a literalistic stage of faith priating in early adulthood of the faith of one's development sometimes persecute and community in personally revised form. "purge" from the church others in a different DECEMBER 1991 47 SPEcmUM ______faith stage. Unfinished spiritual and psycho wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:14, NRSV). Vanity trans logical needs are imposed on the church at lates the Hebrew, hebel, "fleeting, insubstan large, sometimes with disastrous effects. Some tial, futile." He corroborates his point by refer of the polarities within the North American ence to the apparently endless, and therefore Adventist community over the past decade meaningless, cycles of life (verses 2-11). Noth have resulted from just this dynamic. ing seems to be going anywhere; inane repeti Mature Christian faith is able to live with tion characterizes human experience. uncertainties; immature faith denies they exist. Against those who think they have the right In these discoveries, I found a new way to live theological answers, who are confident that in the church that, although unacceptable to they know the movings of God, he writes: "I many in church leadership, is definitely have seen the business that God has given to grounded in the biblical witness. the sons of man to be busy with. He has made everything appropriate for its time; moreover, he has put an enigma into their heart, so that The Biblical Dynamic man cannot find out the deed that God has Of Faith done from beginning to end" (3:10, 11, lit. tran.). God has placed an enigma ('olam), or "obscurity," within the heart of humankind, uring this time of personal and profes leaving people in the lurch of crippling uncer Dsional anguish, I turned instinctively to tainty.13 Scripture, where I discovered in a new way that Against those who claim that life has an genuine biblical faith often keeps company intrinsic balance in which the good get re with uncertainty. Scripture reinforces the dy warded, the wicked punished, he demurs: "I namic, pluriform nature of faith. The Bible saw under the sun that in the place of justice, makes room for all stages of faith development wickedness was there, and in the place of within the household of faith. Even the con righteousness, wickedness was there as well" junctive stage is amply provided for. Doubt (3:16, NRSV). and uncertainty never stand very far away from It hardly seems possible to get beyond the biblical faith. pessimism of this author. He appears over One of the strangest books in the Bible whelmed by all the unanswered questions in portrays a faith struggling with uncertainty. his world. Only in the end does he return to his The book of Ecclesiastes, so cynical and pessi faith, which he places in sharp tension with his mistic that many people refuse to read it, chal uncertainty: "The end of the matter; all has lenged the smug, literalistic faith of its contem been heard. Fear God, and keep his com poraries. mandments; for that is the whole duty of every Largely a series of musings on the orthodox one. For God will bring every deed into judg thinking of the day, Ecclesiastes forces us to ment, including every secret thing, whether contemplate a faith that can hold tensions of good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13,14, NRSV).14 doubt and belief together in an uneasy truce. Because of its intense pessimism, Eccle Over and over, the author cites a conventional siastes has always been problematic for read dogma of his time, then refers to his own ers of the Bible. Yet, as Gerhard von Rad has experience as challenging or refuting it. observed: Against those who claim to find a clear pattern One may even ask whether the church, if it of divine meaning in history and life, he writes: had remained open over the centuries to the "I sawall the deeds that are done under the theological perspectives of ... [Job and sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after Ecclesiastes], might not have been able to con- 48 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 ______THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIA710N OF ADVEN71ST FORUMS front the fierce attacks of modern man more Faith and effectively and more calmly. 15 Contemporary Adventism Ecclesiastes, in other words, provides an example of a person experiencing Fowler's he challenges facing Adventism today are conjunctive stage of faith. The author has to T real. They will not simply go away. We hold all kinds of paradoxes and tensions to besmirch our honesty when we deny them or gether. Here, the author seems to be at the pretend they do not exist. Many of my Protes extreme edge of his faith, teetering on the tant friends thoughtfully watch from the side brink of "skeptical rationalism and tired reSig lines to see whether Adventism will somehow nation. "16 He concludes, however, if we accept find the courage to deal openly with the issues chapter 12:13, 14 as the author's final word: "I confronting it. 17 Despite several new attempts, have all kinds of questions and doubts, never some of which have originated with the Bibli theless ... " The presence of such a radical cal Research Institute, we have not fully met expression of uncertainty in the Bible should the challenge of Desmond Ford's penetrating caution us against conderrming those in the criticisms of the Adventist interpretation of church who may exhibit similar tendencies. Daniel 8, which he detailed in a 900-page Ecclesiastes is not the only biblical example thesis. 18 of this searching, prob- Neither have we ing, and sometimes dealt adequately with pessimistic faith. As the questions raised Job, Habakkuk, many by Walter Rea regard of the Psalms, and The challenges facing Advent ing Ellen White. Al even certain New Test though his claims ament passages show ism today are real. They wUI tended to be over Ccf 2 Corinthians 4:7- not simply go away. We be stated, the church has 18; 11:24-29), a faith gradually come to that wrestles with smirch our honesty when we concede almost all his doubt and uncer deny them or pretend they do major points. tainty is precisely In 1990, Fred what the Bible means not exist. . . . We have notfUlly Veltman reported to by "faith." If we have met the challenge ofDesmond the church at large trouble accepting his findings in two some ofthe things the Ford's penetrating criticisms. articles appearing in church teaches or Ministrymagazine. 19 does, we are normal, thinking people. We are Careful to point out that he had examined only "Protestants," for that is what Protestant a small section of the Desire of Ages, thus means: ecclesia reformata, semper reform making it difficult to generalize, Veltman con anda, "the church, reformed, always under cluded that Ellen White did use sources with going reformation." If our faith is growing, it out giving credit, and that she, at times, even could not be otherwise. We should fear most denied doing so. The Desire ofAges, he noted, of all a faith that blindly accepts everything was dependent on secondaly materials. On the without question. Such uncritical, accepting whole, an average of about 31 percent of the 15 trust built the Nazi empire, and dragged the chapters was in some way indebted to other mate Soviet Union through 70 years of brutal despo rial. Worse, her history, chronology, and theologi tism. cal interpretation-<:>ften cited confidently by DECEMBER 1991 49 SPEcmUM ______ Adventists-were not always reliable.;n But whatever the future holds, I am con In the area of church polity, the intransigent vinced God is still present and active in the organizational structure of the Adventist Adventist Church, as he is active in all commu Church should give everyone pause for con nities who proclaim Jesus Christ. He is still cern. Plagued by bureaucracy, wasteful dupli active in our lives. Whether we can, as individ cation, and resistance to change, the powerful uals, solve any of Adventism's problems is organizational structure poses an even more irrelevant to our personal or communal stand serious threat to the future of Adventism than ing with God. "If you confess with your lips theological difficulties. The fact we have so thatJesus is Lord and believe in your heart that few checks and balances in our denomina God raised him from the dead, you will be tional structure makes a new Davenport-like saved" (Romans 10:9, RSV). abuse of power not only possible, but likely. Adventists may have to live at a more Fortunately, we have new leadership. humble, less arrogant level than in the past Whether this means a period of "glasnost" or when we were convinced that we were totally "perestroika," only time will tell. While main right and the only people so blessed. A mature taining order in the church, can the new ad Christian faith, however, is able to live in peace ministration bring into being a new day when with uncertainties. Like the writer of Eccle a variety ofversions ofAdventism-a variety of faith developmental stages-can live together siastes, the Christian is assured that God is peacefully? Can it lead us past the reactionary somehow still there, even when the answers attitudes that have all but extinguished the aren't. appeal of Adventism for the present genera Disillusionment can begin the liberation of tion? Are we poised on the brink of a renewed our souls. If we can see disillusionment as a future for Adventism, or standing on the verge challenge to wean us away from uncritical trust of its extinction? To be an Adventist today is in an organization and center it upon God, it will for many to live a life of faith in a world of be one of the greatest moments in our Adventist disappointment. pilgrimage. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Existence and Faith (New York: Living Books, ingly they have begun to devote themselves to the task 1960), p. 292. of ascertaining as far as is possible the actual facts of the 2. Cf. my "Taming Historical Criticism: Adventist ancient Near Eastern cultural situation, and against such Biblical Scholarship in the Land of the Giants," Spectmm a background are making a strenuous attempt to inter 18:4 (1988), pp. 19-34, for a more extensive study ofthis pret the literary and other phenomena of the Old Testa method and its implications for Adventist theology. ment" (Introduction to the Old Testament [Grand Rap 3. E.g., Carl E. Armerding, The Old Testament and ids: Eerdmans, 19691, p. 81). Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983); G. Eldon 4. Existence and Faith, pp. 289-297. Ladd, The New Testament and Criticism (Grand Rapids: 5. The exact expression is: "the problem beneath Eerdmans, 19(7). Evangelical scholar R. K. Harrison the problem of theological method" (Edward Farley, writes: "Many professional students of the Old Testa Ecclesial Man: A Social Phenomenology of Faith and ment, including some scholars of the highest intellectual Reality [Philadelphia: Fortress, 19751, p. 3). caliber, have come to the conclusion that it is becoming 6. Although he is discussing science, the words of increasingly impossible to ignore or dismiss the results Emil Brunner apply in principle as well to theological ofhonest scholarship and research any longer. Accord- research: "The dynamic heir of positivist philosophy, 50 VOLlME 21, NUMBER 5 lllEjOURNAL OF 11IE ASSOCIATION OF ADVEN1lST FORUMS the totalitarian state, has taken hold of science and scholars think these verses have been added by a later succeeded in making it serviceable to its own purposes: writer, perhaps in response to the pessimism of science has to take its orders from political power. It has Ecclesiastes. While it is impossible to determine ex to start from its ideological presuppositions and has to actly, additions of this type, aimed at setting up a prove that they are correct. Whether these are the racial dialectic, are known elsewhere in Scripture (cf. Prov philosophy of the Henrmvolk, or the Marxian doctrine, erbs 26:4, 5; 30:5, 6). makes no difference. In both cases it means the prosti 15. Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), tution of science, which in the long run would mean its p.239. end" (Christianity and Civilization [New York: Charles 16. Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Intro Scribner's Sons, 1948-1949], pt. 2, p. 18). It seems to me duction, trans. P. R. Ackroyd (New York: Harper & that Adventist leadership has, in effect, often impris ROW, 1965), p. 494. oned theological research within a political agenda. 17. Cf. Kenneth R. Samples: "Our criticism of 7. E.g., the date at which the 2300 days begins; the Adventism should not be interpreted as an attack from manner in which the 2300 "evenings and mornings" is to an enemy, but rather concerned words from a friend, be calculated; the date of the birth of Jesus; the date of who earnestly prays that the present leaders of Sev the CrucifIxion; the precise event to occur at the end of enth-day Adventism will honor Scripture and the gos the period or the 2300 days; the uncertainty and basis of pel of grace above their own denominational the October 22, 1844, date, and so on. distinctives." ("From Controversy to Crisis: An Up 8. This statement must not be understood as dep dated Assessment of Seventh-day Adventism," Chris recating tradition. The church exists through tradition, tian Research Journal [Summer 1988], p. 14). that ancient memory passed down through the genera 18. Desmond Ford, DanielS: 14, The Day ofAtone tions. The church, however, must seek, without giving ment and the Investigative Judgment (Casselberry, up either, to interface tradition with contemporaneity. Florida: Evangelion, 1980). Adventism, at least in recent years, has erred too heavily 19. "The Desire ofAgesProject: The Data" (October on the side of tradition, while remaining closed to new, 1990) pp. 4-7; "The Desire ofAges Project: The Conclu vital insights into its faith and life. sions" (December 1990) pp. 11-15. A less widely 9. Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: Univer circulated, photomechanically reproduced full report sity of Chicago Press, 1951-1965), vol. 1, pp. 25, 26. had previously been made available on a limited basis Italics supplied. from the Ellen G. White Estate. In an interview in the 10. Perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr., or Gandhi, same December issue of Ministry, Robert Olson, attained this level. emeritus secretary of the Ellen G. White Estate, con 11. Fowler's hierarchy is based on Piagetian and cedes the major problems Veltman discusses. He then Kohlbergian developmental hierarchies in its broad shifts the emphasis from the cognitive elements in outlines. However, it coincides remarkably with the Ellen White to the affective: "Her main purpose in lived faith experience of most people. Fowler's own writing was not to present historical facts, either bibli research takes the form of faith stories gathered from calor otherwise. Her main purpose was always evan numerous people at various stages of life. Out of this gelistic" (p. 17). This represents a significant change data he has worked out his hierarchy. from the way Ellen White has generally been regarded 12. One must ask, too, why he or she regards uni in Adventist history. versalizing faith-which tends to melt religious distinc 20. Awareness of this new, more ambiguous role tions down to an almost unrecognizable, amorphous of Ellen White in Adventist thinking is addressed sen whole-as the highest stage. A person at the highest sitively by Richard Rice in his The Reign of God: An level of faith, it seems, should be able to affirm a single Introduction to Christian Theology From a Seventh tradition while simultaneously holding others in re day Adventist Perspective (Berrien Springs: Andrews spect. Fowler's sixth level, in other words, could rea University Press, 1985). Rice concludes his discussion sonably be posited as the highest level because it holds by noting: "What we have learned requires us to re in tension contrasting views of reality. examine our concept of prophetic inspiration. But 13. James 1. Crenshaw, "The Eternal Gospel (Eccl. those for whom her writings have been of great spiri 3: 11)," Essays in Old Testament EthiCS, ed. ]. 1. Cren tual benefit are hardly inclined to discard them. shaw and]. T. Willis, eds. (New York: KTAV, 1974), pp. Clearly, this is an area where more theological work 23-49. needs to be done, and where the community needs to 14. Because Chapter 12:13, 14 seems so out of be more sensitive to the views of all its members" harmony with the general tenor of the book, many (pp. 204, 205). DECEMBER 1991 51 Spiritual Journeys: Three in TtanSit They say you can't go home again, but sometimes you can't stay either. Here are accounts of people who found leaving or joining complicated. by HanJey Brenneise Thompson, James ]., Jr. Fleeing the W'bom oj BalJylon: A These books have not resulted in the scan Modern Conversion Story. Westminster, MD: Christian dal (and need for rebuttal) that Canright's Classi~, Inc., 1986. caused. The church's publishers have over the Bennett, Mildred. TheAutobiograpbyojMildmdBennett, The Early Yeats.· The Winter /sPas!. Mellen Lives, volume 4. years released many volumes of conversion Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989. accounts, designed largely to inspire church Holmes, Shirley S. No Turning Back Berrien Springs, MI: members, and incidentally sometimes titillat Pointer Publications, 1988. ing them with the details of the biographee's preconversion life (a type of vicarious enter tainment). HESE THREE VOLUMES ARE RECENT EXAMPLES OF These volumes have a number of character two related genres of writing that have istics in common, along with striking differ T had an important, if largely unstudied, ences. The authors all exhibit a sense of search role in Seventh-day Adventist literature-per ing, a dissatisfaction with the religio-social sonal accounts of persons joining or leaving status into which they were born, even though the Seventh-day Adventist Church. An early they can never entirely leave it behind them. example of the latter is D. M. Canright's Sev Thompson and Bennett, born into the Advent enth-day Adventism Renounced, an important ist Church, search for freedom from its stric book in denominational history because of the tures, while Holmes joins the church in a author's prominence in the early years of the search for truth and an escape from the liberal church and his personal acquaintance with its ism she found creeping into the Lutheran leaders. Church of her childhood and youth. Thomp son and Bennett reject the fundamentalism Haroey Brenneise is head reference librarian in the James White Library and an associate professor oflibrary science at they find in Adventism, while Holmes joins Andrews University. largely because of it. THE JOURNAL OF mE As:mCL4170N OF ADVENTIST FORUMS All three volumes exhibit a remarkable testimony to the transforming power ofChristian sense of place-the place of the authors' child ity. She is gone now, but the influence of her hood and youth. For Thompson it was rural faithful witness will never die Cp. 41). Montgomery County, Maryland-a part of the As a child, Thompson moved with his real South and quite unlike the chic suburbs of mother to Takoma Park in order to attend Washington, D.C.; for Bennett it was the wide Adventist schools. He gives a vivid deSCription open spaces of the northern Great Plains; and of the Adventist anti-Catholicism of the 1950s for Holmes the woods and mines of Michigan's and the 1960 presidential election. While on a Upper Peninsula. school trip to New York, however, he was Readers may wonder about the motivation strangelymovedbya visit to St. Patrick's Cathe for writing such an autobiography and making dral. But it was while a student at Columbia the effort to have it published, in some cases by Union College ("an institution dedicated to the self-publishing. It three R's of Religion, may be almost a com- Righteousness, and pulsion. Some who Republicanism") make a change in When Adventists asserted that that he began to religion, which often question his faith. results in rupturing "the church teaches it," they social, cultural, and really meant that Ellen G. I focussed [sic] on familial ties, have a Adventism's weakest strong compulsion to White . .. had issued a dictate point: those moralis tic strictures and pro- explain ''why I done on the matter. hibitions with which it" to themselves, their it abounds. .. Could friends and their families. Perhaps the process is a puff on a Marlboro or a chaw of Red Man really also cathartic. cost one eternal life? Would the eaters of pork chops go to hell? Would the illegitimacy rate soar if we danced? Would the angels weep if! stepped James Thompson inside a movie theater? . ., Their Bible was a truncated handbook of legalisms and their hompson uses the "whore of Babylon" as church a small sect that had arisen out of the T a metaphor for the Roman Catholic heated fantasies of nineteenth-century millen Church, a church that as an Adventist he was arians Cp. 64). taught to fear and even hate. Yet he felt strong ly drawn to it, eventually becoming a member. When Adventists asserted that "the church His memory of childhood is strongly imbued teaches it," they really meant that Ellen G. White, with the beliefs and practices of a small Cauca the denomination's founder, had issued a dictate on the matter. This lady's omnipresent authority sian Adventist church in the rural South. began to oppress me. Her spirit hung like a thick He movingly describes his grandmother, fog over the comings and goings of Adventists. nicknamed Gonnye, a selfless, big-hearted, One could sit through an entire sermon and hear strong-minded woman who was largely re scarcely a mention of Jesus Christ, but find Mrs. sponsible for his early upbringing and relig White quoted repeatedly on everything from toi ious background. let training to the Second Coming Cp. 65), As a history major, Thompson especially re All this I learned from her: of beauty and joy, oflove and self-sacrifice, of books and education; sented the way Ellen White was used as a but most important, I first heard from her the plan historical authority. of salvation and the promise of eternal life. . .. I A crucial event in his disaffection with the knew a woman who followed God and bore church was an incident in a Christian ethics DECEMBER 1991 53 SPEcmUM ______course in which a student complained about Vatican II Catholicism was a disappointment, having to sit in the same congregation with and he did not find social support in a subcul flagrant sinners. ture of Italian and Irish "born Catholics." Two influences ultimately kept him in the Catholic For the first time I saw clearly the arrogance of Church-Pope John Paul II and the New Ox the Adventist conception of the Church-this huddling together of a handful of saints who cling ford Review. to their list of niggling dos and don'ts while the Thompson's search now led to Southern rest of humanity gropes blindly toward perdition. traditionalism, rejecting the liberalism of the . .. I was more comfortable in the company of William and Mary faculty. He resigned from sinners than in the embrace of self-proclaimed William and Mary, and became an editor at a saints (p. 66). conservative magaZine, the Chronicle of Cul In 1966, along with his new bride, Thomp ture. After quarreling with the editor, he left son left for Charlottesville to pursue doctoral the magazine and was "ready to cease fleeing study in history. They then discarded the rem the Whore of Babylon, willing to surrender and nants of their Adventism. return to full communion with the Church." However, his remarriage without an annul I felt immense relief at ridding myself of a ment blocked the way. He could not be ac burden, but at times a pang of remorse would stir memories of the security and certitude of the cepted into full communion, yet found no fellowship I had abandoned. Carol shed her appeal in mainline Protestantism, rejected the Adventism more easily than I did; for her, it had literalness of fundamentalism, and found Or always been bound inextricably with the rigid thodoxy too ethnic. authoritarianism of her father [an Adventist min It was Catholicism or nothing, but the mea isterl, and without him to enforce belief, her belief sure of peace he found was an uneasy one. vanished (pp. 66, 67). Published when the author was 41, this autobi The implications of his rejection of the ography shows him still searching. He con church struck home when Joseph Smoot, then cludes, vice president for academic administration at Andrews University and formerly Thompson's I struggle to live as a Christian, to be a decent man, to love the right and hate the wrong. I am a mentor at CUC, came to interview him for a job sinner, perhaps ... the worst kind of sinner. ... I at Andrews. "Widely read, erudite, blessed cleave, however tenuously, to [thel cross, and I with a powerful and probing mind, humorous, cling to the Whore of Babylon who pursued me compassionate and deeply committed to the tirelessly for so long; after all, she is the Bride of idea that teaching is a vocation and not simply Christ (p. 159). a job," Smoot had become Thompson's hero and model. It was with great difficulty that Thompson admitted to Smoot that he had left Mildred Bennett the church. Thompson then drifted religiously, retain he Winter Is Past, the first volume of Willa ing a belief in God but not participating in T Cather scholar Mildred Bennett's autobi organized religion. After he joined the faculty ography, was published shortly before her at the College of William and Mary, Thomp death. It covers the years from birth to her son's marriage disintegrated, and he turned to marriage and leaving the church. Winter here alcohol. It was through reading Graham is a metaphor for the lack of warmth she found Greene's The Power and the Glory that he read in the church, its judgmentalism and paranoia. himself into Catholicism. However, in his Over all she felt the hovering presence of search fortraditional beliefs and practice, post- "Sister White" stifling her natural artistic nature. 54 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIA110N OF AnVEN11ST FORUMS Bennett came from pioneer Adventist bath or not attend movies, to which he replied stock. Her maiden name was Rhoads, and she that this was the worst thing that ever hap was related to a number of prominent church pened to him. workers by that name. She was also related by marriage to the Bresees, Minchens, and I know what he's saying. My leaving the Youngbergs (she was sister of Norma church hurts worse than [my sister] Ruth's death. He would rather see me dead than living like this. Youngberg and aunt of Dorothy Minchen Sobeit. LikeJu das , Iwillgointothenight(p. 152). Comm). Thus it is not surprising that writing and love of literature came to her naturally. Subsequently, she did with difficulty the The book is written in the present tense, and Adventist "bad things'l: eating ham, wearing reads much like a diary, although her recollec make-up, playing cards, and smoking. The tions are no doubt colored by later experi book concludes with her courtship and mar ences. Her memory for small details from her riage to Wilbur Bennett. childhood is impressive, and she reconstructs As an Adventist period piece, the book is dialogue. invaluable. It includes many photographs of The personality Bennett describes is that of the family and places where they lived and a sensitive and imaginative person who is worked. In the acknowledgements, Bennett awkward and unsure of herself, for whom describes Spectrum as "a publication of ad religion does not provide comfort but guilt, vanced Adventist thinking." At the end of her insecurity, and a feeling of wickedness. She life, there appears to have been a partial rap appears to have had little sense of self-worth in prochement between Bennett and the church, her growing-up years and the natural rebellion as she was willing to accept an honorary doc that a child might feel toward a parent is inex torate from Andrews University (though re tricably linked with the church. ported to have expressed surprise at being Bennett's father was an Adventist church offered this honor), and was honored by school teacher and conference educational Union College. This volume was published secretary in the Great Plains, so in her child shortly before she died, and unfortunately was hood and youth she lived at such places as the only portion of her autobiography that Plainview Academy (South Dakota), Oak Park Bennett completed for publication. Academy (Iowa), Enterprise Academy (Kan sas), and Union College (Nebraska). She gives a firsthand glimpse ofAdventist life in that time Shirley S. Holmes and place, including the many vicissitudes of her father's career and how it was affected by n contrast to the above two authors, church politics. I Holmes' autobiography is the story of her Bennett's most moving writing is her de leaving the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran scription of the hounding for alleged heretical Church-Suomi Synod-to join the Seventh beliefs and sudden death in 1931 ofElderH. U. day Adventist Church. The metaphor she uses Stevens, a returned missionary and religion is horticultural-a transplantation. Evangeli department faculty member at Union College cal religion is obviously very important in her (see Spectrum 18:2, pp. 8 ff.). Bennett blamed life, and the book is written to inspire readers. the church forthis, which proved to be the final She was seeking a sanctuary in her new-found event in the process of her leaving the church. church, and the writing is that of biography as Leaving Lincoln, Bennett taught public spiritual journey, even homiletic. school in rural Nebraska. As she left, she de Holmes' attitudes toward church and soci clined to promise her father to keep the Sab- ety are conservative. For example, she is quite DECEMBER 1991 55 SPEGrnUM ______opposed to feminism. She describes her father Holmes expresses a strong need for female working in the mines with male co-workers, friendship, and she recounts becoming the sharing "a male subterranean sub-culture friend of a local Adventist woman. She read all uniquely and exclusively their own, with no the Adventist literature she could find, hiding it envious liberated women demanding to join in the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper their ranks!" (p. 20). She also advocates a because her husband, Ray, would throw it hierarchical structure in church and home, against the wall or burn it if he found it. The with everyone serving in his or her proper role. marital conflict was eventually resolved when Ray also became a Seventh-day Adventist. Like This role principle was settled at creation. It has not been seriously challenged until recently. many new converts, he felt compelled to be The advent of the modern feminist movement, come a minister, and he and Shirley were sent universal in scope, has emerged as one of the as missionaries to the Philippines. He tells his most significant developments of this century and story in Stranger in My Home. Shirley is cur constitutes, I believe, one of the "signs of the rently library assistant in the seminary library times" Cp. 101). of the James White Library at Andrews Univer Holmes was born to Finnish immigrants in sity, and Ray is Professor of Preaching and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a sparsely settled Worship at the Seventh-day Adventist Theo area of mines, woods, and long winters. logical Seminary. These, and the conservative attitudes of the All three volumes show how different indi inhabitants, have been strong influences on viduals expressed their spiritual needs in dif her life. She was the youngest of 12 children ferent times and places. They show how born to a "yours, mine, and ours" family (four difficult it is, if it is possible at all, to ever in each). Death in the family was not un entirely leave the religious culture of one's known, with several children dying from acci roots. Holmes maintains that Adventism need dent or disease. not cancel or replace her Lutheran heritage, Her mother's first husband was killed in a that she can graft it to Adventism and become mining accident, leaving a pregnant wife and a "Lutheran Adventist Christian" (p. 134). She three young children. Holmes describes her does not explain what happens when her mother being comforted at that difficult time Lutheran heritage conflicts with that of others by in her new church. Bennett and Thompson are also never entirely able to leave behind their a shining angel [sent] to that desolate room to comfort her and provide the strength and courage Adventist upbringing. she needed then and for the trying, grief-filled These books raise interesting questions days to come. One of my most sacred memories about the relationship between a person's per is that of Mother relating this incident to me when sonality and religious affiliation, with the pos I was young. It left an indelible mark which [the sibility that the relationshi p between particular passage of] more than five decades has not suc personalities and the beliefs and practices of ceeded in diminishing Cp. 17). some church communions might be dysfunc Sometime later, Holmes' mother "deliberately tional. In these three volumes, ironically we set about making herself available," and mar see two individuals rejecting exactly what the ried another Finnish miner with four children, other is looking to-a close, sometimes con a widower who attended the same Lutheran trolling, religious community with well-de church. Eventually, the daughter became a fined and largely inflexible beliefs. and prac Lutheran pastor's wife in a small-town parish. tices. 56 VOLUME 21, NUMBER 5 NEWS UPDATES A Layperson in Church Wonderland: Annual Council Held Down Under by Susan Sickler What was it like for a female lay nization. It includes world church person from the North American representation, will be chaired by Division to attend Annual Council in Folkenberg personally, and has ex Perth, Australia, as an uninvited ob tremely broad terms of reference. server? It was major culture shock, Beyond these two major issues, the but it was also a very rewarding only way to distill nine days of non learning experience. As a member stop meetings, conversations, and of Elder Folkenberg's Commission worship experiences is to share some on Governance, I had devoted 23 of the strongest impressions that I days over a period of eight months brought back with me. to putting together a plan for the • The wonderful friendliness reorganization of the General Con and no-nonsense attitude of the ference headquarters operation. A ustralian people. The phrase Because we were painfully aware of "G'day, mate," will be special to me the fate of previous attempts at for a very long time. bureaucratic reform within the • Thegracious way that church church, I decided to go to Perth at leaders treated an uninvitedguest. I Susan Sickler my own expense to observe first was made to feel welcome and in B.S. hand the fate of our report. I had no cluded in many activities. received a in illusions that my presence would • My new respect for the stresses nursing from affect the outcome in any way, but I involved in the itinerant lifestyle of had a personal need to observe the world church leaders. Twenty-five Columbia Union process to its end-to see ifwe would hours in a tourist-class seat on four College) and an deliver a stillborn or a viable baby. successive aircraft, plus intervening Readers of Spectrum will find hours in assorted airports, not to M.PH. from Loma much to celebrate in the two major mention ingesting what the airlines Linda University. issues decided in Perth-a unifica euphemistically refer to as "food," tion plan for the church in South will do things to one's biological She serves on the Africa that is far more inclusive than clock and gastrointestinal tract that Columbia Union what we have evolved in North should never happen to mortals. America, and the acceptance of the • The lack of representation. executive committee) recommendations of phase I of the While Annual Council is the most and paid her own Governance Commission. The An representative meeting apart from a way to Annual nual Council also voted to proceed General Conference Session, world with Phase II, which is to be known church leadership does not reflect Council. as the Commission on Church Orga- the diversity of world church mem- SPECTRUM ______bership. The most under-represented money if the meetings were struc ministries use the diverted tithe dol groups were laypersons, young tured differently? lars to flood these fields with litera people, and women. • The new model in South Af ture that distorts church doctrines • The group dynamic. There is rica. The debate on South Africa and is devastatingly critical of church a totally different dynamic in a group produced a wonderful gift for North leaders. The end result is not a major with negligible lay representation. I America. When our brothers from step forward for Global Mission. This heard very few challenging ques South Africa politely but firmly an situation was the impetus for the tions or other evidence of commit nounced that they had devised a Perth Affirmation (see box). tee members' holding officers ac plan that met their needs far better • Exuberance ovenvhelms cau countable. The General Conference than "the North American model," tion. Everyone is celebrating freedom Committee, as it is presently consti many of us wanted to shout, "Praise and the opportunities that recent politi tuted, resembles a congregation the Lord!" Being constantly told that cal changes present for the church. No more than an executive committee. we must do this or we can't do that one seems to be concemed about the • The "housekeeping"natureof because we are a model for the world implications of increased freedom for the agenda. There is something very church has caused just as much re church govemance. sad about a larg.e group of intelli sentment in North America as it has • The church as family. By far gent, committed people coming to caused overseas when people there the best part of any Adventist meet gether at great expense to deal with are pointed to "the American model." ing is the people that you meet and an agenda that devotes far more time • Coping with independent the amazing way that you can feel to housekeeping items than to vi ministries. We sometimes think that like family after just a short conver sioningsessions on major issues. The stridently critical independent min sation. We are held together by our devil has little to fear from a church istries are a burden confined to North shared values and the ministry of the that spends more time revising its America. Not so! I was amazed to Holy Spirit, not by a policy manual. policy manual than it devotes to G 10- hear the desperation expressed by When all is said and done, the bal Mission. One lay delegate, a world church leaders over some of fact that I can feel so incredibly close mental health therapist, made a pro our less-constructive exports. These to people that I just met, who share found observation:"What these people are getting the worst of both neither my race nor my cultural back people do when they get together is worlds. Their appropriations are cut ground, is what makes me believe in not nearly as important as the fact because of the money flowing to heaven. I long to be there soon with that they are meeting together in independent ministries; conse all of my brothers and sisters from dialogue and fellowship." If that is quently, the General Conference is around the world and the Father the case, and I strongly suspect that less able to provide resources for who calls us to be one family through it is, wouldn't we get far more for our their pastors. Then the independent out all eternity. The Perth Declaration the church in a Laodicean condition. During this council we sense a spe cial moving of the Holy Spirit that leads us to acknowledge our need Approved during the Annual that momentous social, economic, for His outpouring of power to com Council session in Perth, Australia, and religiOUS developments now plete God's work on earth. the following document was consid occurring signal the approaching We reaffirm confidence in ered by world leaders as a signifi fulfillment of events described by Christ our righteous Redeemer and cant appeal to church members and the Bible prophecies of the end in the fundamental truths that bind leaders to pull together in unity and time. us together as a people. Among these to proclaim the fundamental doc Being involved in the final are belief in Christ, the Lord of Cre trines ofAdventism. struggle between Christ and Satan ation, in His mighty acts as recorded We representatives of the Sev that we call the great controversy, in Genesis 1 and 2, and in His aton enth-day Adventist Church as we find the enemy of truth exercis ing death at Calvary that made pos sembled in Annual Council believe ing every agency to subvert and keep sible our salvation and final restora- 58 VOLUME 21, No.5 THE JOURNAL OF mE ASSOCIATION OF ADVENTIST FORUMS tion in etemallife. We rejoice in full Still others advance speculative pro members ofour institutions, whether assurance of our salvation as a gift phetic interpretations or organize educational, health-care, or other, from God, and in victory over temp meetings without consultation and lay leaders and members of all our tation and sin by His overcoming in competition with those of the congregations-in short, every be power. We accept the Scriptures as church. Many circulate private pub liever in the three angels' messages. our teacher and final authority, and lications and electronic media pre We acknowledge that in the past we respond to His limitless love in grate sentations among the believers in a have not done all we could, but in fulobedience. We affirm as well our manner to suggest they represent the conviction that earth's time is confidence in His leading through the authentic teachings of the body short and much remains to be ac the Spirit of Prophecy. as a whole. Whatever the original complished, a new dedication is We believe the Seventh-day intent, such activities are producing imperative. Despite her weaknesses, Adventist Church to be a prophetic distrust and division that hinder the we believe the church remains God's movement more than an institution, work of God. special agency on earth. the remnant people called of God to We appeal to those who pro We challenge all leaders, espe bear a unique message to earth's last mote private programs to set aside cially our pastors as the primary spirit generations, to announce the immi divisive side issues and join with the ualleaders of our people, to lift high nent retum of Christ in power and organized church in affirming the the fundamental truths of our mes glory. Being firmly convinced we fundamentals of our message. In sage from the pages of the Scriptures. live in the hour of His judgment, we unity we can rededicate ourselves, In pulpit discourses, in personal in are dedicated to the task of unitedly our abilities, and our efforts in coop struction, in ministers' meetings as carrying Christ's final invitation to erative service to God, pressing for every inhabitant of the earth. ward the work in the brief time that guided by the Ministerial Association We note with regret that there remains. We include in this appeal a and administrators in every field, in are some among us who wish to call for personal spiritual renewal, presentations for the public, we must participate in and be thought of as for prayer, worship, Bible study, and presentJesus in the setting of present contributing to the Adventist work, committed lives. This means re truth as the answer to every human while at the same time denying or newed preaching and teaching of need. We must lay aside all traces of ignoring fundamental components the core truths with their timeless cynicism, self-advancement, of party of our message and work. Their message of hope, and outreach in spirit and distrust to unite as one influence weakens efforts to build personal witness to those about us. people carrying the everlasting gos faith and unity. Others exercise a We call for a new commitment pel to all the world. separatist spirit to present themselves on the part of all members and every We commit ourselves to this as defenders ofthe authenticAdvent worker in the Adventist movement. great purpose, praying that the Holy ist faith, the correctors of others, We include writers and editors of. Spirit will use us as one dedicated often elevating to importance issues our publications, pastors, adminis people, together at work in prepara not agreed upon by the body as vital. trators, boards, leaders, and staff tion for Christ's retum. DECEMBER 1991 59 RESPONSES The Presidents And Anonymous Donors It is disquieting, at the least, to Tyner are right. On the face ofit, any again read of unwise practices by solutions that require pussyfooting Adventist leadership, even if they around (e.g., anonymity and secrecy) are under duress ("The Presidents have to be wrong, not to mention and Anonymous Donors, " Spectrum, dangerous. This "deal" is the more Vol. 21, No. 4). Wisdom is seldom as stupefying, however, as one reads badly needed, of course, as under that apparently no one among Co duress. However, one mustsympa lumbia Union's officers, executive thize with the dilemmas of those committee, or constituency raised a called in recent years to serve at warning flag about the appearance Washington headquarters. One of impropriety or the potential for a might, if given a choice, preferto live tax-status disaster. It looks as though and serve in another area with some they were all out to lunch. That is what more primitive "headhunters." grim! Actually the financial stress and In some ways the interplay in the logistical problems of moving the affair, as reported by Roy into the Washington, D.C., area only Branson, is amusing for several rea point up again the strained reason sons. I have to assume that secret ing that has kept us there. In our pay for invisible work has long been technological age, headquarters can known in the right circles. Surely it operate from any site in the United did not all begin just a year ago with States or Canada. It would have been Folkenberg. Union president Wisbey nice if leadership had given that alluded to "courtesy payroll(s)" option more serious thought before which "also exist elsewhere in the building at great expense, and en denomination." Do tell? If we can suring many future headaches, in not put the whole play on top of the The article on the Silver Spring. We really need noth table, why wonder about the de ing more in Washington than a liai cline in North American "church presidents and son office. The hard questions for channel" giving (e.g., the Adventist leadership will now expand over Review, Oct. 3, 1991) that has been their anonymous time. What will be the eventual ex startling in the past 10 years or so? donors generated pense and diversion of resources to Perhaps we need another "presiden recognize Washington as a "hard tial commission" looking into all of thoughtful ship post" for everyone? Where was the special arrangements currently Neal Wilson when the groundwork operating or contemplated. responses from for such problems was being laid Tyner surely provides a light and cemented in place? moment to his criticism of leader our readers. Retrospective critics Wilson and ship when he suggests that the THEJOURNAL OF mE ASSOCL4110N OF ADVEN77ST FORUMS "potential conflicts ofinterest raised would be able to find a job easily, sion we give a prospective employee by these arrangements would never but with the economic downturn in a few hours to accept a position and pass the ethical standards required the Washington area and at the Gen hope all of these concerns fall into of the United States judiciary or eral Conference and other church place. In the case of Robert Folk CongresS' (my emphasis). TheCon organizations in particular, such pro enberg, he had a few minutes on a gress? Come on! Things would be visions for the spouse of a high Friday afternoon in a totally surpris professionally buried deeper and church official at a time when others ing development to decide. Indi more permanently in their hands are being fired would have presented viduals on the nominating commit regardless of "requirements." I do a serious problem. Most employees tee such as Ron Wisbey and Susan hope that the General Conference moving into such an area have time Sickler, a member of Forum's board, never sinks to the ethical level of to make their demands before they have described their intense feelings the United States Congress. I don't accept a position, and they usually of God's leading in the surprise de think it has so far come even re do. Most often this involves a guar velopments. In that context, would motely close to their standards. anteed job for the spouse, which has it not seem providential that funding Frank R. Lemon resulted in bypassing normal inter might become available to enable Beaumont, CA view processes and passing over the General Conference president's other qualified candidates or even wife to accompany him as a fellow changing job descriptions for em ambassador on the many ceremo The article by Roy Branson, ployees already in place to accom nial visits now considered important "The Presidents and Anonymous Do modate the spouse. Sometimes it for major world leaders? nors" (Spectrum, Vol. 21, No.4), has might mean special housing help After becoming so familiar in placed me in a unique position. For from wealthy interested laypeople. watching the wives of James Baker, a record 16 continuous years (1973- I have never felt this was wrong George Bush, and Mikhail Gor 1989) I served as a national officer of unless it resulted in compromises bachev accompany their husbands the Association ofAdventist Forums. made by the employee in meeting on foreign travels, the growing role As treasurer of Forum for 12 of those the needs or demands of the em of spouses in international diplo years, I made decisions about contri ployer or donor. macy has become evident. The ar butions made to Forum similar to the In a time of two-career families ticle could have addressed the need decision I made as one of 60 mem and the need for two salaries in a for the president's wife to receive a bers of the Columbia Union who family, special accommodations regular salary from the church for voted in favor of allowing Anita have to be made in order to get such a role. Folkenberg and Frances McClure to quality pastors, teachers, and ad The spouses of Adventist col be placed on our union's courtesy ministrators to move into high cost lege presidents in North America al payroll. areas. When serving as principal of ready are allowed to earn a percent Given this background, how Takoma Academy I put aside any age of the president's salary to help could I conscientiously vote the way possible feelings of jealousy when I cover entertainment costs and other I did? First, the spouses of church paid a Bible teacher more than I ceremonial duties such as travel to employees moving into a high cost received as his administrator in or important meetings. I know of at area like Washington, D.C. often der to match the pay and benefits he least one conference executive com need special assistance. Second, any had been receiving as a pastor, be mittee that has afforded the same organization or individual receiving cause I wanted the best I could find. privilege to the conference either anonymous or nonanonymous My wife and I know from per president'S wife. But given the cut donations have to make judgment SjJnal experience what it is like to backs in staff at the General Confer calls. live on a single income in the Wash ence, how could a similar privilege The tone of the Spectrum article ington area. While she stayed home be extended to the Folkenbergs with focused on "anonymous donors" and with our children for several years, out heavy criticism being leveled "private sources" who could then we barely subsisted but survived against them? The American politi peddle their influence on the hus thanks to low house payments and cal scene has solved this problem by bands. Another focus of the article the generosity of parents who felt electing officials who are indepen could have been the near impossi we needed an "advance" on a will dently wealthy, but is this the model bility of church workers to survive rather than much later in life when we want to adopt? on one salary in a high-cost area. In we would not need it. Another factor is the need for normal economic times, the spouse At a General Conference Ses- the families of Adventist administra- DECEMBER 1991 61 SPEC1RUM ______tors to have more time together. We How ironic that in helping the man the contributors. have frequently focused on the chil who had won he would get criti One might ask about other dren as sole victims of such exten cized in the process. church employees or organizations sive travel schedules. I know from When Ron Wisbey asked for the similar to Forum who have received experience when my division treas support of the Columbia Union ex nonanonymous donations for sala urer father in the 1950s would be ecutive committee, I believe the vote ries that ultimately impacted on their gone on two-and three-month itin of this very vocal and independent ability to function ethically and inde eraries. On one of those lengthy minded committee was unanimous. pendently. In such cases, are anony trips to a General Conference Ses Some probably wished the donation mous or nonanonymous donations sion, we evenhada civil war erupt in could have been handled through more dangerous? Of course, the Lebanon in 1958. the General Conference in a less presumption by most readers is that In my current job, I average be charged atmosphere. Most felt the everybody "really" knows who the tween 90 and 100 nights per year in arrangement was proper. Many felt donors were for the spouse salaries. hotel rooms away from my family. sympathy for the plight of spouses Ourunion officers have notrevealed Have we also thought about the of all denominational leaders. With the names of the donors to either the heavy toll such travel places on the out getting jealous, they felt that for Columbia Union executive commit wife? Ron Wisbey, president of the once two women were being treated tee or the recipients. If they are truly Columbia Union, is probably gone right and praised God for the gener- anonymous donors, then I feel more from his home two-thirds of the . osity of the donors. Others voted comfortable than with some of the nights in a given year. When his support out of respect for our nonanonymous donations received wife, who is a secretary and editor in union president who has earned the by Forum. If they are not anony the Ellen G. White Estate, takes off committee's trust and confidence. mous, I would hope that the recipi from her hour-time job, they lose On the matter of the interest ents would not be open to being income in their effort to have a little free house loan for McClure, this unduly influenced in running the more time together as a married does not sound like a very good church by donors any more than couple with grown children. One financial investment for him. When Forum or similar organizations might can understand that he would have most of us take out a loan we expect be compromised by nonanonymous great sympathy for the provision to pay off the loan and receive money donors. made by these donors. After getting back when we sell, plus apprecia I hope that Spectrum will ad positive signals from the General tion. In this case, the entire $140,000 dress this issue in a broader context Conference's regional auditing of comes back to the Columbia Union, and begin to provide constructive fice and from legal counsel that the thankfully for Christian education. suggestions on the ethical dilemmas details could be worked out appro But all McClure benefits from will be faced by all nonprofit organizations priately, he gave initial approval and any appreciation on his home, which when receiving donations. It is un ultimately followed through on ask is very flat today and tax benefits fortunate that only one example has ing for the appropriate committee through the parsonage exclusion and been cited where others closer to approvals. deductions. home could have proven of value in After the original offer was made If Spectrum wants to enter the this discussion. justforthe General Conference presi arena of helping establish the ethical Richard C. Osborn dent, how could Ron Wisbey turn ramifications of donations, it may Vice President for Education around a few days later and refuse to want to begin with other possible Columbia Union Conference consider a similar offer for Al examples. I am proud to say that on McClure, newly elected president of several occasions major donors have the North American Division, who gotten upset that Forum did not take Your straightforward and fac had just defeated him for that posi a more proactive stance during cer tual report on the curious financial tion-a position that many in our tain church disputes and quit mak dealings of Robert Folkenberg and union hoped Wisbey would get be ingdonations, thus showing Forum's Al McClure ("The Presidents and cause of our great respect for his independence. But one might ask if Anonymous Donors," Spectrum, Vol. leadership talents? Such a refusal donations made from certain em 21, No.4) was appreciated by many could have been seen as "sour ployment segments of the church people. While I doubt anyone is grapes." But more importantly, he have resulted in less coverage of happy about what occurred, at least viewed this as a very generous gift certain issues in Spectrum, which concerned church members feel con that helped solve a real dilemma. could also prove embarrassing to fident that they have received a sub- 62 VOLUME 21, No.5 THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIA110N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS stantial and unbiased report of the 10 minutes at the General Confer- . positive can be learned from the relevant details. ence Session studying the matter, he unfortunate incident with our cur IfFolkenberg and McClure con certainly had plenty of subsequent rent presidents, and that significant sider the facts for a moment, they opportunity to reconsider the issue. and lasting changes to the church's should also appreciate the wisdom In addition to the aforementioned pay structure can be made. The of Spectrum publishing a full chro aspects, did they not even stop to presidents were right when they re nology of the events. The unsub consider that many others might be alized that their pay was totally inad stantiated and often wildly inaccu facing similar financial difficulties, equate; unfortunately, they failed to rate stories that began circulating without the benefit of "anonymous address the cause of the problem. widely and rapidly through the donors"? This leads to the second The message that their actions sent Adventistgrapevine have largely dis question: (2) Why do most church to other struggling workers cannot appeared since the Spectrum article. leaders continue to refuse to ad be seen as positive; ifI were a church While no one likes to be caught in equately address the reality that workerI couldn't help butbe disillu embarrassing circumstances, Spec pastors and teachers in high cost-of sioned with their responses to what trum was the only independent ve living areas are drastically under is a crisis situation. hicle with enough credibility to re paid, and many have already been The church can get serious and port the facts and lay the rumors to forced to leave their life's calling start to address the issue by asking a rest. Even if the Adventist Review simply because of a lack offinances? gr:ou P ofcommitted and knowledge had attempted to address the issue, Notwithstanding the way they able laypeople to address the prob many would undoubtedly question went about it, I believe that even lem of remuneration. It is vital that the objectiveness of its report. with the additional funds Folken laypeople be placed in charge of any The matter, as it unfolded, raises berg and McClure were receiving, effort. That would avoid any appear some additional troubling questions they weren't being overpaid. No, the ance ofconflict ofinterest. Also, many beyond the important points listed shame is that so many other workers talented and dedicated laypeople by Mitchell Tyner at the General continue to be severely underpaid. with extensive practical business Conference Committee meeting. Pastors and teachers who are lo experience and better qualifications Tyner listed the following difficult cated in high cost-of-living areas (pri than an ordination certificate would problems that were created because marily on the East and West coasts) love to serve the church in a signifi of the presidents' actions: (1) the do not come even close to receiving cant way. many potential conflicts of interest the "living wage" that the denomina with several different levels of the tion has always promised them. church organization; (2) the fidu Three years ago, in response to ciary responsibilities inherent with efforts in Southeastern California I believe that even the office of president, that is, al Conference to address and correct ways putting the church's interests the pay shortfall, the General Con with the addition first; (3) the obvious effort to keep ference pulled together a group the matter secret, as if there was called the North American Division al funds Falken something to hide; and (4) the diffi Church Finance and Employee Re cult issue of self-dealing, and the muneration Taskforce, which was berg and McClure vital need to submit one's actions to composed ofalmost80 North Ameri review by others. can Division, union, and local presi were receiving) There are at least two additional dents and treasurers, and only nine they weren't being questions that are raised by their laypeople (see Adventist Review, actions: (1) Delegates to the 1990 Sept. 20, 1988). After considerable overpaid. No) the General Conference Session were time spent getting to the real issues, sufficiently impressed with Fol the group made a few potentially shame is that so kenberg's and McClure's capabili significant decisions and agreed to ties and judgment to vote them into meet again in one year. Unfortu many other office. Even if the intent of the two nately, the few actions voted largely presidents was honorable (and I'm disappeared atAutumn Council that workers continue confident that it was), the lack of year, and the grou p was never re judgment shown is appalling. While called. to be severely Folkenberg said he only spent about My dream is that something underpaid. DECEMBER 1991 63 SPEC7RUM ______ Until the subject of remunera Andrews, Prescott, Daniels, and the Spectrum reports Ron Wisbey put tion for all denominational workers list goes on. Contemporary Advent ting it, played some role in this cur is resolved properly, the church will ism calls for equally great leaders, rent growth-producing incident. As continue to face difficult and un but the challenges today are differ the world becomes increasingly comfortable circumstances like the ent. Our early leaders often met democratic,ourchurchmustnotflout current one. Even more seriously, challenges by inventive, ad hoc our long-held claim to be "represen the church will perpetuate the ne means; the survival of a fledgling tative" in church government. And glect of those "lower level" workers group of believers demanded it. representative or democratic gover who are the vital link with the However, today the survival of our nance is based on an informed citi laypeople to fulfill the mission of the multimillion-member denomination zenry or membership that reads church. demands thoughtful policies, includ news, both good and bad. Jay M. Du Nesme ing checks and balances, and ac The Adventist Review has stated Treasurer, AAF countability to an informed church its intention that readers get their Lake Arrowhead, CA membership. news first from the general church Only as a church organization paper and it has taken large strides in rests on widely accepted policies of that direction. But the church is also I was not totally surprised by fairness and equity is it really Chris admirably served by journals such "The Presidents and Anonymous tian, from a Calvinist perspective. as Spectrum, which print so many Donors" (Spectrum, Vol. 21, No.4), For John Calvin, law served three articles of news and views, essential which reported how secret gifts were functions. First there was the accu for the reading of informed Advent seen as "an answer to prayer." sative and second the civil function, ists. I personally do not read many Adventist history has many stories of but his primary emphasis was on the independent Adventist magazines, church need and divine supply. law (in our context, "policy") as a but view such publications as indi When needs of the church or church guide for the converted Christian. cations of a thriving, thinking church leaders (sometimes seen as insepa As "The Presidents and Anonymous body. Denominational efforts to rable) are being met, to some it seems Donors" demonstrates, even our fin thwart independent endeavors could sacrilegious to scrutinize what ap est leaders and committees need fair be more profitably directed toward pears to be a miracle. Thus, to some and equitable policies to guide in making the official institutions and of us, your report--even-handed church affairs. publications so robust that the need journalism atits best-hit a rawrelig I am baffled how modernAmeri for members to seek independent ious nerve. Nevertheless, ifthe trust can church leaders and laypersons channels is lessened. of our increasingly educated mem on a union executive committee By now, one thing should be dear: bership is to be retained, leadership would not have been sensitive to the in this communication age, for confi behavior must be guided by more blatant conflict of interest inherent dence in our church to remain high, than individual feelings of divine in largely secret funds going to lead members must be informed of success leading. Confidence in the church ers from anonymous members. If a and failure. A rose-tinted portrayal of must be based on knowledge that policy does not exist in the Colum the church is not biblical, it is not in sound poliCies are in place, and lead bia Union prohibiting such transac keeping with Adventism's theology of ership behavior must be open to tions, why did not the request for Laodicea, and it is not true to life in our scrutiny. clandestine channeling of funds raise fallen world. The issue of remuneration of the demand for a conflict-of-interest The story of top leaders and top denominational leadership de policy? anonymous donors need not be a serves open discussion and appro The maturing Adventist Church millstone around our denomina priate church action. However, I here is shifting from a leadership-driven tional neck; it can be a stepping briefly comment on our history and to a policy-based management style, stone to a more mature organiza the interrelated notions of sound and such an evolution is essential for tion. policy and free reporting. Our his our corporate well-being and survi James W. Walters tory is the story of great pioneers: val. It is interesting that evidently the Associate Professor of Religion Bates, the Whites, Loughborough, "Adventist underground press," as Lorna Linda University 64 VOLUME 21, No.5 Spectrum Advisory Council Victor F. M. Aagaard . Sanford Graves W.M.Meek Delmar and Cheree Aitken Paul Gruzensky Mario and Virginia Mendoza Floyd and Charlene Andersen F.EJ. Harder Ken and Mary Moe Terry and Jan Anderson Jon Hardt Robert and Jacqueline Moncrieff Barbara Bainum Milford and Cheryl Harrison Barton and Janet Moore Ted Benedict Robert and Sally Hasselbrack Don and Gwen Oliver Kevin F. Benfield J. Michael Hay Samuel C. Pang Charles Bensonhaver Douglas Hegstad Thomas R. Pellow Robert J. Berecz John Hodgkin Ernest and Cecilia Plata Doug BertIeson Jerry and Ketty Holt Zane Price Viveca Black R. S. Hughes E. Gary Raines G.L. Blount Wilfred and Margaret Huse Reuben Ramkissoon Michael and Shelley Boyson Fil Inocencio Winslow and Vema Randall Joseph and Cynthia Bozovich John and Marjorie Jacobson Alfredo and Martha Rasi Bernard Brandstater Bernarr and Dorothy Johnson Alvin and Carol Ratzlaff Bruce and Betty Branson Brantley and Evelyn Johnson Robert Rausch Roy Branson Leonor Boulin Johnson Gordon Rick Floyd and Mary Brauer Gail Kendall . Larry and Janene Rick Ellen Brodersen Elton and Marga Kerr William and Anieta Rippey M.L.S. Brown William and Dorane King E. Arthur Robertson B.H. Carson James D. Klein James and Thais Sadoyama Kenneth S. Ching Wayne and Debra Knecht Elmer and Darilee Sakala Deborah Chung Richard and Claire Knierim James Sands Glenn and Judy Coe Ed and Ruth Komamiski Michael and Shelly Saucedo Douglas CoIlins Albert and Elizabeth Koppel Michael Scofield Patricia Cople Doreen and Irwin Kuhn Donald and Ursula Shasky Molleurus and Dos Couperus Alvin and Verla Kwiram Gordon and Lovina Short William and Judy Cowling Melvin and Karen Lake Donald and Susan Sickler Michael A. Crane Robert and Anita Lang Grover and Bonnie Starr John and Anna Mae Crowder David Larson WaIter and Lula Ann Stilson Paul and Rosemary K. Dibben Fred Lee Gerhard Svrcek-Seiler Merlyn and Rosemary Duerksen Richard B. Lewis, Jr. Leonard and Carlene Taylor Jay M. Du Nesme DavidF. Lim James Thomas Elwin and Beth Dunn Charles and Rae Lindsay Lorna Tobler James and Mary Dunn Bradley and Roberta Litchfield Thorvaldur and Lou Anne Torfason Thomas and Bonnie Dwyer Ewald Lonser Robin Vandermolen Rene and Mary Evard Felix and Lucille Lorenz John and Nancy Vogt Walt and Lois Fahlsing Richard and Heidi Ludders Harry Wang Daniel S. Ferguson Edward and Marilyn Lugenbeal James and Betty Webster Joy and Gerald Fuller Robert and Marguerite Marsh Rodney and Barbara Willard Gary Gilbert Temple G. Matthews, III William A. Woods Linda Gilbert Donald McAdams U and Freda Zollinger David and Joyce Grauman Joe Zweig The Spectrum Advisory Council is a group of committed Spectrum supporters who provide financial stability and business and editorial advice to ensure the continuation of the journal's open discussion of significant issues. For more information, contact Nancy Bailey c/o Association of Adventist Forums Box 5330 Takoma Park, MD 20912 (301) 270-0423