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The ]ournalofthe Association of Adventist Forums Surviving 1844

VOICES OUT OF THE SILENCE 1844 IN GREAT AMERICAN LITERATURE

~ "DAY-DAWN"-A DRAMATIZATION THE SANCTUARY-GOD IN OUR MIDST

!:' SDA TRAGEDY, HEROISM j; l· IN RWANDA I I i· l' ADVENTISTS ON

;: NETWORK TELEVISION ! '!·" i' I· ! CHANGING OF THE GUARD L 1 AT LOMA LINDA l !· I

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11' ~! . ,, October 1994 · Volume 24, Number 2 Spectrum Editorial Board Consulting Editors Editor Benrt,Beem K.ren Bottomley Edna M.,.e Lmete. Engliab History Engliab Roy Branson Walla Walla College Canadian Union CoDeee La Siena Univenity Bonnie L. l!chrard L111enbeol RoyBenloa c_, Anlbtopology Mau.ematical Sdenoea Wrlter/Editcx Senior Editor Washlngtoo, D.C. Atlanlic Union ColleJ!O Columbia Union CoileJ!O TomDybdahl RoyBraiWOII Raymcad CoUrell ~R.MeAdamo Etblos, Kennedy lnaUtute Tbeology Plaidcnt ·Loma Unda, California ·McAdams, Faillace, and Aaooc. Geori!IO~ Univemty OarkDavlo Ronald Numben Assistant Editor Joy C...... Coleman History of Medicine Chip Cassano FteelanGary Chartier Gerhard Svrcek.S.ller GeneDaRem J"rltzGuy Psychiatrist Pbysldan 1beology Vienna, Austria Ftedcrlclo:, Maryland La Siena Univemty Book Review Editor Helen Ward ThPennsylvania Gary Land David Laraon Norman Youns Testament History Direc:tor, Ethics Center New Avondale ColleJ!lO Production Andrews Unlvemty Lorna Uoda UniYOtaity Rennie Sehoepllln Chip Cassano History La Siena Univemty Chari• Serlven Pialdent Columbl~ Union ColleJ!O Association of Adventist Forums ti Ojfzcers Directors Regional Representatives

Pialdent Of Campus RelaUona Atlantic Lake L.-PIUon Kendra Holovlak Gary Gilbert Marie Roblnoon Vice President Retigion Instructor Vice-cbanceUor AdvenUst Healtbcale Mid-AtlanUc Columbia Union ColleJ!O Harvard Medical Scbool University of Dlinois Vice Plaldent Of lritemational Relationa Canadian (East) Northern Pacific Jerry Gladoon Walter Doug!• Todd Coupland JobnTeoke Pastor Olurdl History ln-tment Analyst Insurance Garden Orove, California Andrews Univemty Toronto, Canada Yakima. Wasblngton

Executive Secrelaly Of Martetins Canadian (West) Soutbcm Mary Halmlak Patricia Solcedo Williama BrueeBulller Robert Hale Adminial1lltlve Secrelaly Marketing Dean, Science Division Certified Public Accountant SllYOt Spring. Maryland. Samunonto, California Cansdian Union ColleJ!O Atlanta, Georgia Treasuier OfPrcmolioo CenuaJ Soutbcm Pacific J.,. M. DuN..me Richard B. Lewis, Jr. K.).Ciaylon Jim K.atz Investment Banker AdYOttising Cleburne, Texas Education Lake Arrowhead. California BO.ton, Massachusetts Lakeside, California Central Padfic Editor Of Special Projects Michael Saueedu RoyBraiWOII .Glenn E. Coe Legal Analyst Staff Etblca, Kennedy lnaUtule Attorney Samunonto, California Legal Consultant · GeorJ!Otawn uliivemty Hartferd, Connecticut Columbia Bradley UtchReld SuoanSlckler Attorney . ·~ Kettering. Obio Washington, D.C

SPECTRUM is a journal establislled to encourage Seventh-day Adventist Editorial Correspondence: SPECTRUM is published by the Association of participation in the discussion of CQntemporruy issues from a Ouistian viewpoint, Adventist Forums. Direct all editorial correspondence to SPECfRUM, 7710 to lOok Without prejudice at all sides of a subject to evaluate the merits of diver.;e CairollAvenue, ·Takoma Park, Maryland 20912; Fax: (301) 270-2814. Manuscripts views, and to foster Oui5tian intellectual and cultural growth. Although effort is should be typewritten, double spaced, or on Apple Macintosh disks. Please made to ensure accurate scholarship and discriminating judgment, the statements include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Letters to the editors may be of. fact are the responsability of contnbut01s, and the views individual authors shortened before publication. . express are not necessarily those ofthe editorial staff as a whole or as individuals. Subscription Information: In order to receive SPECTRUM, enclose a 1be AssOciation of Adventist Forums is a ·non-subsidized, non-pr0fit membership fee ($25 per 5 issues, $32 in Canada and.in other foreign countries, organization for which gifts are deductible in the rer.ort of income for purpoSes $18 for students) by check made to the Association of Adventist Forums, Box ofiaxation. The publishing of SPECTRUM depends 6n subscriptions, gifts from 5330, Takoma Park, MD 20913. Phone: (301) 27423. Single copies are $5. For individuals, and the voluntary efforts of the contnbutors and the staff. address changes, send old address label along with the new address.

© 1994 All rights reserved Litho USA FROM TilE EDITOR Surviving the Great Disappointment 2

ARTICLES Adventist Tragedy, Heroism in Rwanda 3 Sharise Esh tells Rwanda's stories, as seen through the eyes of missionaries and victims' relatives. Why King Was Not an Adventist 12 Roland J. Hill shows how Adventism would have hampered King's becoming one of our nation's greatest leaders.

SPECIAL SECTION: SURVIVING TilE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT Voices Out of the Silence 18 Luther Boutelle and Hiram Edson remember October 22, 1844, and the days that followed. Day-Dawn 24 Betty Cooney offers a dramatized re-creation of the domestic reality of the Great Disappointment. 1844 in Great American Literature 28 Gary Scharnhorst discusses Millerism and apocalyptic expectations as part of the canon of American culture. The Sanctuary-God in Our Midst 42 Glen Greenwalt argues that the sanctuary opens the way for God to dwell in our midst.

DEPARTMENIS News Updates 50 Adventists in the news, in Rwanda, in health care, and at Ministry magazine.

Responses 55 -~ Readers respond to Yob's feminine images of God, Burnham on AIDS in Africa, and Christenson on race. FROM THE EDITOR

Sutviving the Great Disappointment

he General Conference has just produced a We are the disappointed, singing in a strange land" (in professional, 100-minute color television docu­ Pilgrimage ofHope, 1986). This understanding of T mentary on William Miller. A plethora of books Adventism makes embracing the victims of violence, by Seventh-day Adventists on the Millerites has also and preventing future such victims, a fundamental appeared throughout 1994. In some Adventist congrega­ mission of the church (See "Adventist Tragedy, Heroism tions, October 22 has become a time to evoke the Great in Rwanda," on p. 3). Disappointment in Scripture, preaching, and singing; the Disappointment is a part of their liturgical year. Now, nother approach that deserves attention, stresses Spectrnm has devoted a special section to 1844. Athat whatever their historical relationship, Seventh­ ·But what does the Great Disappointment mean to day Adventists are, in important theological respects, Adventists? As we identify ourselves more and more not Millerites. Of course Millerites, defined by their closely with the Millerites, what is happening to expectation of the Second Coming, do have an identity Adventism? What is the significance of making the with Adventists. But Millerites, defined by the· Great Disappointment not only a part of Adventist scholar­ Disappointment of October 22, are not Seventh-day ship, but also increasingly embedded in its worship Adventists. The Seventh-day Adventist community arose and spiritual experience? precisely by proposing an alternative to setting dates One response is to resist the idea that 150 years of for the return of Christ, and by discovering other ways Adventism has been built on a mistake, and to turn the to experience the presence of God-The Sabbath, the Disappointment from a negative into a valuable visions of Ellen White, and to an extent not yet fully experience. Adventists were on a pilgrimage to find the understood, according to Glen Greenwalt, the sanctuary truth. The Great Disappointment was a major setback, (See "The Sanctuary-God in Our Midst," p. 42). to be sure, but all in all a helpful learning experience. Perhaps if we are clear that the Seventh-day Advent­ As George Knight says in the new documentary, after ist community is in crucial ways different from the 1844 Seventh-day Adventists realized they should never Millerite community, we can avoid denegrating the again set dates for the Lord's return. experience of 1844 by transforming it into merely a A second very important response is to embrace the learning experience; we can appreciate the pain and Great Disappointment as a central, underdeveloped loneliness of the Great Disappointment as a genuine part of Adventist self-understanding. In this issue of tragedy; and we can also better see the the Seventh-day Spectrnm, Glen Greenwalt appreciates Jan Daffern's Adventist Church as emerging, not just from a failed declaration that for Adventism "communities of disap­ appearance of Christ, but from new ways of sensing pointment are our communities"; that "we are the God's presence in our midst. disappointed who are lonely and doubting, poor and jobless, divorced and widowed, young and vulnerable. -Roy Branson

2 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 Adventist Tragedy, Heroism in Rwanda TANZANIA Rwanda's genocide through the eyes of missionaries and the voices of the victims' relatives.

by Sharise Esh

N THE KILLING FIELDS OF RWANDA, ADVENTISTS and Rwanda on Wednesday, April 6, 1994. were involved in killing other Adventists. They were returning from a conference in I That is the darkest report coming out of Tanzania, where they had discussed ways to Rwanda. Not only did Adventists participate in end the ethnic killings in their countries. A the killing of tribal enemies in their communi­ rocket fired from the ground shot down the ties; Adventists were involved in the deaths of plane in which they were traveling. Both men fellow Seventh-day Adventists. According to were Hutus presiding over countries com­ 1992 figures, one in every 33 Rwandans is an posed of Hutu tribal majorities and Tutsi Adventist, one of the highest densities of minorities. Adventists in the world. If Adventists were At approximately 5 a.m., Thursday, April 7, killed as frequently as others, of the 300,000 Rwanda erupted in violence. The fighting, Seventh-day Adventist Rwandese (1994 fig­ which started out to be political, soon turned ures), more than 30,000 Adventists have al­ tribal. The militia, comprised of the Hutu ready been killed. majority, began the slaughter. Armed with ]. ]. Nortey, president of the Africa-Indian makeshift weapons, they rooted out Tutsis Ocean Division, which includes Rwanda, es­ and Hutu moderates, and committed mass timates that perhaps 10,000 Adventists died in killings. From the April assassinations of the the massacre. Nortey says he himself does not presidents to September 1994, the United have evidence of Adventists killing Adventists. Nations estimates that there have been one The terrifying days of violence were set off million people killed. by the assassination ofthe presidents ofBurundi When the violence first erupted, Seventh­ day Adventist missionaries were serving in Sharise Esh, Spectrum's editorial assistant, graduated from universities, medical and dental clinics, relief Columbia Union College with a B.A. in journalism. Sbe is manager ofpublic relations for the Special Libraries Associa­ agencies, and orphanages. As Per Houmann, tion, Washington, D.C. an Adventist dentist, told the New York Times,

OcToBER 1994 3 SPECffiUM------what those missionaries saw and experienced friend when he heard shouting-followed by "left a scar on our souls." Here we bring you an exploding grenade. About 500 Hutus had the story of six missionaries who experienced broken down the doors of the administration these events firsthand. Four were based in building, and were dragging the Tutsi students Kigali-three working at a dental clinic on one and faculty outside, where some fleeing Tutsis Adventist compound, a fourth working for had gathered. Booth watched the Hutus beat ADRA at another compound. The fifth and the Tutsis to death with sticks and clubs. sixth, whose stories we share first, worked on "I witnessed whole families participating in the faculty and staff of the Adventist University the killings," said Booth. "There were mothers of Central Africa about 50 miles northwest of with babies strapped to their backs, alongside Kigali. boys of 10 or 11, all participating in this blood­ lust."The killings continued until12:20 p.m.­ Booth remembers looking at his watch. When Witnessing a Blood-Lust the fighting had eased, approximately 250 Tutsis lay dead in front of the administration "I had caught something on the news late building, with roughly 200 more dead outside Wednesday night about the two presi­ the science building. dents," said Ron Booth, an Adventist mission­ Booth remembers standing in the midst of ary working at the Adventist University of the bodies, watching the Hutus that were Central Africa. His wife, Sanita, worked as a milling about-still hitting some of the Tutsis secretary in the university president's office. who weren't quite dead, trying to silence "However, I didn't hear the whole story until them "It's hard to watch children being killed," Nils Rechter, the business manager of the said Booth. "I felt so helpless. [The Hutus] university, called the next morning to notify us were still wanting to hurt people, they still had that there would be no school that day." the lust for blood. We weren't sure that they Instead of classes, students and workers wouldn't turn on us if we tried to interfere. The spent the day listening to automatic weapons few people who did speak up were pushed fire and watching smoke from burning huts as aside or ignored." violence erupted in the streets outside their About 5 p.m., Ron and Sanita were at home campus. The day was also spent inspecting when they noticed Hutus gathering outside and fueling vehicles in case they were needed their house. They were attracted there by a girl on short notice. The students gathered for a of about eight, intently looking in their win­ special convocation where faculty explained dows, something that normally never hap­ the events and calmed their fears, and special pened. Afraid that opening the door would housing was set up in the administration bring the violence inside, the Booths negoti­ building for the Tutsis who were arriving on ated with the crowd through an open window. campus, seeking sanctuary from the fighting The crowd had a fairly detailed list of Tutsis outside. Throughout the day, the campus was they believed to be on the campus, and not relatively quiet. Nonetheless, special security having found all of them, were convinced that precautions were taken that evening. Ameri­ the Booths were harboring them in their cans and other expatriates took turns driving home. After Booth arranged for a committee, around the campus with a large spotlight. including the original girl, to search the house, It was about 8 o'clock the next morning, the Hutus, with the encouragement of some Thursday, April 8, when the violence hit local authorities, finally moved on. home. Booth was headed to the home of a Except for the little girl. She continued to

4 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE joURNAL oF mE AssoCIA110N oF ADVEN71ST FoRUMs stand on the back porch, peering in the they believed would come that day. Workers windows. Because of the blood stains on her spent the day building trailers and putting dress, and forlorn look on her face, the Booths sides on trucks so they could haul non­ assumed that she had lost her family in the Rwandan students and missionaries across the slaughter. Actually she was still convinced the border into Zaire. Booths were harboring Tutsis who needed to Part of Booth's job was hosing blood out of be killed. truck beds that had been used to haul dead Saturday returned to relative calmness, with bodies away from the campus. The university's those on campus preparing for the evacuation trucks had been lent to authorities, but now

Rwanda to take his mother to a hospital in Adventist Violence: The Burundi. Gerard was able to speak with his family after they were in Burundi, and discovered the Case of the Sefukus details of the massacre. Four days after the plane crash, Gerard's father erard Sefuku, a Rwandan, the son of an was severely beaten and then shot and killed in G Adventist minister and member of the Tutsi front of his family. His mother, Adele, and 14- tribe, is a graduate student in organizational year-old brother were also beaten, slashed with management at Bethel College, Mishawaka, machetes, and left for dead. For three days Indiana. He lost 32 members of his family in the Gerard's mother lay in the midst of the holocaust Rwandan bloodletting. until she was found, barely alive, and taken to a Gerard has been studying in the United States hospital. Lying beside his mother, Gerard's for five years. This fall, he was looking forward to younger brother had died of his wounds two days his father, Pastor Issacar Sefuku, beginning before. doctoral studies at Andrews University, very near Among the dead were members of not only to Gerard's college. But the day he was to receive Pastor Sefuku's family, but also his Adventist his visa to the United States, Pastor Sefuku was congregation. According to Gerard, thousands of killed. people died inside and in the area around the The day after the plane crash in April that killed Catholic Church. the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Gerard As Gerard began to investigate the deaths of called Rwanda and spoke with his family in his family, he was shocked to discover that the Rwamagana. He was told that the genocide had individual who reported his father's whereabouts already begun, and that the Sefuku family were to the executioners was another Seventh-day going into hiding at a nearby Catholic church. Adventist minister-an individual whom he and Two of Gerard's brothers would stay by to care his family knew well. Innocently, Gerard's for the home and to communicate with other brother had told this Adventist pastor in Kigali family members. how happy he was that his father was still alive. A few days later, the two brothers were also The following day, two soldiers were dispatched forced into hiding. After his last telephone conver­ from Kigali, specifically assigned to kill Pastor sation with his brothers, Gerard did not hear any Sefuku. news regarding his family for four weeks. Then a Gerard keeps in almost daily contact with his letter arrived from his sister. His father was dead, mother, now in Burundi. Because she has been his mother was barely alive and in a hospital in unable to secure a visa to the United States in critical condition. Wanting his mother to receive Burundi, Gerard's mother will soon return to the best care possible, Gerard paid individuals in Rwanda to apply for the visa. Throughout the summer, Gerard has been T. Lynn Caldwell, who conducted the interoiew with Gerard appealing to the leadership of the Seventh-day Sefuku is anassistantprofessorofcommunication atAndrews Adventist Church to help his mother. "The church University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, and acting chair of owes my father for 40 years of service. The the department. She graduated with an MA. in communi­ church can do nothing to help my father now, so cation from Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo. why can't they help my mother?"

0croBER 1994 5 SPECffiUM------they would have to haul students and faculty Party. This was a group of civilians armed with out of the country to safety. The job was machetes, sticks, clubs-basically whatever especially dangerous because that area of they could find. They knew the people in our Rwanda has one of the highest incidences of area and where they lived. They would pick AIDS in the world. Forty percent of Rwandans which ones they wanted to kill, and then go are HIV positive. Booth couldn't help but find them." realize that the blood of the victims could These groups were in search of Tutsis, or cause further casualties. anyone opposing the president's party. If a Evacuees from the university were finally able person belonged to these groups, he or she to leave on Sunday, AprillO. Students, mission­ was on the list to be killed. Later, the Adventist aries, and expatriates crossed into Goma, where compound-hosting four missionary families they spent three days with other missionaries. and an unmarried young woman-found it­ From there, some were taken to Nairobi, with self in the midst of the fighting, sandwiched others leaving through western Africa. between the government forces on one side, "While it was happening, I wondered about and the Rwanda Patriotic Front on the other. myself," recalls Booth. "I have been in several Worried about the people outside the com­ evacuations. However, I've never witnessed pound who were already being killed, Phillips anything this bad. While it was going on, I had took some American friends to check on some little emotion. With all the atrocities happen­ Adventist Rwandans down the street from the ing around us, it was like a switch we had to compound. While en route, Phillips and his flip to get through it. What I do remember is companions witnessed a band of Rwandan the supportiveness and caring of the people men making their way down the road, going we worked with, how hard everyone worked from house to house, killing and looting. for each other." Assuming that no harm would come to foreigners, Phillips and his friends stood in the doorway of their Rwandan friends' home, claim­ This Is My House ing it to be their own. The band of men moved on to the next house. Luckily, the family who or three years, since December 1990,jerry lived in the house next door had left the day FPhillips (a pseudonym), who directed an before, leaving behind only one young boy. He SDA community project in northern Rwanda, was able to sneak out of the house and jump the has lived the war Americans have only re­ fence to the house where Phillips and his cently heard about. However, it wasn't until friends stood guard. By the time the band of four months after he moved to Kigali, to work men left the house next door, it had been as a dentist at an Adventist compound, that the gutted-right down to the doorknobs. fighting became real to the rest of the world. When the young men had finished their "When the plane carrying the two presi­ job, one of the soldiers returned to the house dents was shot down on April 6, all hell broke where the foreigners still stood. "Aren't you loose. We didn't know who was killing who. scared?" the soldier asked in the native People from both tribes were being killed," Kinyarwandan. Not wanting the soldier to said Phillips, recalling the first day of intense realize how much of his language they un­ fighting. "From what we knew, it was the derstood, they replied in broken fragments, presidential guard that had taken power and "We aren't scared because you are here to was doing the killing. There was also a group protect us." The soldier, angered by this, called the Youth Group of the Extremist Hutu replied, "But you saw what we did! You don't

6 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE jOURNAL OF mE AssocJA710N OF ADVEN71ST FoRuMs understand. I will make you scared!" With than the fighting, because we realized that this declaration, he raised his gun till it was during the silent times, they were going to the pointing at the group. Phillips reached into surrounding houses rooting out Tutsis, sym­ his pocket and pulled out some bills. "Here, pathizers, and moderates to kill them." It was this is for you," he said, holding it out to the during one of these times that the Houmanns drunken soldier. As the man pocketed the heard their backyard neighbors being killed. money, the group took off running for the Employees-Adventist and otherwise­ compound, with shots ringing over their started coming to their compound, seeking heads just as they entered. protection. "There were workers and their families from both tribes. I couldn't under­ stand how they were together, protecting each Shut Your Gate other. It was amazing to see them putting their lives on the line for each other." The Houmanns he director of the dental clinic in Kigali were putting themselves at risk as well, har­ T where Phillips worked was Per Houmann. boring workers in their home. "But," says When Houmann and his wife Alice stepped Alice, "the militia were coming to our home off the plane in August 1993, they could just as much to rob us as to hurt our workers, already tell that there was tension in Rwanda­ so [our workers] protected us as well." armed soldiers lined the runway. The Hou­ The Houmanns remember one worker who manns had been warned of the growing was a particular inspiration to them. Francois tension, but realized the meaning of this more had come in to work the night before the fully when a rash of incidents took place in fighting, but was unable to go back to his February 1994. They were forced to tempo­ home. His strong Tutsi features would have rarily close down their clinic, the only full­ gotten him killed in the fighting. "He was service dental clinic in the country. unable to return to his family, who he was sure "The tensions were bad enough even then were dead by now. Yet he never looked that my Tutsi workers would have been killed scared. Every night and every morning he if they attempted to come in to work," said would lead some of the others in singing Houmann. "We remained closed for a week. hymns and reading the Bible. He was at such Things seemed to calm down after that, but peace with God it was as if he had no fear. the tensions were never resolved. About three When we left the compound, all the other weeks later, our gardener came in and told us Tutsis were looking at us with sorrowful eyes, to shut our gate, because there were people because they knew that they were going to right down the street having their throats die. Francois was the only one at peace. It slashed. About three weeks after that, our reminded me of that text that says 'perfect love Tutsi night watchman came in after being casts out fear.' That was Francois." severely beaten by six people, and had to have As the Houmanns left Kigali-four days his eye patched." after the violence began-with their children The intense fighting started before sunrise lying on the floor of the car, they felt for the onApril7, the day after the assassinations. The first time that they were the focus of the hatred. Houmanns could hear tremendous explo­ "Going out of Kigali, we were shot at. At sions of gunfire about 150 yards from their roadblocks we would see trucks of bodies home on the compound. "The militia would being hauled out, as well as bodies lying in the be fighting, and then there would be silence road. At the last roadblock, there were about for awhile. But the silence worried us more 400 or 500 men and boys with sticks, clubs,

OCTOBER 1994 7 SPEC-mUM------and machetes. They had a vacant look in their by the third day, we could tell that something eyes. It was as if they were possessed. They was different," recalled Wilkens. The first sign became more and more bold, asking for of trouble came when an Adventist orphanage money and threatening to puncture our tires. sent a message over the shortwave radio This was the first time we really felt we were asking for assistance. The somewhat frantic the focus of their anger." message stated that the militia had already killed one worker in front of them, and they couldn't gauge what was happening in the I'm Needed Here . other areas of the grounds where violence was breaking out. arl Wilkens, director of Adventist Devel­ "Shortly after this came the big push to Copment and Relief Agency (ADRA) in evacuate the missionaries stationed there," Rwanda, was the only American-and Advent­ said Wilkens. "The telephones had gone out ist missionary-to stay after the first two days in Kigali throughout the of fighting, but we still months of killing. Dur­ Wilkens chose to stay behind had radio contact with ing that time, only a the American embassy, very few expatriates of to help protect two of his so it was our job to any nationality tried to houseworkers, and spent the coordinate the evacua­ remain in Rwanda's tions with them." capital. Indeed, both the next88nights sleeping in the This was an espe­ United States govern­ hallway of his home. Tbeir cially tense time for ment and the world Wilkens and his family, leadership of the Ad­ diet consisted of oatmeal, not only because of the ventist Church ordered granola, rice, and beans-­ fighting in the city, but their personnel out of also because Wilkens Rwanda. But Wilkens food they had stored away and his wife had al­ stayed. Now, both the for just such an occasion. ready decided that if United Nations and the anything like this ever U.S. State Department During the ordeal, Wilkens' happened, he would have recognized his weight dropped 20 pounds. stay behind while the unique bravery by rest of his family evacu­ awarding Wilkens written commendations for ated. "We wondered if it was the right deci­ his continued humanitarian service during the sion, but everything happened so fast, we only most dangerous of conditions. had one night to think about it. We decided When the crisis broke out, Wilkens had a that we would sleep on it that night and make house full of relatives. Not only did he have to the decision in the morning. That night, God worry about his three children, ranging in ages gave us so much peace, we felt it had to be his from six to 10, and his wife, but also his will that I stay in the country." parents, who were visiting Rwanda and work­ One reason Wilkens chose to stay behind ing on an ADRA project in the area. was to help protect two of his houseworkers. "At first, we thought it was similar to the They were at serious risk because of their crisis that occurred in February. We thought strong Tutsi features. Wilkens' wife, children, the city would be shut down for a few days and family evacuated to Kenya. Wilkens spent and then business would resume as usual. But the next 88 nights sleeping in the hallway of

8 VOLC:.ME 24, NUMBER 2 ------THE joURNAL oF mE AssociA77oN oF AnVENI1sr FoRUMs his home. His house guests now included his the large containers of water. Food and dry two houseworkers, a church worker and his milk were bought for the orphans from the wife, and their relatives. Their diet consisted of thieves who had been looting. oatmeal, granola, rice, and beans-food they A secondary responsibility during this time had stored away for just such an occasion. was to keep up communication between During the ordeal, Wilkens' weight dropped church workers and the union administration, 20 pounds. working as a link between the groups inside For the first three or four weeks, Wilkens Rwanda who couldn't contact one another, as and his group remained completely house­ well as getting messages to concerned parties bound. The government had announced a outside Rwanda. During the entire time, curfew in the city, and no one could leave his Wilkens was in daily radio communication or her home. "We spent those weeks in Bible with his wife who stayed in Nairobi, Kenya, so study, reading, and prayer, not knowing what she could be close to her husband. "That was about to come. I think God outlined that contact was so important," said Wilkens, "and time for us to strengthen us," said Wilkens. to learn about the huge prayer network. There "There were some long days, but I feel it was were literally thousands of people praying for needed for us to prepare for the shelling, my safety-people I hadn't seen in years, gunfire, and militia we would have to face people I was sure had forgotten about me. It when we were finally allowed to return to gave me a sense of courage." work around the city." When Wilkens was finally able to leave the house, it was only in furtive spurts. "We would And God's Hand Led go out for a couple hours or so, and then have to stay inside for a couple of days .... We hese prayers, and the reassurance they would have to rebuild our strength and work Tgave him, carried Wilkens through some up the courage to go out again. But even on very tense times. Wilkens remembers one day the days when we felt as if we accomplished when a group of about 10 militia-neighbors nothing, God would show us something that of his-came to his home armed with ma­ we had done. It was often tempting not to go chetes ready to kill the people in his house. "It out at all. Some didn't, but it was hard for them was only an hour of negotiating and God's as well. They had to sit and listen to the bombs protection that saved the people in my home," all day and wonder if we would return. It was said Wilkens. "We would go back and forth, a hard time for everyone." arguing: Wilkens said that "people questioned why "'You're my neighbors, you know me.' I was staying, when there was nothing I could "'But our problem is not with you, it's with do. But God showed me that he could still use the Tutsis in your house.' us to help people." Wilkens and his housemates "'Yes, but they're not part of the war."' spent their brief excursions out of the house With laconic understatement, Wilkens added, working with groups of orphans in Kigali­ "The group finally left, and no one in the about 750 in all-taking them food and fresh house was harmed." water. Since the ADRA vehicles and supplies Another day, Wilkens went with his group had been stolen, Wilkens worked with his to take food and water to a group of about 250 own car trying to transport the supplies, and orphans, as well as 60 women and children finally with a large dump truck he borrowed who were also seeking refuge at the orphan­ from the U.N. It was better equipped to haul age. They had been harassed for four or five

OCTOBER 1994 9 SPECffiUM------days. Each day the militia took away one "We weren't able to evacuate everyone. The person to kill. The militia had warned the Rwandans couldn't get out of the country, so occupants that this would soon stop, and they they had to stay behind. There are still some would come to kill them all at once. By the killings going on. People who sympathize time Wilkens arrived with his group, the with the Tutsis are at risk. We worry for their militia had already surrounded the building. safety. We ask ourselves if we should've When the group of militia saw the foreigner stayed behind and helped more. These are approach, carrying a radio, they hesitated. hard questions to answer." They obviously wanted to wait until Wilkens Equally hard to answer is what these mis­ and his workers left. Wilkens took advantage sionaries will be returning to in Rwanda, of this time to call the Red Cross and the local which, according to Booth, many of the authorities on the radio. It took about two missionaries are eagerly waiting to do. There hours, but finally the local authorities came have been several conflicting reports as to and dispersed the crowd. Wilkens also se­ the amount of damage and stolen items, and cured a guarantee from the prime minister that it will be interesting to learn the truth. the orphanage would be protected. About 10 Until that time comes, Booth and his wife days after Wilkens' arrival, the occupants of will be working on a temporary assignment the orphanage were finally evacuated to a in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. more secure area. During that time only one "We're just working there until it will be more person had been killed. possible to re-open the university. We're Wilkens continued his work for close to hoping it'll be about three months, but it's three months, until the new government was hard to tell." in place and the fighting in the city drew to a close. While many consider Wilkens a hero, he disagrees. "I'm no hero," he told his family. A Country Dark "I'm just thankful that I could find out just how With Hatred . . . precious the Lord can be." When the fighting quieted down and the "It's so hard to imagine the people in the city became more stable, Wilkens turned his country being able to recover from the focus to his family. "The whole time I was hatred that has been passed down from gen­ there, my wife and I looked for indications that eration to generation," reflects Alice Houmann. the immediate crisis was over and I could "There are neighbors and family members return to be with my family. This seemed to be killing each other to save themselves. If your it. My wife had been so selfless in allowing me son married a Tutsi, then you were expected to stay in the country. It was just as much work to kill the son and daughter-in-law both to for her to see me stay as it was for me to stay. keep from being considered a sympathizer. I With the crisis almost over, I knew it was time remember hearing one story of a man living to go be with my family." down near the orphanage. The militia had surrounded his house and were calling for his wife, a Tutsi, to be sent out to be killed. They Questioning Oneself . said if he didn't comply, they would come in to kill the whole family. The man had to send n the aftermath, Booth, a professor in the his wife out. How do you recover from some­ I business department at the Adventist Uni­ thing like that?" versity of Central Africa, is left with questions. "And what's going on now, that's a whole

10 VoLl.ME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE jOURNAL OF mE AssociATION OF AnVEN71sr FoRuMs other tragedy that's happening," continues Unfinished Business ... Houmann. "All the disease and starvation. This is a little country in the center of Africa he Phillips family has already been that no one had even heard of before all this Tassigned to return to work in Rwanda; happened. And yet it has to touch your heart. they will be returning to uncertain circum­ It's so meaningless. There's basically two stances. When they left Rwanda they had no tribes, they have the same race, language, electricity, no water, not even a home­ religion, and histoty. And yet they can't get evetything they owned had been taken in the along to the point where they would murder looting. Phillips will also be returning to a their neighbor or they have to run and hide community where he knows both the people because someone else is in charge. It all boils who were killed and the people who killed down to basic selfishness. It's so over­ them. "From the extensive outreach nature of whelming." the community project where I worked for "When you're in a situation like that, it three years, I got to know the people in the suddenly becomes vety hard to differentiate community very well. I knew both groups. I between your duties as an individual, a parent, had become vety attached to the people wife, dentist, citizen, and missionaty. You there," he said. have a responsibility in each one of these Phillips, who was originally assigned to areas. It's very hard to blend them all together work as a dentist in Ethiopia, says, "I was very into making the right decisions, and not just glad when my assignment was changed so I think in one mode. I understand now why not could return to Rwanda. If I were unable to evetyone took people into their homes. If you return, I would feel that there was something took one person in, you risked getting evety­ unfinished in my mind. I'm not nervous. I one else killed. Plus, you never knew if the want to return. person you were taking in from one tribe to "The biggest need when we return will be protect wasn't doing harm to members of the helping the people who have been displaced," other tribe in return. It's hard to know which he continued. "I don't think I will be working role to play in a situation like that. And yet, it in dentistty for quite a while. What the people was very hard to get in our car and drive need now is to re-establish the social structure. away." We need to collect the children and start The Houmanns have since learned that of orphanages. We need to feed the people and the four families and three single men who teach them how to provide food for them­ stayed with them at the compound, one is selves." confirmed dead, three are missing, and three "I feel like this has given me an opportunity are accounted for-two of them known to be to put a correct value on my priorities. Every­ still working for the church. one likes security. We could've easily moved Alice and Per Houmann left in October for on to dentistty in Ethiopia. But I've realized Malawi, where Per serves as director of den­ that human life is the most valuable thing. It tistry. "If and when Rwanda opens back up, was vety hard to leave my friends. I felt like I there's a possibility we will go back to Kigali had let them down. I want to be there for them in an attempt to restart the clinic there. It will when they need us. I want to rebuild the take some thought." trust-to put 100 percent into the people."

OCTOBER 1994 11 Why King Was Not an Adventist

Martin Luther King's becoming an Adventist "would have hampered his becoming one of our nation's greatest leaders."

by Roland]. Hill

OULD MARTIN LUTHER KING HAVE BEEN than ever before. I have come to believe more and both a civil-rights activist and a Sev­ more in a personal God-not a process, but a enth-day Adventist? No. Here is why. person, a creative power with infinite love who C answers prayers.l The milieu of the black community, the black theology of the Baptist Church, and the Notice that his religious experience began liberal Protestantism of his seminary training with a view of God. Not the God of the white all played a role in shaping this national man, whose God is mainly a God of the head leader. Of these three influences, black theol­ and not the heart, whose God is colored by his ogy had the greatest impact on King's life. The privileged position, but the God of an op­ very fibers of King's soul pulsated with the pressed people, who needed not only to religion of his people. This is what King know God but also to experience God. A God himself thought of his theological roots: who could not only save their souls but also I am first and foremost a [black] minister. I love the liberate their bodies from the shackles of church, and I feel that civil rights is a part of it. For white oppression. No black man (other than me, at least, the basis of my struggle for integra­ blacks rooted in the white religious experi­ tion-and I mean full integration of Negroes into ence) could escape this view of God. every phase of American life-is something that began with a religious motivation ... And I know that my religion has come to mean more to me The Black View of God Roland]. Hill, assistant professor of religion, Southwestern Adventist College, received his B.A.from Oakwood College, an ing was greatly influenced by his black M.Div. from Andrews University, and a D.Min. from the view of God as the God of liberation. It Reformed 7beological Seminary, jackson, Mississippi. Hill's K first book bas just appeared-Theo Economics: The Call to was not uncommon for blacks to speak of God Responsibility (Helping Hands Press: Keene, Texas, 1994). as promising to deliver them as he did Israel

12 VoLlhlfE 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE jOURNAL oF mE AssociA110N OF ADVEN71ST FoRUMS from Egypt. James Harris in his book, Pastoral is clearly seen by the actions of many of the Theology-A Black Perspective, writes "black church's pioneers. Many early Adventists, in theology believes that liberation is the essence response to their understanding of God, lifted of the gospel of]esus Christ, and any authentic prophetic voices against social ills like slavery Christian theology affirms that God is on the and alcohol. Our theology hasn't changed, but side of the oppressed. "2 Even though black our practice has. theology as we know it today is relatively new, I can remember my own father, now a most black churchmen and leaders agree that retired Adventist pastor, leading the first it does reflect the roots of black religious "sit-in" protests in Savannah, Georgia. His thought. James Cone believes King's theology actions were in defiance of official commu­ emerged from black faith. niques from the General Conference warn­ ing against involvement in the civil-rights King's faith was derived primarily from his people's movement. Despite the church's official suffering and struggling in a society where whites stand, many black preachers participated in talked of freedom and justice, while blacks expe­ rienced slavery and segregation. A separate faith the civil-rights movement, but seldom in a emerged among black Christians in the United leadership role, for fear of reprisal from the States because they believed that the God of the leadership of the church. Their fears were Exodus, the prophets, and Jesus did not condone not without basis, for Adventist history docu­ the mistreatment they received from whites .... ments the treatment of men who sought to It was a black faith that emphasized God~s will to make right what white people made wrong, so be leaders of social change in the black that the rule of love would be established among community. These men were banished from all races of people. This was the hope that the church and left without any supporting encouraged black Christians to bear witness, organization. It appears that black theology through public protest, to God's creation of forms a natural resistance to white theology human beings, just like white people, and not as slaves or as second-class citizens.3 and sets black preachers and leaders, of which Martin Luther King was a part, on a This black view of God shaped Martin collision course with white Protestant Ameri­ Luther King and the other black ministers' cans. views about civil and political action against injustice. Since God was on the side of the oppressed and they were on God's side, they The Blackness of had no other choice. If they were to be on the the Black Church side of God, they must protest against the oppressor. King's theology was in sharp he black church played perhaps the most contrast to that of Seventh-day Adventism Tcrucial role in liberating Martin Luther and the theology of any other predominantly King to be the leader of the civil-rights move­ white religious organization. ment. Unlike the development of new white For the white Protestant American, God is churches, the black church was not born out indeed a transcendent, omnipotent God. Dur­ of some new theological proposition, but ing the civil-rights movement, whites magni­ solely on sociological grounds. The black fied God's transcendence at the expense of church was a clear response to white oppres­ His immanence. It seemed that white people sion. Gayraud S. Wilmore, reflecting on the viewed God as concerned about human be­ roots of the black church, writes about the ings' spiritual welfare, but could not see him Free African Society-the forerunner of the as concerned about their everyday living. This African Methodist Church:

0croBER 1994 13 SPECJmUM------

Wherever the Societies were organized, they personality developed by the Negro on Ameri­ began as a protest against white prejudice and can soil. A leader, a politician, an orator, a neglect and with the objective of providing not only for religious needs, but for social service, boss, an intriguer, an idealist--all these he is, mutual aid and solidarity among people ofAfrican and ever too, the center of a group of men."5 descent.4 Peter J. Paris correctly states:

Because the black church is centered in The experience ofself-governance provided blacks protest, this has given rise to protest leaders. with the opportunity to practice the basic rights of In fact, simply by leading black churches, citizenship long before the basic rights became preachers get programmed to protest. Any constitutionally guaranteed and politically en­ acted for them. Ironically, it became the destiny of preacher in the black tradition is expected to the black preachers to emerge as the freest of all be involved in social change. In black theol­ persons, black and white alike, because they ogy, the church and community are tied embodied the condition of independence and together in single garment of destiny. In fact, freedom more than any other. In their pulpits they ina 1968 Gallup Poll, 75.6 percent of the black could condemn virtually any social evil in either the white or the black community without fearing community expected the church to be in­ the possibility of censorship.6 volved in the civil-rights movement. It is no small wonder, then, that Martin Luther King The black preacher of bygone days entered surfaced as both a Baptist preacher and a civil­ the ministry, built up a sizable church and rights leader. personal following, and then combined parish Black ecclesiology sets the preacher as the work with political work. Even today, many center of church life. He is the leader, the black politicians are a senior or associate general, and in many situations, the ultimate pastor of a church. In a 1965 Gallup survey, authority among the people. He is the Moses 88.3 percent of the blacks polled favored the come to liberate his people. W. E. B. Du Bois involvement of the preacher in political mat­ expresses the position of the black preacher in ters. It was therefore easier for Martin Luther these terms: "The preacher is the most unique King than for a white preacher to become involved in the civil-rights movement. Adventist views of the church place the movement ahead of the preacher. This view becomes detrimental to the production of great leaders. Adventist ecclesiology has no room for men who overshadow the organization. Martin Luther King towered over his local congrega­ tion, which he eventually gave up, and even over the organization he founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The black tradition gave its churches and its ministers almost full autonomy, something the Adventist Church could not afford to do. In order to keep its centralized government, the Adventist denomination can never have any superstars. Leaders such as Martin Luther King must have their independence. Advent­ ism as we know it today could not survive the

14 VoLUME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE jOURNAL oF mE A5:S'OCIA710N OF ADVEN71sr FoRUMS growth of ecclesiastical giants. A centralized men and women are depressed and in agony government demands control. Clearly, Martin because of their earthly filth . . . , where the darkness of life surrounds so many of God's Luther King would have had a difficult, if not children. I say to you that religion must be impossible, time working within the Adventist concerned not merely about the streets flowing Church. with milk and honey, but about the millions of God's children in Asia, Africa, and South America and in our nation who go to bed hungry at night. The Mission of It will be concerned [not only] about a long white the Black Church robe over yonder, but about [people] having some clothes down here. It will be concerned not merely about silver slippers in heaven, but about nlike the Adventist Church, which sees its men and women having some shoes to wear on U primary mission as preaching the third­ earth.8 angel's message to the world in preparation for the second coming of Christ, black missiology The social conditions of black people fore­ has more of a "this-world concern." ordained that the mission of black churches would encompass the whole life of the black The mission of the black churches has always community. Indeed, concerns for the plight of transcended their own constituency by aiming at the reform of the larger white society, that is, black Americans brought the black church causing the latter to practice racial justice as an into existence. expression of genuine Christian understanding Martin's missiology also took shape around and devotion. Their mission, therefore, has had Walter Rauschenbusch's social gospel. King both internal and an external dimension in that studied the writings of Rauschenbusch and they have sought religious, moral, and political reform in both the black and the white commu­ reflected his thinking in most of his writings. nity, though not in the same respect.7 Rauschenbusch believed that personal exist­ ence is basically social, and that a relevant With a mission that has as one of its major Christianity would "bring men under repen­ concerns social justice, it would logically pro­ tance for their collective sins" and would vide encouragement for preachers to become involved in social concerns. In fact, in the black community the church has always been the largest institution. It must take on a large social role if social change is to occur. This broad mission of the black church allowed King to preach in a sermon at Ebenezer, his father's church:

There's something wrong with any church that limits the gospel to talkin' about heaven over yonder. There is something wrong with any minister ... who becomes so otherworldly in his orientation that he forgets about what is happen­ ing now. There is something wrong with any church that is [so] absorbed in the hereafter that it forgets the here. Here where men are trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. Here where thousands of God's children are caught in an air­ tight cage [of poverty]. Here where thousands of

OCI'OBER 1994 15 SPEClm~------proclaim a corresponding social salvation. He appealing to their goodwill, they would re­ contended that the church should be at the spond positively. A new age would begin. forefront of social change through a program Had King been an Adventist, his theology for more revolutionary social action. The so­ would have checked any overly optimistic cial gospel movement was characterized by a view of human nature. He would have believed sharp criticism of social injustices, especially that human beings are basically evil-that economic injustices. A cursory reading of social changes do not change the human heart. King's writing and his sermons, reveals strains Adventism teaches the need to work for the of the social gospel woven throughout. betterment of society, but does not see social Of course, two major problems of the social cures as the answer to the moral condition of gospel was it utopian elements and strained humanity. Only a renewed heart can really view of the nature of humanity. change the human heart and thus society. King's liberal anthropology and his black theology gave rise to a soteriology that tended Black Views of Humanity to be "this worldly." In his famous "I Have a and Salvation Dream" speech, King implied that the salva­ tion of humanity will come from overturning ing's understanding of salvation oppressive systems. Little in his soteriology K (soteriology) was also affected by the called for deliverance from sinful human na­ social gospel. To understand his soteriology, ture. we must first investigate his view of humanity. King, like the liberal Protestants of his time, believed that humanity is basically good-that Black Eschatology the reason humans do evil things is because of their lack of knowledge. This philosophy is artin Luther King's theology shaped his seen in King's optimistic view of white preach­ Mviews on the end of time. King's ultimate ers during the civil-rights movement. He be­ goal was a new world order on the earth. lieved that by educating them about the injus­ Again, in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, tice done to black people in this country and we catch a glimpse of this eschatology.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, ... I have a dream that one day ... sons of former slaves and sons of former slave owners will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, knowing that we will be free one day ... This will be the day when all God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. "9

This optimistic view of the future was born out of an eschatology that saw God as usher­ ing in a new age on this earth. Had King been an Adventist, his optimistic dream for America would have been shattered. Our eschatology proclaims "that when they shall say, Peace and

16 VouME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THEjOURNAL OF 7HE AssOCIA110N OF ADVEN11ST FORUMS safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon the great leader of America's civil..:rights move­ them." ment. It also becomes clear that Adventist theol­ Investigating Martin Luther King's thought ogy and practice would have hampered his allows us to understand how he could become becoming one of our nation's greatest leaders.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. James Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A 5. James H. Harris, Pastoral Theology: A Black­ Dream or Nightmare? (New York: Orbis Books, 1992), Church Pe13pective(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 122, 123. p. 77. 2. Peter J. Paris, The Social Teaching of the Black 6. Paris, p. 109. Churches (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 60. 7. Ibid., p. 111. 3. Cone, p. 120. 8. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Remember Who You Are," 4. Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black sermon given July 7, 1963 at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Radicalism (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 9. Martin Luther King, Jr., March on Washington, 1972), p. 113. . Washington, D.C., 1963.

OcToBER 1994 17 SPECIAL SECTION: SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

Voices Out of The Silence

Luther Boutelle and Hiram Edson remember October 22, 1844, and the days that followed.

Hiram Edson

he most poignant voices actu­ cine Department at the University M. Butler, the author of Softly and Tally heard the silence; voices of Wisconsin, and the author of Tenderly: Heaven and Hell in that listened for on-rushing divinity several books, including Prophet­ American Revivalism, 1870-1920, and heard only their own breath. ess of Health: Ellen G. White and and several articles in Spectrum, Before chatting on about the mean­ the Origins ofSeventh-day Advent­ including "The Historian as Her­ ing of 1844, they listened to the ist Health Reform, and Tbe Cre­ etic" (August 1993). quiet-as we should; heard the ationists: Tbe Evolution of Scien­ muffied sounds of grief and loss, as tific Creationism; and by Jonathan -The Editors we might well do. Eventually, the disappointed found their voices. Two of them "Unspeakably Sad ... begin the special section on Surviv­ ing the Great Disappointment. The ftrst, Luther Boutelle, later joined On the Wing Again" the Advent Christian movement, Luther Boutelle, a Millerite lecturer ers in the Lord's vineyard had all the larger denomination of former from Groton, Massachusetts, later that they could do. Millerites. The second, Hiram becamealeaderoftheAdventChris­ In the early part of the summer Edson, shared an idea-Christ be­ tian Church, a denomination that our attention was directed to the ginning in 1844 a new ministry in emerged from the main body ofex­ fall as the time for the Lord to come, the heavenly sanctuary-that Millerites. Tbe following account according to the types in the Old helped sustain the smaller, more from his autobiography, Sketch of Testament, which began to be stud­ radical "little flock." Almost 20 years the Life and Religious Experience ied and preached. By July there later, Edson's group became the of Eld. Luther Boutelle (Boston: was such a concentration of thought Seventh-day Adventist Church. Advent Christian Publication Soci­ among the strong ones on time, The following excerpts, with ety, 1891), pp. 62-72, describes his that it was called "the midnight brief historical notes, appear in the activities and emotions in 1844. cry." Thus a new impetus was appendix to Tbe Disappointed: created, and the work of holding Millerlsm and Millenarianism in s we entered upon the year meetings and preaching was in­ the Nineteenth Century. They are A 1844, the interest, instead of creased. As we fell, one after an­ reprinted here by permission of the decreasing, kept up; and during the other, into the current belief that University of Tennessee Press. The summer the number of Camp­ the fall would witness the coming volume is edited by Ronald L. Num­ meetings, Grovemeetings and Con­ of our Lord, it became in faith a bers, chair of the History of Medi- ferences increased, and the work- certainty-we believed it with our

18 VoLUWE 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING mE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT whole souls. Thus the cry, "Behold, tracts, leaflets, voicing the coming of mind and pleasurable expecta­ the bridegroom cometh!" was, by glory, were scattered broadcast and tion on the part of those who the "time argument," made to end everywhere, like autumn leaves in regarded the point of time with in the fall of 1844, Jewish time, the forest. Every house was visited interest. There was a nearness of tenth day of the seventh month, by them. They were angels of mercy approach to God, and a sacredness supposed to be Oct 20, 21, or 22. sent in love for the salvation of of communion with him, to which This brought us to a definite time, men. Everything now began to those who experienced it will ever and in coming up to it, the works of converge to a point. October was recur with pleasure. During the last Adventists demonstrated their faith the closing time of probation! the ten days secular business was, for and honesty, not to be questioned. judgment and rewards! A mighty the most part, suspended, and those As they moved on with the point of effort through the Spirit and the who looked for the advent gave time before them, all grew more word preached was made to bring themselves to the work of prepara­ enthusiastic. Crops were left unhar­ sinners to repentance, and to have tion for the event as they would for vested, their owners expecting the wandering return. All were death, were they on a bed of sick­ never to want what they had raised. awake to this great end-salvation. ness, expecting soon to close their Men paid up their debts. Many sold The tenth day of the seventh month eyes on earthly scenes forever."­ their property to help others to pay drew nigh. With joy all the ready History of the Second Advent Mes­ their debts, who could not have ones antidpated the day. Solemn, sage. done it themselves. Beef cattle were however, were the last gatherings. These quotations harmonize slaughtered and distributed among Those of a family who were ready with what I knew to be at the time. the poor. At no time since "the day to meet the Lord, expecting an Such a concentration of thought, of pentecost was fully come" had eternal separation from those who such a oneness of faith was never there been the like-a day when were not ready. Husbands and before witnessed; certainly not in that pentecost was so completely wives, parents and children, broth­ modem times. All that did speak duplicated as in 1844, when Ad­ ers and sisters separated, and that spoke the same things. Solemn, yet ventism prevailed and reigned. forever! The leading preachers of joyful. Jesus coming! we to meet There was a great stir and talk, in Adventism had all endorsed the him! Meetings everywhere were many places, about putting the Mil­ tenth day of the seventh month as being held. Confessions made, lerites under guardianship. But this the time when the Lord should be wrongs righted; sinners inquiring did not cause any to go back on their expected. On Oct. 6, Mr. Miller what they should do to be saved. faith. They were firm and held fast, accepted the argument as true, and Those who were not with us were believing they should speak and act. wrote an endorsement to it. mightily effected [sic]. Some were Thus they were known by their Geo. Storrs, Sept. 24, 1844, in exceedingly frightened with awful fruits. There was some fanatidsm, the Bible Examiner said, "I take my forebodings. but the body of Adventists were pen with feelings such as I never But the end of October passed, sober, honest, a holy people, with had before. Beyond a doubt in my making unspeakably sad the faith­ strong faith and ready to meet their mind the tenth day of the seventh ful and longing ones; but causing Lord-to see the King in his beauty. month will witness the revelation the unbelieving and wicked to re­ As the time to which all looked drew of our Lord Jesus Christ from joice. All was still. No Advent Her­ near, the Bible was studied even heaven." ald; no meetings as formerly. Ev­ more, and a fuller consecration made. The Voice of Truth, of Oct. 2, eryone felt lonely, with hardly a There was a harmony that made us stated that Elders Marsh, Galusha, desire to speak to anyone. Still in a unit at this time, and the represen­ Peavy and others had endorsed it. the cold world! No deliverance­ tatives of Adventism and the flock In closing the Advent Herald the Lord not come! No words can were all one. office on the 16th of October, an express the feelings of disappoint­ immense edition of that paper was ment of a true Adventist then. Those issued for free distribution in all only who experienced it can enter The Great parts of the land. This was consid­ into the subject as it was. It was a Disappointment ered the last edition ever to be humiliating thing, and we all felt it published. alike. All were silent, save to in­ We now give an extract from quire, "Where are we?" and "What he Advent Herald, the Mid­ Bro. S. Bliss. He wrote, "The time next?" All were housed and search­ T night Cry, and other Advent immediately preceding the 22nd of ing their Bibles to learn what to do. papers, periodicals, pamphlets, October was one of great calmness In some few places they soon be-

0croBER 1994 19 SPECTRUM------

gan to come together to watch for come together to stay until the Lord In eighteen hundred forty-four, some developmentoflight, relative came. I felt like visiting them. Ac­ We thought the curse would be to our disappointment. cordingly I took a carriage ride to no more. the place. I found about seventy The things of earth we left be­ hind, ot quite content with being believers in a large house, living To meet the Saviour of mankind. N housed, after such stirring there ·and having meetings daily. With many we took the parting times, I went to Boston. Found the They had put all their money in a hand, AdventHerald office closed, and all milk-pan, and when they paid for Till meeting in a better land. still. I next went to New Bedford. anything they took the money from The day passed by-no tongue Found the brethren in a confused the pan. All was common stock. We can tell state. Had a few meetings; com­ held a meeting with them and ad­ The gloom that on the faithful forted those who came as best I vised them as best we could to fell. could, telling them to hold fast, for keep the faith and separate, and That what it meant they hardly knew I believed there would be a good see to their individual interests, and But to their Lord they quickly come out of this matter. Returning those of their families, which ad­ flew. from New Bedford to Boston, I vice they kindly took, and very They searched the Word, and found the office of our Herald soon separated, going each to his not in vain, open, and Bro. Bliss there. He said or her calling. For comfort there they did ob­ he had hardly been from his house tain. since the time passed. He inquired fter a time in looking over the They found "the bridge" they if there were any meetings being A way the Lord had led us, and had passed o'er; held. I told him there was to be one bearing the reproach in consequence Then they rejoiced and grieved no more. in the city that evening and that in of our failure, we found there was to Their faith was finn in that blest other places they were coming to­ be a disappointment in the fulfill­ Book, gether to comfort one another. Some ment of the parable. The words of And still for Jesus they did look. fanaticism was seen, but the many Jesus were, "While the bridegroom were sober watchers for their Lord. tarried, they all slumbered and slept." I learned of a company that had From the first of our experience as Adventists, we believed we were Resuming the fulfilling the parable by going forth to Work With We came into the meet the Lord in our faith and preach­ ing of his coming, but we did not see Good Courage tarrying time. This that the Bridegroom-the Lord­ would not come when we expected nd now a new era was begun. helped us to bear him. But it was not long after our AThese divine utterances were disappointment before the light be­ heard with such distinctness that it our disappoint­ gan to break in upon us, and we saw was easy to believe them; and with ment, and put our there was to be a waiting time, a a zeal equal to our former one, we midnight before the Lord would come. took hold of the work now given feet on solid land. Turning to Rev., tenth chapter, we us to do. We found that the truth saw that after the "little book" was was not to be all learned at once. Prophecy again eaten, and sweet in the mouth, there Thus we came into the tarrying was a bitterness to be experienced. time. This helped us to bear our rang in our ears, Our disappointment was bitter, and disappointment, and put our feet and we were now it was by eating the word of God, or on solid land. Prophecy again rang the little book. Since that time a new in our ears, and we were now on on the wing again, inspiration has been given us, and the wing again, and the world we have done even more than we found Millerism, which they bur­ and the world did before our disappointment; for ied, still alive. So while the Bride­ the little book was to "prophesy groom tarried, meat in due season found Millerism, again before many peoples, and na­ was to be given. With the assur­ which they buried, tions, and tongues, and kings." Thus ance of light and divine help we the word of God is fulfilled by us, quickened our pace in itinerating, still alive. and we can still repeat: and soon found the whole body

20 VoLC.ME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT was breathing more freely. We as a the signs of the Lord's soon coming manger. But the voice which said, people righted up, and the sound before the people. Thus encour­ "Go talk the truth to your neigh­ of rejoicing was heard. The scat­ aged, our meetings, Conferences bors, and fellow men," and my tered Advent body was gathered and Campmeetings were resumed promise to do so, was lost sight of, again, and commenced anew their with the former interest, while the and did not come into mind. work of love. way opened wonderfully before us I was endeavoring to walk care­ In Jan. 1845, the Advent Herald for missionary work, scattering the fully before the Lord. I did not want appeared again in the field, ac­ light of the gospel in all directions. to loose [sic] the victory, the liberty, knowledging our disappointment, We now had calls as many as we and freedom I had been sharing. but urging the necessity of keeping could attend to. But notwithstanding all my efforts darkness was stealing over me; the heavens became as brass, and I could find no answer from God­ I knew not why, until I sought the "We Wept, and Wept, Lord in persevering secret prayer, and, ineamest, toknowwhatinter­ Till the Day Dawn" vened and hid his face from me. At length while in prayer in the forest Hiram Edson, a Millerite farmer lane, pra1smg God with a loud my mind was carried back to the from Port Gibson, New York, after voice. He gazed and listened with voice which said, "Go talk the truth 1844 joined the small group of wonder and astonishment at the to your neighbors," which I had sabbatarians who formed the Sev­ narration of what God had wrought. promised to do, and that I could enth-day Adventist Church. The fol­ Pale, and trembling he returned not share the light of his counte­ lowing recollection, from an un­ home, relating what he had seen nance, or freedom of his spirit, dated manuscript fragment in the and heard, his residence being but until I lifted that cross and dis­ possession of the Heritage Room, a few doors from the church where charged that duty. This seemed the Andrews University Library, begins the lectures were given. heaviest cross which had ever been with the evidence that convinced When Monday evening came presented for me to lift. It seemed him of the truth of Millerism and [both?] our [families?] went to the more than I could consent to do; ends in mid-sentence in a discus­ prayer meeting, appointed the night but no relief came, till, at length, I sion ofthe seventh-day Sabbath. before at the close of the lectures. consented to make the effort. And The meeting house, though large, not until I reached the third family began to muse on this wise; If all was filled to overflowing as it had did much victory or freedom return I this is the fruit of the new doc­ been during the lectures. It was to me, but here the cloud seemed trine, the evidence is clear that it is judged best to have a short sermon to break, and old and young, the from heaven; for it is written, "by and then a season for testimonies. greyheaded and youth, were melted their fruits ye shall know them." "A The brother who had been healed, to tears; expressing their desire for corrupt tree cannot bring forth good and myself, bore our testimonies: saving grace. As I moved forward fruit;" And thus this question was what God had wrought for us; in this work day times; and attend­ settled with me. which had its influence on the ing the evening meetings; for they In this incident of my experi­ minds of the congregation. Before were protracted, until it was claimed ence I also learned an additional the close of the meeting, our that between three and four hun­ lesson, namely, that God was ready preacher very hesitatingly gave a dred professed conversion, the and willing to hear and answer faint invitation, that, if there were cross grew lighter, or, my strength prayer for the sick, and to stretch any in the congregation who felt increased in bearing it. There was forth his hand to heal and raise like seeking the Lord, and desired one family I had passed several them up, and restore them to health. prayer for them, if they would times without calling on them. The Since which time, I have shared in, make it manifest by rising on their head of the family was dissipated, and witnessed many incidents of feet we would engage in prayer for and I thought it would be but like character. them; when some eighty at once casting pearls before swine; so 1 The next morning the physician arose, without being urged. And passed them by. came to visit his patient, and to his thus I saw literally fulfilled, what After laboring as above, night great astonishment met him out of was presented before me the night and day, I became worn and felt I doors walking up and down the before, when in prayer before the needed rest. I decided not to attend

OcToBER 1994 21 SPECJmUM------meeting that evening, also, not to bring forth good fruit" tenth of the seventh month, 1844. make any more calls but go directly During what is called the sev­ Having the true cry, Behold the home and obtain rest. On passing enth month movement, in 1844, Bridegroom cometh, on the tenth the above named house I was myself and several other Bm. were day of the seventh month, and, stopped in the road opposite the engaged in circulating publications having been early taught by mod­ house, by some unseen power, and on the coming of Christ, day times, em orthodoxy that the coming of could not make progress. I know and holding meetings at my own the Bridegroom to the marriage not what was the cause, and began private house evenings. As we were would be fulfilled in the personal to ponder whether it was duty to about to commence our evening second advent of Christ to this enter the house. While thus waiting meeting on one occasion, a two earth, (which was a mistaken idea) a shadowy form in human shape horse waggon load of entire strang­ we confidently expected to see stood before me, and led toward ers came; and after preparing seats Jesus Christ and all the holy angels the house, at which I said, Can for them we commenced our meet­ with him; and that his voice would there be duty to call here? The form ing by singing, "Here o'er the earth call up Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, repeated the lead toward the house as a stranger I roam, Here is no rest, and all the ancient worthies, and twice, or thrice, and I followed, is no rest." It was sung with the near and dear friends which had gathering assuredly that the Lord's spirit and with the understanding, been torn from us by death, and angel was accompanying me and and the spirit which accompanied that our trials and sufferings with leading me in the way I should go. the singing gave to it a keen edge, our earthly pilgrimage would close, I entered the house, was received and before the hymn was sung and we should be caught up to kindly, had a free time talking and through, the entire company of meet our coming Lord to be forever praying with them, learned that strangers were so deeply convicted with him to inhabit the bright golden they were backsliders, and were that rather than bear the reproach mansions in the golden home city, desiring to return unto the Lord. of being convicted, or converted at prepared for the redeemed. Our The above revival and ingathering a Millerite meeting, they all started expectations were raised high, and of souls, being the result and legiti­ to leave the house. One man and thus we looked for our coming mate fruit of the above lectures, his wife succeeded in getting out of Lord until the clock tolled 12 at was additional evidence that this doors; but the third one fell upon midnight. The day had then passed new doctrine was from heaven; for the threshhold; the fourth, the fifth, and our disappointment became a it is a good tree that brings forth and so on, till the most of the certainty. Our fondest hopes and good fruit. "A corrupt tree cannot company were thus slain by the expectations were blasted, and such power of God. And such agonizing a spirit of weeping came over us as cries and pleading for mercy, is not I never experienced before. It often witnessed. Some thirteen, or seemed that the loss of all earthly Tbe day had then more, were converted before the friends could have been no com­ meeting closed. The man and his parison. We wept, and wept, till passed and our dis­ wife who left the house labored the day dawn. appointment be­ hard to persuade the rest of their I mused in my own heart, say­ company to leave at once for home; ing, My advent experience has been came a certainty. but not succeeding, and rather than the richest and brightest of all my remain through the meeting they christian experience. If this had Our fondest hopes went home on foot in a dark night, proved a failure, what was the rest a distance of five, or six miles, of my christian experience worth? were blasted. It carrying a child a year old. But this Has the Bible proved a failure? Is seemed that the loss was not their heaviest burden. Their there no God-no heaven-no conviction was too deep to be golden home city-no paradise? Is ofall earthlyfriends easily shaken off; they were back all this but a cunningly devised again at the next evening meeting fable? Is there no reality to our could have been no found pardon, and peace in believ­ fondest hopes and expectation of ing. And, "so, mightily grew to these things? And thus we had comparison. We word of God and prevailed." something to grieve and weep over, wept, and wept, till Passing over other like manifes­ if all our fond hopes were lost. And tations of the power of God, we as I said, we wept till the day dawn. the day dawn. glance at our disappointment at the A second glance over past expe-

22 VouhWE 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVJVING THE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT rience, and the lessons learned, receive a kingdom, dominion, and sending out the light on the subject and how when brought into strait glory; and we must wait for his ofthesanctuary. Wedecideditwas places where light and help was return from the wedding, and my just what the scattered remnant needed by seeking the Lord he had mind was directed to the tenth ch. needed; for it would explain our answered by a voice and other of Rev. where I could see the vision disappointment, and set the breth­ ways, I began to feel there might be had spoken and did not lie; the ren on the right track. We agreed to light and help for us in our present seventh angel had began [sic] to share the expense between us, and distress. I said to some of my breth­ sound; we had eaten the littl [sic] said to Crosier, "Write out the sub­ ren, Let us go to the bam. We book; it had been sweet in our ject of the sanctuary. Get out an­ entered the granary, shut the doors mouth, and it had now become other number of the Day Dawn, about us and bowed before the bitter in our belly, embittering our and we will try to meet the ex­ Lord. We prayed earnestly; for we whole being. That we must proph­ pense." He did so, and the Day felt our necessity. We continued in esy again, etc., and that when the Dawn was sent out bearing the earnest prayer until the witness of seventh angel began to sound, the light on the sanctuary subject. It fell the Spirit was given that our prayer temple of God was opened in into the hands of Elders James was accepted, and that light should heaven, and there was seen in his White, and Joseph Bates, who be given, our disappointment be temple the ark of his testament, etc. readily endorsed the view; and it explained, and made clear and sat­ While I was thus standing in the was shown in vision to be light for isfactory. After breakfast I said to midst of the field, my comrade the remnant. This number of the one of my brethren, "Let us go and passed on almost beyond speaking Day Dawn opened a communica­ see, and encourage some of our distance before missing me. He tion between us and these Eastern brn." We started, and while passing inquired, "Why I was stopping so brethren. We appointed a confer­ through a large field I was stopped long?" I replied, "The Lord was ence of the scattered brethren to be about midway of the field. Heaven answering our morning prayer; by held at my house, and invited these seemed open to my view, and I saw giving light with regard to our our Eastern brethren to meet with distinctly, and clearly, that instead disappointment." I talked these us. Br. W. made the effort to come, of our High Priest corning out of the things to my brethren. but his way was hedged up. Father Most Holy of the heavenly sanctu­ In those days I was closely asso­ Bates came on. His light was the ary to come to this earth on the ciated with 0. R. L. Crosier; and Dr. seventh-day Sabbath. tenth day of the seventh month, at F. B. Hahn, Crosier making his From my understanding of the the end of the 2300 days, that he for home with me a portion of the opening of the tabernacle of the the first time entered on that day time. He examined the Bible on the testimony in heaven, and the seeing the second apartment of that sanc­ subjectofthesanctuary. F. B. Hahn of the ark of his testimony, and a tuary; and that he had a work to and myself, was connected with few lines I had seen from the pen of perform in the Most Holy before Crosier in the publication of the T. M. Preble, I had been looking at corning to this earth. That he came paper called, "The Day-Dawn." Br. the subject of the seventh-day Sab­ to the marriage at that time; in other Hahn and myself, held a consulta­ bath and talking it to my Bm. I had words, to the Ancient of days, to tion with regard to the propriety of said to them, "If we abide by ...

OCTOBER 1994 23 Day-Dawn

A New Hampshire couple is divided and drawn together

William Miller by the Midnight Cry and Great Disappointment.

(A tidy, unassuming bouse in a know it. The Bible says he'll come he comes, and he'll take us with small town in New Hampshire. like a thief in the night. him. If he doesn't, there's no point Cora, in her mid-20s, and Forrest, losing sleep at an all-night prayer in his early 30s-a comfortably Forrest: Well, there you are. What meeting. I'll just have to go to work married couple-are talking) sort of thief is going to come when in the morning. there's a meeting room of saints Forrest: Well, the great day has waiting up for him? Cora: (Earnestly) But Forrest, you fmally come, hasn't it? have to have faith. You have to Cora: (Looking at him with a mix­ believe he's coming, or you'll be Cora: (Warning, almost playju./. ture of fondness and regret) Do left behind. She ts used to this sort ofgo around) you know, sometimes I think you're Now Forrest, don't start. hopeless. Forrest: (Unmoved) He made me, didn't he? Why wouldn't he take Forrest: Seems like any other day Forrest: I'm a God-fearing man, me home? tome. Cora. I told you, if the Lord comes down for me, I will very willingly Cora: Because ... (almost afraid to Cora: (Triumphant) Now that accompany him up again. I've got say it) because you might not be­ doesn't prove anything, and you nothing against being a citizen of prepared. heaven. Forrest: Because I won't go to the Betty Cooney, who bas worked for 15 Cora: (Suddenly animated, fer­ meetings with you. (It ts not a years in communications for the Sev­ vent) Then come with us, Forrest­ question) enth-day Adventist Church, is a gradu­ come wait with us at the meeting! ate ofAtlantic Union College. Prior to What could it hurt for you to come Cora: Well ... workingfor the denomination, she was a freelance writer in New York City, with us just this once? writing not only for Adventist publica­ Forrest: (With slow-building an­ tions, butsatirical pieces for a variety of Forrest: (Shaking his bead) I sup­ ger) That's it, isn't it? You think media. Tbe scene published here is pose it wouldn't hurt, but what heaven will only have those built to adaptedfromber 1979play, The Great good would it do? That's what I sit and think for hours at a time. Disappointment. want to know. If the Lord comes, The rest of us restless ones who

24 VoLlhWE 24, NuMBER 2 ------SDRWWNGLYEGmMTL>I~POI~

can't sit more than a few minutes again, almost shouting) Prepared! Some time later, a neighbor stops without cracking our knuckles, we'll Prepared! I'll tell you what I'm not by.Hisvoiceisindistinct, butwesee just have to set up camp by the lake prepared for. I'm not prepared to him gesturing around the bouse. It of flre. give up on all my investments and becomes clear that he wants to buy sell everything just to pay off our it. Tbe two men sit at the dining Cora: (Neroous) Now Forrest, I debts. I'm not prepared to go off room table and draw up a con­ didn't say ... with you on this . . . this goose­ tract. Forrest signs, and the neigh­ chase-going off to wait for the bor leaves. Forrest raises his glass in Forrest: No, and you didn't have end of the world, for . . . for the a silent salute. to. There's an awfully self-right­ Lord to come down out of the sky eous tone to all those meetings, like some magician's sideshow. I'm Much later. Tbe sun has risen, and and don't think it doesn't show. a grown man, Cora. Now leave me we see Cora returning slowly, stum­ Well, go ahead. Go with your be. blingly. Reaching the house, she people and get ready for your long finds the door locked and knocks. journey. I'll stay here and do some­ Cora: (She looks at him for a long Forrest answers, obviously drunk) thing worldly-maybe try to figure moment, and begins to cry) I'll how to get us out of debt. If anyone never see you again, Forrest. Forrest: (Loud, his voice slurred) asks where my wife is, I'll tell them Who's there? Who's there? (Bawl­ she didn't really leave me-just (1be suddenness of her statement ing) Answer! took off for heaven. catches him offguard, and be turns away from her, shaking his bead) Cora: It's your wife, dear; please Cora: (With quiet dignity, but obvi­ open the door. ously hurl) I'm sorry, Forrest. Cora: (Crying harder) I'll never see you .... I can't ... I don't know if Forrest: (Decided, shaking his Forrest: (Not finished yet) And I can ... (Sobs choke her, and she head) Not mywife. Can't be. maybe while you're there, you can covers herface) point out to the Lord that, evil as Cora: (Urgent) But it is, Forrest. It's your husband may be, he does (He comes to her hesitantly, and me, Cora. Please let me in. have one virtue. touches her arm. She puts her arms around him. 1bey standfor a mo­ Forrest:Notmywife, no. Mywife's Cora: (Still burl, her mind else­ ment, then a knock sounds on the a Millerite. She's gone up. (He where) And what is that? door)

Forrest: (Sarcastic) Can't think of Cora: (Pulling away from him, it, eh? Well, it's a good thing I wiping her eyes.) That's Josephine. Cora: It's your wife, brought it up or the Lord might I ... I have to get my things. I have dear; please open have overloo~ed it, too. (Loudly) to go. (She rushes around the room, I'm against slavery, Cora, remem­ snatching up clothing, as though the door. ber? That was one of your causes I trying to escape the pain ofleaving. was all for. I even hid some slaves Another knock sounds, andfinally in our big oven. I saved lives! there is nothing more for her to do. She stops and takes one last look at Forrest: Not my Cora: (Quietly) You've done many Forrest) Good-by, Forrest. wonderful things, Forrest, and I'm wife, no. My wife's a sorry I made you angry. (Forrest is Forrest: (Quietly) Good-by, Cora. Millerite. She's gone quiet, almost abject, wondering if perhaps he has overreacted, but not (1be door swings open and shut up. up, with all the yet ready to apologize. Cora con­ and she is gone. tinues, halfto herselfl It's just that . other saints. Mostly . . that I so want for you to go with Time passes. We see Forrest pace the me. Ifl could only be sure that you room in agitation, finally going to men saints. They're were-prepared the pantry and rummaging for going to have a time something. He returns with a bottle, Forrest: (He is immediately angry and pours himself a drink. up there ...

0croBER 1994 25 SPEGmUM------points heavenward, then loses his Forrest: (Puzzled) Nothing else. trying to stir her up) Well, there's balance and sits down abruptly) Haven't had time for anything eise. always tomorrow. Up, with all the other saints. Mostly (She sighs) Yet. But I will, don't men saints. They're going to have worry. Tomorrow I'm going out Cora: (Forlorn) Yes, there's tomor­ a time up there, but nothing bad. and buy me a slave! row. Ohno, 'causeinheaventheydon't marry or nothing. They just desert Cora: (Horrified) Forrest! Forrest: (Gently, a little unsettled their lawful wedded husbands. by herdespondence) You said Miller Forrest: 's true, I am. And then I'm warned against being so sure. Cora: Forrest, please let me in. The going to fmd me a woman, one neighbors will hear. who won't be leaving me, off to Cora: I know, I know. But when meetings and praying and going to you want something so badly ... Forrest: Neighbors have all gone heaven all the time. Cora, what do (She slumps visibly) I feel s~ up, too. I, only I am left. I'm a you think I am, dead? I need you. stopped. Like I've forgotten how to sinner, Cora-a hopeless sinner. I need you. (He opens the door) live. What do we do now, Forrest? (Long pause) Cora? What do /do? Cora: (With despair, as the reality Cora: Yes? of situation begins to sink in) I Forrest: (Carefully) If you loved need you, too, Forrest. We need him enough to go to live with him Forrest: Cora, I'm drunk. each other. (She reaches out for forever, you ought to trust him just him. Forrest sways and passes out, a little bit now. (He glances at her Cora: (Resigned) I know, Forrest. falling away from her, stretched sideways, trying to gauge her reac­ out on the floor) Forrest? Forrest! tion. She nods. He continues) You Forrest: A whole bottle, Cora, I (He begins to snore) Adventists may just have to admit drank a whole bottle ofliquor, and that maybe you haven't quite read smoked three cigars, and played (Later. The lighting shifts, and the the Almighty's full meaning on this, cards all by myself, and-and ... sun slanting through the windows that's all. He knows everything, suggests that it is mid-afternoon. Cora-isn't that what you believe? Cora: (Listlessly) And what else, Forrest is still lying on the floor. How can one of us humans, or Forrest? Cora is curled up on the couch, even a group together, know what's sleeping, her coat over her. Forrest in his mind? He made us-it's not wakes up slowly, stands up, stag­ likely our brains are bigger than Cora: I feel so­ gers, clutches at his bead. Finally his. be notices Cora on the couch) stopped. Like I've Cora: (Resigned) You're right, of Forrest: (Puzzled) Cora? What's course. forgotten how to she doing in the parlor? (Goes to the live. What do we do grandfather clock and looks at the Forrest: (Long pause. Tben, very time. Starts to remember) Oh, God. cautiously, almost holding his now, Forrest? What Poor Cora! (Remembering the breath) There is one thing that mornin[j) What did I say to her? might make you happy. dol do? What did I do? Cora: (Not too optimistic) What? Cora:(Wakingup, blinking against Forrest: If you the light) Where ... where am I? Forrest: Well, you know how you Forrest? (He goes to her. She real­ wanted me to sell the house and loved him enough izes where she is. Despondently) pay off all the creditors? (Her eyes Oh. begin to widen and be rushes on) to go to live with him Well, look here. (He reaches into Forrest: He didn't come. his pocket and pulls out a roll of forever, you ought bills) to trust him just a Cora: No. Cora: (Gasps) Forrest, no! You little bit now. Forrest: (Teasing her just a bit, sold our house?

26 VoLl.ME 24, NuMBER 2 SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOIN7MENT

Forrest: (Newous,ftdgeting) Well, one no one will ever buy? Cora: (Softly, resigning herself to I didn't really figure the world the idea.) We're going to be in that would end, but I thought it might Forrest: (Firmly) Cora, if you lose boarding house for a long time, make you happy, anyway, and faith in the Lord, I can stand it, but aren't we? (He shrngs and tries a besides, we could pay off our debts you've got to have some faith in hopeful smile) Well, I guess I could and ... er, well, get started again. me. Do you think it was easy for me take in a little work- (Her opti­ to sell the house that we've both mism and energy are starting to Cora: (A btt dazed) When do we worked so hard for? But that 1s take over, and she begins to gather have to move our things? what you asked me to do. Now herself against the years ahead) I you've got to believe in me, just a can teach fine stitching, or maybe Forrest: (Newously) Well ... (Pan­ little at least. I know I'm taking a even French-put that fancy edu­ icky laugh) that's another good chance, but I want to see what I can cation I got to use. thing about it. We won't have to do, maybe as much as you wanted move anything. to go up to those pearly gates. I Forrest: (Beginning to glow) That's think the Lord understands that, it, Cora. That's all I need. Things Cora: (Stt/1 dazed) You sold our Cora, and I wish you'd at least try. will be different now, I know it. furniture, too? (He nods) Well. Say-I'm starved. Let's go buy a (Again) Well. (Starting to snap out Cora: (Softening) I believe in you, dinner at the Endicott Hotel. We're of it) But Forrest, where will we Forrest; it's those pedal showers and debt free. We'll celebrate. (Helooks live? electrified bathtubs that worry me. down at himself, sees hts rnmpled clothes) You just wait while I Forrest: A ... urn, well, a boarding Forrest: (Feroent) That's because change. I won't be a minute. (He house, I thought. (Plunging ahead) you're not an investor, like me. bounds up the stairs) Just listen, Cora, it's for the best. When I see a peddle shower, I Think of it. There'll be no more don't see just one. I see hundreds (The early winter sun 1s beginning creditors at the door, and in no time of them, all with happy people to set, filling the room with a soft, I'll start getting returns on my in­ inside, pedaling away. And I see orange light. Cora stands quietly, vestments. We'll have our own them thanking me for bringing them taking in the scene. Then she turns house again, and better than this, such a wonderful invention. It may to the soja and picks up her coat, before you know it. still sell. And this bathtub, it may go preparing to go out) very well. They say they've had Cora: (Almost bitter) I wish I could some dramatic successes in Eu­ Cora: (Softly, to herselj) Well, there's believe that. You're going to invest rope. They've just got to tinker with always tomorrow. (Even more qui­ in that bathtub, aren't you? That it a little more. etly) Always tomorrow.

OCTOBER 1994 27 1844 in Great American Literature

Millerites and apocalyptic expectation as a part of the canon of American culture.

by Gary Scharnhorst

OR OVER A CENTURY, THE MOST NOTORIOUS Miler legend2 and, as John P. McWilliams has millennia! movement in American his­ noted, a cultural historian can observe the F tory has inspired American authors to gestation of popular myths only by returning literary re-creations of the phenomenon. The to "the extant data of original disagreements. "3 adventist prophet William Miller, who pre­ Was Millerism, as it often has been portrayed, dicted that the world would end through the the unfortunate consequence of mental or literal return of Christ and the cataclysmic doctrinal aberration? Was Miller a megaloma­ inauguration of His Kingdom in 1843 or 1844, niac who commanded a woeful cult of mis­ and his followers, known simply as Millerites, guided zealots? Were their eschatological ex­ could scarcely have imagined the fascination pectations invariably derided or dismissed by they would exercise for so long after the responsible people? The more reliable an­ scheduled fulfillment of that prophecy. Rather swers to these questions may be found not in than populating the Kingdom with risen saints secondary texts such as Clara Sears' Days of as they had hoped, their lasting influence Delusion (1924) or Alice Felt Tyler's Freedom~ probably has been among those generations Ferment (1944), but in literary works consid­ of writers who have reinvented the story to ered as primary documents. serve their own literary purposes. These allu­ Moreover, the Millerite phenomenon his­ sions merit examination because the climate torically has been a touchstone for reflection of ignorance about the American millennia! by American authors upon a variety of themes, tradition 1 has been congenial to the growth of some of them, like political reform, only tangentially related to apocalypse. With the nation in the 1840s in the throes of economic Gary Scharnhorst is professor of English at the University of New Mexico. Tbis essay is reprinted with permission from the and political turmoil and with a national American Quarterly, Vol. 32, No.1, Spring 1980. literature in the faint blushes of its "coming of

28 VoLLME 24, NUMBER 2 ------SURVIVING mE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT age," Millerism provoked dissimilar responses attendance of a half-million. The appearance from similarly esteemed writers. In the late in March 1843 of the most brilliant comet of the nineteenth century, literary realists adopted century, was hailed by some Millerites as an Millerism as backdrop for historical fiction. omen from God, a Last Warning which cor­ More recently, with the threat of the End roborated their prophet's calculations. Although looming again, literary modernists who find the parousia did not occur by March 1844 as catharsis in absurdity have discovered that the expected, the movement continued to spread. Millerites with their ludicrous doctrine were Miller eventually issued a revised prophecy, prophetic in an unsuspected way. By tracing agreeing with some followers that the Day of the images of Millerism from contemporary Doom should occur the next "tenth day of the sources, through the rise of realism, and into seventh month," or October 22, 1844 on the this century, the literary historian may exam­ Roman calendar. As this day neared, lurid ine the artistic or political temperament of stories of mental collapses, murders, and sui­ such American authors as Hawthorne, Emerson, cides of hysterical Millerites, as well as rumors Whittier, Longfellow, Eggleston, and Coover. that some of them had sewn muslin ascension robes, were repeated from rival pulpits and in brief summary of salient facts about newspapers. Undoubtedly, many believers A Millerism may serve as a frame for this neglected business or farm, ignored debts, survey. 4 A self-educated farmer and converted and otherwise allowed their worldly obliga­ deist, William Miller began to lecture through­ tions to lapse in order to prepare for the out rural New York in 1831 that, according to imminent End. During the night of October 22, his calculations, Christ's Second Advent would many of them remained at home or gathered occur sometime in late 1843 or early 1844. in their usual meeting-places to pray, though Miller employed five methods of calculating one well-publicized band fled Philadelphia the date, each one equating symbolic days "as Lot did from Sodom" and awaited he mentioned in biblical text with literal years, Advent in tents until a fierce storm ended the each one indicating that the End would occur vigil. After the Lord failed to materialize on this during the 12 months preceding March 21, date, the movement lost most of its following, 1844, or the spring equinox that ended a year and its largest remnant eventually merged in the sacred Jewish calendar. He attracted no with another group to form the Seventh-day greater following than other revivalists of the Adventist Church. Miller died five years after "burnt-over district" until, in 1839, he recruited the Great Disappointment, and Himes lived in Joshua Himes, a Garrisonian abolitionist, to near-anonymity as an Episcopal priest in South promote his crusade. Dakota until his death in 1895. During the economic depression that gripped the nation in the wake of the Panic of 1837, merican authors who lived during the Millerism prospered under Himes' direction.5 A Millerite excitement played several varia­ Adventist papers entitled Tbe Midnight Cry tions on the theme in their literature, although and Signs ofthe Times were published in major four general types may be identified. First, cities; the movement spread from its New Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne England base north to Canada, south to Vir­ responded with apparent appreciation for the ginia, west to Missouri, and across the Atlantic imaginative thrust of the movement and claimed to England;6 and an estimated 120 Millerite romantic kinship with the prophet. Certainly, tent-meetings were held during the warm Poe was familiar with Miller's prophecy in months of 1842, 1843, and 1844 with estimated March 1843, for he referred to it in print that

0croBER 1994 29 SPECJmUM------month. 7 However, as Daniel Hoffman notes, as John Stuart Mill,lO In "Mellonta Tauta," a he probably was influenced by Miller's phrase which Poe elsewhere translated as millennia! expectations as early as 1839 when, "These things are in the future, "11 a pundit in "The Conversation ofEiros and Charmion," aboard a balloon in the year 2848--a literal he described a fiery holocaust which con­ millennium in the future-repeats the refer­ sumes the earth. 8 From the realm of Aidenn, ence to "one Miller, or Mill." An ironic revela­ Eiros recalls that as the End grew near "Man­ tion in the form of a gossipy letter, this tale kind grew paler" until "All human operations ends as Pundita's balloon collapses and she were suspended." Finally, there occurred "A descends, a comic Christ, into the sea.t2 combustion irresistible, all devouring, omni­ Similarly, Hawthorne was fascinated by prevalent, immediate;-the entire fulfillment, Miller's prophecies and recurrently referred in all their minute and terrible details, of the to him in tales written at the height of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations of enthusiasm. Theorizing that a writer of ro­ the prophecies of the Holy Book. "9 mances should eschew verisimilitude "to the Millerismseems to have sparked Poe's apoca­ probable and ordinary course of man's expe­ lyptic fantasies, and he profitably mined his rience" and aim instead to depict "the truth of vein in such later works as Eureka (1848) and the human heart," Hawthorne composed "Mellonta Tauta" (1849). In Eureka, he dis­ tales set in the neutral territory "where the cussed "the inevitable catastrophe" or "great Actual and the Imaginary may meet." In order End" which he prophesied "is at hand," and to work modern materials into his fiction, he substantiated his metaphysical musings with had to select what was neutral though not yet astronomical evidence about a comet much as distanced by history. William Miller was type­ the Millerites in 1843 had regarded a comet as cast for Hawthorn's repertory of "phan­ proof of the imminence of the End. Moreover, tasmagorical antics," most notably in "The he described "one Miller or Mill" as the most Hall of Fantasy" (February 1843), because, as clever logician of the nineteenth century, a visionary, he already moved in shadowy presumably alluding to William Miller as well circles between fact and invention.13 Nathaniel Hawthorne Hawthorne in this tale clearly did not treat Miller in a tone of amused condescension. Rather, the prophet's celebrated mystique and his skepticism about the efficacy of social reform entitled him to prominent station in the Hall. Hawthorne contemplated the implications of Miller's prophecy in several romances writ­ ten during ensuing months. In "The New Adam and Eve" (February 1843), he imagined "good Father Miller's interpretations of the prophecies to have proved true. The Day of Doom has burst upon the Globe, and swept away the whole race of men." Upon this frame, he constructed a jeremiad lamenting the vanities of civilization. The new Adam and Eve wander amid the ruins of the past and "pass unconscious judgment upon the works

30 VoHhlfE 24, NUMBER 2 ------SURVIVING WE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

and ways of the vanished race" (pp. 247, 262). on the Last Day, though almost certainly In "The Christmas Banquet" Oanuary 1844), apocryphal, illustrates his cheerful skepticism. published only weeks before the expiration of When asked by a fanatic "Sir, do you not know the year when, according to Miller's original that tonight the world is coming to an end?" calculations, the overripe earth was destined Emerson reportedly replied, "I am glad of it; to be plucked from the heavens. Hawthorne man will get along better without it."l9 Cer­ seemed to sympathize with a disconsolate tainly, he expressed no strong hostility toward prophet whose expectations were liable to the movement in his several allusions to it. disappointment. In "Earth's Holocaust" (May After reading an article in Signs of the Times 1844), written, according to F. 0. Matthiessen, early in 1843, for example, he recorded in his "when the activity of the Millerites had caused journal that he had learned "of an excellent him to ponder how reforming zeal might bring Millerite who gives out that he expects the to destruction all the age-old abuses and second advent of the Lord in 1843 but if there encumbrances of the world,"14 Hawthorne is any error in his computation,-he shall look envisioned a vain attempt by earth's inhabit­ for him until he comes. "20 A few months later, ants to destroy their "accumulation of worn­ he opined that "New England cannot be out trumpery ... by a general bonfire" like the painted without a portrait of Millerism with the final conflagration (pp. 381, 403). Though he new advent of hymns" and copied into his was not a Millerite apologist, in fme, Hawthorne journal the lyrics of a popular Millerite an­ like Poe was intrigued by the possibilities them. On the same page, he listed Millerism as Millerite doctrine opened to the writer of the first characteristic of "The Age."21 romance.15 Moreover, Emerson may have alluded to The Transcendentalists of the 1840s offered the movement in several of his compositions a second response to Millerism. Though op­ published in Essays: Second Series (1844). For posed to forms of dogma, the Transcendental­ example, his reference in "The Poet" to popu­ ists recognized their ancestry with the Miller­ lar religious imagery-"some stars, lilies, leop­ ites in the "come-outer" tradition. Both groups ards, a crescent, a lion, an eagle, or other denounced the sensuality of the physical world of appearances and preached a mystical faith in the dawning of the millennium. Thus when Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, and Christopher Cranch visited a Mil­ lerite meeting in 1840, they "found themselves at least superficially in agreement" with them.16 Whereas Millerites came out to await the literal thousand-year reign of Christ inaugurated through supernatural intercession, Transcen­ dentalists hoped for a spiritual millennium progressively inaugurated through the sym­ bolic agency of Nature.17 Thus Parker once declared that October 22, 1844 was "too long to wait" for the millennium. IS Ralph Waldo Emerson adopted an even more sanguine attitude toward Millerism. An anecdote about his encounter with a Millerite

0C1DBER 1994 31 SPEdRUM------

figure which came into credit God knows the "Miller mania" and protested "the prolon­ how, on an old rag of bunting, blowing in the gation of a popular delusion [which] cannot wind" probably describes murals depicting fail to be attended with evil consequences."24 the dream ofNebuchadnezzar and the apoca­ Although he admitted that he had no personal lyptic vision of John, which Millerite evange­ acquaintance with Miller himself, he noted lists used to illustrate their sermons.22 To be with regret that two of Miller's chief lieuten­ sure, in "Nominalist and Realist" Emerson ants, Himes and Charles Fitch, had defected regretted that a prophet with impunity may from abolitionist ranks. 25 A few weeks later, declare '"I thought I was right, but I was not"' another former abolitionist wrote Tbe Libera­ and demand "the same immeasurable credu­ tor to defend his decision to resign from a lity" from his followers, 23 much as Miller had temporary movement to enlist in Miller's eter­ in March 1844. Still, despite misgivings, he nal one, and his letter met with Garrison's curt appreciated Millerism as a come-outer enthu­ reply: "Our friend B. speaks of two kingdoms siasm akin to his own Transcendental faith. of Christ-one of peace and joy in the Holy The Quaker poet and abolitionist John Ghost, set up 1800 years ago, and another that Greenleaf Whittier remains to be set up, at shared a third contem­ the end of the world! porary perspective on Edgar Allan Poe and We do not think that Millerism with progres­ Nathaniel Hawthorne re­ any improvements can sive reformers in the be made upon the first millennia! or post­ sponded with apparent one."26 millennia! tradition, appreciation for the imagi­ Like all progressive including Adin Ballou, postmillennialists, Gar­ John Humphrey Noyes, native thrust of the Millerite rison scorned idle and William Lloyd Gar­ movement and claimed ro­ chiliastic speculation rison. Like the Tran­ and pressed for con­ scendentalists, these mantic kinship with the structive social reform. reformers anticipated prophet. This was the attitude eventual amelioration Whittier shared. Like of all earthly imperfections and a reign of Garrison, he could express his abolitionist saints in a this-worldly paradise. They also dream and postmillennial expectations, as in believed that the Second Advent was either a his poem "The New Year" (1839), as well as spiritual, ahistorical event or would occur only admonish the Millerites for the social quietism, after the millennium. As Hawthorne recog­ as in "The World's End" (1844). In this essay, nized, they were liable to charge pre­ Whittier acknowledged that Millerism was not millennialists like the Millerites, who believed a doctrinal aberration, but that a similar proph­ the earth was doomed, with shirking respon­ ecy had been uttered "in every age since the sibility to reform its institutions. Christian era" began. Still, he confessed that he Garrison deplored the adverse effect of could not sympathize with his Millerite friends Millerism on the effort to abolish slavery, and because "the effect of this belief in the speedy his statements on the subject warrant review destruction of the world and the personal for the light they shed on Whittier's thought. In coming of the Messiah, acting upon a class of early 1843, shortly before the commencement uncultivated, and in some cases, gross minds, of the millennia! year, he published a two-part is not always in keeping with the enlightened series in Tbe Liberator in which he excoriated Christian's ideal of the better day." By promot-

32 VoLUME 24, NUMBER 2 SURVIVING 7HE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT ing a narrow interpretation of Holy Writ, he treated adventism less polemically. In Millerism undermined efforts at social refor­ "Snow-Bound," he depicted "A not unfeared, mation.27 half-welcome guest" of his family that winter However reasonable this objection, these night during his boyhood whose "sweet voice reformers were so ready to discredit the fanati­ had notes more high/And shrill, for social cism that they often repeated sensational and battle-cry." As he later explained, this woman, unsubstantiated stories about its traumatic Harriet Livermore, eventually "embraced the effects. 28 Whittier once urged his readers to doctrine of the Second Advent" and withdrew execute their "simple and clearly defined from the battle for social reform. Because she duties of the present life" instead of prying "felt it her duty to proclaim the Lord's speedy "into the mysteries of the future" like one coming ... she crossed the Atlantic and spent unidentified couple in Maine who had been the greater part of a long life in traveling over "very unprofitably engaged in brooding over Europe and Asia." His poetic tribute to her the mysteries of the Apocalypse, and in specu­ concludes: lations upon the personal coming of Christ and temporal reign of the saints on earth." And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, Obsessed by the prospect of earth's imminent She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and fresh, dissolution, according to Whittier, the pitiful The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, pair "came to an agreement that the husband Whereof she dreams and prophesies! should first kill his wife and their four children, Where're her troubled path may be, and then put an end to his own existence. This The Lord's sweet pity with her go!32 was literally executed,-the miserable man striking off the heads of his wife and children Whittier also expressed without acrimony with his axe, and then cutting his throat. "29 his postmillennial view of adventism in "Our Unfortunately, public opinion about the Mil­ Master." "We bring no ghastly holocaust," the lerites was colored by this kind of hearsay. poet averred, because Christ reveals Himself Himes claimed in an open letter written after through those who continue His ministry of the Disappointment (printed in Tbe Liberator) reconciliation on earth. Epidemics of religious that "the reports so generally circulated by the enthusiasm like Millerism postponed rather 'press' and otherwise, as the 'fruits of than heralded the millennium. 33 Millerism'-ofinsanity, suicides, and the break­ The movement provoked more derisive ing up of families, with poverty, distress, &c. criticism from politically conservative writers, ... are, most of them, unfounded; and those especially James Fenimore Cooper, Henry which have any semblance of truth are greatly Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell distorted and exaggerated. "30 Unfortunately, Holmes. Unfortunately, within the past cen­ too, his protest was not often heeded, and tury their genteel disdain for the mass-mania­ these reports have usually been accepted at cal clamor of Millerism, the fourth type of face value even by modern historians. contemporary response, has been misrepre­ After condemning its alleged influence, sented as the attitude of most mid-nineteenth­ Whittier did not allude to Millerism again until century Americans. In retrospect, their com­ the enthusiasm had waned and slavery had plaints seem the most unkind cuts, for unlike been legally abolished. In about 1866, he Garrison and Whittier they had little motive to confided to Annie Fields that he "had been criticize and little exposure to the movement; deeply impressed lately" with Millerite doc­ consequently, their attacks consisted of little trine,31 and in two poems published that year more than rumor and innuendo.

0croBER 1994 33 SPECJmUM ______

The patrician Cooper, embittered by the tiful nor pictorially accurate, one obviously libel accorded him in the press for his oppo­ formed by rumor and prejudicial newspaper sition to the Anti-Renters of New York, re­ reports rather than personal observation. In­ garded Millerism as further evidence of the deed, the account of the evangelist's arrival in rabid mob mentality threatening the republic. the New England village contains the earliest Though at least one group of itinerant Miller­ allusion in American literature to the gowns ites held meetings in Cooperstown during the allegedly worn by Millerites on the Day of millennia! year,34 Cooper himself probably Doom. The infection carried by this evangelist did not attend them, for in correspondence he quickly spreads through the village. One disparaged the movement.35 Moreover, he evening, as the fanatics sing one of their intruded into his novel Wyandotte (1843), set "awful and ludicrous" hymns to gloom and in pre-Revolutionary New York, a preachment doom, an orphan, convinced by their theol­ upon the dangers of Millerism. He contrasted ogy of fear that she has been consigned to a his genteel protagonist, who "saw and felt the sinner's hell and that she labors hopelessly consequences of education, habits, manners, beyond the pale of deliverance; drowns her- opinions and senti- self in a river-an inci­ ments," with "the ordi­ dent Longfellow obvi­ nary demagogue, a Tbe Transcendentalists recog­ ously could not have wretch equally incapa­ witnessed (p. 102). ble of setting an ex­ nized their ancestry with the Holmes ridiculed Mil­ ample of any of the Millerites in the "come-outer" lerites in an early higher qualities in his tradition. When Theodore installment of Tbe Au­ own person or prac­ tocrat ofthe Breakfast­ tice, an of appreciating Parker, BronsonAlcott, George Table (1857-1858), it when exhibited by Ripley, and Christopher originally published in others." Lest his com­ the organ of Brahmin mentary be misunder­ Cranch visited a Millerite meet­ culture, the Atlantic stood, Cooper specified ing in 1840, they jound them­ Monthly. Referring to "Miller's interpretations the comet of 1843, the of the prophecies" as selves at least superficially in sardonic Autocrat ad­ one example ofthe dem­ agreement" with them. mits he would have felt agoguery he feared.36 more nervous "if I had Although his own modest postmillennialism is thought the world was ripe. But it is very green evident in his utopian novel The Crater(1847), yet, if I am not mistaken; and besides, there is he expressed in a letter written soon after its a great deal of coal to use up, which I cannot publication the same bias against Millerism bring myself to think was made for nothing. If that he shared with other conservative con­ certain things, which seem to me essential to temporaries. 37 a millennium, had come to pass, I should have With their assumption of Brahmin superior­ been frightened." He then declaims a satiric ity, Longfellow and Holmes mocked Millerism poem, entitled "Latter-Day Warnings," detail­ as a virulent strain of mass lunacy. Though ing in eight quatrains those conditions he Longfellow's publisher advertised Kavanagh would consider harbingers of the End. Only (1849) as "a beautiful picture of life in our own "When legislators keep the law/When banks times,"38 this story included a description of a dispense with bolts and locks," etc.-when all Millerite camp-meeting that was neither beau- this transpires let "Miller's saints blow up the

34 VoLlME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT globe;/But when you see that blessed day,/ Julia's shrewish mother, a misunderstanding Tben order your ascension robe. "39 and estrangement, and the evil machinations Significantly, antebellum authors who men­ of a mustachioed villain. Yet, as William tioned the ascension robes allegedly worn by Randel observes, the novel "has value not Millerites usually viewed the movement with because of its plot but because of the scenes patrician condescension: suffered limited, if and events that form the background of the any, personal exposure to it; and referred to plot. The climax of the love story coincides robes, which they considered symptoms of with the day which the Millerites had an­ madness, in works composed years after the nounced as the end of the world. "45 movement had lapsed into disarray. Most of Having adopted the method of a realistic the other contemporary figures surveyed here novelist and social historian, Eggleston por­ seemed sympathetic to the spirit of Millerism, trayed the Millerites as pious and sane citizens. though not its dogma, and Whittier even Elder Hankins, the evangelist who propagates acknowledged its orthodoxy. The picture that Miller's "new-fangled" faith in the community emerges is from this literature suggests, as of Sugar Grove, converts many residents whose Whitney R. Cross has concluded on other expectation of the End relieves "the fearful bases, that the Millerites "cannot be dismissed monotony of their lives" (p. 59). ... when the whole of American Protestantism In all, rather than depicting the Millerites as came so very close to the same beliefs. "40 a collection of crazies on the fanatical fringe of frontier society, Eggleston suggested that the A lthough the memoirs of Annie Fields41 movement enjoyed mass appeal. As he con­ l"l..and the letters of Thomas Wentworth cluded in his own voice: "The assured belief Higginson42 indicate that a dispersed remnant of the believers had a great effect on others. of Millerites continued into the 1860s to expect ... An eminent divine, at that time a pastor in Christ's imminent Second Advent, the genera­ Boston has told me that the leaven of Advent­ tion of authors who matured during the Age of ism permeated all religious bodies, and that he Realism regarded the enthusiasm exclusively himself could not avoid the fearful sense of as a historical event. Occasionally, as in John waiting for some catastrophe" (p. 251). This DeForest's Witching Times (1856) and Irene realistic appraisal of the movement earned the the Missionary (1879), these realists distilled praise of W. D. Howells, who like Eggleston details for their literature from recorded Miller­ had been a young boy living in the Ohio River ite history. 43 Typically, however, literary real­ valley during the millennia! year. Howells ists treated Millerism as historical backdrop for agreed in his review of the novel that during local color stories. "the great Millerite excitement . . . vast num­ This ostensibly objective view of the move­ bers of good people throughout the. country ment was adopted first by Edward Eggleston, believed that the end of the world was at hand, who believed that the novelist shared the and probably most men were touched with a obligation of the historian to "set down things vague fear that it might be so. "46 as he finds them"44 and who thus designed his In four climactic chapters, Eggleston novelTbeEnd ofthe World(1872) as a history chronicled the events of the Last Day and of Millerism in southern Indiana. Its melodra­ following morning. "Work was suspended matic plot deserves little comment, for it everywhere" (p. 256), he reported, and popu­ hardly differs from myriad sentimental stories lar terror seized upon crimson clouds and then popular: the love of Julia Anderson and shooting stars as signs of the End. Retiring to August Wehle triumphs over the opposition of "a large bald hill" to await their ascension,

OCTOBER 1994 35 SPECJmUM------these Millerites "wept and shouted with the the outburst of enthusiasm, explaining that excitement" (p. 257). Like the Philadelphia "every religious delusion has grown from sect that suffered poor weather on the night some fundamental error in the previous reli­ they expected the End, they finally were gious teaching of the people" (p. 58). He dispersed by a torrential rainstorm. A lightning even praised the descendants of the Miller­ bolt "produced a startling effect upon the ites, "the Adventists of to-day," as "a very over-strained nerves of the crowd. . . . And respectable denomination, a doing work then the hurricane struck them, and they half­ which deserves more recognition, from oth­ ran and were half-carried down the rear slope ers than it receives" (p. 57). However flawed of the hill" (pp. 275-276). Sobered by the dawn the factual basis of his history, Eggleston at of another day, "Some declared that the world least adopted the conventions of historical had ended and that this was the new earth," investigation and disregarded the jaundiced while others "still waited for the end," and still view of Millerism then popular. If his account others reacted by embracing "the blankest is not entirely accurate, neither is it deliber­ atheism and boldest immorality" (p. 278). ately malicious. Purporting to record social history, Eggleston Mary E. Wilkins, a New England local even attributed some of these details to other colorist, also used Millerism as historical sources. backdrop for her short story "A New England Yet how accurate is this picture of Millerism? Prophet" (1894). Although she claimed that Unfortunately, most of Eggleston's evidence she had based her story upon an actual seems to have been hearsay. Despite errors incident in her hometown of Randolph, Mas­ of method and fact, however, the work merits sachusetts,47 Wilkins probably modeled it modest praise for the realistic tone in which upon Eggleston's novel. Like Elder Hankins, it attempted to treat a movement that had Wilkins' prophet "expounded strange and become the butt of ridicule. He exonerated subtle mathematical calculations and erratic the Millerite leaders for irresponsibility for interpretations of history as applied to revela­ tion with a fervor which brought conviction to his audience."48 In both accounts, a promi­ nent Millerite suffers the scoffing of a skepti­ cal brother who saves him from ruin by assuming ownership of his farm before the scheduled Day of Doom and returning it after the day has passed. The climax of both stories, the marriage of a young Millerite woman and her unconverted lover, occurs while the band of believers await the End atop a hill. And Wilkins in her denouement described the "pallid shivering people" re­ turning to their homes the next morning (p. 611) much as had Eggleston in his novel. Unfortunately, Wilkins also compounded Eg­ gleston's historical inaccuracies. Whereas Eggleston had alluded only once to ascen­ sion robes, for example, Wilkins recurrently mentioned them. Jane Marsh Parker, a writer

36 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING mE GRFAT DISAPPOINTMENT of popular didactic stories and the daughter these literalists could calculate from biblical of a Millerite evangelist, was so provoked by clues the exact time of Christ's return. this distortion of the historical record that she publicly rebuked Wilkins for reinforcing The seven times began with Babylon, 677 years "many erroneous impressions of a movement before Christ, and these seven times were 2520 which, disastrous as it was, did much to years, and then like any simple sum in subtraction was 2520 - 677 = 1843. The getting of that 2520 clarify the theological atmosphere."49 years was easy enough: one had but to multiply Though Parker doubted the reliability of seven (representing times) by 12 (representing Wilkins' history, she certainly appreciated months) and the product by 30 (representing Millerism's potential as a subject for realistic days), and there it was. fiction. Nearly a decade earlier, she had at­ tempted to set straight the record of the oreover, Parker attributed Millerism's movement in an historical novel entitled Tbe Mpopularity to its orthodox extremism, Midnight Cry (1886).50 Judged only on aes­ rather than, as had Eggleston and Wilkens, the thetic grounds, it is a poor novel indeed, with titillation it offered bored and illiterate farmers stilted characters and a contrived plot; consid­ (pp. 96-101). Though she colored these para­ ered as a study of Millerism, however, it is graphs with her personal recollections, she remarkable, for it combines the virtues of accurately delineated in them important theo­ eyewitness reporting with the advantages of logical and historical characteristics of the historical retrospect, and although patently movement. autobiographical, it is probably the most com­ In the remainder of the novel, Parker fleshed plete and reliable history of Millerism written out this skeletal outline by illustrating the before Francis Nichol's definitive apology Tbe orthodoxy of Millerism and the normality of Midnight Cry(1944). Millerites. Although Parker admitted that the The value of Parker's novel as a historical End might seem "scientifically unthinkable source has been overlooked despite Parker's and theologically monstrous" to her modern methodical refutation of popular misconcep­ readers, she assured them that forty years tions about the "memorable fanaticism."51 In earlier sane Christians had not been so enlight­ an early chapter, she constructed a factual ened (p. 223). Though she acknowledged that frame for reminiscence by summarizing Mil­ adventism forestalled institutional reforms lerite doctrine, history, and exegetical method. (pp. 53, 134, 210), she also documented the During the summer of 1844, she reported, benevolent influence it exercised through about 50,000 Millerites fixed the day "when individual regeneration (pp. 223-224). the Lord should literally descend from heaven." As in the stories by Eggleston and Wilkins, Though this spiritual quickening often was the climax of Parker's novel occurs simulta­ jeered, "Thousands who scoffed at the teach­ neously with the climax of religious excite­ ings of Father Miller in public, trembled in ment, though her eyewitness report of the Last secret." Rather than apologizing for the delu­ Day contains none of their lurid details. Parker sion, Parker candidly admitted its errors, though had precluded suspense about the terror at­ she added that the Millerites, as biblical liter­ tending the End by paraphrasing in another alists, navigated the mainstream of fundamen­ early chapter a seminal exegetical work usu­ talism, not a backwash of apostasy. Once ally ignored by historians of the movement, establishing that 1843Jewish time "did not end Miller's "Dream of the Last Day." Like Michael until 1844 Roman time" and that ''Jewish Wigglesworth's "The Day of Doom" and Hal authority was paramount in such matters," Lindsay's Tbe Late Great Planet Earth, end-

0croBER 1994 37 SPECJmUM------points of a popular American tradition in the local history of Millerism, illustrate the which it may be placed, Miller's work de­ process by which the rumor embellished the scribed "a globe reeling to destruction, the gospel truth. stars hurled from the heavens, the children of men crying in vain unto the Judge, descend­ n the twentieth century, American authors ing, attended by a retinue of angels and I have adopted a peculiarly modern attitude archangels" (p. 141). The eventual climax of toward Millerism. Those in the realistic tradi­ the novel hardly compares with this vision. tion, including critical realists, have slighted Rather than describing ecstatic flocks perched the anachronistic subject. Upton Sinclair re­ on hills awaiting the new dispensation, Parker ferred only incidentally to it in his muckraking set her climactic chapter in a private home essay Tbe Profits of Religion (1918),53 and where her adolescent heroine passes a fever­ Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry (1927) and ish night (pp. 278-281). This incident and her Waldo Frank in The Bridegroom Cometh 0938) repeated references to ignored Miller though the disquieting effect they censured modern of chiliastic doctrine on A survey of Millerism in adventists. On the other young minds (pp. 101, American literature suggests hand literary modern­ 157, 179, 188) suggest ists, infatuated with the that, however sympa­ that during the nineteenth abstract ideas of time thetically she sketched century the enthusiasm was and the absurd, have the Millerites, her novel celebrated Miller as a cannot be construed as not dismissed merely as prophet of nonsense. an unqualified apology wholesale madness but was Much as Poe and for them. As one re­ Hawthorne had been viewer concluded she recognized by such authors fascinated with Miller­ painted "a graphic pic­ as Hawthorne and Emerson ism a century earlier as ture of the extensive as a subjectfor sensitive and a subject for romance, disorder caused" by literary modernists have Miller and his follow- serious contemplation. been enraptured with ers.52 it as an incredible topic Clearly Eggleston, Wilkins, and Parker were for ridiculous fictions. Subverting the tradi­ intrigued by Millerism as a subject for histori­ tional notion of a paradigmatic or time-or­ cal inquiry, and each limned the movement in dered fiction that arranges concords between a realistic fiction. Each attempted, unlike ear­ beginning, middle, and end, 54 these modern­ lier authors, to explain its appeal. The most ists manipulate time just as traditional writers accurate depiction was rendered by Parker, manipulate character and setting in plots with the least celebrated writer, though errors in linear continuity. For example, Djuna Barnes the stories by Eggleston and Wilkins may be illustrated "spatial form" in her avant-garde, attributed to the popular image of Millerism novel Nightwood(1936) with a vignette about that they assimilated rather than to the per­ a woman unrestrained by time, "the only sonal biases or literary shortcomings. As self­ woman of the last century who could go up a styled historians, Eggleston and Wilkins re­ hill with the Seventh Day Adventists and peated as fact the popular legend that the confound the seventh day-with a muscle in believers had donned robes for the ascension; her heart so passionate that she made the thus their stories, though purporting to record seventh day immediate."55 Modifying the mi-

38 VoLLME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT metic function of realistic fiction, moreover, carnival tents. Suddenly, a violent storm breaks these modernists invent absurd worlds-with­ and frenzied Brunists leap into "the air as out-end which resemble no real world so though trying to fly," strip, and roll in the much as that netherworld to which Miller and mud. 57 Random violence erupts in the confu­ his followers had expected to be translated. sion: a child is trampled, one woman dies in For example, an ageless Millerite in William an epileptic fit, another suffers a miscarriage, Gaddis' TbeRecognitions(1955) reads Miller's an old man is crushed when the bingo tent "Dream of the Last Day" with the dedicated collapses, and Miller is virtually crucified. fervor of a new convert. 56 Recovering from their Disappointment that These chief features of literary modernism, Christ temporarily had postponed his appear­ the manipulation of time and the realization of ance, the Brunists are institutionalized: their the ludicrous, are combined in Tbe Origin of hymns climb the top 40 charts; their leaders the Brnnists (1966), an exhaustive new-novel write popular inspirational books; Sister Clara adaptation of Millerite history. In this novel, Collins, a time-warped Ellen White, becomes Robert Coover cracked the seventh vial as their "Evangelical Leader and Organizer"; and though it were a fortune cookie and invented Giovanni Bruno, their crazy prophet, is sent to a technologically modern world into which a mental hospital. the Millerites, the obvious analogue to the macabre Brunists, have been transported. n light of some recondite parallels between Giovanni Bruno, the miraculous sole survivor I the Millerites and the Brunists, it is apparent of a coal mine cave-in, suffers brain damage that Coover researched Millerite history for from carbon monoxide poisoning. A spiritual­ this novel. For example, both founders are ist, a holy roller widow, and an amateur poor poets before they become prophets, and numerologist independently discover some both movements collaborate prophecy with esoteric meaning in his mumblings and dumb multiple computations and astronomical evi­ gestures and elevate him to prophetic office. dence and prosper under the direction of Slowly increasing their number, the group subordinates. Nevertheless, Coover deliber­ infers from Bruno's grunts that the End of the ately distorted the record by referring to World will occur on April 19, the last day ascension robes, hysterical suicides, and crazed under the sign of Aries. They fashion white behavior on the Mount of Redemption be­ tunics for their ascension. The editor of the cause, as he observed, "It is easier for me to local newspaper, a protagonist playfully named express the ironies of our condition by the Justin Miller, infiltrates the cult, publishes his manipulation of Platonic forms than by imita­ own "midnight cry," a special pictorial expose tion of the Aristotelian. "58 Instead of writing a headlined BRUNISTS PROPHESY END OF historical novel or even a parody of a historical WORLD!, and plans a Millennium's Eve TV novel about Millerism, he assaulted the very documentary. notion of historical veracity. More simply, he Meanwhile, the Brunists attract international voided the teleological bowels of history by attention. Miracles, suicides, and astrological creating a novel world in which "facts" are verifications of the prophecy are reported irrelevant, if not incredible. His selection of around the world. On the Last Day, the robed oft-distorted "facts" about Millerism as ana­ Brunists lead a crowd of spectators and media logues to those irrelevant if not incredible crews to a slag hill, their bizarre Mount of "facts" recorded in his meta history of Brunism Redemption. There they sing and pray while is ironically propitious. vendors hawk popcorn and soft drinks amid This survey of redactions of Millerism in

OCTOBER 1994 39 SPECJmUM------

American literature suggests that during the the writers of romance mingled fact and nineteenth century the enthusiasm was not fantasy in their invention, the realists pur­ dismissed merely as wholesale madness but ported to record social history, which in each was recognized by such authors as Hawthorne case climaxed with the scheduled fulfillment and Emerson as a subject for sensitive and of prophecy on the Last Day. Like Poe in "The serious contemplation. Occasionally, it even Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," the was credited with reviving orthodox, though modernists wrote about Millerism from a point extreme, millennia! expectations within Ameri­ of view transcending logical progression, as if can Protestantism. Although progressive re­ a pointless apocalypse already had consumed formers like Garrison and Whittier justifiably the common-sense world and left an ironic inveighed against the movement because it one in its place. Indeed, the new dispensation bid fair to deplete the ranks of the Party of the expected by Miller corresponds to the nouveau Future, the allegation that the Millerites pre­ roman just as the End of the World corre­ pared robes for their ascension seems to have sponds to the predicted Death of the Novel. been an idle rumor spread largely by their This literature demonstrates that the specter of partisan and patrician critics until it obtained apocalyptic death haunts each generation, the force of truth. This study also silhouettes including our own. In apocalyptic times we all differences and similarities among the literary become characters dreading the conclusion of strategies of romance, realism, and modern­ an insufferable drama. No other prophecy of ism in the treatment of a single subject. Whereas our universal plight is quite so surefire.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Ira V. Brown, "Watchers for the Second Coming: pp. 191-212. The Millenarian Tradition in America," Mississippi Val­ 7. Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, James A. ley Historical Review 39 (1952), pp. 441-458. Fortu­ Harrison, ed. (New York: Crowell, 1902), Vol. 11, p. nately, such recent works as the following began to 174. reverse this trend: David E. Smith, "Millenarian Schol­ 8. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe(Garden City: Anchor, arship in America," American Quarlerly, 17 (1965), pp. 1973), p. 170. 535-549; Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The 9. Works ofPoe, Vol. 4, pp. 6, 8. Idea ofAmerica's Millennia! Role (Chicago: University 10. Ibid., Vol. 16, pp. 193, 303-305, 308. of Chicago Press, 1968); and James W. Davidson, The 11. Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 200. Logic ofMillennia!Tbought (New Haven: Yale Univer­ 12. Ibid., Vol. 6, pp. 197, 204, 215. sity Press, 1977). 13. Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel 2. Ira V. Brown, "The Millerites and the Boston Hawthorne (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, Press," New England Quarlerly, 16 (1943), pp. 296- 1974), Vol. 10, pp. 181-182. Subsequent references to 313. this volume are indicated parenthetically. 3. "Fictions of Merry Mount," American Quarlerly29 14. American Renaissance (New York: Oxford Uni­ (1977), p. 3. versity Press, 1941), p. 346. 4. Except where otherwise indicated, the factual data 15. Julian Hawthorne shared his father's fascination outlined in this paragraph have been gleaned from with Millerism. See his "The End of the World," Francis D. Nichol, TbeMidnightCry(Washington, D.C.: Book/overs, 2 (1903), pp. 509-513. Review and Herald Publ. Assn., 1944). 16. Paula Blanchard, Margaret Fuller (New York: 5. Walter R. Cross, The Burned-Over District (New Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence, 1978), p. 165. See also York: Harper, 1950), pp. 287-321. Leonora Cranch Scott, The Life and Letters of Christo­ 6. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots ofFundamentalism pher Pearse Cranch (Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1917), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 56-58; pp. 47-48. Louis Billington, "The Millerite Adventists in Great 17. See, e.g., Works of William Ellery Channing, 7th Britain, 1840-50," ]ournalofAmericanStudiesl (1967), ed. (Boston: Munroe, 1847), Vol. 6, pp. 409, 410.

40 VoLUWE 24, NuMBER 2 SURVIVING THE GREAT DISAPPOIN1MENT

18. Paul F. Boller, American Transcendentalism, 37. Letters and journals ofCooper, Vol. 6, p. 173. 1830-1860(New York: Putnam's, 1974), p. 133. 38. Kavanagh: A Tale, Jean Downey, ed. (New 19. Moncure Conway, Emerson at Home andAbroad Haven: College and University Press, 1965), p. 8. (Boston: Osgood, 1882), p. 232. Subsequent references are indicated parenthetically. 20. journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph 39. Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston: Waldo Emerson, ed. by William H. Gilman and ]. E. Houghton Mifflin, 1892), Vol. 1, pp. 24, 25. Parson (Cambridge: Belknap, 1970), Vol. 8, pp. 390, 40. Cross, p. 320. 417. See also LettersofRalph WaldoEmerson, Ralph L. 41. Fields, Authors and Friends, p. 303. Rusk, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 42. Letters and journals of Tbomas Wentworth Vol. 3, p. 221, 246. Higginson 1846-1906, Mary Thacher Higginson, ed. 21. journals and Notebooks of Emerson, Ralph H. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), p. 51. Orth and Alfred R. Ferguson, eds. (Cambridge: Belknap, 43. Witching Times, Alfred Appel, Jr., ed. (New 1971), Vol. 9, p. 30. Haven: College and University Press, 1967), p. 210; 22. SelectedWritingsofRalph WaldoEmerson, Brooks Irene the Missionary (Boston: Robert Bros., 1879), pp. Atkinson, ed. (New York: Modem Library, 1950), pp. 313-321. 326-327. 44. Tbe End ofthe World: A Love Story (New York: 23. Ibid., p. 447. Orange Judd, 1872), p. 230. Subsequent references are 24. "The SecondAdvent. No. 1," Liberator(Feb. 10, indicated parenthetically. 1843), p. 23, col. 3-4; "The Second Advent. No. 2," 45. Edward Eggleston (New York: King's Crown Liberator(Feb. 17, 1843), p. 27, Col. 3-4. Press, 1946), p. 133. 25. George Fitzhugh, an apologist for slavery, ob­ 46. AtlanticMonthly30 (1872), pp. 746,747. Howells, served in Cannibals All! (1857) that some Garrisonians whose grandfather was attracted to the movement, had defected and "quietly put on their ascension robes reminisced more fully about Millerism in his memoir A to accompany Parson Miller in his upward flight" Boy's Town (1890). See Selected Writings of William (Cambridge: Belknap, 1960), p. 96. Dean Howells, Henry Steele Commager, ed. (New York: 26. "Anti-Slavery and the Second Advent," Liberator Random House, 1950), pp. 850, 851. (May 5, 1843), p. 70, col. 4; "The Second Advent," 47. Edward Foster, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (New Liberator(May 5, 1843), p. 71, col. 4. See also Letters of York: Hendricks House, 1956), p. 151. William Uoyd Garrison, Walter M. Merrill, ed. (Cam­ 48. Harper's Magazine 89 (1894), p. 6o3. A subse­ bridge: Belknap, 1973), Vol. 3, pp. 135, 150, 248, 523. quent reference is indicated parenthetically. 27. Writings of john Greenleaf Whittier (Boston: 49. "Did the Millerites Have Ascension Robes?" Houghton Miffiin, 1889), Vol. 5, p. 419-427. Entitled OUtlook (Oct. 13, 1894), p. 582. "Father Miller," this essay appeared in England in 50. See Parker's essays "A Little Millerite," Century33 Howitt'sjournal, 2 (1848), pp. 230-232. (1886), pp. 310-317; and "A Spiritual Cyclone: The 28. See, e.g., Garrison's "Further Effects of Millerism," Millerite Delusion," Magazine ofChristian Literature 4 Liberator(March 24, 1843), p. 47, col. 4. (1891), pp. 321-325. 29. Writings of Whittier, Vol. 7, pp. 391-395. 51. Tbe Midnight Cry (New York: Dodd, Mead, 30. "Second Advent-Mr. Himes's Statement," Lib­ 1886), p. 96. Subsequent references are indicated erator (Nov. 15, 1844), p. 184, col. 2-3. See also parenthetically. "Calumnies Refuted," Liberator(Nov. 8, 1844), p. 175, 52. Tbe Nation (June 24, 1886), p. 533. col. 3. 53. Tbe Profits of Religion (New York: Vanguard, 31. Fields, Authors and Friends (Boston: Houghton 1927), p. 15. Mifflin, 1897), p. 303. See also Letters ofjohn Greenleaf 54. Frank Kermode, Tbe Sense of an Ending (New Whittier, John B. Pickard, ed. (Cambridge: Belknap, York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 178. 1975), Vol. 3, pp. 128, 420. 55. Nightwood (New York: New Directions, 1961), 32. Complete Poetical Works of Whittier (Boston: pp. 52, 53. Houghton Mifflin, 1894), pp. 398, 404. 56. Tbe Recognitions (New York: Avon, 1974), pp. 33. Ibid., pp. 443, 444. 42, 63. 34. Cross, p. 304. 57. Tbe Origin ofthe Brnnists (New York: Putnam's, 35. Letters and journals ofjames Fenimore Cooper, 1966), p. 407. James Franklin Beard, ed. (Cambridge: Belknap, 1964), 58. First Person: Conversations on Writers and Writ­ Vol. 4, p. 381. ing, Frank Gada, ed. (Schenectady: Union College 36. Wyandotte(NewYork: Appleton, 1892), p. 117. Press, 1973), pp. 143, 144.

0croBER 1994 41 The Sanctuary­ God in Our Midst

God gave us a sanctuary so that he might dwell in our midst. The sanctuary opens a way between heaven and earth.

by Glen Greenwalt

STILL VIVIDLY REMEMBER GOING TO CHURCH IN disappointed hopes of previous generations my freshman year of college and listening as being real. All of their stories were just so I to a sermon in which a pastor, by adding many examples written for our day. Time had the 120 years of Noah's preaching and the always been short in my Adventist view. It three and one-half years of Elijah's message to began in 1844. Time really had lasted only a the year 1844, predicted that jesus would little more than a hundred years. I actually return in 1968. 1 I was profoundly impressed knew people who had listened to Ellen White by the preacher's sermon, as were many of my and many of the other early pioneers preach. classmates. The sermon was consistent with I knew, that is to say, people who spoke to everything I had ever heard in my Adventist people who lived at the beginning of time! instruction. The preacher's argument simply Today my generation is in its mid-forties followed the wonderful logic of numbers and and these sorts of arguments no longer work symbols that was indelibly imprinted upon my for us, let alone for our children. Last fall, in youthful mind. anticipation of this year's 150-year anniversary Then, in my junior year in college, I took of 1844, I took a few informal surveys to see courses in Daniel, Revelation, and Biblical if this generation of Adventists shared the Eschatology where, for the first time, I caught same vision as held by their grandparents' or a picture of how long God's people have been even parents' generation. I discovered that 78 waiting for the fulfillment of their salvation. percent of a Sabbath school class comprised of But I never really saw the suffering and mostly retirees, many of whom had been denominational employees, believed that the Glen Greenwalt, professor oftheology at Walla Walla College, date of 1844 was extremely important or very his alma mater, received his M.Div. from the SDA Theological important to their faith, but only 9 percent of Seminary, Andrews University, and his Ph .D. in theologyfrom Vanderbilt University. His dissertation title was, "Dialogue a class of college sophomore voted likewise. and Praxis: The Questfor an Historically Sensitive Theology. " Whereas 65 percent of the retirees' class

42 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING mE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT believed that the church was spending about one's past is to lose sight of the very reference the right amount of time on time prophesies, points that give direction to a journey. In the or the church should spend even more time on middle are the vast majority of Adventists­ these prophesies, 95 percent of their grand­ laypersons, administrators, and academics children marked on their survey the response alike-whose overriding concern is simply that the church should "stop trying to prove one of holding the fraying lines of the commu­ time prophesies altogether and move on to nity together. Unfortunately, a directional com­ bigger, more important issues." pass set only on holding the community The question, of course, is Where do we go together is a compass that has no bearing. Not from here? How does a community direct its only is the middle road often the wrong road, course when it has outlived its own best but as any tour leader knows, a style of understandings of itself? As Adventists we leadership based on "keeping the troops to­ never expected the world to last this long. One gether" works only so long as everyone is hundred fifty years of delay is not something heading in basically the same direction. to celebrate for Adventists who look for the In my own answer to the question of Where soon return of Christ. By far, the most impor­ do we go from here? I propose that we as tant question facing Adventists must recover Adventists today is, a more profound sense How does a commu­ Adventists never expected of our status as pilgrim nity plot a future course people. To begin with, when it has journeyed the world to last this long. we need to recognize beyond the borders of Tbe most important ques­ that we always begin a its own charts and journey from where we maps? tion facing Adventists to­ now stand. Then, we Little imagination is day is, How does a commu­ need to realize that required to see that, as none of us is the source a community, we who nity plot a future course of our own beginnings. are Adventists are be­ when it has journeyed be­ Everything is a preface, ginning to divide along a middle, and an end­ the natural lines of a yond the borders of its own ing of something else. group of travelers who charts and maps? On the pilgrimage that are no longer certain of is Adventism, land­ their direction. Some of us are wanting to go marks should be recognized as changing back to landmarks and wait there for Jesus to points of reference, rather than established return; but to follow that course is certainly to goals. We do not honor our tradition by simply forsake the Adventist call to present truth. At trying to mimic the experience of our ances­ the opposite end of the line are a growing tors. To forsake the past or to idolize it is number of Adventists, particularly the young, equally dangerous. To idolize the past is to who insist that we need to push ahead in the give up the journey along the way. On the spirit of the pioneers in our discovery of new other hand, to forget one's starting point is to truths and landmarks, even if that means become hopelessly lost on the journey. We giving up many of their doctrines. But cer­ honor our tradition best, and are most secure tainly this is no better proposal for setting our in determining our future, when we engage all course direction. People suffering from amnesia Adventists, even those long past, in a lively make poor travelers. To become forgetful of conversation regarding the challenges and

OCTOBER 1994 43 SPECffiUM------tasks that now stand in our path. "rockets flew like hailstones," but that he had My own starting point for appreciating 1844 not flinched. "I am satisfied that I can fight. I and the beginnings of Adventism, as well as know that I am no coward. "2 envisioning the future journey of the church, After the war, Miller was a popular Fourth of is Mervyn Maxwell's high school textbook, July speaker. But the war had changed Miller Moving Out! Breaking Tbrough With God's in ways beyond making a captain out of a New Church. Maxwell, by both the title of his book England landowner. As happens with many and his gift as a storyteller, reminds us of the who survive the horrors of war, Miller under­ power of our pioneers' stories and what they went a religious awakening in his life. I found can still mean in our pilgrimage today. in the Bible, Miller wrote later, "such a Savior as I needed. "3 While the church and the world remember Miller as a man obsessed with dates William Miller: A Personal, and time charts, Miller himself recognized his Historical Vision greatest discovery in life to be the discovery of a personal Savior alive in the world. "In Jesus," ny story of 1844 must begin with William Miller wrote, "I found a friend."4 A Miller and his prediction that Jesus would The importance of Miller's discovery is not return to earth "about the year 1843." William fully appreciated without knowing that before Miller was not a trained biblical scholar, but he the war Miller had been a Deist. Deists are was by all accounts a remarkable man, pos­ often dismissed as near-atheists who view sessing gifts of both intellectual rigor and great God as a master clock maker, a Being who charisma. In 1814, William Miller became made the world and then abandoned it to its Captain William Miller when 47 fellow Yan­ own devices. kees volunteered to join the battle against the While the clock-maker metaphor illustrates British at Lake Champlain under his com­ the mechanical notion of the universe held by mand. After the battle Miller boasted that the Deists, it fails to evoke the optimistic religious sentiment that the clock-maker illustration expresses. If the world is, in fact, the accom­ plishment of God's perfect, all-knowing will, then the world cannot really be different than it is, since divine foreknowledge accounts for all future events--even our prayers, which we were part of the world from the beginning! As a consequence, this world, with what­ ever evil it contains, is in fact the best of all possible worlds, since it is the world God intended. While God does not determine human choices, God did give reality to the particular set of choices that now comprises human history. Of all the possible starting points God might have chosen in creating the world, he chose the beginning that led to this particular world. My friend and colleague, John Brunt, has recently argued with great insight that Deism

44 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING lliE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT never really left Miller's bones when he viewed It is to acknowledge that time does not move the second coming of Christ.5 For Miller, the forward inextricably toward its final end, but spatial order of Deism was replaced by the that our choices are real and in some sense temporal order of prophecy. The giant gears determinative even for God. Human actions of prophetic inevitability had been set in make a difference in history. History, Miller motion, and they would move inextricably reminds us, moves to the heartbeat of a Friend. forward to the final countdown. That Miller never moved fully beyond Deism does not negate the importance for Adventists ofMiller's Charles Fitch: A Dark, discovery of the personal Savior he needed. Nightly Vision The idea of a personal God of history is central to Adventist thinking, although we ne of the individuals who joined Miller in have not always recognized the implications 0 declaring a soon-coming Savior to the of our belief. A personal God is at the heart of world was Charles Fitch, a circuit-riding, Con­ Adventist Great Controversy theology. Love gregational pastor. Fitch stands out in the early and grace limited the power and rights that Adventist story not for what he taught, but for belong properly to God, so that God, in what happened to him. In the summer of 1844, creating the world, shared with it what was the Millerite movement was galvanized when rightfully his own. This is a dumbfounding Samuel Snow made his famous prediction that idea of immeasurable consequence. Only by just as Jesus died on Passover as the lamb of withdrawing into the divine self, and thereby sacrifice, so Jesus would return as the Lamb of creating space and time for creatures, could Atonement on the Jewish Day of Atonement, God have created independent beings fash­ which happened to fall on October 22-a date ioned in the divine likeness. This means that less than three months away. As a result of the predictions of prophecy, like the history Snow's announcement, thousands of new they predict, are open to change. converts poured into the Millerite movement. As Adventists, we have long taught that In many towns, saloons were closed. In oth­ God's sacrifice on the cross was full and ers, church bells tolled every hour, calling complete, but the work of saving human sinners to repentance. beings from their hurt and pain is not yet Not long before October 22, Fitch had three complete. This world is not yet totally under groups of people who came to him for bap­ Christ's dominion. The salvation of the world tism. The water was freezing cold up in New is still in progress. The final outcome of our England, and riding home, Fitch took ill and individual histories is not yet fully determined. died on October 14, just eight days before he While the denominational leaders rightfully expected Jesus to return. In Mervyn Maxwell's clarified in the 1960s the church's acceptance telling of the story, he imagines what it was of the full and complete nature of Jesus' like for the Fitch family during the wait. Since atoning work on the cross for our sins, Charles had been a circuit-riding preacher, he Adventists should rightfully lead the way in was often away for more than eight days at a reminding the world that the plan of salvation time. The wait would be hard, but in eight is not yet complete. The effects of sin are still days this father and husband would be back in all about us. Even on good days, children still the arms of his family! Mrs. Fitch and the die. children could wait that long. Finally the day Now, to acknowledge this ongoing struggle arrived, the day Dad was coming home. means that God is not the dock-maker God. Some years ago Jan Daffern published what

OCTOBER 1994 45 SPECJmUM------

I have long felt is one of the most insightful I was to be associated with the name of articles that has ever been written on the Adventists when I read in public news bulle­ meaning of the 1844 experience.6 In her ar­ tins that Adventists were almost singlehandedly ticle, Daffern suggested that perhaps we as distributing care parcels in Sarajevo during last Adventists, whose formative experience was year's siege, because they were the only shaped in the crucible of disappointment, are humanitarian group that was trusted by all a people uniquely qualified to minister to sides in conflict to be fair. And again, in recent hurting and disappointed people. This sug­ months, I have been proud to be an Adventist gestion has profoundly affected my under­ when I have read of the work ADRA is doing standing of what it means to be an Adventist. in Rwanda. As Adventists, caring for the dis­ As Adventists, our identity is often shaped by possessed and the sorrowing is not a sideline. what we know, rather than by our hopes or It is central to the mission of our story. faith. From the story of Charles Fitch and his family's disappointment, I am reminded of my Hiram Edson: A Prophetic, own great need and the need of the world Heavenly Vision around me for beacons of hope and courage that somehow yet shine, even when the lights fter a night so dark it has forever been of our answers have gone out. I am reminded A remembered as the night of the Great that at some points in life, the only helpful Disappointment, Hiram Edson was crossing a friend is the one who doesn't try to explain cornfield, returning home from the barn where pain, but who provides a hand and an arm to he and others had spent the night in prayer. carry a friend beyond the severest reaches of There, according to his own words, he "saw pain. distinctly, and clearly, that instead of our High In a suffering world, Adventist hospitals and Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the churches, and most recently ADRA, have been heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth ... , beacons of such hope. I can't say how happy that he for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary." Adventists have long speculated not only over the nature of Edson's experience, but also over its theological importance. In the painting I remember from childhood, Edson is standing in the middle of a cornfield, looking into heaven, where he sees Jesus in his priestly robes entering the heavenly courts on our behalf. While I have no way of knowing what Edson actually saw on that day, I believe that Edson's experience was truly visionary. For Edson saw what many prophets have seen in their hour of darkest trial-namely, a vision that Jesus had not abandoned them, but was even then working on their behalf in the courts of heaven. I will not take time to remind the reader of the history of the Adventist speculation re-

46 VoLUME 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING WE GREAT DISAPPOINIMENT garding the meaning of Edson's vision. Signifi­ doned, but that God, even in their hour of cantly, early Advent believers themselves of­ distress, is working on their behalf. fered a number of explanations of what Edson This is the central truth of the Christian faith. saw. It was only some 13 years after the Great It is the central truth of Adventist faith. At Disappointment that the view was established times, we Adventists, like believers in every that Jesus had gone into the most holy place, age, get so caught up in trifles that we over­ there to begin a work of investigating the look the truth staring us straight in the face. In books to see who would be saved and who our case we have gotten so caught up in our would be lost. Today this view, like other timetables and the pots and pans of the explanations before it, is losing its persuasive sanctuary that we have lost sight of the central appeal. As time continues, the explanatory truth: God gave us a sanctuary so that he might power of our interpretation wanes. dwell in our midst. The sanctuary opens a way Nevertheless, while some are ready to reject between heaven and earth. The sanctuary the whole experience of Adventism as little brings us to the very heart of God. more than a strategy to save face in light of our This is the story that still wins human beings mistaken predictions, I personally am in­ over to the side of God. This is the story that trigued by Edson's early vision. It seems to me Adventists have been called to give to the to lie not only at the heart of the Adventist world. faith, but also the faith of all Christians longing for Jesus' coming in an hour of great darkness. What strikes me about Edson's vision is that Ellen White: A Practical, it stands in continuity with the visions many of Down-to-Earth Vision the biblical writers received in their hour of trial and disappointment. Edson's vision is orne may wonder why I identify Hiram almost identical, for example, with that of SEdson with the prophetic, heavenly vision, Daniel 7, where Daniel sees one like a Son of and Ellen White with the practical, down-to­ Man standing before the Most High. The earth vision. After all, Adventists recognize verdict is clear. Judgment is given for the saints Ellen White, and not Hiram Edson, as the and against the beast. Likewise, Edson sees what Stephen saw in his last hour as he was about to be stoned-again a vision of one like the Son of Man standing before the throne of God (Acts 7). The list goes on. Paul recounts in the book of Ephesians seeing heaven open and the saints sitting with Jesus on heavenly thrones. The book of Hebrews testifies that the way into the heavenly sanctuary is made open for every saint. And in the grand vision of the Apocalypse of the Revelator, John in his banishment on the Isle of Patmos sees Jesus ministering for the saints in the heavenly sanctuary. In each case we find a similar pattern. In a time of great distress, God opens heaven to remind his people that they are not aban-

OCTOBER 1994 47 SPECffiUM------prophetic messenger to the remnant church. begun to explore. What strikes me in reading Tbe Great Contro­ I believe Ellen White takes us back to the versy account of the Adventist experience of original theology of the sanctuary that emerges 1844 is that, while Ellen White recounts the from the book of Leviticus. theological explanations used by the early In Leviticus 26, three principles are estab­ pioneers to explain 1844, her own emphasis lished regarding the sanctuary. The first is that lies elsewhere. For Ellen White, the primary the sanctuary was to be built so that God could evidence that God was in the Advent move­ dwell in the midst of his people (verse 11). ment of the mid-1800s was located in the Israel's security and prosperity were depen­ overwhelming spirit of Christian charity and dent upon God's presence. The second prin­ virtue that surrounded the movement. ciple was a warning: Not even God can dwell "The message, 'Behold, the Bridegroom forever in a polluted environment. The sins of cometh!' was not so much a matter of argu­ God's people, both religious and moral, would ment," Ellen White writes, "though the Scripture force God to abandon his sanctuary and leave proof was clear and it desolate (verse 34).1t conclusive." Rather, was this principle in "There went with it an Edson's early vision seems to Leviticus that Daniel re­ impelling power that me to lie not only at the heart calls in Daniel 9 when moved the soul. "7 For he confesses the sins of Ellen White, the evi­ ofthe Adventistfaith, but also his people. Thirdly, in dence that confirmed thefaith ofall Christians long­ the end, God's warn­ the movement was of ings always end in God was the fact that ing for jesus' coming in an promise. If Israel sins, "It bore the character­ hourofgreatdarkness.Edson's and then repents of her istics that mark the sins, God will again work of God in every vision stands in continuity dwell in the midst of age ...."8 There was with the visions many biblical his people and restore persevering prayer and the fortunes of the sanc­ unreserved consecra­ writers received in their hour tuary and the land tion to God. of trial and disappointment. (Leviticus 26:40ff). What is most striking 1844, I believe, ful­ about Ellen White's account of the 1844 expe­ fills this paradigm. Adventism represents part rience is that she believed God was present in of a great revival of God's spirit that awak­ the experience of 1844, because God was ened the church in the mid-19th century. The doing in 1844 what he has been doing in every validity of the Adventist experience does not age, namely restoring people to himself. In arise from the fact that he acted in an isolated contrast to the way I learned the story, in manner in our church apart from what God which my experience as an Adventist was was doing elsewhere in the world. The valid­ detached from the experience of other believ­ ity of Adventism comes from his ambassa­ ers by the fact of 1844, Ellen White places 1844 dors in restoring a right relationship between in the context of the whole history of Chris­ God and all people. It is because the work tianity. She emphasizes the validity of the committed to Adventists is the same that has Adventist experience, precisely because of its been committed to God's people from the shared resemblance to God's work in every beginning of time that I have confidence in age! This is an idea we as Adventists have only the Adventist movement.

48 VoLC.ruE 24, NuMBER 2 ------SURVIVING mE GREAT DISAPPOIN7MENT

Of course, the sanctuary is not yet com­ from all eyes, for john saw in that land no pletely restored. The covenant God first made temple, because the Lord Almighty and the to Israel will not be complete until God, really, Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22). truly, honestly dwells in the midst of his This is the fullest Adventist vision-the people. On that day all tears will be wiped vision that must not die.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. I recently went out to a small church for a Apolqgyand.lA?jense(Boston:Joshua V. Himes, 1845), p. 24. weekend seminar on 1844 where I discovered a new 4. Ibid. wrinkle to this argument. A veJ:Y sincere brother of the 5.John Brunt, "The Disappointment and the Hope of church argued that if one added the 153 fish that the the Advent Yet to Come," to be published later in a disciples caught in their nets and the three and one­ collection of articles remembering 1844. half years of the Elijah message to 1844 one came up 6. Jan Daffern, "Singing in a Strange Land," Roy with the year 2000, when this brother predicted Jesus Branson, ed., Pilgrimage ofHope (Takoma Park, Md.: would come. · Association of Adventist Forums, 1986), pp. 89-97. 2. Quoted by Mervyn Maxwell in his book, Moving 7. Maxwell, p. 23. The original is located in the OUt: Breaking 1brough With God's Church (Mountain Adventist Source Collection, Heritage Room, James View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publ. Assn., 1973), p. 4. The White LibraJ:Y, Andrews University. original is in the Adventural Collection of the libraJ:Y at 8. Ellen G. White, 1be Great Controversy (Mountain Aurora College, Aurora, Ill. View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publ. Assn., 1911), p. 402. 3. Ibid., p. 18. The original is found in William Miller, 9. Ibid., p. 400.

OCTOBER 1994 49 NEWS UPDATES

General Conference Mounts Creative, Massive Responses To Rwanda

he General Conference re­ Adventist hospital there. These Tsponded both internally and debriefings with health profession­ externally to this year's crisis in als are expected to set a precedent Rwanda (see essay, p. 3). Inter­ for debriefings of Adventist per­ nally, the Adventist Chaplaincy sonnel involved in future crises. Ministries arranged for Adventist The debriefings in Virginia were missionaries escaping from Rwanda led by Jeffrey Mitchell, a psycholo­ to receive, for the first time, imme­ gist at the University of Maryland. diate professional support for post­ His International Critical Incident traumatic stress. Externally, the Ad­ Stress Foundation includes the ventist Development and Relief United Nations among its clients. Agency (ADRA) mounted one of During the first full day, 25 adults the largest relief efforts for Rwanda shared with one another and pro­ of any non-governmental organi­ fessional counselors their reactions zation. to the most troubling scenes they had observed. An equal number of youngsters, ages 6 to 16, had their Support for Post­ own simultaneous sessions. The second day, representatives of vari­ Traumatic Stress ous General Conference depart­ ments were invited in for a couple issionaries escaping from of hours to answer questions about M Rwanda were driven from insurance, finances, and future ca­ the airport (or within days of their reer plans. arrival) to three days of debrief­ The last evening of the debrief­ ing, April 26-39, at Camp Blue ing was a memorial service for Ridge, overlooking Virginia's those already dead or likely to be Shenendoah Valley. After the killed, whom the missionaries had three-day session, weekly confer­ left behind in Rwanda. On a table ence calls among the returned was a large, lighted "Christ candle." Adventists in Rwan­ missionaries and professional Those missionaries who wished to counselors continued for six took another candle, lit it from the da, in health care, weeks. In Gland, Switzerland, a Christ candle, and mentioned a smaller group of about a dozen person they were remembering. in the pages a}Min­ European missionaries and Afri­ One teenager, who had not felt istry magazine, and can denominational leaders had a able for two days to take part in the similar session with mental health sharing, said he was lighting his in network news. professionals connected with the candle for his closest friends-three

50 VouME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THEjoURNAL oF mE AssociATION oF ADVENTIST FoRuMs

Tutsis he had left behind and whom Goma, Zaire, a 30-person team ber of bodies in Lake Victoria to he thought were now dead. While headed by Barry Chapman, work­ have been 25,000-40,000. a recording of Rutter's choral Re­ ing with three other humanitarian As for its efforts in Goma, Zaire, quiem played "Out of the depths I agencies from mid-May to early the largest and most publicized cry to Thee," (Psalm 103), all the June, pulled body parts and 1,000 refugee center, ADRA reports that candles were put out, except for corpses from Lake Victoria, and in August its multinational medical the Christ candle. Then biblical buried them along a six-mile stretch team of more than 200 medical passages on the resurrection were of beach assigned to them by the personnel were treating 1,500 pa­ read by the missionaries, as they Ugandan government. The bodies tients daily. ADRA, responsible for relit their candles from the Christ had been dumped into the Kagera the health needs of 400,00 people, candle. The service ended with all River in Rwanda and carried by the operated at two sites: a field hospi­ lights coming on, and the playing current into Lake Victoria. Together, tal, opened by August 1 and treat­ of the "Hallelujah Chorus." The mis­ ADRA and three other agencies ing 1,200 people a day; and a clinic, sionaries requested that the candles recovered approximately 11,000 about 20 miles away, treating 300- not be extinguished as they infor­ bodies in Uganda. 350 people too weak from disease mally continued to share their ex­ Zaire and Tanzania had shore­ to make it to the hospital. By Au­ periences with one another. lines similarly clogged with de­ gust 12, ADRA had shipped 82 tons The memorial service was composing bodies. Early United of materials from the U.S., Uganda, planned by Dick Stenbakken, Nations estimates project the num- and Kenya. director of Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries. Formerly the National Service Office, the Chaplaincy Min­ AHS/West, Lorna Linda Create istries is now a liaison office among Adventist chaplains in all areas; Stenbakken, and his associate, Marty Second-Largest California System Feldbush, are working on proto­ cols for the Mission Institute at wo Adventist health systems­ health-care, and will try to cut costs Andrews to use for pre-crisis train­ T Lorna Linda University Medical by standardizing billing and ad­ ing of outgoing missionaries. Center and Adventist Health Sys­ ministrative procedures. tems/West have entered into a joint California Health Network in­ venture with three other non-Ad­ cludes Lorna Linda University Medi­ Relief for Refugees; ventist systems to form California cal Center and Adventist Health Development for Health Network, perhaps the sec­ Systems/West (the two Adventist ond-largest health-care system in systems bring to the joint venture Rwanda California. As reported in California's 3,6o9beds, 4,409medicalstaff, and major newspapers, the existing sys­ $1.6 billion in assets); California he President of the Africa-In­ tems are not merging, but patients Healthcare System of San Fran­ Tdian Ocean Division,].]. Nortey, who belong to one of the four cisco (2,580 beds, 3,600 medical reports that by the end of Septem­ health-care groups are able to use staff, and $932 million in assets); ber ADRA had five teams respond­ medical facilities of the others. Sutter Health, based in Sacramento ing to the Rwanda crisis. Two were California Health Network has a (2,559 beds, 3,000 physicians, and providing medical services in refu­ combined total of 1.2 million man­ $1 billion in assets); and Sharp gee camps in Goma and Bukavu, aged-care patients, 14,500 partici­ Healthcare of San Diego (1,949 Zaire. Two other medical teams pating doctors, and $4 billion in beds, 3,500 affiliated physicians, operating near the former Univer­ assets. It is competing for second and $630 million in assets). sity of Eastern Africa, and in the place with three other health-care This is by far the largest and southwestern part of Rwanda, systems, including Catholic Health closest affiliation ofAdventist health where French forces had briefly Care West. Kaiser Permanente re­ systems with other health-care pro­ established a protectorate. A fifth mains by far the largest health-care viders. Leaders of the Adventist team was working on rehabilita­ provider in California, with well systems involved emphasize that tion, beginning with trash collec­ over 4 million patients. the arrangement is not a merger, tion, in Kigali, the capital. The new network will negotiate but a joint venture, allowing Ad­ ADRA reports that even before contracts between insurance carri­ ventist hospitals to continue present the mass exodus of Rwandans to ers and companies to provide distinctive policies.

0croBER 1994 51 SPEGrnUM------~------

morning as it did in believing that Ministry Issue Withdrawn Saturday morning was the right time for worship. To my Episcopal From Circulation friends, the church was a commu­ nity built around a common wor­ ship commitment . .. Ofcourse, my he July 1994 issue of Ministry and employees once, but now be­ Adventist community believed that Tmagazine, after being pub­ long to the Episcopal Church. Why properworsbip was important, and lished, was withdrawn from circu­ did they make the switch? Appar­ the folk at St. Paul's believed that lation because of a single para­ ently they felt a need for a greater orthodoxdoctrine was essential. But graph. Tile 55,000 copies withdrawn experience ofthe awe and majesty the mainspring ofcommunity iden­ were more than three times the of God (a subjective experience), tity was different" (David and usual run, since the July Ministry and this they were not getting in LaVonne Neff, "Six Pilgrims Share was the special Preach issue dis­ their Adventist Church. David Neff 1beirStories, "in Robert E. Webber, tributed to non-Adventist ministers. writes: 'To myAdventist friends, the Evangelicals on the Canterbury At the time, the cost for reprinting church was a community ofpeople Trail: Why Evangelicals Are At­ the July issue with a different article built around a common doctrinal tracted to the Liturgical Church, was expected to be $20,000, though commitment. The essence of being WordBooks, Waco, Texas, 1985,p. the actual cost may prove to be less. Adventist did not lie half so much 154. Italics supplied by Barry Numbers of the July issue had in worshipping God on Saturday Oliver.) already been distributed through the General Conference headquar­ ters, when James A. Cress, the head Theological Community Mourns of the General Conference Ministe­ rial Association that publishes Ministry, ordered the issue with­ Heppenstall, Hasel drawn. Cress's action was subse­ quently ratified by the Administra­ Edward dean of the seminary; Fritz Guy, tive Committee, comprised of the who became associate dean of the highest officers of the General Con­ Heppenstall seminary and a president of La ference. To override the judgment Sierra University; and Beatrice of an editor and call back an issue dward Heppenstall, former Neall, a professor of theology at of such a prominent Adventist jour­ E chair of the department of the­ Union College. nal as Ministry is a highly unusual, ology at the Seventh-day Adventist At the memorial service for if not unprecedented action. Theological Seminary, died at his Heppenstall held August 27 at the The article, "Make a Joyful home in Redlands, California, Au­ Lorna Linda University church, Fritz Noise!" by Barry D. Oliver, a senior gust 22, 1994. He was 93 years old. Guy, now a professor of theology at lecturer in ministry and mission at Heppenstall introduced the La Sierra University, retold Heppen­ Avondale College in Australia, meaning and significance of right­ stall's life story. Born in Yorkshire, stresses the need for Adventists to eousness by faith to several gen­ England, Heppenstall completed a attend to worship. Following is the erations of Adventist pastors and two-year program at Stanborough paragraph that forced the reprint­ teachers, including the name most College, then his B.A. at Emmanuel ing of 55,000 copies of Ministry. prominently identified, recently, Missionary College in Berrien with the teaching, Desmond Ford. Springs, Michigan, in 1933. A year nfortunately, worshipers with Heppenstall also inspired more later he earned an M.A. in history U such subjective orientation young people to become Advent­ from the University of Michigan. usually find difficulty expressing ist teachers of theology than per­ After several years of youth min­ themselves freely in Adventist wor­ haps any other teacher of his time. istry, Heppenstall became pastor ship. Some have even found it nec­ They included, among many oth­ of the La Sierra College church in essary to leave the Seventh-day ers: Wilber Alexander, who later 1940 and joined the theology de­ Adventistcommunion. Take,forex­ chaired the department of church partment. A year later he was chair. ample, David and LaVonne Neff and ministry at the SDA Theologi­ For 15 years Heppenstall taught at 1bey grew up in Adventist homes, cal Seminary at Andrews Univer­ La Sierra, earning his doctorate were Adventist Church members sity; Tom Blincoe, who became a along the way from the University

52 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 ------THEjoURNAL oF THE AssociA770N oF ADVEN71ST FoRuMs of Southern California in 1951. In Gerhard Hasel 1beology, and at the time of his 1955 Heppenstall began his 10years death was working on two vol­ of influential teaching at the Sev­ umes, Amos and Hosea, for the New enth-day Adventist Theological erhard Franz Hasel died in an International Commentary on the Seminary, where his ideas about G auto accident in Colorado on Old Testament, being published by the biblical covenants and the rela­ August 11, 1994, at the age of 59. Eerdman's Press. tion of law and gospel quickly Hasel was the the first john Nevins Inside the Adventist commu­ stimulated study among students Andrews Professor of Old Testa­ nity, Hasel was, as Maxwell said in and criticism among church offi­ ment and Biblical Theology and his life sketch, "at times controver­ cials. In retirement in California, the director of the Ph.D and Th.D sial," and known as "one who Heppenstall published four books programs at the Seventh-day Ad­ commited robust energies and in six years, all revolving around ventist Theological Seminary at impressive intellect to the quest the saving work of Christ, includ­ Andrews University. Earlier, for for truth." Hasel was the most ing Salvation Unltmited: Perspec­ seven years (1981-1988), he served academically accomplished of tives in Righteousness by Faith as dean of the seminary, where he those voices within Adventism (1974). had taught for 27 years. focused on the dangerous inroads Guy, who was planning to ma­ At a several-hour memorial ser­ of the "historical-critical" analysis jor in science before encountering vice at the Berrien Springs Village of the Bible. Even after his years as Heppenstall in college, attempted SDA church, August 17, Mervyn dean, when he installed a financ­ at his memorial service to describe Maxwell, a former colleague on the ing mechanism that increased en­ his teacher's contribution to the life seminary faculty, recounted that rollment, Hasel's chairmanship of of Adventism. "Without much fan­ Hasel had been born in Vienna, the doctoral committee of the SDA fare or any great crisis, Edward Austria, into an Adventist minister's Theological Seminary, and his de­ Heppenstall decisely and perma­ family. Throughout World War II, velopment of scholarship funds nently transformed Adventist theo­ the father remained a non-combat­ for doctoral candidates, placed him logical scholarship. Before him, ant, and Gerhard, in defiance of the in a key position to influence Ad­ Adventists studied and taught Bible Nazi authorities, was kept out of ventist theological teaching world­ doctrines. After him, and because school on Saturdays. Hasel received wide. of him, we studied and taught his B.A. from Atlantic Union Col­ Maxwell also referred to Hasel's theology. We learned to look at lege, his M.A. and B.D. from the crucial role in forming the Advent­ Adventist belief as a whole and in SDA Theological Seminary at ist Theological Society, committed depth, and we became aware of Andrews University and his Ph.D. to promoting "sound, conserva­ the thelogical world around us. in Biblical studies from Vanderbilt tive, biblical scholarship and inter­ "'Of course it is dangerous to University. After pastoring for a pretation." He served as its second think,' he said over and over in his year, he taught at Southern College president(1990-1992). The society's classes, 'but it is more dangerous for four years 0963-1967). members are required to reaffirm not to think.' ... He was neverthe­ Hasel's son, Michael, a doctoral each year their commitment to not less willing to endure criticism from student in archeology at the Univer­ only the 27 fundamental beliefs of church officials who failed to see sity ofArizona, has compiled a list of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the evidence that was so clear to 14 books and 319 articles and book but other affirmations, including him. One of the minor ironies in reviews written by his father. Hasel's belief in the verbal inspiration of the recent history of Adventist academic writings were noticed the Bible. thought is the fact that many of outside of the Adventist commu­ At the memorial service, some those who claim to represent 'his­ nity. Warren Johns, of the Andrews ofHasel's former students publicly toric Adventism' are in fact reflect­ University Library, has identified 39 stressed his importance as a leader ing the once-denounced but now­ reviews in scholarly journals of four of the theological thinking within accepted views of Edward of Hasel's books, perhaps the best Adventism represented by the Ad­ Heppenstall." known of which is 1be Old Testa­ ventist Theological Society, and Guy ended his eulogy by saying ment: Basic Issues in the Current servednoticethathisministrywithin that the best way to sum up Edward Debate. Hasel wrote the article on Adventism would not die, but live Heppenstall's ministry was to say the Sabbath for the Anchor Bible on in them. Hasel is survived by his that "he showed us what it means to Dictionary, was recently appointed wife, Hilde, and three children: love and serve God with all our associate editor of 1be New Interna­ Michael, Marlena, and Melissa, all hearlS and with all our minds." tional Dictionary ofOld Testament married.

0croBER 1994 53 SPECTRUAf------

thology and Human Anatomy at Adventist Names in the News the school of medicine. After graduating from the Lorna he NBC television network in For 30 years, Adventist medical Linda University School of Medicine TSeptember named Donna education has been shaped by the in 1961, Bullstudiedforsevenyears Willis their medical correspondent, forceful vision and will of David B. at Yale University School of Medi­ reporting primarily on the morning Hinshaw, Sr., certainly the most cine, the National Institutes ofHealth, Today program. From May through important figure in Adventist medi­ and the Royal Postgraduate Medical September, Willis reported on the cine since John Harvey Kellogg (see School in London, England. During network eight times. Spectrnm, Vol. 22, No. 3). In the these years and since, Bull devised Willis attended Oakwood Col­ 1960s, Hinshaw presided over the new techniques and procedures now lege for more than three years, then moving of the denomination's medi­ used internationally in the field of received her B.A. and in 1977, her cal school from Los Angeles to Lorna hematology. He has served on the M.D. from Lorna Linda University. Linda and the building of a medical editorial boards of several journals, Harris took an internal medicine center complex that originally and since 1985 has been the editor­ residency at the Mayo Clinic. While housed more than 300 patients. in-chief of Blood Cells, the leading working at the Kettering Medical Now, the various entities of the scholarly journal in his field Center, she appeared regularly on a Lorna Linda University Medical Cen­ program it produced on a Dayton, ter include more than 1,500 beds. une 28, the Nigbtltne news pro­ Ohio, cable television station. Hinshaw, as president of the gram, on the ABC television net­ Willis moved to Baltimore as a Lorna Linda University Medical Jwork, focused on the subject of reporter on medical news for Center (and of the virtually identi­ confidentiality within self-help pro­ WMAR, channel 2, and soon was cal Adventist Health Systems/Lorna grams. The program asked, Should invited to join the staff of the Johns Linda), was a major figure in the prosecutors be able to bring into Hopkins School of Public Health, a creation, in May, ofCalifornia Health court confessions to criminal be­ post she retains. Network, a joint venture of the havior made in Alcoholics Anony­ During a typical segment on the Medical Center, Adventist Health mous sessions? No, said Adele Today program at the end of Sep­ Systems/West, and three other sys­ Waller, an attorney in a Chicago tember, Harris discussed with Katie tems, that may be the second larg­ law firm specializing in health care, Curie the subject of paramenopause. est system in California (seep. 51). a graduate of Andrews University, Among other points, Willis empha­ In August, the Medical Center and a lifelong Adventist. sized that the condition was wors­ board selected Hinshaw's succes­ Waller argued that the present ened by smoking. sor. J. David Morehead will be­ law should be changed. Self-help Each week, Willis also hosts "The come president of the Lorna Linda groups should be afforded the same Operation," on the cable Learning University Medical Center, begin­ privilege ofconfidentiality that peni­ Channel, and remains active in a ning January 1, 1995. Morehead tent-priest and physician-patient re­ program she developed, "Heart, received his M.D. degree from Lorna lationships now receive. After all, Body, and Spirit," which has brought Linda University in 1973. Morehead, the ultimate goal is is to prevent together Hopkins and the General an associate professor in the sec­ crime. Respecting the confidential­ Conference in a health-education tion of urology (department of sur­ ity of what is said in self-help program carried out in black gery) and in the department of sessions will make it more likely churches. pediatrics, has been senior vice that individuals will attend self­ president for children's services for help meetings and receive genuine vents on August 22 and 23 the Medical Center since 1992. help in getting off drugs and avoid­ Eestablished that Lorna Linda Morehead led in the planning, ing further criminal behaviour. University Medical Center and Lorna organization, and implementation Waller also noted that people Linda University School of Medi­ of the children's hospital, and com­ pay psychotherapists for drug cine will undergo a changing of the pleted the project several million therapy often based on an Alco­ guard. Whatever innovations they dollars under budget. holicAnonymous model. The com­ bring, the backgrounds of the new Also in August, Brian S. Bull munications in "AA for pay" are leaders suggest that Lorna Linda was elected dean of the school of protected. People who have no University will continue to com­ medicine and vice-president of its money go to AA and their commu­ pete for prominence in academic, clinical faculty. For 21 years, Bull nications are uprotected. Wealth high-technology medicine. has chaired the Department of Pa- and privilege go together.

54 VoLrnm 24, NuMBER 2 RESPONSES

God Is Like a Woman, But God Is Our Father

have been out of the Adventist phors and (more often) similes I academic loop for some time about the divine in Scripture, "Our now and have just recently begun Father" is not one of them. The to read Spectrnm again. Please Messiah did not instruct his follow­ permit me a diversion from my ers to address God thus so that they pastoral duties to offer a brief cri­ would compare God to their own tique of Iris Yob's article on femi­ fathers as they prayed. Rather, the nine language about God (Spec­ name signifies the Messiah's own trnm, Vol. 23, No. 3)-from the relation to God, which, according theological right. to the Gospel of St. John, the Mes­ Yob correctly notes that all hu­ siah enjoyed even before he was man speech about God is analogi­ born as a man. The orthodox doc­ cal-or, as she says, metaphorical. trine of the Trinity asserts that the We can only speak about some­ relation of the divine Father to the thing in terms of what we already divine Son precedes and is inde­ know. This is a truism in philoso­ pendent of any human relations phy and theology. But I cannot that might resemble it. By instruct­ agree with her (modernist) assump­ ing his disciples in use of this tion, implicit in her remarks, that divine name, Christ was announc­ all references to the divine in Scrip­ ing that they had become one with ture fall into that category. It fails to him and thus enjoyed the same take into account the doctrine of relation to the Almighty-that of revelation. The divine names in being his sons. The address of God particular are not represented in as "Our Father" is a privileged one Scripture as the products of man's that a believer makes in Christ. It is groping toward God but rather as not merely a term chosen from authoritative disclosures of the di­ among a slew of metaphors that vine about itself-words ofGod to human beings have used to refer to man. the divine in the history of religion. Readers react to Yob The "Our Father" given by the In stark contrast, any compari­ Messiah to his disciples is perhaps sons that the Bible makes between onfeminine images the only instance of a divine name the ways of God and a feminine revealed in the New Testament. It activity are strictly that--<:ompari­ of God, Burnham is the equivalent of the revelation sons. In every translation I have of the tetragrammaton (YHWH) to encountered, they are always put on Adventism and Moses at the burning bush. It is the in the form of a simile. Speaking for AIDSinAfrica, and revelation that Christ brings to those God, the prophet can say, "As one who believe in him. Hence, al­ one whom his mother comforteth, Christenson on race. though there are numerous meta- sowilll comfort you" (Isaiah66:13).

OcToBER 1994 55 SPECTRUM------

Or Moses will say oflsrael, "As an woman (or, for that matter, to the sexual partners was similar. eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth ways of a bird), we must tread Traditions in African cultures do over her young, spreadeth abroad carefully when invoking the deity: not automatically change with her wings, taketh them, beareth the divine names are not human church membership, in spite of them on her wings; so the LORD inventions; they are sacred revela­ what we teach. In fact, customs alone did lead him" (Deuteronomy tions and should be treated as such as the Levirate marriage still 32:11-12). Both Isaiah and Moses such. God is likea woman in much are followed in the Christian, in­ drew attention to divine nurturance, that he does-or, rather, she is like cludingAdventist, community. The but neither would have considered him, having been as much fash­ church, according to this recent addressing God as "Mother" any­ ioned in the divine image as a man. study, was not viewed as a source more than he would have addressed But God ts our Father. There is a of AIDS information. Dr. Burnham him as "Eagle." difference. made some very concrete and use­ Thus, even though we mortals ful suggestions regarding the po­ may feel ourselves quite justified in The Reverend Jeffrey Smith tential of youth organizations, Ad­ comparing a divine activity to ei­ All Saints Anglican Church ventist schools, and service ther the ways of man or the ways of Aiken, South Carolina organizations in educating Adven­ tists and non-Adventists alike in Africa. His comments about teach­ ers' reluctance to teach about sexu­ Burnham's "AIDS Hits Africa" ality and HIVI AIDS are equally applicable to Africa and schools in Earns Praise, Condemnation the United States. The North Ameri­ can Division Office of Education is currently publishing a series of caring for persons with AIDS or elementary science-health text­ in education of its members has books that include sex education been limited. and HIVI AIDS education. Good The high ratio of Seventh-day textbooks, however, do not ensure Adventist members in the coun­ that the subjects will be taught. tries of sub-Saharan Africa virtually Information alone is rarely enough guarantees that many Adventists to produce behavior change. Fami­ will be among those who contract lies must reinforce the teaching by AIDS. Our continued success in role-modeling and discussing ap­ evangelism undoubtedly will re­ propriate behaviors. sult in many baptisms of HIV­ Abstinence until marriage, then infected individuals. Dr. Burnham faithfulness on the part of both correctly points out that "sexual partners, is the goal of sex educa­ wish to applaud Gilbert Burnham practices among unmarried Ad­ tion and HIV-prevention educa­ I for writing-and Spectrum for ventist youth differ little from their tion. But studies done among Ad­ publishing-the article on the Sev­ non-Adventist and non-Christian ventist young people, both in the enth-day Adventist Church's re­ peers." His observations are con­ U.S. and in Africa, indicate that sponse to the AIDS epidemic in firmed in a study recently com­ approximately 20 percent of our Africa (Spectrum, Vol. 23, No.4). pleted by one of our doctoral stu­ youth do not follow that ideal. He has clearly identified the prob­ dents at Lorna Linda University Which brings us to the "C" word: lems: (1) the AIDS epidemic is School of Public Health. This study, What do we teach about condoms? devastating sub-Saharan Africa; conducted in the East African Dr. Burnham again correctly points (2) HIV is spread almost exclu­ Union, has been submitted for out that while they do not offer sively by heterosexual contact; publication; therefore, I can only absolute protection, they do re­ (3) sexual practices-such as early refer generally to its findings. Ad­ duce risks. Apparently the Advent­ onset of sexual activity, extensive ventists did not differ from other ist participants in our African study premarital sexual intercourse, Christians in their premarital and agreed, for they were among the multiplicity of partners-result in extramarital sexual behavior, but highest users of condoms in the high HIV infection rates; and ( 4) the rate was half that of traditional groups studied. the response of the church in African believers. The number of Seventh-day Adventists must

56 VoLCME 24, NuMBER 2 THE joURNAL oF mE A5:50CL4710N oF ADVEN11ST FoRuMs respond to the HIVI AIDS epidemic, sand and pretend "it doesn't hap­ "solutions" which are foreign to us. not only for self-protection but in pen to good people." The promotion of condoms, caring for others· as Christ would which he advocated when he was care. Not only in Africa and the Joyce W. Hopp, Dean here and is still advocating, is not United States, but in every country School of Allied Health Professions an"African traditional" way of deal­ this epidemic is sweeping. It is not Professor, School of Health ing with such problems. He has the time to bury our heads in the Lorna Linda University imposed his views of African sexu­ ality on the community he lived in and now he is trying to impose his views and approaches to solve the Are Adventist Beliefs problems, neither of which are African. I speak from experience. I was Culturally Determined? in a youth congress in Malawi that hanks for Mr. Burnham's ar­ world much easier, both overseas hundreds ofyoung people attended Tticle on AIDS in Africa and the and in this country. The rigidity of when a skit on AIDS prevention importance of a truly Christian re­ our health message has been a was presented by a group from sponse to this plague. It seems major disincentive to many other­ Malamulo, where Burnham was shocking that sexual practices among wise committed people, who may the medical director. The director unmarried Seventh-day Adventist even be turned off from Christianity of the AIDS skit worked directly young people were about the same by our stance. Another example is under Burnham. as those in the general population, our emphasis on tithing in societies Christian and non-Christian. One where materialism is as strong as it he presentation was culturally wonders about the U.S. Could this is in the Western world. And the Toffensive and unacceptable to be true in our country as well? Have absolutism with which we have the attendees because it was de­ we been hiding our light under a presented the seventh command­ void of the Christian principles of bushel on this issue, or is it simply ment is simply unrealistic in modem morality and was no different than an unrealistic, culturally determined America. Once we have articulated a the "party line" that would be given vestige of our roots in another age? reasonable and caring "fall-back by any non-Christian organization. It was heartening to read Mr. stance" on each of our peculiar be­ Condoms do have a place in some Burnham's suggestion of "fall-back liefs, the end will really come quickly. situations, but a limited role in stances" on issues where cultural AIDS prevention in Africa; but pro­ pressures are strong. 1his realism Earl M. ]. Aagard moting the use of condoms is a will make the job ofevangelizing the Angwin, California diversion from the central issue of sexual behavior. Promoting the use of condoms Burnham Should Apologize in Africa by donor countries and other groups may have some eco­ was surprised that a professor of does show the typical mentality of nomic advantages to them, but it is I Johns Hopkins would write an the "missionary" who had prob­ of limited use because, apart from article such as the one that ap­ lems fitting in today's Africa under the moral issue, there are problems peared in your journal. The article indigenous leadership with the at­ of acceptance, distribution, trans­ was "AIDS Hits Africa: Where Are titude of "I know best," which has port, availability, and, in many ar­ SDAs?" by Dr. Gilbert Burnham. been abundantly evidenced in his eas, cost. (Early in the condom This requires an apology from him article. distribution program, condoms to the two Seventh-day Adventist "Traditional African" culture, for were given free of charge and .church divisions in Africa and from his information and the informa­ distributed in schools to children in your journal for publishing an ar­ tion of your readers, prohibits pro­ the sixth and seventh grades. Now ticle full of racial overtones, and miscuity; it is punishable by death. there is a charge for the condoms. shows a colonial mentality of "we What Burnham does not know or While the charge may appear mini­ know what is good for you." fails to admit is that the Western mal for Burnham, it is significant For an African reader, it appears culture, which was brought to Af­ when mounting a church-wide or that Burnham does not intelligently rica by him and others like him, nationwide effort.) These concerns understand "African culture." He brought the permissiveness and are, of course, apart from the moral

0croBER 1994 57 SPECTRUM------and spiritual implications. Perhaps Hopkins! sprinkling of behavioral change. Burnham, who seems to have so Johns Hopkins and Gilbert While in Malawi, he promoted much concern and has the answer Burnham should apologize for this his program, including the promo­ to AIDS in Africa, should leave his article. tion of condoms, at will. He, how­ ivory tower at Johns Hopkins and ever, cited an unpublished study head up the AIDS prevention pro­ Baraka G. Muganda that concludes that there is little gram in the World Health Organi­ Youth Ministries Director difference found between Advent­ zation. It is a shame that a man with Eastern Africa Division ist churchgoers and non-Adventist such insights is buried at Johns Zimbabwe, Africa girls who do not attend church. How could one expect different results while advocating and pro­ moting the same program as the Africa: We Know What to Do general populace? Would this be the natural consequences of such a y attention was drawn to the around Malamulo as compared to program? M article "AIDS Hits Africa: other parts of Malawi. The citing of For those of us who know what Where Are SDAs?" by Dr. Gilbert unpublished research leaves a lot to we should be doing in our Adventist Burnham. My interest in the article be desired. schools and among our member­ was thwarted by the prejudices The author shows little under­ ship, we are confused by this kind with which the author, a Johns standing of what Adventists are of muddled thinking. This is exactly Hopkins University professor, dis­ doing in our educational as well as what he terms as "a bland inter­ cusses the issue of AIDS in Africa, health programs in Eastern Africa. denominational restatement" was which led me to wonder what his Instead he portrays prejudices and emphasizing-traditional Christian motives were. Having worked in generalizations. His citing of a state­ morality, which we as a church see Africa and also being a Seventh­ ment that "many African societies as the only answer to the problem of day Adventist, I am sure he has not do not proscribe sexual behavior AIDS the world over. just discovered that AIDS hit Af­ before marriage" leaves a lot to be rica. As a concerned Adventist and desired, especially as man in the hat Burnham did while here the medical director of Malamulo "Western world" has termed mea­ W in Africa, and other coun­ Hospital in Malawi for more than a sures against such behavior in Af­ tries do as far as the AIDS problem decade, who helped to build the rica as being too harsh. Burnham's is concerned, is a disservice to our physical plant, it would be inter­ suggestions are elementary and a efforts against AIDS. One would esting to find out whether he was "rehash" of what he stands for­ like to evaluate his accomplishments, able to reduce the spread of AIDS condoms--as the answer, with a outside of those alluded to above. Some of the questions one would pose in relation to the AIDS prob­ etters to the editor are always lem in his country are: 1). What has the $4 billion the welcome, and will be consid­ U.S. government spent on promot­ ing "safe sex" done to curb the ~-" ered for publication unless disease in the U.S.? otherwise specified. Direct all cor­ 2). Do Adventist schools have a lower incidence of HIVI AIDS than respondence to the editors, Spec­ non-Adventist schools? If the an­ swer is yes, is that due to condoms? trum, P. 0. Box 5330, Takoma 3). Why is homosexuality preva­ lent among Adventist schools in Park, Maryland 20913-5330 the U.S., and what does Dr. (U.S.A.). The editors reserve Burnham propose to do about that? the right to condense letters Hudson E. Kibuuka Education Director prior to publication. Eastern Africa Division Zimbabwe, Africa

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In their letters, Pastors Muganda Burnham Speaks the Truth. Listen! and Kibuuka very effectively illus­ trate the depth of defensiveness and denial which has made ad­ r. Gilbert Burnham, in his ar­ developed a home-care program dressing HIVIAIDS difficult for ticle "AIDS Hits Africa: Where for the entire country. A few medi­ D Adventists and other Christians vir­ are SDAs?" spoke from a deep love cal assistants rode bicycles from tually everywhere. The first step in for the Seventh-day Adventist village to village providing medi­ dealing with HIV I AIDS in the Church. I know Dr. Burnham. When cation, observing and supervising church is to get past the stage of I visited his program at Malamulo their care. This saved money, main­ denying the problem or blaming Hospital, Malawi, in 1989, I saw tained patient dignity, and pre­ others. If a parallel can be drawn what he had done and the vision he served family units. (2) He actively from national HIVI AIDS control brought to the problem of AIDS in promoted reforesting-planting programs, those countries that have Africa. well over 1 million trees. (3) Under confronted the crisis openly, such Because of the vision and lead­ his direction, villagers dug and as Uganda, whose vice-president is ership of Dr. Burnham, Malamulo developed nearly 200 wells in sur­ a Seventh-day Adventist physician, Hospital became the premier medi­ rounding villages. seem from early data to be more cal institution in Malawi. It was the During his tenure, he obtained effective in reducing the spread of center for quality medical care and grants from many agencies for HIVI AIDS than countries that are the training program for medical buildings, curricula, and training still in denial. assistants whose graduates had the facilities at Malamulo Hospital. In Promiscuity has been a taboo in highest qualifying scores in all of addition, he received multiple many if not most traditional socie­ Malawi. Malamulo and its gradu­ grants to study the effectiveness of ties. This and other traditional be­ ates provided more than 20 percent treatment and prevention programs havior patterns are now breaking of the medical care for Malawi. (At for "river blindness." down in Africa as they have else­ that time, there was no medical Dr. Gilbert Burnham made a where before. As societal values school in Malawi, and medical as­ tremendous contribution to Ad­ change, appeals to traditional stan­ sistant was the highest level of ventist medicine in tropical Africa. dards no longer have the force they medical training available in the With wisdom he speaks the truth; once did, requiring new approaches country.) in love he speaks the painful truth. to promoting Christian moral values. Malamulo Hospital, under Dr. Listen to him. Drama, which Pastor Muganda Burnham's leadership, developed refers to, is a traditional commu­ public health programs: (1) He hu­ Harvey A Elder, Professor nication method popular in many manized the care of Hansen's dis­ Lorna Linda University African cultures. This is one of ease Oeprosy) in Malawi. No longer Chief, Infectious Diseases many approaches that Adventists were those afflicted with Hansen's Jerry L. Pettis Memorial can use to get across important disease isolated in leprosariums; he VA Medical Center HIVI AIDS messages. Adventist youth have used drama very ef­ fectively to promote Christian re­ Burnham Responds sponses to the temptations, struggles, and perplexities youth erhaps a quarter of Adventists church's resources for fighting experience in rapidly changing P live in sub-Saharan Africa. Few AIDS, and its response so far. The societies. Making these too areas of the world can match the approaches I suggested which "preachy" can blunt the drama's growth of the church here. More could be used for control, and effectiveness in influencing deci­ than 10 million persons with HIV, labeled as "colonist" or "racist" by sions of youth for right moral or about 75 percent of the world's correspondents are, in fact, based values. infected population also live in the on successful African approaches The letters of Pastors Magunda same region. How do these two developed and implemented and Kibuuka also illustrate the dif­ phenomena interact? For Spectrnm largely by Africans. One of the ficulty in clear thinking about con­ readers I set out to objectively most comprehensive is SYFA (Safe­ doms common to many Christian consider demographic and cultural guarding Youth From AIDS), de­ groups. Finding it difficult to effec­ patterns contributing to infection, signed by an Ethiopian, Dr. Aklilu tively combat promiscuity or rejec­ the potential impact of AIDS, the Lemma, for UNICEF. tion of moral values, it can be

0CFOBER 1994 59 SPEGrnUM------

and following this up with support 1400 in the home. In any country, teach­ ers can, unfortunately, also have 1200 __ 1,172 negative influences, as illustrated 1,080 by a recent article in a national 1000 Uganda newspaper under the head­ line "LIRA HEADMASTER SUS­ 800 PENDED OVER ALLEGED AF­ FAIRS" (Tbe New Vtston, Kampala, Uganda (June 25, 1994], p. 4). 600 The Headmaster of the Amuca 400 Seventh-day Adventist School, Lira, Mr. _, has been sus­ 200 pended indefinitely for allegedly having love affairs with his school girls .... __ reportedly threat­ 0 ened to dismiss any girl who 1992 Baptisms Needed refused to have sex with him. This graph shows the numbers of baptisms required to compen­ . . . Several girls have allegedly sate for the effects of HIV/AIDS on members who are infected at given in to him because of fear the time of baptism. that they would be suspended from school. . . . easier to attack condoms as a proxy. than judging and fear-mongering, Unfortunately, energy may be and if we believe that Christ can Citing this recent example is not wasted in attacking condoms that bring about long-term (and often meant to indicate this problem is could be used to address the risky delayed) behavior change, then confmed to Africa, for it can occur in behavior that increases the spread perhaps we should be less strident North America as well as elsewhere, of JllV/AIDS. The promotion of over condoms. but it is to emphasize the potential condoms for irresponsible sexual Joyce Hopp stresses the impor­ of this behavior for HIV spread behavior is not consistent with tance of not only developing an among adolescents in school. Christian values. At the other end HIV I AIDS school curriculum but An important impact of HIVI of the scale, few would prohibit the also effectively implementing it, AIDS on the church in Africa, that use ofcondoms in a marriage where one spouse is infected and the Members Remining Alive other not. Many would also accept 1,00~~~~------. the use of condoms to protect one spouse where the other spouse is 0 percent HIV 800 engaged in risky sexual behavior. ~----; ____ · 10 percent HIV The difficult thinking begins when the focus shifts to the person 600 !IE~ who is engaged in risky behavior. ~~- - ~-- ~· 30 percent HIV Should persons likely to become 400 ~------1 infected with HIVI AIDS as a conse­ quence of willing choices be of­ 200 fered protection? From a public­ health standpoint the answer is clear. The health, economic, and 0 social consequences of AIDS are so '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 gigantic that any reasonably effec­ This graph shows the affect of HIV over 10 years on a hypothetical group of 1,000 persons baptized in 1992. The top line assumes no HIV infection tive measure should be actively present. The middle line shows what would happen if 10 percent were promoted. But, from a moral stand­ infected, a common figure for rural Africa. The bottom line shows the effect point, would this be condoning of a 30 percent infection rate, a figure common now in most of the cities of east, central, and southern Africa, and coming to cities of West Africa. Both irresponsible sexual behavior? If graphs assume a 0 percent apostasy, and no HIV infection after baptism. Christianity is about caring rather

60 VoLrnm 24, NuMBER 2 ------THE joURNAL oF mE AssociA110N oF ADVEN11ST FoRUMS of membership loss, needs addi­ operating subsidies from the world sounds like that of a thoroughly tional emphasis. If one considers church, under the title of "load­ white, middle-class, and contented the deaths of members who are sharing" (read load-shedding), this centrist who became angry-and I already infected with HIV at the can have serious consequences for mean really, really angry. But not, time of baptism, the impact is sub­ the Adventist Church in Mrica. of course, from centuries of sla­ stantial, as illustrated by the two very, continuing discrimination, un­ graphs. This continuing loss of Gilbert Burnham, Assoc. Professor employment, disrespect for your members will greatly increase the School of Medicine language, police beatings, intense marginal costs of each new bap­ School of Public Health envy and extreme want, a lack of tism. In an era of sharply reduced Johns Hopkins University opportunities because your coun­ try would rather jail you than edu­ cate you, and the disrespect and apathy upon the part of your rep­ Further Chastening of resentatives. 1bose angry people Christenson tells to turn the other A White Liberal cheek, pray, and go sit in front of the television. say does not represent mainstream liberalism. If it does, then I can no rof. Christenson, have you ever longer be a part of it. P said a bad word after acciden­ I have so many questions about tally mashing your thumb with a this article I am sorry that I can only hammer? I think you need to re­ touch on a few. It is, though, the evaluate your usage of that phrase, sort of article one could literally and maybe try to place yourself in pick apart sentence by sentence. another's shoes sometimes. It is My criticisms are directed at Prof. possible to have "sympathy and Christenson and do generally fol­ understanding" for the rioters with­ low the order of the essay: out condoning what they did. I have just finished reading Reo 1. Throughout the entire essay don't condone what they did, but I Christenson's article entitled "The you seem to limit yourself as to the I have no problem saying that if Chastening ofa White Liberal" (Spec­ color of poverty. Mter reading the my life experience was similar to trnm, Vol. 23, No. 5), and my emo­ essay the only conclusion to be that of some of the residents, I tions are thoroughly confused. I am made is that poverty is black and an might have been down there my­ simultaneously angry, humored, urban phenomenon. Did you know self that day. frustrated, disappointed, and sad­ that the latest census figures show 3. I couldn't believe this: "the dened. I am angry that space within that the poverty rate is higher in deepest roots of poverty ... were this journal should be provided for non-urban areas than urban areas? fiXed in family (italics my own) such pseudo-intellectualism. I am And we all know, don't we, that as environments. . . ." I and many humored because the ignorance and for absolute numbers there are more others would argue that what is blindness is so great that maybe, just poor whites than blacks? Poverty is really at bottom cannot be reduced maybe, the entire essay is a joke­ neither a black nor an urban prob­ to a simple generality like "family albeit a cruel one. I am frustrated lem. It is very much our problem. environment." Consider some al­ because once again we must read If you had been more sensitive to ternative forces combating the the words of a supposedly enlight­ the realities of poverty, this re­ progress of minorities: (a) An ened individual who is truly any­ sponse letter could have been even economy that is quickly metamor­ thing but. I am disappointed that the more interesting. Because you have phosing from one based upon .spectrum editors weren't more criti­ limited your criticisms to minori­ manufacturing to one based upon cal of the piece and didn't demand ties, I will primarily limit my criti­ service-and changing quicker than more revisions before publication. cism as a means to counteract your we can react; (b) an industrial policy And I am saddened because of the complete dismissal of the experi­ that encourages American corpo­ harm this piece will do by allowing ence of minority groups. rations to lower their manufactur­ all those people who feel similarly 2. In the third paragraph I won­ ing costs by moving their opera­ to Prof. Christenson to now call der just whose "common sense" tions offshore; (c) an economic themselves liberals. I hope this es- you are talking about. To me it policy that holds that unemploy-

OcToBER 1994 61 SPEGrnUM------ment can get too low. The ideal than you have provided. action (and quotas--"white males unemployment rate is about 5.5 4. The ideology behind busing only" ) for whites, it is only when percent We are pretty close to that was exactly as Professor Christ­ minorities are given the benefit of rate now (that is, the nationwide enson suggests: busing provided affirmative action policies that we rate), but the unemployment rate African-Americans an opportunity whites start complaining. I think among African Americans is twice to become white via osmosis. By maybe, just maybe, the smoke and that, and many times that for teens. merely being near whites they could mirrors of arguments against such The conclusion being, unemploy­ via osmosis embrace white values, polides are really covering up a ment ye shall always have with you. attitudes, and behaviors. And, of desire to sustain the status quo. It's called structural unemployment course, what a money-saving idea I assume that since you believe and we better get used to it We busing turned out to be. We, the "equal treatment without regard to have yet to figure out how we as a people, didn't have to sink any gender or ethnicity" is the only nation are going to psychologically new money into educational facili­ means to creating opportunity, then and physically deal with the fact that ties for black communities. The you must be against granting spe­ there will always be tens of millions conclusion Christenson leads me cial treatment to new mothers who of individuals out of work. to make about the failure of inte­ decide to take an extended leave to (d) What about the educational gration via busing is that segrega­ be with a newborn by giving them disadvantage African-Americans tion is preferable. The equation he back their jobs upon return? suffer from due to centuries of sets up is as follows: integration, 6. I am interested in your char­ slavery, discrimination, and lack of disciplinary problems, racial hos­ acterization of middle-class values educational opportunities? We edu­ tility, and white flight (as if racial that you say Headstart tries to in­ cated whites seem to think the hostility or disciplinary problems culcate in its students. "It's the only desire for education is somehow a never existed prior to integration). way to expose these children to an genetic urge. People, it is learned Maybe Christenson did not mean educational environment similar to desire. The public school system is to posit solely this equation, but that of most middle-class families­ the best thing this country ever from his brief discussion of busing, one in which parents use proper created. It provided an opportunity that is the only equation I found English and pronunciation, patiently for all children to learn how critical sensible. answer questions, read to children, education is. Education is not merely 5. I, along with many others, fmd give them educational games, and learning the three R's. Education is it extremely suspicious that after so on." Could you please supply also learning how important edu­ centuries of de facto affirmative me with the survey that presented cation is. Why don't we let all kids these findings. I would be inter­ learn that lesson? ested in reading it. I am especially (e) When it comes time to leave We educated whites anxious to read the author's defini­ college and get a job, boy is it nice tion of "proper English and pro­ to be able to rely on the school seem to think the nunciation." alumni network, or maybe call upon desirefor education I assume from the paragraph that Dad to help find you something; you would prefer non-native En­ nothing like that old-boy network. is a genetic urge. glish speakers be disallowed from With so few African-Americans in teaching at a Headstart school? Of­ positions of power making hiring People, it is learned ten times non-native speakers still decisions, if you are an African­ desire. Tbe public speak with a bit of an accent long American looking for work in white after they have moved here. Your corporate America, you better hope school system is the racist policy will surely disappoint you have an outstanding resume, all those Spanish-speaking children or fmd a sympathetic and egalitar­ best thing this coun­ here in southern California who will ian employer. (Thirty-one percent try ever created. It have fewer teachers who look simi­ of Americans hold negative atti­ lar to them to look up to because of tudes towards blacks.) Professor provided an oppor- your stringent English law. Christenson, certainly this nation 7. I was totally stunned that you needs to re-evaluate its attitude tunity for all chil­ should ignore discussion of all the toward family, but I think the plight dren to learn how structural constraints over which of the poor deserves a more com­ minorities have little or no control plex and nuanced consideration critical education is. and that impact their lives in such

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a disproportionate manner (see advice to each of them be to "be­ What a disappointing essay this number 3 above), but make way have responsibly. . . . and daily turned out to be. This essay could for this most inane criticism: the manifest the characteristics of hard have been an opportunity for Spec­ underclass need to buy "fewer soft work"? Disavow me, please, of my trum to really engage readers on drinks and junk foods" and eat impression that you think civil­ some truly basic ideas such as more "cooked rather than pack­ disobedience is not a middle-class equality, racism, difference, and aged cereals [and] more vegetables value, but rather something radi­ oppression. Instead, you have and less meat." Unbelievable! cals do, or African-Americans do, played right into the misconcep­ 8. I really appreciate the para­ or gays do, or communists do, or tions that many decent people have graph on apprenticeships vs. job­ anti-semitics do. without revealing the ignorance training. The problem being, of 11. So we shall teach children and interested assumptions that course, you make it sound as if that that "sex outside of marriage is an underlie those beliefs. In addition, is the only option that should be evil just as great as theft and per­ Spectrnmand Christenson have also given to members of the underclass. jury and wanton violence"? Could sullied the good name ofliberalism Are you so pessimistic, Prof. you supply your estimate of the jail by claiming to speak from that Christenson, about the dreams, as­ time adulterers should be sentenced position, yet all the while discount­ pirations, and goals of both inner­ to? If you are going to equate it ing the experiences of racial and city kids and good-hearted U.S. with wanton violence then, what ethnic, sexual, and economic citizens that you have given up on do you think, five to 10 with the minorities. Suffering as many mi­ the possibility of a college educa­ possibility of parole after three? nority social groups do from con­ tion being extended to all? 12. One thing I was really disap­ temporary marginalization, power­ 9. I am glad I read further into pointed you didn't cover was per­ lessness, violence, exploitation, and the essay because I found one sonal responsibility. Throughout cultural imperialism, coupled with thing we could agree upon. I the essay you criticized govern­ a legacy of discrimination that is commend you for warning about ment programs for doing less than much worse, I guess I would have "the erosion of moral values" in expected or planned. I was hoping hoped for a much more insightful this nation. The decline really that, at last, maybe, someone was social and cultural critique that bothers me, too. I am truly fright­ going to make a call for personal might have gone a long way to­ ened about where this nation is and individual involvement in fight­ ward disabusing readers of some headed. It really bothers me that: ing social problems. It just seemed of the reasons they support and the respect citizens give to our a logical move. I actually was wait­ sustain the status quo. Constitution has waned to the ing for it at the very end of the point that we refuse to protect the essay, but it never came. Dean A. Harris civil rights of gays and lesbians; our sensitivity as fellow human beings to individual desires, am­ Christenson Responds bitions, and dreams has waned so much that this nation is having to hile a fully adequate re­ with a feasible solution for bring­ weather a backlash that is strug­ W sponse would take up more ing those jobs back. Exhortations gling to return women back to the space than I think Spectrnm wants won't work, since entrepreneurs home ('where they belong'); gov­ to print, here are a few counter­ find the inner-city environment an ernment programs, PAC's, and not­ comments. unattractive location compared to for-profit groups are doing the I concentrated on inner-city pov­ green and spacious suburbs, with charity work to aid the needy that erty because my article was written lower taxes, lower insurance rates, we as individuals should be do­ shortly after the Los Angeles riots, less crime and a more-reliable la­ ing-what happened to our sense and those riots involved minorities, bor supply. Business men and of service? espedally African-Americans (who, women aren't in business for social 10. By the end of the essay I am alas, often vandalized the shops of uplift purposes. still not sure what your response Koreans, another minority. That Spend more money on predomi­ would be to such civil (if you will) should be viewed with tolerance nantly black schools? A hundred disobedients as Martin Luther King, and understanding?). studies have found almost no cor­ Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and maybe Inner cities have indeed been relation between the amount of per evenJefferson, Madison, and Wash­ depleted of manufacturing and pupil spending and educational ington. Would your pre-revolution other jobs but no one had come up achievement. And because of af-

OcToBER 1994 63 SPECTRUM------fluent suburban school districts can vinced we send too many kids to children who get involved in crime, spend as much as they wish on college now. Almost 60 percent of drugs, poor educational performance, education, no practicable method American youth get some college and often lifelong poverty. Think of exists for equalizing school spend­ training, and I doubt if more than the parental distress all this brings, ing even if that were more helpful 15 percent are capable of doing too. Add these up and the reader can than it is. On inner-city kids' nega­ college work that is rigorous and see why I think fornication is an evil tive attitudes toward education, I demanding. Europeans agree. What far greater than modem society likes suggest the reader consult Time we do need, for blacks and whites to acknowledge. It is sad that even magazine, March 16, 1992. (A score alike, are more good apprentice­ churches are unwilling to give this of other writers have made the ship and vocational-training pro­ sin the attention it so richly deserves. same point.) grams. I didn't emphasize personal re­ If Mr. Harris wants to believe in Among blacks who currently sponsibility enough in meeting affirmative action, he has a lot of get a college degree, it's worth poverty problems? I plead guilty. company among people whose noting that black women earn more That should have been stressed judgment I often respect. But in than comparable white women In more. this area we'll just have to agree to general, there is probably as much In sum, it would have been ever disagree. Equal rights for all used reverse discrimination where black so easy (and politically correct) to to be considered a liberal stance; college grads are concerned as write a piece about the L.A riots now it is often seen as reactionary. there is negative discrimination. and inner-city distress by blaming Call it what you will, I'm for it. Many corporations are eager to it all on white racism. But despite Am I opposed to special em­ demonstrate how non-racist they its historical contribution to black ployee treatment for new mothers? are. Some blacks know this and troubles, white America cannot Oh, come on, now. almost all whites are aware of it. solve inner-city problems today. Has Mr. Harris noted that it is If Mr. Harris wants to champion Especially the plight of the lower­ blacks today who increasingly re­ special legislation to protect gays class black family. Looking back ject integration? Even where schools and lesbians, that is his privilege. I will get us nowhere; what can be are numerically integrated, blacks shall not join in, for reasons too done today is our real concern and tend to associate with one another lengthy to develop here. that was the thrust of my article. and even ostracize blacks who as­ As not a few African-American sociate with white students. ow would I view courageous leaders recognize, the primary bur­ Yes, Headstart should teach good H blacks who fought for equal den for dealing with these problems pronunciation and good grammar, rights in decades past? It's not an must fall on blacks themselves. White because African-American children academic question; I strongly cham­ America can and should help (as I and others who obtain this asset pioned them when they were fight­ specifically pointed out in my ar­ clearly have an economic and so­ ing the good fight. But they fought ticle) but blacks must do most of the cial edge over those who don't. for equality, not affirmative action. job. The "victim mentality" so preva­ Why doom minority children to a As for civil disobedience being lent in America today is not a pre­ lifelong handicap? Ideological blind­ unseemly for middle-class people, scription for progress. It's not what ers shouldn't obscure reality. during the Vietnam War I declined produced the growing black middle Low-income people often to pay a portion of my income tax class which, happily, respects tradi­ struggle with the grocery bill. The as a protest against the war. The tional American values and takes proposals I made were sensible IRS seized the unpaid portion from advantage of its opportunities. ones-and ones that my wife and I my bank account, which it had a I didn't pretend to write as a practice. Saving $25 to $30 a week right to do. spokesman for liberals; I expressod on grocery bills isn't peanuts, if Yes, fornication causes more suf­ the opinion one liberal arrived at your paycheck is slim. Especially if fering in America than theft and after three decades of studying the it improves your health. No apolo­ perjury and random violence com­ subject of poverty. For those who gies for making the point. bined. Fornication takes a terrible still think I must have written a We should strive for a college toll among African-Americans, es­ truly dreadful piece, I invite a re­ education for all? Most institutions pecially, because they have such reading of that piece. I'll take my of higher learning bend over back­ high rates of illegitimacy, single­ chances on your verdict. ward to attract black students and parent families, school dropouts fol­ keep them on campus. But after 38 lowing pregnancies, subsequent Reo M. Christenson years of college teaching, I'm con- entry onto welfare rolls plus their West Carrollton, Ohio

64 VoLZME 24, NuMBER 2 Spectrum Advisory Council

Victor F. M. Aagaard . Darrell and Patty Holtz Samuel C. Pang Delmar and Cheree Aitken Bill Hughes Thomas It P,ellow Edward C. Allred Eve Lou and Richard Hughes Maxine and Tlibmas Pittman Terry and Jan Anderson Wilfred and Margaret Huse Joan and Les Pitton I Len and Nancy Bailey John and Judy Jacobson Ernest and Cecilia Plata* I Geneva Beatty John and Maijorie Jacobson* Kaaren and Larry Powell Ted B.enedict Bemarr and Dorothy Johnson* Zane Price Kevin E Benfield Leonor Boulin Johnson E. Gary and R. Marina Raines I Charles Bensonhaver Elton and Marga Kerr Reuben Ramkissoon Gary and Lee Blount William and Dorane King** Alfredo and Martha Rasi* Michael and Shelley Boyson James D. Klein Robert Rausch* Bruce and Betty Branson** Wayne and Debra Knecht Gordon Rick* Floyd and Mary Brauer* Albert and Elizabeth Koppel* Larry and Janene Rick M. L. S. Brown* Edwin H. Krick E. Arthur Robertson Glenn and Judy Coe Doreen and Irvin Kuhn** James and Thais Sadoyama* Molleurus and Dos Couperus* Alvin and Verla Kwiram** Elmer and Darilee Sak:ala William and Judy Cowling Fred and Aura Lee Donald and Ursula Shasky* Paul and Rosemary K. Dibben Richard B. Lewis, Jr. Gordon and Lovina Short Merlyn and Rosemary Duerksen David and Diane Lim Donald and Susan Sickler Jay M. DuNesme Charles and Rae Lindsay* Hans Sjoren Elwin and Beth Dunn Bradley and Roberta Litthfield* Grover and Bonnie Starr James and Mary Dunn* Ewald Lonser* Walter and Lula Ann Stilson* Thomas and Bonnie Dwyer* Felix and Lucille Lorenz Chakarat Sukachevin Paul and Grace Eun Eino and Mary Magi Gerhard Svrcek-Seiler* DanielS. Ferguson Eric Magi Leonard and Carlene Taylor* Annette Frykman Robert and Marguerite Marsh Lorna Tobler Gerald and Joy Fuller Jim and Becky Matiko Robin Vandermolen** Linda Gilbert Temple G. Matthews, III John and Nancy Vogt* Sanford Graves Donald McAdams Donald E. Wahlen Lyndon D. Harder Mario and Virginia Mendoza Harry Wang* . , Robert and Sally Hasselbrack* Ken and Mary Moe* Rodney and Barbara Willard* I. Michael and Linda Hay Robert and Jacqueline Moncrieff* William A. Woods Dwight and Judy Hiscox Barton and I anet Moore U and Freda Zollinger Don and Gwen Oliver

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