Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Seventh-day-Adventist

  • No Apologies for Believing the Bible

    Mark Kellner (Adventist Review, Dec. 8, 2011) says he makes no apologies for believing the Bible. That’s great. Neither do I. (Jan M. Long responded to this at some greater length than I am on the Spectrum Magazine blog, to whom a tip of my hat.)

    I don’t usually pick on my former denomination (I grew up and was educated in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church), but in this case, Kellner seems to make a very common mistake. He fails to distinguish the way he understands the Bible to mean from what the Bible says.

    In this case, he’s particularly concerned with the creation story. Now I understand that this is a very controversial issue on which we can quite easily, and even reasonably disagree. (I note that I consider it much easier to disagree reasonably on the meaning of the biblical text than on the scientific evidence.) But here’s how Kellner phrases it:

    One of the more popular fallacies being floated these days is that the Creation account found in Genesis is an allegory, a “celebration,” much in the way the ancient Hebrews took seven days to mark the inauguration of a temple.

    Nonsense. Either the Creation account is true, or we can all sleep in next Saturday morning.

    But believing the creation story is something other than a historical narrative doesn’t make it less true. If that were the case, we would make many of the Psalms less true than the books of Samuel and Kings, for example, and the parable of the trees (Judges 9:8-15) would be a gross deception. Most of us would regard those other passages as quite true, but true in a different sense than a historical narrative.

    I regard Genesis 1:1-2:4a as liturgy. Liturgy is not less valuable than narrative history. It is valuable in a different way. It conveys different truths in a different way.

    Of course the line about sleeping in next Saturday morning applies particularly to SDAs, who worship on Saturday, and would, based on a number of scriptures, see this as a celebration of creation. On the other hand, an SDA who believed that Genesis 1 was liturgy could celebrate creation next Saturday with every bit as much validity as any other act of worship. I doubt that Jesus was born on December 25th, yet I won’t mind commemorating it on that date. The liturgy may not represent historical detail, but it commemorates a core element of my faith.

    So the Bible may be true or not, but the decision as to whether the Bible is true doesn’t guarantee the same result for my interpretation of it—or anyone else’s.

  • Alden Thompson: SDAs and the Charismatic Experience

    Ellen Gould White vor 1900
    Ellen G. White
    Image via Wikipedia

    Since I grew up as an SDA and later got involved in a somewhat charismatic stream within Methodism, I found this article by Alden Thompson pretty interesting. It’s not surprising, however, that the SDA movement, which arose in the mid 1800s, had some charismatic elements.

    The funny thing for me in reading this is that I did actually read the passages from Ellen White’s Testimonies when I was younger, and simply didn’t understand what some of those phrases meant, so I never made the connection.

    One thing that has puzzled and interested me since I left the Seventh-day Adventist church is the way in which Adventists tend toward the respectable side of religion even though they’re a bit out of the Christian mainstream. It seems as if SDAs prefer that in everything except their specific doctrinal distinctives they be seen as solid and respectable. Those who do not seek distinction from other Christian churches (and interesting split in the church in my view), tend to seek acceptance with conservative evangelicals, not mainline Christians who might be more willing to listen.

    (Note: I’m publisher of Dr. Alden Thompson’s book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, which will soon be released in a new edition. [Some slightly damaged copies are still available.] I’m also publisher of another book on the SDA experience, Finding My Way in Christianity: Recollections of a Journey by Dr. Herold Weiss.)

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Seventh-day Adventists and Women in Ministry

    Well, really only some Seventh-day Adventists, in particular, Pastor Doug Batchelor and the Amazing Facts ministry versus the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. As a former SDA, I still keep track of SDA doings, in this case through the Spectrum blog, and what interested me was the role reversal.

    We frequently see more liberal members of a denomination trying to bring women into ministry, while the church structure stands opposed. In this case, we have a conservative member arguing against women in ministry, and eliciting a response from the official church, in this case the conference. I believe the issue would be more controversial at the general church levels.

    The arguments, however, are based on much the same material as they are elsewhere.

    Here’s the video (warning: this is a more than 1 hour video):

    (I note that the Amazing Facts web site does not make it terribly clear that it’s an SDA ministry. I regard Seventh-day Adventists as fellow Christians who differ on some points of doctrine, but remain within orthodoxy as I understand it. I deplore a tendency to try to preach without identifying oneself. If you’re not part of a denomination, you don’t need to so identify. If you are, however, it seems dishonest to me to obscure the fact. As an example, the introduction to the video says this is coming from “Sacramento Central Church,” but if you research further, that is Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. I understand the prejudice that they are trying to avoid, but I nonetheless think it would be better to be open.)

    The response from the conference can be found here. You can find a summary on the Spectrum blog, but essentially they take issue with his presentation, his relationship to church authority, his biblical exegesis, and his logic.

    My reason for posting this here is simply to show how the controversies in some smaller denominations are very similar to the ones we face in some of our larger ones. Perhaps if shared agreements don’t lead to dialog, shared disagreements could.

  • Is Sunday my Sabbath?

    As an ex-Seventh-day Adventist I get this question frequently. This fine Sunday morning while I’m playing with my computer, let me answer both yes and no!

    There are several ways in which ex-SDAs deal with the Sabbath. The first is to accept the Sunday as the Sabbath in accordance with the letter of the commandment, with the day changed by authority of Jesus or the apostles. I find this change unsubstantiated. The second is to apply the Sabbath command in some other way, but nonetheless explicitly, such as to the command to “rest in Christ.” I take neither of these approaches, though I think the second of them has some merit.

    For me, Jesus presented the ideal that all commands were to be taken in spirit and from the heart rather than in terms of simply following the letter. In fact, the letter could get in the way of living right if one didn’t find a way to soften it from time to time. The difference would be between an employer giving one employee a list of work rules, while telling another employee to work as he pleased, but to make sure to get certain tasks done.

    Thus for me the fourth commandment simply provides a guideline. That was how sacred time was delineated for a specific time, place, and group of people. I do not live at that time, nor in that place, nor am I part of that group to whom the specific command was specifically addressed. (However you read this, don’t assume I think I’m better than that group of people. Just different.)

    So in answer to the immediate follow-up question: Do you discard the rest of the commandments? Yes and no, and in the same sense. The ten commandments were part of Jewish law. They express principles that would be part of any divine law, but they do not apply as letter to all of us.

    Sunday is time I set aside to spend with God, along with many other specific times during the week, but it’s not a fulfillment of the letter of the commandment. Rather, it’s the application of the principle of time set aside for God as I believe it applies to my life, my place, and my time.

  • On Being a True Believer

    I’ve been thinking of writing this ever since I read Joe Carter’s post Plagued by Certainty, but I haven’t really had the time. You see, while there are certainly many things regarding which I disagree with Joe Carter, I find a certain resonance with his claim of certainty in matters of faith.

    This certainty does not extend to the full list, nor has it remained unquestioned throughout my life. Rather, I would call myself a true believer not because I have always been convinced, nor because I have a growing belief, but rather because I have made the maximum effort to disbelieve, and come up a failure.

    (more…)

  • Theological Arguments Against Evolution: Sin and Death

    Yesterday I wrote about the senses in which the phrase “bad theology” is used in the creation-evolution debate and in particular on the question of ID. To call something “bad theology” generally requires either a challenge to the internal logic of the statement, or a reference to a particular faith community, because there is no single “good theology” against which theological statements can be tested.

    I’d like to follow up by looking at a theological argument against evolution, and how it relates to the some faith groups. While there has been considerable argument against intelligent design on theological grounds, the theological objections to evolution have been addressed less frequently.

    In fact, I am frequently told that a belief in evolution really doesn’t have any theological consequences. The Bible tells us that God created the world, science tells us how. The only folks who have a problem with this are a few who incomprehensibly treat the Bible as a science textbook. There are two problems with that. First, there are quite a considerable number of folks who believe that the Bible is true in a sufficiently literal sense that they expect to connect the factual dots of Genesis to scientific data. They are frequently addressed with the rather inadequate statement “You shouldn’t take the Bible so literally!” Second, an excessively literal reading of scripture is not the sole theological problem with the theory of evolution.

    Regarding the first point, the issue is a bit more complex than simply “not taking the Bible literally.” One has to ask just how one is to take it. I’m not going to address this in detail in this post (I talk about it a great deal more in my book When People Speak for God), but at a minimum one needs to specify how someone ought to take the Bible. For example, assuming Genesis 1 is not narrative history (one of the things loosely grouped as literal) what is it? I would suggest that it is liturgy, and that in turn suggests some things about how to understand it.

    But today I want to look at a theological argument in a different form. Instead of arguing that evolution must be incorrect because the Bible makes certain historical claims, one can argue that evolution must be incorrect based on certain theological claims. These theological claims may be derived from the Bible, but the important issue is that they seem to contradict certain things derived from evolution.

    Those who are not religious, or specifically not Christian will find this a strange form of argument, but it is valuable to see how certain people think about these issues in any case, and to realize that there are many for whom evolution poses substantial theological problems, quite apart from the interpretation of Genesis 1-11 as narrative history.

    Sin and death is such an issue, and in my experience, it is the key issue. The theological proposition involved states that physical death is the result of human sin, and that had human beings remained loyal to God, there would be no death. Now I’ve discussed this position from the point of view of theodicy in Theodicy: Taking a Stab at Natural Evil. Since some may have a hard time comprehending this argument, it states that evolution cannot be true simply because it involves creatures dying before there were human beings to have committed sin. As I discuss in the referenced post, this is a problem for old earth creationism as much as it is for evolution, and Dembski has proposed an alternate suggestion, that God created physical death as a sort of pre-emptive response to sin, which God’s foreknowledge told him would occur.

    But I’m dealing here solely with those who hold a chronological relationship. In this view human beings are created perfect in a world without death, they rebel against God, and death results. Obviously, for someone who holds that position, evolution cannot possibly be true. I grew up with that view as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church. It took me some time to step away from it, as it can get pretty much ingrained.

    I can now argue against the theology involved, pointing out that Genesis doesn’t actually say that, but in fact suggests that barring the way to the tree of life is a way to prevent human beings from becoming immortal. One can understand spiritual death in many other passages that relate to death. None of that really matters for my purposes here; this particular position demonstrates that there are theological consequences to belief in evolution, and the presence of physical death as a fundamental fact of the universe is one of those.

    Indeed, one key mental exercise I propose to such people is to propose a universe in which there is no death and yet there are things such as “fruit” to eat. How exactly does such a thing work? In particular, choice seems to be a fundamental of the universe and of the Bible, and what exactly is choice without a chance of failure?

    I heard this very recently presented in quite different terms, dealing with God’s care, grace, and gentleness. How could a God who teaches the law of love create by means of such violence? Then there are those promises of a future, peaceful world where “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah.” Isaiah 65:25 (ASV). Surely if it’s promised for the future world, it must also have been true of the past!

    Now I personally would compare this approach to a belief in verbal dictation of scripture, for example. People accept this position while ignoring the abundant evidence of different writers, backgrounds, perspectives and so forth throughout. Don’t come to a conclusion of how something ought to be, and then assume that it is that way. The physical evidence for evolution is extremely strong, and for an old earth it is overwhelming, either of which would require substantial modification of this particular doctrine.

    The key thing to remember, however, is that for someone who holds the specific form of this doctrine I cited, there is a serious theological impediment to accepting the theory of evolution, and this is based not necessarily on reading the Bible literally, although the sequence is. You can argue the evidence for evolution as much as you want, but they won’t be moved, because they have a key theological proposition that directly contradicts it.

    I have been interested to note as well that my own view of God is perceived as more distant, because I believe that God honors choice and allows the consequences to take place. In fact, I believe those who suggest I see God as more distant are quite correct. I believe God is distant enough to allow human responsibility to be meaningful.

    This separates me just a bit from the NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) approach, since I hold that the discoveries of science can have a substantial impact on one’s theology. They certainly have had such an impact on my own theology. In general, I believe NOMA to be the correct approach, and theology and science must clearly be separated to prevent theology from attempting to predetermine the results of scientific research. (I’m reminded of the notice at my graduate school offering grant money to those who would do research “to support a 6,000 year model of the earth’s history.) But physical reality should have an impact on theology.

  • The Joys and Sorrows of being ex-Seventh-day Adventist

    I don’t actually view myself as “ex” anything, even though we all are ex-something and headed onward to something else, I hope. But I don’t shun contact with members of the church in which I grew up, and thus I sometimes have to deal with the default identity of ex-Seventh-day Adventist.

    Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of SDAs who see me as a person apart from that one point of identity. There are even some non-SDAs–who were never SDAs–who define me as an ex-SDA. The connection between the church in which I grew up and my present identity cannot be severed in their view. What they would like me to do is cut all ties as clearly as possible and make myself anti-SDA. It’s the old “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” approach. And of course that approach isn’t bad if the question is good and evil, God or satan, constructive or destructive. But for brothers and sisters in Christ, I reject that approach.

    I can illustrate this through two experiences. The first came as I was coordinating a series of events with Dr. Alden Thompson, professor of Biblical Studies at Walla Walla University. One of these was at an SDA church. While I was in the back of the room selling copies of Alden’s book, a young man approached me and asked me about my own affiliations. When he found out I had been raised and educated SDA and yet was now a Methodist, he said, “I just can’t imagine how anyone could have issues with Seventh-day Adventists doctrine!” Well, I can.

    The reverse occurred when I gave a copy of my mother’s book Directed Paths to an evangelical non-SDA to read. She objected to the fact that I quoted Ellen White in the preface, even though the specific quote was certainly harmless. To her, my quoting Ellen White implied some kind of endorsement of every word she had said, and thus put my dedication to orthodox Christianity in question.

    But I simply don’t see it that way. I’m ex-SDA, and now United Methodist because I do not agree with certain specific SDA doctrines that would make it difficult for me to worship and do ministry as a member of an SDA church. There are similar doctrinal issues that would make it difficult for me to work and ministry through a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Southern Baptists, or the Assemblies of God. Yet I have no problem calling all of the above groups Christian brothers and sisters. In fact, rather than calling myself a Methodist, I like to call myself a Christian who is a member of a United Methodist congregation. You see, there are plenty of Methodists with whom I have similar doctrinal disagreements.

    I would prefer to ask just what strengths there are in the Seventh-day Adventist tradition, and to look at just how I can benefit from those strengths. In my own experience there are quite a number. I was steeped in the Bible as a young person. I took an extraordinarily varied set of courses in Biblical studies and Biblical languages from skilled instructors in Seventh-day Adventist schools. I got an excellent view of ethics and some holiness teaching. I don’t agree with everything I was taught, but I have to ask who does agree with everything they were taught in school? More importantly, who should agree with everything?

    If I am to criticize my SDA education I would say that I actually agreed with way too much of what I was taught, and was not challenged by enough “foreign” ideas. I didn’t spend enough time sufficiently early in my life learning to evaluate a variety of ideas.

    As a Methodist, I’m not going to make the same mistake. I have a particular heritage because of my background. That gives me the opportunity to bring the broad center of Christianity into contact with Seventh-day Adventists and vice-versa. I think this is a good thing. It does force me to fight the ex-SDA label from both sides, but that’s worth the price. That is not the only barrier I’m interested in crossing, but it is one that I am well-equipped to challenge.

    As Christians we are far too fearful of seeing our beliefs challenged, even by those within our own faith. As a Wesleyan-Arminian, I need to be challenged by Calvinists, and they by me. Those who tend toward antinomianism need to be challenged by the more positive view of law present in the Adventist tradition, and of course the reverse is true as well. If our doctrinal beliefs are so fragile that hearing a sermon or a teaching that challenges them frightens us and makes us want to go hide in our denominational caves, then those beliefs are too fragile, either ontologically or perhaps merely in our own minds. Fear is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

    This weekend there is a conference going on at Andrews University commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book Questions on Doctrine. Some SDAs would prefer this event not be commemorated. I think it’s a good thing, simply because it stirred up thought. The bad thing is those who try to smooth the waters before the benefit of living water is gained by all.

    At the same time I will be putting my words into action, as Pacesetters Bible School again hosts Dr. Alden Thompson on the campus of a United Methodist Church, in our conference on restoring Biblical literacy. This is too late for advertising. I simply provide the link as evidence that I practice what I preach on this point.

    Those who tend to think of me as a closet SDA because I was raised SDA, have to do no more than read a little bit of this blog (the creation vs. evolution entries would do nicely) to realize that this isn’t the case. SDAs can ponder how I could possible reject SDA doctrines, and that’s fine too. Other ex-SDAs can wonder how I can both leave the church and still have a positive view of it. I hope they do think about that. One of the greatest tragedies is someone who lives their life in resentment over how someone treated them and whose identity is truly provided by what they have rejected.

    There are joys and sorrows to being ex-SDA, and in the end, I find it’s not so different from any other piece of my life that I’ve left partially behind, but is still part of me.