According to Mark Kellner's report, the document affirms that
"[t]he goal of Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic and outreach work among adherents of world religions is to bring people into a saving faith in Jesus Christ..."
Idea Camp followed us on Twitter a few days ago, but other than liking the name, I didn't think much of it. Then, last night, two of my friends invited me to the Facebook event listing for the Portland event. Now, I don't know about you, but I get a lot of "invites" on Facebook, and most aren't worth my time, but since I recognized the name, I took a look.
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Twenty-five years
ago when I was wrestling with spirituality and religion, I struggled to find meaning. After dabbling in various religions (e.g. Buddhism, Disco, Scientology, New Age, bowling leagues, and narcissism), I began to re-read the Bible.
My rationale for reading the Bible, wasn't in a search for truth, but rather to expand my rich literary background. I considered myself well-read, and so, even though I was approaching this from an agnostic's skepticism, I thought it would be good to round out my knowledge. Instead, I found God.
By Bill Colburn
The doc said he had good news and not so good news - depending on my perspective. What?
Several years ago I had to endure a series of unflattering medical tests related to a health issue. The doc suspected something was awry in my head - something folks have been suggesting to me since I was a kid - and strongly suggested an MRI. I was game.
Well, the good news was that the suspected problem, the one that had initiated the need for an MRI, turned out not to exist. However, while in my head, something was discovered they hadn't anticipated. Funny how one thing often unexpectedly leads to another. Is this providence at work?
My brain scan revealed a growth on the very narrow, but quite important 'stalk' that held the pea-sized pituitary gland at the base of my brain. It seemed that this growth was or would begin to compress the passage of some very important substances, hormones to be more specific, essential to the well being of the rest of my body - and, in consequence, my mind.
Ok, doc, I spent four years as a pre-med student. I think I catch the drift of all this. So what is the prognosis?
"Well", he said, " we are going to keep a close eye on this for awhile. We aren’t going to make any interventions - yet. We'll need to take another MRI in a year. Meanwhile, we suspect that you may experience some changes over the next few months. Let‘s just see how this plays out. Don‘t worry."
"Like what kind of changes", I asked, already suspecting his embarrassing answer. "Am I going to become a girl?"
"Well, you may gradually take on more female attributes. Absence of facial hair, alterations in your voice , a new bump here, another symmetrical bump there, etc. If you look at it rightly, this can really be a fun, novel journey - especially as an Adventist pastor in a conference that doesn't hire women as preachers!"
Funny, doc. Where’d he get his medical license from any ways. Smile.
What came to my perennially twisted mind was an episode of Star Trek. I was about to be assimilated by forces beyond my control. All resistance would be futile - unless, of course, there would be some professional outside intervention. But, maybe I'd enjoy this assimilation.
So, what’s this have to do with the church? The fact is, in my opinion, that we have all been unwittingly and unimaginably assimilated, through our nature, into a way of being in this world that shows no mercy. Resistance is futile. The real issue is that we refuse to admit the obvious.
We tend to want to think we are better than others. We exalt our choice of culture, religion, politics, education, and even our race, gender, and age as the evidence that we are not like everyone else. Kind of like the Pharisees and Sadducees of biblical times. Yet all these notions - including Christianity as a religion - are merely superficialities. There are no differences in our human ‘essence‘. Our religious traditions are merely a parody of godliness. Our constructs effectively divert us from the truth, sucking us deeper into denial. We are addicted to that which has cruelly assimilated us. There is no escape.
No amount of healthy eating, working out at the gym, higher educational degrees, political correctness, immaculate pedigree, cultural niceties, or religious profession will bring release. We have all - without exception - been fully assimilated into Babylon, or as Jeremiah so pejoratively stated, we have ‘become women!’ (Jer. 50:37). Sorry ladies. Just quoting the word here.
Our help comes from the Lord, wrote the psalmist (Ps 121). God must take the initiative in our deliverance - we cannot, wrote Paul (Rom 3). We need a new birth, a new nature. We need to hear the very voice of the Father and make our confession like Peter, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God" (Mt 16). This alone, though, is not a one time deliverance. How quickly the ‘rock’ Peter was sucked back into the quicksand 'Borg' of his birth nature.
Within our natural assimilated selves we 'see' only as man sees. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees, we exalt our 'seeing' as divine right. Yet, Jesus called all that evil and adulterous. All our pretensions to glory are self-deceptions, small box thinking, mere variations of the same old Hollywood scripts. Being the depository of the oracles of God has never sufficiently nauseated the 'Borg' to spew us out. We aren’t that special.
Adventism today is again, (still?), wrestling with this reality. We've existed within our bubble of self-righteousness long enough to nauseate ourselves. We are, functionally, no different that the child of Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, or even atheism. All that we practice and preach and traditionally cherish is being exposed for what it really has always been - meaningless, even dangerous, non-sense apart from the indwelling power of the living God. We have been deceived by our own cleverness. We remain assimilated. We need help. Divine intervention or all that we are as a community of faith is without purpose.
Only when we confess that we are an evil and adulterous generation can we begin the twelve-steps that lead to genuine serenity. Will we have the humility necessary to grasp the hand of the Almighty and allow him to push the reset button on Adventist Christianity or will we continue to trust in ourselves?
By Bill Colburn
You have probably heard the expression that if something is really true it can withstand intense and repeated scrutiny. Ideally, that ought to be the watch-word of religion. Religion serves us best when it reminds us that the world we live in is not all there is. It invites us to re-imagine everything from the cosmic, eternal perspective. Christianity embraces the vision of an awesome God who ceaselessly inspires awe with joyful anticipation.
Functionally, though, religion - including, unfortunately, Christianity - often imposes itself as a fearful, protector/gate-keeper of the supposed, effectively suppressing all attempts at 'rethink'. Rather than inviting believers to question, it insists on conformity to an already believed set of notions - as if all that can be known of God is already known.
I recently reread Matthew's account (ch. 11) of John the Baptist questioning if Jesus truly was the Messiah. Hoped upon expectations didn't match up with uncomfortable reality of the man. Incredibly, John felt free to question the very integrity of Jesus as Messiah - despite his earlier convictions. Jesus didn't reject the query. In fact, he exalted John, and thus his questioning, before the crowds as one who was not weak as a reed, moved by every breath of wind. John was a great prophet, yet one who so loved God he was unafraid to ask the hard questions. His search for truth would not permit him to suppress his questions or to pretend everything was copacetic, when it wasn't. To refuse to question is to hide from truth - which would have been a denial of the Eternal One.
David Dark's newest book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (Zondervan, 2009), presents belief as question. Quoting C.S. Lewis, he suggests that scripture is more often than not used rather than received. When received it is an invitation to pursue the Infinite. When merely used, it becomes a buffet table from which we find support for what we already believe. Here are a couple of thought provoking statements from his book:Only a twisted, unimaginative mind-set resists awe in favor of self-satisfied certainty.
When religion won't tolerate questions, objections, or differences of opinion and all it can do is threaten excommunication, violence, and hellfire, it has an unfortunate habit of producing some of the most hateful people ever to walk the earth.My blog entries will attempt to follow this sacred art of questioning - not, though, with anarchical abandon, but with a deep, second naivete love for the God of all who continuously draws us deeper into himself with an everlasting love. In some respects, to quote the title of another book by Peter Rollins, I will pursue the role of the orthodox heretic - as a fully committed wonderer of God. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, in response.
By Steve Parker
As long as I can remember I have had a library (I define a library as owning two or more books!). And, for as long as I can remember, I have read widely. By widely, I mean that I have always read outside of my own world view — books that present me with different perspectives than what I currently believe or have heard before.
As I have traveled my life journey, many of these books have led to changes in my thinking — some minor; some radical. Without my reading I would not be where I am today. But changes in thinking worry some people. On a number of occasions, I have had people tell me that reading widely — particularly things that are "in error" — will lead me to destruction. I have been warned that I can be lost by what I read. Dire predictions have been made that I would follow the same path as others who have ended up giving up on things that my "counselor" believes are essential to salvation. And if I have changed my mind on something, I was told that it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't read so much.
I can remember an evangelist who came to my home city to give a talk to the youth (I was one at the time!) about the creeping new theology threatening the church. During his talk, he referred to a book which was an examination of the Adventist belief system. When I went up to the evangelist after the talk to get details of the book so I could read it for myself, he refused to tell me and said you had to be a strong in the beliefs of the church and the Bible before you could read the book safely. I was very angry that someone should presume to filter out what they thought I should or should not read because they feared that I would be too 'weak' to read it. The evangelist didn't even know me! (And the irony was that I searched for it even harder!)
This advice not to read anything because it might lead me astray has led me to think deeply about the whole issue of reading widely — particularly reading material that challenges what I think. Is it ok to deliberately read what may challenge what we think and believe? Not only do I think it is ok; I believe it is essential to deliberately and carefully read widely and engage with "dangerous" ideas. There are a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, it is an essential part of thinking critically to expose oneself to alternative perspectives. Whenever I restrict myself to reading only what agrees with my current position on something, I am less likely to counter the products of my own potentially erroneous thinking. I enrich my own understandings with the results of other people's thinking.
I knew an Adventist who once said to me that he didn't read anything except the Bible — no commentaries, no books (although I think he also read Ellen White's books). Reading commentaries and books about the Bible can never replace actual Bible reading. But reading other people's ideas about the Bible leads us into a conversation with other Christians (and non-Christians) that challenges our prejudices, biases, and bigotry. Isolating ourselves from others' thinking can lead to extremism and, ironically, erroneous conclusions. Reading allows us to participate in the great stream of Christian conversation that has been going on for centuries and draw on that wisdom, helping us to correct or confirm our course.
Secondly, reading widely helps guard against those who filter information to promote conformity. One of the marks of cultism occurs when information is controlled by those in power who wish to guarantee the conformity of their followers. Knowledge can be dangerous. It often leads to the questioning of the status quo and, therefore, can become a threat to those who operate from a privileged position of power. Reading widely and seeking alternative views provides a broader source of information that helps us to put things into perspective — a perspective that sometimes uncovers spiritual abuse or bondage through ignorance. Down through history, dictatorships have sought to control their subjects through the manipulation of information. We see it even today in countries like China which tries to suppress information through restricting free access to the Internet. It also occurs in more subtle forms when, out of fear of "contamination", we limit our own reading to that which reinforces the party line. The antidote is to deliberately read widely looking at perspectives that disagree with our own.
Some may argue that reading "error" opens us up to the adoption of that error. However, the advice not to read "error" for fear of being led to believe error suffers from two problems.
First, it assumes that what is to be read is error before it has been investigated. This is a fundamental flaw in thinking — prejudging the quality of something before giving it a genuine hearing. The term we have for this type of thinking is prejudice. If we genuinely believe we need to pursue truth then we need to do so with integrity and fairmindedness.
One of the greatest ironies I have observed within Christian communities is that of wanting to convince others of the truth of Christianity but not being open to new truth themselves. It is impossible for someone to choose Christ without them doubting their current belief system and opening themselves to the possibility of another way of viewing things. How can we expect others to be open to new perspectives if we are not ourselves? When we shut down any possibility of discovering truth by avoiding reading anything that doesn't agree with our positions, we have no right to expect anyone else to listen to what we have to say. How can we be led by God's Spirit if we close ourselves off to listening? Reading widely is one way we listen to the vast wisdom of others — not to accept everything we read, but to think critically about the basis of those other ideas.
And that brings me to the second problem with the idea that we should avoid reading "error" for fear of being led into error. The problem is not so much with what we read. The problem is how we read. Most Christians I have come across who have a fear-based approach to what they read have not been educated in how to read critically. You can often identify this problem by examining the basis of a person's certainty for their beliefs. They are often based on prooftexting Scripture; accepting something solely on authority; or on seriously inadequate information.
In my view, uncritically reading what one considers truth is just as bad as uncritically reading what one considers error. We desperately need to teach people how to think critically — how to examine evidence, evaluate arguments, interpret Scripture using well-tested principles and methods. Mindless acceptance of "truth" and mindless acceptance of "error" are two sides of the one counterfeit coin.
So reading widely with a critical eye is one of the healthiest, exciting, challenging things we can do to support our growth in understanding. To be a safe reader is to be a wide reader.
A statement like "this changes everything" or "everything must change" is what one might call idiomatic hyperbole: rhetorical exaggeration for the effect of conveying an overall meaning that is larger than the sum of its parts. Thus, when I came to the book Everything Must Change, I didn't expect it to be a literal "theory of everything." That would be too much expectation for any treatise to bear. However, I was hoping for a way forward out of the gridlock of integrity that occurs when people of faith no longer expect of themselves that "words of wisdom would be ways of wisdom" (Arrested Development, 1992). 
by Nathan Brown
Somehow we got to talking about famous and favourite opening lines to books. And as the conversation evolved, this was pared back to comparing the first three words of literary works.
Eventually we got to the Bible and, despite her lack of religious background, she was proud to tell me she knew the first three words of the Bible, “In the beginning . . .”
But then she asked, “So, what are the last three words?”
As I retrieved a New International Version from a nearby bookshelf, I had to admit I didn’t know. I flicked to the last page and unwittingly read: “God’s people. Amen” (Revelation 22:21).
“What?” she almost exploded, hearing four words in place of the three I had read.
It took me just a moment to figure out what she had heard.
“How can it say that?” she continued, her outrage belying her distinct lack of belief.
After a few moments, I was able to placate her indignation with assurances that what I had read and what she had heard were two separate things and that the Bible was not as misogynist as it appeared.
But as I did so, I was wondering how often we—either intentionally or unintentionally, individually and corporately—send the message that “God’s people are men.” Whenever women are under-represented in our church’s decision-making processes, whenever they are denied opportunities and recognition in ministry roles and whenever the language we use as a church fails to include both genders, that message is repeated.
And it is not that our church doesn’t have a tradition of women in leadership. In The Silent Church, Zdravko Plantak charts the decline of women’s involvement in leadership roles. The number of women in conference leadership positions reached a highpoint about 1915—notably the year of Ellen White’s death—then fell away to almost zero by 1950 with only slight recovery since that time. While we have never as a church had this issue settled—despite the prominent role of women among our church pioneers—it seems incongruous that we seem to doing worse in more recent times than we may have done in the past.
Unfortunately, the perception of the role of Women’s Ministries has not always been helpful in this regard. While a specialised ministry by women for women as a safe place for addressing specific issues of women’s experiences and faith is important, the continued marginalisation of women into such a specialised ministry can be a frustrating distraction and, at best, a temporary stop-gap measure. If women had more voices and greater leadership opportunities in the wider church, there would be less need to create these artificial distinctions.
The difficulty, of course, is that this is largely a cultural issue and that the relevant biblical references are open to such divergent readings. Various—generally male—voices rely on a superficial reading of texts such as 1 Corinthians 14:34 and Ephesians 5:21-33 to argue women should be kept “in their place.” But, urges writer Charlie Peacock,
“the fact that these verses and others from 1 Timothy have caused women, in particular, so much pain is a sad commentary on our failure to be the people of God. The whole assembly of followers has suffered as well, and God and his Word have been maligned” (New Way to be Human).
“There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians—you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, NLT).
Last year, I was invited to present an academic paper at a conference on C S Lewis, hosted by the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education at the University of New South Wales. It was a good experience and an opportunity to learn from and interact with a variety of Christian thinkers and C S Lewis aficionados. But in a session of general discussion, there was a recurring question—which I probably should have anticipated in such a predominantly academic, Christian setting—that bugged me: “How can we find/develop/become the ‘next C S Lewis’?”
Of course, the thinking goes, C S Lewis was—and his books continue to be—such a powerful voice for rational Christian faith that finding someone else to do the same kind of thing will advance the cause of Christianity further still. Such thinking is only partly right.
The concern for connecting with other people and connecting them with our faith is important. Even if there were no other reasons, Jesus said to do it (see Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8). If we really believe the things we claim, we realise there are dramatic consequences to this mission. And it is also important for the health of the church and the credibility of our own faith.
Accordingly, we should be prepared to look to and learn from the past, both the successes and the failures. The wisdom that has been handed down to us is valuable. And if there has been an approach that has served well in the past we should consider how we can continue to employ it. A new idea is not necessarily a better idea. We shoulder an unending burden if we expect to continually develop and discover new approaches to evangelism.
But neither should we be prisoners of the established ways of doing things. We should not be tempted to believe evangelism can be reduced to some formula or technique. To suggest a formula is useful marketing for a “how to” book, seminar or other resource. But the quest for an evangelism formula is a myth of Christian marketing; there is no specific evangelism formula.
For an academic Christian audience, one can see why the C S Lewis formula is attractive. They understand and appreciate his approach. Lewis was a scholar of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. At the height of his popularity—in England during World War II—Lewis was probably the second most recognisable voice on radio, after Winston Churchill. His writing attracted attention around the world and even saw him featured on the cover of Time magazine. The recent success of the movie adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe testify to his talent for communication and storytelling.
But to seek a Lewis-clone as some kind of evangelistic cure-all undercuts him and the missional nature of true evangelism. For a start, Lewis was a genius. He has been described as the most widely read person of his generation and the acclaim given to his books is testament to their unique craftmanship. Lewis has been so successful because what he did was singularly remarkable.
And he was in the right place at the right time. At a time when universities were highly respected, a time of national crisis, a time of relatively easy mass communication but before the takeover of the public consciousness by today’s myriad of media voices, Lewis’ gift for communication could shine—and it did. But he did not create a formula.
As the discussion continued that afternoon, I was so bold as to share these reflections with the group. It may be, I suggested, we are wrong to look for another C S Lewis, whom we would readily recognise as the next C S Lewis. Instead, perhaps we might recognise something of the spirit of C S Lewis in the musical efforts of bands like Sixpence None the Richer and Switchfoot, both of which have taken their faith-driven music to the top of mainstream music charts around the world in recent years. Both readily reference C S Lewis—“sixpence none the richer” is a phrase borrowed from Lewis’ Mere Christianity—but are speaking in the language and culture of their generation. Given the nature of the gathering, I think my suggestions were largely unappreciated.
But I was not trying to suggest an alternative formula. However we try to communicate our faith we should use the best of our abilities in a way that makes sense in the culture and society in which we find ourselves. Forgive me if that begins to sound like a formula.
The Danish Union of (Adventist) Churches announced Feb. 1. that, due to financial problems, it had fired two of its ministers and was retiring a further four ministers in the summer.* The Union also announced this will mean that some congregations will not be appointed a minister. The Unions financial problems are due to falling church membership and tithe income.
Membership in the Danish Adventist church has been falling for many years, and stands today at 60% of its 1960's level. The church has already been through several financial crises and has cut back its activities and and institutions in the last 15 years. With one controversial church plant as an exception, all Adventist churches in Denmark fit into what church growth theorists call ‘dying churches’, i.e. churches long past their growth or plateau phases. So while Denmark was one of the first countries in Europe in which the Adventist church had a presence, it might be just the first one in which the church disappears.
The really sad thing is that Denmark is not an exception in this part of the world. Although the Adventist church in Europe is growing numerically (with the exception of Scandinavia), this growth is based on immigration or through evangelistic efforts amongst immigrant groups. In Germany the church has numerous Yugoslavians and other Eastern European members. In Spain growth is fueled by immigration from Romania, while In the Netherlands its from West Indian and African immigration. In Britain the church is almost entirely made up of members with West Indian, African, Eastern European or Asian backgrounds. Without immigration the decline in membership in these countries would have been more rapid than in Denmark.
Is all this a problem? Not if church membership is the parameter on which we evaluate the work of the church and if we don’t mind simply being a cultural phenomenon. Migration to Western Europe is likely to continue in large numbers and will continue to boost the church's membership. But if, on the other hand, we believe the church has a calling to reach all nations and peoples, then the church is failing the hundreds of millions people living in Western Europe who are not recent immigrants or decendents thereof.
I don't have a single answer of what do with this problem. I do, however, believe in the power of the gospel. That telling the story of Jesus will affect and change the lives of those hearing it, even secular Europeans.
To tell the story of Jesus effectively, I believe we must face the challenge of breaking out from the cultural norms that surrounds our form of christianity. We must be able to speak to people who do not accept the bible as normative or authoritative. In doing this we cannot get by with mediocre teaching and unsound biblical exegesis. If we can approach the bible without our presupposition and cultural baggage, then in there, I believe, is a powerful message relevant to all people, nations and tongues.
*The official announcement can be read (in Danish) on www.adventist.dk, or click here.
This first post of mine is actually a bit of a celebration of how far the Adventist church has come in the '00s--while still a warning to not let up. Since I wrote the following piece in July 2000 at the General Conference in Toronto (and it was yanked at the last minute from being published in an Adventist periodical), many of the points touched on below have changed dramatically for the better. Today women are entering Adventist pastorships all over and more administrative doors are opening for them, young people are getting more involved in church life, and stale mindsets are crumbling fast. And even as I wrote it, delegates to the 2000 session were making bold moves to grease the wheels of progress. Still, other issues remain, such as the fact that the number of young delegates to the 2005 session in St. Louis was no better than five years before.
Since writing this I've worked for a time at the church headquarters and I truly have nothing but good to say for the environment and the people I was privileged to work with--but alas, I still can't vouch for everything that happens behind closed doors. And other glaring issues remain in every aspect of church life. To pick a relatively mundane but important issue, the 2005 session passed a new "fundamental belief" that both met the needs of new believers and satisfied the world community, yet the official doctrine of Christian Behavior remains stubbornly focused on what we shouldn't do, instead of emphasizing, at least a little bit, the proactive law of love.
As you read the following, take note of where we've come from, the work we still need to do, and the challenge that never changes:
Q. What's the difference between Hollywood, Big Tobacco, and the Adventist church?
A. Only the first two are famous for targeting youth.
It's the first Sabbath of the 2000 General Conference session, and for fifteen minutes, the young adult Sabbath school most closely resembles a revival meeting. Onstage, Ontario conference's only female pastor is greeted with cheers. A global group of youth applauds a call to end institutional segregation int he church. Then Britain's youngest delegate to the GC session stands up to speak. He talks of the challenges he faces trying to work within the church. "Don't get me wrong," he says. "I don't have anything against old people, just the way they think. As long as they don't think old . . ."
A fiftysomething gentleman speaks next, looking and sounding quite intimidated by what he's seen and heard. He begins a call for missionaries to Micronesia with a plea for young adults to not let such issues distract them from service. Clearly, this isn't the scene or sentiment he expected.
People like to emphasize that Ellen and James and Uriah were all whippersnappers when they started the church, so young adults should take heart. They forget one distinct advantage for the teenybopper Ellen White and her prophetic posse: since the church hadn't been built yet, they didn't have to bang on the clubhouse door to get in.
In fact, James and company did their best to avoid all manner of creeping institutionalism. They had a word for it: Babylon. To them, organizing a church structure to hammer out creeds and regulate church activity was the very spirit of the beast. That's why 19 years passed from Disappointment to denomination.
They made up for lost time soon enough.
As I write this during Toronto's GC session, only 49 of 2000 delegates are under the age of 30. (None of those are from North America.) Meanwhile, the delegates argue over official statements and tiny details of the Church Manual. Save for parliamentary procedure, delegates might babble on util the rooster crowed.
The British delegate's idea of "thinking old" can also be defined as institutionalism. We "think old" whenever we hold onto outdated methods, Balkanize into factions, and fail to look down the track to what's ahead.
Change will continue to be difficult, but it can happen. The church must pour its resources into young people, because nobody's better at reaching the world's masses of young people than themselves. The church must listen, encourage, and invest. The church must invite young adults in at every level, and address their changing needs. Otherwise, natural selection will take place, and the church will attract a narrower and narrow group of people.
For the fashion company executive recruiting teens for focus groups, reaching out to young people is a no-brainer. For Adventism, it could be a lifesaver.
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