Some people, including many Christians, just don’t want to hear about problems, whether in the church or society. In the United States and perhaps elsewhere in middle-class, white, Western culture, much of this aversion to negative talk is due to the old adage that “if you want to keep your friends, the two subjects to avoid in conversation are politics and religion.” Of course, negative issues and events aren’t confined to these two subjects, but when we speak of issues inside the church, most definitely we are constrained to address the realm of religion.
Controversy avoidance among professed Christians, particularly Seventh-day Adventists, is especially problematic, for the simple reason that the Bible depicts the world as engulfed in the great controversy between Christ and Satan, good and evil. Too many churchgoers, including many Adventists of my acquaintance, have through the years come to think of church as a detached haven of peace and quiet, comfortably removed from the vexations and conflicts so pervasive in the larger world. When all of a sudden they find congregations, church boards, nominating committees, and denominational institutions turning into battle zones, they find themselves deeply troubled and yearning for easier times.
Among modern and contemporary Adventists, the unqualified desire to “stay out of controversy” is often buttressed by the unscriptural theory that dealing with both individual and corporate sin is exclusively “God’s department,” and that our job as faithful Christians is simply to live godly lives and witness for Jesus without concerning ourselves with either our own or the church’s spiritual failings. The damage done by various forms of this theory has been extensive and heart-rending. Nothing in the Bible or the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy encourages such a passive view of the struggle between sin and righteousness.
Problems Without Solutions
But as wrong as it is for God’s people to seek some spiritual Switzerland where they might sit out the warfare which seems so ubiquitous just now within the body of Christ, it is equally wrong to mourn over negative conditions in the church without simultaneously offering remedies to those conditions. Cursing the darkness accomplishes little unless one finds or suggests ways to produce light.
Sadly, many don’t realize how discouraging it can be for the striving faithful within the church to constantly hear about problems and scandals without being told what to do about them. Some of us have long memories in this regard. I can recall, during the 1980s, when false teachings regarding the sanctuary doctrine, inspiration, and related issues were causing widespread disunity in the church, how certain ones published newsletters (and later, videos) routinely depicting all the bad things going on in the denomination, but saying very little as to what church members might actually do to reverse these trends and solve the problems. In those not-so-distant days, of course, we didn’t have the Internet or the social media outlets we have today, but negative news has always made the best copy and drawn the most attention, whether in the church or the world.
One prominent evangelist once lamented that if only the gospel were bad news instead of good news, God’s work would have been finished long ago, as bad news spreads so must faster and tends to draw the most notice.
But despite what some might wish for, faithful Christians need to know where wrong exists, be it personal or collective, and to thus proceed to confront and seek by God’s grace to correct it. However, unless they are given a concrete and practical plan of action, little correction and perhaps even confrontation is likely to occur. To “cry aloud [and] spare not” (Isa. 58:1) is imperative, but that is just the beginning. Revival must not only be followed by reformation, but the latter must involve more than merely the listing of shortcomings. Practical solutions must be explained and put into motion.
Discouragement
Without the articulation and pursuit of workable solutions, talking about problems can get discouraging. This became especially evident among faithful Adventists during the late 1980s and into the ‘90s. Errors of theology and worship became increasingly prominent in certain circles of Western Adventism, and thoughtful church members who adhered to the inspired writings as their supreme authority became notably concerned. Articles and videos pinpointed these errors, and not always with the greatest tact or wisdom. But in all, the spirit of the faithful was rightly stirred up against the departures from truth and integrity thus disclosed.
But exactly how to address and reverse these wrongs, especially in a workable and realistic fashion, was often left unspoken. Many of these concerned church members, often bereft of nourishing spiritual food in mainline denominational settings, began to rely on independent sources, with their heavy focus on the church’s continuing and grievous sins.
For most people, hearing negative information on a continual basis is going to have a telling effect. After a while, people start thinking that there’s no hope for the church to ever experience true revival and reformation. Tragically, during the time period noted above, such thinking began to acquire a growing number of adherents among concerned Adventists, who soon began to act in ways not likely to bring positive change to the church. Some began to withhold tithes and offerings from the church’s coffers. Some even withdrew into independent gatherings as a substitute for church attendance, and while most didn’t ask for their membership to be dropped from Conference churches—and while most were never formally removed from church fellowship—their absence from the organized body effectively ended their influence for good so far as the official church was concerned. You can’t clean a house unless you get or stay inside it.
A major error embraced by many of these discouraged folks was a twisted doctrine of who and what is God’s true church, a theory which departed dramatically from the teachings of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. This teaching denied that the true church of God was an organized body, and that the multiplied sins of the church in recent decades had at last brought about corporate divine condemnation to the Seventh-day Adventist global structure. Ellen White’s clear statements as to the triumph of the visible church body over apostasy through the wholesale withdrawal of the apostate majority—as distinct from previous historical cases of the faithful themselves having to withdraw—were either distorted in a manner that made no sense or simply ignored.
Those desirous of an in-depth study of this issue from the inspired writings might wish to consult a series of articles on this website by the present writer, which examine this notion that “the church is not an organization” from the perspective of Scripture and the collective writings of Ellen G. White [1].
Such discouragement, negative ecclesiology, and occasional separation can still be found among the striving Adventist faithful, though the momentum of these forces has been seriously blunted by the general cessation of aggressive attacks against conservative self-supporting outlets after the year 2000, the subsequent rise and growth of the GYC (Generation of Youth for Christ) movement, and the accession in 2010 to the General Conference presidency of one whose doctrinal and spiritual compass adheres in large measure to the convictions of those troubled by recent trends in Western Adventism toward evangelical theology, liberal approaches to the inspired writings, and contemporary Christian worship styles and church growth techniques.
But despite positive progress in a number of noteworthy ways, egregious problems of a theological, behavioral, and institutional nature continue to persist among us, and the tendency of certain ones to identify and dwell on these problems without advancing workable and practical solutions continues to attract a constituency among Adventists seeking to be faithful to their church’s classic Biblical message and its amplification in the Spirit of Prophecy writings. Thoughtful leaders among administrators, pastors, and laypersons pray earnestly that past mistaken methods on the part of certain of the striving faithful (e.g. financial and personal isolation from the organized body) will not mar or impede the progress of efforts toward revival and reformation as the church looks to the future.
Conclusion
Upon his first election to the General Conference presidency in 2010, Elder Ted N.C. Wilson urged his hearers—regarding himself and his fellow leaders—to “hold us accountable” [2]. Theologically conservative church members do the denomination the best service when they not only identify doctrinal, moral, and institutional departures from the inspired pen, but when they also identify and spell out practical ways whereby believers concerned about negative trends can participate in church life and make a tangible difference so far as the direction of God’s people and their public witness are concerned.
REFERENCES
1. Kevin D. Paulson, “The Prophesied Cleansing and Triumph of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” ADvindicate, May 29, 2013: Part 1: “The Problem: http://advindicate.com/articles/3203; Part 2: “Open Sin and the Church Militant,” June 4, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/3236; Part 3: “Shaken Out of What?” June 11, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/3261; Part 4: “The Principle of Conditional Prophecy,” June 19, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/3302; Part 5: “The Voice of God in the General Conference,” June 26, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/3332; Part 6: “What Causes Divine Rejection of the Faith Community?” July 6, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/2013/7/7/what-causes-divine-rejection-of-the-faith-community-part-vi; Part 7: “Where From Here?” July 25, 2013 http://advindicate.com/articles/2013/7/25/where-from-here
2. Elder Ted N.C. Wilson, “Go Forward!” July 3, 2010 http://www.educatetruth.com/news/ann-wilson-calls-adventists-to-go-forward/
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan