A prominent leader in North American Adventism recently stated, during a discussion in which I participated, that the term “nice conservative” has “almost become an oxymoron” in the contemporary church.  I countered by acknowledging that while at times needless severity and harshness have certainly attended efforts to defend beliefs and practices peculiar to classic Adventism, one must beware of defining “niceness” pursuant to an agenda of pleasing as many and offending as few as possible.  Few if any of God’s heroes through the ages, including Jesus Himself, would qualify as “nice” under such a definition.