Without question, kindness is a queen among virtues. It is called “gentleness” when listed by Paul among the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), and simply “brotherly-kindness” when depicted as one of the steps on Peter’s ladder of sanctified progress (II Peter 1:7). Few can forget the following admonition in the writings of Ellen White regarding a key prerequisite for successful soul winning:

If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tender-hearted and pitiful, there would be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one [##1|Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 189.##].

But kindness by itself can’t always be trusted. There have been times in the course of human events when kindness has served as the mask of error, the bait of delusion, and the vanguard of tyranny.

“Kind, Warm, Understanding, and Fair”

Being a lifelong student of World War II history in general and that of Nazi Germany in particular, I found especially interesting as a teenager the book I Changed Gods, by Maria Anne Hirschmann, which chronicles the author’s early years as an Adventist youngster caught up in the Hitler Youth movement. (Mrs. Hirschmann eventually returned to the church, only to abandon it in later years.) Describing her Nazi teachers at the training school she attended in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), she stated: “Though they demanded obedience and strict self-discipline, they were kind, warm, understanding, and fair” [##2|Maria Anne Hirschmann, I Changed Gods (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Assn, 1968), p. 13.##].

An author’s personal reflections are easy to take at face value, until—as in this case—one stops to consider their context. The very human portrait painted by this book of these considerate, devout young people is obviously belied by their service to one of the most detestable regimes in history, which would go on to annihilate millions of innocent human beings. Yet the fact that one who trained under their tutelage was prepared in retrospect to describe them as “kind, warm, understanding, and fair” reminds us of the Biblical warning that “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (II Cor. 11:14).

The kind demeanor and gracious nurturing experienced by the author of this book at the hands of these Nazi acolytes was sufficient to mold her into a passionate and blindly loyal follower of one of the most evil men in world history. And when his regime came crashing down in blood and rubble, her life lay in the same charred ruins as the Fuhrerbunker itself.

“Let My People Go!”

Years ago I spoke to a Seventh-day Adventist pastor whose ministry began in Indianapolis, Indiana. As we spoke together of the negative theological influence of a prominent Adventist revivalist (who shall be nameless), he spoke of another pastor of a different denomination whom he had met in Indianapolis. This pastor went out of his way to help the poor and marginalized, coming to the aid of African-Americans at a time when segregation was normative even outside the South. He and his wife adopted several non-white children, calling theirs a “rainbow family” [3].

When swastikas were painted on the homes of several black families in Indianapolis, this pastor walked through the neighborhood, comforting the families who had suffered in this manner and urging the white families not to move [4]. When hospitalized in 1961, he was mistakenly placed by the hospital staff in its black ward, but he refused to move, willingly making the beds and emptying the bed pans of black patients [5]. Eventually, because of his influence as Indianapolis’s Human Rights Commissioner, the hospital was desegregated, along with theaters, restaurants, and churches throughout the city. At a joint meeting of the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the National Urban League, this pastor gave a stirring address supporting the cause of civil rights, declaring at one point, “Let my people go!” [6].

When the pastor in question moved his congregation to California, a family that had visited their church were told by a sewer inspector that their leach lines were clogged, that they would need new lines dug immediately, and that it would cost them a great deal of money [##7|Jeanie Mills, Six Years With God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple (New York: A&W Publishers, 1979), p. 132.##]. The husband casually mentioned this to one of the church counselors, who told him “not to worry” [##8|Mills, Six Years With God, p. 132.##]. Telling their story years later, the man’s wife wrote of what happened the very next morning:

As we were finishing our breakfast we looked out the kitchen window and saw two carloads of church members and a large dump truck driving toward our house. The men had picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows with them. In one day fifteen men dug an entirely new leach-line system, hauled in the gravel, and recovered the yard. When Al offered to pay them for the work, they laughed [##9|Mills, Six Years With God, p. 132.##].

Rudderless Kindness

What was the name of this church, where the members were so loving and giving? The Peoples Temple. What was the name of the pastor who did all those good things for the disadvantaged in the city of Indianapolis? Jim Jones.

More than one lesson, to be sure, emerges from the tragedy of Jones’ story—which, as we all remember, ended in the mass suicide and murder of 912 precious souls in the Peoples Temple’s jungle commune of Jonestown, Guyana. Some may argue that Jones was always a maniac who wanted more than anything else to control and manipulate others. God alone, of course, knows the truth (I Kings 8:39). But another possibility is that Jones started out as a genuine man of God who wanted to help people, but for whom the power of love was gradually twisted into the love of power.

However, the most obvious problem with Jones’ ministry was the contempt for the Bible that seemed to develop early on. At one point, early in his ministry, he threw the Bible on the floor while preaching, declaring, “Too many people are looking at this instead of looking at me!” [##10|Jim Jones, quoted in Time, Dec. 4, 1978, p. 27.##]. How we wish that everyone in that church, at that moment, would have gotten out of their seats, found the door, turned the knob, waving back at their deluded preacher with the words, “So long, buddy!” Nearly a thousand souls would have been spared an awful death had they done so.

Jim Jones was fond of talking about alleged errors in the Bible [##11|Mills, Six Years With God, p. 121.##]. One former Temple member spoke of how, in Jones’ church, “there wasn’t a Bible in sight. Not one person had brought a copy along, and there weren’t any Bibles on the shelves around the room” [##12|Mills, Six Years With God, p. 121.##]. “We both realized by this time,” this woman wrote, “that Jim Jones was not going to give God any glory. He obviously felt he deserved it all himself” [##13|Mills, Six Years With God, p. 120.##].

In other words, all the kindness he and his congregation demonstrated toward others, if nothing else, had no rudder. It wasn’t undergirded with absolute, enduring truth. Whether this was because of ulterior motives from the beginning, or simply adherence on Jones’ part to a man-made ideology, his attitude toward the Bible rendered rudderless whatever good he accomplished. Whatever his motives, they didn’t arise from a heart transformed by God’s eternal Word.

Conclusion

This past week I read a review of a novel written by an Adventist author which apparently focuses on alleged extremism in Adventist self-supporting enclaves, describing at one point children who visited non-Adventist relatives away from the enclave who seem to have shown them kindness direly lacking in their Adventist upbringing, complete with lard-dripping zwieback and pig snouts for supper. (I have not myself read the book, so readers more familiar with its content may credibly find fault with my reflections here.) But like the writings of so many who think along such lines, one of the points that seems to emerge from this story is that kindness matters more than truth.

But kindness doesn’t matter more than truth. Unless transcendent divine revelation is the basis of kindness, the latter can become little more than a passing fad, subject to the slings and arrows of life and culture like any other expression of the human spirit. To be sure, without kindness our Christian witness will lack the power that gives it the winsome grace God imparts—and seeks from all—who bear His Son’s name. But without the foundation Scripture alone can give, kindness can become a brush anyone can paint with, a mask even a scoundrel can wear.

REFERENCES

1. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 189.

2. Maria Anne Hirschmann, I Changed Gods (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Assn, 1968), p. 13.

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Jeannie Mills, Six Years With God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple (New York: A&W Publishers, Inc, 1979), p. 132.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Jim Jones, quoted in Time, Dec. 4, 1978, p. 27.

11. Mills, Six Years With God, p. 121.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid, p. 120.

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