As many of us have come to realize during the Covid crisis, troubling things in the church have surfaced and come to our attention.
The fact that we have entered into agreement with the United Nations and its World Health Organization has been for many of us a disappointing revelation. What were they thinking? It’s self-evident that institutionally we have gone off the tracks in this respect. The sad thing is these compromises we have made have damaged the lives of a lot of individuals. But this spirit of compromise has been developing in the church for many decades. We’ve kind of known some of these things but like many we haven’t seen the gravity or impact they’ve had until Covid came along. I think we’ve minimized or been in denial about them for some time. But finally they have come up in our faces and they can’t be ignored.
Our Health Message
I think about those wonderful medical institutions of ours. Coming to realize that they have been virtually separated from the church as their own 501 c3s, and they are operated by boards that include people who are not Seventh-day Adventists is disappointing. These things make it hard to feel good about the direction our medical institutions have taken. We all know they have taken on the world’s approach to health care and that advocating natural remedies and true preventative health care play a very small role in the system. It’s disappointing. I think J. H. Kellog would be happy to know the medical work has been finally separated from the mission of the Three Angel’s Messages and the oversite of the church. That’s what he always wanted. Are “our” medical institutions now virtually non-sectarian? Covid really brought out how connected these institutions are with the World Health Organization ( a United Nations agency). They had no choice but to go all in on the mandates and jabs. You could lose your job, you know. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of dedicated Adventist people who work in AdventHealth and Adventist Health, but overall the church’s mission and health message is hardly recognizable there.
PARL
But no surprise, even our Religious Liberty department themselves became all tangled up with the mandates. Has that department become non-sectarian as well? What about individual liberty of conscience when it came to church members having personal convictions regarding the experimental Covid jab? Our Religious Liberty department wouldn’t even support us. What’s up with that? What about “My body my choice”? Maybe Daniel should have known he didn’t have the right to object to what he put into his body. He should have just gone along for the sake of the common good. Come on Daniel, love your neighbor.
If you want to see a good example of the power of compromise early on, specifically with our Religious Liberty Department, go study out the story of the Salamanca Vision that Ellen White had. It’s in those brown books written by Arthur White on the history of Ellen White’s mission and ministry throughout her life. I won’t spoon feed you with it. Go study it out. That’s been our problem. We aren’t studying for ourselves. We like to be spoon fed. But you better be careful who holds the spoon.
The Michigan Morass
Watching the whole fiasco over Dr. Conrad Vine and Pastor Ron Kelly develop has been a disappointment to me as well. It took me back to my days at PUC. Déjà vu (or is that PUC) all over again.
Here we have a guy, Dr. Vine, who is deep into mission work all over the world through Adventist Frontier Missions. He has a broad and valuable view of how things go in all parts of the world. He realizes that throughout history the Christian church has had to go underground at different times and places because of government overreach. The only other option has been for the church to compromise and support a rogue government. So he talks to us about how that might look for us if at some point we are put in a place where we have to go underground rather than follow a church that compromises. What might that look like? Haven’t we all wondered, over the years, how this might go for us? What do we do if the church capitulates to the powers that be as the Adventist church did in Germany during the war? What do we do when our church buildings are taken from us? What do we do with our tithe? Let me give our church leaders a little insight, people are already diverting their tithe in massive amounts to their favorite ministries. I would suggest, instead of just screaming about it, that you be willing to get into an adult conversation about why that’s happening. That’s why pastor Ron Kelly got in trouble; he was asking for an adult conversation (that’s what we were asking for at PUC).
But what happens to Dr. Vine and Pastor Kelly? Some of the leaders in the church go apoplectic just like the leaders at PUC. Vine and Kelly are excoriated and canceled because that discussion is not acceptable because we’re not here to discuss anything. The only thing that matters is compliance. Not a good approach for leadership if they want to maintain credibility in the eyes of their constituents. (PUC all over again.) Very disappointing.
A History of Rough Waters
I want to say this: Over the years I’ve had the privilege of studying the history of our great movement. For us to remain faithful to the foundations of the movement and the message has been a constant fight. Just study the history. Study the battle that the Messenger of the Lord, Ellen White, was engaged in with her calling, trying to keep the ship on course and headed in the right direction. Constantly the Lord was giving her messages for the church leaders to guide them away from these very dangers that we’re caught up in right now. She had testimonies from the Lord to those leading in the medical work in Battle Creek, testimonies for those in the educational work at the college in Battle Creek, testimonies for those leading the publishing work at the Review, testimonies regarding the religious liberty work led by A. T. Jones, even testimonies for those who were the elected leaders of the church. The temptation and proclivity for those in responsible positions to seek favor with the world seems almost irresistible. Though some people eagerly accepted the testimonies, many, in important positions ignored her. Satan was on the ground counteracting her every effort to give direction to the work. He’s still on the ground, but we go along as if he doesn’t even exist. Do we actually believe the spirit of compromise just evaporated somewhere along the way?
I highly recommend that everyone read those brown books. I was especially interested in the volume on the Australian Years. While the questionable events surrounding her being sent to Australia no doubt reflect the problems existing among some of our leaders, she took it as an opportunity, and as the Lord’s leading, to start something fresh. She wasn’t going to give up. She wanted to see something happen in Australia that wasn’t fraught with all the problems in Battle Creek. But even while she was in Australia she didn’t give up on Battle Creek or the vision for the church. Her patience with some very stubborn people has been a great role model for me. Even in Battle Creek were still a few who were open to listening to the Bible and her testimonies.
So when all these things started coming out recently I wasn’t surprised, but the reality of what has been going on came upon me with a new force. I vaguely knew things had changed from what I had perceived them to be early on, but I was never struck with the seriousness or significance of the situation as I have been recently. So needless to say, as an old pastor, I’m needing to make some adjustments in my thinking about our beloved church. Like I said to someone the other day, “I’m learning to hold more lightly to the institution and more tightly to the mission and the message.” It’s kind of hard to be proud of our church these days and that’s an adjustment I’m having to make. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? How do you direct people into the fellowship of the church when there are so many glaring and obvious compromises among us? Is there room for discussion on this point?
I want to say at the outset that I don’t fully blame the leaders who have made compromises in the church. It’s really Satan, the enemy, that is behind all this. The people who have been his puppets and done his bidding were and are naïve. They are spiritually uninformed, like that young student in the cafeteria at PUC. In fact, It’s been my observation that a lot of people like that young student are now the leaders in the church. They just haven’t seen the light of our beautiful message. And we must admit we’re in this mess partly because of those of us who have not been paying enough attention to what’s going on. We haven’t really been engaged. We’ve been asleep at our constituency meetings. We’ve voted these people and things in. So we have to take some of the responsibility.
As I have gone through my own experience over the years in the church, some of my early starry-eyed visions of the church have taken some hits. It’s not my vision of the beautiful message of the three angels or a zeal for advancing that mission which has taken a hit but how that mission has been handled by some in positions of responsibility.
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Stay tuned for part 3.
