GC Prez says worship right

Adventist Today posted a transcript of the newly appointed GC president Ted Wilson’s press conference.  It looks even less promising then I had originally thought. Then of course I heard and you can read Wilson’s Sermon and see that the future does not look bright. Much of this post was composed a few days ago and I had not finished it before hearing Wilson’s sermon which pretty much verified Wilson’s traditional/historic Adventism and his now clearly active opposition to Progressive Adventism.  But since the interviewed contained something that was very important and overlooked so far I am going to still post this article dealing with his press conference statements.

Early on Wilson reflects on the mission of the Adventist church which he feels is somehow found in Revelation 14. He states:

“…that message is found in Revelation 14, verses 6 through 12, which announces, really,

the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ, the everlasting gospel, and God’s

call to his people around the world who truly worship him in the right way.”

That statement truly worship Him the right way? Is an interesting turn of phrase. It reminds me of the Chris Lizotte song “Hard Enough” that says:

 “All I want to do is grow in the love of Jesus Christ/ I don’t want to be one to say You don’t worship right/But you know that it’s hard enough, hard enough to keep our feet walking the straight and narrow/well it’s hard enough, hard enough we all were called to carry the same cross”

Sort of different philosophy from Ted Wilson but a philosophy I agree with much more than Wilson’s emphasis on “truly worshiping right”.

Here is the full quote I referenced in my last blog article:

“Newman: David Newman, Adventist Today. During the next five years, what would be

your main priorities, as President?

Wilson: Well, I am sure they will develop a little further, as I think about them, even

more. But definitely, as I have already mentioned, a very high priority will be on the

Bible reformation—on an understanding of Scripture from a historical biblical

perspective; not a historical critical or higher critical approach. I think—really the

authority of scripture is going to become the most critical areas of contention within, I

don’t think only the Adventist church, but in Christianity itself. The word of God is

relevant, is pertinent for us, and that, I think, is an extremely important thing. Within the

Adventist Church, we must place strong emphasis on the Spirit of Prophecy, not just as a

devotional reading, but as instructional counsel for every facet of life.”

Asked about bringing unity to the church Wilson noted that unity is based upon our beliefs and he concluded:

“I will bring unity in every possible way we can, but I want

us to understand that we are going to remain faithful to the Word and to what Spirit of

Prophecy indicates. Some people may find that archaic—not in tune with the times. I

think it’s eternal”

The problem with this statement is we don’t know what being faithful to the word means. Of course we do know that with his statement about his opposition to historical criticism he means that being faithful to the Word is a form of literalism and traditionalism when literalism does not work. And we know that the reference to the Spirit of Prophecy indicates that Ellen White is meant to be used as the interpreter of Scriptures.

All in all I think Wilson’s statement “truly worship him in the right way”. Will define the Ted Wilson era of the Adventist church; the right way of course being what the Traditional Adventist bureaucracy determines to be the right way. It is a return to the works era righteousness of Adventism expressed once by Ellen White  in Early Writings page 55-56 1882 when she said:

  I saw the Father rise from the throne, and in a flaming chariot go into the holy of holies within the veil, and sit down. Then Jesus rose up from the throne, and the most of those who were bowed down arose with Him. I did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after He arose, and they were left in perfect darkness. Those who arose when Jesus did, kept their eyes fixed on Him as He left the throne and led them out a little way. Then He raised His right arm, and we heard His lovely voice saying, "Wait here; I am going to My Father to receive the kingdom; keep your garments spotless, and in a little while I will return from the wedding and receive you to Myself." Then a cloudy chariot, with wheels like flaming fire, surrounded by angels, came to where Jesus was. He stepped into the chariot and was borne to the holiest, where the Father sat. There I beheld Jesus, a great High Priest, standing before the Father. On the hem of His garment was a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate. Those who rose up with Jesus would send up their faith to Him in the holiest, and pray, "My Father, give us Thy Spirit." Then Jesus would breathe upon them the Holy Ghost. In that breath was light, power, and much love, joy, and peace. 56

      I turned to look at the company who were still bowed before the throne; they did not know that Jesus had left it. Satan appeared to be by the throne, trying to carry on the work of God. I saw them look up to the throne, and pray, "Father, give us Thy Spirit." Satan would then breathe upon them an unholy influence; in it there was light and much power, but no sweet love, joy, and peace. Satan's object was to keep them deceived and to draw back and deceive God's children.   

Worshipping God is not enough when it has to be done so specifically that to Worship Christ and not realize he left a portion of the heavenly sanctuary which no one sees of course and will be hijacked by Satan will lead to God’s children’s destruction. Ted Wilson wants to interpret the Bible by Ellen White; he is condemning the Adventist church to irrelevancy and ultimate cult status. The sad thing is he is not alone but the product of the leadership of the SDA church.

GC President decides via opinions rather then research

Adventist News Network reports the following:

The issue of women's ordination will not be added to the agenda for the 59th General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the church's President Jan Paulsen said April 6.

Speaking to leadership at Spring Meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland, Paulsen said that a canvass of the church's 13 world church divisions revealed only three willing to accept a change in the current policy of not ordaining women to pastoral ministry, and eight divisions reporting the move would negatively impact membership. Two other divisions apparently did not respond.

After all the arguments both pro and con on the subject of the ordination of women we see the true colors of the method of decision making in the Adventist Church. The President of the GC will ask the divisions leaders for their opinions, because of course they are all Bible scholars who would never allow their cultural traditions and personal biases to intervene with their opinions. Therefore the church cannot deal with the issue in the General Conference session because the majority of the World Division leaders don't want to accept the idea of the ordination of women and they think it would negatively impact their divisions. Because of course they have researched it well and they are all scholars and cutting edge researchers.

The problem here is that the World Division leaders are not in the main scholars they have not done any research into what will happen to the church should women be ordained. All they have is their opinions taken to the extreme as if their opinion is the will of all the divisions or even any divisions. Would it really upset the members of Division A if Division B ordained women? It is silly to expect the opinion of a Division leader to have any real value in that question. But it is given supreme value and the President Jan Paulsen takes it upon himself to veto any discussion at the GC session.

How can it be that our church has fallen into this state of arrogant leadership. It is of course symptomatic of the whole delegate process which is heavily weighted to employees of the church, who of course owe their employment to those same leaders of the SDA church.

All hail the bureaucracy!

General Conference Book Ban

Not too long ago the news staff of Adventist Today posted this news article:

Adventist Today received a letter from the General Conference official responsible for the administration of the 2010 Seventh-day Adventist General Conference session in Atlanta, Georgia asking that Adventist Today not "stock, sell, promote, or advertise" three books at its booth during the week of the Atlanta General Conference session.

These three books are (1) Fatal Accounts: The Audacity of an Adventist Auditor's Quest for Transparency by David Dennis, (2) Truth Decay: A Call for Accountability and Transparency in the Adventist Church by Albert C. Koppel, DDS, and, (3) Who Watches? Who Cares: Misadventures in Stewardship by Douglas Hackleman.

The letter asked that Adventist Today withdraw as an exhibitor should it be unwilling to comply with the request. After careful deliberation, the Executive Committee of the Adventist Foundation Board decided that it would accede and not display these three books at its booth during the GC session.

These books are available for purchase in our store or by calling 1-800-236-3641.

As the GC session has the right to censor material present at it’s functions the folks at Adventist Today really had no other choice but to agree to the removal of the three books in question.

The troubling aspect of this is that the GC has never addressed the subject of these three books. The Adventist Review has been silent on all three of these books, there are no reviews to these books no references to the fact that these books point out some rather glaring problems in the SDA church. Of course the Adventist News Network is as equally silent on the request that Adventist Today not show these books at their booth either.

Hopefully the booth will at least offer a sign that says something to the effect of:

“Adventist Today Offering You Important Books That The GC Will Not Allow Us To Show You Here”

Here are some links to information about some of this material that the gatekeepers of the Denomination are afraid you will see should you attend the GC session in Atlanta.

Who Watches, Who Cares book description “from the Members for Church Accountability (MCA) is a group of Seventh-day Adventist church members concerned about improving accountability within the SDA church. We are working together using responsible and constructive means to improve church accountability.”

Who Watches Who Cares, Adventist Today article which preceded the book

"Who Watches, Who Cares" a 22 page teaser of several book chapters

Church Accountability: Seven Cautionary Narratives "Spectrum"

Adventist Today Book Commentary: Who Watches? Who Cares? Misadventures in Stewardship

Filthy Lucre a later chapter in Who Watches, Who Cares

On a some what related subject is James Coffin’s account of Justice Denied Because after all Church cover ups and attempts to ignore problems are attempts to deny justice and hardly worthy of a church that is seeking truth.

The Myth of the Church as a whole

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say the “church as a whole”? First we know from the context that when it is used it rarely is meant to refer to the Christian church as a whole. It is usually meant in a denominational sense. Here is an example used against the Progressive Adventist view:

“You have gone on record as not believing some of the teachings our “church as a whole” sincerely believes as true.”

Bill Cork on his blog uses the term this way:

“Some who would describe themselves as “liberals,” “evangelicals,” or perhaps even “centrists,” on the other hand, are convinced that the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a whole has rightly moved away from the teachings defended by M. L. Andreasen (the leading critic of Questions on Doctrine in the 1950s) and Herbert Douglass (who has defended the same views throughout his career of denominational employment).”

Bill Cork points out that the Adventist church still publishes the last generation perfection books of Andreasen and Douglass and I could speculate that many thought that the church as a whole supported the book Questions on Doctrines. People like Douglass (see link here for Douglass’ thoughts on QOD) or Larry Kirkpatrick would probably disagree that the church as a whole accepted the book Questions on Doctrines.

Different people with different perspectives may refer to the Adventist church as a whole but what do they mean by their respective use of the statement? We know that there are diverse views within the Adventist church on many topics. Some such as what happened in 1844 and what the Investigative Judgment is are quickly changing within the church. But does the “church as a whole” have a position? The fact is that Adventists even within America have not even tried to poll the church membership for their positions. But then again if the local church or the church publications does not inform the membership of the various views even if the membership was polled would the poll be of value? Knowing what people who don’t know what the issues are is relatively useless.

The knowledge base of the church is questionable because we can be pretty sure that most of the issues where there is a difference of opinion upon traditional SDA views are not really being discussed in the local church sermons or church publications. After all why discuss the various possibilities if you can simply state that the church as a whole has already decided the issues.

So what actually happens is that the idea of what the whole church believes is based upon what the leadership of the church declares, what the leadership of the church allows to be published. The frightening thing is that the leadership of the church is a self serving bureaucracy. It is not the church as a whole. Even on the 5 year sessions the vast majority of the representatives are employees of the church. As I stated in a previous blog post:

…So If I assumed that each of those 4 categories equally made up the 50% of the session delegates that would give us 301 laypersons to 2108 denominational employee delegates. Even of those 2108 employees 1054 would be administrative denominational employees.

Remember this quote: “You have gone on record as not believing some of the teachings our “church as a whole” sincerely believes as true.” That quote is from a denomination employee, it is in the self interest of the employees to maintain the system as it is. It provides their living, it is their job security and as such innovation or restructuring on any level are generally against their self interest. To make their life easier they resort to the tactic of assuming that whatever the leadership says is what the church as a whole believes. They have no real evidence that the church as a whole believes one way or another, what they have is the results of General Conference sessions which are dominated by the churches administration and denominational employees. The assumption of course being that the local churches appointed representatives to the sessions, but as we have seen by the numbers those representatives are far outnumbered by employees. If you have been part of a local church for a while you also know that you have little say on who becomes part of the conference leadership as well.

Consider this portion of a comment on the EducateTruth Website which was created to decry the use of evolution in science classes, (I will ignore the spelling errors etc):

This would not, and does not remove the responsibility of the school administration to remove the teachers AND other staff who are not teaching and/or supporting the churches stated beliefs. All SDAs voiced the embracing of all Seventh-day Adventists fundamentals upon interring the church. How anyone can believe they have a right to make their own personal decision to insist that the church as a whole should embrace a ‘new idea’ without it being first cleared through the proper procedure is just impossible for me to understand. All the people I have known who come to disagree with what they originally (upon entering the church) believed, simply withdrew their membership.

This comment shows two of the myths of the “church as a whole” assumption. First it shows that some people think that when we were baptized and joined the SDA church we agreed to SDA fundamental beliefs. Which of course did not exist prior to 1980 (then the 27 Fundamental Beliefs) so no, many did not join agreeing to SDA fundamental beliefs. As if one can’t make personal decisions against the beliefs of the church, that the now 28 Fundamental beliefs are a membership creed; if they disagree they must withdraw membership. It also shows that there is this idea that if one has a personal belief different from the SDA leadership that expressing that idea is equivalent to insisting that the whole church should embrace your idea.

It is interesting to see how some people feel that those with different ideas will inflict them upon others the way the Adventist church inflicts its ideas (going against the “church as a whole”). If the church is not capable of discussing and analyzing ideas within the church how can it expect to reach people outside the church. After all we are asking them to discuss and analyze our denominations ideas versus their denominations ideas or whatever their religious or non religious tradition may be. In fact if we can’t discuss the differing ideas within the church including within our young peoples church lives we end up not educating them to the realities that they will find when they get out on their own, outside the umbrella of Adventist educational systems. Because we don’t do that we lose most of our youth in the Western world. We pretend that our churches leadership has given us all the answers and everything else just causes controversy and become a stumbling block. As if because people have sincere beliefs they must be sound beliefs.

With myths like that of the “church as a whole” we have hurt ourselves and our children, our friends and our society. We become out of touch and out of date and sadly proud of it.

GC Session Delgates do you know any not employed by the church?

I was listening to and then reading some material today about the upcoming General Conference session coming up this year in Atlanta. I wanted to see what the percentage or number of delegates were that were not employees of the denomination. I could not find any numbers from either this or previous conferences. My guess is that it is very very small. The language in the General Conference Constitution at first glance makes it appear much larger than the reality.

Sec. 9. Division administrations shall consult with unions to ensure that the entire division delegation shall be comprised of Seventh-day Adventists in regular standing, at least 50 percent of whom shall be laypersons, pastors, teachers, and nonadministrative employees, of both genders, and representing a range of age groups and nationalities. The majority of the above 50 percent shall be laypersons. Delegate selections from General Conference and division institutions, and those selected under Sec. 8.d. above, shall not be required to satisfy the quota for laity.

Notice in that list only one is truly a layperson. Pastors and teachers and nonadministrative employees are all employees of the denomination. So If I assumed that each of those 4 categories equally made up the 50% of the session delegates that would give us 301 laypersons to 2108 denominational employee delegates. Even of those 2108 employees 1054 would be administrative denominational employees.

Something to consider when you hear that our church has a representative form of governance. Or as I heard to today the church is seeking to give even more delegates to young people. As the ANN second line in their report said:

More than 2,400 voting members expected to gather in Atlanta in 2010; push for younger delegates

Thus it appears the denomination has succeeded in creating a form of government which is functionally set up to serve the churches hierarchy or better said a bureaucracy which serves to continue the bureaucracy. As Ronald Lawson is professor of sociology in the urban studies department at Queens College, the City University of New York. wrote in 1990:

The General Conference’s structure is arranged in geographically based administrative layers, with churches grouped in conferences, the conferences in unions (which comprise several states or a smaller nation) , and the unions in 11 divisions (the North American Division includes the U.S., Canada and Bermuda) These administrative units, together with the medical, educational, publishing and food-processing institutions whose boards they control, employ more than 111,000 people. Tithes are not retained at the congregational level, but are passed up the structure, giving the hierarchy considerable flexibility to redistribute funds from wealthier parts of the world church to newer and poorer segments, and thus to orchestrate expansion. The hierarchy’s control over finances and its voice in the choice of leaders at lower levels also enables it to exercise considerable influence over the whole church. This is so in spite of a system of representation, in which delegates from the constituent bodies choose the committee members who select the officers and department heads at each level. However, constituency meetings, especially those at the higher levels of the organizational pyramid, have proved unlikely to act independently because the system for choosing delegates (who are appointed rather than elected) has ensured that the vast majority hold leadership positions in the church or other church-paid positions.

Dr. Jonathan Gallagher's forced resignation

A sad day for the credibility of Adventism. Today the General Conference released the following statement according to Adventist Today

Official General Conference Response to Dr. Gallagher Accusations

Official Response from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

July 24, 2008, Silver Spring, Maryland

In recent days, a number of documents have been circulated by email that we understand originated from Dr. Jonathan Gallagher regarding his perspective on his leaving employment with the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. In light of the nature of employment matters, the General Conference is restrained from sharing details regarding such matters. However, because of accusations made by Dr. Gallagher, we want to be clear that actions by Dr. Gallagher regarding his travel raised questions of his significant use of Church funds for personal purposes. These matters were investigated thoroughly by General Conference Administration, including significant communications with Dr. Gallagher's legal counsel, resulting in a recommendation to terminate Dr. Gallagher’s employment with the Church.

Less than three days before the meeting of the General Conference Executive Committee called to decide this matter, Dr. Gallagher submitted a letter of resignation in which he qualified his resignation indicating that the allegations made against him were not true. After a thorough review of the facts, the General Conference Executive Committee voted to acknowledge receipt of Dr. Gallagher’s letter of resignation and ended his employment with the church effective immediately. The conditions raised in his resignation letter were not acceptable to the General Conference. Subsequently an “Executive Summary” of the allegations and actions taken by the General Conference which was prepared by Dr. Gallagher’s attorneys has been circulated by Dr. Gallagher or others on his behalf. The General Conference has reviewed the documents and statements being circulated and states that the document does not reflect the accuracy of supporting documents relied on by the General Conference to arrive at its decision and is not based on the facts accumulated, verified and reviewed by the General Conference Administration and General Conference Executive Committee.

The General Conference and its Administration wish Dr. Gallagher well in whatever his new pursuits may be.

Dr. Gallagher appears to have circulated his evidence in regard to the charges via and executive summary by his attorneys, Ziprick & Cramer, LLP on July 8, 2008, at one point in the article it states:

“…In looking through such materials, all of which were submitted well after the first deadline for a response of April 28, 2008, Dr. Gallagher’s expert and Ms. Cramer both discovered that the times and dates available in which Dr. Gallagher was being accused of downloading and viewing pornography were in fact between 7/5/07 and 7/11/07, all dates and times during which Dr. Gallagher was either preparing or teaching at Pine Knoll with others present. Based upon this discovery, it became very clear that Dr. Gallagher was being attacked by the G.C. as the teacher at Pine Knoll, and that just as distressingly, even Pine Knoll or its class attendees were being implicated.

My first thought at hearing about this was that this is very likely the result of some General Conference leaders antagonism toward the theology produced by Pine Knoll, particularly through their free production of Sabbath School lessons with a focus upon the so called “Larger View” a theological view whose major offense is that it is not the Penal/Substitutionary view of the Atonement.

I have thought for some time that Dr. Gallagher’s position as UN representative for the Adventist Church was largely a drain on Adventist resources though in bureaucratic terms it probably gave a bit of cachet to the Adventist church and Dr. Gallagher certainly was capable of giving the best appearance possible to the Adventist church. The sad fact is that it is very easy for an organization to force someone out of employment when employees are hired and fired “at will” and even if one fights the organization and wins, which is less likely unless the case is somehow racial or sexual discrimination, as a place to work it will usually never be a comfortable again. Under such circumstances it is often best to do as Dr. Gallagher did and submit his resignation.

The attorney’s article conclusion reads as follows:

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Z&C provided multiple Reports to the G.C. of evidence clearing Dr. Gallagher of the outrageous and ludicrous charges alleged against him. There is no question that if Dr. Gallagher had intended to defraud the G.C. and/or the donors, he certainly could have done it in a much more plausible manner. Instead, what Dr. Gallagher did was comply with his job description, give credit to the SDA Church for its desire to work in the area of Religious Freedom and Liberty, worked tirelessly to assist the U.N. in helping peoples who were denied their Religion Freedoms in foreign countries, and set about working to bring the right to worship God to those who are deprived of practicing such right. Unfortunately, what Dr. Gallagher got for his service, dedication and effort in the area of religious freedom were absurd and false charges of defrauding the very entity which he was committed to serving. There was no due process in this matter whatsoever. Due process affords one an opportunity to address and confront his accuser and it allows for an unbiased review of the charges by someone other than the accuser serving as judge and jury. At best, this was a kangaroo court designed for and intended to discredit the credentials of Dr. Gallagher and to persecute him for exercising his own religious beliefs by the G.C. Administration for his involvement in teaching Sabbath School Classes in Redlands.

In case there is any question regarding Dr. Gallagher’s behavior as it relates to the SDA Church and his fulfillment of his job duties and responsibilities, Z&C stands firm in its documented position that in any legitimate organization, Dr. Gallagher’s name would have been cleared and the G.C.’s efforts to disgrace and defame him as well as his involvement with Pine Knoll would have resulted in a clear victory for Dr. Gallagher and sanctions against the accusers.

Here is a report from the Adventist Review 2007 Spring Meeting concerning losses in Adventist members:

Closing the Back Door
Executive Committee members on Tuesday of the session voted to adopt an appeal from the GC Council on Evangelism and Witness to church leaders and members to curb membership loss.

Presented by GC vice presidents Lowell C. Cooper and Mark A. Finley, the Council’s two-and-a-half-page statement indicated that although more than 5 million people were baptized into the Adventist Church from 2000 to 2005, nearly 1.4 million members walked out the back door and left the church.

During the last quinquennium some divisions began a review of active membership, Cooper said, resulting in higher-than-usual membership loss ratios.

“Current indications are that annual membership losses, for reasons other than death, equal approximately 28 percent of membership accessions,” and this “is not limited to new members,” the statement read.

The document cited research suggesting social and relational factors play a much larger role in a person’s dissatisfaction with the church rather than disagreement with church doctrine.

“The reasons more frequently cited by persons who leave local church fellowship are found in the realm of relationships, the absence of a sense of belonging, and the lack of meaningful engagement in the local congregation and its mission,” it read. “Therefore, the loss of members for these reasons should be preventable.”

The statement suggests that new members will most likely remain in the church if they are able to articulate their beliefs, form friendships within the congregation, and engage in ministry—in other words, “know a sense of belonging and identity.” To accomplish this, local church boards should, among other things, review membership care strategies, study membership accession and loss patterns, repeat Bible instruction, develop friendships and small groups with new members, and encourage new members to become involved in church outreach and other activities.

Executive Committee members who spoke to this issue were unanimous in their support of the appeal; however, some questioned how greater attention for member retention can be made part of the culture at the local church level. Suggestions by some participants included establishing an accountability process for local leaders, board members aggressively focusing on designing a discipling-oriented church, and cultivating a spirit of true love and concern for others.

“We have to have in our heart a love for people,” Paulsen said. “More than anything else . . . this will help us to retain our members.”

What I find interesting is how every time the Adventist leadership discusses membership losses they are so certain to say that it is not from doctrinal differences. I still have never seen any studies that support that view though I have heard it often. Personally I don't believe it.

The issues of acceptance within the church is often very much based upon conforming to the traditional views of Adventism. A recent example can be seen in my previous article When Worlds Collide...Is It All or Nothing. For a church member to tell another (in this case maybe a visitor or new attendee) that he must believe in 6 literal days of Creation or he can't believe in Jesus is a huge example of doctrine and interpersonal relationships meeting. On SDA forums I have frequently come across people who will say of someone who has a different view then that of the Traditional Adventist that the other person is acting as an agent of Satan. Fortunately in the real brick and mortar SDA church such comments are not as likely to occur but I do think that the attitudes is commonly there. With that attitude. it is highly unlikely that good relationships will be created let alone maintained.

The Spring Meeting attendees recommended "develop friendships and small groups with new members". They should have said with everyone rather then just new members but their assumption is that if you have been a member for a while you won't leave through the back door, a wrong assumption. The concept of small groups is actually critical to success and sorely overlooked in the Adventist church...well most Christian churches for that matter. However for small groups to ever really be successful the people involved need to be taught how to respect other views even those views which diverge from accepted Adventist norms. The corollary of that is that people need to be taught how to think critically so that they can analyze information and make informed observations about others beliefs as well as their own beliefs. And finally to be comfortable with the unknown. Because sometimes the answer we may want is not there to be found and at times we need to say we don't know and may never know in this life. This is rather hard for a church whose tradition has been that they have the truth.