Tear Down to Create

Originally from my Adventist Today Column

"Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand. There are those who create . . . and those who tear down. That dynamic has existed for all time. But eventually the creators find believers, and the number of believers reaches a critical mass, and suddenly the world becomes round, or the solar system becomes heliocentric. Perception is transformed, and a new reality is born." (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown chapter 133)

When I first read those words I thought at least here is something of value from this book, aside from the interesting art mentioned like the horned Moses. What if we could create a new church, what if we could be positive and affirmative? Would we not create the very kind of church most progressive Adventists want? Here I thought is the basis for an excellent article. That lasted for about five minutes.

Like much of the material in a Dan Brown novel there is a thimble full of truth and a generous pile of garbage to make a good story. Many Adventists when they stop and think about it will recall that there are those in the church who feel that Progressive Adventists are out to destroy the Adventist church. Especially if they have read the various Adventist discussion sites on the Internet (here at Atoday, Spectrum Online and  ClubAdventist, most recently at the site called Educatetruth, as well as in numerous Sabbath School class discussion throughout the world) or read the various traditionalist Adventist writers such as Pastors Larry Kirkpatrick and Kevin Paulson who often refers to Progressive Adventists as Pseudo Adventists. Perhaps they are following the lead of Robert Folkenberg who in an excerpt from an address in February 1994 at La Sierra University said:

“In a desire to fit in, there also has developed, I believe, a pseudo-Adventist form of political correctness that ceases to talk about the truth, the remnant, the Spirit of Prophecy, the law, the sanctuary, and other distinctive Adventist contributions to Christianity.”

These writers have put forth the view that Progressive Adventism or Pseudo-Adventism as some may call it, is a movement out to destroy the Adventist church. That the Progressive movement can only destroy. The traditional distinctives are what Adventism is all about.

On my way to work there is an old house that was abandoned for years it looked like it was being torn down. They removed most of the outside of house but the frame remained and with time I see that it is being rebuilt. Creation from destruction. If only we could build over the decay, the building would look so much better, ever changing looking better all the time. But in most things especially dealing with ideas and beliefs there is no creation without destruction.

The supposed wisdom of the Dan Brown quote is that if you build an idea you may attract believers who accept and advance some idea, and at a certain critical mass the idea becomes widely tolerated by yet more converts. In the examples used (round, heliocentric earth solar system) the proponents not only presented their views but had to refute the previous views. I tried to think of some examples where you could simply positively build and affirm your ideas without refuting someone else's ideas. I could not think of anything.

Jesus came to earth and was extremely positive at times and at other times very critical of the views of his day. Martin Luther attacked the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and his actions were a major catalyst to build the reformation. There are many examples of tearing down something to build something. I tear up the ground of my garden to plant, to build most anything components are derived from something else; to manufacture is to tear down or restructure something else. The wood to build that frame on the old house was once a growing a healthy tree.

Progressive Adventism cannot help but to destroy to rebuild. If someone thinks that man never landed on the moon I can't tell them that man did land on the moon without tearing down their belief. Even if I never mention their errant belief and only assert the facts, they are confronted with the need to re-examine their previous understanding. This is why some of us refer to the “marketplace of ideas”. People have a choice in what they are going to believe, we can't simply positively state our ideas without infringing upon some other ideas out there. The other ideas will infringe on our ideas as well. Challenge to ideas encourages critical though, which cannot exist, absent a conflict of ideas.

Progressive Adventism with its hoped intent to build does tear down and destroy...
it is not an exception to the rule.

Ellen White's view of her inspiration

The Lesson Study Guide for lesson 5 begins with a reference to the following letter from Ellen white published well after her death in Selected Messages. The following is from the Ellen White notes attached to the lesson website:

Ellen G. White, Selected Messages Book 1, p24

A Letter to Dr. Paulson St. Helena, California June 14, 1906 Dear Brother: Your letter came to me while in southern California. For some weeks the consideration of matters connected with the development of our sanitarium work there, and the writing out of the views given me regarding the earthquake and its lessons, have taken my time and strength. {1SM 24.1}

But now I must respond to the letters received from you and others. In your letter you speak of your early training to have implicit faith in the testimonies and say, "I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word that you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the Ten Commandments." {1SM 24.2}

My brother, you have studied my writings diligently, and you have never found that I have made any such claims, neither will you find that the pioneers in our cause ever made such claims. {1SM 24.3}

In my introduction to The Great Controversy you have no doubt read my statement regarding the Ten Commandments (p. 25) and the Bible, which should have helped you to a correct understanding of the matter under consideration. Here is the statement: {1SM 24.4}

"The Bible points to God as its author; yet it was written by human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents the characteristics of the several writers. The truths revealed are all 'given by inspiration of God' (2 Timothy 3:16); yet they are expressed in the words of men. The Infinite One by His Holy Spirit has shed light into the minds and hearts of His servants. He has given dreams and visions, symbols and figures; and those to whom the truth was thus revealed, have themselves embodied the thought in human language. {1SM 25.1}

"The Ten Commandments were spoken by God Himself, and were written by His own hand. They are of divine, and not human composition. But the Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man.

The first reaction I had to this quote in the lesson was why did not she answer the man’s question? In other words why not say that “no don’t take everything I say public or private as being inspired” or “yes it is all inspired”? Why dodge and go to the argument that the Ten Commandments were written by God’s own hand. Because clearly those 10 commandments, as they were recorded in the Bible, are not the words written by God. Anyone with a bit of knowledge knows that there are in fact two versions of the 10 commandments respectively recorded in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Most Adventists are more familiar with the Exodus 20 version but it is the Deuteronomy 5 version that says it was written by the hand of God :

(Deu 5:22 NIV) These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

But of course we don’t have anything actually written by the hand of God; Nothing in the Bible and no stones inscribed by God’s hand. What the lesson does have is a letter from Ellen White used to tell us about inspiration. The question that Dr. Paulson asked Ellen White is just as important today as it was then. Here is the question Paulson asked from his letter to Ellen White:

As far as I know, my father and mother were the first Sabbath- keepers in Dakota. I was from my childhood taught implicit faith in the Spirit of Prophecy. As I grew up I began to undertake a deeper study of the Testimonies. In Testimony #31, page 63, I read more than twenty years ago these words: "I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision -- the precious rays of light shining from the throne." From this and somewhat similar statements I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word that you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the ten commandments. I held that view with absolute tenacity against innumerable objections raised to it by many who were occupying prominent positions in the cause. A little over six years ago a difference arose between me and a very dear friend of mine on this very point, for I saw he did not take absolutely this view. I wrote him an eight-page letter; told him that he and I would have to part company, as I stood absolutely on this ground.

We find also that this implicit faith in Ellen White was not restricted to just Paulson. A letter from Merritt Kellogg says 1906 :

"I attended the camp meeting from first to last. It lasted ten days. The ministers who preached, were Knox, President of Cal. Con. Cotterel, Geo. Thompson, member of the Gen. Con. Committee, Haskel, Corliss, Gardner, and Mrs. E. G. White. There were a number of other ministers present I think! This was the best camp meeting I ever attended, although Thompson and Haskel each preached one Sab in which the Battle Creek rebellion was the issue. Sister White also referred to it several times in her discourses.

Haskel took the position that the Sabbath is the test for the world and Mrs. White's testimonies the test for the Church. He even affirmed that they who reject the testimonies of Mrs. White cannot be saved. Thompson had most to say about the position occupied by A. T. Jones. Sister White's remarks were against the idea of having the S.D.A. send their children and youth to B.C. to be educated.

The sentiments at the campmeeting were not an isolated incidence, here is an excerpt from a letter to Kellogg:

"Poor Canright, where is he? If ever I pitied a man, I do him. He looks to me like a poor, seedy, used up old man, and he thought he was going to do grand missionary work . . No man in the Cause, believing . . as you have believed, can take your stand against what the Testimonies say and maintain your spirituality." -G. I. Butler, Letter to J. H. Kellogg, dated August 12, 1904.

There seems to have even been a time in Adventism where Ellen White was viewed more on the verbal inspiration level. Listen and/or view the presentation of Craig Newborn linked below:

A Path to Disengagement This presentation explores some of the factors that contributed to the ever-increasing disengagement of many Seventh-day Adventists from Ellen White. Particular attention is given to how belief in verbal inspiration by many Seventh-day Adventists negatively impacted Ellen White’s image as a messenger of the Lord and contributed to misunderstanding and misuse of her writings.

Apparently what we can infer from Ellen Whites letter to Paulson as well as the practices of the White Estate is that indeed Ellen White’s private letters are just as inspired as any of her published works. And we should just be thankful that the White Estate puts out these letters in the form of books like Selected Messages so that we can hear the words of God. Of course that leads us to wonder what more words of the God the White Estate has in their possession and why God granted them the position of gate keeper to the words of God? A problem we would never have to worry about if we just accepted Ellen White as we do any other pastoral writer. But maybe she does not allow that view by her own comments, unless she was just a bit carried away by the fanaticism around her; historically a very real possibility.