22 June 2000 Editorial:
Recovering the Vision

The Dark Blending

Seventh-day Adventism—uniquely we may add—demands the fresh vitality of its pioneering days. Its claim to be the final prophetic movement standing upon the closing edge of the great controversy, energetically proclaiming the almost immediate return of Jesus in glory, inevitably contains the unspoken assumption that it will not grow wrinkled or feeble or weary or distracted in fulfilling the mandate of God. We must bend our attentions completely to the accomplishment of the living and the giving of the third angels' message. Nothing must stand in the way.

Nothing.

But when a movement first becomes a movement least, steps must be taken to reignite the flame while still possible. As time progresses, we are at risk; the wrinkles of ever increasing institutionalization threaten to blur and clutter our sight so that we cannot see clearly God's vision for us. When the shared vision that launched the movement wears away and younger generations arise who have never known the price paid by the pioneers in carving out a Biblically centered faith and structure that God could use in fulfilling His will, grave danger surrounds the Father's people.

As the "movement" era waxes, a change comes. We might think that among the instruction God gave us through Sister White, He would neglect this area—not as being unimportant, but unneeded. After all, He's virtually finished with the great controversy war. If He planned for time to go on, well yes, maybe then. But surely such warning would not be given to the final prophetic movement. How intriguing and foreboding then are these pointed words of warning from Great Controversy:

What was the origin of the great apostasy? How did the church first depart from the simplicity of the gospel? By conforming to the practices of paganism, to facilitate the acceptance of Christianity by the heathen. The apostle Paul declared, even in his day, 'The mystery of iniquity doth already work.' 2 Thessalonians 2:7. During the lives of the apostles the church remained comparatively pure. But 'toward the latter end of the second century most of the churches assumed a new form; the first simplicity disappeared, and insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children, along with new converts, . . . came forward and new-modeled the cause.'—Robert Robinson, Ecclesiastical Researches, ch. 6, par. 17, p. 51. To secure converts, the exalted standard of the Christian faith was lowered, and as the result 'a pagan flood, flowing into the church, carried with it its customs, practices, and idols.' —Gavazzi, Lectures, page 278. As the Christian religion secured the favor and support of secular rulers, it was nominally accepted by multitudes; but while in appearance Christians, many 'remained in substance pagans, especially worshiping in secret their idols.'—Ibid., page 278.

Has not the same process been repeated in nearly every church calling itself Protestant? As the founders, those who possessed the true spirit of reform, pass away, their descendants come forward and 'new-model the cause.' While blindly clinging to the creed of their fathers and refusing to accept any truth in advance of what they saw, the children of the reformers depart widely from their example of humility, self-denial, and renunciation of the world. Thus 'the first simplicity disappears.' A worldly flood, flowing into the church, carries "with it its customs, practices, and idols . . . ."

The spirit of worldly conformity is invading the churches throughout Christendom. Great Controversy, pp. 384-385, 388.

Are we somehow exempt from this invasion? Look around you man. It is obvious that we are not.

In fact, the Seventh-day Adventist church is far, far advanced in its institutionalizational slide. As time has worn on the church itself has been reshaped under the continual pressure exerted by the environment within which she functions. She has learned to adapt more and yet more effectively to this environment. Today she, as virtually all institutionalized churches, has her retirement plans, her professional clergy, and an increasingly glaring gap between administrative and pastoral staff. She has readily accommodated and acquiesced to a host of government regulations, accreditations, policies, and expectations. In some things she has gone very far beyond the limits of what is right. She regularly embarks upon legal action, accepts federal dollars and permits herself to be regulated and shaped. In some of her hospitals abortions are performed, in all of the hospitals meat is served, and cash exchanges hands on the Sabbath. Her actions testify to her current plasticity. And failure.

Her camp-meetings are social events rather than evangelistic campaigns. Not that meetings for the edification of the saints are to be faulted; but to point out that there has been a change. Her evangelistic meetings are commonly conducted with the "leased" services of a professional evangelist. After three weeks the baptisms are counted. This work may be sincerely carried on, but the built-in numbers trap is hard to avoid. Her Bible Studies too often are colorful, pre-produced, prepackaged sentimental dollops of pablum. Please, do not take this wrong; its purpose is simply to point out what is, more than it should be, the case. Things are not always this way. But too often our work is more like colored Kool-Aid sugar water than the pure juice of the grape containing the blessing. How far afield we have gone. Are we pilgrims and strangers journeying to heaven, or worldly travelers thoroughly adapted to our age and on the way we know not where?

The Bright Recovery Possible

We are scarcely a movement anymore. This must change. God has a vineyard and He has leased it out to us. If we are unfruitful, He has in the past and He will again, let His vineyard out to other husbandmen. We must take advantage of opportunities to advance the work now.

The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity she will have to do in a terrible crisis under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances. The warnings that worldly conformity has silenced or withheld must be given under the fiercest opposition from enemies of the faith. And at that time the superficial, conservative class, whose influence has steadily retarded the progress of the work, will renounce the faith and take their stand with its avowed enemies, toward whom their sympathies have long been tending. These apostates will then manifest the most bitter enmity, doing all in their power to oppress and malign their former brethren and to excite indignation against them. This day is just before us. The members of the church will individually be tested and proved. They will be placed in circumstances where they will be forced to bear witness for the truth. Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 534.

If now is a time of peace and prosperity, then let us put it immediately to use. Let us fear to become confident at what may appear to us to be great success in soul-winning. Our work must be done with firmness, intensity, and faithfulness if it will stand the fiery testing that awaits every individual in the closing crescendo of our proving. The "superficial, conservative class" who have retarded the work are not necessarily those today called "conservative" Adventists. By and large, our conservatives are our anchoring members, strengthening and encouraging the body to be riveted to the immovable rock of inspiration provided in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. The superficial and conservative class pointed out in the above quotation are the institutional adaptors, lacking in "humility, self-denial, and renunciation of the world." They have allowed a catastrophic gap to develop between the original pioneer days of Seventh-day Adventism and the present. They have had a part in calling into question the churches present continuity with its past.

Our mission today must be redirected to an urgent recovery of ground lost. Before we can advance, we must first return to our high-water mark, and that is far above us. Heaven calls us today to self-examination and repentance. Does the present SDA church stand in unquestioned continuity with the Adventist church of a century ago?

Do we have continuity of doctrine? Check the nature of Christ issue. Check the investigative judgment issue.

Do we have continuity of hermeneutics? Check the women's ordination issue.

Do we have continuity of spirit? Check the worldliness issue.

Do we have continuity of structure? In some degree perhaps; but an empty eggshell has essential continuity of structure with a filled eggshell.

Should we dwell for a moment on these questions, we might wonder if we truly have continuity of vision. Does heaven's end-time message fill and thrill our hearts with power and meaning as it did the pioneer Adventists? If not, then could it be in part because without our realizing it, we have let our linkage with the Adventism of those days slip through our fingers until we are presently at risk of loosing it altogether? We have not realized it friends, but I believe that we are at present traversing perhaps the most subtle and the most destructive crisis ever faced by Seventh-day Adventists. Like the frog that was boiled, it stealed upon us ever so gently, ever so seductively, ever so quietly. Yet its tendrils encompass us even now.

Call to Arms

Will we let ourselves be gently consumed, or will we stand up, and admit that trouble is far advanced and now is our moment of destiny? Now we must bend our efforts to make what Adventism is at present what Adventism was in the past. That is, we must come again into essential doctrinal harmony with pioneer Adventism. We must return again to the hermeneutics of early Adventism. We must go back again to the spirit of those days, cleaving anew unto holiness and cutting away worldliness as if plucking out our eyes and cutting off our hands.

We must take all that was sound in pioneer Adventism and add to that our enhanced understanding of the great controversy, of the delay traceable directly to us of the second coming.

We should change what happens in periodicals issued under the name "Seventh-day Adventist" until those periodicals become "Seventh-day Adventist" in doctrine, hermeneutic, and spirit. How greatly evident is our need of repentance when the periodicals presently function to divide us instead of uniting us. How sad that the Review is one of the greatest engines driving the pluralism rampant among us! O let there be change—great change. Return home. Return to the high-water mark and prepare to go up higher.

Let us, at this General Conference session, call a moratorium on women elders, and return to the Bible on this point. May God help us.

Institutions bearing the Adventist name need reform. Let our schools and hospitals be either reformed or sold off. It is late in the hour. We mustn't misrepresent our Lord. Let our pastors become once again our evangelists, teaching without dilution all the Seventh-day Adventist message. Let us turn away with abhorrence from the assemblage of an elite cadre of theologians functioning as truth-defining ecclesiastics. May we study and know individually the truths of heaven's final message and experience the power that the Holy Spirit would manifest in the lives of a receptive people.

Achans must be removed from the camp. Those committed to falsifying Seventh-day Adventism among us should be cut-off out of our midst. Wheat and tares grow together until the end, but obvious new-modeling inharmonizable with authentic Adventism must be stopped.

The Ignorant among us, amounting to little more than place-holders and pew-fillers, need to be illuminated. They need to be taught what Adventism is all about. A vast army is sleeping in our midst. Let us seek to involve every member in living and giving the third angel's message.

New converts must, as candidates for baptism, be thoroughly prepared. Not a soul should be baptized unless we are certain that the Holy Spirit has wrought new life inside of them. They must be taught carefully and fully the doctrines of the Bible especially highlighted for these last days. But even this is not enough. The very spirit of pioneer Adventism must be communicated to them so that they may live and not die, so that they may go and make disciples of all nations and finally stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion.

Let us never forget that we cannot give what we do not possess. If Jesus is not alive in our heart, if the Holy Spirit is not aflame in our soul, if the authentic vision of Seventh-day Adventism kindled by heaven is not consuming the dross of our worldliness and powering our assault on the kingdom of hell, then our "converts" will not only fail to carry the torch of Adventism, but will drop it completely.

And the fault will be ours.

It may be impolitic to say such things, but it is even more impolitic to refrain. The movement is at stake, and if the larger rocks won't cry out, then even the pebbles and sand-grains must speak. Return O Israel!

When a movement first becomes a movement least, steps must be taken to reignite the flame while still possible. Let us move again. Let us burn again. Let us fight again. Let us take steps to put Satan's attempts to domesticate this movement into retreat. Let us return to the battlefield enmasse and "do" the final revival of primitive faith and godliness in our lives.

Recover the vision. Or lose it forever. God sets before us today life and good, or death and evil.

Choose life.

This present moment may indeed be the Seventh-day Adventist Churches hour of destiny.