4 January 2001 Editorial:
From Satan, With Love

Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick

Samplings from the adversary's mind

A very recent copy of the Review ran in that issue the comments of four individuals in response to a talk given at the Toronto GC session. This sampling of comments, so liberal and subtle, provides in a nutshell an opportunity to review the ideas and values current thought-leaders on high desire to press home to their readership. You can read the original remarks in their context at this link. But let's take them in turn and think about what each one says. Are these sound reactions, or are they sent to us from Satan, with love?

Try on for size these remarks from the first commenter:

Innovation, especially among the young, is one issue that stirs up great controversy. It is the classic old against the young. Yet there are signs that innovation is beginning to happen in many Adventist churches across North America. As I travel, visiting a different church almost every week, it is now rare to find a church that has not engaged in some kind of worship renewal. While recognizing that improvement is still needed, I am encouraged that worship innovation is beginning to happen. Of course, it has not gone far enough for the young and has gone too far for the old. The result is no one is happy, but something is happening.

If our innovations totally pleased the young, we would freeze out the old. We must not do that. Yet we cannot ignore the challenge of the young. That's why the best solution seems for the old to support the young as they start innovative congregations. The old can then be happy with how they worship, and the young would be exuberant in their praise. The North American Division has planted more than 600 new churches during the last quinquennium.

We mustn't equate innovation with apostasy. Knight is right: Ellen White was the greatest advocate of innovation in the history of the Adventist Church. Anyone who stands in opposition to innovation is outside the heritage of Ellen White and Adventism. We must keep pushing the boundaries to find new ways to reach people with the everlasting gospel. We cannot compromise our faith, but our faith is not compromised by innovation.

Notice carefully. Innovation, a concept with which no conservative Adventist will disagree, is not in itself innately wrong. We aren't against this. But notice also how discreetly innovation is used as a cover-word for "worship-renewal," in itself a cover-word for "celebration" worship styles. Notice also how anyone who disagrees with "innovation" (i.e. celebration worship) is here demonized. "Anyone who stands in opposition to innovation is outside the heritage of Ellen White and Adventism." Also, "we mustn't equate innovation with apostasy." But doesn't that depend on what you are dropping into the water under the code-word "innovation?" Does anyone honestly think that Satan does not introduce his departures from truth among the saints without coding them as great evangelistic innovations?

But this individual isn't done. He goes on to say "I would suggest the church define the minimal core values for all Adventist churches. Outside of those very few essential core values and the 27 beliefs, a church should then be free to innovate. Our current problem stems from the fact that we have never defined essential denominational core values." Outside of the "minimal" or "very few essential" core values of the church, innovation should be given the greenest of lights according to this writer. Yet he claims that we have never defined these core values. So how does he know? Could our "current problem" stem not from our supposed failure to define denominational core values, but rather from our desire for strange fire, our unbridled intention to copy anything even remotely justifiable from out of the churches of Babylon and put it into play to "win souls"?

While further on he alludes to the churches that have put into practice the celebration style and have left the church, he claims that the reason why they departed from us was because they crossed outside of the denominational core values. Thus, while they have not been defined (he says), these so very obscure items have been the critical missing link. If they had only been in place, the experimental churches would never have fallen? How convenient it is to be able to point to this missing distinction, stating that they (core values) are very few, yet have never been defined, yet can be known enough to pin this failure or that upon not having them, yet still not to define them. How very convenient. Our core values are not difficult to find. A perusal of the book Great Controversy would enunciate them fairly clearly.

Our second commenter has this to say:

I fear that often we not only reject the ideas of the next generation, but fail to hear them in the first place. An example of this could be seen in Toronto. It was difficult to find a delegate to our most recent General Conference session who was under the age of 30--and this in a movement that was started by young people

It is important that we understand the difference between personal preference and orthodoxy. Worship styles have more to do with culture and our own likes and dislikes than with right and wrong. I agree with Knight that the church should have 50 different ways of worshiping. There's no "right" way to worship God. And the only wrong way to worship is any way that bores or shows little forethought or preparation. God deserves our best.

Why assign supreme value to youth? And when was the last time you heard a heartfelt call that the church listen for the wisdom of its elders and members mature in years? Somehow in some minds, a magical kind of auto-approval, auto-validity is assigned to youth. To impose this PC attitude about our youth upon the church is to impose the rebuke of Isaiah upon Israel of his day upon ourselves as well:

For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water. The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. Isaiah 3:1-5.

Or is this more than a rebuke? is it a divine sentance which, like Israel, we now have also been consigned to?

By giving them what appeals to them, the youth are more easily co-opted to your views. Give them rock music for worship, tell them that's what they want. Highlight values such as "fun," "excitement," and "being passionate." Really it is the baby-boomers who are imposing their values on the churches youth. The situation is so bad that Michigan Conference has started over completely fresh.

According to the above commenter, there is no 'right' way to worship God. Any old way will do. Any old way except a "boring" way. Remember the cardinal values pressed upon our youth now. (If you are uncertain whether these values are being pressed upon the youth, pick up a current issue of Insight, or look at the SDA academy and college advertisements in the Union magazines.) Really it is the boomers who declare the non-PC worship values of our ancestors boring, traditional, or cognitive--anything to stamp them with the subtle red glow of demonization.

The third commenter really has some lu-lus for us. Try this on:

If the salvation of their souls is of lesser concern than the rhythm in their songs and the fit of their jeans, they have no problem tuning out and seeking elsewhere for something real, relevant, and revolutionary enough to enable them to transcend their physical, spiritual, and emotional limitations.

Gen-Xers, as well as those who came along two or three decades earlier, want the white-knuckled excitement of experiencing and witnessing about a God who can still teach them to walk on water and make life's good but difficult decisions with an in-your-face confidence.

She says that if we are more concerned about standards than the salvation of our kids, they will turn elsewhere than the church searching for transcendent values. Does she really think that our youth think that they can live wild and still be Christians? There aren't too many I've run into that think that way. They are generally much more cool and calculating than that. It sounds more like boomer values to me.

Actually, this commenter raises a false dichotomy. Law is not opposed to grace, and standards are not opposed to love. If love is a higher value than standards, then it is approved that there can be a great imaginary difference between what you are and what you do--that such differences are legitimate. But there is no such approval in the Bible for partitioned faith. "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works" says James 2:18.

How does she think this "love" works? "Love would take us past the thunder of their drums and the twanging of their guitars, past the informality of their manners and their conformity to fashion, to a celebration of their seeking after God." So if we really love our kids, we will turn a blind eye to their irreverence in music, manner, or anything else, and we will "celebrate" their seeking after God while they yet carry all this worldly baggage. But the last I heard, narrow was the gate that leads to salvation. Few there be that find it. And nothing unclean shall enter in.

But there is more: "If Jesus lived on earth today, He would focus on the message more than the medium. He would use new technology as well as tried-and-true vehicles. He would use the movie marquee and the stage as well as the sanctuary. He would serve up salvation with basketball and touch the lives of struggling moms through church-connected day care." Well, don't forget; you heard it here first. Sure, Jesus would use new technology, within the bounds of what was moral. Crack is a drug now available through contemporary technology, but I don't think He would embrace its evangelistic use.

Would Jesus use the movie marquee? Not if the prophet of God has spoken truly.

I have a message for those in charge of our work. Do not encourage the men who are to engage in this work to think that they must proclaim the solemn, sacred message in a theatrical style. Not one jot or tittle of anything theatrical is to be brought into our work. God's cause is to have a sacred, heavenly mold. Let everything connected with the giving of the message for this time bear the divine impress. Let nothing of a theatrical nature be permitted, for this would spoil the sacredness of the work.

I am instructed that we shall meet with all kinds of experiences and that men will try to bring strange performances into the work of God." Evangelism, p. 137.

What is it about "not one jot or tittle of anything theatrical" that you don't understand? Of course, the Holy Spirit also spoke to us regarding competitive sports. But I think we have the idea.

Then there is the fourth commentator. His emphasis? He recapitulates Knight's ideas and then emphasizes how much stronger we will be if we embrace our diversity. He too focuses on "worship styles." Funny how that just keeps coming up in every response, isn't it? And how not one of the commentators is being forthright and calling it what it is: sensual rock and roll music from the churches of Babylon being imported into the sacred worship of a holy God. Instead, to a person, they gush about worship styles and innovation. Do they think we are clueless?

Still according to the fourth commentator, those issues are not foremost. The main issue is spiritual. Here we can agree with the premise, but we still have to watch how it is employed. Yes, the problem is spiritual. But what solution does this pastor's church have to these issues, including standards? According to their December 2000 Garden Grove SDA Church Youth Ministry newsletter, they encourage their youth to attend church-sponsored youth meetings staying up until all hours of the morning watching movies. It is also to be noted that this pastor's church is part of the constituency of the Academy mentioned in the October 2000 Ministry magazine that is now proposing to its school board "supervised dancing."

Please do not take me as implying that these people are malevolent. I read the words. I think about the ideas. Still, the well-intentioned sometimes miss the mark. We mustn't accept destructive ideas simply because their proponents meant us well. In the end, every idea which is spiritually destructive has its origin in the mind of Satan. That is a given.

I say "from Satan with love," because these are adversarial statements--suggestions that advance his agenda of ruining God's people. With love, because among the points he counts as pleasure-inducing, and thus which he loves, are opportunities afforded him to twist the truth, as the remarks above indicate. By no means are all of the ideas bad in the talk these four people are responding to. I agree with some of what is stated in that article by Mr. Knight. But sitting back and reading these twistings on the above points was enough to clarify that these ideas are entrenched as part and parcel of PC-Adventism, and that they will be pressed to our lips again and again until we accept them or some catastrophic event sufficiently disrupts the church that we become very sober.

How regrettable that the main publications of the church are but cheap propaganda propounding but cheap fare. How many times will they dish-up to us these same threadbare ideas, and say they are being cutting-edge?

We see through you.