25 January 2001 Editorial:
Who's MC?

Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick

An important question for each one of us must be raised. That question is, "who's MC?"--who is message-centered?

Imagine a book with an introduction and an ending, but no middle? What is the content at the core? Or a sandwich with a slice of bread on top, and a slice of bread on the bottom, and nothing in-between. Or a watermelon with no melon-flesh inside. If those examples seem absurd, it is because they are. Just as absurd as an Adventism without its message in its center.

If you are message-centered, you will be interested in the teachings of the church, because they point you to your Savior Jesus. He is the Truth, and truth means content and meaning as much as it means right-doing.

Many among us, particularly among our multi-generational Adventists, do not process their faith as the pioneers did or many converts do. The pioneers in our faith had an experience similar to what happens in the case of many converts. They had to enter into it, to work through it, even to defend their convictions; they had no other choice. Converts are truly as first-generation in essence as the pioneers were. Yet among recent generations who've grown up in the church many inherited their sense of Adventism from parents who inherited their knowledge of it. They go to our schools and absorb their attitudes about Seventh-day Adventism (in many cases) from rebel baby-boomers who in their individualistic early adult years sided with the pro-Ford crowd and grew embittered toward the church. These went on to attain their graduate degrees and now are teaching our kids, passing on to a new generation the virus of their dismay with authentic Adventism. (Note: there remain many faithful teachers as well.)

Some have grown up as the children of institutional employees. Because the new theology has been dominant in the church for so many years, so often leading to lives bereft of victory, they've come to see this message as hypocritical, ineffective, dogmatic, and hide-bound. They've seen their parents put a lot of trust in our schools and other institutions, but they're jaded because they've seen through the hollowness and failures of a distorted representation. For years they've seen, heard, and practically been forced to participate in program after program and campaign after campaign to build up these institutions; institutions that too often have failed. Growing up in little Adventist enclaves, so-called "Adventist ghettos," they've never known anything else.

People with this kind of background tend to develop a certain unfortunate way of thinking. It stems from a bittersweet experience, seeing grave failures, yet knowing nothing else. Sitting in the classrooms of our colleges, they pass under the influence of charismatic professors, some of whom are themselves accomplished players of the game who scarcely believe the message of this church but know how to say and do the right things and keep the paychecks coming in.

For a shorthand, we may call this the institutional-centered (IC) mind.

To the IC mind, the church is both provider and enemy. It is highly disrespected. It is a system to be exploited. Grandma and grandpa Smith keep sending in their support; they keep subscribing to the Review, because after all "the church is going through." They send in their hard-earned money to keep our kids in our schools. But they don't know what is happening behind the classroom doors and in the ivory towers.

But some of us know. Some of us have spent years in these institutions.

Some of us know.

If you doubt me, then go onto the campus grounds of just about any of our colleges around spring graduation time. Listen closely. When you hear the loud rock music, and I mean loud secular rock music, go to that place and observe whatever is happening. There you will see that the institutional yellow brick road has not led to Oz, but to Ozzie. Oh yes, we pave in gold but too often what we receive is dross. We trust in the hand of man, centering our hope around what were supposed to be tools to finish the work, not roadblocks standing in the way of its completion.

Close the institutions; give everyone a severance check; come back 24 months later. See how many of our non-message-centered (NMC) people are still with us. NMC people should be working at Sears--not in the church. Make no mistake. We know the future. We know the final result of this NMC mindset: "As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel's message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position and join the ranks of the opposition. By uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit, they have come to view matters in nearly the same light." (Great Controversy, p. 608).

Read the quotation carefully. Does it anywhere say that this large class of unvictorious members leave the church? Not at all. They have professed faith in "the third angel's message;" they claimed to be a part of an MC movement. Doubtless they joined the church. But there is a follow-through problem. They "abandon their position and join the ranks of the opposition," but no one has to leave the organized structure to do this. Indeed, we may rest assured that our adversary much prefers that his agencies of destruction remain entwined within the structure where they have intimate access to its machinery.

The church has come to a fearful pass. We must seek to remain within her but remain MC about our faith. If we find ourselves surrounded by the NMC/IC types, then let us maintain our way. We mustn't be bullied.

The faithful are still out there. In there. But we've come to a new situation. Who knows how rightly to respond to the bleak realities? There is nothing unchallenging about the situation we find ourselves in. Nothing. The vital organs of this church are its doctrines with their implications. If there is a hill upon which we must die, then let it be that hill. There we must stand and fight, or the whole battle will be over. If we loose here, we will have to fight a retreating action, be guerrilla warriors in the underbrush. If the truth cannot exist in the open, then it will permeate the jungles and the rice-paddies. But the fight will go on. The message will still go through. And if the message is going through then we may be assured that those taking it through will be MC people.

One more fallacy to debunk; to be message-centered is not to be nonChrist-centered. The message of Seventh-day Adventism is, in fact, wholly Christ centered. Who is at the center of the sanctuary teaching, of the Sabbath teaching, of the standards and every other area of our teachings? Jesus. It is His message. Therefore the NMC/IC folks are those refusing to center on Jesus. Whether they realize it or not, they are climbing up some other way, seeking an entrance into the kingdom by some other means, than Christ. Christ is with His message. It is His message. He Himself is the Truth. He is the message--not in a warm-fuzzy way, but in the way laid out in the book Great Controversy. Jesus is our General. His message is our battle-cry. His standards are to be our standards. His sorrows will be our sorrows, His joys our own also. His pillar and ground of the truth will always be very MC. Because He is MC.

Seventh-day Adventism is anchored to that Rock. Everything else is sand, will not stand, and will never land on Mount Zion with the Lamb. So be MC Adventists. Stand on the Rock. For that Rock whom we follow is Christ.

Who's MC? Make sure you are.