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58th General Conference Session—St Louis, Missouri, USA
Report #9: Comment on
The 58th General Conference Session
The 58th General Conference Session
Presenter: Staff
Location: Conglomerate
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2005-07-23 23:53Z
Type: Report
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/gcs-2005-report9.php
We may have done our readers a disservice. If we led you to think that this General Conference Session was more meaningful than it was, we may have given you the wrong sense. God is working through the Seventh-day Adventist Church, this we believe. But a GC Session is only so significant. At the end of the day, after the 58th, where are we? Further ahead, or behind?
Behind. Here’s why.
Sure. Some good items were voted (The GC President must be an ordained (hence male) minister). Some nefarious ones too (a woman for GC Vice President). The chosen human leader of the church is—again—a man whose approach seems to be to mute our distinctives (bad). But a change of merely four votes in the nominating committee would have brought us a solid, conservative president (good). A new Fundamental Belief was added that made the Australians very uncomfortable (good). The statement was reworded, thus watering down its strong teaching concerning sanctification (bad). Most of the items we at GCO had concerns about (See Report #3) were voted in anyway. Most of the same leadership was voted in again. A church composed mostly of people under age 30 elected a man of 70 to serve as president. An almost unprecedented number of incumbents—few of whom are noted as sentinels for present truth—were reelected. And so it goes.
But even if the Fundamental Belief statement had passed in the strongest form, even if we had seen most of the problematic Church Manual items rejected, even had we seen a number of new faces included among our leaders, still, in that best-case scenario, we would be further behind.
The church is not dealing with front-burner theological issues. We have unclarity and confusion and error being taught in our midst from highest to lowest origin points. But little if anything is being done to bring clarity to our teachings concerning the atonement, the humanity of Christ, the doctrine of sin, the nature of end-time character perfection, or to better understand the dynamics of how we are delaying and could be hastening the Second Coming of Jesus.
The theological atmosphere in the church is grim. Perhaps it is a good thing that we are not dealing with these issues—at least with the current crop of scholars. But I say again, we are further behind. The time and energy which was spent, without seeking for clarity on these other issues, was mis-spent. We are further from home than before. We are behind.
Having said that, let me hasten to add why I’m optimistic.
“What? I thought you just said we are further behind than before.” Yes, I did. “But now you say also that you are optimistic?” Yes, I do.
God only intervenes when His wisdom shows it proper to on basis of the response of His people, and His purposes in the great controversy. He let Israel have a human king although He warned them through His prophet that it was not best. He permits us today to dilute the prophetic centrality of our message although it counteracts His purposes. Heaven did not intervene to prevent the election of R. R. Figuhr to the GC presidency in 1954 and his disasterous involvement in the creation of Questions on Doctrine. But how does the mature Christian deal with the feeling that what he is seeing really is not his church?
It probably is not your church. You are looking for the church triumphant. It is the church militant you see, the church of the delay that you see; it is the caricature, in some respects, of truth that you see. It is the lumbering, numb-to-accurate-self-perception Laodicean freak that you see. And it is still the apple of God’s eye, the object of His supreme regard. Enfeebled and defective, apparently but a poster-child for the concept “supremely oblivious,” she is still part of God’s agenda. He still is working to bring her to a place of holiness and the utter removal of all her spots and blemishes.
God has not abandoned His agenda. His character will yet be vindicated. Through His church.
There are many positive signs that a variety of changes are speeding toward us like a locomotive. The youth of the church are on the move. I don’t mean the droids who mindlessly lap up the swine food offered by too many “youth pastors.” I don’t mean the poisonous would-be rock-and-roll Christianity, movies, and nonsense too often ponied-up in an obvious entertainment sell-out (which they see through completely) to “keep them in the church” at any cost. I don’t mean that.
I mean the hungry and fresh army of young people coming into their teens, 20s and 30s who are populating by the hundreds and increasingly, the thousands, the grassroots Youth Conference movement. There is enormous energy. And among most, a great openness to present truth. And why not? They’ve been shown the vacuum-producing nothingness of present error. Why not go for broke? Why not try the deepest, most intense lines of present truth and see if God is leading there? There is nothing a liberal can say to such a young person. If this army of youth are rightly trained, we will see the salvation of God.
Another intriguing sign is the graying of the liberals. As a group they are aging rapidly. This is no surprise, but what goes with it is that they are not reproducing themselves. Liberal Adventism has no “movement” power. Its destiny is to die.
In the organized church structure it is the same. The imminent retirement of certain editors, the fact that the committee that nominated the president was very closely divided shows the conservatives are moving toward a new ascendancy. They’re not there yet, but well on the way.
But there are also dangers in the forest. A sort of whitelist and blacklist has been developing among some conservatives. Certain issues, like music, church standards, the bankruptcy of entertainment in youth ministry, can be addressed; those are whitelist items. Someone might find it distateful when these are addressed, but they can be spoken of in polite company. Then there are the blacklist items: the nature of Christ, the atonement, last generation theology, the doctrine of sin. These things are not to be addressed in polite company—even among many New Theology conservatives.
Optimistic? Yes, although the very points many of us hold dear are on the blacklist. You see, at one point during this GC Session, when the president met with some of the younger delegates, he urged them, “If you don’t find the church interesting, make it interesting… Come in, help us shape and create.” Some will be quite surprised at how they make it interesting, how they shape and create. Because they are cutting through to the essence of Adventism and they will not avoid the core issues. They are coming. And they aren’t who the new modelers in our midst think they are. May God be praised.
Really, we should thank those who are running the machinery, and who seem, in spite of their intelligence, to be oblivious to present truth. They maintain the environment while we teach the movement’s own present truth within that environment. Many things are soon to spring forth. Truth will have its generation after all, and it is in our local churches, large and small that it will happen.
There is a sound of marching just behind the hills. The Cavalry isn’t coming; most of us have figured that out. But God’s own children are coming with present truth in their holsters. The years and months—just ahead—should see our hopes fulfilled at last. This precisely is our expectation. Time will tell.
Further behind? Yes. But developments already on the way compel us. We see too much, and that merely by sight, not to hold the deepest optimism for the in-progress reshaping of the landscape of Seventh-day Adventism. The best is just ahead, the days we have lived for and hoped for. Now is the time for us to trust in Christ as never before, and find how He will use us. His truth is indeed marching on! The 58th Session already is become memory. But the torch of truth burns with increasing intensity and you are here on the timeline. For what more could one ask?
Maranatha. GCO
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