Dead Languages Or Eternal Truths?

Reflections on Ed Dickerson, “Dead Languages,” Adventist Review, March 2004, pp. 27-29, and the Lengthening History of Failure In Worship Innovation

A new article, in the North American edition of the Adventist Review, further fuels the continuing Adventist debate over the blending of culture and worship.

The article compares Adventists who hold to the primacy of the King James Bible and oppose contemporary Christian music, to medieval Catholicism and its chaining of Scripture to the convent wall in Vulgate Latin (1). A story is shared from the experience of a missionary to South America, who encountered a native Christian communicating the gospel to his people in a manner and style that to the missionary, “sounded like witch music” (2). The article continues by explaining how the missionary realized his pride was getting in the way of his perception as to how God could reach people through native languages and cultures (3).

In sum, the article maintains that the language of the King James Version and of Fanny Crosby hymns is just as foreign to contemporary American society as English was to this South American tribe (4), and that the church must acknowledge God's ability to use popular cultural media to reach both our youth and the unchurched beyond our borders (5).

Such thoughts have become a refrain both loud and popular in contemporary Adventism. The question is, Are they valid, either on the basis of inspired counsel or simple logic?

Strange Parallels, Strange Logic

None will deny that certain words and phrases from the King James Version of the Bible sound antiquated, even foreign, to those speaking modern English. But to claim that the gap between Vulgate Latin and the common languages of medieval Europe, or the gap between a missionary's English and the language of a Third World people, is comparable to the gap between modern English and that of the King James Bible or of traditional Protestant hymns, sounds more than slightly strange. It is highly doubtful that any user of present-day English needs a translator to explain the difference between “believes” and “believeth,” or between “obeys” and “obeyeth.” Nor is it likely that contemporary English-speakers have any more trouble understanding the words of Fanny Crosby's “To God Be the Glory” than they do the contemporary praise song, “Lord I Lift Your Name On High.”

The article in question speaks of the need to reach what is described as a “mobile culture educated to consider the gospel ‘old news’” (6). Yet it offers no compelling reason as to why this culture is somehow incapable of understanding or appreciating King James English or traditional worship hymns. Nor does it explain how the repetitive lyrics and often shallow theology of contemporary praise music is better able to intelligently convey the gospel to educated minds than the coherent, majestic themes of the great Christian hymns. The logic here is truly baffling.

Even more baffling is the article's attempt to place all of the following practices in the same category. The author asks:

Will we attempt to chain the gospel to our preferred style of service, and inter it in King James English? Will we shackle it to our own familiar melodies and harmonies? Will we say to the listener to modern Christian singing groups, ‘God doesn't like country music, or rock, or rap’? Will we say to the hearing-impaired, “God doesn't communicate in sign language”? (7).

One remarkable feature of this article is its candor, as expressed in the above statement. Quite obviously, the author sees no harm in using rock and rap music to communicate the will of God—a frankness not always shown by the promoters of contemporary Christian music. But one is truly mystified by the above statement's attempt to categorize sign language for the hearing-impaired as similar to modern Bible versions and contemporary worship forms. Like the need to communicate the gospel in the native tongue of those we seek to evangelize, sign language is a practical communication necessity for those with a hearing problem. To say the same holds true for contemporary Christian music and modern Bible translations is to seriously strain one's credulity.

What follows will demonstrate the substantive doctrinal and spiritual reasons as to why so many thoughtful Adventists object to the widespread use of modern Bible versions, and why they object to those contemporary worship styles which the article in question seems to find so essential in reaching certain segments of our society.

Modern Bible Translations

Few in contemporary Adventism, or elsewhere, would advocate that under no circumstances should any modern Bible translation ever be used. After all, Ellen White occasionally used such translations in some of her standard works, and in some passages modern versions do more accurately render the original languages. But in numerous other cases, far more so than the King James Version, modern translations of the Bible distort the text into teaching false doctrine, gross inaccuracies, or even sacrilegious insinuations.

Too many have accepted the myth that modern Bible translations are simply the King James Version in contemporary English. A few examples will suffice to compel a contrary conclusion.

Psalm 22, in predicting the sufferings of Christ on Calvary, declares in verse 16: “For dogs have encompassed Me; the assembly of the wicked enclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet.” The New English Bible renders this verse as follows: “A band of ruffians rings Me round, and they hacked off My hands and My feet.” In another Messianic prophecy, Zechariah 13:6 declares: “And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands? Then He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends.” The New English Bible says in this passage: “‘What,’ someone will ask, ‘are these scars on Your chest?’ And He will answer, ‘I got them in the house of My lovers.’” The Moffatt Translation gets even more creative here: “I got them in My harlot's house.”

Needless to say, our Lord didn't have His hands and feet hacked off, and He certainly never had a harlot! One marvels that such distortions and perversities haven't provoked more outrage in Christian circles.

In Matthew 9:13, Jesus declared, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” But in five major modern translations of this verse (RSV, NIV, NEB, TEV, and NLT), the phrase “to repentance” is left out. The removal of this phrase easily lends itself to such unscriptural contemporary themes as “unconditional” grace and salvation, in which the necessity of repentance and turning from sin is devalued if not denied.

A key text on the state of man in death is 2 Peter 2:9: “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” This verse reflects the teaching of the following Old Testament passage: “That the wicked is reserved for the day of destruction; they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.… Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb” (Job 21:30, 32). These verses clearly teach that the wicked are not punished immediately when they die, but are reserved for such punishment till the final judgment while remaining in their graves.

Modern versions, however, distort the passage from Second Peter into teaching something contradicted by the weight of Biblical evidence. We observe this in the rendering of 2 Peter 2:9 by five leading modern translations:

If this be so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment (NIV).

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment (RSV).

Thus the Lord is well able to rescue the godly out of trials, and to reserve the wicked under punishment until the day of judgment (NEB).

And so the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials and how to keep the wicked under punishment for the Day of Judgment (TEV).

Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment (NKJV).

Quite obviously, each of these translations twists the phrasing of this passage into teaching that the wicked experience conscious punishment while awaiting the final judgment, in sharp contrast both to the Old Testament passage where this concept originates (Job 21:30, 32) and the consensus of Scripture on the unconscious state of the dead.

Revelation 12:17 is the key passage whereby the remnant church of Bible prophecy is identified in Scripture: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The Greek construction of the phrase “testimony of Jesus Christ” is in what Greek scholars call the subjective genitive, which means this is Jesus' testimony to His people, identified elsewhere in Revelation as the Spirit of Prophecy (Revelation 19:10; 22:9). Yet at least three major modern translations distort this verse into teaching that this is the testimony of Christians about Jesus, thus destroying one of Scripture's identifying marks of the remnant church:

Then the dragon was very angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus (RSV).

At this the dragon grew furious with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, that is, on those who keep God's commandments and maintain their testimony to Jesus (NEB).

Then the dragon became angry at the woman, and to declare war against the rest of her children—all who keep God's commandments and confess that they belong to Jesus (NLT).

The Adventist sanctuary doctrine has frequently been attacked on the false assumption that Jesus began His ministry in the heavenly Most Holy Place when He ascended to heaven, rather than at the close of the 2,300 days in 1844 (Daniel 8:14). This false assumption is usually supported by the mistranslation of Hebrews 9:12, as seen in the following modern versions:

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption (NIV).

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption (NKJV).

When Christ went through the tent and entered once for all into the Most Holy Place, He did not take the blood of goats and bulls to offer as a sacrifice; rather, He took His own blood and obtained eternal salvation for us (TEV).

Once for all time He took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took His own blood, and with it He secured our salvation forever (NLT).

The Greek phrase mistranslated “Most Holy Place” in the above versions is ta hagia, which literally means “holy places,” or the sanctuary as a whole. While the King James Version's rendering of “holy place” in Hebrews 9:12 is in this case less accurate than the New English Bible, which uses the term “sanctuary,” the KJV translation remains both theologically correct and faithful to the context of the verse in question. The context of Hebrews 9:12 does not contrast the spiritual adequacy of the Holy Place with that of the Most Holy Place, but rather, the adequacy of the earthly services with those of the heavenly.

In short, nothing in this chapter, when accurately translated, gives credence to the arguments of those who deny the SDA sanctuary doctrine. But the inaccuracy of the above modern translations lends credibility to these arguments which the weight of evidence does not provide. Doctrinal confusion and misguidance have thus resulted from the use of these modern versions, within and outside of Adventism.

In surveying these few examples—and many more could be cited (8)—it becomes clear that Adventists who stand by the King James Version do so for fundamental doctrinal and textual reasons, not for some nostalgic love of Elizabethan English. Serious Bible students understand that archaic language is happily endurable for the sake of holding to the most accurate available rendering of God's Word.

Contemporary Worship Forms

Those Seventh-day Adventists who resist experimentation with various contemporary worship forms, such as “Christian” rock music and theatrical drama, do so not—as the Review article suggests (9)—because of tradition or personal taste. Rather, they resist these trends because of two principled reasons: (1) the clear counsel of God's inspired prophet, Ellen G. White; and (2) the lack of doctrinal and spiritual depth so often present in contemporary Christian music, and thus the natural dovetailing of these worship forms with the larger, destructive trends of doctrinal and lifestyle indifference in the contemporary church.

In her famed forecast of today's worship crisis in Adventism, we can see the larger principles which underlie her warnings:

The things you have described as taking place in Indiana, the Lord has shown me would take place just before the close of probation. Every uncouth thing will be demonstrated. There will be shouting, with drums, music, and dancing. The senses of rational beings will become so confused that they cannot be trusted to make right decisions. And this is called the moving of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit never reveals itself in such methods, in such a bedlam of noise. This is an invention of Satan to cover up his ingenious methods for making of none effect the pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, sanctifying truth for this time.… The truth for this time needs nothing of this kind in its work of converting souls (10).

The context of this statement goes on to declare, “No encouragement should be given to this kind of worship” (11), that “at such demonstrations, demons in the form of men are present” (12). She goes on to say:

Those things which have been in the past will be in the future. Satan will make music a snare by the way in which it is conducted. God calls upon His people, who have the light before them in the Word and in the Testimonies, to read and consider, and to take heed (13).

Regarding drama, and other theatrics like the use of clowns, we have these clear instructions:

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. We have met such things in many places. In my very first labors the message was given that all theatrical performances in connection with the preaching of present truth were to be discouraged and forbidden (14).

We need to study methods whereby we may preach the gospel to the poor and downtrodden and degraded of humanity. But let no one think that God will approve of a method which will require a man to act the part of a clown, or like a man who has lost his senses. Such methods as these are wholly unnecessary and inappropriate (15).

The Review article in question seems to imply that no methods are inappropriate in our efforts to reach people. Statements such as the above make it clear that God, through His prophet, takes a very different view.

One can clearly see how thoughtful church members, when observing the introduction of such worship forms into the church, will rightly become alarmed. The above statements mince no words in describing what God thinks of these experiments, and further state that such practices will exist in the church “just before the close of probation” (16), making it obvious that these developments are yet another sign of where we are in sacred history.

But what is most important, I believe, in the above statement, is its reference to Satan's efforts “to make of none effect the pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, sanctifying truth for this time” (17). When all the dust settles in the arguments over stylistic technicalities regarding music—discussions I prefer to avoid, since I am not a musician—the core of the issue is nevertheless exposed by this crucial statement from God's servant.

Whenever Ellen White speaks of “the truth for this time,” she consistently refers to the unique doctrinal, prophetic, and lifestyle witness of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She speaks of the effects of this message as “pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, sanctifying.” With this in mind, it is time we asked some serious questions about the impact of contemporary worship on the Biblical, doctrinal, and lifestyle seriousness of today's Adventism.

What has been the effect on Adventist beliefs and lifestyle of recent efforts to reclaim former members through contemporary music, theatrical drama, and “guilt-reducing” sermons?

Has the careful, in-depth study of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy been encouraged in churches that pursue these worship styles? Or is it treated as of secondary relevance?

Is confidence in the unique, Bible-based teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church built up and strengthened in these new “cutting edge” churches? Or has such confidence eroded, or been treated as unworthy of concern?

Have these worship styles encouraged Adventists to prepare more earnestly for the soon coming of their Lord, in the face of ever-multiplying signs that His coming is near?

Is the Bible's promise of total victory over sin through the Holy Spirit's power upheld in those Adventist circles where contemporary music and worship is fostered?

Are those attending these churches hearing messages on the need to search their hearts and examine their lives because of the investigative judgment in progress since 1844?

Do the lifestyle choices of those attending these churches and supporting these worship styles—regarding relationships, health, outward appearance, Sabbath observance, and other matters—reflect the counsel of Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy regarding these issues? Or do their choices reflect the unscriptural but increasingly popular illusion that God's love overlooks disobedience to His commands?

A fact both sobering and alarming is that more than ten prominent congregations in English-speaking Adventism, which adopted these contemporary worship styles as a key part of their program, have spawned independent churches or been fully removed from the denominational sisterhood because of doctrinal and institutional disloyalty (18). Several of these, sadly, were conspicuously promoted in the pages of the Adventist Review (19). The senior pastors of three of these now-former SDA churches have since prepared books, videos, and similar public statements attacking such basic Adventist doctrines as the Sabbath, together with ridiculing as well as distorting various counsels of Ellen White (20).

A study by an Australian Adventist pastor of five leading “contemporary-style” churches, planted in the South Pacific Division from 1985 to 1997, showed that by 2002 only one was still in the sisterhood of Conference churches. All others, including a number of the pastors, had left the denomination (21).

The conspicuous, even catastrophic failure of so many of these congregations causes no small number of thoughtful Adventists to wonder why these “seeker-sensitive” methods are still promoted with such vigor by some in responsible positions. One thinks of a long-ago episode of the classic comedy “The Three Stooges,” in which one of them repeatedly hits himself with a hammer, leading another to say, “If you'd only stop that, you'd feel better!”

The worship styles in question do not stand alone. They are not—as the Review article in question, and others, would have us believe—blank canvasses on which any spiritual or other message might be painted. Evangelical scholar G.A. Pritchard has carefully documented, in a three-year study of the message and methods of the famed Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, Illinois, that these worship forms are handmaidens of a calculated and deliberate philosophy of how to presumably “reach” the unchurched—a philosophy in which modern marketing and psychological theories have supplanted Bible truth, devalued perceptions of God's holiness, and compromised the gospel (22). Though not a Seventh-day Adventist, Pritchard has recognized and documented the perils of these worship forms, and their attendant philosophy, in contemporary Christian circles. We will see how his perceptions on these issues, and those of conservative Adventists, are not confined to those of a religious background.

Perhaps the biggest problem with so much of contemporary Christian music is its lack of spiritual depth, especially when compared to the older, traditional hymns of Protestant Christianity. Few contemporary Christian songs I have heard contain exhortations to obedience, warnings of the coming judgment, or similar themes of solemnity. Much of this music harmonizes well with a cheap-grace gospel which has long since marginalized the soul-disturbing features of Bible religion. An excellent article in Adventists Affirm magazine sometime ago addressed this point, with the appropriate title, “Worship is More Than Praise” (23). This article compared the rich variety and Biblical clarity of those hymns included in the current Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal with the doctrinal shallowness, imbalance, and almost trivial tone of much of today's “praise” music (24).

As an adolescent growing up in the Adventism of the 1970s, I myself couldn't help noticing this contrast, and found almost demeaning the lack of spiritual challenge and conviction in the so-called “youth” music even then. To this day I recoil at the near-frivolous lyrics of one stanza of the popular song, “Do Lord,” with the words, “All us guys are going to heaven; you girls come too!” followed by the answer, “Thank you, guys, for the invitation; we're coming too!” Whether or not the authors of such music or its promoters so intend, such lyrics easily trivialize the radically-changing, life-transforming conditions of salvation taught by Jesus (Matthew 19:16-17; Luke 10:25-28) into something no more serious than a Saturday night on the town!

Praise is certainly an important part of worship. But it is not the only part. Worship and its attendant music must include heart-felt recognition of our sinful deeds, our desperate need of forgiveness and power for victory, the recounting of God's mighty acts in history, and the church's prophetic mission culminating in her Lord's soon return. The Biblical Psalms—often mistakenly compared to today's praise music—contain precisely this theological and spiritual balance, as do the hymns in the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal. With few exceptions, contemporary Christian music does not offer such a balance. Totally apart from issues of musical style and instrumental performance, this point should be decisive.

Generational Stereotypes

Like an earlier, equally incendiary Review article (25), the one in question asserts that unless the church accepts contemporary Christian music, it faces the loss of its young people. As in the former article, an author of relatively advanced years presumes to speak for a generation not his own:

This attitude (opposition to contemporary music) places pastors and administrators in a bind between reaching the lost and placating the saints. ‘If we allow contemporary and/or rock music, we lose the older members; if we don't, we lose the young people’ (26).

Would that the author might attend a General Youth Conference!

In the past several years a powerful movement of young adult Adventists, called the General Youth Conference (GYC), has stirred throughout the North American Church, thus far quiet and unobtrusive and without publicity from denominational media. Its second annual convocation, which the present writer attended this past December in Ann Arbor, Michigan, drew over 1,000 young adults from throughout the Division. The overflow crowds were especially remarkable at a time of year both expensive for travel and fraught with competing personal obligations. Those in attendance spanned a rainbow of ethnic and educational diversity, from home-schoolers and self-supporting workers to SDA college students and Ivy League graduates.

Their mission: to recover and proclaim the distinctive doctrinal, prophetic, and lifestyle message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Anyone doubting that today's youth and young adults can be inspired by the sturdy old hymns of Adventism, need only to have sat in that gathering for a single day! The ceiling and chandeliers of that crowded Sheraton ballroom rang with the challenges and glories of classic Adventist music. On one particular evening, as a guest choir sang the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the director turned around and motioned for all of us to join in. To a man we rose to our feet, and the chorus, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! His truth is marching on!” rose with passion from hundreds of youthful voices. One of the conference's main speakers, a prominent conservative Adventist scholar, declared to the assembly, “You are the answer to those in the church who insist that entertainment, doctrinal ambiguity, and lowered standards are the way to retain our youth.”

North American Adventism will hear more from this powerful and growing movement, and none too soon! It has touched a live nerve and a deep soul-hunger in the church's rising generation. When its impact is fully felt in the contemporary church, it will be something to see!

The struggle over worship and music in the church is not generational, as evidenced by a fact we have noted already—that the author of this Review article, and many others of like mind, aren't exactly young themselves. To stereotype the young in this way is both divisive and factually groundless. The great divide in contemporary Adventism is not between generations, but between those seeking strict faithfulness to the written counsel of God, and those seeking to move beyond and outside that counsel.

Voices of the Unchurched

It is fascinating to hear what certain secular voices are saying about recent trends in Christian worship and theology. Since the goal of these “contemporary,” “user-friendly,” “seeker-sensitive” churches is to reach the unchurched through “culturally relevant” means, perhaps it should interest us to hear what some prominent unchurched voices are saying about these efforts.

Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, has written a provocative new book titled, The Transformation of American Religion (27). Though Jewish by birth, he declares himself in this book to be thoroughly secular—“ I am not, and never have been, a person of faith” (28). If anyone fits the definition of “unchurched,” this man does. Yet, despite his effort at objective unconcern, Wolfe's view of what is happening to American Christianity—through megachurches, contemporary music, doctrinal apathy, and the loss of clarity regarding sin and holiness—is anything but favorable.

Like G.A. Pritchard, whose book on Willow Creek noted earlier reflects several years of firsthand observation, Alan Wolfe's book is likewise based on countless interviews with clergy and laity, attendance at church services throughout the country, and the digesting of reports from every corner of the United States (29). Writing of the “seeker-sensitive” churches so popular just now, Wolfe describes their religion as “God Lite” (30)—what a U.S. News & World Report editorial recently dubbed “low-cal Christianity” (31). He writes of the loss of reverence (32), the self-centered content of contemporary Christian music (33), the intrusion of marketing and psychology at the expense of the Biblical message (34), and the supplanting of doctrinal and moral clarity at the hands of the so-called “small group” movement (35). Wolfe sees this feel-good church culture reflected in such popular Christian books as Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez (36), whose message he denounces as “so narcissistic that it makes prosperity theology look demanding by contrast” (37). Wolfe later comments, “One searches this exceptionally thin book in vain for any statement indicating that Christian prayer is an act of sacrifice” (38).

In a more recent analysis, Princeton history professor Christine Stansell weighs in on what she calls “The Fashion of the Christ” (39). Stansell writes of how “the latter day Jesus is an American optimist: good-tempered and informal, a generous Jesus sympathetic to the desires of this world” (40). Elsewhere she observes:

The amiable savior, not only personal but also personable, has pushed the traditional Father, merciful and mighty, off center stage, and with Him the formal elements of Protestant worship. Pop-inspired music for easy listening has ousted gorgeous hymns dating back to the fifteenth century; leisure wear and sneakers have supplanted Sunday best; ministerial raps have edged out liturgy (41).

The Review article under discussion worries that Adventists might “inter” the gospel in King James English (42). Yet Stansell, writing from a secular standpoint, laments the loss of King James Bible language and what she calls the “thrilling music” of the church's heritage, writing that such features of worship once made churches “among the few places away from cities where the imaginative powers of literature and art were evident” (43).

Despite their quest for neutrality in all this, both Wolfe and Stansell seem obviously troubled by these trends; even an unbeliever's conscience is disturbed by compromise on the part of those who ought to know better. In Wolfe's words:

This American propensity to reshape institutions to satisfy personal needs, while perhaps appropriate to consumer goods, seems to many observers to be out of place where matters of ultimate meaning and significance are at issue (44).

Even more profoundly, he later writes:

As a nonbeliever, I ought to be encouraged by this development, for it suggests that we will be less likely to point invidious fingers of shame at those who do not happen to agree with the majority's determination of what is acceptable morality and what is not.

But somehow I am not pleased with this retreat from sin, for the ease with which American religious believers adopt nonjudgmental language and a psychological understanding of wrongdoing is detrimental to anyone, religious or not, who believes that individuals should judge their actions against the highest possible ideals of human conduct, however those ideals are established. One need not be a Calvinist preoccupied with the dark side of human nature to recognize that covenants exist and that we break them only at great cost to ourselves and to others with whom we share our society (45).

In the final sentence of her article, concluding her assessment of the new “laughing” Jesus who leaves sin unchallenged and righteousness undeclared, Stansell writes in a tone she might not have wished to sound so sorrowful, but which does nonetheless:

You could also wonder whether, if Jesus is going to take it so lightly, you might be the one who weeps (46).

An irony indeed! While the church celebrates in carnal comfort, her clarity muted by false grace, her favorite sins uncondemned by a contrived and unscriptural Jesus, the world she seeks to attract through compromise weeps at the loss of her integrity!

Conclusion: Dead Languages or Eternal Truths?

Thoughtful observers in both the church and the world understand what is going on in the current war over worship. It is a struggle, not of cultural preferences or generational fads, but of eternal realities. Those Adventists who uphold the King James Version of the Bible, and the standards of Inspiration regarding worshipful reverence, do so not for love of dead languages, but in defense of eternal truths.

Writing of the subject matter addressed in the recent Review article, Alan Wolfe writes:

The most intransigent battles in the worship wars of American Protestantism take place over music. And it is clear who is losing: those who believe there are standards of musical excellence that, when reached, are capable of inducing moments of genuine transcendence (47).

That the Seventh-day Adventist Church might offer a shining exception to this prevailing culture of irreverence and liturgical frivolity, is my sincere prayer and earnest challenge to the struggling faithful in God's remnant church.

1. Ed Dickerson, “Dead Languages,” Adventist Review, March 2004, pp. 27-29.
2. Ibid., p. 28.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid, p. 29.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 28.
7. Ibid., p. 29.
8. See Colin D. Standish & Russell R. Standish, Modern Bible Translations Unmasked (Rapidan, VA: Hartland Publications, 1993).
9. Dickerson, “Dead Languages,” Adventist Review, March 2004, p. 29.
10. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 36.
11. Ibid., p. 37.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 38.
14. ________, Evangelism, p. 137.
15. ________, Signs of the Times, March 19, 1894.
16. ________, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 36.
17. Ibid.
18. Reference here is to eight congregations in the United States (in Maryland, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State, Idaho, Nevada, and Georgia) and four in Australia. See William G. Johnsson, “When the Family Splits,” Adventist Review, November 1997, pp. 16-19; Colleen Moore Tinker, “Rocky Mountain Conference Terminates Peck,” Adventist Today, November-December 1997, pp. 6-7; Eric Bahme, “What I've Learned: Lessons from ministry in a Congregational Seventh-day Adventist Church,” Adventist Today, May-June 1998, pp. 18-19; Tinker, “Idaho Fires Pastoral Couple,” Adventist Today, May-June 1998, pp. 21,24; Tinker, “Bob Bretsch Defrocked,” Adventist Today, March-April 1999, p. 10. Three of the eight North American congregations here noted are not documented in the above articles. These are the Mountain View Community Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, the New Hope Community Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, and the New Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Each of these churches, like those noted above, are either non-existent now and/or been removed from the Conference sisterhood.
19. See Adventist Review, Nov. 2, 1989, p. 7; Ruthie Kerr, “Living to Worship in Atlanta,” Adventist Review, Feb. 20, 1997, p. 13; Andy Nash, “Riding the Grace Wave,” Adventist Review, Oct. 30, 1997, pp. 8-9.
20. Clay Peck, pastor of Grace Place in Berthoud, Colorado, has written New Covenant Christians (Berthoud, CO: 1998), in which he repudiates the binding claims of the seventh-day Sabbath. Dave Snyder, formerly pastor of New Hope Community Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, who at one time was defended in the Adventist Review from the charge of having literally trashed Ellen White's books in public (see William G. Johnsson, “Between Fire and Ice,” Adventist Review, Aug. 9, 1990, p. 4), is now featured on the anti-SDA video, “Seventh-day Adventism: The Spirit Behind the Church,” in which he denounces and ridicules Ellen White's prophetic gift.
21. Pastor E.B. Price, “Church Growth in Contemporary Churches in the South Pacific Division,” (E-mail report dated Oct. 31, 2000: ebprice@serv.net.au).
22. G.A. Pritchard, Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), pp. 209-287.
23. Elsie Landon Buck, “Worship Is More Than Praise,” Adventists Affirm, Spring 1999, pp. 6-10.
24. Ibid., p. 9.
25. George R. Knight, “If I Were the Devil,” Adventist Review, January 2001, p. 10.
26. Dickerson, “Dead Languages,” Adventist Review, March 2004, p. 29.
27. Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith (New York: Free Press, 2003).
28. Ibid., p. vii.
29. Ibid., front inside flap.
30. Ibid., p. 156.
31. “ Divining the God Factor,” U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 23, 2000, p. 22.
32. Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion, pp. 17-22.
33. Ibid., p. 24.
34. Ibid., pp. 28-29, 181-184.
35. Ibid., pp. 67-76.
36. Bruce Wilkinson, The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2000).
37. Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion, p. 33.
38. Ibid., p. 34.
39. Christine Stansell, “The Fashion of the Christ,” The New Republic, March 8, 2004, pp. 29-33.
40. Ibid., p. 29.
41. Ibid., p. 30.
42. Dickerson, “Dead Languages,” Adventist Review, March 2004, p. 29.
43. Stansell, “The Fashion of the Christ,” The New Republic, March 8, 2004, p. 33.
44. Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion, p. 65.
45. Ibid., p. 184.
46. Stansell, “The Fashion of the Christ,” The New Republic, March 8, 2004, p. 33.
47. Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion, p. 30.

Pastor Kevin Paulson serves on the pastoral staff of the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Through the years he has published articles in many publications. He is also editor of Quo Vadis, a truth-filled magazine predominantly featuring the work of SDA young people. Kevin is also the speaker for "Know Your Bible," a radio program broadcast each Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on WMCA 570 AM, in Hasbrouk Heights, New Jersey. Pastor Paulson received his BA in Theology from Pacific Union College in 1982 and an MA in Systematic Theology from Loma Linda University in 1987.