Chapter 60. Akron First Seventh-day Adventist Church

While we were still pastoring the Babylon Church, Karin and I began looking for a house to buy. Property values were skyrocketing on Long Island. My dad had given us money for a down payment. After my initial disappointment at being assigned to a suburban pastorate, I had fallen in love with the saints and the ministry of the Babylon Church. I began to imagine spending my life with these people. The town of Babylon itself was charming. However, even with the money my dad had given us, we were unable to find a house that suited us and our budget.

Then we were transferred to the Church of the Advent Hope. I toyed with the idea of living in Manhattan, but rent on even the smallest place that would accommodate us and our daughter cost more than I earned. For reasons I don't recall, we decided to look for a house in the suburbs north of the city. Still we could not get our budget and preferences together. Finally, Karin found a place in Newton, New Jersey. We bought it. It was an hour fifteen minutes drive on Sabbath mornings from our house to the church. Crazy. But I was living the “Ellen White Blueprint” for city ministry—living out and working in. There was a fold-out couch in the basement at the church. I slept there two or three nights a week. Except for Sabbath when the family was with me, I took the bus into town. The last stop on the express run was less than two miles from our house. In Manhattan, unless the weather was too miserable, I walked from the bus terminal on the west side across to Grand Central Station where I caught the 5 or 6 up to 86^th Street. The church was a couple of blocks from the 86^th Street station.

Karin and I lived separate lives. When I was home, she was at work. When she was home, I was in the city. We made it work, but it accentuated our already ingrained habits of individualism. Our family expanded to four, then Karin was pregnant again. Twins! This was not possible. Our church members would have been delighted to help us cope with the challenge of caring for twins but they lived in the city. Logistically, it would be impossible.

We were invited to pastor the Akron, Ohio, Adventist Church. Karin's mother and father lived in Kettering, Ohio. The move would bring our home life and my professional life into a smaller geographical circle. Akron a much larger church than Advent Hope. It would be a great career move.

The twins were born. One was severely deformed. By the time he was delivered his heart had stopped. He was revived, but died about twelve hours after he was born. His sister was healthy and beautiful.

The church welcomed us warmly. It was a challenge for me to try to fit into the very different pastoral role required in a four-hundred member church. The elders were gracious and wise. The group included professors and blue-collar workers, men and women, all of whom appeared to respect one another.

At the time, John Osborn, a roommate of mine in high school, was making a career out of bashing the denomination for its compromises with evil. One of the most insidious, diabolical threats to the church, as Osborn saw it, was contemporary music with its syncopation and emotionality.

One of the churches in the Ohio Conference had launched an audacious venture into contemporary worship. The pastor had begun this innovation with the full blessing of the conference president. He had processed it with the elders and church board. But once the church got deeply into the new approach to worship, opposition exploded in the congregation. Eventually, the two pastors were fired and the church retreated to a more traditional liturgy and organizational form.

At Akron, we decided to make our own attempt at introducing a contemporary service. All the books suggested that given our present attendance which was close to eighty percent of the seating capacity, numerical growth for our congregation required starting a second service. So we began an early service using a contemporary format.

There was muted opposition. My sense was that people couldn't put words to all of their reservations, but they had a gut reaction against this newfangled approach to worship. It just didn't feel right. Six months into our experiment, the head elder told me, “John, I think you know I don't care much for this modern music. But it has my daughter attending church again. I want you to know I will do anything I can to make sure this service continues.” A couple other leaders said similar things. The younger crowd (people in their thirties and forties) showing up for the contemporary service were the children of the Akron Church. Some had not been regular at church for more than a decade. Their parents and grandparents might not understand or appreciate the music and the drums. But they would tolerate it since it appeared to reconnect their children and grandchildren with church.

Akron was a “gospel church.” Many of the people prided themselves on their understanding of the gospel. They had been rescued from the burdens of legalism and perfectionism. They understood justification. This “gospel identity had been formed in the church through the preaching of a previous minister. He was an “expository preacher” who believed that God's best revelation of truth was found in the writings of Paul. Sermons were exercises in scholarship. He preached through Paul's letters, sometimes spending weeks expounding the meaning of a single verse. He frequently instructed the congregation on the true meaning of particular Greek words Paul used. As he hammered away, many in the congregation let go of their notions of being good enough for salvation. They were saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Humans were hopelessly depraved. There was nothing in any human that could recommend him or her to God. But God in his sovereign will had deigned to send a Savior, Jesus, who lived a righteous life and died a perfect death. Jesus' righteousness was available to us through faith. When we believed God now regarded us as perfect in Christ. Saved.

After I had been at Akron for a while some of the people complained about my preaching. I did not cite Greek words; I based my sermons on English translations instead of the Greek original. And I told stories! That was especially galling. Any one could understand my sermons. They were not intellectually stimulating.

I smiled when I heard the complaints that I used stories instead of exegesis. I replied that at least one early Christian preacher had done the same. I didn't think Jesus was a bad model for a preacher.

The move to Akron meant I was once again living in a place shaped by continental glaciation. The effects of glaciation were not as dramatic as they had been on Long Island, still as I, drove around and asked the inevitable (for me) questions about geomorphology, the answers were usually found in the story of massive continental glaciers. The University of Akron had a good geology department and I succumbed to the temptation to learn more about rocks.

I enrolled in class in mineralogy. As at Suffolk Community College, I was the lone student in a tie and sports coat. I sat in the back. As I got acquainted with the professor, I learned he was active in an Episcopalian Church. He never talked about his faith publicly, but he was willing to discuss it with me. He experienced no conflict between his faith and his science. He loved geology and he was happy to participated in church. The semester was divided in half. We had a new professor for the second half of the semester. His first day in class, he announced, “I hope none of your are creationists, because if you are, you won't be smart enough to handle this class. You might as well drop out now.”

I was surprised at this blunt hostility to religion. But I said nothing. At the end of the semester after final scores were posted, I stopped in to see the professor. By now he knew who I was. Not that we had had any personal interaction, but I had the second highest score overall for the semester.

“Come in, John. How are you?”

We made small talk for a couple of minutes then I launched into my speech. “Dr. Horinouchi, at the beginning of class, you mentioned that anyone who believed in creation would not be smart enough to handle your class. I just wanted to let you know that I'm one of those creationists.”

“Really! I'm surprised. Obviously, you're smart. I appreciated having you in class. You must be an exception. I appreciate you're coming in to see me.”

He seemed genuinely surprised. And he showed no hostility or condescension to me personally. He allowed my grades to testify to my intellectual ability, in spite of my religious notions. On the way out of his office, his graduate assistant stopped me. He had heard the conversation through the open door. “How is it, that you can believe in God and creation and be a geologist?”

“I'm not a geologist,” I said. “This is only the second class I've taken. But I do have a keen amateur's interest. I don't know how to put everything together, but I do believe life originated in the purpose and action of God. That seems to me by far the most rational view. On the other hand, the rocks strongly suggest there is more time involved than traditional Christians believe.”

“Yeah, well the preacher at my church says you have no business calling yourself a Christian if you don't believe Adam and Eve and 6000 years.”

“I understand. That's the official position of our entire denomination. It's either all or nothing. I don't buy that any more. I've met geologists who accept all the standard dates of geology are still happy to be Christians. In fact, I've even met people like that here at the university. So, I don't think you have to choose between being a geologist and being a Christian.”

I left happy with what I had learned about rocks and happy for the chance to offer encouragement to another student who valued both rocks and religion. I hoped to continue taking one class per term, but that didn't work out.

I had been in Akron a little more than a couple of years when I got a call from a friend of mine who worked at the Voice of Prophecy. Was I interested in having my name considered for a writing position there?

I was flattered and said, “Sure, put my name on the list.”

It couldn't possibly come to anything. My entire portfolio of published writing was two or three articles in denominational publications. I wrote sermons, but those did not travel beyond my congregations.

A month or two later, I got another call. Would I be willing to come and interview?  I was conflicted. I felt guilty about leaving after such a short time. I remembered my dad's complaints about the constant shuffle of ministers through Memphis First Church. It seemed to him that Memphis First was merely a stepping stone. Ministers came there on their way “up.” And certainly moving to the Voice of Prophecy would be seen by Adventist clergy as a “step up.” 

On the other hand, I hated the interminable grayness of the northeast Ohio winters. While I liked the people of the church, I chafed at my role as the administrator of a four-hundred member church and an influential player on the school board. I didn't feel like I was doing a good job. When I came to Ohio, I was invited to serve on the conference committee and to be a member of the finance subcommittee. It was an honor. I was flattered. But after a year or so, I resigned because it seemed to me I was not doing an adequate job at my church. So what business did I have sitting in a policy making body for the whole conference?

Something I still laugh about was my negative reaction to the architecture of the church. It was new building. It had a conventional exterior of brick and white wood and was topped by a steeple. The sanctuary was gleaming white, with a pleasant, but formal feel. It's great defect, in my eyes, was the absence of windows. All of the light and brilliant white paint could not make up for the lack of natural light. I didn't mind it for night meetings, but on Sabbath mornings, to go inside, away from the light, to worship just did not work for me. I knew it was petty then. I still laugh at myself—what's the big deal about no windows for three hours on Sabbath morning? Still, no matter how I lectured myself about the foolishness of my aversion, I could not change my gut reaction. So I went for the interview.

The Voice of Prophecy offices were on the idyllic campus of the Adventist Media Center in Thousand Oaks, California. Something like eight men participated in the interview. My approach was the same as when I met with the ordination committee. I told them who I was and what I could do and left them to assess whether I was a fit.

I was cocky. I knew radio as a listener and had strong opinions about how to do it well. I claimed I could make Adventism understandable and attractive to a younger, less-religiously formed audience. I had no interest in doing the job of traditional Adventist evangelism which I saw as persuading Christians they ought to be Adventists. I had no track record of effectiveness in communicating with Pentacostals and devout Baptists and fundamentalists. On the other hand, if they wanted to talk to Adventists in their thirties and forties, I could help them do it. If they wanted to reach people who were spiritually hungry but weren't already persuaded that traditional Christianity held the answers they were looking for, I could help in that project.

After a couple of hours, we broke for lunch, then returned to the office for more hours of conversation. We talked theology. I was impressed with the guys on the committee. This was no mere formality. Most of them were sharp communicators. They asked thoughtful, probing questions. One of the old guys asked me about my views on creation.

“This is a difficult issue for me. Geology is a hobby of mine. From my own study and from conversations with many Adventist scientists, I have come to have large questions about the force of our scientific arguments in favor of 6000 years. I don't see how life could have arisen without a designer or intelligence directing it. It seems to me that we have many arguments in our favor in the field of biology. But when it comes to geology, it seems to me the weightiest arguments fall on the other side. I happily affirm that my church teaches 6000 years. As an Adventist preacher I won't contradict that. But personally, privately, I have lots of questions about the chronology.

The old guy who asked the question said something to the effect that we all have questions. The important thing is that as preachers, we don't undermine the church. H. M. S. Richards, Jr., was part of the interview committee. His opinion was obviously the most weighty of one in the room. Several years earlier, he had thrown down a dogmatic challenge in a minister's meeting, saying that preachers who had questions about 6000 years ought to have the integrity to get out of the ministry. I had nearly left. Now, as I voiced my ambivalence, he nodded in agreement with the old man who minimized the significance of my personal questions.

I was hired.

Several years later, the old man who had asked about my views on creation, told me, “John, thirty minutes into the interview, it was unanimous. We were not going to hire you. I still don't know how you changed our minds. But at the end of the day when we voted, it was unanimous. We were all for you.”