65. Geochronology, the Sabbath and Death before Sin

Note: This is a paper I presented in July, 1998, at a conference on faith and science at Andrews University, sponsored by Andrews and the North American Department of Education. There are several references to the paper on the web, but the actual text is not available elsewhere, so I'm posting it here. To be clear: I'm posting as a historical document not because I think it represents the latest and best thinking on the subject.

GEOCHRONOLOGY, THE SABBATH AND DEATH BEFORE SIN

John McLarty

Abstract: McLarty identifies the seventh-day Sabbath as crucial for SDA self-understanding and unity, but questions our use of the Sabbath as an epistemological principle. High regard for the Sabbath and for conventional geochronology are not mutually exclusive. One possible solution is to see the Genesis One account as a poetic expansion of a creation event that lasted one week but which was a local creation of a habitat for humanity rather than the creation of all fauna, flora, and land forms. The paper also includes some hypotheses regarding death before sin.

Sabbath afternoon in Zion National Park. There were four of us, an engineer, a geologist, an entomologist and a theologian. The topic of conversation? Earth history, of course. And not the date of the Big Bang or the age of Precambrian granites, but the question of when life first appeared on earth.

We all freely acknowledged the paucity of our knowledge. We admitted the existence of problematic data no matter what position we took. There wasn’t much dogmatism that day. But then someone raised the question I’ve heard in nearly every Adventist discussion of geochronology: What about the Sabbath? Isn’t a literal interpretation of Genesis One¹ and the seventh-day Sabbath inextricably linked? If we give up our belief that all terrestrial life forms have their ultimate origin in a single week a few thousand years ago won’t we also lose the Sabbath?

After kicking around some possible solutions to the Sabbath question, the entomologist raised the other perennial question: If you accept conventional geochronology, then how do you handle the matter of death before sin?

The question about the Sabbath is primarily an Adventist question. The question about death before sin has broad ramifications in classic Christian theology.

The Sabbath Issue

Sabbath comes close to being the essential glue that holds us together. We can argue about the meaning of the cross, the role of faith and works, the authority of Ellen White, the nature of

Biblical revelation/inspiration, the meaning of the Apocalypse, and proper Christian dress and video customs. But then we come to the end of the week and interrupt our frenzied lives with

Sabbath habits—special meals, Sabbath School classes, corporate worship, distinctive music, even in some places distinctive radio and TV habits. Sabbath, probably more than any other habit or belief, connects Adventists across the amazingly diverse philosophical/theological spectrum of Adventism.

Given the crucial role Sabbath plays in our Adventist identity, it’s only natural that devotees of Adventism would vigorously combat anything that undermines our church’s appreciation of the Sabbath. And without question, many Adventists, scientists and lay people alike, have seen conventional geochronology as a serious threat to our Sabbath doctrine and practice.

I do not have the chutzpah to suggest this paper can settle all the questions. But I do insist that what follows demonstrates the possibility of holding a high regard for Scripture AND an openness to conventional theories of earth history.

Sabbatholatry.

I betray my conclusion with my title². At times we Adventists talk as though Sabbath is the ultimate test of Biblical interpretation and scientific veracity. If something challenges the Sabbath it must be false. In practice we’re treating the Sabbath as an ultimate epistemological test.

But Sabbath is not the touchstone of truth. Jesus is. If the starting point for one’s theology is the historic Adventist understanding of the mark of the beast, then perhaps we could justify giving Sabbath a normative role judging truth. But if one’s starting point is more Christian, that is if our starting point is a conviction that God has spoken to us through His Son and the record of the Son in The Word, then it seems to me misguided to make a theory’s implications for Sabbath-keeping the ultimate litmus test.

What if we found out the Bible did not teach that ALL terrestrial life forms originated from the flora and fauna which first appeared during a seven-day creation week six thousand years ago? What if we discovered that the Bible did not intend for us to understand that Australia’s protomarsupials disembarked from Noah’s Ark? Would we still believe these things to avoid losing the Sabbath? What if nature itself bore unmistakable witness to several million years of life history? Would we still insist on a life history in the magnitude of thousands of years just to preserve the Sabbath?

To state it bluntly, it would be highly unethical to oppose theories that were true but which we refused to believe merely because they contradicted other theories that were precious to us. It would be unethical to reject a biochronology of millions of years in order to maintain our Sabbath witness if we, in fact, could locate compelling evidence for just such a biochronology. Sabbath is precious, but it does not justify obfuscation. It cannot be made the final measure of truth.

Old Earth Sabbath Keepers: Oxymoron or Fact?

Is the customary Adventist linkage of a young earth and single creation week with the Sabbath logically or experientially necessary? To answer the second part of the question first: it is quite possible to be a devotee of the Sabbath and not believe in conventional SDA creation chronology. I could name several Adventist scientists and theologians who do not believe the conventional Adventist biochronology, but are committed, glad Sabbath keepers. Experientially the linkage is not essential. (Conversely, some of the most doctrinaire “young-agers” are Sunday-keepers.)

What about the logical linkage of Sabbath and geochronology? Can a person read the Bible with any kind of reverence and still question the traditional SDA chronology? This question becomes particularly acute for someone who has grown up in the church believing wholeheartedly in a conventional short chronology but then encounters what seems to be irrefutable evidence for a long chronology. If the only way a person can believe in Sabbath keeping is to first believe in young earth creationism, then our young people who no longer believe the traditional short chronology have no choice but to leave the Adventist Church.

I am convinced it is quite possible to sustain Sabbath convictions without belief in a single, seven-day creation week a few thousand years ago. First of all because of my personal acquaintance with Sabbath keepers who accept uncritically conventional geochronology. Secondly, because I see several logical foundations on which to build a defense of Sabbath-keeping which do not include a literalistic reading of Genesis One.

Support for Sabbath other than Genesis 1

How can a person believe in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath and at the same time read Genesis One as myth or figurative poetry?

1. The Sabbath commandment is given twice in the Mosaic corpus: In Exodus 20 it is said to be rooted in the creation week. In Deuteronomy it is rooted in Israel’s experience of deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Sabbatarians have long noted that these are complementary rather than contradictory rationales for Sabbath-keeping. However that may be, Deuteronomy gives a distinctly different basis for Sabbath-keeping from that found in Exodus. In Deuteronomy the Sabbath commandment is completely independent of the Creation story.

Deuteronomy 5. Isaiah 58. Jeremiah 17. Ezekiel 20.

2. The example of Jesus and the Apostles would be quite sufficient as a rationale for Sabbath-keeping, even if one did not have Genesis One and Two. The founder of our faith was a Sabbath keeper. He declared himself “Lord of the Sabbath.” And his followers were Sabbath keepers in the decades immediately following his death and resurrection.

3. The origins of Sunday sacredness are highly suspect. The modern Protestant practice of reducing Sunday religious practice to church attendance only, avoiding any pretense of holiness for the day, [see Dorothy Bass, editor. Practicing Our Faith, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. 1997] is much more defensible on the basis of ancient Christian practice than Puritan Sunday sacredness. But it fails to satisfy the human need for a holy day.

Reinterpreting Genesis 1 and 2

1. In the Adventist understanding of hell, we have always insisted that language with obvious chronological meanings must be interpreted in the light of theology. Chronology is a servant of theology, not the other way around. When Jesus talked about the unending torment of gehenna and John wrote about “the smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever” we make no apology for insisting that these chronological statements be reinterpreted in the light of our conviction that God would not supernaturally sustain life for the purpose of dispensing unending torment. We understand this language about unending torment to refer to the unalterability of the verdict rather than the duration of the punishment.

Applying this same principle to Genesis One we might read the Creation Week narrative as a statement of divine intention or attention rather than as statement of chronology. The story of Genesis One tells us that Almighty God involved himself with earth and did so at the very beginning with the ultimate purpose of bringing into existence creatures capable of intimate fellowship with their Creator.

2. There are many instances in the Bible of straightforward statements that we unquestioningly reinterpret because of what we know are “the facts.” Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, “you have become great and grown strong, and your majesty has be come great and reached to the sky and your dominion to the end of the earth.” Daniel 4:22. The Mediterranean famine in Joseph’s time was said to be “severe in all the earth.” Genesis 41:57. Acts refers to a famine which affected people “all over the world.” Acts 11:28. And Paul declared the gospel had reached “all the world.” Colossians 1:6. In every one of these instances we understand “the world” to refer to a geographical fragment of what we mean by “the world.” “The world” for these Biblical writers was smaller than what we mean by the same term.

Applying this to Genesis One we might conclude that the writer’s global language referred to events which, from our perspective, were local rather than global.

2A. We don’t believe the ancient world view offered in the Bible. Rev. 7:1 Four corners of the earth. Job 26:8. Wrapping the waters. Job 9:5,6. pillars. Gen. 7:11; 8:2 Flood gates of heaven.

6. There are many instances in the Bible of local phenomena being understood to have global spiritual significance. The divine selection of Abraham is seen not merely as the launching of a particular tribe or ethnic group. His choice somehow is a choice for all mankind. When Isaiah describes the inclusion of non-Jews and disqualified Jews in the congregation of God’s people (Isaiah 56) we immediately understand this to portray the inclusion of all kinds of “unacceptable” people among the people of God. Psalm 87 describes the reckoning of Babylonians, Egyptians and Philistines as natives of Jerusalem. Preachers immediately broaden this to portray the inclusion of all kinds of rejects in the people of God.

Gen. 12:1-3 cf. Rom 4

Deut. 4:34 cf. 1 Pet. 2:9

Deut 5:6 cf Rev. 14:12

Isa. 43 and 56: National language which we apply to current believers.

Ps. 87

Rev. 21.

Jerusalem is used by the New Testament writers as a metaphor for heaven. Israel is spiritualized to the people of God. Babylon becomes the forces of evil.

Israel was challenged to be kind to aliens because they themselves had been aliens in Egypt. But we apply this to our own treatment of immigrants. The declaration “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” comes in a list that includes things like rules for how many days meat from a sacrifice may be kept and eaten, prohibitions against interbreeding two different kinds of cattle, interplanting two crops in a field, cutting the body in mourning or “rounding off the side-growth of your heads.” But we have no problem at all separating the enduring, universally applicable rule “love your neighbor” from the local “do not harm the edges of your beard.” (All references in this paragraph are from Leviticus 19).

Applying the same principle to Genesis One, it would be quite possible to believe both that Genesis One referred to something smaller and more local than the creation of all fauna, flora and terrestrial landforms (as well as the sun, moon and stars) and still believe that its words about the Sabbath teach us something vital for all humanity.

New Ways of Reading the Bible and Geology

The last three points in the previous section already suggest non-traditional (within Adventism) ways of reading the Biblical text which allow for an easier harmonization of Scripture and conventional geology. Since I am a theologian, not a scientist, I can more readily suggest examples of bending that can be done by theologians. At the same time without any hesitation or timidity I challenge scientists to question the orthodoxy in their own tradition. The fact that all geologists believe something doesn’t make it true. I have worked in the field of manuscript collation and often struggle to suppress a guffaw or two when I read statements about the “assured results of scholarship” in connection with textual criticism. Those “assured results” include huge amounts of conjecture dignified by age and the academic credentials of the conjecturers. Earth science has much more data to work with than does textual criticism, but I doubt the human factors in the respective fields are much different.

I challenge scientists to cultivate at least as healthy a skepticism about the orthodoxy of science as they have about the orthodoxies of religion. Potentially one of the values of young earth creation scientists is that they keep the pot boiling. They ask impolite questions. At times, they make preposterous assertions. They “see” things that aren’t there. But at least they are roiling the status quo or in the words of the bumper sticker, they “Question Authority.”³

Our great need as Adventists is not for scientists who are committed to young earth creationism. That presupposes too much; it precludes too much. But we do need scientists who will actively look for ways to articulate the agreement of geology and Scripture. We need scientists conversant with a number of different fields who will look for ways to interpret the data that are faithful both to the tangible facts and to the spiritual insight of Scripture.

One Model

One way to understand Genesis One is to see it as the poetic expansion or globalization of a local creation event. Behind Genesis One is a particular creation week during which God prepared a local habitation for the first humans, the Garden of Eden.

Moses took the events of that week and used them to symbolize God’s global involvement and his anthropocentrism. The week which began human history is seen as the beginning of time. The creation of the animals which supported human life—domestic sheep, domestic cattle, horses, dogs, camels—is pictured as the creation of all animals. The creation of the plants on which humans depend—grains, fruit trees—is portrayed as the creation of all flora.

I’ve been intrigued by what appears to be a convergence at about ten thousand years ago of the appearance of Cro-Magnon people, grain culture, and some domestic animals. Is this “scientific” evidence for a creation?

This approach preserves the Adventist understanding of Creation Week as a literal seven-day period in which God prepared a special habitation for the primeval humans. His resting at the end of this week would still have the rich theological meaning expounded by Barth and other theologians. It would still carry the imperatives Adventists and other Sabbatarians have preached.

Whether the first Sabbath came at the end of the week which saw the creation of all flora, fauna, land forms and celestial bodies or marked the end of the week in which God climaxed creation history by preparing a special home and then creating Adam and Eve, Sabbath would remain a premier expression of God’s desire for relationship with his creatures. It would speak of grace and obedience.

Why Should We Bother with Geochronology?

Why should the SDA denomination publicly open the question of geochronology? Our system has built a reputation as a defender of a short geochronology. Many of our members are quite happy with our current public stance and would be upset if it were altered. So why bother?

I have no personal need for my model to be accepted. If tomorrow my views were declared heretical and I was defrocked and disfellowshiped, I’m sure it would hurt, but I’d survive. And my faith in God would survive. I’m too old to change that.

My concern is not for myself or other “Boomers” but for the young people I meet who are wrestling with the difference between what they can believe and what the church declares is essential Adventism. When a young person goes off to college or graduate school and comes to the conclusion that short age creationism is not tenable I don’t want that young person to be forced to choose between the community of faith and the community of science. These are not mutually exclusive communities. Many of us who are older have found our own, at-times- difficult-and-painful way between the conflicting demands of these communities. We don’t want our children and our grandchildren to face the same wrenching conflicts we did.

I remember hearing H. M. S Richards, Jr. speak to the pastors of Greater New York Conference. Speaking specifically of questions surrounding earth history he declared, “If you don’t believe it [the SDA short age tradition], then you should have the courage and integrity to resign and get out.” I don’t remember if I actually wrote a resignation letter or if I merely composed it in my mind a hundred times, but I came very close to resigning. It seemed to me the only way. This, in spite of having entered the ministry with a very strong sense of “divine call.”

Several years later, Richards sat in the committee that interviewed me for a position as a writer at Voice of Prophecy. In that interview I was forthright about my geochronological questions. I was hired. But I doubt I’ll ever forget the months of agony as I weighed the question: Could I be an Adventist pastor with integrity and still have the opinions I did about geochronology? I don’t want my children to endure that kind of pain. Life is hard enough already.

When Richards made that unequivocal statement to the pastors of Greater New York Conference, he did not intend to make me unwelcome in the church. (Witness my hiring by the Voice of Prophecy to write sermons for him to read on international radio.) He was speaking out of his profound loyalty to the denomination and his belief at that time that anyone who questioned traditional SDA earth history was undermining the Church. I’m not asking the church to re-educate its grandmothers regarding the proper interpretation of Genesis One. I am urging us to make room in our church for our children whatever their persuasions regarding geology.

Columbia, Missouri story: Man who called me after my letter to the editor appeared in the Review. He was on the verge of resigning his church membership because he thought he was the only Adventist with questions about geochronology. Because I was a minister and had the same questions he decided there was room in the church for him.

Ladell Fisher told me her brother was a geologist. He has dropped out of the church because he could not accept a short chronology.

If we are honest, we must confront the reality that many of the people in our denomination who challenge our belief in a short chronology began their study in pursuit of scientific evidence supportive of our tradition. They gave up a short chronology only with great reluctance and in the face of overwhelming evidence. Hare, Lugenbeal, Ritland, to name some famous ones. And there are many others as well.

It’s time to reject chronological concerns as the center of our spiritual life and theology. In our early days our obsession with chronology led to the great disappointment. We still like to say we got the chronology right but the event wrong. Well, maybe something like that is true with creation week. Yes, something happened a few thousand years ago. But maybe it wasn’t the first appearance of life on this planet. Maybe it didn’t involve literally the whole world. Maybe it wasn’t the first time God intervened on earth. Maybe it wasn’t the last. And if we got the event wrong, is it all that significant that we got the date right?

Death before Sin

What about death before sin? This question has broad roots in classic Christian theology. Forgive my giving a ten cent answer to a million dollar question, but just a few suggestions of some directions we might look for answers:

The uniqueness of humans. All of nature is declared to be God’s doing, to be the fruit of God’s creativity. But only humans are said to be created IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. Is immortality part of the imago dei? When the Bible declares that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, did that mean that all of creation was deathless until that time or that by eating from the tree humans would sink to the condition of the animals through their disobedience? Is it possible that deathlessness a unique gift given to humans alone of all creation?

The Tree of Life. It appears that even Adam and Eve had only conditional immortality. When separated from the tree of life they died. Would this have been the result even if they hadn’t sinned? Why did they need to eat from the tree? The very existence of the tree of life suggests that Adam and Eve did not live in a deathless world. Did animals eat from the tree of life also? What if they did? What if they didn’t?

The difference between pre-fall and post-fall nature. If there was a deathless world before sin, then pre-fall nature was so radically different from what it is now that we probably can know NOTHING of the pre-sin world by studying nature. In fact, the difference between that world and ours would be so great that the present world would have to be the result of a complete recreation. If the deathless world of creation transformed into our world with its cycles of decay and birth, its predation and parasitism, through natural processes, it would represent a rate of change that could easily accommodate the evolutionary changes from the Cambrian through the Pleistocene in a very few years indeed. I.e. Darwinism is more plausible.

The Atonement. Human death has a unique meaning rooted in the unique position of humans as the image of God. If we conclude not all death is the result of sin, that in no way undermines the significance of the cross. In classic Christian theology, the cross was necessary not because of the existence of death (human or otherwise) but because of the existence of sin. And of all terrestrial creatures only humans were capable of sin. For Almighty God death is an easy problem to solve. The warping of the moral fabric of the universe by the sinful choices of humans or “gods” creates a much larger problem. And it was that warping and associated problems that the death of Jesus addressed.

CONCLUSION

While Adventists have understandable concerns about potential threats to our convictions about the Sabbath and our understanding of the connection between death and sin, openness to conventional geochronology does not necessarily undermine either doctrinal cluster. This paper presents just one approach to harmonizing Adventism and conventional biochronology. If the church were more open, it is my conviction that the creative tension between devotion to the Bible and love of the natural sciences would prompt the publishing of a variety of useful and interesting answers to these long-standing questions.

^{_______________________}

¹Throughout the article I will refer to Genesis One. I know that the first creation narrative continues through Genesis 2:3. I also know there are other passages which refer to the creation story as recounted in Genesis One. Still it is a convenient shorthand.

²The formation of the title is taken from the cautionary statements intended by the words Bibliolatry (worship of the book rather than the God who stands above the book) and Mariolatry (idolizing Mary instead of joining her in adoring her Son).

³Okay, okay. I know there’s another way to view this. It’s possible that the activism of young-earth creationists has slowed the advance of science by making it even more politically dangerous for mainstream scientists to question the orthodoxy of the system. If you question orthodoxy you have to be very careful to dissociate yourself from any sympathy for the “crazies.”

___________________

John McLarty is a writer and producer for The Voice of Prophecy and editor of Adventist Today. The opinions expressed in this paper are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Voice of Prophecy or Adventist Today.

Chapter 64. Adventist Today

About the time we moved to California, a new independent magazine appeared, Adventist Today. It appeared to me to fill the place previously occupied by Adventist Currents, a bitterly critical journal that cataloged the hypocrisies, ethical lapses and errors of judgment of Adventist leaders. Adventist Today seemed a bit less venomous, a bit more thoughtful. Still, it seemed to me unrelievedly critical. There was no good news, no thoughtful positive presentation of Adventist spirituality from a liberal perspective.

I believed in the value of an independent press. An organization as large as the Adventist Church and having the kind of impact on people's lives the church exerts needs the check on power provided by the flow of information that is not controlled by the denomination. (This, of course, was back when most people thought of information as something that was written on paper.) Still after reading an issue of the magazine, I would find myself feeling sick. Was my church really that bad? That uniformly bad?

No, I knew from my own experience that the Adventist Church touched many people with hope and healing. It sustained human well-being, in spite of its very real failings. It offered some distinctive perspectives in theology not readily found elsewhere. And I prized some of these distinctive perspectives and thought the world would benefit from their wider dissemination. I longed for a journal that explored Adventist spirituality without the constraints of official approval, a journal that addressed problems and scandals as necessary but did not specialize in the negative.

Once, when I was in Loma Linda, I stopped by the office of Jim Walters, the editor of Adventist Today. I repeated to him what I've written above—about my appreciation for an independent press, about my concern for the predictable negatively of almost everything in the journal.

“I'm looking for a magazine that will celebrate the best in liberal Adventism. I worry about the long term effects of focusing too much on the failings of the church.” I said.

I hoped I wasn't being too impolite. Jim astonished me with his response. “If you were editor, do you think you could do any better?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then why don't you give it a try?”

I wondered how the Voice of Prophecy organization would react if I became publicly associated with something as controversial in the church as Adventist Today. I knew that taking on the editorship would close any career advancement in the church. I would never be offered any administrative position. It would mean that I was ineligible for consideration for any faculty position at an Adventist college. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to engage in the ministry I felt most called to—ministry to those whose primary challenges in spiritual life arose from the intellect. I was increasingly worried that our denomination was becoming a place that was closed to earth scientists. Within the church, we required that scientists who studied earth history consider only evidence that supported what we already knew.

I told Jim I would consider the position if it were offered. Within a few months, I became the editor. Walters was a model for releasing control and offering continued support when a younger, inexperienced person is moving into a new sphere of ministry. He did everything possible to enable my work.

The position paid three thousand dollars per year. I paid for most of my expenses, including travel, so that in the end I think I came out about even financially.

I discovered it is easier to theorize about change than to effect it. I was unabashedly committed to the “check-and-balance” function an independent press provided vis-a-vis the organization. I was even more committed to articulating a vision of healthy Adventist spirituality, a spirituality that acknowledged its debt to our denominational heritage, but openly moved beyond our historic obsession with endtime scenarios to a concern for human well-being in the most comprehensive sense. It turned out, that given our tiny budget, we were unable to make writing assignments. Often we published pieces not because they were the best, but because they were minimally acceptable and they were all we had. Sometimes I approved articles so we could go to press, not because I was proud of their content.

In a painful early learning experience, we published an article detailing the mistreatment of a female Adventist employee. There were several malefactors in the story, with a conference president being the chief sinner. The article was well-written and hard-hitting.

Oops! The writer based the article exclusively on the testimony of the disgruntled employee. She did not interview the conference president or anyone else qualified to present contrary evidence or to give context. After publication, I heard from a number of people close to the situation, people I knew and trusted. They uniformly insisted our reporting was so one-sided it was essentially false. I was embarrassed and, hopefully, a little wiser. What made our publication of this report even worse was that the author was a member of the editorial staff. I had picked up that she delighted in muckraking. Her glee at bashing the church should have made me more wary. However, I allowed myself to be swayed by the polish of her writing and the pressure of deadlines. The bottom line: I approved publication. Not long after this the author moved to a non-Adventist publication where she could more freely fuse her writing skills and anti-Adventist animus.

In July, 1998, there was a conference on Faith and Science at Andrews University sponsored by the University and the North American Division Department of Eduction. I was invited to present a paper on how one could be a Sabbath-keeper even if he didn't believe in a 6 day/6000 year creation. The focus was the pastoral care of scientists who remained in the church. I presented my paper the last day of the conference. I was flattered that many seminary faculty attended and surprised by their affirmation afterward. The responses that I remember came from two or three well-known conservatives, (men who were major presenters at the church-sponsored Faith and Science Conferences described in the next chapter). These men thanked me for my presentation. They said I helped to create room for them to do their work. I make the “safe-thinking space” in the church larger.

[Note: The paper is referenced several places on the web, but the content is not available elsewhere so I've posted it in its original form as the next entry on this blog. Bibliographic info: McLarty, John. “Geochronology, the Sabbath and death before sin”, (Unpublished manuscript, Conference on Science and Faith, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI; July 23-29, 1998).]

Chapter 63. Adventist Media Center

The Adventist Media Center had been created through a shotgun wedding of The Voice of Prophecy, It Is Written, Faith for Today, the three major Adventist media ministries. The Voice of Prophecy, founded by H. M. S. Richards, Sr., was the oldest and most venerable. Its primary medium was radio. It Is Written, led by George Vandeman and Faith for Today led by Dan Matthews were TV ministries. Each had its own offices, cadre of loyal supporters and donors, and production facilities. Neal Wilson, the General Conference president, coerced them into moving in together. The new campus, located in Thousand Oaks, CA, was grand. Three large buildings set in an expanse of lawn and trees. It appeared idyllic.

The reality was complicated. The people at VOP, especially, resented the loss of their old home in Glendale. The facilities there were more modest, but they were paid for and they were hallowed with the memories of H. M. S., Sr. The production facilities required for radio are vastly less expensive than what is required for quality TV production. So VOP resented being saddled with the shared overhead of production facilities for TV.

The creation of the media center meant the creation of an additional layer of administration that had to be funded. All of the ministries resented the cost and meddling of the center administration.

One of the striking features of the Voice of Prophecy culture was the sense of family. Decision-making involved a broad assortment of people. The committee that gave regular direction to our work included not only the speaker/directors, (Richards and Melashenko), and the manager, but all the writers, the heads of the order fulfillment department and the Bible school, several retirees, and maybe another person or two I don't remember. Sitting around the table everyone's input was welcomed.

Outside the committee room, this feeling of a congenial team permeated the entire ministry. The employees evinced a strong sense of participation in a grand and significant ministry. And they seemed to care for one another.

All of this was in stark contrast to my perception of relationships at the highest level at the Adventist Media Center. There was constant, palpable tension among the heads of the various ministries and the Center administration. Which was only natural. Each ministry had its own mission. They were led by people with strong egos. (Of course, they would have described this as strong commitment to their calling.) The president of the Center had his own dreams of greatness. (In God's service, of course.)

When budget constraints required cutting staff, the halls buzzed with resentment and rumors. 

At some point it occurred to church administrators that they were sitting on a goldmine in the physical facilities of the Media Center. The property was worth millions. So the Center administration explored the possibility of selling the property and moving operations to a smaller physical plant. The idea was that this would net millions of dollars that could be put into an endowment to fund the ongoing work of the ministries. A buyer was found for the Thousand Oaks property and an empty building was found in a business park in Simi Valley.

The final decision to sell was made in a conference call of the Media Center board (rather than in a face-to-face meeting where the decision might have been more thoroughly processed). It was a disaster. All of the profit from the sale was consumed in the construction of offices, studios and production facilities in the Simi Valley building. There was nothing left to put into an endowment for operations. The new facility was much smaller, less attractive and worth far less money than the original property. The sale did not lead to any enhancement of ministry. The sale heightened tensions among the leaders at the Center.

Within Voice of Prophecy itself money was always a problem but managing the consequences of shrinking revenues did not seem to produce the same kind of acrimony that characterized the center administration and staff. Voice of Prophecy's prestige and influence in the denomination and income had peaked before I arrived. Nearly every year budget constraints compelled us to cut a few more stations to keep the budget balanced.

The overall fraternal, collegial atmosphere of Voice of Prophecy had one glaring exception. Melashenko had no warm personal connections with any of his staff. He was not close to the manager or any of the writers. The longer I worked at the Voice of Prophecy, the more strongly I believed this disconnect between the leader of the ministry and the senior staff of the ministry was a significant impediment. I thought it would be smart for the board to give Melashenko permission to fire all of us and bring in people he connected with naturally and easily. But our denomination doesn't work that way. So Melashenko soldiered on, doing the best he could with a staff that was not appropriately enthralled with its leader.

One expression of Melashenko's distance from his staff was the lack of meaningful spiritual/theological conversation. In my entire six and half years working as one of Melashenko's writers, I never had a theological conversation with him. Nor did I ever hear him engage in conversation about theology or spiritual life with any one else. I learned over time to write material that “fit” Melashenko's preaching passion. At our best – when I wrote content that was natural to Melashenko – his reading of my scripts was better preaching than I could have ever achieved preaching my own stuff. He truly was gifted as a verbal presenter. But I had to learn his voice somewhat through trial and error, because we never had any extended conversations about religion, theology or spirituality.

We writers were constantly talking and arguing, in breaks in the studio, over lunch, in the hall, in structured meetings. But even when Melashenko was present, he never entered these conversations. The writers were quite different in temperament, education, age, and cultural background. These differences naturally showed up in the content of our writing. We regarded our differences with good humor, respecting the others' commitment to God, the Bible and people. Once when I split the writing of a week-long series with another writer, we deliberately wrote strongly in our own voices, which meant that a careful listener would have detected a significant inconsistency between what Melashenko preached at the beginning of the week and what he said at the end of the week. We thought it was funny. As far as I know Melashenko did not notice.

Plagiarism remained a threat. Once Melashenko surprised me by handing me a script he had written. I was delighted until I read it. It was a sermon on parenting. The general thrust of the sermon was that parents should not spend too much time on their kids. Parents should have their own lives and not be unduly dominated by the time and attention needs of their children. I wasn't sure how well this sermon would be received since Melashenko did not have any children of his own and the sermon did not make any pretense of citing studies or widely recognized authorities to support its unconventional wisdom. Quite apart from these concerns, was the fact that the sermon reminded me strongly of an article I had read in an airline magazine. I got a copy of the magazine to check my memory. Unfortunately, the sermon script was even closer to the magazine article than I had suspected. We didn't broadcast the sermon.

Sometimes, one of the writers complained about Melashenko using material from the broadcast in the sermons he preached at campmeetings and other live events. He felt that Melashenko should be doing his own work for these occasions. I argued it was better for him to use our material because of the consistency it gave between live sermons and radio broadcasts and because none of the writing staff was comfortable with the content Melashenko came up with on his own. I argued it reflected poorly on the ministry as a whole when Melashenko delivered sermons with mediocre content. 

As you read this, you can see that given my low level of confidence in Melashenko's mind and judgment it was time for me to move on. I contacted a couple of ministerial secretaries to see about returning to the pastorate, but I didn't put much energy into my job search. The truth is the job at Voice of Prophecy was so much easier than the pastorate. I worked eight to five, Monday through Thursday. Often I traveled on weekends, but more than half the time, I was home for the weekend. I liked my colleagues. I enjoyed writing.

About this time I called an old friend of mine. I spent time complaining to him about the situation at the Voice of Prophecy. After a little while of listening, he interrupted me. “John, I think I'm hearing a lot of ego.”

Thinking he was doing reflective listening, I responded, “That's just the way I see it. If these people didn't think so much of themselves, there would a chance of actually changing and becoming more effective.”

“No, John,” he said. “I'm not talking about their egos. I'm talking about yours.”

Coming from almost anyone else this would have been an attack, from George it was a diagnosis. I was brought up short. He was right.

Chapter 62. Good People but Unbelievers

My theology continued to be shaped by surprising, unlikely teachers.

I attended a funeral. Not that I knew the kid – in fact, I had never met him – but out of respect for his mother who was one of my co-workers. It was an astonishing service. There was a very large representation of young adults present. This was not a church crowd or an Adventist college crowd. Their dress, bling, hair and body language all suggested a harder, edgier identity.

When time was given for people to speak about Billy, a number of these young adults spoke. Listening to them you would have thought Billy was a saint. When a guy was kicked out of his apartment by his girlfriend, whose couch did he end up on for months? Billy's. When someone needed to get bailed out of jail, who did he call? When you totaled your car and needed to borrow wheels to get to work so you didn't lose your job, who would give you their keys? And it wasn't only the kids who painted this picture a couple of older people also spoke of Billy's consistent ethic of care. I left the service with the happy assurance that Billy was a genuinely good person, the obvious hints of substance abuse notwithstanding.

A few weeks later Janet stopped me in the hall. We talked about her son. Well, actually we talked about her grief. She didn't know what to do with the insuperable weight of it. It's not that her son had died. That was horrific enough. It was that she had no hope. She would never see him again. She thought she could handle the loss if only she had hope for the future. But that was not available. He hit an oak tree going who-knew-how-fast when he failed to make a ninety degree turn on one of the snakey roads coming over the mountains from the coast. He would have died instantly. There was no time for a last minute conversion.

“How can you be so sure you won't see him?”

“Well, you know, he wasn't safe to save. He had been really heavy into alcohol and drugs. He had cut back on that. In fact, he was really doing pretty good, but he wasn't a Christian. He grew up in the church but he rejected Jesus and the church and God. So he wouldn't be safe to save.”

I was taken aback by her words. It was a new use of the idea of “safe to save.” Graham Maxwell popularized the phrase in Adventism. As I understood it, he taught that the dividing line between those who would live eternally and those who would be annihilated was just this: were they safe to save? Could God safely give a person eternal life? I think the principal concern was, would the person go back to rebelling against God and harming people? The entire point of the drama of history was to prepare for an eternity where people would have freedom without any risk they would revert to sin.

I thought the point of this construct was to offer hope. It did not require that people achieve perfection before death or the Second Coming. It appeared to me to obviate need for people to perfectly master the salvation formulas of evangelical Christianity. However, this mother linked it with the traditional Adventist notion of a dauntingly high standard of practice and belief. Her son obviously did not meet that Adventist standard of wholehearted, publicly declared faith in the saving merits of Jesus. He just as obviously did not meet the classic stipulation of Ellen White: overcoming every hereditary and cultivated tendency to evil. So he wasn't safe to save. Doomed. Damned. Unquestionable, irrevocably.

 

While he was alive, she had prayed and hoped. But now what could she do? How do you live with no hope?

I asked her about some rumors I had heard about her son. Were they true?

“Yes. He really was a good kid. After his father left me, all the kids were supportive, but Billy came every week and maintained the pool and the yard. I don't know what I would have done without him. I couldn't have afforded to hire someone, and it was too much for me to do alone.

“And yes, when his dad had that accident, his girlfriend moved out a week later. And Henry was bedfast. He couldn't even get up and go to the bathroom. Billy moved in and waited on him hand and foot for six months. Can you believe that?”

“What about those stories the kids told at the funeral," I asked, "about Billy lending them money or letting them crash on his couch? Was that all true?”

“Well, you know, Billy had all these friends from Academy. None of them go to church any more. A lot of them are into drugs and alcohol. They're a mess. Billy was a mess, too, for a long time. But even when he was drinking so much he could not hold on to a job for long, he was always helping his friends. More than once one of his friends would end up on Billy's couch for weeks at a time. Everybody knew that if you were in trouble, call Billy. Yes. That's true.”

“Then you can hope to see him again.”

“How? He rejected God and the church. He hadn't been to church in years, except when he came sometimes with me on holidays, just to make me happy. He never went for himself.”

“Janet, you know the story of the sheep and goats. It's the most famous passage in the Bible about Judgment Day. In that story, when God announces who's in and who's out on Judgment Day what does he base the decision on? Does he ask people if they believe in Jesus? Does he do a urine test? Does he check their church attendance record? No, he checks one category: compassion. Did you feed me when I was hungry, give me clothes when I was naked, visit me when I was in prison?

“From what I heard at the funeral and from what you are telling me now, Billy clearly passed that test. So I'm planning of having you introduce us when we get to heaven.”

“Do you really think so? Are you sure?”

“I have no question at all. Unless you've been making up stories and unless all those people at the funeral were just saying nice things that weren't really true, Billy is going to be at the head of the line, heading into the kingdom.”

“But he wasn't a believer. What about that?”

“It is a truism in Christianity that if a person claims to be a believer but acts like the Devil, we say their actions speak louder than their words. Jesus said as much in Matthew 7. Even people who are so religious, they are working miracles and prophesying, if in the rest of their lives they're acting like wicked people, all their religious words and religious work are irrelevant. We know what they really believe by the way they behave. I believe the opposite is also true. If someone insists they don't believe in God or Jesus, but when you check out their behavior it looks like they're a believer, I think we can trust their behavior over their words. Your son was a believer, no matter what he said. He acted like a believer. He acted like he believed Jesus since he was doing what Jesus told us to do.”

“You really think so? Really?”

“Yes.”

I could see her thinking new thoughts. I could see hope sprouting or at least germinating. It was going to be resisted by decades of dogma that insisted people like her son were damned. But I was quoting Bible verses she knew. I was appealing to images that were as deeply rooted in her mind as the words of condemnation and exclusion.

I went on to write sermons developing this idea further. It seems to me best to view salvation as something that comes through God's grace. Neither human behavior (classically, works) nor human opinion (classically, faith) is the engine of salvation. Humans receive grace. How? The Bible offers a variety of pictures of receptivity works. Baptism, the Lord's Supper, Sabbath keeping, and, of course, verbal declarations of faith are all ways for us to more fully and richly receive God's grace. All of these expressions are expected of a Christian. You can cite passages that explicitly support the necessity of each of these. So the church appropriately presents these as normative. But God is quite able to handle the exceptions like the thief on the cross and like Billy.

Billy's rejection of church and God was quite understandable. His dad had been an elder in the church and made a great show of religion. Then he dumped Bill's mom for someone younger and fresher. During Bill's teen years, at almost the same time his dad was chasing a shorter skirt, a pastor and the youth leader at his church became involved in scandalous affairs. Then the Bible teacher at the Adventist academy Bill attended went off the deep end, first theologically then psychologically. Almost every man Bill knew who would have appropriately served as a model for God violated Bill’s trust. When Bill turned his back on God and the church, he was rejecting pretense, hypocrisy and non-integrity. He refused to believe in the god of shyster religiosity. I think God would approve.

Chapter 61 The Voice of Prophecy

I headed West before the family, driving a car full of plants and a dog. When I got to the agricultural inspection station in California, the inspector looked in my car and blanched. My guess is she was wondering how I was going to react when she explained that I was going to have to dump all of my prized plants there in the desert. I quickly explained I had a certificate of inspection from the appropriate agency in Ohio. She took the paper and went into the office and came back smiling.

Driving on west through the California desert, I was astonished at the sweet sense of coming home. Where did that come from? I had never lived in Southern California and spent only a year or so in Northern. After Karin arrived with the kids, she told me she experienced something similar. We found a house in the working class section of Thousand Oaks. The neighborhood allowed horses, and the house we purchased had a four stall barn.

We visited the churches in the area. The architecture of all of them was unattractive, dark, closed, conventional, pews in rows. The preachers were boring. My sense was that the Adventists in California were deeper into “the Adventist world” than what I had experienced in New York or Ohio. Prophetic speculations and a profound wariness about the seductive threat of everything that was “outside” seemed to be the prime topics of conversation at potlucks and in church lobbies. We ended up at the Camarillo Church because of their quality programming for kids.



At about the time I was hired, the Voice of Prophecy had chosen Melashenko to take H. M. S. Richards, Jr.'s place as the speaker/director of the ministry. The plan was for a gradual transition. Melashenko would work along side Richards as the associate speaker, then gradually Richards would step back as Melashenko increasingly became the public face of the ministry. Publishing a book with Melashenko's name on it would be a helpful step in the process of giving him increased visibility in the denomination.

Melashenko had preached a series of sermons at the Paradise, California, Adventist Church not long before this transition. The sermons were an obvious source for a book. My first assignment, which I began working on before we actually moved to California, was to edit these sermons for publication. The sermons had already been transcribed, so it should have been an easy assignment.

The sermon series was structured around the people who were present at the cross on Good Friday. I read through the sermons, then began polishing the first chapter, transforming it from verbal to good written form.

One of the elders at Akron First Church, Larry Baggott, when he learned what I was doing, asked if I had ever read Leslie Hardinge's book, These Watched Him Die? No, I hadn't read the book, but I had heard Hardinge present a Week of Prayer on this theme when I was at a student at Pacific Union College. And yes, what I had read in the transcripts did have a familiar feel. Baggott lent me his copy of Hardinge's book.

Oops! Many of Melashenko's sermons consisted largely of quotations from Hardinge's book. Melashenko had a good memory. He was also phenomenally gifted at reading a script with a passion and naturalness that belied the fact he was reading. Whether the sermons had been read or were delivered from memory, the bottom line was that the transcriptions were frequently word-for-word repetitions Hardinge's book for pages at a time. In nearly every sermon more than half was direction quotation from Hardinge.

I called the manager at Voice of Prophecy and asked what to do. It was not a problem that could be addressed by simply giving credit. We couldn't put Melashenko's name on a book that consisted mostly of direct quotation from another book published by the denomination, a book that was still in print. Not only was the book still in print, Hardinge himself had preached the content of his book at campmeetings across the country and at many Adventist colleges.

It was finally decided I would write a book on the topic, using the Hardinge/Melashenko sermons as one source. That way there would be some connection between Melashenko and the content of the book, but it would avoid the embarrassment of merely copying Hardinge's work. The finished book showed no direct dependence on Hardinge. Melashenko had done his most independent work in the chapter on Mary Magdalene, so in this chapter I included several pages from the transcript of his sermon. Pacific Press published the book with the title, Stand at the Cross: And Be Changed. I was listed as a co-author. I was thrilled to have a book in print with my name on it. And I was, in fact, the author.

The production of this book set the tone for my work at The Voice of Prophecy. Both H. M. S. Richards, Jr. and Lonnie Melashenko were consumed with their work as the directors of a large ministry. They had no time for the slogging hard work of producing content for the broadcast or books. They chose their writers carefully then trusted them completely.

I would be assigned to write a week's scripts: five scripts, each with an approximately nine minute sermon and four minutes of introduction and invitations to write or phone for a free offer and an invitation to support the ministry financially. For the first few months, my scripts were reviewed critically by others and I was given thoughtful feedback. By the end of the first year I was left virtually on my own. Over the six years I worked there, only once was a manuscript returned to me as unacceptable. (The rejection was fully earned.)

I was (and am) a slow writer. Add to that my tendency to be easily distracted and there were times when I was up all night, trying to meet a recording deadline. A couple of times I did not make deadline and the entire ministry schedule was disrupted. In the last several years I was at Voice, my fellow writer and supervisor was David Smith. At that time, I wrote and produced the Sunday broadcast, a twenty-eight and a half minute program. Smith was writing and producing the Monday through Friday broadcasts, five thirteen and a half minute programs. Every week he wrote two and a half times as many words as I did. I remember once, after Melashenko had done an overseas evangelistic series, the ministry decided to produce a book telling the story of the meetings. Smith was drafted as writer. In a week or two he completed it.

Smith was a writing machine. Usually, his first draft was ninety-eight to a hundred percent of the final draft. He could write circles around me. I was slow and inefficient. I would write and re-write. Often I would be five or six pages into a sermon manuscript before realizing it wasn't going to work. So, I'd delete it and start over. On the other hand, I was recognized as the master when it came to handling delicate, sensitive issues.

From day one, I had to fight the old guard for permission to address any distinctively Adventist doctrine in the broadcast. For decades, the prevailing ethos had been to avoid giving offense. Just “preach the gospel.” “Sound like Christians.” “Win friends.” Then after they liked us and signed up for a Bible course or attended an evangelistic meeting sponsored by the Voice of Prophecy, we could share with them our distinctive beliefs.

I argued against this from my experience as a pastor. More than once, I had visited or called someone whose name had been sent to me because of they had completed a series of Bible studies through the Bible Correspondence School. When the person found out I was connected with the Adventist Church they wanted nothing more to do with me. When I tried to convince them that Pastor Richards, the head of the Voice of Prophecy was also a minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I was called a liar. Having listened to the broadcast for years and having completed a series of Bible studies through the Correspondence School, people still had no idea there was any connection between the sweet, Christian ministry of the Voice of Prophecy and that weird cult, the Adventists. The broadcast was supported almost exclusively by gifts from Adventists (mostly elderly) who gave because they believed we were doing the work of evangelism – understood as sharing our message with the world. We were not supported by the general audience (in contrast to the norm in Christian radio). I argued we had a fiduciary responsibility to make sure our broadcasts actually contributed to the evangelistic outreach of the church. We had to do the work our supporters believed we were doing. Our broadcasts could not be merely inoffensive. We could not justify limiting ourselves to broadcasting our version of generic, American, Protestant Christianity. We were obliged by our funding source to bring people into contact with the particular message and community of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

We began to mention the name of the church in the broadcasts. We did features on missionaries with Adventist Frontier Missions. We talked about the Pathfinder Camporees and Adventist Health Ministries and Adventist education. We were not drowned in negative mail. No stations dropped us.

I wrote sermons on distinctively Adventist doctrines – the Sabbath, what happens after death, health as a component of Christian spirituality. (My title for the Adventist doctrine of death is “God's Grief.” See my blog entry for December 5, 2001, http://liberaladventist.blogspot.com/) I wrote the first broadcast Voice of Prophecy had ever done on the Mark of the Beast. This terrified the old guard. They let it pass after reading the script and were relieved when there was no outcry from our listeners or stations. A couple of listeners wrote to argue with particular points in the broadcast, but there was no umbrage that we had raised the topic or outrage at the general tone of the presentation.

I thought it a bit humorous that I who was more unorthodox, more liberal, more eccentric than any one else associated with the ministry, would be the one pushing the ministry to be more faithful to its denominational identity in its public programming.

My sense was that part of the ethos of the ministry, going back to the formative influence of H. M. S. Richards, Sr., was a willingness to take risks in pursuing increased effectiveness in outreach. I remembered the “Wayout” Bible study materials produced by the Voice in the seventies to reach the youth culture of the time. It was genuinely cutting-edge, using psychedelic graphics and trendy language. There was a strong backlash from many congregations and pastor. But H. M. S. was determined to reach people untouched by more traditional approaches. At least, that's the way I heard the story told by oldtimers at Voice. My own eccentricity fit into this pattern of hiring edgy people to help reach people outside the mainstream.

One cause championed by several in the old guard had my full support. There were Adventist radio ministries around the world modeled on the Voice of Prophecy. In one respect these foreign ministries were like each other and different from the American Voice of Prophecy: Their names meant Voice of Hope rather than Voice of Prophecy, e.g. Voz de Esperanza, Stimme der Hoffnung, a Voz da Esperança.

Our radio broadcasts did not feature prophetic themes prominently. The old guard would have replaced a focus on prophecy with a focus on the cross. I would have replaced it with a more generalized message of hope and well-being anchored in the synoptic gospels. We agreed using the name Voice of Hope would connect us with our international partners and give us a spiritual/religious identity that was healthier and less open to the common bias against against Adventists as a “cult.” I don't remember how these conversations came to nothing, but in the end, preserving the status quo won out. Which was congruent with Melahsenko's pattern of leadership.

He had a deep sense of the honor conferred on him by being chosen to “step into the shoes” of H. M. S. Richards. During the transition of leadership from H. M. S. Richards, Jr. to Melashenko, Melashenko wanted H. M. S. with him in every public appearance. I never saw Melashenko show the least inclination to set any new direction. He did not show any desire to put “his own stamp” on the ministry. Rather his dominant objective was to preserve, to conserve the venerable heritage he had been handed. He wanted to maintain the ministry. He wanted to keep the long-time supporters. We did everything we could to present the face of a “continuing ministry.” The new Voice of Prophecy under Melashenko was the same as the old Voice of Prophecy under the Richards. People could trust us.



Part of my job was to represent the Voice of Prophecy at campmeetings around the country. The speaker/directors, H. M. S. Richards, Jr. and Lonnie Melashenko, would be scheduled for weekend sermons at major campmeeings. Other staff would take speaking appointments at smaller campmeetings. Usually our sermons were scheduled during the week when the campmeetings were harder pressed to fill their schedules. I enjoyed the travel, at first, but after awhile grew weary of it. As a pastor, I would often think, after preaching, if I had a chance to preach that again, I could do a better job. I imagined I would enjoy preaching a sermon often enough to perfect it. In reality, while I was certainly able to deliver more polished sermons, I often found myself wondering whether the sermon I preached connected meaningfully to my audience. They were strangers. If I preached grace, I worried they needed greater emphasis on duty and obligation. If I preached duty and obligation, I worried I may have added to the unbearable burden my listeners were already carrying. As a pastor, I might not deliver polished sermons, but I had a deep sense of connection with my audience.

Usually once or twice a year, I would have a preaching assignment that lasted for several days. Sometimes I would speak Monday through Friday at a campmeeting. These extended assignments were more satisfying than single sermons. Visiting with people over the course of the week gave me a sense of connection with my audiences.

Once when Morris Venden had to cancel late, I was invited to speak for the Sabbath services and evening meetings in the main auditorium at the Oklahoma campmeeting. This was highly flattering. The first Sabbath, I was in the lobby of the gymnasium before the services began. I met C. Mervyn Maxwell, a former seminary professor. I introduced myself, but he brushed aside my introduction, saying, of course, he remembered me. Which was believable. I did ask a few questions in his class. According to a number of my classmates, once when I was absent, Maxwell had told the class that I would never get a job as a pastor. At the time, his prophecy was not unreasonable. My job prospects were dim.

Dr. Maxwell's first question was, “So, what are you doing now?”

“I'm the writer/producer for the Sunday broadcast of the Voice of Prophecy.” I could see the astonishment on his face. In our denomination, my position was considered a plum. It was a position of honor.

Dr. Maxwell asked the next obvious question. “So what brings you here to Oklahoma?”

“I'm speaking here this week.”

His discomfiture increased. “You know,” he said, “H. M. S. Richards really was not a well-rounded minister. All he could do was preach.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was talking about the late H. M. S. Richards, Sr., the man who had founded the Voice of Prophecy. Richards was at that time arguably the most admired Seventh-day Adventist after our prophet Ellen White. He was considered our greatest preacher, a genuinely wise, good man, a larger than life person. To dismiss him as “only a preacher” would be like dismissing Pavarotti as “only a singer” or Einstein as “only a theoretical physicist.” I mumbled something in response and ended the conversation, astonished and amused.

It was a lesson. Even the most venerated preacher has his critics.

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.”