THE NEXT ADVENTISM
Being Right or Being Nice?
WHO WE ARE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT WE SAY WE BELIEVE BY LOREN SEIB OLD
I have frequently heard Adventists say, with a touch of pride: “No one leaves our church for doctrinal reasons. Our doctrines are all correct, and even those who leave still believe them. People leave only because they get their feelings hurt.” In saying this, they aren’t apologizing that people have had
bad experiences in our church. On the contrary, they are subtly blaming those who have leſt Adventism for being such wimps. People shouldn’t leave because they’re treated badly. Tey should stay and tough it out, no matter what, because we have the “truth”! In other words, for many, being right is more important than
being nice. Having the truth is more important than being kind. Judging others seems, to some of us, as necessary as loving them. To the contrary, I am asserting here that Adventists must
recognize that there’s nothing more important than being Christlike, and no amount of “right” doctrine can ever substitute for that.
Believing and Being Affirming the truth of our doctrines seems terribly important to Adventists. I have met people who haven’t been to church in 50 years who say to me, “But I still believe in the Sabbath.” Now, saying you believe something is easy. Adventists have a
neat, tight set of arguments: our chosen texts and Ellen White statements seem to fit like puzzle pieces. And though we don’t say it quite so bluntly, we have connected believing those doctrines, and acting on certain distinctive ones, directly to salvation. I’m not suggesting that Adventist doctrines were craſted
dishonestly or with an intention to deceive. But they do have a certain recognizable orientation toward “truths” backed up with prooſtexts. Yet, take them or leave them, I still say that the problem isn’t
with the doctrines themselves. It’s that you can “believe” them without being an actual Christian. James 2:18-19 supplies a key metaphor in this regard, my favorite rendering of which is in a transliteration by Anglican theologian J.B. Phillips: “To the man who thinks that faith by itself is enough, I feel inclined to say, ‘So
20 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y
you believe that there is one God? Tat’s fine. So do all the devils in hell, and shudder in terror!’” Does it need to be explained that believing in God, and all the
truths about God, hasn’t had an improving effect on Satan? Nor, necessarily, has it been a cure-all for people: “For, my dear short-sighted man, can’t you see far enough to
realise that faith without the right actions is dead and useless?” (verse 20, Phillips).
A Hermeneutical Problem? Conservative Christians in general, and Adventists in particular, have advanced belief as the key to being a Christian for several reasons. One I can point to is the bad hermeneutical habit of isolating a single phrase out of the 31,102 verses in the Bible and exalting that as the basis for a belief. It is familiarly called prooſtexting. Te key prooſtext for many conservative Christians has been
John 3:16, and the key word in that passage is “believe.” Tis has, it seems to me, led some evangelicals to think that believing in Jesus frees you to do or be whatever tickles your fancy. Tat is why so many of these folks have felt free to add other prooſtexts to their self-selected canon, such as a meager few texts that seem to condemn LGBTQ people plus a few more from Paul that, they say, put women in their place. At the same time, they tend to deemphasize the many instances where the Bible insists that true religion means helping the poor and accepting immigrants. Teir biblical theology oſten seems a reflection of capitalism rather than kindness. Since you can pick and choose with prooſtexts, it isn’t hard to
end up with a message that lacks interpretive consistency. As a simple example, I have heard conservative Christians say that Leviticus 19:28 prohibits tattoos, and a few churches have gone so far as to say that you can’t be baptized if you’ve got one. But what of verse 27 in the same chapter, which prohibits men from cutting their hair and beard? Anyone? Or what of verses 20-21, which not only tacitly endorse slavery but also let a man rape a slave girl for the meager cost of a ram offering? Prooſtexting lets people create a customized theology,
with very little check on creativity. Case in point: American evangelicalism is right now in the odd place of endorsing vile political actions by vile politicians who have little Christlike about them. I’d venture to say that Adventists, in our range of beliefs,
take this practice even farther than most other Christians. Prooſtexting—the teaching method of our Sabbath School
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