We got mail…

The Real Reason for Regional Conferences

I just read your article entitled Adventism’s Racist Leanings. I fully expected you to give the real reason for the separate black conferences, but you didn’t. You probably don’t know the real truth. They actually had an article about how it happened in the Review one time. 

Here’s what I remember from the article. It was years ago and I was still an Adventist, but I’ve never forgotten it. In either the 50’s or 60’s a black Adventist woman was taken to an Adventist hospital. The hospital wouldn’t admit her because she was black. She was taken to a black hospital that was further away and died en route. 

I can’t remember where it happened, but the story as to how these separate black conferences came about is far more horrible than you’ve been led to believe. This incident brought their inequality in the Adventist church to a boiling point, and they asked for separate conferences.

I just thought you’d like to know. Perhaps you can find the Review article in their archives—unless they got rid of it!

—VIA EMAIL

Response: Thank you so much for this information. I did not know about this incident. I share here confirmation of the event you mentioned below. This quotation is from The Compass Magazine, “an online source of news and information about issues affecting the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” In a 2016 article entitled “It’s Time to Talk, Part 3: How Adventist Conferences Became Segregated”, author David Penno documents the formation of Adventism’s Regional Conferences. His full article is available here: https://thecompassmagazine.com/blog/it-is-time-to-talk-part-3-how-adventist-conferences-became-segregated

But ethnic tension in the Adventist Church in North American continued, and finally it reached a zenith in 1943, when Lucille Byard, a Black Adventist, died after she was refused treatment in an Adventist hospital in Washington, DC. Her “race” was the only reason she was refused admission. This incident was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Many similar events over the years leading up to this incident created a critical mass for change.

The Byard tragedy compelled Black Adventists, during the Spring Council the following year, to demand full integration of all Adventist institutions. Rather than accede to this demand, the General Conference Committee voted to establish “colored conferences” with Blacks serving as leaders.[19] The organizational segregation thus created was purposely based on ethnic lines; the Committee action that created the regional conferences used the terms “colored conferences” and “white conferences.”[20] Official church policy states that the original action creating regional conferences called for “the organization of black-administered conferences where membership, finances, and territory warranted.”[21]

 

What is the “body of sin”?

I’ve been puzzling and puzzling over Romans 6:6: what is the “body of sin”? Who is the “old man”? Exactly what is the “nature of sin”?

I’ve watched Dale’s video of a trip through Romans, but so much is skipped because of lack of time. Would it be possible for you to touch on this in your response part of Proclamation? The old man: is it spiritual? The body of sin: is it an entity, or does it live in my fingers and toes or body organs? Where is it? 

How does the soul fit into all this? Paul doesn’t mention the soul at all. Isn’t the soul a part of the equation? Isn’t that the seat of our thoughts and emotions? 

Thank you again for al you re doing.

—WAYNESBORO, PA

Response: The thing that helps me with this “body of sin” question is Romans 7:14–25. Paul addresses the “two natures” question there. He separates the essence of “himself” from his “flesh”. 

Paul has already established, in 7:4–12, that the law itself is not a bad thing but rather holy. It it the thing that convicted him of his own sinfulness and innate disobedience. God gave the law for that purpose, and the law is “holy, righteous, and good”. 

The law though, Paul says, is “spiritual”, but he is “of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” His point is that the law address his spirit, not his flesh, and thus it has convinced him of his own innate sinfulness. His flesh, though, is sinful. 

Paul further contrasts his spirit (which at this writing is born again and alive in Christ instead of still dead in sin) with his flesh which is still mortal. In fact, in verses 19–20 he says, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”

Paul is writing here as a born-again believer, and he is saying that HE, the true identity of Paul, does not want to sin. He himself loves God’s law and all the righteousness it represents, but in spite of his spiritual life and love for God’s righteousness, he still finds himself sinning.

The passage that has helped me understand this dilemma is verses 21–23: “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”

He then cries out that he is wretched and asks, “Who will deliver me from the body of death?:

Then he answers his own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is no no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”! 

Here’s how I understand this. Paul is differentiating between the material part of himself (flesh) and the immaterial (spirit/soul). When we are born again, our spirits, which were dead in sin (Eph. 2:1–3) come to life with the literal life of the resurrected Jesus. We “pass from death to life” (Jn. 5:24) and are transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved Son (Col. 1:13). This spiritual transformation is real. We become new people—and this fact reinforces that, as our pastor Gary Inrig has said, we are not our bodies!

Our whole self, body and spirit, is crucified with Christ when we trust Him. The sin in our flesh no longer identifies us because our inner man—our spirits—are alive and hidden in Christ. Yet we still inhabit these bodies of sin even though we are born again.

When we are born again, our mortal bodies are not yet glorified. We have habituated responses and behaviors that are “hard-wired” into our brains and nervous systems through years of practice. We have emotional responses and physical behaviors that we do without premeditating. Like Pavlov’s infamous dogs, our bodies have been trained by years of living as unregenerate sinners to act and respond in ways that are self-indulgent and self-protective, no matter what or whom those responses may hurt—including our Lord!

When we are born again, we suddenly realize that the now-living “we” are in conflict with our habituated “flesh”. We start to see that our flashes of anger, resentment, self-indulgence, and defensiveness are at odds with the reality that we are children of God and can trust Him to show us how to honor Him in those moments when we are tempted and threatened. We don’t have to protect and defend ourselves by our own wits and emotions; we can trust our Father to keep His promises and to show us how to submit to His care instead of lashing out or self-indulging. 

These natural, habituated responses are the “law of sin” which Paul says are in his members—his body of flesh. It is where this internal conflict rages between our born-again selves and our habituated flesh that God sanctifies us. He teaches us patiently and lovingly that we can trust Him and submit our emotions and desires to Him. We can pause before we act and ask the Lord to give us His words and His wisdom. Sometimes I even ask Him to take care of me at that moment because I do not know how to respond without dishonoring the Lord.

When we are glorified, those habituated sin responses will be gone from our flesh. Our new bodies will be eternally alive with no more law of sin in them! 

Meanwhile, Paul is very clear in Romans 7 and 8 that our bodies with their law of sin do not cause us to fall out of salvation when we sin. The Holy Spirit who indwells us convicts us of our sin when we do not honor the Lord, and we repent of those sins so that our fellowship with Him will not be disrupted because of our own shame and self-loathing. Yet, as Paul says in Romans 8:1, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”! 

Adventism said that sanctification is necessary in order to be saved and/or to stay saved. Scripture tells us that sanctification is the RESULT of BEING SAVED! Our living spirits love God and are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and our still-mortal bodies with their law of sin are learning, as we learn to trust our Lord and His word, to act in ways that honor Him instead of indulging ourselves.