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KASPARS OZOLINS
The 61st session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is occurring this week in St. Louis, Missouri. It seemed to me as though the session snuck up somewhat suddenly, given that it was intended to be more of a muted affair, and also given the fact that this particular session has already been delayed by two years due to the pandemic. I skimmed through some of the daily sessions on YouTube, noticing that although the stage was set up very nicely, with beautiful graphics and colorful screens, the convention hall itself was surprisingly empty. It looked as though only the ground level had attendees—and even this was not particularly full.
I had a look at the official website to get a vibe for the conference. Plastered on the front page of the GC session website were two exclamatory phrases: “Jesus is Coming!” and “Get Involved!” The welcome section succinctly explains these slogans:
Appropriately, the theme for this Session—“Jesus is Coming! Get Involved!”—reflects the Advent hope in a soon returning Savior, and the urgency of Total Member Involvement (TMI), everyone doing something for Jesus in winning souls for Him!
…the growth in membership since 2019 (the year prior to the pandemic) has slowed to a trickle, well below a single percentage point per year.
Total Member Involvement is a campaign which began in 2016, a year in which, according to official church statistics, the Seventh-day Adventist church grew by 4.61%. This is a growth rate not seen since 2006 (and even that year was an outlier). Growth rates in the past two decades have been much smaller than in previous decades. Even more catastrophically, the growth in membership since 2019 (the year prior to the pandemic) has slowed to a trickle, well below a single percentage point per year.
Of course, the Seventh-day Adventist church may not be an outlier in this regard, since many Christian churches—especially mainline, but even evangelical—have actually been seeing a decrease in membership year-on-year. In America, about 20% of the population today belongs to the “nones” (no belief), and that number is rapidly increasing. The shocking secularization trends in Western societies—already in play for decades, but now rapidly accelerating—have tended to force many religions into an identity crisis. What are we? How do we define ourselves over against the broader culture?
Adventism is certainly no exception. In fact, many observers have especially remarked on the particular diversity within the organization. The simultaneous existence of groups ranging from Spectrum to SDA Defend within a single church has seemed almost incredible to many.
Does Seventh-day Adventism even have a core identity anymore?
Anecdotal reactions to Elder Wilson’s reelection
The first major order of business at the GC Session was the voting that took place for the GC president. Elder Wilson was reelected to a third term in office by a fairly overwhelming 74.9% vote from delegates. When I heard the news, I admit that I was a little surprised. I asked a family member, out of curiosity, what he thought of the reelection of Wilson. He replied that he had actually expected this outcome, but that he was disappointed.
…this pastor effectively dismissed the GC session out of hand, saying that it can be ignored since it does not reflect “real” Adventism
A Facebook post from the pastor of an extremely liberal Adventist church I used to attend in California emphatically denied that Wilson, despite his many years in office, had any day-to-day impact in local Adventist churches and institutions. In fact, this pastor effectively dismissed the GC session out of hand, saying that it can be ignored since it does not reflect “real” Adventism.
In the comments about his remarks, many friends and acquaintances chimed in with their amens. One non-Adventist inquired, curious about the pastor’s mentioning that the church had a prophetic founder (whom he left unnamed). The pastor readily explained that she (Ellen G. White) maintains by far the greatest influence in the church because of her prophetic voice. He added that the church would not be what it was without her. So, on the one hand, Elder Wilson has “zero impact” on the real Adventist church, while on the other hand, its prophetic founder rightly continues to exert a powerful influence.
Another commenter, apparently a liberal ex-Adventist, disagreed. He claimed that there was no avoiding calling yourself an “Adventist” and endorsing, however slightly, Wilson. The pastor’s response to this remark was an attempt to downplay his argument. Wilson is only one person, after all, and while many church employees and institutions might favor him, the rest of Adventism could perhaps be likened to an underground group of freedom fighters challenging the evil empire, à la Star Wars. The commenter’s response to this was an encouragement to take the easy path and simply leave the denomination and walk across the street to the local Unitarian Universalist church.
Intrigued at this conversation, I scrolled down further. The pastor’s response to all this was to admit at the end of the day that he had incentives to remain in the denomination. He expressed admiration for Adventism as a culture and stated that many expressions of it (such as the one in his own church) were very healthy.
The progressive Adventist commentariat reacts to Elder Wilson’s reeleection
In surveying the Adventist landscape as it reacted to (or in some cases, preempted) the reelection of Wilson, I was quite eager to see how outfits such as Sepctrum and Adventist Today would respond. I knew exactly what I would find—barely disguised groans and eye-rolling in writing. (But I also found more than just that.)
Alexander Carpenter
Alexander Carpenter, executive editor of Spectrum, published a piece titled “Elder Wilson, It’s Time to Go” on June 4, in anticipation of the reelection. (It seems he had already anticipated the outcome and was resigned to preparing a response.) Carpenter began by pointing out that the father-son combo (Neal C. Wilson and Ted Wilson) have already led “our Seventh-day Adventist community” for about 40 years. It was therefore past time for new leadership in the church. Secondly, he pointed to Wilson’s tactics, especially with regard to women’s ordination. Carpenter claimed that “[a]round the world, Adventists are crying out for practical faith, not fights.” (Isn’t it rather the case that the progressive western minority knows it can’t win a fight with the global church?)
Carpenter went on to claim that Wilson’s agenda (exemplified in his “14 points” preached on October 9, 2021, in a sermon entitled “Trust God’s Prophetic Word in the Coming Conflict”) was stale and tired. He listed some of Wilson’s favorite slogans and called for “new programs, new blood, new faces, new ideas.” But let’s examine some of Elder Wilson’s slogans in the context of Sister White—whose “writings speak with prophetic authority”.
Carpenter laments Wilson’s endless calls for “reformation and revival.” But surely this call is no different than that of Wilson’s prophetess: “It is time for a genuine revival and reformation in God’s church” (True Revival 7.2).
Carpenter’s retort to Wilson’s “The Great Controversy Project 2.0” is an incredulous “are you kidding me?”
Wilson tirelessly encourages his church to “believe his [God’s] prophets.” Shouldn’t the Adventist church heed this call? Believe His Prophets, published in 1955 by Denton E. Rebok, is most definitely a timely message for the church whose “lesser light” continues to shine on the organization. One more example will suffice. Carpenter’s retort to Wilson’s “The Great Controversy Project 2.0” is an incredulous “are you kidding me?”
Yet the original editors of that celebrated book explicitly state that its subject matter is relevant in every age: “[E]ven though the last few decades have witnessed shifts and adjustments in the socioreligious world, the main scheme and the future projections presented in this book maintain today full timeliness and absorbing interest” (emphasis added). Adventists have always claimed that their unique ideas have relevance in every age (it’s “present truth,” after all).
Is Elder Wilson the one who is out of step here, or is it, rather, Carpenter?
Loren Seibold
Another dejected voice is that of Loren Seibold, who plastered animated sad faces as a graphic under his Adventist Today piece titled, “Why this General Conference Session is Making Me So Sad.” Similar sentiments are echoed here. Seibold remarks matter-of-factly: “In truth, we in the western church have learned to eclipse Ted Wilson from view in order to go on with our work in a dynamic, changing culture that he doesn’t understand.” Nevertheless, at almost every point where he tries to rebut the claim that Ted Wilson = Adventism, he unwittingly weds himself with his own words to the same church as the one headed by Elder Wilson.
Although Seibold bemoans the proposal to “create a local coordinator to promote the ‘Spirit of Prophecy’”, he immediately qualifies this complaint with his admiration of White: “I am not, like even some Adventists, contemptuous of Ellen White. I honor her as a godly woman, a feminist forerunner, and a vital part of our history. But her writings are not the Bible.”
To this disclaimer I must respond: “So what?” On one level, White herself never equated her writings with those of the Bible, nor does mainstream Adventism. They are only, as mentioned before, a “lesser light” albeit a “continuing and authoritative source of truth.” (It would take more than one blog post to unravel all the knots into which White and her followers tied themselves over the relationship of her writings to those of the Bible.)
Like Carpenter, Seibold protests that the GC and Wilson are not the same thing as Seventh-day Adventism (“We love our church. But for us, the church isn’t the General Conference.”). He counters by explaining: “Our church is the marvelous people who love Jesus, who honor the helpful and upbuilding parts of our message, who worship on God’s beautiful Sabbath [Seventh-day] and long for Jesus to return [Adventist].”
It gives me no pleasure to say that Seibold is fooling himself if he believes he and his progressive friends have separated themselves from Elder Wilson, or from Wilson’s prophetess.
It gives me no pleasure to say that Seibold is fooling himself if he believes he and his progressive friends have separated themselves from Elder Wilson, or from Wilson’s prophetess.
On Wednesday, June 8, the “Spirit of Prophecy Writings Coordinator” passed by 66.3%. Another voice at Spectrum Magazine lamented that “this new church office will harm how other Christians view this denomination. If I must explain, then you haven’t had enough friends who are not Adventists.” So it is that progressives and conservative Adventists are united in their eager desire to be duplicitous about the cultic roots of their church and its prophetess.
Come out!
No Arian non-Christian movement has ever become orthodox in history. No wild branch of a different species than the apostolic tree, has ever become truly Christian. It must instead die, and those who belong to Christ within it must renounce it and become part of the body of Christ.
Seventh-day Adventists often call for people to leave “apostate” Protestantism as part of their three angels’ messages. In response I reply to Adventists: “If you truly belong to Jesus Christ, come out of Seventh-day Adventism and cling to an apostolic church which proclaims the faith ‘once for all delivered to the saints.’”
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