The heads of most religious institutions understandably promote “unity” within their communities of faith. Many modern Christian bodies, including our own small Protestant denomination, invest considerable corporate energy in promoting internal cohesiveness and countering what are considered divisive influences.

To advance organizational togetherness, some church officials often refer back to an imaginary “golden age” in the history of their faith, insisting, for example, that all “true” Christians (or “true” Adventists) at the beginning of Christianity (or Adventism) were totally united in religious belief and practice. Regrettably for this argument, what actually has occurred does not support this understanding.

Essentially from its inception, Christianity developed a variety of groups with variant understandings about what the Christian message was all about. Various divisions and factions emerged, based on the interactions of complex and changing combinations of ideological, sociocultural, ethnic, political, economic, and organizational factors. Both orthodoxy (“right opinion”) and heresy (“deviating or nonconforming opinion”) were defined by small groups of individuals who came to assume positions of authority.

Although the process was often complex, those beliefs generally considered orthodox reflected majority views held by a politically dominant group. Theological opinions held by those in the minority and out of power were often labeled heretical. That which was orthodox in one period was sometimes later labeled heretical, reflecting a change in which group was politically dominant. Some ancient Christian minority beliefs declared heretical included Apollinarianism, Arianism, Docetism, Donatism, Modalism, Monarchianism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism, Socinianism, and Tritheism. In many cases, the adherents of minority views were excommunicated (disfellowshiped). When Christianity became the state religion, excommunication brought with it serious practical consequences.

Like most other Christian bodies — ancient and modern — Adventism has had its share of splits and divisions, both in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the latter part of the 20th Century and continuing into the first decade of this century, a type of factionalism has clearly emerged — a factionalism experienced by a number of other American and

European Protestant denominations many decades earlier. In the 1920s, various American Protestant groups had to deal with conflicts between liberal/ modernist and conservative/fundamentalist elements in their midst, and in 1930s’ Adventism, despite some obvious doctrinal differences, it was generally assumed that Adventism would naturally align with Protestant fundamentalists. However, Adventism had embedded within its cultural and intellectual fabric a variant thread that clearly set it apart from other American fundamentalist church bodies — a strong commitment to education in the health sciences. As is now well documented, largely due to the need to obtain accreditation for the denomination’s medical school at Loma Linda and the resultant requirement that medical students receive their baccalaureate degrees from fully accredited liberal arts colleges, Adventist colleges were required to apply for and obtain accreditation. This set in motion a process whereby faculties for these colleges were required to obtain Ph.D. degrees. Since no Adventist college at the time conferred this degree, these were obtained at institutions where many Adventist students faced theological, historical, and scientific points of view and data that, in some cases, ran directly counter to the cherished traditional beliefs of their faith community. In the face of much evidence, some were convinced by the data to take what might be regarded as Adventist minority positions.

The leadership of 21st Century corporate Adventism, especially in North America, is currently confronted with an opportunity to rethink how it will deal institutionally with the reality that many loyal and committed Adventists in educational and medical centers hold what can be considered minority views on a whole host of topics. Is the Adventist Church now mature enough to embrace an appropriate unity, where diversity is recognized as a vital part of growth? Or shall we follow the counsel of those who, even in the pages of the Adventist Review, regularly call for the exclusion of minority viewpoints from Adventist university and college campuses and Adventist pulpits? Pluralism and tolerance are adult virtues that deserve a significant place in the increasingly complex Adventist world.

p.2 adventist today | vol. 15 issue 4