July 1, 1993 - 12:00pm - Robert Dale

Interview with Robert Dale

James Walters for Adventist Today: What is your professional relationship to David Mould?

Robert Dale: One of my assignments is to deal with independent ministries, and that’s why I have a special interest in David Mould and his activities.

Has there been any significant contact between church leadership and David Mould?

Yes, over a number of years. When he was conducting his work of “Jesus Behind Bars” [see p. 8], there was quite a bit of support from the church leaders, but since then that support has deteriorated.

Why is that?

Because David Mould has wanted to develop his own program without any relationship to the church or any guidance, so that he would meet the standards that were felt important.

What is the church’s major problem with Mould’s advertising of The Great Controversy?

Well, it has been the feeling that The Great Controversy was written for a specific purpose and was to be disseminated in a specific way, primarily that there should be personal contact. But just to send it in a mass mailing could have a negative impact. If it is distributed through personal contacts, then individuals are able to understand better what is being said and they can discuss it.

So the criticism is more of tactics than any substantive disagreement with Mould and what he’s about.

There certainly is no substantive disagreement with the book The Great Controversy. Obviously the church believes in that book and supports what it states, but we need to follow the ways that that book needs to be distributed. That’s what our appeal has been.

Where did that instruction originate, regarding its distribution by personal means rather than mass means?

I was discussing this with the leadership in the E. G. White Estate and some of our historians and scholars, and their understanding of the writings of Ellen White indicates that The Great Controversy should be distributed in more of a personal manner.

Do you think that our church is sufficiently examining the issue of how a book like The Great Controversy, with some of its quite controversial passages, is to be interpreted today?

I think that question is certainly appropriate because we could ask it about many things, obviously. It depends, I suppose, on who you are, as to whether you think it’s being looked at sufficiently. In my opinion, the book is open, people know what’s there—our scholars, pastors, and membership.

I know that some of our scholars are discussing the relationship between what is found within the book The Great Controversy and what’s happening in the world today. In my opinion, there is discussion, and it is adequate, and moving along in a very legitimate fashion.

David Mould obviously takes certain passages in The Great Controversy very literally, but not all Adventist religion scholars might agree with a literalist reading of all that’s in The Great Controversy. In your opinion, is church leadership open to the diversity of voices among our trained theologians, in this regard?

I do believe that the church leadership is willing to listen to different opinions. We always have heard many different opinions, on many different topics. As individuals study, they need to be able to express what they have learned. Now, that does not mean that we should change all our beliefs and ideas overnight. We have to then enter into prayer and Bible study, talking back and forth. That is the way this church was founded—by small groups beginning to study, finding out what the Bible said.

This church stays alive because truth grows. That doesn’t mean that truth changes in God’s mind. God is the ultimate truth. But we obviously are weak mortals and so we need to talk openly about things, and then, if we feel there needs to be clarification on a point, that’s what needs to be brought to a General Conference session. We need to be careful in tying to force a particular concept on somebody else, until the church, in session, has agreed.

And it’s only as there can be this open and free discussion among the diversity of responsible voices that there is any possibility of any new understanding emerging in the church?

That’s right.

And it seems that the new preface to the fundamental beliefs that was added at a GC session several years ago allows that open inquiry.

Open discussion—the Adventist Church has never been and should never be a closed church. We’re searching for truth, I believe. Now that does not mean that then I all of a sudden throw away all of our fundamental beliefs. There are certain core beliefs that we understand are certain—the Sabbath, the sanctuary message, the second coming of Christ, state of the dead, and so forth. There are about six or eight major points. We cannot controvert these. But we can grow in our understanding of basic core beliefs.