Views from an Adventist Author on Ellen White, the Truth and Cultural Adventists

Q.
On the back cover of your book, Graffiti in the Holy of Holies, you are identified as a "church apologist." Is that how you view your primary role in the church?

A.
It's certainly not a role that I consciously sought. As I study and learn, I have this desire to share with others what I have found helpful to me. If some people find things in my writings that help them, great; if others disagree, that's fine too. I'm hardly the last word.

Q.
In Graffiti in the Holy of Holies you state that "I can accept that Ellen White, even as a prophet, was fallible, ...she made mistakes, grew in her understanding of doctrine and theology." What criteria do you use when deciding when Ellen White made a mistake in her theology?

A.
The Bible, what else? Everything, even what she writes, needs to be tested by the Bible. After all, what other final criteria for spiritual truth do we have? We all need a bottom line somewhere, right? We can work through the logic of our beliefs, but sooner or later we need to come to a given. For me, that's the Bible.

Q.
What criteria do you use to decide what is "truth" as opposed to "truth for you"?

A.
Truth for me is that beets and raw green peppers are the most sickening and disgusting-tasting things to grow on God's green earth. "Truth," however, is what's true regardless of whether we know it, believe it, or even care about it. It was "truth" that the earth moved, even though the church-caught up in the prevailing zeitgeist (Aristotelian cosmology)-said it didn't. "Truth" is what's real even if everyone alive believes it's fake; "truth" is what's there even when everyone denies it.

It's like when I go home and visit my family, none of whom are believers, I get the same line every time: "It's your truth, Cliff," that "truth" of course being about Jesus. But this makes no sense: either Jesus died for the sins of world, or he didn't. If he didn't, then it's not my truth, or anyone's truth; if he did, then it's "truth" for everyone, regardless of who does or doesn't believe it.

Q.
If you had the power to do so, would you exclude from Seventh-day Adventist church membership a current member who does not believe in one or more traditional doctrinal teachings of the Adventist church?

A.
No, that's a local church matter.

Q.
From reading your previous writings, one would conclude that, if you had the power to do so, you would exclude from the theological faculty of an Adventist college or university anyone who does not believe in all of the traditional doctrinal teachings of the Adventist church as embodied in the current 27 fundamental neliefs. If this is not correct, please explain. If this observation is correct, please justify this view, in light of the fact that many of the early Adventist church founders and leaders held views that are in major disagreement with one or more of the current 27 fundamental beliefs.

A.
I guess that all depends upon which fundamental belief you are talking about. It would be nice for anyone teaching theology in our schools to believe, for instance, in fundamental belief number three, "God the Father"; or number nine, "The Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ," wouldn't it? Would not a school be justified in removing someone from the theology department of a Seventh-day Adventist college who didn't believe in, say, number 19, "The Sabbath" or number 24, "The Second Coming of Christ"?

It's just a question of integrity, really. Parents who spend money sending their kids to our schools ought to know beforehand what their kids are being taught. If a parent sends a kid to an Adventist school on the assumption that the kid is going to be taught, for instance, a literal six-day creation, then the parent should know beforehand if that's not going to be the case. It would be nice if all those teachers who talk about the church being honest were honest about what they were teaching in the classroom. Surely you don't want the veneer of "academic freedom" to be a cover for duping parents into thinking their kids are getting taught one thing when they're really getting taught something else, do you?

Q.
You have stated that some theological beliefs that you once held with passionate certainty you later decided were not correct. Knowing this has happened in the past, how does this knowledge influence the certainty with which you hold your current views on, for example, the validity of traditional Adventist understandings as summarized in the current 27 (soon to be 28) fundamentals?

A.
Well, time does temper you, and though Adventist Today aficionados might find it hard to believe, I'm much more mellow than I used to be. But the answer to your question is yes; because I have changed on beliefs that I once held fervently, it has tempered my zeal on the beliefs that I now hold. At the same time, what do I do, stop believing anything, even passionately, because I changed my views in the past? I think the main difference is that I'm not so quick to judge the heart or motives of those who hold beliefs I fervently disagree with.

Give you an example. I have a good friend at the [General Conference] who holds a position on a topic that I fervently disagree with. And I don't think it's a minor topic, either. I once said to him, "You know, 15 years ago I don't think I could have been friends with you. I would have felt a responsibility to ‘out' you." Now, doing something like that never enters my mind. I don't doubt his sincerity and his love of the Lord and the church. And we are brothers, despite this big theological difference. Fifteen years ago I don't think that I could have said that.

Q.
Do you currently believe that the institutional Adventist church is the "remnant" group referred to in the Book of Revelation?

A.
Of course.

Q.
Is/are there any practice(s) or belief(s) currently in place in the Adventist church that you would like to see changed? If so, what would it/they be?

A.
No, not really. I'd like to see the proper emphasis placed on things better than they have been, but essentially I am very comfortable with the church's theological positions. Despite pressure from all sides, the church as a whole seems to have done well in keeping a good balance.

That doesn't mean, however, that there are no problems. I think we've made a royal mess of the Ellen White thing, for instance. Ever since the Lord gave us this wonderful gift, the church has struggled in knowing how to understand and utilize it. Though I don't believe anyone meant ill, we've created a something that's proving difficult to tame. After her death, some of those seeking to defend this wonderful gift perhaps went too far, creating an edifice that was built on some shaky pillars, an edifice that was not needed to begin with, one that has now created many more problems than it solved. Worse than not defending the gift, I think, is defending it with weak arguments. We'd have been better off keeping silent than speaking things that weren't correct.

Sometimes I think, maybe we should have just left her alone. That is, instead of building this entire apologetic structure in defense of [Ellen G. White], maybe we should have said little, instead letting the material speak for itself. Rather than cram it down people's throats, maybe we should have just printed the books, sold them cheaply, and sat back and let the Holy Spirit—which no doubt worked through the writer—work through the reader.

Q.
You are aware that some Adventists refer to themselves as "cultural Adventists," meaning that they belong to the Adventist community by virtue of being born into the church, but may take exception to many of the church's theological beliefs and religious practices. Since you are a convert to this faith community, do you have any problem with understanding the perspective and attitudes of "cultural Adventists?"

A.
Yeah, I have a real big problem with their perspectives and attitudes. It's a concept that makes no sense to me, a "cultural" Adventist. I have never thought of Adventism in that sense, that of a culture. To me, what makes us Adventists is one thing and one thing alone—our beliefs and the sense of mission and purpose that stems directly from those beliefs.

It's very hard for me to understand why anyone would want to be an Adventist who didn't share these beliefs. The doctrines are the only thing that keeps me here. It's not the culture; on the contrary, having been raised a secular Jew, I still struggle with the culture. There are things that, to this day, even after 25 years as an Adventist (almost half of my life) I don't feel comfortable with. But I have learned to transcend them, that's all.

Adventism not based on the beliefs we hold seems to me self-contradictory. If tomorrow I stopped believing in the truths of the [Seventh-day Adventist] church, I'd like to think I'd have the moral courage to pack up and leave, regardless of the personal cost to myself.