New Adventist Review Editor Calls for Serious Dialogue

In an exclusive interview with Adventist Today, Dr. Bill Knott, the newly elected editor of the Adventist Review called for this journal to be the place where “members [can] think about their church.” He indicated that as editor he wants “to be in [serious] conversation” with the various voices speaking in the Seventh-day Adventist Church since he views Adventism as a “dialoging faith.” In response to a question of whether he viewed the presence of an independent SDA church media as a positive development, he indicated that he valued the existence in the church of a “variety of media” representing “many perspectives.” In response to a question as to what he understood to be his greatest challenge, he indicated that it would be “helping readers and potential readers [to] actively seek dialogue” in the church.

On the previous day, on a vote of 170 in favor and 69 opposed, Dr. Knott had been elected the new Editor in Chief of the Adventist Review and Adventist World, flagship journals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The vote was taken at the 2006 Annual Council meeting held at the headquarters of the SDA General Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Knott is currently one of the two associate editors of the Adventist Review. In December 2006, he will succeed Dr. William Johnsson, who is retiring after 24 years as the editor of the Adventist Review.

Reactions to the election were obtained by Adventist Today within a short time following the announcement of the results of the secret ballot. Negative evaluations were offered by highly placed church officers and well-informed observers to Adventist Today on the condition that their comments were not for attribution. Representative statements included the observations that a historic “opportunity was missed” in electing Knott over an African American Associate Editor, Roy Adams, that of being “ashamed” of his church for this action, and the assertion that it would seem that for “people of color” to rise to some high positions of responsibility in the church, it appeared that they had to be “twice as qualified” as their white counterparts.

A member of the North American Division Executive Committee offered the opinion that in the light of strong feelings concerning this appointment, that rather than either Bill Knott or Roy Adams, it would have been better for the long-term health of the church to have selected some “third alternative.” There was a view expressed that the negative vote reflected at least two issues which were in play—votes from those objecting to the process by which the selection was made and a second set of votes objecting to the lack of “justice” reflected in the selection. In the Adventist Today interview with Dr. Knott, he concurred that, in his view, these two factors were associated with the negative vote.

On the positive side, Orville Parchment, Assistant to the General Conference President, offered the comment to Adventist Today that “Both individuals were very qualified… Either one could do the job effectively.” Parchment was the chair of the original search committee composed of five General Conference officers who proposed three names for the editorship position. The Adventist Review Publishing Board was the body that actually recommended Knott to the Annual Council for their vote.

According to the Adventist News Network story on the appointment, Knott, 49, had served for 18 years prior to his coming to the Adventist Review as a church pastor in New England, New York and in Washington State. In 2006, he was awarded a Ph.D. in History from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. writing a dissertation on the career of an early Adventist reformer and missionary Hannah More.