7th Day Adventist Writings on Weather Changes in the End Times
7TH-DAY ADVENTISTS FACE CHANGE AND DISSENT
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November 6, 1982
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Tom Pangborn, who was once extolled by Seventh-day Adventist ministers as a model for other youths and later became an Adventist pastor, is severing his ties with the church.
From the time he began to doubt some of the church's teachings, the slow alienation has been ''excruciating,'' said Mr. Pangborn, a sixth-generation Adventist. The church is far more than a religious organization to its members; it is a closely woven way of life.
Mr. Pangborn, who is 33 years old, was not alone in his crisis of faith. At a time when it has reached unparalleled levels of adherents and wealth, one of America's most distinct religious traditions is being tested both by modern change and by close examination of its own history.
Several religious movements that originated in the United States, such as the Mormons and Christian Scientists, are facing similar turmoil as social conditions change and better-educated members reexamine their religious heritage.
The authority of the church's 19th-century founder, Ellen G. White, is in dispute; a swindle by a California minister left the church $21 million poorer, and academics in the church are chafing under what they see as a lack of intellectual freedom.
The attacks on Mrs. White's authority, which basically defines the church, have spread to the central doctrines of Adventism, which she adopted and amplified in her writings. These principles include observing the Sabbath on Saturday, vegetarianism and other standards of behavior, the belief that Christ began final judgment of the world in 1844 and the binding concept that Adventists represent the ''remnant people,'' chosen to proclaim the message of righteousness to the world.
Already, more than 100 disaffected ministers have resigned from the church, as Mr. Pangborn did, or have been forced to leave it. At Andrews University here, one of the denomination's leading colleges and the home of its seminary, a faculty member resigned under pressure last year after challenging some tenets of Adventism, and currents of unease remain.
Adventism sprang from the intense, ecstatic religious fervor of the 1840's, a period when extraordinary people molded their spiritual enthusiasms into movements that, largely, bore the imprint of the founder. The Mormons, for example, were shaped by Joseph Smith, the Christian Scientists were guided by Mary Baker Eddy and the Adventists were inspired by the prophetic ''visions'' and writings of Mrs. White. Like a Struggling Ethnic Group
The Adventist church resembles an ethnic group struggling to retain its folkways amid pressures to join the cultural mainstream. Despite assertions by some church officials that most Adventists ignore the dispute, the new questions raised by teachers and thinkers have caused alarm.
In North America, the church has 600,000 members, linked to it by family background and training. Children born into Adventist homes usually attend church schools and colleges, often work for the church and marry those who have followed a similar path. They take their convictions seriously and respond acutely to the crosscurrents that increasingly buffet their church. They are caught between worlds.
Many of those who have left, feeling themselves in limbo, are reluctant to join other churches. They have gathered into groups to try to influence the direction of the church from outside.
The Adventist legacy dates from a colossal letdown on Oct. 22, 1844, when Christ did not return to earth according to the calculations of William Miller, a Baptist preacher who had set that date on the basis of esoteric Biblical mathematics. Crushed by the ''Great Disappointment,'' as it has become known to historians, the Miller followers fell into disarray, only to be reassembled by Mrs. White.
In doing so, she adopted a new idea, the sanctuary doctrine, under which followers were consoled by the assertion that something momentous had in fact taken place on that day, different from what they had anticipated. Although Christ had not returned, Mrs. White taught, He had moved into his heavenly sanctuary and had begun His ''investigative judgment'' of the world.
Accordingly, three key features became associated with Adventism: confidence in Christ's continuing judgment, the chosen-people belief and an exalted view of Mrs. White that accorded her unusual authority. She has been held virtually infallible by many Adventists. In some circles her 46 books are treated on a par with Scripture, although church leaders reject that idea.
Now Mrs. White's eminence is under attack. She has been accused of plagiarizing most of the material in her books, material she said she had gained through her visions. A recent book, ''The White Lie,'' by a former believer, Walter T. Rea, has inflamed the issue by providing evidence that her writing corresponds to that of others. He says further research has proven that ''90 percent of what she said in her most important books wasn't hers.'' Reasons for Apparent 'Borrowing'
Church officials have been attempting to explain the apparent ''borrowings'' in various ways even as they acknowledge that much damage to Mrs. White's credibility has already been done. Among the explanations is that after having visions, Mrs. White, without realizing what she was doing, put them in the words of people whose works she had read. Another line of reasoning is that even biblical writers used the words of others without compromising the integrity of the basic message.
Some say that her visions were real, although they must be taken in the context of her day, when visions were relatively common. Researchers have speculated that visions might be attributed to a form of psychological or physiological impairment.
Not surprisingly, the assault on the ''witness to the remnant,'' as Mrs. White called herself, spurred new questioning of the teachings that separate Adventism from other beliefs.
Among major differences are such Adventist practices, prescribed by Mrs. White, as worship on Saturday, based on some 19th-century biblical interpretations; abstinence from meat, alcohol and tobacco, and a pledge to dress plainly, without adornments such as jewelry.
But the concept of Christ's beginning the final judgment in 1844 sets Adventists most doctrinally apart, and this idea is also under assault. The Rev. Desmond Ford was expelled from his teaching position at the church-sponsored Pacific Union College in Glacier View, Calif., after he openly impugned that faith on the ground that there was no support for it in the Bible.
He also asserted that Adventist teaching improperly based salvation on ''works,'' or observance of all the church's practices spelled out by Mrs. White, rather than on faith based on the Scriptures. This echoes the Reformation conflict between the Vatican and Martin Luther, who argued that faith according to ''Scripture alone'' was paramount over ''works.''
As the distinctive Adventist beliefs come under fire, many members wonder what will happen to the church's sense of uniqueness if Mrs. White's role is scaled down. Some progressives say that would be desirable because it would permit the church to take its place more easily in the panoply of Protestant denominations. For others, a change in basic beliefs is unthinkable because Mrs. White, who died in 1915, is regarded as a special messenger who gave Adventism its wholly singular mission. Conflicts Taken Seriously
As a network of people, Adventists take the conflicts personally and deeply. Church publications reflect the crisis at each stage. The main publication, The Review and Herald, published an attempt this summer to explain Mrs. White's apparent plagiarism and clearly spelled out the official interpretation of her role.
Evangelica, an unofficial magazine that was founded at Andrews two years ago as the voice of dissent but has since shifted operations to California, carries the most strident attack on the church.
Several professors at Adventist colleges say they are anguished because they have been, in effect, muzzled from questioning church teachings for fear they will lose their jobs, and families have been torn by defections.
The discord has hit close to home in this village of 2,000 people. Berrien Springs is within the Township of Oronoko, where fully half the citizens are Adventists and nonchurch members sometimes feel like outsiders. For a time, villagers sometimes grumbled because it was impossible to buy even a few nails or a sheet of sandpaper on Saturday, because both hardware stores were owned by Adventists.
The church's foursquare image is so dominant that when the name of a principal of an Adventist school showed up in the papers recently as the winner of a $50,000 state lottery, the story provided some whimsy for those outside the church. Since gambling is prohibited by Adventists, the man had to forfeit either his church standing or the prize. He kept the prize.
The center of the Adventists' ferment is Andrews University. While the level of conflict has been somewhat more subdued than at the church's campuses in California, the division here follows the same stressful lines. It amounts to a tug of war between the progressives and edgy administrators, who are trying to preserve stability against the forces of reform and dissent. Higher Tensions, Lower Morale
Several incidents in the last two years have raised tensions and lowered morale. Dr. Ford, the challenger of Adventist fundamentals, was denied permission to speak on campus, but drew sizable audiences at a local auditorium. Not long afterward, a popular religion professor, Dr. Smuts van Rooyen, resigned under heavy administration pressure for adopting a position similar to Dr. Ford's.
Along with the departure of Professor van Rooyen, Andrews lost several seminarians who were associated with Evangelica. Some faculty members at Andrews considered open protests over these resignations, but most backed away in favor of keeping their jobs.
Many Adventists have met in homes to discuss their doubts and seek support. They say that continued discussion, without signs of change from church leaders, is bound to lead to frustration and to further losses of thinkers within the demonination.
Tom Pangborn is the only member of the original Evangelica staff still in Berrien Springs, where he manages a fast-food outlet and keeps pretty much to the company of his wife and three young children.
Mr. Pangborn, says he has gone through ''tears and anxiety'' on his way out of the church, and that family members have put pressure on him to return. But, on the basis of long study of the Bible, he says, he now believes that, contrary to everything he once thought and preached, the Adventist church was founded ''on an error'' and that the prescriptions from Mrs. White were ''man-made'' and did not come from God.
He has not come to the point of considering joining any other church, but he acknowledges that once any of the central tenets of Adventism are abandoned, other practices soon get scuttled, too. He is not so intent on vegetarianism anymore, he says, and he occasionally has a glass of wine with dinner.
Breaking away has had its own moments of elation as well, Mr. Pangborn said. To celebrate the struggle shared with his wife, feeling a safe distance from the church, he says, he went out and bought his wife of 12 years her first wedding band.
7th Day Adventist Writings on Weather Changes in the End Times
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