We all have our favorite Bible verses–usually those that have brought us though a crisis, helped us exercise faith, make sense out of life, or revealed God’s love to us. They become woven into our individual life stories. I’d certainly be interested in those texts that have meant the most to you. And if you are interested, I would like to share with you the two that have meant the most to me—one from the Old Testament (Psalm 73:22-26) and one from the New (2 Timothy 4:16-18).

Here they are, and also why they are so special to me:

Psalm 73

22 “I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

I love this because so often I find myself clueless and ignorant, and I don’t know what to do anymore than a beast would. (Just like the cat sitting on my lap right now, who has no idea what I’m typing to you.) Yet even those days when I’m at my worst, God still wants to spend life with me. Not only that, He holds me by my hand like the affectionate, caring father I never had. Beyond that, He solves my ignorance problem by guiding me with His wisdom, through His indwelling Spirit.

This is how He gets all of us through life! But that’s not all. He wants us to enjoy eternity with Him! How about that!

I think you can see why I love this Psalm.

By the way, Psalm 73 was not written by David, but by his worship leader Asaph. We don’t know much about Asaph, except that he served David “by giving constant praise and thanks to the Lord” (1 Chronicles 16:4-5). In other words, his occupation was praising God.

How would you like to have a job like that!

Well, you do. All of us live unto the praise and glory of God. It’s in that context that He equips us in the Spirit for selfless service.

How, here’s my favorite New Testament Scripture:

2 Timothy 4:

¹⁶ At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! ¹⁷ But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. ¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

I love this for a number of reasons. First, it keeps me from indulging in self pity when I feel let down or abandoned, because even when people desert us, God stands with us to strengthen us. Somehow He manages to communicate His message through us, despite all the pain and confusion we go through.

Not only that, He continually rescues us from the lion (meaning the devil—see 1 Peter 5:8) and from every evil deed (literally, every painful event). And once again, as with my favorite Psalm, we have God getting us safely into His heavenly kingdom. That’s assurance of His salvation, for which we will glorify Him forever.

The main reasons I love Psalm 73 and 2 Timothy 4 is that I am fundamentally a fearful and broken person, given all the stuff I went through growing up—and often since. But God has worked it all for good, equipping me to be a pastor and police chaplain helping people in all kinds of crisis. And now, serving at Mid-America Adventist headquarters, I have devoted my life to spreading the good news of His saving and healing grace.

One of the most perplexing and controversial commands in Scripture is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17). A similar frustration is to know how to react when prayers are unanswered. Does God expect us to keep on praying and praying, or is it the better part of faith to entrust the matter to Him and just let go—moving on with our lives and praying about other things?

The question then involves persistence in prayer versus casting all our care upon God and leaving it there. You can find Scriptures that can support both viewpoints. I don’t claim to have the final word on prayer—I don’t think any magic answer even exists. After all, prayer is not science, like the laws of physics. Prayer is basically a relationship with God—a God whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts and whose ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).

That said, we still need to know what to do when we don’t know what to do. We need to know how to pray when we don’t know how to pray. I think God has left us with a certain level of ambiguity. Yet certain principles about prayer have become clear to me over the past four decades. I offer them here for your consideration, in case you find value in them.

First of all, when a situation is ongoing, our prayer should be ongoing as well.

This doesn’t mean we think God hasn’t heard us last time we prayed, so we have to nag Him again. We are just claiming His promises anew for each new day’s situation, like the persisting widow in prayer (Luke 18:1-8). However, such continuing prayers cannot obsess our lives, leaving us unable to function in our daily responsibilities—or even free to worship God for ourselves because we’re worrying so much about getting Him to save our kids.

“Pray without ceasing,” as I see it, simply means don’t stop praying—in the same way that a healthy person doesn’t stop eating regularly. Now, we don’t eat all day long, and we don’t pray all day long. We eat when it’s time to eat and we pray when its time to pray about something—while always remaining in a spirit of communication with God. If the Lord brings a situation to our minds as we go about the day, we recast it anew upon God and then continue with our lives.

Mealtimes are specifically set aside to eat, and both personal devotions and family worship are specifically set aside to pray. Healthy Christians continue this balanced cycle throughout their lives, in both praying and eating.

By contrast, regarding issues of concern that are not ongoing—I think that usually we should pray about something in the past only as long as it takes for us to commit it to God and let go of. Some things need to be thoroughly processed before we let them go, at times with the aid of a qualified Christian counselor. But once we understand what happened in the past and how to deal with it, then we can commit it to God and let go of it.

So those are my thoughts, for whatever they are worth. Before signing off, I’ll say again that God has chosen to allow quite a bit of ambiguity to surround the subject of answered prayer; perhaps one reason for this is that it keeps us from becoming utilitarian in prayers. Remember, the basic reason to pray is not to get God to do things (even saving things) but to have a relationship with Him as His daughters and sons.

Change you can believe in (Don’t blame Obama—we should have known better; and let’s not Rush to the other extreme, because he can’t save us either.)

“Together we can change the world! Yes we can!”

Such was the rallying cry for millions of Americans from all backgrounds and ethnicities who promoted the presidency of Barack Obama.

He will be a transformative president, they told us. Obama will dialogue with the despots of Iran and Russia, persuading them to sing with us in global harmony, “Give Peace a Chance.” He will shutter the Guantanamo prison, leaving aggrieved terrorists no reason to strike America again. He will reduce unemployment and lower the warming seas, all without raising taxes. He will transcend partisan politics and bring us together behind a social agenda that will save the nation. (Except for unfortunate fetuses, whose sacrifice must be safeguarded by expanding “reproductive freedom.” Why? Basically so that the sacrament of sex without consequences can proceed unabated.)

Starting January 20, 2009, things will change for America with the inauguration of Barack Obama. So we imagined. One year later, it’s time for a reality check.

Is the system working?

First, let’s make clear that this is not about politics. (But in case you are wondering, since 1996 I’ve privately wished I could vote for one man who has never run for presidential office and probably never well: retired army general and Secretary of State Colin Powell.) What I’m suggesting is that no political movement, liberal or conservative, has the power to transform this troubled world into an earth made new.

Nevertheless, multitudes everywhere envisioned this planet as a better place—nicer, cleaner and safer— with Barack Obama as president. Even some Seventh-day Adventists of all ethnicities became so enthusiastic about Obama that they volunteered for his campaign. Some friends of mine (nobody I work with at Mid-America Union headquarters) became so indoctrinated with Obama’s gospel of change that I wondered, “What is your blessed hope—the presidential election or the second coming of Jesus? Do you still believe that the end of all things is at hand? Who is your prince of peace?”

Not wanting to seem impolite, I never asked those questions. I try to avoid political discussions with anybody other than my wife and closest friends. The Adventist Church doesn’t pay me to be a pundit.

Just so you know I’m not denouncing Democrats, I’ll remind you that it was a Republican president who botched up a military victory in Iraq, causing such instability that thousands of Christians who previously enjoyed security had to flee Islamic persecution. The Adventist Church in Baghdad has been bombed multiple times due to the liberation of Iraqi Islamic radicals. So much for George W. Bush’s naïve vision to promote democracy in theocratic cultures.

But that’s another story. My point here is that I’m not lobbying for a conservative or liberal agenda. I’m just pleading for my brothers and sisters in Jesus to promote no political agenda. Remember, Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. Only His second coming has the power to bring change that we can believe in.

“Yes we can?” A year later, the answer is becoming obvious: No, we can’t.

You can give Wall Street a bonus with stimulus cash, but that doesn’t put people on Main Street back to work. You can get global warming celebrities who are green with hypocrisy (showcase Prius by day, limo by night) to promote “cap and trade,” but that won’t heal the planet—or explain why we’ve been having these pesky blizzards. You can travel to Islamic nations and apologize for peace, but that won’t stop terrorists from attacking America. When they do strike, you can graciously (and unwisely?) bestow upon them the judicial privileges of citizens, but that only means they have the right to remain silent, not squealing on their buddies who are stuffing their own underwear with bombs for America.

And really, how compassionate is it to sardine suspected terrorists into supermax prison cells in Illinois—“Gitmo North”? Some activists now acknowledge that life at Guantanamo, under the provisions of the Geneva Convention, has been better than it could possibly be in a supermax situation.

Politics aside, most observers have reported that most inmates have been comfortable enough at Guantanamo. Except, of course, for several of Osama’s friends who got waterboarded to make them testify about their dream for America. Should that have been stopped in the name of human rights? Fair enough. But then why bring them to a New York City courtroom and predict their death sentence beforehand—which by definition is staging a sham trial? (Where is the ACLU when something really needs to be said?) And by the way, such a world class media circus would happen just down the street from Ground Zero. Imagine what a dozen underwear bombers could do if they got their act together for a sequel of 9/11.

What a foolish situation we’ve gotten ourselves into, everywhere you look.

Bottom line: We can’t vote ourselves out of the mess we’ve made of our world. “Yes, we can’t.” But God can. And He will. He has promised to save both us and our planet—and that’s exactly the message Seventh-day Adventists have for an increasingly disappointed and disillusioned world.

Worse is yet to come. Homosexuals, with their favorite politicians in place, are newly empowered to impose their agenda upon society. Nonprofit organizations, even churches, that won’t hire homosexuals are coming into risk of losing their tax-exempt status. Adventist institutions could find themselves penalized or even paralyzed, since gay rights is now interpreted as civil rights, and that trumps religious liberty.

Surprised? For 30 years we Adventists have been warning ourselves about an assault on religious freedom from right wing politics. But our clear and present danger is from the left. Tolerance seems a façade, benefiting only those with politically correct ideology and theology.

There’s no use blaming President Obama; the situation is a mess of our own making. And it will do no good to Rush off to the other political extreme—he can’t save the world, either. The only one who can save us is Jesus—Christ crucified and Christ coming again. The trumpet will soon sound, and everything will be changed.

Now, that’s change we can really believe in!

It’s thrilling when trusted Evangelical scholars vindicate the various aspects of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine. For example, the seventh-day Sabbath is gaining increasing respect. So is our understanding of hell—annihilationism, supported by such theological luminaries as John Stott, author of The Cross of Christ. At the Baptist seminary where I recently completed my doctorate, my major professor was a conditionalist, believing as we do that death is unconscious sleep. The SDA view of Christ’s second coming as post-tribulation and pre-millennial is gaining ground, and our health message is increasingly respected by fellow Christians and even secular society.

Only Seventh-day Adventists package all these truths together into an integrated whole—that is our uniqueness—but it is so good to see our various doctrines affirmed individually.

Even our doctrine of heaven’s sanctuary, so ridiculed by many, is winning some affirmation from unexpected places. The core of the controversy is the cleansing of that heavenly sanctuary, which is not only denied but derided by ex-Adventists such as Dale Ratzlaff of Life Assurance Ministries.

Last night I was exploring the new version of Logos Bible Software, preparing a product review of their Platinum package for the March issue of Outlook magazine. I typed one of my favorite Scripture themes, “Christus Victor,” into the command box, and one of the hits took me right into Hebrews 9 and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary.

Notice this from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, an eminent British Evangelical scholar. Referring to Hebrews 9:23, he says: “We are taught here quite clearly that it was necessary that the heavenly place itself should be purified.” That’s in his 1996 book, God the Father, God the Son, published by Crossway Books. He continues: “And thus, it seems to me, we arrive at a kind of understanding of what is meant here by the necessity to purify even the heavenly tabernacle itself.”

Amazing! This is very much of what Adventists have been saying all these years. Here is the extended quotation from Dr. Lloyd-Jones:

“I wonder whether you have ever realised that our Lord, by doing His work upon the cross, has even effected a change in heaven? Let me give you my authority. We read in Hebrews 9:23, ‘It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.’ God called Moses up to the Mount and there He gave him instructions about the building of the tabernacle, about the measurements, and how he was to furnish it and exactly what he was to do. And, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, when God had shown Moses everything, He gave him these words of instruction: ‘See … that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount’ (Heb. 8:5). So Moses went down and carried out the instructions. And, as the epistle to the Hebrews reminds us, everything that Moses made had to be purified and it was purified by taking the blood of calves and of goats and water and scarlet wool and hyssop, by sprinkling the book of the law and the people and the various vessels of the ministry and everything in connection with the tabernacle.

“Now this is the author’s argument: ‘It was therefore necessary,’ he says, ‘that the patterns’—in other words, these earthly things; the tabernacle in the wilderness was not ‘the things in the heavens’, it was only something made on the pattern of those things—‘the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these’—the blood of bulls and of goats, water, and so on—‘but the heavenly things themselves [must be purified] with better sacrifices than these.’ And then he goes on, ‘For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us’ (Heb. 9:23–4).

“So his argument can be put like this: the patterns were purified by blood of bulls and goats but that is not good enough to purify the thing itself, the heavenly tabernacle; this must be purified by something better. And it has been purified by something better. It has been purified by the blood of the Son of God Himself. He offered His own blood. I do beg of you to read again this ninth chapter of Hebrews, indeed, read chapter 8 as well! Go further and read the entire epistle in order that you may grasp this argument. It is a most glorious statement and one of the most mysterious statements in the whole of the Bible. We are taught here quite clearly that it was necessary that the heavenly place itself should be purified and that it has been purified by the blood of Jesus Christ Himself.

“Now the question is: What does this mean? Let me be quite frank and answer that there is a sense in which no one can be too dogmatic about the answer to that question. But it seems to me we must say this: in some mysterious way there is a tabernacle in the heavenly places. There are statements about our Lord entering into that heavenly tabernacle, that holiest of all. I do not pretend to understand it but the statements are made and therefore we must believe that what was made on earth was made on the pattern of that which is in heaven.

“And, further, we can say this: Satan fell from heaven. Our Lord says, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven’ (Luke 10:18). Satan, as we saw when we were considering the biblical teaching concerning him, was undoubtedly the brightest of the angels in the presence of God, and when he fell, when he rose up with pride and rebelled against God, he did so in the heavens itself. And thus, it seems to me, we arrive at a kind of understanding of what is meant here by the necessity to purify even the heavenly tabernacle itself. In a way that we cannot understand, and that seems to be inscrutable, evil has affected heaven itself. This vile, this foul thing that first caused the fall of Satan, and then caused the fall of man has, if one may use such language, introduced a kind of impurity even into heaven—into the heavenly tabernacle, at any rate. And according to this teaching, as I understand it, it was necessary for our Lord to purify and to purge the heavenly tabernacle of that taint, and the statement here is to the effect that He has done so.

“This, I think, helps us to understand various statements which we find in Scripture, such as Colossians 1:20 where we read, ‘And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.’ Through Christ God is going to reconcile all things unto Himself in heaven as well as on earth. I am not suggesting that that is the only explanation but I am suggesting that that is a part of the explanation. And so we are confronted by this truly amazing and remarkable statement, that our Lord, as it were, had to take His own blood, even into heaven itself to get rid of this taint, this foul smear that was left by the fall of Satan. And so, ultimately, heaven, to use the language of the author of Hebrews, is purified entirely; and all evil and all its effects everywhere in heaven as well as upon earth have been removed.^”[i]

So there we have it: an amazing affirmation of a much-disputed element of vintage Adventist doctrine—the cleaning of heaven’s sanctuary. Dr. Lloyd-Jones doesn’t get into the prophecies of Daniel, from which SDAs derive the year 1844 as the beginning date for this cleansing. In humility, Lloyd-Jones admits that he doesn’t know what this cleansing is all about—just the fact that it had to happen. He speculates that the heavenly sanctuary became defiled by Lucifer’s sin of rebellion. This is correct in a broad sense, of course, since all defilement originated with Lucifer. But he doesn’t consult the biblical sanctuary system to see specifically how defilement is transferred to the sanctuary.

Indeed, Lloyd-Jones takes note that Moses’ sanctuary on earth was patterned after the heavenly sanctuary; he just doesn’t follow through on that connection—specifically, that the sanctuary is defiled when we sin, finally to be cleansed by virtue of Christ’s once-for-all-time sacrifice on the cross.

Meanwhile, of course, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 8:1), since we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).  Even as the heavenly judgment proceeds with its audit of salvation history, all who entrust themselves to Jesus may find refuge within the inner temple (Hebrews 6:19), and come confidently to God’s throne of grace (4:16). There we may rejoice “in full assurance of hope until the very end” (6:11), since “by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (10:14).

After the celestial pre-Advent judgment, during which the sins of believers are blotted out, the devil will bear responsibility for his role in defiling us. God will baptize him in the lake of fire, “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Satan had given birth to sin as Lucifer before being cast into the earth, where he seduced the human race. Thus it is appropriate that God will eventually hold him responsible for the whole business of sin.

So the devil will be the final sin-bearer, in the sense that he must bear responsibility for the entire enterprise of evil. After God’s triumphal verdict in the pre-Advent judgment, all record of evildoing is cleansed from heaven’s sanctuary by authority of Christ’s sacrificial blood. The blame for sin is placed upon its originator and salesman. Satan will be banished as a goat into the wilderness, ultimately to be destroyed in hell with his entourage of rebels. God and His vindicated people will share eternity together on the earth made new.

To summarize: one by one, the various elements of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine are being affirmed by respected biblical scholarship—even the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. The unique theological contribution of our denomination is that we are the only faith community who connects all the dots into a complete picture, so the world can see the truth as it is in Jesus for earth’s last days.

---

[i] D. M. Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1996), 346-48.

. . . because today closed out the fall semester of classes at Union College, where I’ve been teaching Christian ethics. I’ve had 44 sessions with my “kids”–63 of them, an unusually large class. Increased responsibilities for the Mid-America Union will prevent me from teaching any more college classes; I’m excited about serving our president, Roscoe Howard, yet I’ll also miss being an adjunct professor at my favorite college.

My students this semester generated awesome discussions about many vital moral issues and their implications. Time and time again I’ve reported to Darlene (my wife) how much I’m impressed with these young adults, who have gained such spiritual maturity before even graduating. Many of them have already served as overseas student missionaries or domestic task force workers. Most are nursing students; some are preparing for a career as pastors, educators and attorneys. In many ways, I believe their spirituality–both their discernment and their dedication–surpasses most church members of my generation.

For example, the other day we discussed abortion, and each student wrote a paper on the topic. I was deeply touched that nearly all of them had profound respect for the unborn life which God implants in the womb–much more respect than most adults I talk to. It’s amazing. Here are these students, whose age would seem to identify them with the “hook-up generation,” which in our society is marked by casual sex and “easy come, easy go” pregnancies. And yet my students expressed deep conviction and respect regarding unborn life from God! And this was before I even tried to teach them on the topic.

Where did they get their morals from?

Probably not from my generation, I’m ashamed to admit. Too many of us seem to qualify as lukewarm Laodicea. Meanwhile, many my age who haven’t succumbed to spiritual lethargy go to the other extreme, expending time and energy swatting moral gnats while swallowing camels of inconsistency.

Please do not take offense at my reluctant observations. Instead, if you consider yourself “pro choice” about abortion, would you ponder several questions:

1) If a fetus in the womb is not a real human being, please explain what might have been inside Mary’s womb for nine months. Did Jesus, the eternal Word, cease to exist as a living being when He lived unborn within His mother?

2) We sometimes hear that a fetus cannot be a person because it isn’t “viable,” often defined by the fact that the unborn can’t breathe on their own. Well, if self-breathing is the test of life, what happens if you have an accident and go on a hospital respirator? Do you cease do exist as a person when you cannot breathe on your own? What warrant do we have for such thinking–in logic, in science or in Scripture?

3) Who made us the lords of life and death, so that we imagine ourselves qualified to decide whether unborn life survives or gets exterminated?

I acknowledge the moral dilemma raised by a small percentage of pregnancies (no more than two to four percent) resulting from incest or rape, involve grave fetal abnormality, or threaten the life of the mother. (Notice I didn’t say “health” of the mother, which often includes the deceptive loophole of “emotional health”–such as trauma resulting from having a career interrupted by the inconvenient duty of changing diapers.) Abortions in the small minority of truly controversial situations are not necessarily in the same moral category as abortions of inconvenience. We can discuss exceptional situations while uniting against the cavalier attitude toward unborn human life that allows a living fetus to be sacrificed and discarded as trash, essentially being morally equivalent to a diseased tumor.

I contrast the convictions of these noble young people at Union College with the statement of a high church leader (now retired), who during a 1992 debate about abortion on the General Conference Executive Committee, described the procedure as the “interruption of pregnancy.” I rose to challenge his assertion, asking: “If abortion is merely the interruption of pregnancy, please explain to us how the pregnancy can get started again.” No answer was forthcoming, then or since.

I have no desire to argue about abortion or anything else with those who have their minds made up (as mine obviously is on this point).  I mostly wanted to say a word of affirmation and appreciation for those younger Adventists who, regarding abortion and several other vital moral issues, often surpass their own parents and grandparents in spiritual discernment. It was my joy this semester to interact with these students–not only to mentor them in Christian ethics, but also to learn from them.

God bless you, my young friends. I will miss seeing you in class. Our church desperately needs you, not just in our pews, but up front in leadership and in our board rooms.

Martin Weber, Mid-America Union assistant to the president, communication director and Outlook editor

The death of a friend is one of life’s deepest sorrows, and it seems particularly cruel during the holidays. Word just arrived that Elder James Cress passed away yesterday (Thanksgiving, Nov. 26) from illness.

Dr. Cress, known to all as simply “Jim,” was dear to Mid-America, having served as ministerial director of our Union before he took the same role for the world field. It was my privilege to serve him at the General Conference Ministerial Association. My mind is flooded with memories as I think of my friend.

Back in 1993, life changed dramatically when Jim arrived at church headquarters. Everything got 50% busier for everybody. Many times he called me to his office with some grand new project for the world field. His passion was to equip pastors in developing regions with ministerial resources. He was a genius at pulling strings and finding funds to make things happen.

I particularly remember when he got the SDA Bible Commentary published at an incredibly low price to distribute to pastors overseas, whose previous library consisted of only the Bible, perhaps a concordance and several of Ellen White’s books. Each year Jim managed to get one or two additional books published for them. Often he depended upon me to compile them, continuing to engage me in freelance projects after I left the Association. Our latest joint effort happened this past year: a strategic partnership with Logos Bible Software to—you guessed it—get their product at extremely low cost into the hands of poverty-stricken pastors in four world divisions. It is to be funded by an ingenious profit-sharing plan from sales to other pastors who can afford Logos software.

Jim was a great businessman—a real win-win dealmaker. No question he could have been a millionaire had he not been a servant of the church. I just loved the guy for his unselfish service for the Savior.

I also enjoyed Jim’s sense of humor. More than some highly-placed religious leaders, Jim knew how to laugh. He was particularly amused by the antics of politically-minded people whose efforts to promote themselves backfired.

Jim’s ministry partner all these years has been his faithful wife, Sharon. The two of them together were a blessing to the whole world field. They had no children of their own; instead they had Dexter, a tiny Scottish Terrier upon whom they lavished parental love. After Dexter got old and had to be put to sleep, Jim and Sharon grieved awhile before getting another Scottie.

Jim had an eclectic collection of Noah’s arks of various colors and sizes; the hallway outside his office where he had them all arranged was a favorite stopping point of visitors touring General Conference headquarters.

Perhaps the most touching thing about Jim was how he still cared for Maxine, his long-retired secretary who worked with him when he was here at the Mid-America Union. It’s been 20 years or so since they served together, but every week to the present time Jim sent her a greeting card at least once a week. I saw them in the parking lot of Walgreens a few months ago; Jim didn’t look good at all. I was afraid he wasn’t going to live long, and so it came not as a shock to hear the sad news tonight.

Those who knew Jim will sorely miss him. Our comfort is that in which he found such inspiration: the blessed hope of the soon coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sleep well, Jim. We’ll see you in the morning.

***

Here is the announcement that came from the GC today:

“Dr. James A. Cress, Ministerial Secretary of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, died on Thanksgiving evening, November 26, 2009 of complications arising from a rare pathogen believed to have been contracted in the course of his travels.  Upon his return from the last of his itineraries, the infection worsened.  Despite the very best medical care and a valiant struggle, consistent with Pastor Cress’s energetic approach to Christian service, he succumbed rapidly and now rests peacefully from his labors.  He awaits the fulfillment of the blessed hope that characterized His personal life and public ministry.

“Our thoughts and prayers go to Jim’s wife, Sharon. She is an associate secretary of the Ministerial Association, in charge of Shepherdess International, a ministry to pastor’s spouses and children. Jim is also survived by a brother, John C. Cress, of College Place, Washington, an Adventist pastor who serves with Adventist Health Care. A third brother, David Cress, who had been president of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, died in an airplane crash in December of 2004.

“A memorial service is anticipated for December 5, 2009, at Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Maryland. More details will be communicated when they become available. More information is at www.news.adventist.org.”

 

 

We are happy that our world church featured www.sdaforme.com in November’s Adventist World magazine on the president’s page (p. 13). Mid-America Union President Roscoe J. Howard III wrote a guest editorial promoting the website.

Elder Howard says, “What I most like about the Web site is its positive spirit. Weber and the McConnells counter the attacks against Adventist truth without counterattacking those who oppose us [the SDA church]. They offer gracious responses, taking to heart the apostle Paul’s counsel in 2 Timothy 2:25: ‘Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth.’”

I hope so. That’s our goal, anyway. We want www.sdaforme.com to be represent the loving Spirit of Jesus Christ, not a combative spirit of contention. Our warfare is against the devil’s attacks upon Adventist truth, not against people who oppose us. I am heartsick at the mean spirit of so much of theological discussion, and we will not permit that website to showcase hateful or insulting responses. This is the main reason we are not posting comments anymore.

I understand the pain and frustration so many have felt after suffering legalism, and my heart goes out to you. If you are ready to sit down with us and try to figure out where do you go from here, www.sdaforme.com is available as a resource to help you on that journey.

Another reason I’m not taking comments on www.sdaforme.com anymore is that life has gotten so busy for me. I am now assistant to the president of the Mid-America Union on top of my ongoing communication responsibilities. This involves extra travel and other new responsibilities. I’m adjunct teaching at Union College, and trying to keep Outlook magazine coming every month to the 63,000 members of the Mid-America Union. Added to that is my volunteer work with The Hope of Survivors for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Given all this, I’m even way behind on answering e-mails and have no hope of catching up until after I’m done teaching my class this semester at Union College. My apologies.

There are many new things we want to post on www.sdaforme.com, plus videos and other media materials. Meanwhile, please browse around what we have posted here. If you haven’t read the “Welcome . . . About this site” on the homepage, please do. It will give you an idea of what we are hoping to accomplish here.

May God be with you all as we enter this Thanksgiving season, with gratitude most of all for His mercy and truth in Jesus Christ.

 

Grace and peace,

 

Martin Weber, DMin

Assistant to the president, Mid-America Union

Communication director and editor, Outlook magazine

Chairman of the board, The Hope of Survivors of clergy sexual abuse

(a non-compensated position)

 


It hardly seems possible that 40 years ago I graduated from high school. Last weekend our academy class of ‘69 met at an oceanfront hotel on the east coast. I won’t say where because I don’t want to identify our academy, which has since gone out of business. Most of my classmates have also gone out of business, as far as the church is concerned. Only seven or eight of the 23 in our small graduating class are still active Seventh-day Adventists.

The most amazing thing, to me, is that some of those who left our church because of the dysfunctions they experienced have since become fulfilled, fruitful and fervent Christians in other denominations.

In my worship talk to my former classmates, I testified about how I finally discovered the grace and truth of Jesus in the context of Seventh-day Adventism. For example, I keep the Sabbath now because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and the seventh day is God’s symbol of entering Gospel rest. This is a drastically different experience than I was taught to have at the academy, I confessed to them. For most of us back then, the Sabbath seemed like a 24-hour tightrope stretched across the end of the week for the sake of a spiritual performance before God and humanity. (I can’t speak for everyone–just for myself and what I observed back then; but I think my perceptions are attested to by the fact that two thirds of our class has abandoned the Sabbath.)

No doubt our teachers did the best they could–and several of them were truly wonderful people. But somehow what the academy taught us may have been more like the way the Pharisees kept the Sabbath back in Jesus’ time.

Then along came Jesus, who proclaimed: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). And now I do experience God’s freedom and grace in the context of Seventh-day Adventist doctine–but it didn’t come easy. It was a journey of decades through the valley of dysfunction and spiritual abuse until finally, 32 years ago, I experienced the truth as it is in Jesus.

One of my classmates who left the church and found fellowship elsewhere came to me privately and said, “Do you really enjoy the Sabbath now? Do you really experience Jesus in keeping that day?”

Yes indeed. She promised to check it out by visiting our new website, www.sda4me.com. I hope she does. I think she will conclude that the truth as it is in Jesus is worth its wait in gold, even if it takes 40 years to discover it.

Meanwhile, I thank God for the present state of Adventist Christian education in the Mid-America Union. None of the abuses that our class suffered 40 to 50 years ago exist anywhere in our territory, as far as I have seen or heard in my travels and correspondence. We have grace-based, compassionate and capable teachers, and school administrators, throughout our nine-state region, and they are making a difference for eternity in the lives of their students.

This week I’ve been participating in the 180° Symposium, in which representatives from four world divisions meet once a year at Andrews University to discuss how to prevent attrition of Adventist young adults. The 2009 meeting was devoted to connecting with our students who attend secular campuses, whom we tend to lose in tragic proportions. The bottom line question: How can local churches near these secular universities be places of refuge for them and their friends?

Participants prepared papers to present to the group for discussion. Mine was entitled: “When the Canaries Stop Singing.” Here it is:
Before the days of modern technology, coal miners placed canaries in cages throughout their subterranean tunnels as an early warning against the invasion of carbon monoxide. The toxic gas often seeped into mines, odorless and thus undetected. The dying of songbirds provided an early warning that the miners were endangered in an atmosphere of systemic toxin. When the canaries stopped singing, it was the first sign that everybody in the mines was doomed unless they could get to fresh air.

For the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, the canaries are ceasing to sing. We are losing our young people, and our churches themselves are dying. Paul Richardson of the Center for Creative Ministry reports: “The median age for the Seventh-day Adventist community in North America, including the unbaptized children in church families, is 58. … Among native-born White and Black members, the median age is even higher.”[i]

Symposium colleague Ed Dickerson cites another study of Adventists in North America which confirms that more than half of attending members are 58 years or older.”[ii] Richardson adds the chilling statement: “There are more than 1,000 local churches in the North American Division that have no children or teens at all.”[iii]

Confronted with the loss of these songbirds, what should we do?

Many church leaders, concerned about losing our youth and young adults (YYAs), focus on what can be done to persuade them to stay with us—as if the solution to a noxious atmosphere is to develop a strain of poison-resistant victims.

Let us remember that the loss of our YYAs is evidence that our entire church system suffers from a toxic atmosphere; it’s just that YYAs are the most vulnerable to it. Their demise warns of impending doom for all. Our task is to identify what’s poisoning our YYAs and then lead our whole church into life-giving fresh air.

My thesis is that the toxin we suffer from is systemic judgmentalism, resulting from a lack of love. It’s not that we want to be unloving; on the contrary, we care deeply, as evidenced by how deeply our church invests in educating children right through their college years. But we suffer from a misunderstanding of how to love that generates judgmentalism. How come? We have forgotten the major issue of the Great Controversy—that love requires freedom of choice, despite the inevitable risks. Thus, paradoxically, our very concern about safeguarding the spirituality of our young adults generates a coercive and judgmental counterfeit of love that drives them away in a spirit of toxic anxiety.

Good intentions do not guarantee good results. I may open my car door with no intention of denting yours, but the damage is done just the same—and I may not even realize that I caused your problem.

We will look for solutions to YYA attrition after documenting evidence of the problem and its causes.

Evidence of Systemic Judgmentalism

With Adventists in North America increasingly older in their demographic profile, we obviously suffer YYA attrition. We need not wonder why. ValueGenesis I and II documented that many Adventist youth have felt condemned and unloved by elder members. More recent studies indicate that judgmentalism persists.

In the previous report of this Symposium,[iv] Van G. Hurst, president of the Indiana Conference, asks: “What is causing Adventist youth to leave the local church?” He cites a non-scientific but broad-based study that lists a number of reasons. Here are the first 12 reasons given by the YYAs themselves:

• Conservative elderly people that criticize us
• Older folks never let it go if you do mess up so that you will never feel accepted there again.
• Peer pressure is causing youth to leave.
• Pushy grown-ups spouting rules instead of a real message
• Church is boring and often we have non-existent youth groups.
• The older people make you feel like a sinner and that you do nothing right.
• Adults freak out over the smallest things like clothing (they need to worry about more important stuff).
• People judging the youth the ways we dress
• Church if boring with songs from the 1800’s that I’ve never heard.
• Crazy old people with really strict views
• The majority of our views always seem to come from Ellen White.
• People are constantly looking down and judging the youth.

These future voices from the grave should command our attention. Hurst’s data are replicated in the DMin project of this author, a scientific study of attrition among adult children of SDA clergy. My study identified 40 attrition factors, 11 of them extreme. Nearly all of these could be negatively understood, directly or indirectly, as an expression of judgmentalism.[v]

It bears reemphasis that our problem as Adventists is not that we don’t care about YYAs. In prayer meetings, our predominant concern is their attrition. Often tears are shed. No fair-minded observer could accuse these praying grandparents (most prayer meeting attendees seem to be older members) of not caring about their kids, young and old. And yet many prayer warriors—in the same spirit of concern that stimulates their intercession—form the core group of judgmentalists in the church. What makes them oppressive to YYAs is their confused idea of love as being a forceful “straight testimony” rather than relational mentoring.

Picture the Adventist grandmother who stays up past bedtime to bake cookies for the youth group; then when delivering those cookies she feels compelled to admonish (scold) the teens for what they are wearing or listening to. Her condemnation is done for the sake of Christian love. But talking about love—and even trying to love—is not the same as actually being loving. Even though our intentions are good, we need to learn what love is and how to express it.

Consider Hollywood’s obsession with love, obviously a counterfeit. Could the same thing happen in church—not the world’s over-tolerant perversion of love, but a religious counterfeit of love from the opposite extreme of intolerance?

LEARNING TO LOVE

Biblical love comes not only from a caring heart but an educated mind. Paul said: “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent” (Phil. 1: 9-10).

Without knowledge and discernment that empowers us to approve what is excellent, our attempts to love may find a counterfeit expression in intolerance.

We see this in the agape love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. Verse 5 says of true love: “It does not insist on its own way.” This is typically interpreted as selfishness, and often is. But there is another way in which people withhold love by insisting on their own way: expecting that everybody agree with their own views of dress, diet, music, worship, and everything else. They canonize their convictions, and anyone out of compliance may become the target of gentle yet judgmental correction, even coercion.

To further clarify the connection between knowledge and love, 1 Corinthians 13:9 warns, “Now we know in part.” Nobody but God knows everything, and true love recognizes this, not only individually but corporately. Loving members and churches humbly tolerate some variance in understanding and expressing Christian standards: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).

The fact that love requires liberty lies at the heart of Great Controversy truth, wherein a God of love extends freedom to His creation, despite its risks, since we must have liberty in order to experience God’s love—and to share it in our churches and communities (including secular campuses). Liberty of conscience is vintage Adventist doctrine, so we all of Christians ought to understand the need for it. Proof that we do not is judgmentalism, generated by a perversion of godly love.

Another evidence that love is lacking is the toxic anxiety throughout our system. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18[vi]). . Besides the fear of freedom that robs us of love and causes judgmentalism, other systemic anxieties in North American Adventism are just as toxic, such as:

• Fear of culture—incarnation as God’s ambassadors in secular society
• Fear of man—intimidation by church bullies so that we enable them
• Fear of truth—reluctance to journey on the road of theological discovery
• Fear of joy—so afraid of emotionalism that worship becomes lifeless
• Fear of job—career fear that makes leaders hirelings instead of shepherds
• Fear of funding—dread of financial crisis if benefactors become offended

Each of these systemic anxieties robs the church of its capacity to love, and each is worthy of its own chapter in a new book that must be written soon.

CONCLUSION

A toxic atmosphere in our churches is killing our youth and young adults, which is an early warning that the rest of the Adventist Church in North American church is endangered—as evidenced by our alarmingly aging demographic profile. We desperately need the fresh air of love to cast out systemic anxiety and liberate us in the Spirit to fulfill God’s end-time calling. Then judgmentalism will cease and our young adults will have the freedom to sing their own song. And they will find our churches a safe place to bring home their friends from secular campuses.

[vii]

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[i] Quoted in A. Allan Martin, “Burst the Bystander Effect: Making a Discipling Difference with Young Adults.” In Roger Dudley, ed., Ministering to Millennials: a complete report on the 180° Symposium (Lincoln, NE: AdventSource, 2009), 112. Hereafter cited as Millennials.

[ii] Ed Dickerson, “Suffer the Little Children (and the young adults),” in Millennials, 48.

[iii] Martin, Ibid.

[iv] Van G. Hurst, “Unity and Ministry Through the Massification of Adventism,” in Millennials, 85.

[v] Martin Weber, “Resolving Young Adult Attrition,” in Millennials, 185ff.

[vi] Unless noted, all scriptures are from the English Standard Version.

A story on homosexuals and the Seventh-day Adventist Church was featured in the Journal Star, daily newspaper of Lincoln, Nebraska (Thursday, October 15 edition; also posted online as the lead item: http://journalstar.com). It reports on two California producers doing a film documentary about gays who have a Seventh-day Adventist background. The producers visited Lincoln during a nationwide road trip in which they are interviewing Adventists and ex-Adventists who have a homosexual orientation or are sympathetic toward gays. To promote their project, the producers are seeking exposure in local media markets.

Although the Journal Star reporter perhaps shares the mainstream media’s pro-homosexual bias, she seems fair-minded, having contacted the regional headquarters of the SDA Church to invite a response. As communication director for the Mid-America Union, I provided her with a special statement from Mid-America Union president Roscoe J. Howard III, plus the official SDA church statement on homosexuality. She published Howard’s statement in its entirety as a sidebar (reproduced below).

My assessment: Lincoln residents with an Adventist background who have homosexual inclinations or sympathies received favorable media exposure, but the SDA Church in Mid-America also had opportunity to witness to our community. The statement of our president confirmed our commitment to biblical marriage while also inviting anyone of a homosexual orientation to fellowship with us and experience God’s grace by visiting Adventist worship services.

Here now is the statement from Roscoe J. Howard III, Mid-America Union president:

Seventh-day Adventists are committed to traditional marriage between a man and a woman as a legacy of our Judeo-Christian heritage. The Bible makes clear that homosexuality violates natural relations as ordained by our Creator (e.g., Romans 1:22-28). Thus we could not honor the Scriptures while also supporting homosexual conduct. Since God’s grace reaches out to everyone, homosexuals are welcome to find fellowship and healing in attending Adventist worship services. But anyone who becomes a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, or is an employee of the denomination, must be willing to limit sexual behavior within sacred matrimony between a man and a woman.