The other day as I was talking to a friend and colleague about a relatively minor aspect of Seventh-day Adventist culture/tradition he said, "If I were to find that this aspect of truth is not as I and others have always believed it to be, I would leave the Adventist Church."
His statement got me thinking. This was not the first time I had heard someone say this kind of thing. What he said came across as brave, honest, and high-principled; however, something in it bothered me. I wondered how worthy the Adventist faith would be if its ultimate credibility depended on the proper expression of a controverted aspect of its tradition.
If everything had to be deemed perfect before it could be accorded any significant credibility, there would be few things that we could trust with any degree of certainty. And I realized that this is the uncomfortable point to which many have come: rejecting, or at least placing in serious question valuable people, organizations, books, publications, and other sources of truth and sustenance because we have found a flaw or two in them. More serious than this and more to the point of my editorial, do we find ourselves adopting negative interpersonal attitudes and breaking from one another over issues that are not all that critical?
We are keenly aware of the other side of this coin: Truth is truth and should not be mixed with error, and it takes just a little leaven to permeate the whole lump (Gal. 5:7-10). And a given controverted point of truth or culture may be much more important than we consider it to be. There are also many aspects of truth foundational enough to cause us to reject the whole if we find significant enough error existing within them. All this considered, however, let me follow my original line of thinking.
One example of this tendency to reject the whole because of a questionable part, or to detach from one another because of a point of perceived error, came to our church in Minneapolis in 1888 when interpretations of Galatians were the center of a divisive dispute among leading ministers. In the heat of the situation Ellen White tells of one minister who said, "If our views of Galatians are not correct, then we have not the third angel's message, and our position goes by the board; there is nothing to our faith." To this Ellen White replied, "Brethren, here is the very thing I have been telling you. This statement is not true. It is an extravagant, exaggerated statement. If it is made in the discussion of this question I shall feel it my duty to set this matter before all that are assembled, and whether they hear or forbear tell them the statement is incorrect. The question at issue is not a vital question and should not be treated as such. . . . There has been a spirit of Pharisaism coming in among us which I shall lift my voice against wherever it may be revealed."1
In this situation the points of debate had been assigned an importance so great that it was only natural for disagreement to end in estrangement and schism. In this setting it is not difficult to see Ellen White's point that the underlying mistake of the Pharisee is not merely his proverbial legalism, but the fact that he takes his own codified expressions of reality and tarns them into ultimate tests of faith and fellowship, feeling sincerely justified for rejecting or emotionally disfellowshipping anyone who sees things in any other light.
A few years after Minneapolis Mrs. White wrote something that has all the earmarks of profound wisdom and inspiration. With Minneapolis in mind and all that had happened since, she said, "We cannot then take a position that the unity of the church consists in viewing every text of Scripture in the very same light. The church may pass resolution upon resolution to put down all disagreement of opinions, but we cannot force the mind and will, and thus root out disagreement. ...Nothing can perfect unity in the church but the spirit of Christlike forbearance."2
What is and what is not the baseline unifying ingredient among us? Feeling we must have everyone seeing things in the same light is not. The humble exercise of the divine principle of "Christlike forbearance" is.
A particular quality of forbearance is championed here. This is not just "openness," nor is it merely "unity in diversity." This is rather a spirit which refrains or abstains from unneccessary expressions of negativity when they seem most justified. Even more significantly, this is a "Christlike" principle. A particular issue or person is approached in a way consistent with the way Christ might respond or not respond.
We are constantly searching for points of logical, rational, or prepositional connection between one another and this certainly has its place. But we search one another's words, minds, hearts, eyes, and expressions trying to find people who think as we do on this or that matter. In other words, we search for unity on the basis of cognitive similarity. And our relationships remain strained as we encounter (and we constantly do) any who see things in a different light. In all of this, the only real basis for oneness and Christian solidarity is this fabulous spirit of "Christlike forbearance."
O God, fill us full of Your Spirit!
1. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1980), book 3, p. 174, 175.
2. Ellen G. White Manuscript Releases, vol. 11, p. 266.
