The traditional emphasis upon the doctrinal uniqueness of each Christian denomination has waned and given way to an opposite trend: the pressure to de-emphasize theological and behavioral denominational distinctives. This bent is not merely the product of recent ecumenical ambitions, but also part of a powerful cluster of largely unrelated social trends.
What, then, are some of the con temporary social paradigms that seem to join with the ecumenical stimulants, especially in the Western world, to put pressure upon Seventh-day Adventists and other Christian bodies to re-evaluate their identity and their role in the world? Here are some:
1. The postmodern paradigm. A staple for the postmodern soul is the tendency to question almost anything that has centralized, authoritative sanction. In the postmodern world, the individual certainly not any organized religion is king. This, of course includes the individual's personal estimate of what is to be embraced or rejected. This influence obviously places pressure upon any church in which absolute truth claims are infrastructural.
2. Definitive truth cannot be known. Consistent with postmodernism's rejection of centralized authority is a closely related corollary: that human beings simply cannot know what truth actually is, and cannot therefore articulate or require adherence to any particular truth or definitive pattern of behavior. In many ways, this belief, born of popularized renderings of some of the existentialist philosophies of the last century or more, has watered and fertilized the plant of postmodernism. Its challenge to a denomination such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose identity and missiological thrust rests upon clear perceptions and articulations of "the truth," are difficult to miss.
3. The unbalanced use of reason and science, in many ways the spinal cord of "modernism," has left in its wake a new culture of uncertainty, and above all, spiritual, relational, and personal emptiness. Aside from what else this unbalanced use of reason might engender, it is its innate uneasiness with the reality of the Spiritual (with a capital "S"), and thus its dominating emphasis on the physical, material, technological, and experimentally verifiable, that is most challenging to anything that tries to travel to dimensions beyond it; entities such as any order of viable biblical faith.
4. In such cultures, the questions "Does God exist?" and/or "Is the Bible a valid guide for today's world?" is no longer even on the radar screens of many people's consciousness. For increasing numbers of people, the answer is "No" to both questions, and has long since been settled in the minds of these people, with a new materialistic or secular "orthodoxy" sweeping in to openly disdain the act of even raising such questions.
5. Then there is the phenomenon of a shrinking planet. In an amazingly expanded, constantly changing, inter active and at the same time diversified world, Christians must communicate a relevant faith. Aside from this any attempts to secure global peace and/or to initiate religious unity must include not only Christian denominations, but all of the great religions of the world, perhaps including for example, sub groups such as certain militant fundamentalist branches of Islam.
In the light of these things, it is not difficult to understand why sincere Christian people might feel the burning need to modify or oust the old denominational structures, and develop some kind of fraternal unanimity on the basis of which they can bring a combined front to the global ecumenical table where they might meet the great world religions. 1
The reasons for such a global quest are compelling. But if Seventh-day Adventists are to retain the essence and the spirit of their original God-given calling, and their transcendent reason for existence, they must move in this milieu with divinely inspired wisdom and care. While there is by all means every legitimate reason to adapt and adjust the ways in which we relate to a "brave, new world/' we must, under God, hold fast our original Christian and Seventh-day Adventist charter: To proclaim the everlasting gospel in the light of an imminent eschaton . . . with all that's implied in a biblical commission such as Revelation 14:6-12.
Angel Rodrfguez's cover article, "Adventists and Ecumenical Conversation," is an insightful and far-reaching contribution as we search out our particular role in the heart of all that is unfolding these days.
1 See Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy ((Nampa, Idaho.- Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1888; rev. 1911.), 584-592.