by Chris Oberg, senior pastor of Calimesa (CA) Seventh-day Adventist Church

This presentation was given on Sabbath, January 26, at the Mind & Spirit Conference hosted by the Loma Linda University Church, in cooperation with the LLU School of Religion. This conference convened to examine the legacy of Questions on Doctrine. In this article, Pastor Oberg discusses QOD and the future of Adventism.

In late October when the Andrews Campus took up the apprehensive and ambitious anniversary conference for Questions on Doctrine, I was among the ranks wondering why? It was the General Conference President who put me on notice, two weeks prior to the conference when, at Annual Council, he said in his Sabbath sermon that he does not “support another restudy of theological issues originally presented 50 years ago in the book QOD. Theology has the most potential for dividing the church.” Between Elder Paulsen’s comments, and the first Spectrum report from the sidelines at the conference, it was clear something of importance was happening.

So, I did what I thought other preaching pastors might do the weekend of the Andrews conference: I tucked a comment about the historical event in my Sabbath sermon and went on my homiletical way. It was a sermon about Rahab. What does QOD have to do with Rahab? Your right, not a whole lot. But I felt content knowing that someone out there, who knew about the conference, knew that I knew about the conference, and we got it out in the open. I was greeted by more than one person at the door with this reflection, “I never understood the whole Questions on Doctrine thing.”

I was affirmed in my original assessment, why have a conference? I’ll state clearly now my conversational vantage point. I was born one year after ML Andreasen died. I am a fourth generation Adventist, a full product of Adventist Education. I came late to my theological training–at age 33, my first professor was Arthur Patrick at La Sierra University, who I know presented and tested us on QOD–I looked at my notes! When my ministerial class of 2000 was preparing for conference interviews a few months before graduation, one of our professors coached us on typical interview questions. With passion he said, “And beyond anything else, you better know about the nature of Christ. They’ll get you on this one. You better know if Jesus came to earth in a pre-lapsarian or a post-lapsarian state.” This caused panic around the small classroom as the professor didn’t tell us the correct answer. The question never emerged in the interview process that year. This afternoon I’d like to represent the position of younger Adventists Christians-both lay persons and clergy, what Jon Paulien describes as functional Adventism, while looking for an answer, “why are we talking about QOD?

To answer this question, I started with the papers presented at Andrews. Little did I realize when selecting the print button and walking away from my computer that three reams of paper later I would have a stack of documents measuring 8 inches tall! While reading, insights crept up gradually as to what it was to be Adventist the last fifty years. Theological pieces, social pieces, spiritual pieces, psychological pieces. There was a bright light moment when I finished. To be gut wrenchingly honest, I felt as though I’d come through major denominational psychotherapy.

Why Questions on Doctrine fifty years later? Because the theological antecedents of today’s church are vital for understanding our community. I was simply ignorant to the depth and significance of the QOD conversation. Maybe some others are too. Allow me to be personal, and specific, as it relates to the topics of perfectionism, the experience of salvation, and the experience of being church together.

After reading the papers, I have new insight as to why my Grandmother was never satisfied with anyone’s behavior, why my Father so frequently used the phrase, “I can’t do anything right.” I have new insight for every Adventist family where religion is off-limits during holiday gatherings. I have new insight as to why every guest speaker in the academy setting had to ask the question, “Do you know you’re saved?” I have new insight into why hundreds of youth I’ve studied with are confused about salvation and grace, as the Valuegenesis studies confirm. They understand God loves them unconditionally but they do not understand how sin influences God’s grace, and what role acts of piety play in salvation. God loves them, but won’t take a sinner to heaven. I have new insight over the relational waste, in families, and in the broader Adventist community. And new insight as to why there is such “theological whiplash” in Adventist thinking. Where did such disparate theological interpretations come from? I have new insight into why there are conversations about whom the ‘real’ Adventists are and which of our colleges preserves the truth, and why the local Sunday Church up the hill offers a class for recovering Adventists. I have new insight as to why I must take phone calls from Adventists who want out-who want out because they can no longer handle the pressure of not being good enough for God. To be certain, not all of this can be laid at the feet of one little book published in 1957 and its ensuing rebuttal. However, one cannot deny the array of theological fingerprints associated with the QOD conversations.

It is difficult to tell from this perspective what is history memorialized and what is memory historicized, I just know caution is in order. And it is with great respect I offer the following as movements into the future with the theological and experiential fingerprints of the QOD event of our past.

I encourage a reading, or re-reading of Rick Rice’s book, Believing, Behaving, Belonging, and a renewed call to not only a God who is love, but a community defined by love. Loving communities are governed by the self-sacrificing, others-centered love of God. Loving communities seek common ground, seek to abolish polemics, and seek to reconcile humans one to another. To the degree our theological work can be governed by love, the next generations will be most eager to be counted among us.

I encourage a re-examination of the role of doctrine in community. It is ironic that a church which would take the Bible at its only creed has allowed doctrine this much power inside community. I do wonder to what degree we’ve misunderstood the creative, ongoing, broad task of theological work. The majority of our theological thinking does not result in doctrine= that which becomes authoritative in the community. I agree with those who ask, can we give any of these doctrines back? Doctrine misused, or abused, becomes the law according to us. Do you see how the very proleptic nature of church, of being family, is interrupted by an abusive, misplaced power of doctrine within? When did we decide Adventist Christianity would allow such relational demise over doctrine? We don’t die for doctrine. We die for the gospel. They are not the same.

I encourage, along the lines of David Larson, that it is not possible to examine the nature of Jesus without examining the actions of Jesus. For when I watch Jesus, and thereby God’s agenda’s in motion, time and again I see Jesus step out on behalf of the weak and the vulnerable in society. Healing touch, healing words, sharing food, announcing the kingdom of God. When Jesus leaves the room, people are changed. Oh that this could be enough for our little remnant movement-to bring this healing kingdom to the world.

As to questions which interest younger Adventists, one timely theological challenge is the faith and science conversation, especially to students of this campus at Loma Linda; especially for science faculty and pastors denomination wide. I can represent the urgency as stated recently by one eighth grade student inside our Adventist system, “I’m not sure what they’re thinking when they tell us just to skip over the evolution chapter in the science book. They can keep saying Adventists don’t believe this, they can keep telling us everything is only 6 or 10,000 years old, but we’re not dumb. We go to museums, and we read online when another multi-million year-old fossil is recovered. We see evidence all around, and are left to figure this out, and we aren’t going to do so well if the conversation doesn’t start changing. We are gonna grow up not knowing how to relate to the rest of the intelligent world.”

Another timely theological challenge is issues of justice. Young Adventist not only long to be involved in actions that correct social injustice, they long for their church to seriously engage the issues. We want to be able to walk into the Heritage Room of our library and find a file in the archive labeled social justice, or political action. We hope one day that the records on temperance, abolition, suffrage, and civil rights are augmented with a paper trail showing the church’s concern for human rights of all kinds around the world, as well as a concern for God’s created world. Whatever nature Jesus embodied, however atonement happens, the answers will not change the reality we all agree upon: God is capable, and is in the business of reconciling, saving, making whole, and this is happening today, right now! So the church ought to be engaged in acts of reconciling, saving, making whole–today, right now!

Another timely theological challenge is how to relate to the other in Adventist Christianity, for we have issues of inclusion we’ve not yet begun to verbalize. The younger generations are not only looking for sound theology, but loving behavior when it comes to engaging the other inside and outside Adventism. This conversation is urgent.

We simply must admit that there is no going back in terms of controlling the Adventist message. There is nothing as simple or brilliant as the 1865 issuing of ministerial credentials, which protected and authorized the true Advent message. Today, 140 years later, the theological diversity among credentialed scholars, evangelists, administrators and pastors in North America alone is startling. Spend a weekend sampling the Adventist truth from the major satellite stations. Then, add a reading from the SS quarterly, a Pacific Press Bestseller, and an Adventist Forum New Release. One can develop theological whiplash rather quickly with just this sampling. To this, add layers of lay voice and funding, and the immediacy of our electronic culture. If you want to get your particular message out, you just need a website, a blog, a podcast. You just need to announce a special convention for youth or young adults. Or, as happened recently in our area, you just need to show up, find young student leaders, hold a few meetings, and send them back to their campus with your message. This is the new face of theological thinking targeted at our younger members, at least in North America. Most of these realities are a blessing to the church, yet some are frightening as we look into the future. Fifty years ago the dominant voices were accessible through a book or in a college classroom; today, they are in your living room. There is no going back in terms of controlling the Adventist message.

I encourage that whatever occupies the remnant, the focus must be on God. I borrow the image from a book entitled, The Externally Focused Church, which showcases a pair of binoculars taking in the view from a mountain. Somewhere along the way it seems our little movement has taken those binoculars and turned them inward. The lense is on us. We are on trial, we are being judged. We are the object of attention. Whatever occupies the remnant in the future, God must be the focus. The testimony of Revelation is clear: thousands upon ten thousands sing holy, holy, holy is the lamb. This is clearly God’s stage-bright beams are on the creator of the universe who plays no favorites, needs no line leaders, and has a resource of love which will occupy our eternity. This story is about God. Maybe we need to take ourselves out of the way.