by Fritz Guy, professor emeritus of theology, La Sierra University

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, Dr. Guy discusses QOD and the future of Adventism.

I want to talk about good news, bad news, and the possibilities of grace, and thus suggest what we can learn from the saga of Questions on Doctrine. As with individual persons, so with communities of faith: our weaknesses are often the mirror image, the “dark other side,” of our strengths. So it’s hardly surprising that the 50-year saga of Questions on Doctrine highlights both the strengths and weakness of Adventists and Adventism.

There is both good news and bad news. The quality of the Adventist future will depend on our ability—and willingness—to nurture our strengths and overcome our corresponding weaknesses. Is this too much to hope for? Not if we take seriously the possibilities of grace.

One of the great strengths of Adventist spirituality is that we take our beliefs seriously. It is good news that we are doctrinally (and sometimes theologically) concerned: we are convinced that what we believe is important. This is not unique to Adventists, of course. Christians in general tend to be more interested in beliefs than adherents of other religions. And Adventists tend to be more interested in theology than other Christians.

Furthermore, Adventist beliefs constitute a theological gestalt, a coherent whole, a system. This too is good news. A significant part of the saga of Questions on Doctrine has involved what has been called “last generation” theology. According to this perspective, for the atonement for sin to be complete, what happened at the Cross must be actualized in the complete overcoming of sin in the lives of the last generation of God’s people. Indeed, the Second Coming of Christ depends on the perfection of the “final generation.” And for Christ’s atonement for our sins to be valid, he had to live with the same “sinful nature” that we have. Whether or not this whole package expresses the best understanding of the plan of salvation, it is coherent.

But our theological concerns can also be bad news. Our theology can become too narrowly focused on details, sometimes on specific words or phrases. Our theology can become an idol. The danger that is the “dark other side” of theological seriousness is what I have called “theologolatry”—making an idol of our own theology. We should learn from a couple great Protestant theologians of the last century. Paul Tillich used to say that all our theology needs to be “justified by faith” just as much as our lives. And Karl Barth, the most influential of all Christian thinkers of the century, said “The angels must laugh when they read my theology.”

Perhaps the greatest danger of theological seriousness is that we become so concerned about our theology that we pay too little attention to other, equally essential aspects of our spirituality. Theology is no substitute for spiritual community. Of the earliest followers of Jesus it was said, “Look at the way they love one another!” Could it some day be said of us, “Look at how those Adventists love one another!” Their strange ritual of footwashing is just a symbol of the wonderful way they relate to each other all the time”?

Theology is no substitute for service. Could it some day be said of us, “This town, this city, this county, is a better place because Adventists are here. Whenever there’s a need, they are ready to help.” The real priorities of any organization are most clearly seen not in their mission statements but in their budgets. If you are a member of a church board, the next time you see your church budget notice what proportion of it is devoted to service to the community. At the same time, recall from our Adventist past a couple of sentences: “The perfection of Christian character is attained when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within.” “The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.”

Another great strength of Adventist spirituality is that we are serious about Scripture. The good news is that we care about the Bible. We read every day in worship in thousands of Adventist schools and in millions of Adventist homes around the world. It is the formal basis of all our Sabbath School lessons, and Adventist sermons are full of references to, and recitations of, Scripture.

The bad news is that much of the time we don’t really read the Bible; as my colleague John Jones says, we raid the Bible. We go through it to find hand grenades we can lob at other churches, and at our opponents inside our own church. In the process we often read superficially, misunderstanding and misusing the Biblical text. We ignore original languages, contexts and meanings in order to establish our own interpretations. In this regard the theology of Questions on Doctrine was not much better than its predecessors. Instead of being servants of the Word, we make the Word our servant, employing it for our purposes—proving that we are right, and those who disagree with us are wrong.

One of the possibilities of grace is that we can learn really to listen to it. Scripture is mostly a collection of stories of God’s interaction with people. The New Testament was never intended to be mainly history or theology; it was—and still is—a collection of descriptions of what it meant to follow Jesus in the decades after his death and resurrection—descriptions that give us insights into what it means to follow Jesus now. Sure, we can derive from them some good history and good theology, but the following comes first.

A third great strength of Adventist spirituality is our heritage of commitment to “present truth” This is mostly good news: it means that we are not a museum for the preservation of the faith of our fathers, but a community of faith on the way to the future. Our heritage contains many reminders of the possibilities of grace. For example: “Whenever the people of God are growing in grace, they will be constantly obtaining a clearer understanding of His Word. They will discern new light and beauty in its sacred truths. This has been true in the history of the church in all ages, and thus it will continue to the end.”

But even here there is some bad news: “new light” is too often accompanied by a spirit of certainty and intolerance on the part of its proponents. Questions on Doctrine has been called “the most divisive book in Seventh-day Adventist history.” Whether or not we think its theology was an improvement over the earlier “final generation” theology, it did represent an alternative understanding, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, its authors seemed to have an exaggerated opinion of its importance, and, even more unfortunately, an evident disdain for their critics, whom they described as the “lunatic fringe” of Adventism. Some of their critics, in turn, were hardly more charitable, accusing the General Conference leadership of theological betrayal. One of the saddest aspects of the last 50 years is the harshness of some of the language and the vindictiveness of some of the official reaction.

If the publication of the book “brought prolonged alienation and separation to the Adventist factions that grew up around it,” the reason was not the newness of the theology but the way in which it was presented and promoted. The fundamental problem was not a matter of theology but of attitude. There was only one right way to think. People took sides: “I’m with Elder Andreasen” or “I’m with the General Conference.” And the angels must have wept.

By contrast, one of the most gratifying aspects of the 50th anniversary conference in October was the fact that “traditional Adventists,” “evangelical Adventists,” and “progressive Adventists” seemed to be listening to each other. And one of the continuing possibilities of grace is that our Adventist future can be better than our past. We can listen to each other even—no, especially—when we disagree, remembering that no one in the conversation is wholly wrong, and that if we are willing we can learn from anyone We can encourage theological experiments. We can consider new understandings, new ways of thinking that just might turn out to be “present truth” for Adventists in the 21st century.

If we can learn from both the good news and the bad news and remember the possibilities of grace, the Adventist future is full of hope.