Progressive Adventism

Since last month, I’ve been taping segments of a new TV program called "Intersections" on Loma Linda Broadcasting Network (LLBN), along with co-hosts, Carla Gober and Leigh Aveling.  "Intersections" is a 30-minute discussion on the connection of faith and ideas in life from Christian/Adventist perspectives.  Carla is a colleague of mine at LLU School of Religion and the director of the LLU Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness, and Leigh is a chaplain at the LLU Medical Center.  The three of us host this program regularly, and we’re joined one or two guests each time.  Though we invite guests based on their expertise, "Intersections" is not an interview program, but a genuine discussion.  Think the opening sequence of the "View" or Bill Maher’s "Politically Incorrect" without a clear discussion leader.  This program hasn’t started airing yet.  We’re slated to debut in fall.

Since its inception in 1997, LLBN has emerged as a major force not in Adventist TV (supposed to be #1 in viewership among Adventist TV outlets, having surpassed 3ABN), but also in Christian TV.  According to LLBN, a Google ranking places the network among the top five Christian TV network sites visited.  LLBN is geared toward the global Adventist audience and the larger public.  I find that it provides a more moderate, even progressive, alternative to 3ABN, while expressing a greater variety of views and opinions than some of the denominationally sponsored TV programs.  LLBN is an independent, not-for-profit organization.  It can be viewed either online (at llbn.tv) or by purchasing a satellite dish (for a one-time cost of about $200 which gives you 50 Christian channels).

Carla and Leigh began taping segments of the program two months ago, and I joined the hosts last month.  The segments that I’ve been part of in the planning and taping have dealt with:  

• C. S. Lewis, Film and Popular Culture (with Stanley Mattson of the CS Lewis Foundation and Jeremy Hubbard of LLU)
• Faith in the Secular Workplace
• Inter-Christian Dialogue (with Donna Herrick of the LLU Medical Center chaplains’ office and Father Mike Manning, a Catholic TV show host on TBN)
• Environment (with Lee Greer, biology prof at La Sierra University, and Jared Wright, a divinity student at La Sierra, who has blogged about his experience with Intersections)
• Human Trafficking (with Siroj Sorajjakool, religion prof at LLU, and Ryan Bell, pastor of the Hollywood Adventist Church, who has also blogged about his part in Intersections)
• Faith and Personality Types (with Cameron Johnson, a psychiatry prof at LLU)

This gives you a good sampling of the kinds of discussions we have.  We seek to inform and inspire, while keeping things fun and interesting.  And we aren’t afraid to disagree with one another and challenge each other or what’s considered the norm. Through all this, there’s usually a lot of laughter on the set.

I welcome your suggestions on topics and guests (has to be within driving distance to Loma Linda, though).

BTW, thanks to Alex for featuring the blogs by Jared & Ryan on Spectrum Blog.  Old is new!

My good friend, LK, alerted me to this video.  It’s fun and inspiring…while challenging my Adventist aversion to dancing!  It’s the 2nd just such video made—in 42 countries over 14 months.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

If the above high-quality video isn’t working for you, try this Youtube version:

Matt’s site is:  http://www.wherethehellismatt.com

The lyrics of the music are based off a poem.  From Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (sung by Palbasha Siddique).  Would Psalm 150 be just as fitting?  Hmmm, anyhow, here’s the lyrics:

"Stream of Life"

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

A summary of the presentation at the 2008 Global Internet Evangelism Network meeting hosted by the Communication Dept. of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Denver, Colorado. 

In my survey of students in my classes, I’ve found that young Adventists never think of their church as a creative, innovative, visionary, original, inventive, imaginative, artistic, inspiring, fresh or radical.  But Adventism has a rich heritage of creativity, innovation and radical vision.  Let’s consider the examples of five Adventist pioneers:  James & Ellen White, Edson White, Stephen Haskell, HMS Richards, and William Fagal.  (Much of the historical information here has been taken from Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church [Pacific Press, 2000].)

<James & Ellen White>

While visiting a town called Dorchester, Massachusetts, in November 1848, Ellen White received a vision from God.  After the vision, she immediately turned to her husband, James, and said, “I have a message for you.  You must begin to print a little paper and send it out to the people.  Let it be small at first; but as the people read, they will send you means with which to print, and it will be a success from the first.”  Then, she said something remarkable and extraordinary, something that turned to be indeed prophetic: “From this small beginning it was shown to me, to be like streams of light that went clear round the world” (Life Sketches, p. 125).

This was an amazing vision because at this time, Adventists were neither a church nor a movement.  In fact, they were a bunch of people—maybe 100 in number—very much in flux, scattered all over the Northeastern U.S.  They were confused; they were poor; they argued among themselves over the Bible; and they had zero vision for doing anything for anyone else around the world.  This was that enigmatic time of shut door.  And couple were just 27 (James) and 21 (Ellen) years old.

(more…)

Anticipating Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart’s presentations at the Adventist Forums conference last September (which is now available in the current issue of Spectrum) triggered the following (very) random thoughts—which are now almost a year old….

One key contribution that Bull and Lockhart have made in deepening my understanding of Adventism has been to show me how physical and this-earthly we really are.  The Adventist view of reality is indeed very physical.  The Adventist conception of the human nature is essentially a version of physicalist monism.  Human nature is supposed to be an indivisible union of matter and spirit, but that spirit is so often conceived of as life force or energy.  And isn’t energy ultimately a physical phenomenon?  The Adventist emphasis on health, clean and unclean meat (down to whether tunas and anchovies have scales or not), jewelry, dress, hair, beard, sex, masturbation, dancing, country living—they all show Adventists to be intensely preoccupied with the physical.  It doesn’t always seem like it because Adventists have approached them from the perspective of denial and restraint, but the preoccupation is real.

Could it be that it is this underlying physicalist view of reality which has undergirded Adventism’s continuing literalism in the reading of the creation account in Genesis and the book of Revelation when so many in the evangelical world who are otherwise conservative in their reading of Scripture have embraced the evolutionary account of the origin of life and have been far more open to symbolic, idealist readings of the Apocalypse?

Adventism’s physicalism extends to God and heavenly places. God lives in a particular place in the universe beyond the belt of Orion.  There is a heavenly sanctuary that has two apartments, and Christ is—by the plan of redemption—confined to the first apartment until October 22, 1844 and then moves to the second.  There, in the Most Holy Place, Christ pleads with the Father on our behalf, “My blood, my blood.”  You can see the scars that remain on Christ’s palms, and they will always remain.  And we expect to see all the gems and jewels that form the 12 foundations and gates of New Jerusalem.  This seems to be more than nineteenth century anthropomorphism or mysticism.  It’s more than Scriptural literalism.  Reality for Adventism is truly physical—corporeal and spatial—all the way to the throne of God.

In addition to Bull and Lockhart’s brilliant insights on the syn-co-pated nature of the Adventist conception of time that differentiates this community from the rest of America, I wonder if Adventism’s materialist view of reality shouldn’t be looked at more closely.  At a time of high modernism and scientism, nascent evolutionism, and political materialism, Adventism began offering a similar yet competing vision of reality and materiality.  Thus, as much as Adventism has been an alternative to America, Adventism may also be an alternative to secular materialism. 

Or … it may be that the founding vision of America is materialism, informed by common sense realism and particularism.  America meta-narrativized its particular experiences, and so has Adventism.  Could it be that it is rugged physicalism—the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in this space with the brand new raw material of this new world—that drives both America and Adventism (and Mormonism as pointed out by Bull and Lockhart)?

And a dangling thought…

One irony of Adventism is that while a key focus lies in the “blessed hope,” pessimism reigns. This pessimism is directed toward not only the general condition of the world and the American nation, but also toward Adventism itself.  In the end, Adventism has taught, when the observers of the true Sabbath are persecuted by the lamb-like beast of America, there will no longer be Adventism.  Instead, it will simply be the invisible body of true believers, known only to God.  Even before that demise of the visible movement, Adventism is supposed to be the lukewarm Laodicean church that will require a severe shaking.  I may have missed it, but this dimension doesn’t seem to get much play in Bull and Lockhart’s analysis of Adventism.  It’s important to recognize that Adventism is both the self-assured Remnant and the self-doubting Laodicea.  In the end, it is a community that is set to expire before the end. The question is:  Do Adventists around the world really, truly believe this?

Please direct your comments to the Spectrum blog where this is cross-posted.