Progressive Adventism

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.

In the summer of 1849, James was finally able to act on his wife’s plea to start a “little paper.”  That paper was called Present Truth.  The July 1849 issue was the first one for this monthly magazine.  A printer in Middletown, CT, agreed to print 1,000 copies of the 8-page paper on credit.  Just a flicker of light as on a single match.  But a major faith venture for the penniless young couple. 

Within three months, enough funds arrived from readers to allow the Whites to continue publishing the paper. But in December 1849, the funds began dwindling down and James White became discouraged.  So he stopped publishing the paper for three months and people weren’t sure if it would continue.

Meantime, Joseph Bates, another one of the leading pioneers of Adventism, was opposed to the idea of publishing a magazine.  Bates felt that no periodical should be published because that’s what other former Millerites were doing.  He’d rather see James White go and preach the Sabbath and the Second Coming and give Bible studies and baptize people, rather than spend so much energy on make a paper.

But Ellen White stood firm behind that vision of streaming light:  “I saw that God did not want James to stop yet,” she wrote, “but he must write, write, write, write, and spread the message and let it go.”  So in spring 1850, four more issues of Present Truth was sent out.

In summer 1850, James and Ellen White began a second magazine called Advent Review, devoted to reprinting articles from the pre-Disappointment Millerite era.  This was to remind people that God was leading Millerites in spite of their misinterpretation of Scripture.

In November 1850, the two magazines, Present Truth (which was focused on the Sabbath and other distinctive teachings) and Advent Review, were combined fused into The Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which came to be called Review and Herald and later changed to Adventist Review.  Until the denomination was formally organized in 1863, Review and Herald served as the crucial link among Adventists scattered throughout the U.S.  So, as you can see, the Adventist community has always been one connected and sustained by the new media.  Church organization and mission came after connectivity through the media, and neither would have been possible without the media.

 <James Edson White>

It was at age 44—in 1893—that Edson White finally experienced a genuine spiritual awakening.  Soon, he encountered his mother’s tract entitled “Our Duty to the Colored People,” urging that active missionary work be done among Blacks.  This led him to commit to make such an endeavor a reality.  In 1894, he constructed a missionary riverboat, Morning Star, which had a residence, work area, chapel, library, print shop, darkroom, kitchen, and storerooms.  He recruited a group of missionary-minded men and women and began work along the Yazoo River in Mississippi, establishing 50 schools along the way.  In 1898, Edson published The Southern Work and The Gospel Herald, a monthly journal.

This was another example of the streams of light spreading.  This time, the present truth, the message for the present, was couched in education–teaching reading and life skills for African-Americans in the South.

What was it that drove the middle-aged Edson White to launch this innovative ministry using the medium of a riverboat?  It began with a quiet conviction growing in the depth of his heart as he read his mother’s appeal.  A creative approach with a clear understanding of the lay of the land and the needs of the people.  Not using the same old method, but one that connects.

(P.S., Interestingly, Edson would continue in his path of innovation.  In his retirement, he made stereopticon slides to be used by Adventist workers until his death in 1928.  If Adventism had patron saints, would Edson be the patron saint for creativity?)

 <Stephen Haskell>

In 1901, Stephen Haskell, a well-known minister nearing 70 and close friend of Ellen White, moved to New York to develop a ministry in the city with his wife, Hetty.  They were in part responding to the words of Ellen White who had said: “We stand rebuked of God because the large cities right within our sight are unworked and unwarned.  A terrible charge of neglect is brought against those who have been long in the work in this very America, and yet have not entered the large cities.”

This was a risky move for a minister who was as established in the church as Haskell was.  He had earned to right to retire to some Adventist town.  But Haskell, helped by White, had caught a vision for urban ministry.

In New York, Haskell realized that relational evangelism was more effective than public sermonizing.  So he developed a program of visiting people in their homes.  He trained a group of young people to become personal evangelists.

In the course of this endeavor, Haskell also discovered that people were not responding as much to the traditional end-time message of Adventism.  Rather, he saw that urban living created a great deal of stress and that they were far more responsive to the health message of Adventism.  He realized that for New Yorkers, the message of wholesome and balanced living was the present truth.  So he added health education classes and recovery programs.

In addition, Haskell saw that New York was not one monolithic community.  With the rise of immigration and rapid urbanization, New York was becoming fragmented into a number of sub-communities and sub-cultures.  Haskell recognized that one single method of reaching New York wasn’t going to work.  So he developed specific ministries for Blacks, Jews, and Germans.

What was it that drove this septugenarian couple in this grand adventure of faith?  It was their conviction that the life-saving light that God gave them was valid and meaningful both in Battle Creek and in New York, that the truth as he understood it was just as powerful in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx just as it is in Healdsburg, Loma Linda, and Takoma Park.  This light can curve and bend and can come in all shapes and means, but it can never be hidden.  This light must streams forth.

This is the Adventurous, Bold, Creative, Daring, Enterprising, Fresh, Grand Legacy of Historic Adventism.

<H. M. S. Richards>

In 1920, the 25-year-old Harold Marshall Sylvester Richards had just graduated from Washington Missionary College (now Columbia Union College) the previous year and had just gotten married.  That very year, he conceived the idea of broadcasting the gospel over the airwaves—like streams of invisible light encircling America.  

For the following decade, he harbored and nurtured this dream while engaging in successful pastoral and evangelistic ministry.  He began experimenting with radio in 1926, but it wasn’t until 1930 that a formal, permanent radio ministry was born when KNX in L.A. offered to air without charge Family Worship, a program he created in collaboration with other ministers. 

In 1937, the program expanded over a network of several stations and the name was changed from Family Worship to Voice of Prophecy.  Five years later, on the first Sunday of 1942, the 89 stations of the Mutual Broadcasting System allowed Richards to speak simultaneously to Americans from coast to coast. Since 1942, VOP has been the model and paradigm for Adventist radio ministry.  

Key to the success of Richards’s ministry was his conversational style which was contrasted with the public lecture style that many other radio preachers used.  It allowed his listeners to feel as though he was talking directly to them.

What was it that drove the young 20-something, fresh out of college, to hold a vision for continent-wide radio ministry?  What was it that sustained that vision for ten years and throughout his life as an  It was their conviction that the life-saving light that God gave them was valid and meaningful both in Battle Creek and in New York, that the truth as he understood it was just as powerful in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx just as it is in Healdsburg, Loma Linda, and Takoma Park.  This light can curve and bend and can come in all shapes and means, but it can never be hidden.  This light must streams forth.

<William Fagal>

In April 1950, a General Conference committee called on 31-year-old William Fagal to produce a weekly TV program entitled Faith for Today starting in six weeks.  Fagal was at that time the pastor of the Washington Avenue Church in downtown Brooklyn.  Having finished college at age 20 and ordained to the gospel ministry at age 23, Fagal was a rising star in Adventist ministry, leading hundreds into the Adventist faith.  He had some experience in broadcasting over the previous six years, but it was all on the radio.

But when this opportunity came, Fagal jumped at it and launched Faith for Today, on Sunday, May 21, 1950, on WABC-TV. By December, 1950, it became the first authentically national religious telecast in North America, having spread to an 11-station transcontinental hookup.

Fagal’s burden was for the unchurched—“to show them what God is really like.”  He used true-to-life dramatized stories—modern parables that followed the example of Jesus.

Example of the community seizing an opportunity and showing collective innovation using new media and employing new style to convey timeless truths.

A powerful example of the streams of light flowing clear round the world.

<Lessons & Observations>

1.     Innovation and progress have always been the work of individuals who seized the vision for new possibilities of communicating Christ to the world.  Never wait for your church to break new ground.  The church may be waiting for you.  You just have to do what you’re passionate about. 

2.     Innovation is not the exclusive domain of the young.  It can happen at any time in one’s life.  James and Ellen White were in their 20s when they began publishing the “little paper.”  But Edson was in his mid-40s when he built Morning Star.  Haskell was nearing 70 when he moved to the middle of NYC.  Richards was inspired to start a radio ministry at 25, but waited a full decade to realize his dream.  Fagal was plucked out of local church ministry in his early 30s with no experience but ably met the challenge.  Innovation in ministry doesn’t come from one’s technical capacity.  It comes from a heart that yearns for fresh expressions of faith, out of a deep passion for communicating Christ in meaningful, relevant ways.  That yearning and passion can be held at any time in one’s life.

3.     Successful innovators in Adventism put the ministry and the community before themselves.  They did not take a proprietary view of the vision, but shared it with the church.  James White turned over the Review to Uriah Smith.  Edson’s ministry was taken over by the church and by the Blacks themselves, and he retired to Battle Creek make stereopticon slides.  The back story to Haskell is that he left NYC earlier than he wanted because there was a conflict on the evangelistic styles between him and a younger evangelist.  Rather than insisting on his way, Haskell pulled back and retires to Nashville, but still left a powerful legacy of relational and felt-need-oriented evangelism.  Faith for Today also remained an independent, non-profit organization, but its spirit has always been one of loyal support of the Adventist church.  And Fagal’s ministry was from the beginning a collaborative effort.

4.     What is remarkable about each of these ministries is its bold move in re-defining and re-imagining the present truth for its intended audience.  For James and Ellen White, it was the Sabbath message—one which was neglected for centuries in Protestantism.  For Edson, it was education—giving skills for a better and more just future.  For Haskell, it was the message of wellness in urban life and community building in various subcultures.  For Richards and Fagal, it was Christ with whom the masses could relate to.  They pointed to Christ who was living and active in the daily lives of their listeners. 

<Suggestions to the Church Leadership>

Let us foster a culture of innovation, creativity and imagination.

What about student missionary & task force opportunities in arts, technology, and media?
What about the Adventist Endowment for the Arts, Technology and Media?
What about conferences and workshops where the focus is on the creation of content, rather than delivery of it?

I ask that Adventist leaders give permission to its members to dream, brainstorm, experiment, make mistakes, fail, and create heresy?  I ask that they (myself included) model and express tolerance toward innovators who defy the traditional norm and the status quo.

<Conclusion>

The historic legacy of Adventist involvement in media is one of progressive, creative engagement—often much before the rest of the Christian world.  Historic Adventism of the 19th century was one of dynamic interaction with the world that surrounded it—whether in its use of media or engagement with the social issues of the time.  Born at the height of modernity, Adventism excelled in presenting a modernist case through detailed analysis of the biblical data and key-text-based argumentation. 

Now, postmodernity beckons us with a new challenge.  It’s not simply the challenge of keeping up with the times and learning to use a new way of communicating the gospel, but developing a new way of thinking and a new message for our time.

One hundred sixty years after Ellen White’s vision of streaming light, you too have been given a vision and a mission.  You are a fulfillment of Ellen White’s vision that streams of light will encircle the globe?  Yes, you and your work is a stream that fulfills a prophetic vision.  And your mission is to use the incredibly powerful medium that you’ve been entrusted with to tell the great story of Jesus and the people who follow Jesus.

That’s what Ellen White envisioned in 1848.  They would start a little paper, but that little paper would only be the beginning of thousand other papers—real or virtual or both—that would encircle the globe and shine forth the light of Christ to all the world. You carry with you, in your heart, in your hands, the torch of the progressive, expansive vision of historic Adventism.

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