AVING LABELED MYSELF A "conservative," I hasten to add that I despise labels that are applied to people. That apparent contradiction partially underlies my purpose in writing. Healthy debate has always been a positive factor in the growth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In that debate neither side has been the sole repository of all truth. Instead, truth and progress have come out of the dynamic tension created by the pull from both sides. From my perspective, it seems that the influence of our popular culture has so much added its weight to the pull from the left that the general direction of the church body has been significantly diverted from the straight and narrow.

A symptom of that cultural influence is the effort by some well-meaning people to re-label both sides of the debate. Instead of "liberal" and "conservative," we are urged to adopt "progressive" and "traditional." That change would imply that I am both an advocate of tradition and an enemy of progress. Not true! The tradition of men, both old and newly incorporated, has always been dangerous to faith. I am greatly in favor of progress, though I insist that not all movement or change is necessarily progress. The change that I advocate is a movement away from worldliness towards holiness, the righteousness of Christ. That change inevitably involves a concentrated warfare against the world.

In John 17:15 Jesus prayed that God would not take us out of the world, but keep us from the evil. It is not likely that any church or individual Christian in the history of the world set out deliberately to adopt into the church practices or elements of the world that they recognized as evil. Nevertheless, any church historian could recount numerous examples of evil that did, in fact, show up in the church. The culture of their times blinded members' eyes to the current evils then being incorporated.

Undisguised Evils
Obvious, undisguised evils abound in our current culture. But I am not talking about the obvious. Subtle deceptions are always the most insidious and the most effective.

Our current culture knows only one sin that it universally condemns-the sin of "intolerance." It is so easy to jump on that bandwagon. Tolerance has become for many a prime Christian virtue. But the world has so changed the definition that something far different is meant by "tolerance" than Jesus ever implied. We are now made to believe that we must not only accept the sinner, but the sins as well. Furthermore, we are instructed that we must now accept all points of view as equal to our own. Granting a person's right to do or say what they will is one thing; implying their correctness in so doing is quite another. Our society forbids us to make a distinction.

The current cultural elevation of tolerance has the Adventist Church running scared of "hate speech," which includes, in the current view, any attempt to point out errors of belief or practice. As a result, we have tended to minimize, veil, or hide our distinctive beliefs. We are proud and happy when other organizations find "no substantive differences" between us and them.

But if we indeed view our church as a continuation of the Reformation, we must loudly say so, and must clearly and lovingly state what errors there are in other belief systems that need to be reformed. We offer a radical and distinctive difference, and it is high time we acknowledged it.

The temptation to merge with other belief systems has always been with the church. The motive in every case was to build a bridge so that the church would seem more user-friendly to the world. It seemed good at the time to change to Sunday sacredness, and the change did result in numerical growth, but at the cost of the purity of the church. The historical errors incorporated into the church were not brought in by people less intelligent or more evil than we are. They merely wished to encourage "church growth" through compromise.

Many Adventists now feel quite comfortable in adopting "culturally relevant" forms, practices, and styles of other churches. But the evidence is overwhelming that people who are leaving the world for Christ are not looking for a place as much like the world as possible. Nor are those who join from other denominations looking for a carbon copy of that which they left behind. Jesus never portrayed the step from the world to Himself as one requiring only minor change or commitment. If we are following Him we ought to be touting what a major commitment it is to be an Adventist, not how much we are just like the others.

The fastest growing, most persistent denominations are those that hold very high standards of conduct and an intense commitment to their core beliefs. In areas of the world where our church still presents our message as a radical departure, our growth is explosive. Yet more "advanced" areas have ignored those examples and have gone to the "culturally relevant" churches of the world to learn how to be popular.

It seems odd to me that many who advocate becoming as much like the churches of the world as possible also claim to believe that at the end of time there will be a radical, distinct, even life-threatening difference between Adventists and those faiths. Where do they think we are in the stream of time? We need to stop competing with the rest of the world on their terms. Our best efforts to be exciting, entertaining, and culturally "with it" will only create an appetite that the world can feed better than we can. We are Seventh-day Adventists because of doctrine, and any de-emphasis of that doctrine diminishes us as a people and as a power for change in this world.

Flash Point
Music has frequently been a flash point for concerns about borrowing from other faiths. It may surprise you that many conservatives like me see much good in some of the "new" music in our churches. But that goodness is not a product of its newness. Does such music lift our hearts in reverent praise to God? Do the lyrics contain substance, or do they merely offer a repetitive, hypnotic mantra? Does the singing edify the worship of all the congregation, or does it only appeal to feeling or excitement, or pander to a segment?

When I came into this church from the outside, I was used to loud, raucous music with trivial, repetitive lyrics and a heavy, hypnotic beat. It would have been insulting to me if someone had suggested that my tastes could not be elevated to something much more refined. Yet many are insulting our youth with that same assumption, both in the realm of music and in doctrinal content of teaching materials. If we continue to impose upon them the assumption of "special needs," just when do we think they will graduate to adult tastes? Or are we stuck with permanent divisions between the generations?

I grant that some of the rules and standards of our institutions and churches may seem arbitrary. They are all arbitrary, but not in the way that most people think. We typically think that the standards are too high, but by their very nature all laws, ordinances, and rules set out minimum standards of behavior. To the true Christian, the minimum is never enough. (Read Matthew 5 carefully.) We ought to be asking, "What more can I do to please God and show respect to Him, to our churches, and our schools?" We should never be apologetic that our standards are too high. If some self-willed child values Christian education so lightly that some personal preference is more important, the problem is not with the standard. God did not apologize to Cain that the sacrifice He required was "arbitrary." God did not accept Cain's "individual expression" as a substitute for wholehearted, selfless obedience.

Christian assurance was never intended to yield in complacency. Our assurance is of the saving power of Jesus Christ. This is not something, however, to be apprehended except by sincere, persistent driving effort to know Him, to be like Him, and to do those things that are pleasing to Him. If our own salvation is the only point of our Christianity, we are not in Christ. If we think that Christian assurance is some sort of plateau that we achieve, from which we can coast into heaven, we are "miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Thus we have a paradoxical situation in which we may only know we are saved if we never sit back and take it for granted. Jesus demands that we take up our cross daily and follow Him. He will never accept anything but total, ardent, wholehearted commitment to Him. Only those will remain who with all their might and tenacity cling to Jesus, the truth He has given us, and the duties to which we are individually called.

Yes, this movement is in need of changes-in the minds and hearts of its members. We need a return to godliness. Such a "return" is not a step backward, but an active, progressive denunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We need to look to the Author and Finisher of our faith, and away from our temptation to number Israel.

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Tom Huson writes from Bend, Oregon. His e-mail address is: thuson@teleport.com.