BY WILLIAM G. JOHNSSON

OR A LONG TIME I puzzled over something really strange about the Christian church.

In the church you can find the most likable, loving, compassionate, fun people that you'll meet anywhere. People who are downright good, who go out of their way to help you.

And in the church you can also find the most unlikable, critical, judgmental, and demanding people out there. People with eggshell faces that would crack if they laughed, who see their calling in life as pointing out other people's faults and frowning on their fun.

How can this be? What's the problem?

And then I read the story of a man named Phil.

Phil grew up in a strict, Bible-believing, Bible-thumping church. It proclaimed its identity for all the world to see on the sign out front: "New Testament, blood-bought, born-again, premillennial, dispensational, fundamental . . ."

It should have added: "racist, bigoted, smug, exclusive."

Week by week young Phil heard the preacher declaim that the dark races are cursed by God, meant to be waiters and servants. The preacher would act out a Black man carrying a tray; swiveling his hips, he'd bring roars of laughter from the audience.

Young Phil sat and listened, drank it all in.

Then he got his first job, a summer internship at the prestigious Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He met his supervisor-a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and a Black man.

This was the first disconnect in Phil's religious experience: the preacher had lied.

After high school Phil enrolled in a Bible college, and his disenchantment with the church grew worse. Here he encountered a smothering legalism (66 pages of rules!), poor teachers, and an instructor who admitted deliberately lowering his grades so he wouldn't get a swelled head.

With this, Phil concluded that the church was made up of racists, anti-intellectuals, hypocrites, and social misfits. He dropped out--out of the church, and out of Christianity.

Like many who lose the faith of their childhood, he entered a phase of emotional numbness. Once, seeking to test his mastery of pain, he smashed his arm against the metal frame of a bunk bed and broke the bone.

Phil gave up on God, but God didn't give up on Phil. "The light shines in the darkness," John's Gospel tells us, "but the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).* God kept sending shafts of sunlight into Phil's life.

One came in the form of a young woman at the Bible college. Although the college was coed, it seemed intent on keeping the sexes separate. But Phil and she fell in love.

Another shaft was the grand piano in the chapel. Phil sat and played for hours in the dead of night, trying to figure out life, trying to figure out himself.

Another was the college library. Here Phil found the words and stories of brave men and women, creative men and women, some of the greatest men and women of our times.

He read C. S. Lewis, the atheistic Oxford don who became the leading apologist for Christianity.

He read G. K. Chesterton, whose writing radiated joy and good humor.

He read of a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr., who had just arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, and was called to lead the boycott of the city's segregated buses; who within days was arrested and thrown into jail for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone; who received a bone-chilling call from an anonymous voice that said: "If you aren't out of town in three days, we're going to blow your brains out and blow up your home," but who nonetheless went on through bombs, jailings, and beatings until he gave his last speech in Memphis, the night before the shooter struck: "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.'"

Lewis, Chesterton, King--all these and others whom Phil discovered in the library--were Christians and did what they did because they were Christians.

The light was shining in the darkness. And the darkness could not overcome it. Phil was rediscovering God.

Phil became a journalist. By a divine "somehow" he found himself interviewing the most amazing people he had ever met, trying to figure out what made them tick.

Like world-class surgeon Dr. Paul Brand, who forsook a career of fame and honor to work among the lowest of India's low--the lepers--developing surgical technics to enable these unfortunates to regain the use of hands and feet.

And Phil found that for people like Brand, Jesus Christ was the reason, the motivating factor for what they did and do. These people had found in Jesus of Nazareth a quality of life--a meaning, a purpose, a peace--that set them apart.

Long ago a Christian writer named Irenaeus described what they had, what fascinated Phil: "The glory of God is a person fully alive." That's what they were--fully alive.

The same first chapter of John that says "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it," goes on after a bit: "The true light that gives glory to every man was coming into the world. . . . To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" (verses 5-13).

Why I Am Bullish on the Seventh-day Adventist Church I am bullish on the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Yes, we have plenty of problems, individually and corporately. The problems begin with me: I am far from perfect. But after 50 years as a member and 40 as a pastor, I see abundant evidence of the Lord's hand over us. We aren't His only agency, but He has given us a message and a mission, and He is working wonderfully through us. Here's what I see that makes me bullish: 1. Grace: The message of grace, which God has been waiting for us to accept, is spreading wider and deeper among us. And we are becoming nicer, kinder people. 2. Prayer: Adventists are turning to God in earnest, fervent prayer. And God is answering, as He always does. 3. Young people: More young people are seeking God, sharing their faith, and volunteering for service than at any time in my memory. 4. Lord of the church: Jesus is Lord of this movement. Despite our faults and failings, He graciously forgives and accepts. And He guarantees that His work will not fail, will be finished. And that's the greatest reason that I am bullish on the Seventh-day Adventist Church. --WILLIAM G. JOHNSSON

The Light shone on Phil, and the darkness could not overcome it. Phil let the Light shine on and shine in upon him, and he became God's child.

OK, it's time to reveal Phil's identity. Maybe you guessed it already--Philip Yancey. He's the leading Christian writer of our generation, with 16 books and sales in the millions of copies.

In a recent work, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church (Doubleday, 2001), he shares details, many of them painful, from his journey. He describes himself as "a person who absorbed some of the worst the church has to offer, yet still landed in the hands of a loving God."¹

Yancey's writing resonates with both believers and nonbelievers because he is searingly honest. "When I began writing openly about my faith, I concluded that I had only one thing to offer: honesty. I had heard enough of church propaganda growing up. I would cling to the stance of a pilgrim, not a propagandist, describing life with God as it actually plays out, not as it is supposed to play out."²

Philip Yancey isn't a Seventh-day Adventist, but if you change only a few details of his story it fits us exactly.

Many of us grew up in the church, drinking it all in, as kids. Then, somewhere along the way--bingo! It didn't add up. The people who had "the truth" weren't always truthful. The people who taught that God is love weren't loving. The people who preached that Jesus is coming again soon drove big cars and built houses to last a long, long time.

Yancey went through the pain of discovering this sort of stuff. That believers don't walk the talk. That sometimes they act downright mean, ugly, and, well--unchristian.

But Yancey discovered that was only part of the picture. That the full picture includes the best and the nicest and the bravest people you can find anywhere.

You find them in the church.

They've found what it means to "receive" the Light, to become a child of God.

They are persons fully alive, and God is glorified.

But why, in the church of all places, should we find cold and mean people?

Maybe because they are where Phil was when he was growing up. They are in church, but not in Christ.

But remember Phil. He dropped out of church, but now he's in Christ. And so he's back in church, but not like the old days. He's in church as a person fully alive, to the glory of God.

There are a thousand reasons that Adventists stop going to church. There is just one good reason to start attending again.

Jesus.

He is the Light. He shines upon the world; He shines upon you and me.

He's the eternal Word, truly God, one with the Father.

He's God pitching His tent among us, camping here a little while, sharing our pain, our struggles, our troubles. And then going to the cross, bearing all our guilt and shame upon Himself.

And He's coming back. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Never has, never will. The end of it all-all the mess that this world is in-will be light, not darkness.

Because Jesus is the Light.

He so much wants us to have LIFE, His life. He wants us to be fully alive.

The way to have it is as simple as "Receive Him." Let the Light shine in and drive out the darkness. Let Jesus be your Savior and Lord.

As you receive Jesus, He gives you three gifts: forgiveness, His Presence, and a family.

You're set free from the past, from the present.

You're no longer alone-ever. His Presence, the Holy Spirit, stays with you.

And you have brothers and sisters of all colors and personalities and ages. They have received Jesus, opened themselves to the Light. And they are being changed by the Light, more and more into His likeness. Some reflect the likeness of Jesus now, others . . . well, they have a long way to go.

Perfect? No way. Only Jesus is perfect.

But it's a fantastic family, because it's His family.

Just ask Phil.

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¹ Soul Survivor, p. 7.
² Ibid., p. 270.

* All Bible quotations come from the New International Version. This version gives "overcome" as an alternative to "understood."

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William G. Johnsson is editor of the Adventist Review.