Major historical events in recent years have featured a frightening potpourri of political and religious vindication. Multiple organizations and movements impose moral-sounding claims by remarkably stern and decidedly disconcerting means.
Deobandi fundamentalism seeks to improve one religion in the East by purging it of its decadent Western influences. In Nigeria Boko Haram kidnaps and markets young women because the group insists that girls do not belong in school. The Lord’s Resistance Army, originally known as the United Holy Salvation Army, proposed to rule Uganda by the Ten Commandments.
Other religio-political movements include Salafi fundamentalism, Christian Patriots, the racist Christian Identity, and the apocalyptic Concerned Christians. “Lone wolves” do their own damage. In July of 2011 Anders Breivik, supporting his version of Zionism and calling Islam the enemy, singlehandedly killed 77 unsuspecting people in Norway.
Religious violence enjoys a longstanding tradition that stretches through the age of persecution against Christians in Jerusalem and later throughout the Roman Empire, to episodes of forced Islamization, persecution of Egyptian Christians, the Middle East Crusades, the fight against the Moors, the expulsion of Jews in Spain, European fights against Anabaptists, the persecution of the Huguenots, the Jesuit Treason of 1605, and Northern Ireland civil wars.1
Cynics have seized upon religion that frames itself in violence—be it in the narrower sphere of one’s family or in the broader context of recent armed conflicts—as a major excuse for atheism. Sam Harris, leader of the New Atheist movement, reviews the various major religions of the world, pointing out the religious foundations underlying many ethnic and intercommunity conflicts. Harris states that “Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism.”2
Today it is fairly common to scroll through popular or social media debates on religious topics and observe how easy it is for friendly dialogues to turn into heated arguments, with harsh expressions and overflowing emotions. In fact, in some social and cultural settings a clear though unwritten rule of polite behavior requires abstaining from sharing personal thoughts on either politics or religion.
This “bad reputation” of religious affairs as sources of conflict and contention can have the effect of making contemporary evangelism look like an aggressive activity that undermines basic human rights. The idea behind it is that people need to keep their beliefs to themselves, and avoid attempting to change others’ minds.
For those who believe that the mission of a true disciple of Jesus is to make more disciples, this new social standard, however apparently logical, erects a satanic hurdle to the proclamation of the gospel message. At the same time, and to be fair, we must acknowledge that zeal for truth and the gospel commission have made some people overrun their neighbors’ rights, forcing their ideas down the throats of others who are not disposed to agree with what these zealots espouse.
Consciously or not, they follow the path of the unconverted Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of early Christians, who later testified to the sincerity and wrongness of his thinking: I was “zealous toward God. . . . I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women” (Acts 22:3, 4).3
Paul was convinced that he was actually serving God, and stunned to learn whom he had made his actual enemy: “I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ So I answered, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting’ ” (verses 7, 8).
Believers within a particular faith must be aware of how similar situations can be present in their dynamics in those instances when they must tackle internal differences, particularly in such a crucial area as biblical interpretation and practice. Seventh-day Adventist Church history shows how zeal for defending personal convictions turned ears deaf and hearts unresponsive.
Writing about the 1888 General Conference session at Minneapolis, George Knight points out that tensions among the delegates were evident even before the beginning of the session, which moved Ellen G. White to specifically refer to it in her opening message to the delegates. Moreover, after the end of the proceedings, she lamented what she called the “spirit of the Pharisees,” a bitterness of spirit that surged in some delegates just because their fellow believers had ventured to entertain some ideas that were contrary to the ones they held.4
Though it is true that this session became a springboard for the rebirth of the message of justification by faith in the Adventist movement, we must ask ourselves what could have been the impact had the mood been not so stirred up; had the suspicions of one side regarding the other been left aside; had the parties been as keenly interested in understanding each other as they were in defending their own points of view.
In 1919 a difference of opinion emerged in Germany about the involvement of Seventh-day Adventists in the Great War (World War I). Those who decided to be noncombatant believed local church leaders had apostatized by not making the same decision. They asked the General Conference to take immediate and strong disciplinary measures against those leaders, as a punishment for the “sins” of what A. G. Daniells, president of the General Conference, described as “mistakes of the church leaders in Germany.”
But the organization did not comply as they expected, and they responded by establishing an independent organization that came to be known as the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement. The fervor of both sides led to fierce criticism of the church, to members being disfellowshipped, and to the printing of thousands of pamphlets that described the Adventist Church as “the great apostate woman.”5
M. L. Andreasen’s protest in context of the release of the book Questions on Doctrine may be another event of this recriminating category in Seventh-day Adventist history. The book resulted from efforts by Seventh-day Adventist leaders to convince Evangelicals that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is no cult. Andreasen, long regarded as one of the church’s leading theologians, had not been invited to be part of the dialogue. When he finally saw the published work, he disagreed with some of the book’s positions on Adventist beliefs and teachings. Since he was a well-known Adventist leader, his protest was noticed by the Evangelical representatives.6
L. E. Froom’s explanation to Evangelicals described the disagreement as the “opinions of a few” from “the lunatic fringe.”7 Some years later, and with more restraint, another Seventh-day Adventist leader, A. V. Olson, stated that the disagreement had been based on some errors in meaning and logic, as well as emotional reactions on Andreasen’s part to theological minutiae.8
The theological differences, and the vigor of Andreasen’s protests, led to the suspension of Andreasen’s ministerial credentials in 1961, which helped preserve Adventist credibility from the “cult” label before suspicious Evangelicals.9 This fell short of solving the controversy within the church, since Andreasen’s ideas, set forth in works such as The Sanctuary and Its Services, are still present among Seventh-day Adventists who espouse—to a greater or a le
sser extent—a view of end-time living that is sometimes called “last-generation theology.”
In a phone interview by Jerry Moon on November 21, 1988, Julia Neuffer, former assistant editor of The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, expressed the view that differences were based on semantics; Adventists were trying to write in “Protestant language.” If Andreasen had been assigned a role in the editorial process of the book, he could have provided his suggestions, and the result would have been different.10
This article focuses on attitudes rather than on theological vindications. Solomon has written: “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). As we view our history and look to our future we may well ask: How many dissident movements might we have prevented if cooler heads and Christian goodwill had prevailed? How much time have we spent actually listening to our brothers and sisters instead of defining them as “rivals”? How freely have we both accepted and granted the right of one or another to dissent? How many of our errors have warranted fire-and-brimstone solutions?
In the Gospels we read about the time Jesus was going up to Jerusalem and had to pass through Samaria. He was traveling to participate in the Passover, a religious celebration. Jesus sent two of His disciples to a Samaritan village to make necessary arrangements for His passing through. Samaritans believed Samaria, not Jerusalem, was the right place to worship. For them, giving a hand to worshippers traveling to Jerusalem constituted an act against their conscience. They would hear of no such principle-violating accommodation. “They did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:53).
In the theological controversy between Samaritanism and Judaism Jesus’ position was clear, as stated to the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well: “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Brothers James and John knew that the Samaritans were wrong, and that they deserved to be shown the egregious nature of their wrong. Brothers James and John also knew their religious history. They would go with precedent: “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” (Luke 9:54).
Jesus’ response was disruptive and awkward: “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of” (verse 55).
Ellen G. White comments on this exchange: “There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas.”11
Jesus taught that confrontation cannot always be avoided: “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). But this did not justify living by the sword (Matt. 26:52).
Instead He taught: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). A spirit of openness, respect, and deference for those of differing opinion should be always present among Christians.
Indeed, Jesus’ recommendations on facing force may seem downright cowardly: “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16). “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another” (verse 23). Not merely in gospel proclamation, but in day-to-day living, Jesus could be powerfully counterassertive: “Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also” (Matt. 5:39, 40).
Suffering slander and humiliation is better than slandering and humiliating others: The meek, the peacemaker, the reviled and persecuted, are blessed. Your heavenly Father is a peacemaker: He “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (verse 45; see also verses 5, 9, 11, 44).
Following Jesus involves more than book knowledge. Spirit, it appears, can be as crucial as fact and precedent. What spirit are you of?
