Desmond Ford, part 2, Changes in the Church

[Gregory Matthews]

The folowing posits that Dr. Ford had caused changes to take place in the SDA denomination that are with us today.

https://atoday.org/part-2-how-the-church-changed-because-of-desmond-ford/

 

[Kevin H]

Very interesting articles. I'm not just sure how to comment, so please forgive this awkward attempt, but too much of the church still wants it to be basically the two views of Ford on one side and the so called "Historic Adventists" on the other. And I feel that some of the other perspectives tend to be getting over looked

Ford's view tends to be more focused on modern "evangelical Christianity" where there is a set of "Christian" traditions that we find in like "Bible Colleges" and a more sticky sweet Jesusie and who's scholarship tends to be focused on how the Bible was interpreted by Christians over Church history, especially the reformers. Their whole approach tends to be more devotional and not digging very deeply. 

The so called "Historic Adventists" have another set of traditions which was repeated in these articles. 

Besides Ford and the so called "Historic Adventists" there is the Adventist Theological Society. The ATS is/was first of all one option between Ford and the "Historic Adventists" The big difference is that they are more exegetical/Biblical Theology (think William Foxwell Albright and archaeology) than Ford and the Historical Adventists. Now all three of these groups tend to be very forensic in their view of salvation and they also tend to be quite fundamentalists in their approaches.  Then we also have the subgroups who tend to be non-forensic and more or less anti-Fundamentalists. We have say Alden Thompson and the theology department from Walla Walla, the "Larger View" people from California (Graham Maxwell and company) and the views from the theology department from Atlantic Union College from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s (John Wood, James Valentine, Dean Davis, George Rice) who like the ATS was very exegetical/Biblical Theology, but did not cling to all the traditions that the ATS would cling to. 

All of these perspectives of Adventism had different perspectives of 1844, and while I pointed out these specific subgroups, they are reflections of ideas that stem from the late 1800s and early 1900s. At times we learned how to play together. But our problems come when one or another of these groups see themselves as being the "True Adventists" and want to force their particular flavor of Adventism on all the rest of us. 

[Kevin H]

It is sad when we look at our roots. When the town of Washington N H incorporated the community could not decide on a church. Some people wanted an established church with only approved theology to be taught. Others wanted a church were anyone who believed that they had a message from the Lord were free to share and the members had their right to accept or reject in part or in whole of what the speakers say. Since they could not decide the town made two churches to meet these two factions. The one church who welcomed the views of everyone became known as the first Seventh-day Adventist Church.  (although there may have been Adventist churches in some Seventh-day Baptist communities that might dispute Washington NH's claim, but which is also part of our roots.)

As for our other early churches, our pioneers were misfits who were kicked out of their churches. They had a dream of forming a church where the pain that was inflected among them would not be inflected among others. They were influenced by the political views of the American Revolution, especially Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and applied those principles to religion. They formed a religion that agreed upon a handful of landmarks, and beyond those, as long as they were not fanatical, they were free to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience using only their understanding of the Bible to be their personal creed. 

Interestingly this first generation appears to have had a foundation from reformation theology and thus a foundation similar to Des Ford's views upon which they built on that foundation the ideas of Adventism and 1844 and God's law including the Sabbath. While their preaching was based on the difference between them and other Christians, that preaching was based on the more evangelical foundation that was in their hearts. The second generation had built more of a foundation on our differences. 

It is sad that this foundation has been assaulted by the spirit of wanting to have our particular subgroup of Adventism to be seen as the only real Adventists and to tell everyone else to shut up and comply. 

[Kevin H]

Wanderer, what I meant by "misfits" was the way their other churches did not want them to stay members because of their love for William Miller's teachings. These were people from a very wide number of churches. As the pioneers formed our church, they needed it to be flexible enough for not only their unifying points of Millerism, and the landmarks, but also for the wide range of religious experiences and denominationalism to include the wide religious backgrounds of our pioneers. 

[JoeMo]

14 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

But did/should that mean that they were mere "misfits who were kicked out of their churches?" I don't think so.

Maybe I'm misreading Kevin's post,  but I thought he was referring to the Adventist movement of the 1800's; not the beginning of Protestantism.  I agree that the Millerites were misfits in their day relative to the majority of society, especially after 1844.  We are rapidly approaching the day when most or all faithful believers will be misfits in today's society. It's already that way in some countries, and even some places here in North America.

[Kevin H]

10 hours ago, JoeMo said:

Maybe I'm misreading Kevin's post,  but I thought he was referring to the Adventist movement of the 1800's; not the beginning of Protestantism.  I agree that the Millerites were misfits in their day relative to the majority of society, especially after 1844.  We are rapidly approaching the day when most or all faithful believers will be misfits in today's society. It's already that way in some countries, and even some places here in North America.

Yes, I was talking about the Millerites approaching and then after 1844. These were people from many denominations. They held many different beliefs. What they had in common was their love for Miller's message. We did not suddenly get a bunch of people who instantaneously believed exactly like Doug Batchelor, and opened up church membership to Doug Batchelor clones. Yes, we had a lot of non-trinitarians but we also had trinitarians. Our early belief lists were different from a creed because a creed is exclusive. You believe what's on the list and little or nothing else. Our list of beliefs were inclusive by being an intersection of what our members believed rather than an exclusive list. If you had a neighbor, brother Jones, who was a Seventh-day Adventist. You liked a lot what he and other Adventist neighbors taught, but there were a few points where you would disagree and you wanted to know if you had to believe exactly like Brother Jones, so you would look at our list of beliefs and say "Ok, that part of what brother Jones believes that I'm not comfortable with is not on the list of Adventist beliefs; so you can join the Seventh-day Adventist church. 

In 1888, 1922 and 2015 there have been attempts to make our beliefs exclusive. There is a huge different between unity and uniformity. Our church started out with people who held a wide range of beliefs. As I said that in our history our high points have been when we learned to work together and respect each other. Our low points are when one or another of us wants to pretend that we are the only true Adventists and that we need to make everyone else believe like us.

With Des Ford, I had things I liked about him and things that very much concerned me about him. I would have gladly embraced him if he taught what he knew, and instead of saying something like "There is no year - day principle in the Bible"  (sadly I bet that the PUC library probably had the book "Before Philosophy" by Henri Frankfort and others, University of Chicago press which gives an excellent understanding of the year-day principle, but no one who heard him had read that book to question him and sadly that book would have been outside of his scope of study) and attack the Investagative judgment and be all legal adjustment salvation. If he would have said "I understand salvation to be a legal adjustment but not all Adventists do. I do not see how the Investigative Judgment fits into this understanding, but there are other views and we get the Investigative Judgment from the Old Testament, so I will let the Old Testament scholars explain the Investigative Judgment and I will let you know what I learned about the New Testament and Reformation theology." I could have been much more comfortable with him. 

 

[Gail]

One thing I like about the SDA denomination is the leeway granted most believers to differ somewhat from mainstay beliefs of the church. Do you think that Ford would have been handled the same way if he rose up anew today? The dynamics have changed a lot since 40 years ago.

[JoeMo]

4 hours ago, Gail said:

One thing I like about the SDA denomination is the leeway granted most believers to differ somewhat from mainstay beliefs of the church. Do you think that Ford would have been handled the same way if he rose up anew today? The dynamics have changed a lot since 40 years ago.

I think it would depend on which Conference, Union, or Division he was in.  He could have been defrocked at the Conference level as well as the Division level.  I do think he would have got a more fair hearing now than he did 40 years ago.  Some of you fossils out there (my age) will remember he church was also in a battle with the so-called "Independent Ministries" at that time (e.g., Hope international, Charles Wheeling, etc.), so the church was on "red alert" already. In hindsight, I think they were way too judgmental and harsh.