Apocalyptic Christians

What is it that makes the Adventist message so special? Right now, I’m reading “The Apocalyptic Vision and the Neutering of Adventism” by George Knight. I just finished “What the Bible Says About the End-Time” by Jon Paulien. I’ve read the book of Revelation in its entirety when I was at Newbold (we had to do it for a class). I also read parts of some books on Revelation by Hans LaRondelle. I re-read some of the final chapters of Revelation some weeks ago because I was going to present some stuff for a small group. The Revelation of John—or rather, of Jesus Christ, as it says in the opening lines of the book—has been on my mind lately.

Not that long ago I read the final chapters of “The Great Controversy”. I’ll be honest. I felt Ellen White had very vivid and detailed descriptions—some of which seemed slightly silly now, more than one hundred years later. An adventist—I’m not saying who—got angry with me the other day for not sharing his prejudice towards other Christians (‘They may not know who their true master is, but I do!’ he told me). His understanding, of course, comes from his eschatology, which is shaped by his interpretation of Revelations and the writings of Ellen White. All of this might make other Christians go, ‘I’m sure glad I’m not an Adventist, and I don’t have to struggle with issues like that.’ Sometimes I feel like looking for greener pastures as well. I think it’s natural.

But then there’s this other thing that I can’t deny: The books of Daniel and Revelation are in the Bible, and it seems to me that other Christians deal with them quite superficially. I’ve been listening to William Lane Craig’s sunday school teachings on “The Last Things” (check it out here), and I very much enjoy his logical and semi-exegetical approach, but I also have to admit that he’s merely scratching the surface. (Perhaps, that’s his intention.) Most Christians do not try to uncover the plot of Revelation, neither does Craig. They don’t bother to connect the dots, though they might like some of the themes in the book. Some Christians, of course, do connect dots, but they’ve decided on a weird picture in advance (like that of “dispensationalism”).

This makes the Adventists one interesting denomination. Even if one doesn’t particularly like the idea of 1844, I have never heard of an alternative interpretation of the “2,300 mornings and evenings” prophecy from non-Adventists. It’s not that anyone particularly disagrees with Seventh-day Adventists on this issue—they just avoid it altogether. This issue, and lots of other issues.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is special, if not for being “right”, then at least for being concerned with Biblical texts that everybody else seems to ignore, mainly the Apocalyptics. But also the torah. Other churches have little knowledge, if any, of the sanctuary and the ceremonial practices of Israel. But surely, these things were revealed to Moses and the people for a reason and should be able to enlighten us somehow?

Ted Wilson proudly proclaims that one of his greatest challenges as the president of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church is to convince Adventists that we are indeed a “special people”. (He said something along those lines when he was in Malmö.) I’m sure he’d be happy to proclaim that “we are the Remnant Church”. Like others keep reminding me, and I should be aware of it (being a pastor and all), we have a “special message”. Some Adventists, it must be remembered, emphasize that though their message is better, it’s not like they pretend they are themselves better people (“… yet”).

What exactly does this uniqueness consist of? I’ve heard very different ways of answering athis, and according to Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle, they can’t all be right. But as long as they agree on the “being special” part, fellow traditionalists will acknowledge them as good Adventists anyway. ‘D’you agree we’re special? Okay, that’s good.’

What are the implications of the three angels’ messages? “Justification by faith alone,” somebody once said, and I struggle to see how they got this Lutheran mantra to fit in there. The issue in the first angel’s message is worship, a lot of sensible people would agree, but somebody else might think that’s why the young people shouldn’t play drums, and that’s why all charismatics are bad. Some Adventists seem to suggest that it’s about growing spiritually until you don’t do mistakes anymore, and that way God ends up proving Satan wrong through the good behaviour of his followers (just like Job), and that ultimately saves the whole universe. It seems to me that one would have to impose quite a few plots on the Biblical texts to even get to the “proving Satan wrong” part. In addition, the whole idea just has this counter-intuitive feel to it…

So there are plenty of ideas, but no consensus. It’s a lot of people pretending they’re believing what is so obvious to anyone who believes “the spirit of prophecy”. (‘Ellen White’s writings are unambiguous,’ a fellow told me the other day.) Some of these Adventists may often share their views as objective and absolute truth, and if you’re a pastor, they’re going to look at you, and ask, ‘What? Didn’t they teach you this stuff at college?’ They look at you as though you cannot tie your shoes or read a watch. There are so incredibly many versions of the basic Adventist truths.

I guess there’s no way around it. Like everybody else I have to find out for myself. But like a true postmodern I acknowledge the process of searching for the truth. I will dig into it, and I will make up my mind. And once I’ve done that, I’ll repeat the process and see if I end up the same place. After that, I’m going to do it again. And when I die I might be sort of right. In the meantime, let me just say that I particularly like that part of being an Adventist—that we concern ourselves with the difficult parts of the Bible that we cannot seem to agree on. On the day of judgement, however that is going to take place, we won’t be accused of neglecting these texts. (And I do recommend the books by Jon Paulien and George Knight that I mentioned in the beginning. They are food for thought.)