MV Fall 2024 Page 2

23 Oct

MY MOTHER’S ANXIOUS REFRAIN

In

“I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

These are the words I sometimes heard from my mother when I was growing up after we had heard of the latest disaster or outrage on the BBC news.

Always war somewhere. Her father went off to fight in France in WWI. Her husband, my father, was away in the army during WWII. If she then hoped for a life free from strife, she was disappointed. Korea, Suez, Viet Nam, Congo, Cuba all followed, dark clouds on the horizon of our simple domestic life.

And then there were fast-changing moral standards. The slow loosening of standards in the 50s quickened in the 1960s. A neighbor was a divorcee, the subject of tittle-tattle in our street. A friend of the family was “effeminate” and treated with suspicion. A girl we knew had a “miscarriage”—somehow regarded not as a misfortune but an offence. And laws were changing fast to reflect such changes in social attitudes. And then there were the periodic natural disasters which were also part of our changing world. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she would lament.

Now my mother was a fringe church member, not well-versed in doctrine. But those towards the center of our faith community did know. They knew, or thought they knew, exactly what the world was coming to. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass … (Matthew 24.6). Conflict and disaster everywhere—it was the prelude to the return of Jesus in glory.

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But the verse in Matthew does not quite end there. It continues: But the end is not yet.

And we still live in that interim, this uncomfortable place, every day. My mother died less than 20 years ago but she would have been astonished by the Internet and social media; angry at the lack of simple civility in public life; impressed by cell phones but unable to use them; overwhelmed by the strain which Covid placed on us all. And as for the world of Artificial Intelligence, she would simply have been unbelieving, and very anxious. And beside all this big-picture stuff, she had, like everyone else, to confront deaths and personal losses, and the disappearance of the familiar.

I find I can echo my mother’s words. I don’t know what the world is coming to. Even the most secular of observers will agree that we live in strange times and getting stranger by the day. I don’t know exactly what to expect before God judges that enough is enough. We’re in uncharted territory.

How shall we then live in this in-between time? How shall we live by faith?

There are no simple answers to this question. It would be wrong of me to pretend there were. We must each accept the responsibility of answering it for ourselves. After all, we have different personalities. Life has dealt with us rather differently. We are at different stages in our journey of faith. We see the world in different ways. I almost feel a fraud for writing about this and can speak only from my own experience.

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If life were a jig-saw puzzle, we as Adventists may claim to have the edge pieces but we still must put together the middle. How shall we then live? Live by faith? Jesus told his disciples to Occupy till I come (Luke 19:12-13). How do we occupy faithfully?

As always it is easier to write about the problem rather than offer any solution, but let me suggest a few ideas that seem crucial to me.

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Considering the vast problems confronting us today, it is entirely natural to feel a degree of anxiety and fear. So perhaps the first thing to recall is that Jesus said many times “be not afraid.” That does not mean that I can sail through life in a totally carefree manner. That’s unrealistic. I am afraid, quite often. But it does mean that, with the assurance of God’s presence with me, I may come to the place where such anxieties do not overwhelm me. Living without fear. It is a long journey.

I may come to that place by knowing, really knowing, that I am loved. Truly loved. It is a commonplace in all our religious life but to experience it at your core is something quite different. “God so loved the world” is true but “God so loves me …” may be more difficult to grasp. Loved, accepted for who I am. No need to keep justifying myself. It does not mean that God makes my way smooth. It may not produce warm feelings all the time. It does not mean that God approves of all that I am. But I am welcomed without question into the warm embrace of Jesus. Do I feel that warmth? Perfect love casts our fear (I John 4:18).

Some people will say that the key is to know my life has meaning. I, like most people, go through times when life just seems to be running into the sand. I need some sense of how my story fits into a larger story. It means having some of those edge pieces of the jigsaw in my life in place.

More important than that even is feeling, knowing that I am truly alive. Alive to the color of the world. Alive to others in all their different giftedness. Alive to joy but also to grief—they frequently go side by side. “The glory of God is man fully alive,” so said Irenaeus, a bishop in the ancient Christian church. Sometimes the world seems to deaden my spirits. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed and confused by the multitude of mixed messages I receive … even in the church. I want to be alive, alert, not running on automatic pilot.

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I have somehow to keep my sense of wonder alive. Familiarity can easily breed contempt. Or at least dullness. One of the temptations of the spiritual life is to make God into a mere concept. A known quantity. God is somehow manageable in that way. And I easily make the church the object of my religious devotion, not the Living God. This is understandable because the Living God may simply overwhelm but I can—and do—criticize the church in a way I cannot do with God. But, in the end, this way I only create idols in my own image. Somehow, I must keep my sense of wonder alive. Wonder at God’s presence in the world, in ways great and small. Vast mountains, daisies, and new-born babies. Displays of moral courage and everyday generosity … and everything in between.

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And then there is joy. It is hard to maintain a spirit of joy in a world where there is so much going wrong, so much hatred. Things going awry in my own personal world. So much negativism to dampen my spirits. But joy is not the same as happiness. Joy wells up from deep-down sources. It does not principally depend on my circumstances. And nobody promised that my life in God would be free from struggle. I must keep the flame of joy burning, come what may.

Go into the arrivals hall at a large airport and you may see a young child running arms wide open to meet a grandmother coming in on an international flight. The hugs! The uninhibited embraces! Pure joy! I would like to have that childlikeness which sometimes rushes joyfully into the arms of God.

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So, what do we really know in this confusing world?

That things are bad and getting worse.

That God will in His mercy call time on earth’s history. Things cannot go on as they are indefinitely.

That we have little idea when or how that may be, even though it is tempting to see ourselves as the last generation. So many others have thought the same over the centuries.

That the tide flowing against Christian faith is strong.

That the erosion of public decency and civility continues apace.

That the best is yet to come.

I must live in faith in a world which threatens to stifle it. I will not be crippled by fear in a world which trades in fear. I want a resilient faith which engages with present realities rather than simply living in some cozy denominational past, however formative it was for me.

I follow Jesus, a man who went against the stream. It may be that the in-between times are tough times for me and you for many reasons. We shall not go to the stake, but we will face all manner of threats to faith, many very subtle, some direct.

Even so, come Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20). I want still to say that in all good faith. Not out of fear, but out of joy.

Jesus made “the darkness the very fuel from which is kindled the light of life” (Harry Williams, The True Wilderness, p 97. London: Constable, 1965).

I take strength from this.

Michael Pearson is Principal Lecturer Emeritus at Newbold College in the U.K. For many years he taught topics in ethics, philosophy, and spirituality. He and his wife, Helen, write a weekly blog pearsonsperspectives.com Email him at: mpearson@newbold.ac.uk

23 Oct

THE TEMPORARY NATURE OF NORMAL

In

“This changes everything.”

Some forms of those words have been uttered countless times by people since creation when confronted with some mind-blowing development that redefined the known world. From the first writing to the latest artificial intelligence, our species has faced the realization that the current definition of normal has just been rendered inoperative.

I vividly recall the first time that I realized that everything had just changed. After watching a grainy live video of Neil Armstrong step onto the moon and declare, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I went outside to look up at the moon in wonder. Day to day life might not be altered very much. Same house, same activities, same school. But the process of getting those men onto the alien surface of the moon would bring Teflon, Velcro, and satellite communications to the average consumer, as well as a shift in the balance of the Cold War that would lead to the end of the Soviet Union. I was aware of none of that at the time, but I did know that what we all thought of as normal was out the window.

You might think that the geopolitics of that change is the big picture, but, in reality, it’s not much more profound than the development of Velcro. Empires have risen and fallen since the Tower of Babel, and life goes on. Consequently, I think technological changes, even small ones, ultimately alter our lives more than the endless shifts in which army or culture is dominant at the time. No election has changed my life as much as the phone in my pocket that is more powerful than all the computers NASA had in 1969.

The really big picture is above human agencies. The unseen universe beyond our moon is aware that events on earth do indeed change everything, but those events are primarily beneath the notice of the vast majority of humanity, at least at the time it happens. Everything changed when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Everything changed when Jesus died on the cross. Everything changed when Martin Luther nailed his challenge to Rome on the door of the church in Wittenburg.

In the actual moment of those redefinitions of normal, very few noticed anything, though each eventually came to the attention of the whole world. In that same pattern, a little noticed event took place in 1818 that changed everything, but the process of coming to the attention of the whole world is not yet complete. I suspect that the universe beyond us was keenly aware that change was coming when William Miller’s eyes fell on Daniel 8:14: Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed (KJV).

That was the beginning of the formation of the movement which would carry the message of Revelation 14:6-13 to the whole world. Seventh-day Adventists are a piece of the big picture, a proclamation that changes everything. We are here to reveal a new normal that the fall of empires, the rise of technology, or worldwide pandemics can never match.

Since this movement stepped onto the world stage, “normal” has shifted. It appears that Adventism is facing challenges that our parents and grandparents never imagined. I spent a significant amount of work time on things that I never saw coming as few as five years ago.

Consider the changes that the COVID lockdowns have had on the church. I drove nearly empty highways into the office, coordinating with others to minimize building occupancy, where I could only unmask at my desk with the door closed. I worried about how we could maintain a sense of community in churches that were not meeting at all, or, at best, had a handful of socially distanced worshipers broadcasting in the hope that many more at home were tuning in to the service. How long would this go on? Would we ever bounce back? How many would decide it was too easy to watch worship, and forever after, choose not to actively participate in worship? How many would not even do that much? It sure felt like everything had changed.

Don’t be too quick to say it all turned out fine. True, the fact that nearly every service is now live streamed is a blessing, as some who can’t attend now have more connection than before, and many are tuning in for the first time. Praise the Lord for all of that! But at some level, we must admit, we lost something along the way. Many became inactive, and some disassociated completely. To this day there are churches whose attendance has never equaled pre-pandemic numbers.

There are many other things that redefine normal in ways that affect the church, some to the benefit of our mission, and others that challenge our mission. For every advance in technology that provides a new way to share the Gospel, there are developments that seem to block our path. Truth has been reduced to a point of view, and many points of view once considered perfectly normal will now get you in trouble if you express them. It’s not just the humanities that are up for debate. The fundamental realities of biology, chemistry, and other sciences are proclaimed by the elites to be outdated and intolerable. How can we proclaim the truth of scripture to a world that declares even mathematics to be an artificial construct designed to subjugate unfavored groups? After all, if the formula 1+1=2 is debated, how do you assert that the Bible is reliable?

Welcome to Adventism in postnormal times. Where do we turn to for help in navigating the new reality?

The same place as always. Scripture. Let’s start with the Book of Jude.

In verse 7, Jude reminds us that tough times are nothing new, and there have always been people who will tell you that up is down, blue is red, and God can’t be trusted: Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example … (NKJV).

The author points out that in his own time, people were experiencing a new normal in the form of members who were causing dissension: For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ (Verse 4).

Finally, he prophesies that at the end of time, the same troubles will be present: But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit (Verses 17-19).

Maybe our times, beset by mockers causing dissension, are not so postnormal as it feels. The same problems we face go back a long way. That’s good news because it gives us a model for navigating our challenges.

“Postnormal” may be a lot of things we never saw coming. It may be a world awash in astonishing technology and in denial of everything from the existence of God to the reality of gravity. It may be Christians who are so conformed to the world that they no longer care if the Bible supports their ideas. It may even be people who disbelieve many of our fundamental doctrines and would rather profoundly change who we are than to find a group more suited to their belief system.

But is any of that really new? Or is it more likely that Solomon was right when he said nothing is ever really new (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Even the technology that would have blown his mind is mostly just more efficient ways to travel, design, communicate, etc. But the real problems of a world gone mad (and churches not far behind) is older than Jude or Solomon.

That being the case, the way to relate to a postnormal world is still found in the Book of Jude:

But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives (Jude 1:20-23, NLT).

That’s it. Stay faithful, show mercy, and hate the sin but not the sinner. It’s not easy, because it’s not normal. But it is how Jesus lived.

Doug Inglish is the RMC vice president for administration. Email him at: dougi@rmcsda.org   

 

23 Oct

NOTHING IS LIKE IT WAS

In

I am now of an age that when I tell stories of my early years to younger parents, they look at me with a mixture of disbelief, and sometimes, horror. Horror in that they can’t even imagine doing or allowing their children to live as I did.

If you are older, too, you know what I mean. My (and likely your) childhood days were often lived outside away from your home. You had friends a block or two or three away, and you’d hop on your bike and ride over and see if they were home and ready to play. Our parents rarely knew where we were during the day. They just knew we’d show up eventually, usually around supper time, and all would be well.

I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and we lived about three blocks from Glendale Union Academy, a few more to the Voice of Prophecy headquarters, and a couple of blocks from where the Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital was. They had a nice pool there that had a great summer membership rate for Adventist families, and a guy in their maintenance department would fix your bike’s flat tire for free when the need arose (as it did a few times for me). He treated me like fixing my bike’s tire was the most important thing he had to do that day.

Sometimes I’d ride my bike all the way up to Shoal Canyon Park at the top of Glen Oaks drive. It was a hard ride up that long, gradual hill, but nothing compared to the thrill of riding it back down again, though I was always careful to slow down as I passed HMS Richards’ house. I knew he didn’t see really well, and I wanted to make sure I never hit him!

Of course, allowing your kid to roam around the neighborhood or ride several miles away from home just to enjoy a downhill ride is unthinkable for most of us. A new normal has taken root and is pretty much a full pendulum swing the other way. “Helicopter parents,” we were called. By definition, these parents pay extremely close attention to their kids’ activities and schoolwork to protect them from pain and disappointment, and also to help them succeed. They’re known to micromanage their children and become extremely entwined in every aspect of their lives.

But this new normal comes with a price: because these children were never taught the skills to function independently, and because they may have been held to unattainable or even “perfectionist” standards, children of helicopter parents can experience anxiety, depression, a lack of confidence, and low self-esteem. But that was just the new normal.

But now, we live in “postnormal” times. The norm for us is that nothing is normal anymore. Nothing is like it was. So much about our world is no longer recognizable to us anymore. Just as we get used to some new seismic change, we are forced to face yet another one—and we never seem to have a vote on whether or not this is a change we want!

Where is a good Adventist Christian to turn to for an anchor in times like these? We may find some comfort in our apocalyptic charts and timelines, because we have long expected for things to get really crazy. And while there is some comfort in that, there is not enough comfort for these times.

For me, I find the most comfort in reliving Biblical accounts. Funny how often it turns out that ancient writings can speak to modern times. Right now, I’m thinking of a man, who in just a few seconds, lost everything he knew as normal. I know it only took a few seconds because I’ve been through a number of earthquakes and know that, though these seem to go on and on and on, most of them only last a few seconds.

But for this Philippian jailer, the rumple and the shaking formed an immediate realization that his prison, as secure as he formerly thought it was, was no match for the power in that temblor. His postnormal was terrifying. He personally would be held accountable for every prisoner who would escape, and he harbored no hope he would survive this. In fact, he would die by his own hand. He didn’t see this coming, and he could not escape this devastating change that was now his to face. But to his utter astonishment, the two men responsible, as it were, for the earthquake—Paul and his duet partner Silas, assured him no one would be found missing.

You could say the postnormal had been abated in that all his prisoners were still there. But something had shifted inside his soul, and he knew that from this day on he was living in different times because he was different.

You can tell he was still living in a soul’s postnormal state because Acts 16.29 says that he rushed in a fell trembling before Paul and Silas. Why was he trembling? The earthquake was over, and every prisoner was accounted for.

You can tell because he desperately asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Would it be too far a stretch to rephrase this as “Sirs, I don’t know how to live in this postnormal world of mine. I am changed. I am undone. What must I do now? How shall I survive and live?”

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved …”

Could that simple declaration be enough to help you stand through the complexities of living in a society that seems about to crumble? Could it really be that believing in Christ Jesus and following Him is enough to stabilize you in a world where there seems to be a new earthquake every day?

For me, He is enough. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Is He enough for you?

Mic Thurber is the RMC president. Email him at: mict@rmcsda.org

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