SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS: THE CARING CHURCH 

We all sometimes embarrass ourselves by doing some thoughtless thing, such as trying to pour ketchup with the cap still on the bottle. I felt this way when I showed up at the Seventh Day Adventist Church here in Denton on a Sunday morning. "My, they are slower getting to church than our folk are," I said to myself when it was time for their assembly and not one soul had arrived. When it dawned on me that, of course, the Seventh Day Adventists assemble on Saturday and not Sunday, I hurried off to visit another church, somewhat chagrined but resolved to return on a Saturday, which I soon did. I have since made a second visit.

So, the first thing to remember about these interesting Christians is that Saturday is their Sunday, which must be something of a problem to them, living as they do in a Sunday-keeping world. But that is by no means all that sets them apart as a unique people. They are also vegetarians. No hamburgers! They also tithe and wash one another's feet. They are also the most missionary-minded of any denomination I know of. Of the 185 countries that the American Bible Society lists as possible church missions the Adventists are in 179 of them, far more than any other denomination. Nations where they do not have missions are places where they are forbidden to enter, such as Tibet, Afghanistan, and East Germany.

We herein identify them as "the caring church" because of their emphasis upon benevolence and humanitarian concerns. They personally operate 155 hospitals all over the world, along with 247 dispensaries and clinics, as well as 63 nursing homes and retirement centers. All of these serve about six million people a year. Their health program in this country, with 9,700 beds in 55 hospitals, is one of the largest health-care chains in the nation.

Equally impressive is their worldwide school system. They have 32,000 teachers for 650,000 students in 5A00 schools, from kindergarten through graduate professional schools. In the United States they have 1,300 primary and secondary schools, ten colleges and two universities, a total of 650,000 students.

They have compassion for the poor and destitute of the world. In a recent year they reached out to 14 million people who were victimized by war, famine, floods, earthquakes, and other disasters through their Adventist Development and Relief Agency. Many of their congregations have community service facilities. They humbly say to the world around them, "If you ever know someone in need, call your friends, the Adventists."

They are also about the only major denomination that is not losing more members than it gains. They average a 7% gain each year. Though they are a new denomination, beginning only in the 1840's, they now have 4.5 million in 24,000 congregations in 185 countries. The number of countries they give varies slightly from the above count by the American Bible Society. Their official figures do not appear to be inflated, which is a common practice of major denominations.

They even on occasion have a woman in the pulpit, and while it is yet rare and still controversial, they have a few women ministers. One would suppose this would be no problem for them since one of their founding "fathers" was a woman, Ellen G. White. She is highly esteemed and her writings are readily available in the foyer. Was she inspired? The answer is yes, but her writings are not made equal to the Scriptures, and in my visits she was never read from the pulpit along with Scripture, as Mary Baker Eddy was read in the Christian Science church and Joseph Smith in the Mormon church when I visited those churches. When I asked them if Mrs. White has a place with them anything like the place Eddy has with the Christian Scientists or Smith with the Mormons, the answer was a resounding no. "We do not have other Bibles like they have," they said.

When I returned to the church on Saturday, Oct. 3,1987, I was there over four hours. It happened to be Communion Saturday, which comes only quarterly. Along with Communion was foot washing. This was followed by a congregational love feast to which I was invited. This allowed me to ask a lot of questions about their church, and through the kind offices of a Filipino, who likes to argue, I was able to draw upon some of our old arguments for "the first day of the week" as opposed to Sabbath-keeping. It was all in the Christian spirit, and we were able to disagree agreeably. I was reminded of an Adventist missionary with whom I did graduate work many years ago, who told me, "We've always said that one of our men is not ready to go out as a missionary until he has debated a Campbellite."

I was impressed that the Adventist sisters could lay out so many appetizing dishes without any meat. They even have dishes, all vegetarian, that look and even taste like meat. Once you feast on their elegant salads and creative casseroles you are persuaded that vegetarians do all right for themselves after all. And it probably makes for better health, certainly less cholesterol. Nutrition is definitely part of Adventist religion. They not only avoid alcohol and nicotine but caffeine as well. No coffee or tea even at a love feast! They may well be the cleanest living of all Christians. They emphasize living a holy life, quiet and unassuming.

They often kneel for prayer even though they do not have kneelers as do the Episcopalians. Those who presided at the Lord's table did so on their knees. Their sermons are simple, direct and Biblical. They are prophetic in their teaching, stressing the imminent advent of Christ, from which comes their name. But they are not Fundamentalists, neither in attitude nor in their view of the inerrancy of the Bible. They have a neat way of saying, "It was the penman that was inspired, not the pen."

I was especially interested in their foot washing service, which they associate with the Supper, as did Christ and his apostles. Following the Supper they repair to classrooms for this service, advising those who do not care to participate to remain in their seats. While I was not yet ready to take part in the foot washing as such, I wanted to observe, so I joined them.

They segregate by sex, the women and girls in one room, the men and boys in another, lest any woman feel ill at ease with a man washing her feet. I quietly joined the men as an observer. I was touched by the simplicity and humility of it all. Fathers washing their son's feet at church! I can see that that would be very meaningful to a child, especially as he grows older and looks back on his growing- up years in the church. And of course men washing each other's feet Don't you suppose they are more likely to treat each other in a loving way after washing each other's feet? I suspect we in Churches of Christ/Christian Churches would surprise the audience if we opened a big debate with a foot washing service!

The Adventist do this of course because of the teaching of Christ: "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you" (Jn. 13:14-15). I may question these dear people on some of their doctrines, but not on this one. I believe what Jesus is teaching here is that we are to serve and love one another in the humblest of ways, and that we do not satisfy this simply by a foot washing ceremony. We might "wash feet" by ministering to the sick or by babysitting and giving Mom a few hours off. But I would not seek to dissuade anyone from a literal practice of it. It is in fact eminently Christian, especially when it is done unobtrusively. And if any people are unobtrusive it is the Adventists.

Neither are they as sectarian as many of us. They have a strong theology of baptism, teaching that "Baptism by immersion is a symbol of our union with Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, and our reception of the Holy Spirit," but they do not believe that they have to do the baptizing. When I asked if they would receive a Baptist simply on the profession of his faith and without rebaptizing him, the answer was an unequivocal yes. I told them that it is too bad that the Baptists are not as gracious toward them!

But they did equivocate when I asked if one could join them who did not hold their view of the Sabbath, that he simply liked their church and didn't care whether he went to church on Saturday or Sunday. I think the answer was yes he could be a member, but they definitely believe that he should understand the significance of the Sabbath.

Through the years they have said a lot of hard things about Sunday-keeping, such as naming it "the mark of the beast" and the symbol of apostasy. It was ordained by the Roman emperor Constantine and not by God, they have insisted. But those were their debating days, and while they probably still believe those things they are now more irenic and ecumenical. The popes have imposed Sunday- keeping, they have always charged, but they nonetheless had a Roman Catholic missionary in the pulpit during one of my visits.

My Filipino friend seemed surprised when I pointed out that the earliest Christians probably observed two days, the Sabbath and the first day of the week, but because the resurrection of Christ was on the first day that day gradually became known as "the Lord's day," and that long before Constantine. The emperor merely legalized what had long been practiced. And believers assembled on "the first day of the week" long before there was any pope to legislate such things. As early as about 150 A.D. Justin Martyr wrote in his Apology, "And on the day that is called the day of the sun there is an assembly of all who live in the towns or in the country . . . and there is the distribution and partaking by all of the Eucharistic elements."

They concede that our Lord's resurrection was on the first day of the week, but that does not negate the Ten Commandments, they insist, and it is there that the Sabbath was eternally enjoined by God: Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. The Seventh Day Adventists could be described as "the church of the Ten Commandments." In that law they not only find the basis for holy living but for the observance of the Sabbath.

Our "Seventh Day" brethren err, I believe, when they conclude that whenever "the commandments" are referred to in the New Testament it refers to the Ten Commandments, such as in 1 Cor 7:19, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God is what matters." Or when Jesus says in Jn. 14:15, "If you love Me, keep my commandments." Since these refer to the Ten Commandments, we are enjoined to keep the Sabbath, for this is one of the Ten Commandments, they reason.

But aren't there commandments beside the Ten? And when we look for the Sabbath law in the New Testament we do not find it. Even when Jesus on a few occasions had reason to name some of the Ten Commandments, as in his conversation with the rich young ruler in Mt. 19:l8, he never referred to the Sabbath law. He never imposed the Sabbath law on his disciples. Nor does any apostle, and it is extremely unlikely that Paul could have believed that Christians were to observe the Sabbath and yet write what he did in Col. 2:16-17: "Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ." Our Adventist brethren are not yet ready to see that the Sabbath was only a shadow of things to come, as Paul apparently did.

It is impressive that when Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment of all that he named the two greatest, neither of which is among the Ten Commandments. He said that upon those two commandments, love for God and love for neighbor, "hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Mt. 22:40). This must refer to the moral law of God, which Paul says is written in our hearts and which undergirds all the written law of Scripture. This is what is eternal and applicable to all people in all ages. Only to the extent that the Ten Commandments are expressive of that moral law are they eternal and universally applicable. There is no evidence that the Sabbath law is of this nature, but was rather an ordinance given to a particular people (1srael) for a particular purpose (remembering God as creator). Most Christians throughout the ages have believed that "the first day of the week" is to be observed, not because it displaces the Sabbath, but because it is a memorial of the most important event in history, even more than the creation itself, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

It is a fact that our Adventist friends would do well to ponder that if the God of heaven had willed to exalt the Sabbath while giving the Christian faith to the world he would only have needed to have made that day the day for the resurrection of his Son from the dead. He rather willed that the Christ lay dead all that Sabbath day, and it was only "as the first day of the week began to dawn" that the greatest story ever told became a reality.

But when all this is said the fact remains that there are at least 4.5 million Christians in the world who do not see it this way and who believe they should observe the Sabbath. What are we to do with them? We cannot accuse them of blatant and obvious disobedience to the will of God, for there are grounds for honest differences of opinion on this subject. The New Testament nowhere clearly mandates the observance of the first day. It is a deduction — a good one, we believe — but still only a deduction. The prooftexts we often use, such as Acts 20:7 and I Cor. 16:2, are by no means conclusive. If there was a clear command to observe the first day in the New Testament there would be no Seventh Day Adventists.

So, our "Seventh Day" brethren give us an opportunity to show how much we believe in unity. They believe in Christ and have been baptized just as we have. They are our sisters and brothers in Christ, and whether they assemble on Saturday or Sunday does not change that fact. If they should start observing the first day next Sunday, they would be no more our brothers and sisters than they are now. We can accept them as equals in Christ even when we believe them to be wrong about the Sabbath. We do not have to see everything exactly alike to be united in Christ. If so, then we could not be united with anyone, not even with ourselves. To obey the injunction of Scripture, "Receive one another even as Christ has received you" (Rom. 15:7) does not mean that we approve of everything that is believed or practiced by those that we receive. if it disturbs you to have fellowship with brothers who are "in error," then you are to be reminded that you do not have any other kind.

As for what we can learn from our Adventist brethren, the lessons are many. Their missionary zeal and their willingness to sacrifice in order to preach the gospel all over the world is not the least lesson. The integration of their churches, made up of all races and color the world over, is another. Then there is their benevolence toward suffering humanity. They make it a point to be there when they are needed. Their concern for the whole man, body, soul and spirit, is impressive.

By paying their ministers the same, whether they labor abroad or at home or serve a large church or a small one, they avoid a lot of clerical competition and rivalry. Their church in Keene, Tx., where they have a college, has over a thousand members, but its minister makes the same as the one who ministers to the small Denton church. They do not have any "big preachers" that way. You are aware of course that big money makes one a big shot even in the church.

Even their prophetess, Ellen G. White, speaks to us all when she says: "Do not make your opinions, your views of duty, your interpretations of Scripture, a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal. Do not criticize others, conjecturing as to their motives and passing judgment upon them." — the Editor

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Quite surprising in view of the Seventh Day Adventist's firm belief in the imminent end of the world was their heavy investment in publishing houses, hospitals, homes for the aged, and especially educational institutions. Not only did they maintain numerous academies, colleges, graduate schools, and both a theological seminary and a medical and dental school, they also established a widespread network of elementary schools. Noting their many good works, one observer has commented that seldom, while expecting a kingdom of God from heaven, has a group worked so diligently for one on earth.— Winthrop S. Hudson in Religion in America.

The one thing essential for us in order that we may receive and impart the forgiving love of God is so know and believe the love that He has to us. l John 4.16.— E.G. White, Day Of The Benediction.