Advice for My Adventist Friends
by John R. Landgraf | 9 April 2024 |
I just got word that my dear friend and Baptist pastor John Landgraf passed away. A couple of years ago I asked him to write for Adventist Today. His essay was beautiful and thoughtful and remains excellent advice. —Loren Seibold
I had always known about Seventh-day Adventists, but I didn’t make you part of my world until I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of my first Adventist friends was Adventist Today editor Loren Seibold—back then a parish pastor. I branched out from there and came to admire a number of Loren’s fellow pastors and Adventist educators in my bailiwick.
But I also saw in them great inner conflicts and concerns about their faith and practice—struggling with what to keep and what to toss, what was gold and what was dross. As time has gone by, I’ve seen how fruitful that struggle has been in the lives of the Adventists I know best and admire most.
Yes, I said fruitful! I have come to believe that your church’s greatest asset is these wonderful people who have worked their way through soul-killing fundamentalism and come out as individuals of depth, substance, kindness, and knowledge—such that they’re able to include non-Adventist Christians like me. They still appreciate the tradition that brought them here, but they no longer let it eclipse the grace of the gospel or force them into intellectual self-deceit.
My Story
As a lifelong Baptist, I understand the struggle of these noble and courageous Seventh-day Adventists probably better than you realize.
I had plenty to rebel against. Reared a fundamentalist Baptist, I was exhorted to believe what I was taught, not question it—and there was plenty I was told to never question. As a lad I attended Sunday School and summer camps and Bible conferences focused on (dispensationalist) prophecy. Gifted with musical talent, I also played piano and organ for revival meetings in local churches and sometimes citywide evangelistic “Crusade for Christ” meetings, as epitomized by Billy Graham. “Conservative” and “Evangelical” were proud words in my church and home.
Then, when I was a young adult, the culture around me began to change rapidly. The Bob Dylan song was right: “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” While the gospel was still good news and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8, NKJV), I began to realize that how we live it and share it must change, lest we become archaic, dinosaurs. Jesus spoke Aramaic; we do not. He slept mostly on the ground; we do not. As far as we know, he never wrote down his teachings; we write down anything we deem important, including books and articles such as this one.
Through the years I’ve kept track of my undergrad classmates from Moody Bible Institute (Chicago) and Wheaton College (just west of Chicago). Some have not changed their beliefs one whit in 50 years and are, in fact, proud of their doctrinal juvenescence. At the other extreme, some have left organized religion altogether, though they still consider themselves deeply spiritual. Still others have migrated from one Christian tribe to another—Baptist to Presbyterian, Mennonite to Methodist, Lutheran to Episcopalian, etc.—often quite happily. (Sometimes this happened because they married across denominational lines.)
Building Character
Now, as an elder statesman of the Christian faith, here’s what stands out to me.
Struggling with a stubborn, self-righteous belief system builds character and fosters growth into spiritual maturity, wherever it leads the strugglers—provided they don’t flush the baby with the dirty bath.
Conversely, not struggling—simply clinging to received premises of childhood and youth—is not only stultifying but ultimately unsatisfying, because it leads to theological incompetence if not impotence, a kind of spiritual constipation. I’ve met Christians whose barrenness renders them totally unproductive, at least when it comes to embodying the good news of the gospel in a winsome way. They come across as what my mother used to call “sourpusses.” No one wants to be around them.
Here, in a nutshell, is my advice to my Adventist friends: come to terms with your religion and let the process of making peace with it make you strong, spiritually mature, and above all, happy.
The apostle Paul offers us a prime example of this kind of maturing—in his case, from zealous Jewish fundamentalist to unmitigated grace (Eph. 2:8-9). Starting with his stunning encounter on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-9), Paul journeyed up and down, down and up, through treacherous valleys (Romans 7) to glorious mountains (Romans 8). He emerged victorious enough to make him the revered leader he is, with 13 New Testament books to his credit. (That doesn’t mean he was always unaffected by the culture he lived in. Many of us believe Paul still had a ways to go—for example, in how he viewed women’s roles in the church.)
Don’t all of us start from a sort of childhood “fundamentalism” about life—simple questions and answers and rules—before moving on to adolescence and full adulthood? And even then, we have our developmental lags; we all fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).
As a sojourner en route to the glory land, one of my most important learnings has been that my pilgrimage on Earth is a journey of spiritual discovery rather than a place where I will arrive, fully perfect. Good theology recognizes that we have been saved, are being saved, and shall be saved; all three tenses are true. The joy is in the journey!
Don’t Become a Sourpuss
Working against resistance is the key to growth. Like exercise at the gym, that’s how we gain strength (or, at my crabbed age, fend off atrophy). The most impressive spiritual heroes learned to creep before they crawled, crawl before they walked, walk before they began to run, and intelligently trained to become marathoners. Want to learn about it from three champions of the faith? Check out Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4; and 2 Peter 1:3-9. Paul, James, and Peter spoke from personal experience: they wrestled not just against Roman politicians, but against the fundamentalism of Pharisaic Judaism.
And so it is with my Seventh-day Adventist friends. I see the best of you as having fought and overcome not only your battles with the world, but also your battles within the church, the temptation to be sectarian legalists. You have emerged victorious without becoming hateful or embittered against your church family. Bravo!
So, how does one work through spiritual battles without becoming an embittered defeatist? Well, I don’t know about you, but I know about me, a recovering fundamentalist Baptist, and I know it can be done. My faith struggle has been worth every ounce of effort I’ve put into it.
My mature Adventists friends would say the same thing. I admire them greatly. I delight in their company. I know a “pair of docs” (married physicians) who fit that category, Adventist musicians and teachers, missionaries, and male and female pastors. They are walking the road to the Land of Fadeless Day by my side. I love them as my sisters and brothers in Christ.
More Advice
Beyond these wonderful Adventist friends who have deconstructed the legalistic ties that bound them, what is the Adventist Church at its best? I offer here three additional thoughts.
First, you Adventists aren’t at your best, methinks, when you spend most of your time revering your founding mother or invoking your 28 fundamental beliefs. You are at your best when you say, “All are welcome here, and by ‘all,’ we mean all.” Frankly, most people don’t care about Adventist history or ecclesiology. What they care about is getting to know people who embody good news. Ask any pastor.
Second, all Christian “tribes” have idiosyncrasies that handicap them one way or another, be it infant baptism, communion every Sunday, or whatever. The Adventist Church is at its best when its burdens become blessings. For example, dietary restrictions can be touted as living clean and healthy, which is no deprivation at all. And Sabbath worship? It’s a blessing for observant Christians married to observant Jews, if neither wants to convert. Should seekers or new Christians ask you to explain why Saturday instead of Sunday, tell them the reasons it’s an Adventist belief. But from my point of view, there is little gain in implying that it’s the only “right” teaching, much less the only one that saves.
As for the second advent of Jesus, in Christianity you are in the company of many who hope joyfully in the second coming of Christ. But why make yours so immediate that you are constantly having to defend your predictions of “soon,” and so scary that your evangelistic brochures make you look like conspiracists? Jesus will return to Earth. He said he would. Isn’t that enough?
Third, in my experience the Adventist Church is at its best in its fine schools, excellent hospitals, and effective global missions, such as Adventist Development and Relief Agency. Emphasize that.
Add the embodiment of the gospel and a loving Christian community, and what’s not to like?
Do denominations matter at all? I suppose they do. They provide oversight of ordination or commissioning, ensure best practices, and offer fellowship of kindred minds within the family of God.
But when we all get to heaven, no one will care one iota about any of that. We will be too euphoric basking in the fullness of God’s perfect love (1 John 4:16).
Rev. John Landgraf, M.Div., Ph.D., was president of the Central Seminary [American Baptist] in Kansas City, and also worked as a pastoral counselor. He and his wife, Laura, co-led retreats and support groups. John passed away on April 8, 2024. This essay was written for Adventist Today magazine.