Editorial: Why Is Our Denomination So Authoritarian?
Adventists have in recent years begun to realize how centralized and authoritarian our denomination is. Those in top church offices seem to want to exercise control over every aspect of church life, in every part of the world, right down to the everyday operation of local congregations.
The recent kerfuffle in Berrien Springs Village has helped me to understand why. It’s because we, as a church, are always on the razor’s edge of tipping back into the doomsday cult that we started as.
After the Great Disappointment the church seemed to readjust to the new reality: that we would have to learn how to live here on earth. In 1888 we tried to embrace righteousness by faith—at least the idea, if not the actual implementation.
But we’ve never had a firm foothold in gospel Christianity. We exist in a precarious space defined by The Great Controversy: imaginary persecutions and Sunday laws, insecurity of salvation, fear, perfectionism, conspiracies, the as-soon-as-next-week return of Jesus.
We exist, it seems to me, but a step away from sliding out of reality and into fantasy.
It has actually happened with some of our offshoots, such as the Waco cult. But even in the science denial and Christian Nationalism on display at Berrien Springs Village, and in popular ministries such as Walter Veith and Stephen Bohr, we see the tendency of Adventists to embrace fanaticism. Sometimes it is blatant; other times it is a quiet “dog whistle”—saying just enough to scratch itching ears while maintaining plausible deniability.
I suspect that, either consciously or unconsciously, our leaders drive in deep pilings of authority to make sure that we remain fastened on that slippery edge, never fully embracing grace, nor fully tipping over into full-blown fanaticism. That’s why they oppose congregationalism: pockets of extremism would swirl and infect larger parts of the church, as they have in Berrien Springs, and make our church into something quite unattractive.
How long can we remain balanced on this razor’s edge? How much better were we to plant our feet firmly in “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved!”
Loren Seibold
Executive Editor, Adventist Today magazine & website
2 May 2025
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