“Make Adventism Great Again!” Mark Johnson announces his candidacy for GC President
by Mark B. Johnson | 12 March 2024 |
“I am officially running for president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, and we are going to make our church great again. It can happen. Our church has tremendous potential. We have tremendous people.
“And they’ll be proud, and they’ll love it…they’ll be doing so well, and we’re going to be thriving as a church—thriving! It can happen. And when I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make Adventism great again.”(1)
But, wait, you say. That’s not how we select our General Conference president! It’s a calling! Folks don’t run for offices in the church!
Right.
According to the Adventist Review, the process is an open and transparent one by which we, the local church members, elect our officers.(2) There may be four layers of delegated bureaucracy between us and the final vote, but the open and transparent process begins right here, with us, at the grassroots level of the local church. I’m sure you’ve felt the power too.
So what are the requirements to be the General Conference president?
The only requirements that I can find are spelled out in Article IX, Sec. 3 of the Constitution of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. “The General Conference president shall be an ordained minister of experience.”
I believe I’m eligible. I’ve been ordained (as an elder), and according to our founding prophet, I’m a minister.
“No line is to be drawn between the genuine medical missionary work and the gospel ministry. The two must blend. They are not to stand apart as separate lines of work. They are to be joined in an inseparable union, even as the hand is joined to the body (Ellen White, Medical Ministry, p. 250).
I’ve also had almost 60 years of experience at the powerful grassroots level of the church. If you add the time I’ve spent sitting in local, conference, union, and division committee meetings, the total feels closer to 120 years.
But am I an ordained minister?
Ahh. There’s the rub. My ministry comes from the right arm of the church. The 17 men who have served as the president of the General Conference have all been ministers from the left arm. With little doubt, the 18th will be, also.
I blame Dr. John Harvey Kellogg for this imbalanced history of leadership in the church. We were counseled that medical missionary work was in no case to be divorced from the gospel ministry (Ellen White, Counsels on Health, p.330). That a Christian physician occupies a position even more responsible than that of the minister of the gospel (ibid., p.321). That medical missionary work is to be connected with the gospel ministry. That it is the gospel in practice, the gospel practically carried out (ibid., p.532).
But Kellogg scared us. He was too popular. Too famous. Too aggressive. Too powerful. Too worldly. And too pantheistic. After him, the left arm resolved that the right arm must remain atrophied, as far as leadership in the church was concerned.
But perhaps its influence has withered too much. Many of the leading issues and concerns facing the church today are found in the right arm’s area of expertise: abortion and reproductive rights; gender and LGBTQ issues; the lucrative, and expensive, health ministries of the church; and the intriguing prophecy that “soon there will be no work done in ministerial lines but medical missionary work (ibid., p.533).
And so, I am casting my name into the ring. I could use your support.
Clearly, I can’t win through the usual process. I’ve got to run this campaign as a maverick candidate. I’ve got to break organizational norms. I’ve got to work outside of the system. I’ll follow the playbook that many in the American church seem to admire. I’ll have to make delegates believe there may be a swamp that needs to be drained. I’ll need to spread conspiracy theories involving things such as Last Generation Theology, Spiritual Formation, Women’s Ordination, Headship Theology, and Complementarianism.
I’ll also need an international reach. Fortunately, I’ve got most of the continents covered. I was born in an Ethiopian mission hospital. I was a student missionary in Tanzania. I’ve been on numerous medical mission trips to Latin America, Nepal, Tonga, and Fiji. I went to Adventist schools in Singapore and India. And I’ve taught public health courses in China. I’m a bit weak on the European front, but I do have a couple of cousins who live in Denmark.
I’ve said nothing regarding my qualifications.
I turned 70 last June—I think I’m finally old enough. I’m retired. I have some spare time on my hands. I attended formal Adventist education for over 20 years. I have a doctoral degree in medicine and a master’s degree in administration. I’ve served as head elder, school board chair, and church board chair in multiple Adventist churches. I’ve preached and I’ve written for numerous denominational and semi-denominational periodicals. I’m the husband of only one wife and I’ve been married to the same woman for 47 years. I’ve served on the boards of Adventist hospitals and hospital systems for almost 20 years. I’m a lifelong vegetarian. I don’t drink coffee. And as a physician, I know that human sexual anatomy does not directly or irreversibly influence spirituality and I’m not afraid to use words like sexual and anatomy.
I’m sure you’re impressed.
But before you join me in this campaign, there may be one question lingering in the back of your mind. “Why?”
Because we’re still here. Perhaps we should try something different.
(1)Paraphrase of Donald J. Trump’s announcement to run for president, June 16, 2015.
(2)Boonstra S., “How Elections Work at a General Conference Session.” Adventist Review, June 8, 2022.
Mark B. Johnson is a graduate of Pacific Union College and Loma Linda University, with a medical residency at Johns Hopkins University in Preventive Medicine and Public Health. He is the local public health officer in the Denver metropolitan region. He’s an adult Sabbath School class teacher and church board chair at the Boulder Adventist church.
