12 September 2014

My First “Dear Abby” Letter

by Andy Hanson

A question received and answered by Andy Hanson, September 12, 2014

Dear Mr. Hanson,
I have a confession to make. I’ve been reading your Adventist Today blog since the Patricia Moleski days. I guess that makes me a fan. Anyway, since our intellectual instincts seem to be in sync—we don’t believe in a literal seven-day creation and a worldwide flood—and we both claim to be Adventists, albeit real “lefties,” shouldn’t both of us come out of the closet and ask to have our names dropped from the church books? According to our General Conference President, Ted Wilson, speaking at an educators conference in Utah,

“If one does not accept the recent six-day creation understanding, then that person is actually not a 'Seventh-day' Adventist, since the seventh-day Sabbath would become absolutely meaningless historically and theologically, and most of our Biblically based doctrines centered in Christ and His authoritative voice would become meaningless as well… When we indicate we are Seventh-day Adventists, we stand for a literal creation and global flood.”

Sincerely,
A Fan

Dear Fan,
Thank you for your fanship and your question. While I wouldn’t presume to answer that question for you, here is my answer. I plan to ignore Ted. I will tender my resignation when my local church requests it. After all, Ted is only a member of the Adventist Church. He isn’t an Adventist Pope. His thoughts and ideas are not inerrant. And his willful ignorance regarding the “seventh-day” on a round planet, not to mention astronomy and history, is self-revelatory when he goes on to claim that “the actual seventh day has never been lost. It can be documented through history and through astronomy.”

Anyway, most of my fellow church members shrug off his pronouncements, and if he regards National Geographic* as a publication designed to subvert the minds of the faithful, that’s his personal business.

Sincerely,

Andy Hanson

*Roff Smith, “Before Stonehenge,” National Geographic, August, 2014, 26-51.