Well-known Writer and Poet Max Gordon Phillips is Dead
By AT News Team, Dec. 26, 2014: Max Gordon Phillips was a bright star in the generation of Adventist young adults that came of age in the 1960s. He wrote many short stories, poems, columns and magazine articles; successfully launched a new brand of books; and then sacrificed a promising career at Pacific Press when he supported women employed at the publishing house in what was eventually ruled by the courts to be illegal wage practices. He died earlier this week in Redlands, California, still active in a Sabbath School class at the Loma Linda University Church.
The son of an Adventist pastor in Lansing, Michigan, Phillips won the grand prize in the first literary magazine published at La Sierra University in 1964. He was one of nine La Sierra graduates from the Class of 1964 to be accepted for graduate school at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University (AU) along with several who became well-known preachers, theologians and church administrations, including John Brunt, Bailey Gillespie, Darold Retzer and Larry Veverka.
While at the seminary completing a master’s degree in theology, Phillips helped organize the Seminary Student Forum weekly discussion group together with Nils-Erik Andreasen (AU president today), Robert J. Wieland (a widely-read theologian now), Larry Geraty (noted archaeologist and retired president of La Sierra University), Melvyn Hayden (pastor of several large congregations in America’s largest cities over the years) and Dick Winn (cofounder of Weimar Institute now a key administrator for the regional accrediting body for higher education in California). Phillips was given an award by AU in 1965 for his regular columns in Student Movement, the campus newspaper.
After graduating from the seminar in August, 1966, Phillips was hired by the denomination’s Southern Publishing Association in Nashville as assistant editor of These Times, a magazine published for the general public which was later closed down but once had a circulation of more than 100,000. The appointment was approved by the denomination’s governing body (the executive committee of the General Conference) in December of that year.
By early 1969, Phillips had moved to Pacific Press, the denomination’s west coast publishing house located at the time in Mountain View, California. He interviewed Dr. Paul Ehrlich, famous for his predictions of a global population explosion but still controversial at the time in the wider society, for the March 1969 issue of Signs of the Times, the outreach magazine still published by Pacific Press today.
In 1971, Phillips was given the responsibility of being the brand manager for a new book series at Pacific Press; Agape Books targeting young adults. The first title released was Mission to Black America by Ron Graybill, the young historian who had recently been invited to join the staff of the Ellen G. White Estate in Washington, D.C., after previously authoring E. G. White and Race Relations during key years of the American Civil Rights Movement. And the second title was Inscriptions, a collection of Phillips’ short stories and poetry, perhaps one of the most sophisticated literary works ever published by an Adventist publishing house.
A special issue of Signs of the Times the following year, themed to the “youth revolution” sweeping across American society at the time, included an article by Phillips entitled, “Hope for Hippies.” It old the stories of “several one-time hippies [who] had been converted to Jesus Christ, had quit taking drugs and were studying at Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, for a life of Christian ministry.”
In the fall of 1973, Phillips was the author of a news release from Pacific Press published in the union conference papers across North America telling about initiatives that the publishing house was taking to market Adventist materials in non-traditional ways, including through the Christian Booksellers Association. The press had hired a young Adventist marketing executive away from GTE-Sylvania Corporation to work specifically on getting Adventist books into the secular marketplace.
At the same time, trouble was brewing at Pacific Press which would both generate major change in the Adventist denomination and derail the career of the promising young writer and editor because of his principled stand while administrators above him were making shameful decisions.
The Merikay Silver Case
While a teenager at Grand Ledge Academy in Michigan in the 1960s, Merikay McCleod (later Silver) wrote a 45-page novella which portrayed the final events before the return of Christ based on her understanding of chapters from The Great Controversy by White. Pastor Fordyce Detamore, the leading Adventist evangelist in North America at the time, liked the story so much that he distributed more than 100,000 copies of the small book.
Phillips had met Silver when she was a freshman in college at AU and encouraged her to write for his section of the campus newspaper. In 1971 he recommended her for a job at Pacific Press and she was hired in a position parallel to his. A year later, when he husband decided to go to graduate school, Silver asked for “head of household allowance” to be added to her wages as was true for Phillips since she now would be the sole bread-winner in her family. Despite the fact that denominational guidelines clearly stated that this was to be applied “without discrimination on the basis of … sex” (among other factors) and that White had long ago told Adventist leaders not to discriminate in payment of female workers, the Pacific Press management refused Silver’s request stating that it was not available to women.
Silver was told that this violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and consulted an attorney, eventually leading to a complaint being filed by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC), the Federal government agency responsible for enforcement of laws meant to end gender discrimination in hiring and wages. The case drug on for a decade with denominational leaders attempting to argue that the First Amendment exempted church entities from observing the law and maneuvering to fire both Silver and Lorna Tobler, another woman working at Pacific Press, and eventually to kick them out of the church too.
Most famously, Neal C. Wilson, then president of the denomination’s North American Division, is on record testifying that the Adventist religion has a hierarchical system of governance despite its historic stand against papal type structures and White’s specific condemnation of “kingly power” in Adventist organizations. All of this in an attempt to keep feminist ideas out of the Adventist movement at all costs; to hold on to gender discrimination in wage scales.
Of the four lawsuits filed throughout the complicated case with large amounts of legal maneuvering, Pacific Press settled one out of court, paying Silver $60,000. The EEOC won the other three cases despite appeals that ran on until December 1983. Finally the denomination’s leadership decided that it had to obey the law regardless of its inclinations and historic changes were made to assure that men and women doing the same job would have the same pay, at least in the Adventist organizations in the United States.
In September 1982, Phillips was fired by Pacific Press and given six months of termination pay signifying that he was not to be hired by any other denominational entity. He was last listed in the 1983 edition of the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook which had evidently already been prepared for publication at the time of his firing the previous fall.
For a short time Phillips worked as an editor at Stanford University and then for a number of years as a staff member at Health Scene magazine in Washington state. Adventist Today published some of his articles, but official denominational publishers would not touch his work.
Like many in his generation of American Adventists, Phillips must have developed a significant level of disappointment with the denomination. The experience did not live up to its promise. In June 2000 he wrote a response to an Adventist Today editorial and his piece was published in the online forum of the Former Adventist Fellowship. But he still maintained an Adventist identity, participating in the Sabbath Seminars group in Loma Linda where his friends reached out to him during health problems over the past year and are planning a funeral for him.
Phillips’ elegant and emotionally compelling stories and poems can still be found on the Internet if you use a search engine for his name. His body of work includes at least one poem mixed with music and moving pictures which is available on Vimeo. To the end, his work expressed his faith in a loving God. He is survived by his brother Marshal; a daughter, Jana S. Kopp, and a son, Craig N. Phillips; as well as two grandsons, Anders and Soren Kopp.
“Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die. Passing through nature to eternity. He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.” Hamlet, William Shakespeare
I knew Max as a kid when he and his brothers Marshal and Monty lived in the parsonage of the Battle Creek Tabernacle with their father, Elder A.K. Phillips, head pastor at the Tabernacle, and their wonderful and talented mother, Austa Phillips. The house I grew up in was two doors down from theirs. Max, Marshal, my older brother and I played many a game of Monopoly on endless summer days on the picnic table in our backyard in the shade of a big oak tree. All three brothers, Monty, Max, and Marshal, were outstanding people even as kids, and I’ve followed them ever since and been privileged to count them as friends. Max was an extraordinarily talented and courageous man. I’m sad that he’s gone but so very glad that he lived and had the impact that he did. To be born in the first place is so miraculous that we must celebrate the life of every good person especially when it ends as Max’s has. His writings, his love of people, his sacrifices for fairness and the impact and influence he had on so many will live on, and he will live on in the hearts of all who knew him.
I feel so sad. Just randomly decided to check the Adventist Today website and saw this. He was a friend from our years at Andrews, and was in my husband’s and my wedding. We attended his also. He always had a terrific personality and million dollar smile. I connected with Max a little more than a year ago, and we corresponded a bit. We sent him a Christmas card. Feeling very sad. He had so much potential and we always felt that the Christ did not do right by him.
I hope that I do not understand you incorrectly in your statement “that the Christ did not do right by him” could you please elaborate.
I think she meant “church” when she wrote “Christ” in her last sentence.
Blacklisted in life.
Blacklisted in death.
http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/their-faith-still-speaks-notable-deaths-in-2014
So very sad to read this. I was at Adelphian Academy when Max and Marshal were. It was good to have known them and I’ve often wondered where Life has taken them both. I read Merikay Silver’s book years ago with much distress all around relative to the unfairness demonstrated. I don’t remember knowing that Max had been involved. His (and, obviously, Merikay’s)was a very principled stand, which seems to me more Biblical than the PP and denominational position. Sorry I haven’t kept up with either Max or Marshal.
Max and I attended Adelphian Academy together in the ’50’s. Our paths crossed again at Andrews University in the ’60’s; he a seminarian and I, one of the deans of men. In the ’80’s our paths crossed again at a Sabbath, church service in Mountain View, CA; he in the congregation and I, a member of the Carol Brummett Chorale, in concert. Even as an academy teenager, Max showed great literary and intellectual prowess. I’ve enjoyed his personal and professional creative efforts. He will be missed. Max preferred the moral high ground; an exemplary stance that has been well documented when he was an editor at Pacific Press. Rest in peace, Max. You, gallantly, fought the good fight and stayed the course.
My mother, Velva Holt, worked at Pac Press during the time of the Merikay fiasco. When the court ruled that the women were to be given back pay she got a check and a letter. I still have the letter, it said “some SDA’s do not believe in suing a fellow Christian. You may wish to return this check”. She smiled and cashed her check. Good for her.
This was also the court proceeding where Neil Wilson, then GC Conf Pres. told the Judge that our church is a hierarchal denomination and therefore he, the Pres. had the authority not to pay the women. The Judge obviously did not agree.
Let the Wilson dynasty be over. Both have solved nothing and both have acted as presidents but not necessary as Christians.
Will a new leader who is firstly true to Jesus Christ be found?
I do pray so.
Ken L Lawson
HERE WAS A GOOD WRITER, ONE WHO HAVE TOUCHED MANY A LIVE. MAY HE REST IN PEACE. MAY WE BE HELPED NOT TO UNDERRATE THE PEOPLE!s WORKS
No tribute suffices for a great friend whose costly ingegrity raised the moral standard for reluctant leaders, and welcomed colleagues regardless of gender. His life is a monument to the best legacy of Adventist communities.
I worked with Max at Southern Publishing Association before he went to Pacific Press or got married. We were friends and fellow poets and I was a little bit in love with him. He was fiery,engaging and brilliant and a joy to know. Our most memorable experience together was his taking my brand new ’67 Pontiac Firebird for a wild ride on the newly created partial freeway in Nashville one night and getting it up to the max of 120 mph for a few moments of terrifying exhilaration. It’s a miracle we didn’t crash into the barricades at the end of the construction. We didn’t stay in touch much after he left the SPA but I’ve never forgotten him and I am sorry to hear he has passed. My deepest sympathy to his family and many friends.
Stop The Wilson War On Women
How sad I am to learn that Max has passed on. From the first time I met him (through his writing) I admired his insightful pen. His courage and brilliance were not appreciated by Pacific Press administrators or church leaders back in the 1970s and early ’80s. He and Gus Tobler were the only PPPA males (that I know of)who repeatedly urged Press and church officials to obey GC guidelines and federal law regarding equal pay for equal work. Instead, they fired him. His departure was the church’s loss. While his death is a loss to those of us who knew and respected him, his integrity and his writing remain an admirable legacy. May you rest in peace, dear friend.
How sad it is that my old friend has died so young.
The church’s failure to approve the ordination of women at the last GC shows that women are still not treated equally.
I was a local SDA pastor in the Mountain View Spanish church. at the time Max was at the Pacific Press. He was a friend and a person of integrity.
From Max I learned that when we have integrity, we’re whole and in perfect condition, and we’re not compromised by awkward “inconsistencies.”
“Most famously, Neal C. Wilson, then president of the denomination’s North American Division, is on record testifying that the Adventist religion has a hierarchical system of governance despite its historic stand against papal type structures and White’s specific condemnation of “kingly power” in Adventist organizations. All of this in an attempt to keep feminist ideas out of the Adventist movement at all costs; to hold on to gender discrimination in wage scales”
When we live our lives with integrity, it means that we’re always honest, and we let our actions speak for who we are and what we believe in. The contrast between Max and the Wilsons (father and son are the same) is striking and very clear.
Integrity is a choice we make, and it’s a choice we must keep making, every moment of our lives. Max chose “the road less travelled” and we who knew him are all better as a result.