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Partial Response to the Current Situation

Dr. David E. Thomas

A number of people have encouraged, even asked, me to register an opinion or two on the current situation surrounding the presidential search at Walla Walla University (WWU). So, I have decided to offer a few reflections. For a number of reasons I will not cite here, I do not wish to comment in great detail on the presidential selection process nor on the particulars of the way the process has unfolded for I am an outsider to the deliberations. But I do agree that WWU, and those who are charged with governing it, now find themselves in a rather ticklish and difficult situation. Clearly, in spite of a lot of work and good intentions, the process of selecting a new president has not worked well. Of particular concern to me is that those raising a hue and cry about spiritual formation, something perceived to be as mysterious and toxic as radioactivity and about as undetectable by ordinary means, seem now to have gained the upper hand, at least for the time being. Those who agitate the subject have, by creating a great sense of conspiracy and by piecing together very scanty evidence (and non-evidence), managed to make it look like Alex Bryan and WWU are in the forefront of bringing devilish things right into the heart of the Adventist movement and no dialog, no responses, no contesting of evidences cited, no outright rebuttals will dissuade them from their self-appointed task. They have made the most horrible accusations and assertions imaginable against those engaged in the gospel ministry, even declaring motives, and they have done so with impunity as, to date, we have not seen any church leader raise a public voice against them. These people routinely break the 9th commandment without apparent twinges of conscience. They have uncourageously posted damning comments on public websites without putting their names to their writings. This kind of behavior should have no play. And it should not be left unchallenged. How much their doings affected the University boards decision remains an open question that needs to be resolved. Then let me say something about Alex Bryan. It has been my lot in life to work quite closely with him over the past three or more years. I have come to know him well. I have sat at his table. He has sat at mine. He and I have talked for many hours on many subjects. We have worked together on projects, sat through many meetings, agreed at times, and disagreed. And I have heard him preach on a near weekly basis. I have come to know him quite well. He is bright. He is articulate. He is well-read. And I can say categorically, anyone who thinks he does not love the Adventist message, and anyone who actually thinks he is doing devilish things in his congregation, can only be deemed misguided or grossly uninformed or willfully ignorant. I make bold to say, shame, shame, shame on those who gratuitously detract from his person or ministry. While claiming to work to shield us from the deceptions of the devil, they have fallen prey to a great deception of their own and are actually doing the work of the deceiver themselves. They delight themselves in the apparent discovery of some great sin in Alex when what they long for is not actually present. I am quite confident that eternity will show them to have been in great error for, while Alex Bryan is human and has his faults, they do not fall along the lines laid out by his detractors. And for the detractors to think that a whole, large congregation of well-informed people is somehow deluded by the actions and preaching of one Alex Bryan is insulting. It represents a degree of hubris that is astonishing, presuming that they from a distance know what is really going on while those close at hand are duped. What arrogant nonsense! Alex Bryan is not perpetrating some grand deception (I know. Once you

A Response to the Current Situation A Partial Response to the Current Situation

David E. Thomas

have a good conspiracy theory going, everything can be made to fit, even this posting so I expect to be named among the deluded after this!). Let me add more comment, on the issue of Alex Bryan being dangerous because he reads and recommends non-Adventist authors. This line of thought has now become quite prominent in the opinions of the detractors and it warrants some exploration. The stated concern is that those who do not limit their reading to SDA authors run a great risk of becoming deluded or misled, and, even worse, they risk bringing error into the midst of the church. Some of these cries have become so strident they even include demands that those who read outside of church authors be dismissed from church employ lest they corrupt things irreparably. What shall we make of this? We could begin by stating that this position is thoroughly un-Adventist, at least when you look at Adventist history. To put it more plainly, from the very beginning it has not been the custom or practice of Adventists to limit their reading to only Adventist authors. In fact, limiting reading to only Adventist authors was not possible for those who first forged out the Adventist message for there were no Adventist authors for them to read! Think about it! What Adventist authors were the founders to read when they were in the process of forging out the various elements of Adventist worldview and doctrine? How interesting that we are now admonished to read only Adventist authors when those who founded our message managed to articulate its provisions at least in part because they read non-Adventist writings! One is constrained to ask how they could safely read non-Adventists when we are told it is now very dangerous for us to do so? That this new idea is thoroughly un-Adventist can also be ascertained by looking at the libraries of the founders of Adventism. For example, Ellen White whose library is well documented, certainly did not limit her reading to her Adventist contemporaries only. She read quite widely. The same was true of Uriah Smith, arguably the most noted scholar in our early midst. Nor did J. N. Andrews limit his reading thus. The same could be said of those who, in later years, became major articulators of Adventist doctrines and ideas. A chief individual in this category would be H. M. S. Richards, the most notable radio personality and preacher 20th century Adventism had. His library is now cataloged and can be seen at La Sierra University. It is filled with all kinds of non-Adventist books including those of the great Greek philosophers some of whose writings are there in Latin. How did these giants of Adventism manage to avoid the corruption of their souls and minds when they did not follow the practice of limiting their reading to Adventist authors? There are more problems with this call to read only Adventist authors. One would be the problem of determining which authors are entitled to bear the name Adventist. Would it be determined by the holding of church membership? Would it be done by some approval process? This is not a small issue because Adventist authors do not all agree. And that is the case on not a few major subjects. So which Adventists should we follow? And who will make this decision for us? Shall we give the decision to the book editors? The publishers? A General Conference Committee? The Biblical Research Institute? Local church elders? The Seminary? As soon as these questions are raised, the foolishness of this hue and cry becomes apparent. If we give the decision away to anyone instead of retaining it ourselves, we give the function of our minds and consciences away to someone else, something truly spiritually dangerous. And what shall we do with the books that are written and published privately, books that have had significant play in the Adventist community of late but are published outside of any review
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A Response to the Current Situation A Partial Response to the Current Situation

David E. Thomas

process. Some of these books are all about conspiracies of the most amazing kinds that cannot be found anywhere in or near the 28 fundamentals. Some of these books are published privately because they could not find acceptance with denominational publishers. What shall we do with these? How do they have so much play in our midst when they were not somehow approved? Investigation will quickly reveal that some of them come from authors whose whole theological systems are very different from Adventists, indeed, yet the Alex Bryan detractors give the books enormous credence. The problem of knowing what is right and what is wrong is a difficult one, but we dare not assign that decision to others. That has been the solution in non-Protestant religions. For example, Roman Catholicism has a decision-making body known as the Magisterium, made up of priests and scholars whose job it is to declare what is Catholic and what is not. Part of the approval process involves inserting an imprimatur into the book near its title page so readers can know for sure the contents are approved. That has proven to be a very effective way of delineating things Catholic from things non-Catholic, but it is a very un-Protestant idea indeed. I think those who would have us read only Adventist books have not thought this matter through to its conclusion. The only way we can do what they say is to follow the path of establishing some kind of magisterium of our own, something that has been, up to this point considered a very un-Adventist idea. The truth is that the call for us to read only Adventist authors is sadly misguided. If we follow it, we trade away our own thought processes that should be guided by our own contemplation of the Bible and its teachings in favor of the opinions of other humans handed to us on a plate. Such a concept is so egregious that those who want to limit reading to Adventist authors should resisted with enough passion they get reduced to silence. Theirs is truly a silly and dangerous and very un-Adventist idea to say the least, for they would have us give up the external point of reference that the Bible provides and, instead, use our own community as the ultimate standard. Our founders would recoil from such an idea in horror, for they did not have or use Adventism as their standard but the Bible. Everything they read was tested by what they knew of the Bible, and if it did not pass muster with the Bible, they threw it out. If it did not violate the principles or teachings of the Bible, they were open to holding on to it. They tended to believe all truth was Gods truth no matter where it was found. For them, the way to test truth claims was not by way of Adventism itself, but by way of the Bible. Those who argue that we should read only Adventist authors are actually asking us to trade away the gold standard - the Bible for something far less reliable! In generations past, we were known as the people of the book. Those who cry for only Adventist authors abandon that much-esteemed title for our own collective opinions. This is a terrible trade. I do not know how our church leaders or the University Board will lead us to a better future, but I sincerely hope a way will be found and that the progression toward it will not be long in coming. And I hope part of that way will include words of redemption for Alex Bryan. He is a good man! Dr. David E. Thomas had been dean of the School of Theology at WWU since 2001. Prior to joining the faculty, Thomas spent 24 years working as a pastor in New England and Washington, most recently at the College Place Village Church.