What About These 'Official Statements' of The Church? (Part one)

Introduction by editor.

• Fulcrum7 staff are not ideologically opposed to vaccines. You want the jab, help yourself. You don’t want it, fine. We simply do not care. Most of us have opted with clear conscience for the Creator’s natural immunity, and believe that to be superior. In other words, we toughed it out and are satisfied with the results. We are also glad the the pandemic is (mostly) over so we can discuss other matters confronting the church.

• We are unapologetically opposed to forcing people against their conscience. We believe it is wrong to do that. We also believe our Church should be a defense for people who prefer natural immunity, especially when the cost of doing so rises from hostile governments.

• The very first news article that Fulcrum7 ever wrote (in January 2016) was regarding a pro ‘Global Warming’ ADCOM Statement in 1995—a Statement that sounded like it was written by Al Gore himself. It was that bad. Since then we have largely ignored ADCOM statements, other than to note that among the NAD there was a growing tendency to issue statements that speak for the church—when the church has not spoken.

• We believe that ADCOM has done some good for the church and we don’t wish to minimize their positive contributions. We also believe that like the NAD, it is tempting for them to issue statements without representative input from the world body. Perhaps too tempting.

• This unsolicited two-part series on the history of official statements is interesting, and we invite you to consider its implications as we seek to be the Remnant of God and a representative working body of our Advent Message.

• We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we welcome a deeper understanding on how our church works, and how it may—at times—be improved.

There’s Something Fishy About These “Official” Statements

Background:

The concerns raised in regards to the Immunization statement published on the SDA Church Official Statements page has prompted a keen interest in the origin and content of these various statements and how members of the church are expected to relate to them.

Summary:

The research into the chronological origin and content of these statements suggests that, the initial reasonably harmless content, deriving from the appearance of a robust and authoritative body, set precedents which subsequently led to increased usurpation of the world church membership’s voice. We have smaller representative/administrative bodies producing statements that diverge to an ever greater degree from the content of the 28 Fundamentals and appeal to secular authorities and sources as basis for their authority. Effectively, the statements run parallel, and often in contradiction, to the 28 Fundamentals, and there is no mechanism of oversight, maintenance or accountability to govern them. These published statements masquerade as the voice of the world membership, despite being of no obvious benefit to the membership and, on the contrary, causing harm in certain cases.

Recommendations:

It is therefore the recommendations (in descending order of preference) of this article that:

1.      These statements are all withdrawn/rescinded. The content of some may be repurposed for:

a.      enriching the 28 Fundamental Beliefs where appropriate

b.      non-binding “guidelines”/suggestions after a process of robust scrutiny by a duly established/authorised governance body prior to acceptance

c.      commentary clearly labelled as “Messages From the Office of the President.”

The church’s voice should be reserved for, and expressed exclusively through, the 28 Fundamentals as voted in a regularly convened GC Session.

2.      Failing that, these statements are all treated as provisional until ratified by a GC Session vote at the next regularly convened GC Session (2025).

a.      Should the GC Session fail to ratify the statement, it should be rescinded.

b.      Should the statement prevail in the ratification, then it should be dealt with according to successive optimal outcomes to ensure consistency of content:

                           i.     inserted into the relevant Fundamental belief

                           ii.     if touching on a previous statement subject matter be worked into a current,
comprehensive, coherent and consistent refreshed statement 

                           iii.     as a last resort, a new statement may be issued.

Failure to implement recommendations 1. or 2. will prolong the current concern and confusion as described in the remainder of this article.

Any objection to the proposal of GC Session review and vote as ratification of the statement should logically prompt reconsideration of whether the statement can truly be published as reflecting the voice of the world church membership. If the content of the statement is of such nature that it is unlikely to pass in a GC Session, then does it warrant publishing as a statement reflective of the voice of the world church membership at all?

These are fair questions to ask, and the proposal of a GC Session-voted ratification is therefore a reasonable and robust solution to preserve the integrity of the world church membership’s voice.

What are the SDA Beliefs?

It is perplexing that these statements appear on the official website of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in a drop-down menu under the link titled “Beliefs”.

1.      Should SDA believers (and baptismal candidates) be made aware of or informed about these statements? As they are presented to the world as SDA beliefs, they should.

2.      Do these statements convey information regarding SDA beliefs in addition to the 28 Fundamentals?

The lack of clear answers to these questions prompted my research presented below. Let us ask ourselves “What constitutes an ‘official’ statement”?

What does the Church Manual say?

To answer this question, we would naturally turn to the authoritative document describing church governance, namely the Church Manual.

What does the church manual say on “official statements”? The answer is nothing. There is no reference to “official statement/s” in the church manual. This should be the first red flag, that the official church governance document is silent on this matter. Thus, we all are left pondering, what are these statements and how should we as members of the church relate to them?

Searching the church manual for the word “statement/s” is informative. There are 9 occurrences of these keywords, most irrelevant in regards to discussing “official” statements of the global church, however there is this section:

Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists: Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. These beliefs, as set forth here, constitute the church’s understanding and expression of the teaching of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference Session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God’s Holy Word.

From this section we are informed that official statements:

1.  Articulate the understanding of the fundamental beliefs of the church and originate from a GC Session.

So, what do the so-called “SDA Church Official Statements” intend to achieve? From time to time, Seventh-day Adventists find it important to articulate their understanding of certain important topics in light of their understanding of biblical values and teachings.

1.  To articulate understanding

2   In light of biblical values and teachings (i.e., beliefs)

This seems very similar to the intention of the Fundamental Beliefs. Thus, a second red flag is the potential for these statements to add to, or contradict, the Fundamental Beliefs. Do these statements originate from a GC Session? To answer this, we will have to analyse the details of these statements.

Detailed Statement Analysis of 59 ‘Church Statements’

Origin

Analysis of the various bodies producing statements reveals the following. In total, there are 59 statements currently published:

• GC Session: Only 2 of these are recorded as originating from a GC Session.

o   The very first statement: Peace Message to All People of Good Will, “This statement was adopted by the General Conference session in Dallas, Texas, April 1980.”

o   And the 55th statement: Statement of Confidence in the Writings of Ellen G White, “This statement was voted by the General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventists Church in San Antonio, Texas, July 2-11, 2015.”

The remaining 57 originate from:

• One is Undisclosed:

o   The 56th statement, Statement on Transgenderism, has no clarification of origin.

o   Should there be conflict in this statement compared to the Fundamental Beliefs, the church membership would not know who to hold to account.

o   Given this lack of clarity on origin and accountability, this cannot be published as an official statement of the church.

• One derives from the Organizing Committee of the International Faith & Science Conferences:

o   The 41st statement: Affirmation of Creation “This document, prepared by the Organizing Committee of the International Faith & Science Conferences 2002-2004 was presented to and received by the General Conference Executive Committee at the Annual Council in Silver Spring, Maryland, October 11, 2004.”  

o   Regardless the fine work of the Organizing Committee, this is not a body authoritative to the global SDA church, and is not a recognized source of official church statements.

• President’s Office

  o   There are 10 statements which were released unilaterally by the President

§  Twice via the GC Communications Department: “Statement released … by the Communication Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters, on behalf of the President’s Office,”

§  The other 8 have an intriguing and informing origin description: “This public statement was released by the General Conference president, Neal C. Wilson, after consultation with the 16 world vice presidents of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, …, at the General Conference session ...”

o   These statements are not official church statements.

o   These should be listed under a different webpage entirely un-associated with SDA Beliefs, perhaps, on a “Messages From the Office of the President” page.

o   The list of statements are: Drugs; Racism; Peace; Ban on Sales of Assault Weapons to Civilians; Pornography; Homelessness and Poverty & Chemical Use, Abuse, and Dependency

• GC EXCOM or GC ADCOM

o   There are 48 statements voted by GC ADCOM or EXCOM.

o   The statements are too numerous to list here.

o   There are significant questions in regards to what constitutes an “administrative” issue, and
whether the production of “official” church statements falls within the remit of
administrative action.

o   Considering the church manual position on what constitutes “statements” (articulation of [fundamental] beliefs) and how these are deemed “official” (voted in a GC Session) the ADCOM and EXCOM members should, at a minimum, welcome these questions. It is self-evident that the production of official statements which claim to speak for every member of the church is not an administrative task, but an activity best handled within the wide representation and solemn atmosphere of a GC Session by the delegates.

Chronological Content Analysis

A chronological and more detailed review of the statements highlights further observations:

1.      The church operated without such statements for 117 years from 1863 until 1 April 1980, when the 1st statement was “adopted” by the GC Session, with Neal C. Wilson as GC President.

a.      “Adopted” was not defined, so this is unclear how it was discussed and voted to be accepted and thereafter published.

b.      The subject matter was Peace Message to All People of Good Will, hardly subject matter that would invoke strong resistance, and the content was a call to prayer and evangelism, driven by an evangelistic program launched on all continents at that time.

c.      The issue here being, while the statement content is probably not objectionable, we do not find an equivalent of this statement in the 28 Fundamentals (or more accurately, at that time 27 Fundamentals), thus we find that this statement is adding to a topic that the official beliefs are silent on. This subtle departure will become more problematic as we continue the analysis, namely the practice of publishing statements on matters which the church membership has not spoken.

d.      This statement was also time bound to a specific period as context, and therefore it is not reasonable to be published as a timeless statement, as seems to be the practice with these 59 statements. 

e.      Furthermore, it may be that this statement, whether intentional or not, became a Trojan horse of precedent, allowing for “official” statements to run outside of the 28 Fundamentals.

2.      At the next GC in 1985, Neal C. Wilson, made use of this precedent established under his presidency to pronounce three unilateral statements.

a.      The unilateral nature of these statements was not immediately apparent since these were pronounced during the GC Session and apparently after consultation with the 16 world vice presidents

b.      He issued a fresh statement on Peace and then 2 additional statements on Drugs and Racism. This raises the next concern around these statements, namely the risks of redundancy and/or embellishing.

                  i.     The peace statement was already pronounced the GC before, why was the existing statement not revised, maintained or updated for it to remain the single statement on the topic of “Peace”? This would promote harmony and internal consistency within the church’s so-called “official” statements. While this is by no means an endorsement of the suitability of first statement, it is a logical expectation to prevent proliferation of and potential contradiction among statements.

                                ii.     The statements on drugs and racism refer to fundamental beliefs (although some of the indexing in the statement is out-of-date given the addition of the 28th fundamental belief – i.e., demonstrating the fact that these statements lack ongoing maintenance); thus an official statement was not warranted, the church already has official statements on these matters articulated in the fundamental beliefs. The office of the president may publish “a message from the president” encouraging and further expounding the understanding and adoption of these beliefs. We support that. Creating a redundant version of these statements add risks in case a point was mis-articulated (which is more likely to occur given the single-source origin).

3.      1987 we reach the next major milestone of dangerous precedent, namely that of “out-of-GC Session” statements voted by a committee.

a.      The EXCOM votes a statement on Sexual Behavior at its annual council session.

b.      Thus, the risk of a smaller representation of the church membership hijacking the official voice of the church is now no longer limited to unilateral declarations at times of GC, but it can occur at any time they feel like it.

c.      Also, the church has a fundamental belief that deals with the principles discussed in this statement, but there is no reference to the fundamental belief, and therefore the end product of this statement could become untethered to that of the fundamental belief.   

4.      By the next GC in 1990 Neal C. Wilson continued with the precedent he had set and produced 4 new unilateral statements.

a.      Chemical Use, Abuse, and Dependency (a further elaboration of the Drugs statement), thus more redundancy

b.      Pornography and Homelessness and Poverty, the content of both these statements start to betray a common theme, namely that of an absence of references to the fundamentals and increased use of secular sources to lend credence to the message of the statement, thus blurring the concrete clarity of the basis of the fundamental beliefs being “Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures”.

c.      This is a nuanced point, but requires careful understanding. When the church speaks, it should speak with the Bible as its foundation. This to ensure that church statements are defensible from the Bible. Obviously in expounding (in a non-official capacity of clarifying commentary) there may be references to non-SDA sources for illustrative purposes, but official statements should be drawn from the church’s official source, the Bible only.

d.      The departure from Bible-based statements is very obvious when confronted with the content of the Ban on Sales of Assault Weapons to Civilians statement. It is a worrying statement given its strong alignment with certain vocal political views and lack of basis in Scripture. It suggests a creep towards a humanistic moralism, and betrays a social justice influence.

e.      We will from this point on observe how increased use of non-biblical sources start to cloud the content of these so-called official statements.

Stay tuned for part 2

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Henk Viljoen lives in South Africa and is happily married with four children.