The Great Controversy Over "The Record Keeper"

This afternoon, I watched "The Record Keeper" again - the SDA funded film based on Ellen White's Great Controversy. I was again impressed by it. It's still my opinion that the suspension of the film was a mistake for the following reasons:

1.  I've seen the Record Keeper several times now. I realize full well I am looking at an allegory. There is a precedent for allegory in the Bible. Technically 7 lean cows could not eat 7 fat cows. They don't have the teeth for it and the thing, where the image Nebuchadnezzar saw is struck by a stone, didn't really happen.
2.  Cancelling the film is a huge waste of resources. The film was vetted at every step and still somehow after spending a million bucks or so, the GC didn't like the results. I don't like my tithes and offerings wasted in that fashion.
3. The failure of the GC to approve a film about The Great Controversy surprises me not a bit. The General Conference would never have allowed Jesus to tell the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, much less include it in Scripture. Christ's parable, after all, contains "theological inaccuracies".  
4. An allegory or parable is not intended to be accurate in every detail  It's designed to make a discreet and specific point and make a point it did. It's not a documentary. It's not historical fiction. It's a way to introduce the idea of the war in heaven and to draw viewers into a greater understanding of the cosmic impact of the little drama we're having here on planet Earth.
5. The Record Keeper does an excellent job of introducing the story of the war in Heaven, something most Christians know little about. It puts flesh on angels and broadens the perspective of Christ's mission to Earth and what it was about. It's a good starting point for a discussion.  
6. And no, angels aren't ninjas. It's not likely anyone will come away from the film thinking otherwise. We have no idea what a war in heaven would look like, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a College Bowl debate. The portrayal in this film only makes it clear that the conflict was really war - albeit of a sort we probably can't understand.
7. We really need some new ways to mine souls from the culture as it is. Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton for spending too much time with sinners and not paying court to the ruling elites of the church. I think the criticism of the film is uncomfortably similar to the accusations of the Scribes and Pharisees.
8. Science Fiction readers and viewers are actually really more open to the story of the Cosmic Conflict as Great Controversy is alternately titled than we give them credit for. A friend of mine became an Adventist because he picked up a copy of The Great Controversy thinking it was science fiction. By the time he finished it, he was looking up the location of the nearest Adventist church. It was seeing the war between good and evil in a cosmic context that did it for him. And this was back in the 60s. It's even more so now. If we can put Christianity into a broader context, i.e. an intergalactic war between beings we would see as aliens should they reveal themselves to us, we might just reach some folk we aren't going to reach with talking heads and sermons in our media.
9. We paid for it.  I think it was  a huge mistake to abandon the Record Keeper. I don't think the controversy over it would have been damaging to the church. It might well have been invigorating. I think every Adventist whose tithes and offerings went to fund this million dollar project should be give a copy of it for free. 
10. We church members should be allowed to decide if what we paid for is worthy. We don't need a GC nanny state. We work for Jesus. HE is our immediate supervisor.

The nice thing about digital media is that it's easy to pass around. You can find the entire 11 episodes of The Record Keeper on Youtube at the link below. If you find it useful, it's not hard to find the study guides that go with it.

Just sayin'

Tom King

Old Dogs and Children

Daisy among the daisies.

 We lost our beloved dog Daisy a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I were crazy about that little animal. I'm not one of those who believe the old "all dogs go to heaven" / Rainbow Bridge mythology, but I have come to believe that some dogs definitely must go to heaven if the universe makes sense at all.

Daisy and the old guy she rescued.

I'm working on a book about the subject that I hope you'll read when it comes out. It outlines the thinking and scripture that have brought me to the opinion that God will one day reunite us with our beloved animal companions.

First, it's possible.  If God can raise something as complex as a human being from the dead, I do believe he can manage to restore a feisty little bit of a mixed breed retriever. I say that because I know for sure and certain that God sent us the little dog in the first place.

Back in 2005, my daughter's dog Suzy was living with us. We'd had her for more than a decade and she eventually became very sick and my daughter made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep. It was a huge blow to our family as we were all very attached to her. We all showed up at the vet's at the end - three large men and two tall women all crammed into the tiny treatment room. The vet saw that there was a lot of emotion happening and wasn't sure quite how to handle that much grief packed into one little room surrounding one very sick little dog. He brought us a children's book called the Rainbow Bridge. Now all of my kids were in their twenties. I had gray hair. There were no children there, but the vet had no other comfort to offer. We grieved for that little beagle for years.

Walking with Suzy

Then our middle son, died suddenly and once again we were plunged into grief that was deep and painful. My wife developed a full blown case of bipolar disorder, in part, due to the stress of losing our boy.  One thing we both knew was that we couldn't imagine every taking in another dog. We become too attached to living things that we care for.

So, Sheila, my precious wife, never one to sit around and do nothing found her nursing skills becoming impaired. She developed a severe hand tremor and had to quite working as a nurse. She took up home care for elderly clients and took on one lovely woman named, Mary Bob. Not content to provide care on the fly, my wife took on the job with all the energy and efficiency of two people, despite the continuing damage being done to her by her struggle with bipolar. Where she no longer had the skills to provide help to Miss Mary Bob, she roped me into it.

One afternoon, after I had finished pressure washing the mold off the sides of Miss Mary Bob's house, I was carrying my tools back to the shed when I saw movement in the grass. Mary Bob's regular landscaper/gardener had recently been deported to Mexico and hadn't swum back yet, so the grass was getting pretty tall.  As I watched a pair of black ears emerged from the grass followed by dark eyes and a friendly doggy snout.

She came up out of the grass and loped over to me where she threw herself down on her back at my feet, exposing a skinny ribcage covered with fleas. I looked at her and hardened my heart.  "Oh, no," I said.  "We just can't take in another dog. It would hurt too much to lose another one." I put up the tools and avoiding eye contact, I went back to the house, climbed up on the porch and sat down on a chair to remove my dirty boots.

And there she sat. Making eye contact. "Oh no," I repeated.  She ignored me. Instead she came straight up to me, put her paws in my lap and laid her ear right on my heart and stayed that away. God didn't exactly say, "This is your dog now," but the message was clear. I called out "Help" hoping my wife would come and take the decision away for me. She burst out the front door thinking I'd cut off a finger or something. When she saw the little tableau, the dog hugging me as though afraid to let go, she stopped short. My wife is very perceptive about spiritual things. She recognizes the hand of God when she sees it.

Did someone say breakfast?

"Do you think she'll eat tuna?" she asked.  In short order, the dog had been fed, scrubbed and washed and named Daisy (because she popped up out of a meadow like a flower).  Miss Mary Bob even contributed to her rescue and gave us $50 to pay for the cost of the vet so we could get started right with her. She went home with us that day and lived with us for the rest of her life.  She house-trained herself. She had one accident and I told her "NO, don't do that," and took her outside. After that, when she needed to go, she went to the door and asked to be let out. Never had another accident.  She was the smartest most good-natured dog I've ever known. She didn't seem to be able to bark. It was a year after we got her that I heard a dog barking in the house and wondered whose dog it was. It turned out it was Daisy. She was parking at an approaching UPS delivery guy.  She never barked except to warn us that someone was coming. If she knew the people or decided they were harmless, she never barked, reserving her wrath for UPS, FedEx, the postman or anyone else in uniform that approached the house with a little too much cheek.

When she was younger, I used to let her out a couple of times a day to run. She would go bounding through the woods and along the beach near out house like some kind of demented kangaroo. She'd come home, eyes sparkling and tongue hanging out with a big stupid old doggy grin on her face. She was a high class mooch who always demanded some offering from every plate of food we ate. She didn't bark or steal food off the table. She'd just sit there with those big sad eyes till one of us, usually my wife would crumble and give her something. I always put stuff on my plate that she could safely eat. Our sharing food with her made her feel like family.

And she was family. I used to make fun of old people who talked baby talk to their pets and doted over them like they were human. Over the short span of Daisy's, however, I found myself more and more talking just like that to her as she ever more endeared herself to our hearts.  She died suddenly on my birthday in April. We fought hard to save her. Christian and not-so-Christian friends donated nearly $1800 to pay for her veterinary bills. Sadly, in spite of our prayers and the prayers of literally hundreds of others, her health continued to deteriorate rapidly over the last couple of weeks. We went for our last walk as a family just three days before she died. My wife and I were and are devastated. We prayed as hard for that little dog as we do for our children. Once again it was a pitiful scene in the vet's office as we let her go. She died with her stuffed squirrel under her paw where she liked to have it at nap time. Her ashes are on top of my rolltop desk next to a vase with a fresh daisy in it.

Daisy in her Service Dog outfit.

Daisy got us through a lot of tough times over the past few years. She would come and get me if Sheila was having a panic attack and get up right beside her and offer Sheila a head to stroke until the terror subsided. She goaded me into taking longer and longer walks that have helped me gradually lose almost 30 pounds in the past few years. People have asked me if we rescued Daisy. I tell them, "No, Daisy rescued us." C.S. Lewis had an interesting notion about the Earth where we will spend eternity that I find hints of throughout scripture, especially in Isaiah. He believed that in the New Earth, we will find all the good things of the old Earth - that this life is something like a crucible in which the dross is burned out of us leaving behind the pure gold which he will then save. Lewis and I with him think of those things as the "real" things of Earth of which this is all but a shadow. I never met a more perfect dog than Daisy, although Suzy wasn't far behind and it wasn't as if she didn't try to be a perfect dog. If the shadow Daisy was that good, then what must the "real" Daisy, recreated by our loving Father be like?. I sometimes think that it is no accident that dog spelled backward is what it is. 

• Dogs love us unconditionally. 
• Dogs are always glad to see us.
• Dogs forgive us easily and often.
• Dogs want to spend time with us.
• Dogs will die to defend you or protect you.
• Dogs like Daisy are patient, loyal and do not give up on you.

Daisy and me - worship time.

Some of the more moribund of Christian theologians scoff at the idea of God resurrecting something so lowly as a dog. "They cannot choose to follow Christ, so they cannot be saved," they say. There is no baptism for dogs. These are also the same people who believe God will chicken fry little children in an ever-burning hell just because the pastor said "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" instead of "in Jesus name" over them when they were baptized. I don't hold much credence in such grim theology.

A creature, as perfectly lovely as our Daisy was, just shouldn't be lost. He who sees the sparrow fall and makes the lion to lie down with the lamb in peace, is, I am certain after my 44 year walk with Christ, surely able and willing to give us that which is good and pure and lovely. And I have met very little in this world as good and pure and lovely as our little Daisy.  God will surely not deny us good things. Jesus said he wouldn't. And while there may be a reason God let our furry baby go to her rest sooner than we wanted to in this world, I can think of no reason for him not to give her back to us in the next.

Daisy and I and Miss Sheila have a lot of exploring yet to do. It will be one of the great joys of eternal life for us to ramble the hills of our vast and perfect world. May he come soon. I know I have a lot of folk waiting up ahead in time for us to arrive at the moment of resurrection when we are all reunited. The we will look up and see Jesus coming in the clouds. The timing of that is His, not mine. For now I wait upon Him, trusting in His goodness and wisdom. I've got a couple of brothers, a son, my grandpa, and others - a whole crowd of loved ones I expect to see again at the last trumpet. I'll also be looking around for a couple of very happy hound dogs that will throw themselves into our arms, wagging their tails for joy.  That to me is the very essence of heaven and of heaven's kindly and loving Lord.

Wendy Francisco, whose husband wrote the song "He's alive!" wrote this little song that expresses my feelings about our doggy friends precisely. I sang it once for church and found I had tears running down my face by the time I got through it. A creature who inspires that kind of love and emotion in a human being, should have a place among the redeemed of Earth.

Just sayin'.

© 2016 by Tom King

Shoot Your Own Side First - Finding My Favorite "Lost" Song

Forty years ago on a quiet Sabbath afternoon, I was hanging out with a college friend, Bow Walker in my hometown of Keene, Texas.  Bow put on a reel to reel tape of Christian folk music he'd collected. We were listening to the usual collection of spirituals, old gospel tunes on six string guitar and other folksy religious music, when Bow said, "Listen to this. You'll like it."

The singer had a resonant bass voice and a nice guitar style, but I'm a word guy and it was the lyrics that caught my attention.  The song was about soldiers gearing up to go into battle - kind of an unusual metaphor, although I was a big fan of Onward Christian Soldiers and The Captain Calls for You when I was a Primary and Junior.

But the song wasn't some martial call to Christian arms. It was satire. In this song, the sergeants were quite well versed in Scripture, upright and chaste, but as the troops were preparing to advance upon the enemy, the sergeants gave the battle cry.....

"Shoot Your Own Side First!"

If you read much of my stuff or actually know me, you probably realize I have what people in authority think of as "issues" with authority. Not in a big way, mind you, but I do tend to be at all times cognizant of the fact that my leaders do put on their underpants one leg at a time. As such, I am not over-awed by authority, which probably accounts for my checkered career as a church school teacher.  At any rate, this song really appealed to me, having grown up in and SDA college town and encountered spiritual bullies, holier-than-thou gossips and the full range of barons of private religious fiefdoms throughout my formative years.

After I heard it, I looked everywhere for the song. Bow wasn't sure what album it was from, his having copied a copy of a pirated tape to obtain the song. All I could remember of the song was that bit from the chorus about the sergeants giving the battle cry.  Had I been able to find the song, I would certainly have learned the chords and introduced it to every youth group, summer camp and sabbath school I came in contact with.

More than likely, the disappearance of this excellent song/parable is due, less to the popularity of the song than it is to the discomfort it no doubt gave to the legions of SDA deacons, elders, and local church good old boy networks it lampooned.  More than one creative artist of my generation got the old lecture about the dangers of encouraging the arrogance of youth, including me and one of the members of "Take 3", and SDA singing group that was pretty much run out of the church as heathen rock n' roll dope-fiends (they sounded a lot like Peter, Paul & Mary).  Even The Wedgewood Trio took a beating from the church's sergeants back then - so bad that the president of Loma Linda University eventually apologize 30 years later for his letter to his fellow college presidents urging that they be banned from SDA college campuses for their use of electrified stringed instruments and banjos for sacred music. Elder HMS Richards Sr., meanwhile, took The Wedgewood Trio on tour with his evangelistic crusades and Del Delker sang with them.  Both were roundly criticized for doing so, but Richards obvious success with the Voice of Prophecy radio broadcast, made the immune to the finger-pointers and they survived, although the Wedgwood Trio did not, disbanding in the mid 70s.

It says something about the character of that generation of creative young people that most of us remained in the church despite the fall of some of the leading lights of the righteousness by faith revival of the 60s and 70s. I rather think that by enduring persecution from our own church and hanging tough, we were being prepared by God for the persecution we will receive at the end of time when we ourselves will be the old graybeards (in my case literally) of the church. 

Let us hope we do better than our elders did. Let us hope we change the battle cry from "Shoot Your Own side first!" to "Lift your own side up!" so that our church doesn't wither as it had begun to do before brave men and women sounded the call to faith in the grace of God and the righteousness of Christ.

Here's what Jim looked like in his folk-singer days back
in 1976 when he made this album.

In the meantime, I've found the album and the artist who sang that wonderful song.  He is Jim Ayars. You may recall his name as a longtime member of the King's Herald Quartet. I imagine he was a perfect fit, given HMS Richards' independent style and self-assured brand of Adventism that focused on soul-winning rather than ivory-tower building. Ayars is now a pastor in Southern California and I found that he has a Facebook page and has for years been friends with people I know, including Steve Darmody, Jaime Jorge, Mike Tucker, Gerry Chudleigh and even a kid I taught in Primary at Tyler.  All these years, I've been looking for that song and the singer was right out there in plain sight.

I've done Google searches for five years without luck and then, suddenly this morning, there were three references to this song at the top of my Google Search.

I was sorely disappointed that this lovely tune was not available for download anywhere, nor could I even find it for sale in its original 12" vinyl. Jim has a deep rumbly bass voice, so it's not your usual folk music album. Some of the song titles are intriguing. Once, I had Ayars' name, however, I found the lyrics to the song in comment in a discussion on the Women's Ordination issue.  A commenter called "Billie" said, "There's a song that fits so well... one that I've been resisting quoting even in part.... but ... just can't resist any longer...  The name is "Shoot your own side first".... the lyrics were written by C. Mervyn Maxwell at the height of the seminary purge of the 1960's... and sung as a folk song by Jim Ayers...  It goes like this..."

Shoot Your Own Side First
by C. Mervyn Maxwell

• Our young recruits came marching by
  So proud they almost burst.
  Our Sergeants raised the battle cry
  "Shoot your own side first".

• The battle smoke crimped every nose
  Our men were wracked with thirst,
  But thru the ranks the watchword rose
  "Shoot your own side first".

• The foreign ranks came marching hot--
  Our soldiers feared the worst,
  But in their panic they ne'er forgot to
  "Shoot your own side first".

• The bullets whirred! The cannon roared!
  Our men were doubly cursed!
  Upon us two times death was poured--
  "Shoot your own side first".

• Our men fell wounded, maimed, and dead,
  In bright red gore immersed,
  But never blame the foreign lead--
  "Shoot your own side first".

• "Help! Help!" The dying soldier cried.
  Stop!" The private cursed.
  But in our ranks holes opened wide--
  "Shoot your own side first".

• 'Tis Christian, man, to notice sin
  and twice so if thou durst.
  Behold! The fault lies with thy kin, so
  "Shoot your own side first".

• The enemy would worship God,
  In scripture be well versed.
  They'd never sin if we were good, so
  "Shoot your own side first".

•  "Shoot your own side... ... first".

Jim Ayars in his current pastoral incarnation.

Now that I've got the lyrics, I'll look for the chords and a copy of Jim's wonderful version of it. This song needs to be sung in churches and seminary, colleges and youth groups across the land as a warning. I'm not surprised that Maxwell wrote it. He was a bit of a thorn-in-the-side to the sergeants himself back in the day. Maxwell was an SDA historian and, himself, involved in some of the disputation over theology that took place in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Some of it got rather brutal, but in checking out Maxwell's history, he seems to have managed to avoid setting fire to himself throughout the conflict. 

The song was evidently popular around the SDA seminary at Andrews in the late 60s. It's not surprising, however, that it didn't make it into "Advent Youth Sing" when Adventist youth music was canonized back in 1977. The song would have taken a rather advanced level of sophistication to see the value in this satirical gem.  

Whatever happens, the song is going into my personal Songleader's Songbook as soon as I figure out the chords. If you'd like a copy, click on the link above to download a PDF copy. This songlist of mine is not for sale or reproduction, but is for personal use only - learning to play it, sing it, etc..

If any of you know the chords to Shoot Your Own Side First, please send them to me. In the meantime, I'll be searching my limited musical memory for the nearest approximation I can muster.  Also, if you have any other such songs you'd like to share with all of us, please add them to the comments below and thank you in advance. We SDA songleaders have to stick together.


© 2016 by Tom King

Bible Archaeology's Rock Men: Seeing What They Want to See?

You See What You Want to See and 

You Hear What You Want to Hear. Ya dig?

In Harry Nillson's rather pointed rock opera, "The Point", he introduces a character called the Rock Man.  The Rock Man tries to explain to the hero, young Oblio, why people don't seem to understand things that ought to be obvious to everybody. "You see what you want to see," the Rock Man explains, "And you hear what you wanna hear.  Ya dig?"

And archaeology's confidently self-assured rock men seem to see what they wanna see rather more often than they would have you believe or that strictly adheres to the principles of good science. They seem to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear, THEN they dig. Watching documentaries on biblical archaeologies is a bit of a frustrating thing if you are a Christian for a couple of reasons.

1. They believe the Bible is a work of fiction: There is an assumption beforehand that the writers of the Bible are making stuff up as they go. And even if the biblical account finds support in the ruins, it is largely by accident.
2. The believe that their dating techniques can prove the Bible is fiction:  Archaeologists rely heavily on dating pottery shard styles, carbon dating and inscriptions by kings whom we know lie like all git-out on their victory monuments. Then they adjust their interpretations of those dates according to their own pre-conceived ideas and agendas.
3. They don't seem to read the same scriptures we do: They draw all sorts of wild conclusions from tiny passages that make perfect sense if you read them in context. Of course, if you're trying to prove a preconceived point, you'd actually expect that sort of thing.

Are you shocked that archaeologists have agendas?  Well they do. I just watched a Palestinian archaeologist explain how Israel was never more than a tribe of scruffy vagabonds who didn't amount to anything, how Abraham and Moses were made up and that the Israelites never came from Ur or anywhere else decent, but were a bunch of disgruntled serfs and peasants who revolted against their Canaanite betters.  This particular archaeologist claimed that the idea that the Israelites existed as a nation possessing the land of Canaan or that their history was anything more than "pious fiction" was equivalent to claiming the Earth was flat.

Care to guess what case he's trying to make there?

The interpretations archaeologists make of scripture cause you to wonder whether these guys ever actually read those passages. One group of scholars claim that because in one place Noah is told to bring in animals to the ark in pairs and then instructed also to bring in the clean animals in groups of seven that therefore there were two writers at work on the Noah story. That's a pretty big leap and assumes there was no such thing as clean and unclean animals prior to the Levitical laws and that the Genesis story is invented and written much later after the Sabbath laws and ten commandments are established in response to the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians as kind of a portable form of Judaism.

Some folks might find that the skepticism of many of these skeptical Biblical archaeologists should be avoided in order to not have doubts about your own faith. What I've found is that if you know the God that the Scriptures tell of, you find even in the skepticism of secular revisionist archaeologists you still discover the fingerprints of God.

It's not harmful to be aware of what the archaeologists are saying about Biblical history. It's even fun when cocky archaeologists have to eat their words because Biblical characters or events keep turning up in awkward places (at least awkward for the skeptics).

When I became a Christian, I challenged God to show himself.  My prayer the night of my conversion was, "God I think I have seen you. I will do what you say to do in order to know you, but you have to show me that you are real and who you say you are?"  Fortunately for me, God in his mercy had over the years answered my impertinent youthful prayer. I have no doubt but that He is who He says He is.

"Mythical" Israelite King David's Palace found

So don't let "higher" critics tell you that Scriptures are "spiritual" in their meaning and not to be considered "literally" true. As I used to remind my science students, a lack of evidence, doesn't prove anything. The idea that God must present Himself to us in the way we believe He ought to, misses the point of the aftermath of Eden altogether. When human beings decided to choose to do as they wished and not what God required, we in effect invited God to butt out of our lives. The fact that He has largely done so, ever since, should surprise no one. Fortunately for us God does respond to those who call upon him in faith.

I suspect that in the war of good vs. evil, that a good God would allow us to choose freely whether to follow Him or not.  An evil Lucifer, would do the opposite, coerce, deceive, and flatter in order to get us to follow him. Make no mistake, we are in a war. If you don't think the devil wouldn't take measures to confuse history and even to hide evidence, then you probably don't understand the concept of evil.

As H.M.S. Richards, the founder of the Voice of Prophecy, used to say at the end of every broadcast, "Have faith in God."  If you do, God will provide all the evidence you need, archaeological or otherwise.

© 2016 by Tom King

Trimming the Branches

On Defending the Faith:

I remember, when I was growing up in Keene, Texas, we had camp meeting every summer there on the campus of Southwestern Union College. Since I lived there, I went to all the meetings in the Primary tent, the Junior Tent and the Earliteen Meeting when they set it up at the new Science Building. I didn't go for a few years during my agnostic period, but I came back in the last year of high school and in college.  One of the annual features of camp meeting was always the delegation from The Shepherd's Rods, an Adventist offshoot that had set up shop down in Waco.

Every year they'd show up at the entrances of the Leiske-Pultar pavilion. Benjamen Roden and his bunch would meet all the grownups and pass out tracts about how the Holy Spirit is a woman and all sorts of odd sorts of "new light" that they was a' passin' out at the entrance to the main meetings.  You might know these guys by their later names - the "Branch" and the "Branch Davidians".  A guy I went to Valley Grande Academy with and later to college with, Carlos Garza used to wage guerrilla warfare with these guys every summer at camp meeting. "Cosmos" as he was called by his friends used to subscribe to every SDA offshoot's newsletters and free pamphlets. His sneaky plan was to keep as much of that stuff out of the hands of innocent Adventist church members. He kept them all in a big box that he called his Heretical Literature Library.


A bunch of us used to wait till they got set up at the doors to the main camp meeting sessions and then go down and engage these guys in big long debates and pretend we were interested. By the time they realized we weren't about to join up, everybody had got safely out of the meeting unmolested. Years letter, I was living again in Keene after a brief career as an SDA school teacher, that was ended at the hands of a Head Elder in and Eastern New Mexico church that was teaching Brimsmead Sabbath School Lessons. I made the mistake of disagreeing with him when he told me the church did better without a pastor. I told him, "Brother this church needs a pastor as badly as any I've ever seen." As the man was a big deal in the Texico Conference, that was pretty much the end of my teaching career.

So I'd been working at a residential treatment center we'd started up in Keene, much to the horror of some of the locals, when a bulletin came on television one day about a hostage crisis in Waco at the Branch Davidian compound. Days later we watched in horror as David Koresh, aka Vernon Howell III set fire to a building full of men, women and children. Later, we moved to Tyler, Texas where Mr. Howell tried to do some recruiting at one point. They wisely punted the young man out the door. His brief tenure at Tyler, however, got the church some bomb threats during the Waco Branch Davidian hostage crisis.

The devil has always attacked God's people by creating division among them. So we should not be surprised at the amount of attacks by ex-Adventists and even current but disgruntled Adventists on the church. It's no secret that there are some divisions in the church. The big kerfuffle at the last GC over women's ordination which wasn't really about women's ordination but about who makes the decision on women's ordination - the GC or the Divisions. Leave it to the devil to create an argument over power disguised as an argument over Bible truth. We've been treated to Conference presidents banning evangelists from speaking in their churches, what seems like dozens of independent ministries sniping at each other and the church as a whole. Academies are being closed and sold off every day it seems. Conference committees fights over financial issues. Every time you turn around somebody is creating a new branch or offshoot. How do we keep the church pruned so she doesn't get dragged down or over-balanced by all that unproductive dead weight, especially at a time when, if you search "Seventh-Day Adventist" on Youtube, you'll find that the first 20 pages of results are 90% anti-Adventist videos? The devil hates us, but I'm here to tell you, we are often our own worst enemy.

What's an Adventist man to do?  

He gets busy.  In Titus 3:9 we're advised to "...avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain." Jesus came to Israel at a time when the Pharisees and Saducees were fighting it out for supremacy. The Jewish "law" had become so oppressive and complicated that Jesus ' message pared the whole thing down to just two commandments: love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Even his disciples came from different factions of Judaism. There were Zealots, some of John's disciples, a couple of Jewish Nationalists, some simple fishermen and a tax collector. It was a diverse group to say the least. What was Jesus' solution for pulling this diverse group into a united front?  He sent them out to work the little towns and villages of Judea. And they still broke up when Jesus was taken by the Sanhedrin. 

God's church has always holds together best when it was busy looking for lost sheep. A drywall contractor up in Berrien Springs, who had observed Adventists for years, once observed that, "Adventists are like manure. You spread 'em out over a large area and they do a lot of good, but pile 'em up in one place and pretty soon they start to stink."

You want to keep your church busy guys. Find something for your church to do. Crank up the Dorcas society into high gear. Get a very active Pathfinder program up and running. Get a school started up. Build a food pantry. Get a disaster relief team going. A busy church is working for Jesus. Church members, busy thinking about what they can do for Christ and don't have time to bicker.

In these days, anyone who is tearing down the church and dividing the saints isn't working for Christ. He or she is working for the adversary. That doesn't mean we agree blindly with everything our leaders do. It may mean we argue among ourselves a bit, but we never NEVER forget who we serve nor that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. It's time the men of the church stood up and insisted that our congregations remember that always. We should be the voice of kindness and civility, love and peace-making. And we should never be afraid to stand up to those who would tear down our beloved churches.

We don't need sermons on church unity. We need more things for the church members to do together for Christ. The busier the church, the more united the church. We respond to doing things. 

Talking about unity? Not so much.


© 2015 by Tom King

Unveiling the Secret Place

He that dwelleth in the the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.  Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.   

Psalm 91: 1-4

There is a secret place within all of us that we are reluctant to share with anyone.Yet, as we pass through this life we are constantly reminded of it and when we are emotions come to the surface that we may think of as less than manly. We dismiss such tender feelings with scorn, calling them "nostalgia" or romanticism, adolescent or childish, as though we are above such nonsense. It is a secret place within us that we cannot tell anyone about. At the same time, we cannot share this place with anyone either, lest we reveal too much about our selves and what we may quite mistakenly believe is our weakest place.  

Our secret place persists in trying to reveal itself to the world, peaking its head out from the pages of a book, or from a movie, television show or particularly poignant commercial for a fast food restaurant.  On occasion, our world connects with our secret places in ways we do not expect and we find ourselves turning quickly away lest someone spot a mist in our eyes and try to discover the place we have tried so hard to hide for all these years.

These invasions from that other world, we attribute to a brush with something beautiful or sad or some lost memory, as if beauty, sadness or memory were the thing itself. Some of us even avoid paying too much attention to such things lest they betray that secret place within us.

We all have such a place. It is a hollow inside us that is reserved for God and ourselves alone - a perfect place from which everything we perceive as good and worthwhile is reflected in the "real" world. The great temptation is to mistake beauty or some other thing that is good for the thing itself in our desire to remain steadfastly rooted in the "real world". In this way, idols are set up, obsessions are created and lusts are cultivated.  

But the scent of a flower, the red and gold of a sunset or the waves of an aurora across the sky are not the thing itself. The beauty of a woman, the effervescence for a child or the taste of good food is merely the reflection of the beauty that lives in the secret hollow of our souls. What we perceive as good and pure and fine is recognized because we already have an image of what such things ought to look like imprinted upon our souls.  

Men in particular are taught that we need to outgrow all that childish fantasy about secret places where love is true, men are brave, and truth, honesty and integrity are as easily had as wildflowers in a spring meadow. That's kind of sad really, for that secret place in the soul is filled by God to give us an internal guide - a sort of compass that always points toward Heaven and the New Earth.

We are always turning around a corner somewhere and stumbling upon something that opens that door a bit and tells us we have seen something of the land beyond. When it happens, those of us who cherish that secret place find that, in that unexpected instance, our emotions may betray us. We find ourselves weeping over a scene from a movie or shouting "YES!" in recognition of a hint of that secret thing in some post on Facebook or a story in the news.  

If we walk humbly with Christ, we are not ashamed to embrace those messages from the divine country which God seeks to plant within us. That secret place is not easily dislodged from us, despite our efforts to shut the door on it and accept some hollow shadow of reality. It's hard work to close that door and even if we think we have successfully walled off that secret place, when life beats us down as it surely will, the light from that place is waiting, knocking patiently, waiting to break down the door if we will but turn the key. Our reward for that small surrender is a flood that breaks over us and drowns us in the very light and joy we were hunting for in the "real" world but could not find, because we had shut it away and closed our ears to it's knocking.

C.S. Lewis described it this way, "These things--the beauty, the memory of our own past--are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard; news from a country we have never yet visited."

It is the secret place of the Most High where it is best to dwell, for living there changes us into the living image of all that is good, and kind and patient and loving and wise in that place.

Tom King
© 2015

Should an Adventist Run for President If He's Not a Democrat?

David Corn, a journalist for Mother Jones, an extreme left-wing magazine and described by his publisher as a "prominent Seventh-day Adventist" produced a recent article attacking Ben Carson and justifying the medias round of hit pieces that have questioned Ben Carson's suitablility as a presidential candidate. Corn's opinion is that Carson's Adventism is fair game. In the article Corn calls Adventist theology "accusatory and paranoid" and seems to feel like Adventists (at least conservative ones) wouldn't make good political leaders. As to Corn's being a "prominent" Adventist, frankly, I've never heard of him before reading his editorial.

And to quote an old joke, "It's not paranoia, Mr. Corn, if they really are out to get you." If you watch what the pope's been saying about ending the Protestant reformation lately and joining up with evangelical charismatics, and if you remember the history of the Roman church at all, such events at this time in history do give one pause, especially if you've studied prophecy any at all. If you look at the powerful pressure being exerted worldwide to, as Pope Benedict suggested in an encyclical a few years ago, create a “true world political authority” with “real teeth,” wielding sufficient power to govern economics, food, energy, armaments, environmental protection, and migration for the whole world", it sounds reasonable to be a little concerned about the papacy's role in what seems to me to be a march toward global theological Marxism. In the same encyclical, Benedict said that trade unions, international political parties (there's only one of those - the International Communist Party), trade associations, world political and church leaders should all get together to form this new global government. He also suggested that powerful countries like the United States should be forced to submit to this world government - that's the bit about having "real teeth".

If that doesn't send a shiver up your Adventist spine, I'm not sure you've been reading your Sabbath School Quarterly.

But whatever happens with regard to religious events in the world, the United States is forbidden by its constitution to establish any religion that is supported by the government. As a practicing Adventist, Carson will stand firm in protecting that bit of the Constitution, whatever any other church or organization may attempt to do. Carson has also said he believes if you mess up the environment, you should clean up after yourself. That sounds like a sound environmental policy to me.  He says he has no problem using the military to defend the citizens of the United States. That's sound Biblical governance straight out of the Old Testament.

Everything Adventists believe might happen at the end of time can be addressed simply by keeping the US government in line with the Constitution. That's a very presidential thing to do. It's also a very Christian thing to do. Many other Christians also believe that the end is near. Few of us in the Christian faith believe in turning the US into a theocracy. Those who do are de facto enemies of the state because we are prohibited from allowing any establishment of a national religion by the Constitution. I can see, however, why leftists, Adventist or otherwise, might have some issues with Carson's protectiveness toward the Constitution, given the left's complaints that the Constitution only tells what the government can't do, not what it should do. Believe me, the left has whole new amendments about that subject ready and waiting to do some "adjustment" to the founding documents.  Carson, would clearly resist meddling with the Bill of Rights especially.

Adventists are down with that. We have long printed a church-run magazine called "Liberty" which is devoted entirely to promoting religious liberty in the US. We are free-market missionaries. We run extensive medical work and have the second largest parochial school system in the country including the prestigious Loma Linda University School of Medicine. Many of our missionaries are even self-supporting. We Adventist run missions all over the world. We are first on the scene with the Red Cross and Salvation Army at disasters. We dig wells, educate children and help people achieve economic independence, good health and peace of spirit in every corner of the Earth. We have more members outside the United States than inside it.

The church's beliefs about the end times do not prevent us from being loyal Americans, loving our neighbors as ourselves and planning for the future as a nation, whether Jesus gets here in 10 years or 200.  This has absolutely zero impact on Carson's potential service as president.  The Adventist negative reaction toward Carson within the church is more about him being a Republican as, for some odd reason, there are quite a the number of SDAs who are lifelong Democrats. Left-wing SDAS find Carson's conservative politics very unsettling.  Historically, most elected SDA politicians have been Democrats including the infamous (and to me entirely embarrassing) Sheila Jackson Lee who claims to be an Adventist. Lee is so far out there that even her Democrat colleagues are wary of enlisting her aid lest she humiliate them with one of her classically ridiculous rants.

I think if Carson were a Democrat he'd be getting less harassment from members of his own church. Even in the Adventist church, if you're black you're expected to be a Democrat. It's kind of sad, considering the Democrat Party's history with regard to slavery, Jim Crow Laws, segregation, lynchings, the KKK, Sunday Blue Laws and the assassination of Dr. King (James Earl Ray was an ardent Democrat). You'd think black Adventists would lean toward being Republicans, but that's a national conundrum, not a church problem.

There is also a good deal of fear among the members and even the clergy, that Carson's candidacy will shine an unwelcome light on the church and its beliefs by standing for the highest office in the land. The fear among some Adventists, I think, is that the scrutiny of the media on Carson's faith will bring on the time of trouble, which many SDAs fear, thanks to some pretty scary evangelist meetings we all went to as kids.  

Not me, though. I am not afraid and I welcome the scrutiny our church will get during the Carson campaign. It may even serve to flush out some of the nonsense that takes place in the dark corners of Adventism - things that should be flushed out. There's nothing like having to defend your beliefs to bring your belief system into sharp focus.

I'm proud to believe the things I believe. I'm not afraid of wading into the debate over my faith that is sure to come. The mainstream press and Washington good old boy network is terrified at the idea of an honest man in the Oval Office. I think some Adventists are afraid Carson will make us look bad or that, once in the public spotlight, he'll draw fire down on the church. God, however, commands us to go into all the world preaching the gospel. I don't think Christ would have a problem if the world came to us asking us what is our testimony about him.  Time for proclaiming that Three Angels Message we're always talking about.

Me I think Carson has been called by God for such a time as this. He didn't seek this out, it was pretty much thrust upon him because he had the courage to tell the truth to power at a National Prayer Breakfast. I think he's already show his ability to handle the kind of dirty media tricks they will throw at him. Even if he doesn't win, it's going to put our church on display and that's not a bad thing. Maybe we can stop straining at gnats and take on some of those camels that are the real problems in this world and in the church.

Time to stand in the breach...

I understand the fear, though. I would imagine Esther felt that kind of fear when she went before the Kings to plead for her people. Joseph probably felt it when he first stood before Pharaoh. I'm sure Daniel had a little trepidation when he went into the lion's den. But fear doesn't have to lead to cowardice. We have a God, who is mighty to save.

The theology of my church is imminently logical, scriptural and the only way to make it bad or weird is to distort those beliefs all out of whack.  Like Carson's response to the medias attempts to trash his record and reputation, I believe it is time for Adventist to stand up and say, "I'm proud to believe what we believe!" and to defend ourselves before principalities and powers. Why not? The truth is on our side is it not? And repeating our defense over and over in the media will certainly land us more free public relations than we ever could have gotten otherwise.

And there's no reason to worry about an Adventist president upsetting relations with anyone because of his religion. We believe in the Golden Rule (something both Trump and Clinton apparently don't mind bending to suit their own ambitions). SDAs aren't anti-anybody, much less anti-Catholic. We've been getting along with our fellow Catholic and Protestant brethren for better than 150 years now. There are a lot of folk who believe in the Rapture and the rise of an anti-Christ. Some have even occupied the White House. Is THAT going to make them bad leaders of our country and unelectable? Of course not.

Christians don't believe we have to conquer the world and force everyone to obey our religion before the Messiah can come. That's Islam (which accounts for what Carson said about a Muslim President). The Christian faith on the other hand tells us to not lie, kill, cheat, steal, commit adultery, disrespect our parents or be greedy or even to rebel against our government except where it conflicts with our duty to God. That's pretty straight American patriotism. The Pledge of Allegiance even has that line about "one nation, under God." Even the pledge allows for God's sovereignty over the state. Sounds like an excellent set of values for someone we are going to choose to be the chief executive of our government.

It sounds to me that what a lot of Atheists, Christians, Catholics and even some Adventists are trying to say is that the president needs to be an atheist (or a nice acceptable kind of lukewarm Christian) with no firm religious belief system other than what the herd believes about socialism, evolution, atheism and environmentalism in order for that person to be an acceptable candidate for the presidency. Every US president in history has been a believer of some sort. We've managed to muddle along without their religion turning the United States into a religious gulag. I think an Adventist neurosurgeon is smart enough to handle it.

Time to put on our big boy pants and enter the arena my Adventist brothers and sisters. Stop being afraid of the time of trouble. Will God not bring you through it, if you believe. Shouldn't we be prepared to testify as to our faith? I think what may be confusing us is that we thought all along that we'd be testifying before priests, judges and soldiers. Who knew it might well be before TV cameras and Klieg lights?


Tom King
(c)2015