Submitted by: Morrissey | View Member Profile | View Other Posts
Created: 1/16/2010
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What Conservatism Did to Me and How God Taught Me the Right (Part One)
Written by me
Edited by Lisa E. R.
Editor's note: This article was written from the perspective of a conservative Seventh-day Adventist. It highlights many of the dangers and pitfalls of conservative Adventism. It should not be taken by those who are more liberal as an excuse to throw standards and rules out the window. Also, note that Sister Morrissey wrote the original of this – which was 43 pages long in a bigger font – in increments, very early mornings from February 15th through March, 2009. Due to her health condition, she could not edit it / condense it until much later on; I (Sister Lisa) did not want to wait for her to edit it as I had much interest in this article and wanted to share it with some people I knew, so I volunteered to do this editing for her, which she tweaked a little bit thereafter.
“I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.” Psalm 32:8.
In the past few months (October 2008 – February 2009), the Lord has been teaching me in a way I never thought possible. He has seen fit to change the very undergirding of my thinking. This has been very difficult for me. You see, I have an extremely analytical mind, much like a lot of men's minds, and I used to idolize analytical thinking, considering it one of my best assets. Lately the Lord has shown me the dangers in relying too much upon my own wisdom/analysis. It is my prayer that you will be able to benefit from my experience.
There are a few details about me that you need to know to be able to appreciate this article. I am an only child. During my teen years, due to extremes in diet, my mother and I lost our health – she worse than I by far – and during that time I was her helper and “nurse”. Due probably to my youthfulness, and definitely to reversing of the extremes, I was able to get my health back (pretty much) after a few years of my mother’s and my diligent efforts to effect this. My mother has had a harder time of it, and I have found myself being her helper and doing what I can of the things around the house that she is not able to do.
After mostly recovering my health, I began looking into the possibility of marriage, and over the course of several years had two boyfriends. I will give a few details on this later, but for now let me say that since breaking up with the second, I have had little or no desire at all for any kind of relationship. In fact, it was these two relationships, and the emotional drain they brought (among other things), that sent me into adrenal burnout in 2007. I so far have been through/in three stages: in the first, I was very depressed, mentally and physically; in the second, my mental faculties were sharper, but my body was without energy; in the third present stage (early 2009), my body has a fair amount of physical energy IF I get my sleep and stay on our health schedule/regimen, but my mind is more or less in a shut-down state, working at only about 10% of normal capacity. [Added note: in about early May of 2009, Mother and I learned from blood tests that she and I both have borderline hypothyroidism, which for me would greatly contribute to my brain fog / reduced function.] It was during the first part of this third stage, when my mind was slowed down so much, that the Lord was finally able to break through and teach me the things that I will be sharing here.
A Whole New Plane
There are people who seem to be born on a plane where kindness and gentleness and tact are the higher rule in their lives. Then there are people like me who are born on an entirely different plane. I was born with a man's brain, and have many of the classic male pitfalls that go with it. I also process information in a very analytical fashion. Up until October of 2008, I always thought that being analytical was a good thing, that it was superior to other ways of thinking. In fact, analytical thinking had become a god to me—something I worshiped without knowing it, thinking that I and those who thought this way were superior to others.
But in the back of my mind, there was always this nagging sense that something was missing from my life. I used to have such terrible run-ins with my mother. When she would say something that she could not back up well enough by Biblical/inspired proof or else be explained by my logic/knowledge, I would refuse to believe her, and sometimes this would lead to my treating her with disdain to put it mildly.
My two ex-boyfriends and I were constantly analytical about everything. Generally speaking, it seems we hardly know how to think about or view anything except in an analytical light. This is what attracted me to them in the past. I used to view this degree of analytical thinking as a good thing, but now I see it as a weakness. I know some people who have the ability to think analytically but who do not do so automatically about everything. They have the law of kindness as the higher rule. I see now that these are the people I need to learn from.
The spirit of the law—kindness and mercy and dependence on God—these things are over and above logic and reason. I used to believe that these qualities were not only on the same level as analysis, but were to be determined by it. This kind of thinking is dangerous! When someone would tell me something, or if I read or heard something, I would tear it apart down to the very last speck, and if I found something—anything--that I felt was wrong or inconsistent, I would pass judgment on the whole based on my assessment of its parts, and throw the whole thing out—and the author too! How sad! (I got this partly from taking analytical thinking too far, but also partly from taking “to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, there is NO LIGHT IN THEM” too literally, albeit that is how it has been presented to me from conservative SDA sources for 2 decades.)
I have also learned that I have never known what real kindness, love, and mercy are. I always understood them from the perspective of a list: I could only define them and give their characteristics, showing examples of them from the past and how we are to express them today. But as far as anything higher than a categorical list understanding of them—no, I had never known anything of them in a higher sense. I didn't even know there was anything higher to know!
I am now beginning to rise above where I was and enter a higher realm. It feels like I need to learn to walk all over again! I am amazed at what I have to learn and re-learn, and just how unprepared I really am for life. It has been a most humbling process, but one for which I am most thankful. I can never be so absolute about my own views or ideas. I am now far more dependent on God to show me what His will is for me, rather than trying to reason it out just on my knowledge of His revealed will.
Of course, the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy are still big factors in determining His will, but not in the same way they used to be. They used to be an idol, but not anymore. I now worship and seek God and God alone for myself, and seek to use His word as a tool in learning of Him and His will, not a means and an end in and of itself.
The Turning Point
Looking back, I can see that my rigidity in clinging to my cherished list of do's and don'ts has caused me to treat people harshly, and unknowingly hurting them. I deeply regret this. To put the law of kindness and love and mercy first, to show true brotherly love, even when one disagrees or has different standards, is what true religion is all about. Let me illustrate from my life.
My mother is almost the exact opposite of me when it comes to how our brains work. She has almost no analytical thinking ability at all, although she is very good at analysis but in a different way than your typical more mathematical type analytical thinking. And thanks to “list religion” (of which I will speak more later), as I grew older I began becoming more and more defensive and nasty towards my mother whenever I would perceive that she was saying something that was not technically right--or that seemed unfair, or something I didn't understand, and therefore thought was stupid or incorrect, etc. (although it ALWAYS turned out later that I could see she was right….). This continued on into my adult years. I just couldn't see her side of things very well at all on the spot, and thought that since I had the analytical brain, my perspective just had to be the right one. Then some things happened in January of 2007 that rudely woke me up and gave me a profound appreciation of how good her insight really is and how my perceptions of the not-so-clear areas tend to be wrong. But even since that time, I had continued to pounce on my mother whenever she said anything that appeared to be incorrect or technically not right, even though I was practically always wrong as I would find out after the fact each time. I began to really wonder if there was some hidden anger or resentment deep inside of me—why else would I do this to her? Sometimes I would wonder if I just had to put up with it until I could live on my own, since I knew she wasn't analytical like I was.
The truth was that my very tendency to view everything from an analytical perspective was the root of the problem. And I couldn't see it…until one fateful day in mid October 2008.
That day, my mother said something to my father that instantly seemed to me to be extremely unfair and hypocritical (although later I saw that it was not that way—as usual), and I pounced on her and glared at her as if I wanted to tear her to shreds. It hurt her so badly—and horrified me so deeply—that I began to wake up to her suggestions of what the problem might be as I never had before. I went to the Lord, praying for His help and guidance.
Praise the Lord, five months later, I am no longer scared of Mother. I have not had even the slightest inclination to instantly think she is wrong or unfair and then pounce on her. It is gone! Sure I still have a hard time understanding her at times, but that tendency to get angry at her about it as if she is at fault, is gone! It is gone because I don't worship technical correctness over and above everything else, like I used to do. If something doesn't seem totally right now, it doesn't bother me—I can just leave it with God and let Him make things clear as He wills, and He does! And the Lord is indeed redoing my thinking, and teaching me a better way. I still have a long, long way to go, but I can surely see much progress. I now see how much I really need my mother—how much I really can learn from her, now that I am willing to learn.
List Religion
I have come to see that many conservative Adventists and conservative Adventist ministries have what I call “list religion”—a vast array of lists and categories of do's and don'ts. They talk much about love and the Spirit and mercy and the like, but with most it never goes anywhere, because they are just more categories of information and characteristics on the same plane as everything else. Not until the Spirit of the law and the higher law of kindness/love/mercy is put on an altogether higher plane than all the rest will it ever make a difference in people's hearts and lives. I praise God that I am seeing this, and I praise my mother's prayers and persistent efforts through the years to get me to see it.
For instance, I saw love on the same plane with all the other do's and don'ts that I had learned. I had never understood its higher meaning. Many people, especially conservative Christians, tend to think that love is for some purpose—to get something in return, to accomplish something. I was pondering on the waters of a river or a stream, and how they flow on and on, never asking for something in return, never seeking their own, but always flowing to bless and refresh all in their path. I then thought of 1 Corinthians 13, and how it says that love “seeketh not her own.” Then later my mind was repeating a prayer I had memorized years ago from Sister White's writings, which says, “Save me in spite of myself, my weak unchristlike self. Mold me, fashion me, raise me into a pure and holy atmosphere, where the rich current of Thy love can flow through my soul,’ and out to be a blessing to others” (COL 159, emphasis supplied). I fairly shouted, “That's it!” God's love flows out to all life, whether grateful or ungrateful, whether responsive or unresponsive. Its purpose is not to take control of those it touches, but to bless all and to continue to flow on and on no matter what. This is the beauty of God's love, and He desires us to be free to respond, not because He is grasping for it, not because that love came with strings attached, but for the precise reason that it did not have strings attached!
Through the ultra-conservative SDA churches, ministries, and publications I have been immersed in most of my life, I have been so indoctrinated with the idea that efforts for others are to be for the express purpose of getting baptisms, saving souls, bringing in numbers, having something to “show” in return for the efforts put out; and that if there are no fruits, then there is something wrong with the effort and love thus shown. This false ideology has made it hard for me to grasp the idea of real true freedom in the love of God and how we are to show it to others. But thanks to what God as done in my mind recently, it is finally getting through to my brain! Praise God!
According to the technicality of the law of God alone, Adam and Eve would have been doomed. Technically, God was under no obligation whatsoever to rescue them. But it was love and mercy—the higher law—that compelled the great God of the universe to come down to this planet to die to save all, with no strings attached—not demanding any promise of acceptance from all humans first before He would plan to die for all. He died for all, well knowing that many would not accept that sacrifice, but He did it anyway, freely, for those who would freely accept and respond. Oh, the love of God! Oh how blinded I have been to the reality of these things! How many times I may have stated things like this, but never saw it in its real light. I was so blinded by keeping it on the same level as the do's and don'ts, as my lists and understandings of right and wrong, rather than viewing it like it really is—that love and mercy really are above all else. And the proof is in Christ on the cross! Where have I been all these years to miss something so basic?
False Faith and False Faithfulness
Speaking of the basics, I used to think I knew what it meant to “be faithful in that which is least.” It meant to be faithful in the little tasks of life, and that those who were faithful in the little duties and trusts would also be “faithful in that which is much.” I was proud of how careful I was to obey in the little things, and I thought I had no problem in this area, and that therefore I should do well in being faithful in bigger things.
The truth, as I have now discovered, is that I only understood part of the meaning of the text, and not the most important part. There is a much more basic and higher meaning: to be faithful to bring every thought and choice into obedience to Christ, to be submitted and resting in Him every moment, and to be ready to be used or not as He chooses. It means not trying to force the hand of God to help us do things we think He wants done, but which He might not want done at all by that person at that time.
In this area of “being faithful in that which is least,” I find myself practically needing to learn to walk all over again. I have been so accustomed to thinking and studying and standing for myself that I scarcely have any skills at all in letting God do the guiding. I am so used to trying to figure it out myself based on my knowledge of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy—so busy focusing on “my part” that I hardly know what God's part is in my life, or how to let Him have His way with me. Not only am I not ready to do great things, but I actually need to retrain myself and relearn all manner of very basic things. Just like the song “Live Out Thy Life Within Me” says, “Ready to have Thee use me, or not be used at all.”
My mother was never affected by over-conservatism in this way. Oh yes, she has been deceived and misled into extremes on diet and lifestyle (I'll deal with that later), but her mind and soul have never been sullied by that exacting, demanding, over-technicalism that has almost been my undoing. Conservative Seventh-day Adventism can be bad for someone who is not a slave to analytical/categorical thinking; but for someone like me who scarcely knows anything else than analytical thinking, it is ten times worse and very damaging.
I have found that my brain works on something like geometric planes with algebraic-like formulas defining the bounds of those planes. Without exact formulas, I tend to be all or nothing and thus take things to extremes in areas of life where I don't have something exact to define where the balance is. In recent years, my formulas defining the middle appeared more balanced outwardly than that of many conservatives that I knew. But I simply had a different list of do's and don'ts than many of my conservative friends. My underlying problem of needing to live beyond the do's and don'ts was still there and still a problem.
Studying for ourselves, doing “our part,” being on guard for error, taking the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy literally, testing all things and rejecting that which doesn't match the law and the testimony—all these things occupied an extremely important place in my thinking. I had unknowingly put them on a higher plane than having a living connection with Christ. In fact, I didn't even know how to have a living connection with Christ. To me it was some sort of distant, mystical “faith” that really was not faith at all.
A Running Ratio
You might ask how I could have gotten the idea that a connection with Christ isn't to be in first place. None of the ultra conservatives teach that, do they? Don't they teach that a living relationship with Jesus Christ is the only thing that will save anyone, and that no amount of works or right thinking will help? This is true, but you must understand how my mind works.
It seems that my brain has been running a continuous average, a kind of score card or running ratio of how much emphasis is being placed on a connection with Christ as opposed to having correct knowledge and actions and fruit, etc. Since the vast majority of emphasis from all my formative sources combined (other than my parents) was always on having correct knowledge and fruits and works, my brain summed up that they were the things that mattered most in the spiritual life—regardless of the occasional statements otherwise.
Looking very critically at the matter, it seems that most ultra-conservatives do not practice a living connection with Christ as first and foremost. They are usually such worshipers of doctrines and works and lists that they don't even know what a real living connection with Christ is—much less how to live it—and so they only give it occasional disclaimers rather than the large coverage it needs. They know it as a technicality of salvation, but that is all. No wonder it comes across as secondary!
True Humility
I used to think that I knew what humility meant. I saw it as a category of certain attitudes defined by certain mental do's and don'ts, but now I see that it is far more than that! Humility in the most practical and important sense is this: understanding that without Christ we can do nothing, truly nothing! True humility is total and complete reliance upon and trust in God every single moment about every single thing. Being humble is to not assume that knowledge or habits or anything in us can help us accomplish anything or cause us to figure anything out correctly, but that it is God and God alone in us that can work through us to make anything happen. It is a conscious attitude (at least in the beginning); something very real and practical. It is not some mystical thing that is supposed to somehow happen automatically just by lots of reading and studying and witnessing.
Conservatives say we can do nothing without Christ, but in practice and teaching there is so much emphasis on study and action, logic and lists, that it comes across that “our part” is something we must do in our own strength and in our own wisdom. True, they will say it is not in our own strength, but the sheer amount of emphasis placed on “our part” with very little on God's part shows that there is something else going on.
As a matter of fact, with all the emphasis on my part—my studying, my reasoning and analysis, my witnessing, my good works—a very subtle form of pride, arrogance, and selfishness took root and thrived in my heart. Pride, arrogance, and selfishness are the opposites of humility, so this explains why I never grasped true humility until the ratio was straightened out in my mind. In other words, I was a Pharisee until that ratio was straightened out!
Real Righteousness by Faith
As it turns out, conservative Seventh-Day Adventism has no more a correct concept of righteousness by faith than your average evangelical Christian has. Evangelicals tend to believe in a once-saved-always-saved magical, presumptuous kind of “faith”; conservative Adventists tend to believe in a righteousness-by-lists kind of faith that also has a magical aspect to it. This kind of “faith” depicts God as “somehow” being the One that actually works through our efforts even though from all we can tell, it is all our own will-power and sheer determination that ever makes anything happen. By focusing so much on do's and don'ts and “our part,” the real aspect of God's part fades from the understanding and the life—if it ever was there to begin with.
It occurred to me that the kind of faith I have been taught from all these sources all these years is more akin to deism. The impression is given that God is some magical force that is “out there” and that “somehow” comes and helps us make right decisions and get good works done; but the actual mechanism is never talked about. We are taught to study the Bible, witness, do good works, etc., but not taught how to surrender in each and every choice and thought and action. This makes it appear like magic, and in many ways this “faith” is rather fatalistic.
It is pathetic how many Christians—Adventists included—actually believe in fatalism in terms of how they think of sickness and trials. They believe that these problems come “for some reason known only to God,” and that they simply must endure them. But God has so clearly revealed that many times these things are the direct result of something we have done wrong that He wants us to correct—either physically or spiritually—and in the righting of the wrong, the ills can be stopped also. In other cases, it is not simply something we must suffer to learn patience, but rather, God trying to teach us something; and if we don't learn the lesson He wants to teach us, He will be forced to bring it around again and again until we do learn it. Fatalism blinds people to this and frustrates the plan of God to no end, and yet conservative Adventists fall for it all the time.
By over emphasizing that “faith without works is dead,” and by overemphasizing that we have to do our part in order for God to do His, life and religion takes on the aspect of struggling on, determining to just endure whatever God sees fit to allow or not allow, feeling that our lot is a grueling weight, not really knowing how to do it, just pressing on by “faith.” But that is being very fatalistic—since from what one can tell in terms of know-how and how-to, it all sits on the one's shoulders to do it all in one's own strength. This is where I have been for so many years.
I really believe that Brother Jim and Sister Sally Hohnberger (founders of Empowered Living Ministries) have been called and raised up by God to teach the real righteousness by faith message to Seventh-day Adventists and to the world. My mother thinks it may be the most specific form of the Elijah message in addition to the 1888 message all put together. (There is evidence to believe that the entire SDA movement is the general Elijah message, that Sister White is a more specific application, but there is still the most specific application, which Hohnberger’s message would definitely fit Malachi 4:5-6.) That makes sense, because real righteousness by faith and all the rest that God has given Brother Hohnberger to teach and preach indeed turns the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers as the Bible says will be done by the Elijah message. I marvel that I didn't get the real heart message he was presenting, even though I had been exposed to it for about 8 years. Now that all these false ideas and idols of list religion and analytical thinking have been torn from my mind, what I have read of his materials over the years is finally sinking in. I see that these nuts and bolts of practical surrender, and faith, and humility that I have been writing about here are indeed righteousness by faith in its truest, most powerful form.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, says the Bible. Yes indeed. Without real, true faith, we Conservatives fail to trust God to really do His part, and think we have to play God ourselves by constantly pushing ourselves and others into action, always feeling guilty for not doing more, thinking any degree of restfulness or lack of anxiety must be too much “comfort zone” and not enough self-sacrifice. This is a continual cause of stress for conservative women particularly (women by nature tend to be more conscientious than men), and it effectively shatters peace and resting in God for all who are deceived and brainwashed thereby.
It is true that correct knowledge does come from the Bible, but only by approaching it with the mind to learn what God would say to one personally, not just how many lists and doctrines one can learn from the Bible. We need to seek God first and foremost in His Word to find out what He has to say to us personally, and to get and maintain a living connection with Him, not study for knowledge primarily. I had been brainwashed to think that knowledge of Biblical truth IS a connection with God, but in terms of practical life and practical connection to God like the branch is connected to the vine, connection to God is far, far more than Biblical knowledge – it is true humility and true faith and true surrender…all of which are taught in the Bible, but which must be put into practice in the heart and life, otherwise all other knowledge and “correct living” will be without true life in Christ.
Push, Push, Push, and Hurry, Hurry, Hurry
Those who do not have the correct hold on God through real faith often do not have real liberty in their lives and in how they treat others. In conservative circles particularly there is a tendency to think that God cannot be trusted to guide people individually in terms of how much they do for others, how they spend their time, etc. In consequence, there is a constant pressure from the pulpit, publications, and even from church members toward one another, to make sure all know not to shirk their duty, as if everyone were not doing enough. It is a lack of faith in God to think that everyone is probably shirking and/or being lazy and that God cannot deal with people directly. The resulting constant pushing from the pulpit is actually a subtle form of persecution, a lack of respect for religious liberty, and a form of judgmentalness.
It has become very clear to me that this misunderstanding of “our part” and of “faith” in general is what causes conservative Adventists to judge and condemn one another and to put pressure on each other—and teach that God is doing it too—when none of this is of God at all. Allow me to illustrate from my own experience.
All through my teenage years I spent hours studying the technical side of the Bible—with and without study guides—as well as all manner of conservative publications. Sermon after sermon would stress “our part” and “our duty to reach others” far more than our own duty to be right with God ourselves and to follow His leading in our lives. It was always push, push, push; run, run, run; hurry, hurry, hurry, because time is running out, and if we don't push to the absolute max for soul saving, then their blood will be on our heads. But the part about waiting on the Lord and his timing was left out—not to mention how clearly the Scriptures teach that no one will be lost simply because some person failed to tell them something. Each person will be saved or lost based on their own decisions about what God has shown them—not because someone failed to give them more knowledge.
Ever since I can remember, my dear mother has been so conscientious and so desirous to help others, that she has always sought to squeeze in just as much for others as she possibly thought she could. This we did all the way till both she and I became sick in 1997 (when I was 17), at which point we had to cut way back on what we did for others. It got to the point that, due to the severity of the diseases that we were dealing with, we were doing almost nothing at all for others.
By the time I reached 20, different people began suggesting, directly and indirectly, that my mother was running my life, keeping me hostage to care for her problems; and that I needed to only do what she wanted when it was in accordance with the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. I knew that was all nonsense—to a point. But because I always lightly regarded her precepts unless they were well backed up with Bible and Spirit of Prophecy studies, their words struck an answering chord in my heart. I would tell them that I was to obey my mother, and that she was not taking advantage of me, since I had health problems too; and that I did think for myself, and other than making sure to obey commands, I did make sure to stand on my own about everything. . . . Hmmm, I did way too much standing on my own. I had no “maybe” category: everything was either right or it was wrong—nothing in between. I also was worshiping “to the law and to the testimony” so far out of proportion that I was doubly ignoring Mother's discerning observations and counsel, simply because she couldn’t give a Bible study on the spot to “prove” what she was saying!
My health got much better when I was 23, and my mother's health also was much better. Since I no longer had much of the restraints of bad health, but still had all this pressure to do things for others and to develop talents and to hurry, hurry, hurry, and hardly ever waiting on God's timing or seeking to know His priorities, but instead relying on my own knowledge/what I had been taught by church folks to determine my priorities—thanks to all this, I jumped headlong into developing my musical talents, working more for the church, looking for a life partner, and making plans to get married, leave home, and get on with my life. I began studying to get my GED (since my health had forced me to put my high school studies on hold for years). Over the course of the next 3 years I went through one boyfriend and started on a second one—the second being long distance. I got my GED, and also began studying other subjects, on top of my work load.
During this time, I was getting pressure from various sources to persist in finding a way to leave home and get on my own, because it could not possibly be God's will for me to stay cooped up at home, tied down with all the problems and needs there, when God would have me developing and using my talents in a more obvious way, on my own or married. It came across very clearly to me from these sources that if the doors didn't open, then I didn't have enough faith to make them open. What a false conception of faith that was—especially since it was all based on false ideas of God's will!
Mother warned and warned me that I was doing too much, but I could not fathom such a thing. I was getting my sleep and being temperate in terms of exercise and diet and sleep and schedule. But now I see that I was being intemperate via wrong priorities! In January of 2007 I found myself flat on my back due to adrenal burnout. Then it was that I saw just how intemperate I had been. I found out that God had shut the doors tightly against what all those people thought I should be doing, and there was nothing under the sun I could do to fight against God without making myself even sicker, which of course I was not going to do!
Mother had been right in telling me that the intensity of courting electronically was too much for me on top of everything else I was trying to do. But it wasn't until sometime later that it started to dawn on me—and on Mother too—that it was wrong priorities that were the cause of Mother's illness and mine, more than anything else. We knew that our tendency to sickness had been laid by becoming malnourished due to extremes in diet (from the mid 1980s through 2000). But what was actually draining us in 2005 and onward was a different matter.
We consulted with alternative doctors, and the test results told us that we had to get rid of stress in order to get well. Thanks to Empowered Living Ministries, as well as other circumstances of our lives, we realized that it was our over-focus on helping others, rather than getting our own life in order and keeping it in order, that had been draining us and destroying our health. This was a revelation to us!
It took time to realize the depth to which we had been victims of brainwashing. We had been taught wrong priorities from conservative Adventist sources. We have come to realize that those places that teach and preach a one-sided push towards evangelism and a for-others focus have gotten God's priorities all backwards. Our first duty is to Him (which also includes keeping our bodies and our homes fit temples for Him), and our duty to others is second. Even the Ten Commandments list our duty to God first! We read in Deuteronomy and in the Gospels that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, body, soul, and will, and our neighbor as ourselves—not the other way around!
If a man cannot be faithful in running his own household, how can he be trusted with greater responsibilities?
Conservative people tend to jump at the Spirit of Prophecy statements that speak about how we should help others and the church even above our own needs and God will make up the time that we are not spending with duties at home … while these same people disregard all the other quotes that say that the first duty of the wife and mother is to attend to her home and children, and that the first duty of the husband and father is to make sure that his wife and children are well cared for, loved, and in order—more than those outside his home (note: the Bible has this family-first focus too!)! Those quotes about putting the church first apply to exceptions, not a way of life; my mother and I learned the hard way what it is like to put the church and others before our own needs as a way of life for at least 20 years – it was disastrous!
By teaching and putting so much emphasis on helping others, with so little emphasis on putting God and His claims on our hearts and homes first, it pushed my mother and me to squeeze in so much for others that our health and home were lost sight of. Once we changed our priorities, we began uncovering layers and layers of overlooked duties and needs that we didn't even know were there and which will take years and years to set right, if it all can ever be righted. Being 20 to 30 years behind AND sick too…God will have to work lots of miracles to right all the damage done – that is how serious it is in our case. I wonder how many others out there have been nearly ruined like this too by extremes and wrong priorities?
When Being One-Track-Minded Becomes Sin
I have had a problem of one-track-mindedness plaguing me to the point that I found myself worshiping anything to which I put my mind or attention. I could not understand where this was coming from, until recently. I saw that my brain had been putting way too much emphasis on “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” I was so focused on whatever I was doing that I would leave out God and communion with Him and focus only on the job at hand. It was driving me crazy, because I would find myself falling into mishaps, unnecessary mistakes, and wrong choices—not to mention how conscious I was of my lack of connection with God. Learning all I have learned – a good part of which I’m sharing here – has helped very much in solving this problem for me, since it was caused by the over-focus on “our part” / technicalities of right-doing. One-track-mindedness is still a problem for me, but I am now much farther along toward overcoming it than I ever was before in the last 20 years, for which I am so thankful!
My reversed priorities were part of the problem as well. I was focusing on people way too much. In spite of the occasional mention and/or entire sermon about the importance of knowing God personally, the bulk of sermons I heard during my formative years were about helping others and witnessing, so my brain got the idea that it needed to focus on those things more than on God. But focusing too much on others will destroy our ability to help others at all—especially if we are not firmly connected to Christ.
It's just like marriage: If one partner were a leech—always taking and never giving back, always draining but never helping the other—how long would that marriage last? To have a good marriage, time and effort must be spent in caring about the other person, getting to know them, spending time with them—not focusing on what we get out of it.
But that's how we treat God. We think we can take from Him to give to others, without giving Him anything in return. What a cruel joke! Without looking to Him moment by moment, without abiding in Him through humble surrender in all things at all times, we find ourselves focusing on humans more than on God, which constitutes mental idolatry. We must consciously seek to make it a habit to look to heaven every moment, to listen for that still small voice instructing us in the way we should go, to humbly seek God in His word for ourselves—not just studying to find lists and doctrines.
The Bible in a Whole New Light
One very thrilling thing this new perspective has done for me is to help me view passages of Scripture in a new, more comprehensive light. Let me give an example to illustrate.
A few months ago we listened to a retired Adventist minister preach about why he is a Seventh-day Adventist. He discussed how his church members were asking him what exactly Sister White was talking about when she said that the greatest need of God's people was a revival of primitive godliness. He and his elders there at the church took on a study challenge to find the answer.
They all studied for three years and regularly presented sermons telling what they were learning. He said it finally all boiled down to being summarized by one chapter: Isaiah 58. He went on to tell how Isaiah 58 talks about helping the poor, abstaining from quarrels, helping needy relatives, keeping the Sabbath correctly, repairing the breach in the law, etc.
It wasn't until I and my parents were driving away from church that it hit me what the broader meaning of Isaiah 58 really is. It was such a total shock to me that I almost shouted! I had never thought of the chapter like this before. Isaiah 58, if viewed in the light of what I have been presenting in these pages – primarily that the Spirit of the Law is more important than the letter of the law – is teaching about repairing the breach in true Christianity at home. It's about repairing people's heart relationships with God, repairing family relationships, repairing concepts of helping those in real need (not everyone is truly needy, and certainly not all relatives are really needy, but it is important to help those in REAL need, especially those nearest of kin!), repairing the way in which God's people deal with one another, repairing the breach in the law—not only among unbelievers, but also among God's people. Also, the broader view of Isaiah 58 points to a correct spirit of Sabbath-keeping—not just on Sabbath but all through the week. This is a major key to the whole plan of salvation, which leads me to my next point.
Sister White and the Bible teach that true Sabbath-keeping is a perfect mirror, and an object lesson, of true heart religion. A few years ago I heard a sermon about the parallels between true Sabbath-keeping and true salvation. I found it very interesting then; but not until recently has it come back to my mind in a much broader and more significant form than ever before. To give a brief example: During the Sabbath, we are to cease from all work and take time to specially commune with God; we are to look back on how God is the One Who did the work of creating all things, and remember that He has the power to recreate us as well into His perfect likeness. This attitude and perspective is to be cherished all week long, and in so doing, true Sabbath-keeping – both literally on the Sabbath, and figuratively the rest of the week – is to prevent works religion and list religion! Also, by pointing to the Creation, real Sabbath-keeping prevents all other belief systems on origins, since the Sabbath is a reflection of how we think and live all week long. There are many other parallels that I haven't even thought of, but just these few make my mind almost bulge with the breadth of understanding given to them by the things I have been sharing.
Freedom From Right-Angle Religion
There is something that I call right-angle religion because the term helps my geometrical brain to keep up with and quickly grasp the concept of it. It is something that has plagued me for well over a decade, and only now, in the light of what I am sharing here, am I finally able to start getting free from it!
Let me illustrate what right-angle religion is. Let's say I am walking down a long hallway in a building carrying a box. I come to the end of the hall, and there is another hall that takes off to my right at a 90 degree angle. Let's say I come across a friend in the second hall, and the friend offers to help me with a problem I've been having with carrying the box. Suppose that instead of standing there in front of my friend, I instead tell my friend to wait there while I go back to the other hall which is now around the corner—a right angle corner—to ponder all by myself what I was told and try to figure out how to implement my friend's suggestions, without any direct help from my friend. Oh yes, I can say the friend has helped me, but I won't go as far as to allow him to help me directly. I have to do it myself in order to do my part.
This sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? Yet this is what I have found myself doing to my Lord in my Christian experience, due to the over-emphasis on “our part” that I described earlier. This wrong emphasis has kept me from an intimate, life-giving connection to my Lord. I have had a right-angle religion, and only now am I learning how to get to the heart-to-heart contact, like the connection between the branch and the vine in John 15. I have insisted on taking God's instructions and help and “going around the corner,” as it were, to try to implement them alone, rather than staying right there with Him and letting Him do it all through me. “My part” is really nothing other than a continuous choice to cooperate with Him and do things His way. In this light, I take credit for nothing other than making choices, and as such I no longer glory in good works and good ideals or anything like that, but rather glory in Jesus and His power and goodness alone!
Twist even a small branch from a tree and you will see very vividly the connection that it had to the trunk. That is how we are to be connected to God—through many little strands that grow bigger and thicker and stronger. Indeed, they cannot grow that way if the connection is off and on. So in our life, we cannot be connected to God sometimes and not others, and still expect to grow spiritually.
Freedom From Misapplying the Spirit of Prophecy
Everyone agrees that Ellen White is the Lesser Light and the Bible is the Greater Light. Recently we heard something in a sermon that made this even more clear. The good woman of Revelation 12 has the moon under her feet and the sun's glory around her. Genesis says the moon is the lesser light to rule the night and the sun is the greater light to rule the day. Therefore, at least one meaning of the moon under the woman's feet is the Lesser Light which is the Spirit of Prophecy! This shows so clearly that yes indeed the Spirit of Prophecy is not on the same plane/purpose as the Bible. The moon gets its light from the sun; therefore, the sun and the moon have the same light, yet the sun and the moon have different purposes. Both are equally inspired, both are the word of God, however they have different purposes; when they are portrayed as having the same purpose – thus making them exactly the same in all ways – it causes lots of problems because in fact they are not the same in all ways: one is the Lesser Light and one is the Greater Light. When people get the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy switched around and portray them both as being the same / having the same role, it causes great errors, fanaticism, and extremes. The Bible is the great decider of all things; the Spirit of Prophecy is more a general guide of principles than exact directives, regardless of how much it seems otherwise. This makes a huge difference in how one interprets the Spirit of Prophecy!
Mother told me years ago that when Paul said that the letter of the law killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Corinthians 3:6), he meant that the focus on the legal and technically exact points of the law of God, without mercy and love being the higher law, is what kills. But the spirit of the Law gives life. I see now as never before just how very true that is! Seeing mercy and love and faith as being on a higher plane than everything else can make such a difference in seeing God's character and laws much more clearly—without setting aside any of His laws and directions as unimportant. We also need to be even more careful with the Spirit of Prophecy than with the Bible, because many Spirit of Prophecy statements can sound so plain and thereby be so misleading if not first carefully compared with all other statements on the same topic.
Specific Examples
I would like to share a few specific examples to illustrate my point. Please keep in mind that I am trying to be brief. Each point could be expanded, and many more could be added. Maybe someday I will write a book on the topic. For now, consider these examples:
Sister White Comments on Interpreting Her Own Writings
This illustration is from an article on the White Estate website. You can find the whole article at http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/herm-pri.html (This article is VERY enlightening when read in its 16-page entirety! It is quite an eye-opener!)
"Seventh-day Adventists have been known to differ and even argue over some of Ellen White's counsel. That situation is especially true of those statements that seem so straightforward and clear. One such statement appears in volume 3 of the Testimonies: "Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age" (p. 137; italics supplied).
That passage is an excellent candidate for inflexible interpretation. After all, it is quite categorical. It offers no conditions and hints at no exceptions. Containing no "ifs," "ands," "ors," or "buts" to modify its impact, it just plainly states as fact that "parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age." Mrs. White first published the statement in 1872. The fact that it reappeared in her writings in 1882 and 1913 undoubtedly had the effect of strengthening what appears to be its unconditional nature.
Interestingly enough, however, a struggle over that statement has provided us with perhaps the very best record we possess of how Mrs. White interpreted her own writings.
The Adventists living near the St. Helena Sanitarium in northern California had built a church school in 1902. The older children attended it, while some careless Adventist parents let their younger children run freely in the neighborhood without proper training and discipline. Some of the school board members believed that they should build a classroom for the younger children, but others held that it would be wrong to do so, because Ellen White had plainly stated that "parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age."
One faction on the board apparently felt that it was more important to give some help to the neglected children than to hold to the letter of the law. The other faction believed that it had an inflexible command, some "straight testimony" that it must obey. To put it mildly, the issue split the school board. An interview with Mrs. White was arranged.
Early in the interview Mrs. White reaffirmed her position that the family should ideally be the school for young children. "The home," she said, "is both a family church and a family school" (Selected Messages, book 3, p. 214). That is the ideal that one finds throughout her writings. The institutional church and school are there to supplement the work of a healthy family. That is the ideal.
But, as we discovered in the previous section, the ideal is not always the real. Or, to say it in other words, reality is often less than ideal. Thus Ellen White continued in the interview: "Mothers should be able to instruct their little ones wisely during the earlier years of childhood. If every mother were capable of doing this, and would take time to teach her children the lessons they should learn in early life, then all children could be kept in the home school until they are eight, or nine, or ten years old" (ibid., pp. 214, 215; italics supplied).
Here we begin to find Mrs. White dealing with a reality that modifies the categorical and unconditional nature of her statement on parents being the only teachers of their children until 8 or 10 years of age. The ideal is that mothers "should" be able to function as the best teachers. But realism intrudes when Ellen White uses such words as "if" and "then." She definitely implies that not all mothers are capable and that not all are willing. But "if" they are both capable and willing, "then all children could be kept in the home school."
During the interview she remarked that "God desires us to deal with these problems sensibly" (ibid., p. 215). Ellen White became quite stirred up with those readers who took an inflexible attitude toward her writings and sought to follow the letter of her message while missing the underlying principles. She evidenced disapproval of both the words and attitudes of her rigid interpreters when she declared: "My mind has been greatly stirred in regard to the idea, 'Why, Sister White has said so and so, and Sister White has said so and so; and therefore we are going right up to it.' " She then added that "God wants us all to have common sense, and He wants us to reason from common sense. Circumstances alter conditions. Circumstances change the relation of things" (ibid., p. 217; italics supplied).
Ellen White was anything but inflexible in interpreting her own writings, and it is a point of the first magnitude that we realize that fact. She had no doubt that the mindless use of her ideas could be harmful. Thus it is little wonder that she said that "God wants us all to have common sense" in using extracts from her writings, even when she phrased those extracts in the strongest and most unconditional language.
End of quote from EGW website article
Life Insurance
Years ago, we were told that Sister White forbids having life insurance. The couple who told us this later had to depend totally on the church and poor relatives for sustenance because they had no life insurance! We knew something was very wrong here, especially since Sister White says so much about being financially self-sufficient. So we did some research on what she says on related issues, and found that she endorses things like fire insurance. She also heartily advocates having a savings account with lots of money in it, and she is quite firm about not taking any out of it except in real emergencies. We also found out that life insurance in her day was often a sham, and sometimes had nothing to do with supporting the wife and children in the event the husband died. There was also the issue that life insurance companies seemed to have been very unreliable and fraudulent back then. So it seems that today, there is nothing wrong with life insurance that is used as a special savings account for the sustenance of survivors when one dies. It would seem that the counsel against it had to do with the negative aspects of it that were relevant in her day as well as only-for-the-funeral types around now, and that she was not against the good parts of it now.
Pants for Women
In Sister White's day, anything that even resembled pants on a woman was immodest due to the culture of the day. The literal reading of her counsel on dress for women would give the idea that they would always be immodest regardless of culture, but such is not the case. Consider all that she says very specifically about how important it is to get as close to the people as possible and to learn of the culture and consider things accordingly. Those who attempt to use Sister White's cultural dress counsel of the 1800s to interpret the Biblical injunction about women not wearing men's clothing are indeed wresting the Spirit of Prophecy. It has become very clear to us that modest (i.e. not skin tight), feminine pants on women are not immodest, nor are they men's clothing. (This is a study in and of itself – much more could be said in this matter. Study it out for yourself if you wish.)
Vinegar and Spices
Many years ago, my mother found a principle about dress in the Spirit of Prophecy that we should have applied to many other areas as well. Unfortunately, at the time Mother was too misled by literalism to do that, but years later we did start applying it to other things. Here is the principle:
In one place she says women and girls should wear no bows or ribbons, while in another place she says she didn't literally mean absolutely none, but rather few, or tasteful use of some, etc. (See 4bSG 21.1 the section in caps set off in brackets). This has led us to believe that many times when the Spirit of Prophecy says “none” or “no,” what is really meant is “not too many,” “not too much,” and not a literal “absolutely none” that it is taken to mean today.
In the area of diet, this becomes extremely important. When speaking of spices, vinegar, and baking soda, exclusive wording such as “none” or “no” is used a lot, whereas other passages show that she did use ginger—which in itself shows us she didn't mean no spices ever. Moreover, she speaks of spices in the context of how bad it is to have one's food so hot with fiery spices that one cannot taste the real flavor and/or becomes addicted to just the spicy, “hot” flavor in the food. Yet she goes out of her way to show how very important it is to have food tasty and well made so that it is palatable and appetizing. This shows that she was not against the use of a little spice, a little pepper, a little vinegar, a little baking soda, etc, when used as a seasoning or baking aid in a tasteful way to promote the tastiness and appeal of food. We learned that it was common in her day for people to use huge amounts of baking soda in breads, huge amounts of vinegar in foods, and huge amounts of hot spices in pickles and other things to where it was the “hot” that was eaten more than the food, etc. It was this gross overuse that she was condemning. (Note: The unclean meats, coffee, tea, tobacco, and alcohol are in a totally different category than spices, vinegar, baking soda, et cetera. Investigation of the Spirit of Prophecy will show this clearly. Research it yourself if in doubt.)
There's Sour and Then There's Sour
I have to laugh as I write this one! We used to be so literal with the Spirit of Prophecy that we didn't eat any mushrooms or even soy yogurt for many, many years! Why? Because Sister White says not to eat anything with any taint of decay or fermentation or sourness. The absolute literal application of that would mean no mushrooms (they are a form of decay), and no soy yogurt since it is fermented, soured, or cultured. Later we learned that what she really meant was to totally abstain from that which is spoiled, not things that are good for food like mushrooms, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, and so on. Anyone who has left mushrooms in the refrigerator too long knows that there is a difference between a fresh mushroom and a decayed one! Yuck! It's the same with sour cream and yogurt. Heeding the admonition to carefully avoid spoilage can be a real life-saver, preventing sickness and death from food poisoning, bread mold, and other toxic forms of decay, but taking it to extremes like we did can make one into a real fanatic/nut!
Continued in Part Two (would not all fit here as one post...)
