funny thing happened to me while watching the Olympics last August. As the two countries facing each other in the particular event were announced (and they shall remain nameless), my response was immediate: “Well, well!” I said out loud, “the skunks against the pigs! May both sides lose!” (And it wasn’t the athletes I had in mind, so much as the countries behind them. I pay attention to the evils nations do.)
But as I began watching these two antagonists, something surprising happened: I found myself silently rooting for one side over the other. Independent of me, as it were, my mind had found a way to work out which country it considered the greater evil, so it could back the other. And it wasn’t long before I found myself saying a tepid “Yes!” when the favored side gained a point.
The lesson to me was clear: It’s well-nigh impossible to watch a heated contest and remain completely neutral. And like it or not, we’re smack in the midst of one—a heated cosmic, spiritual struggle affecting every single soul on earth. Biblical foundations are under attack—Creation, Sabbath, marriage, fidelity. The battle is joined; and the contestants—visible and invisible—have taken the field. It boils down to a battle between good and evil, with no room for indifference.
Too often we Adventists come across as lethargic, bereft of courage, hedging our bets, rolling with the tide, even scoring for the other side. In the intense controversy over “intelligent design,” for example, the courageous voices seem to be coming from outside the church. Others are taking the heat and the scorn, while we generally play it safe. But the issues at stake are too large for silence. Neutrality is not an option. ¡___________
Roy Adams is associate editor of the Adventist Review.