“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. . . . [Therefore,] let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:14-16, NRSV).*
s Christians, whether we like it or not, we’re being closely watched. We’re like a lighted city on a hill in full sight of the surrounding countryside. In a sense, what conclusions people come to is up to them. But what should concern us is whether—by our attitude or behavior—we give cause to those observing us to think evil (or to think less) of religion and God.
Are Adventists Different?
I’ve always been impressed by how closely people are observing Christians—Christians as a whole. In an article a while back, I mentioned the case of British atheist Christopher Hitchens. A brilliant man with a “quick and merciless mind” (as one writer described him),1 Hitchens has had a passion to expose the skeletons in every religious closet he could find. And in his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,2 he recounts an incident during a television program in which American religious broadcaster Dennis Prager challenged him with a hypothetical question.
Hitchens was to imagine himself in a strange city at nightfall, with a large group of men coming toward him. Would he feel safer or less safe if he knew they “were just coming from a prayer meeting”?3
His response went as follows: “‘Just to stay within the letter “B,” I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.’”4 His point, of course, was that religion has had a track record of producing some of the most violent fanatics.
Unfortunately, critics such as Hitchens never need to look far to get all the grist they need for their destructive mills. A prominent religious television personality, for example, in the wake of the unimaginable suffering of the Haitian people from the recent earthquake, chose that, of all times, to remind them about some pact he alleged their ancestors had made with Satan at the time of the country’s independence—implying that the devil was just cashing in.5 Such reckless words are greeted with glee by critics gathering ammunition to denounce all Christians.
In another incident, it came to light recently that a gunsight contractor for the U.S. government has been embossing Bible references on assault rifle gunsights for the U.S. military,6 unwittingly reigniting memories of the Crusades. As if that was not offensive enough, one conservative commentator (a Christian, from all appearances) charged during a cable news program that it was Muslim terrorists who started it. “What do they say just before they blow themselves and others up?” this media personality asked. “Isn’t it ‘Allah akhbar!’ [‘God is great!’]?”
So there we go—they started it! A dumb thing to say, but it reflects on all of us. In one of his songs, John Lennon of Beatles’ fame asked people to “imagine” a world where there’s “nothing to kill or die for and no religion too; imagine all the people living life in peace. . .” The provocative lines mean to imply that a prerequisite for a world at peace is the absence of religion.
As Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we cannot avoid sharing whatever stigma hangs over the larger Christian community. But a fundamental question for us as a group is Have we transcended the pervasive human tendency toward hate and bigotry? Are we safe? If the group of men approaching in the dark were Adventists, should that stranger have felt secure?
From what I know about our church, I think so. A group of Adventist men would be safe to meet—at noonday or in the darkest night.
But Go One Step Further
Though we could easily meet Prager’s hypothetical challenge, are there other scenarios in which we may not fare so well, where we might even land a failing grade?
Take this example: As a member of an ethnic minority, you move to a large suburban area in a “developed” country. Can you and your family count on an unequivocal welcome in any Adventist church you choose to join? What’s the answer? And suppose more people who look like you keep arriving and keep joining, how long would the welcome mat remain in place?
To press the same questions in different words: Are our local churches houses of prayer “for all people”? Is everyone welcome, regardless of their ethnicity or race? Or is there a flight of one ethnic group as soon as the percentage of certain others gets too high? People are measuring pious words against actions and behavior that do not correspond.
Commenting on the Matthew 5 passage above, Ellen G. White observed that Jesus came to break down every “wall of partition” that divides people. “[He] tears away . . . the dividing prejudice of nationality, and teaches a love for all the human family. . . . He abolishes all territorial lines and artificial distinctions of society.”7
(At this point I probably should make it clear that I’m not dealing here with the structures of the church as we find them, say, in North America. From time to time I hear statements about racially separate conferences in the United States that I consider ill-advised and wholly lacking in historical perspective. That’s not where I’m headed. I’m dealing here with the people in our pews.)
Some may think that the way to solve the problem of fragmentation and separation would be to do a kind of fruit basket upset—randomize the membership of the churches, so to speak, integrating all congregations racially and ethnically.
At the risk of seeming to contradict myself, I do not favor such an approach. The matter of where people worship is a very complicated issue, involving considerations of worship styles and how those styles mesh with one’s temperament, personality, experience, background, and circumstances. We’re talking subtle stuff here. To quote a line I learned in elementary school: “Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot nine days old.”
But then I come right back around. If it’s simply (and only) a matter of people’s worship preferences, I have difficulty seeing why it should so often break down along racial or ethnic lines. Why, indeed, wouldn’t there be a (non-orchestrated) fruit basket upset—as with car preferences, or clothing styles, or food choices? True, certain ethnic groups may have a preference for a certain cuisine, but go to any typical restaurant and you’d find (no pun intended) a virtual ethnic smorgasbord of patrons. So why does that not happen in regard to where we choose to worship? It’s at this point that objective observers begin to suspect there’s probably something else going on.
Facing a Cynical Audience
For years now, probably decades, I’ve been observing the activities of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Members of this secular humanitarian group venture into the most troubled and dangerous situations, risking life and limb to bring relief to those in need. In their charter (on the group’s Web site), they describe themselves as providing “assistance to populations in distress, to victims of natural or man-made disasters and to victims of armed conflict.” “They do so,” the charter says, “irrespective of race, religion, creed, or political convictions.” To quote Wikipedia’s article on the group, they believe that “all people have the right to medical care . . . , and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders.”
How about “Adventists without borders”! It’s the kind of attitude we need as we face a generation that’s grown exponentially more critical, compared to just a few years ago. People have become hardened, cynical, jaded. In response, we tend to opt for complicated solutions; but God’s answers are often simple, down-to-earth, low-tech. Hear this one from Ellen G. White: “If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tenderhearted and pitiful, there would be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one.”8
This envisions genuine deference and appreciation for one another. It envisions working together as the one big family we are in Jesus, arm-in-arm in the midst of a fractured world. The reputation of God has taken a severe beating over the centuries, and we have the opportunity, humanly speaking, to help restore it.
During the 2007 football season in the United States, the New England Patriots went on a winning streak, emerging victorious in every single game they played the entire season. But Super Bowl Sunday, in the last half of the fourth quarter with less than a minute to go, New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress caught a pass from quarterback Eli Manning that eventually resulted in a game-winning touchdown! It was an electric moment! Manning is White; Burress is Black; but not for a moment did that matter one single bit. They were on the same team!
With their message of Creation, Seventh-day Adventists have the strongest incentive to work together to reach every culture, every people. A good Adventist sees every human being as a potential candidate for the kingdom of God. When we truly understand our message, we’d see it as the very opposite of narrow; the very opposite of insular; the very opposite of exclusive. It’s the good news that through the marvelous grace of our matchless Redeemer, millions and millions and millions—a multiethnic, multicultural, multiracial multitude—will stand together one day on that resplendent sea before the throne of God.
People are watching. May we truly be God’s shining city on a hill!
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*Bible texts credited to NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ” 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.
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1See Michael Novak, No One Sees God (New York-London-Toronto: Doubleday, 2008), p. 58.
2New York: Twelve Hachette Book Group, 2007.
3Ibid., p. 18.
4Ibid.
5A multitude of news sources carried Pat Robertson’s comments in the days following the January 12 earthquake.
7Ellen G. White, Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1956), p. 42.
8Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9 (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1948), p. 189.
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Roy Adams is an associate editor of the Adventist Review. This article was published March 25, 2010.
