May 11, 2011

Unalienable Right

Twenty years ago, while on a “dig” in an unfrequented church storeroom, I discovered a large box containing decades of that congregation’s history. Among the faded photographs and minutes of long-forgotten meetings, I found a series of yellowing notes, all written by the same hand. Each was dated between 1893 and 1895, and there were enough to account for almost every quarter of those years.

The author was the wife of the conference evangelist, asking—quarter by quarter—that her membership and that of her pastor husband not be dropped by the local church for nonattendance, even as she conceded that the congregation had the right to do so. She and her husband were holding 12-week evangelistic campaigns across the conference territory, she explained in each note, providing evidence with dates and locations. Each note concluded with the same affirmation: “We still want to be members of the church.”

I winced as I read, realizing how much the concept of church membership had changed in 100 years. Even as I read those fading lines, I knew of at least 100 persons on that church’s membership rolls who no longer—ever—came to worship. And yet their “right” to call themselves Seventh-day Adventists and hold full privileges in a fellowship in which they never participated was never challenged or abridged. As with some fun house at a state fair, they had entered a structure from which there was no apparent exit.

This is no call for simply “cleaning up the books” or hasty discontinuance of members who aren’t often seen. But it is a call to honor the real choices that individuals have made. When by statement, lifestyle, or specific behaviors they make clear that they aren’t walking with this people, we do them no favors by insisting that their names remain on our records in hope they one day change their minds. The freedom to join the fellowship of Adventism has a matching right: the freedom to leave.

Let membership again become a thing freely chosen—and regularly renewed.

                            
Bill Knott is editor and publisher of the
Adventist Review. This article was published May 12, 2011.

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