Being "One" Sounds Good . . . At First

There is a great hymn in the Christian church that is still sung in some circles.  The words are lofty, and they speak of an ideal, a Biblical mandate, but one easily abandoned.

            In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south nor north;

            but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

            In Him shall true hearts everywhere their high communion find;

            His service is the golden cord close binding all mankind.

            Join hands, then, brothers of the faith, what-e’er your race may be.

            Who serves my Father as a son is surely kin to me.

            In Christ now meet both east and west, in Him meet south and north;

            All Christly souls are one in Him throughout the whole wide earth.

H. Richard Niebuhr opens his book, The Social Sources of Denominationalism, with these words:  “The Christian church has often achieved apparent success while denying the precepts of its founder.” 

His reference is to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that his followers be one in unity.  For Jesus’ wish in his prayer to come true demands the setting aside of human pride, and the reality is that we humans seriously resist letting that go.  We are sure we are right, and even if we aren’t right, we are clear we have rights. So we divide.  We divide over political lines, geographic regions, educational levels, economics, ethnicity, theological understandings, food preferences, Chevys vs. Fords, dogs vs. cats, gender, and of course, race. The famed rivalry of the “Hatfields and McCoys” is really a microcosm of the human story.  We may not come to blows or shots, but the depth of dissension between groups goes deep.

I can understand this among people whose primary allegiance is to self: self-advancement, self-preservation, self-seeking, self-protecting, selfish life.  But the call of Christ is exemplified in Christ’s setting self aside to seek the redemption of humanity. (Philippians 2)  His body, the church, is to be his continuing incarnation in the world, the continuation of laying aside our right to be right.  Setting aside our “rights” and becoming servants to meet human needs.

When a follower of Jesus acts as if their primary identity is in anything other than Jesus, to that extent they are denying their profession to be His.  My oneness with another follower of Jesus, our agreement that He is Lord and Savior, supersedes my national, ethnic, racial, political, gender, and any and all other competing identities.  A Christian is first and supremely a follower of Jesus who considers every other follower of Jesus, not just a brother or sister, but actually one with themselves.  We are “One in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord.”

Whenever we allow any of our other identities, to trump our identity in Christ, we have made that identity our idol.  “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26-28 NLT   

Our denomination is wrestling over women’s ordination, and we continue to have racially designated duplicate governance structures in half our country, and there is a new emphasis on a kind of “Jew vs. Gentile” exclusive vs. inclusive participation in the universal body of Christ.

These are Jesus’ words from John 17:20-21: "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Regardless of the stances taken in our workplace, government, or denomination, we are called to a oneness in Christ.  It is this demonstration of oneness that brings the world to belief that the Father sent the Son, which means we must do more than give it lip service—for we are one in Christ. 

Men are not one to themselves and women one to themselves.  Each gender is wonderfully unique, but in Christ they are one.  And if Paul is correct in his inspired writing that the two genders are one in Christ, then certainly all other identities that would polarize must find oneness in Christ alone.  Will the church of the 21st century repeat the divisive history of the past, or will we determine to walk as Christ did, lay down our rights for the redemption of many, and descend into greatness?  What right is yours that you would willingly abandon so Jesus’ prayer would be answered and his followers be one?

Andy McDonald

Confessions of an SDA Meat Eater

My personal observance of a healthy lifestyle has had its ups and downs. As a member of a church that promotes a healthy vegetarian lifestyle, my youth was filled with vegetarian fare. My stay-at-home mother made us whole wheat tortillas from scratch for our burritos, an amazing lentil soup, and did her best to get us boys to eat what vegetables she could, although the fruit was no problem.

At some point, I took to heart the scriptural relevance of “not eating meat sacrificed to idols” and “one man eats only vegetables” as related to faith rather than diet in order to take advantage of the freedom to do as my conscience dictates. This decision may have been somewhat reactionary to the borderline overbearing dogma I was hearing at the time from some in the church. This issue of vegetarianism, among several others, was presented as being on the same importance as any other matter, rather than at a second or third tier importance verses a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I wonder how many others have had similar reactions?

Something has been happening across the western landscape in recent years. People have begun to realize that the American diet in the modern era has devastating consequences. Engaging Films such as Food Inc. and Forks over Knives have made a persuasive argument for whole foods and the vegetarian diet. Just this last week in the June 11, 2012, issue of Time magazine, a full article on health featured Rick Warren’s Saddleback church. The program they are using is called the Daniel Plan, based on Daniel 1:8,12.  Really? The Daniel Plan? I thought Adventists had the corner on that market of healthy living for the past hundred years. Why aren’t we featured in Time magazine?

In the past, Adventists have been sited in several venues such as “The Secrets of Long Life” published by National Geographic that highlighted the Loma Linda community, the Adventist Health Studies, and lately Creation Health by Monica Reed.  These have all contributed to an important conversation we are supposed to be having with our neighbors and friends.

So how can we continue to be a part of the global dialogue on health-related issues? We need to advocate and be published in our institutions on a continual basis. We need to be fresh and relevant.  Most of all, we need to keep the message in its proper place in the context of religion.  This may prevent many who, like myself, “threw the baby out with the bath water” because of the way this vital message was presented. The message is relevant.  The message extends the years of life.  The message extends the quality of life.  The message is a tool in the tool box that points to instructions our Creator has given us on how to take care of ourselves. The message is of secondary importance to the centrality of Christ, but it is important nonetheless.

So the next time I’m eyeing Four Rivers, I just might keep heading down the road and enjoy Ethos restaurant instead. It’s fresh, it’s relevant, and it’s important.

Richard Hickam

The Temptation of a Happy Meal

The beginning of this year, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Loma Linda, CA, were in the news.  It seems there were plans for a McDonalds to move into the city, and several church members were doing their best to make sure that didn’t happen.  Though the city is home to Carl Jr., Subway, and even a KFC, for some reason, they saw McDonalds as a threat to the health and well being of their families.  According to a news story, these individuals are, “Fighting, they say, to keep their kids pure from the temptation of a Happy Meal.” 

One person interviewed suggested it would be more difficult for their children to make healthy choices if they had to drive by a McDonalds.  It makes me wonder about the possibility – even the wisdom of – Christians keeping their youth in a manufactured “fortress of purity.”  I suppose if we never allow our children to use the Internet, go to a shopping mall, or associate with other individuals from outside our cloistered world, we might put off the inevitable.  However, as people whose mission is to reach the world with the message of Jesus, that might be a bit difficult to say the least.

As we look back at Mother’s Day and approach Father’s Day, I wonder about the incredible task parents face.  How do you raise a balanced child in an unbalanced world?  How do you instill principles of life that are embraced by your teen so they choose integrity and character over popularity and peer acceptance?  How do you share the love, mercy, grace, and acceptance of Jesus’ call to interact and change our world with the essential wisdom of maintaining a constant connection to our Savior? 

These are not easy tasks, and the job of a parent is not for the faint of heart.  However, I’m not sure that putting “blinders” on your children and never allowing them the freedom of choice is the answer.  I’m afraid this type of mindset may do more to create puppets or rebels rather than Christ-followers. 

Isn’t it possible to introduce our children to the reality of the world we live in without secluding ourselves from it?  Wouldn’t it be wise to guide our children in situations, relationships, and lifestyles that allow them to interact with their culture in a positive and redemptive way?  Can we teach our children the balance of living a healthy life that empowers them to make good decisions - even with regard to the "temptation of a Happy Meal?"

Tami Cinquemani

Immoral Redundancy by Andy McDonald

My last blog opened with this sentence: “It is increasingly fascinating to me how nearly every organization, regardless of its original motive for existing, eventually caves to some form of self-preservation as its primary function.”  Near the end, I wrote: “For any organization to call itself “Christian,” it must be an organization where the care of people, love in action, the human enterprise, consistently and clearly trumps programs, policies and profit.”

I believe that Jesus’ “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:19-20 to go make disciples of all nations is a moral imperative for the Christian Church, and as a subset, a moral imperative for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  If this is true, then our current system makes us responsible for the immoral use of resources to provide carbon copy systems of church governance over the same territory based on racial division.

It was obviously necessary, or at least thought to be so, at one point in American history. But now it appears, to thinking people who support racial integration, to be part of the plague of “self-preservation” as its primary function. 

In Florida, there is the “Southeastern Conference of Seventh-day Adventists,” covering almost the exact same territory as the “Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.”  For many years we “forgot” their official titles and called them the Black Conference and the White Conference!

Yes, there was a time when that was a pretty accurate and maybe a necessary reality.  But today we have Southeastern Conference, which is predominantly mono-ethnic, and Florida Conference, which is exceedingly multi-ethnic. 

To maintain a governance structure based on race must be a program, policy, and profit issue of the past—we must abandon self-preservation of an antiquated and wasteful system. The coming generations will find our system so egregious as to be an excuse for seeking a different or non-denominational affiliation.  No matter what you call it, they are rightly embarrassed by what is still seen as a black and white governance structure.   

The self-preservation of the current system, the programs, policies, and profit (financial support system) goes against the very prayer of Jesus that his people be one, and from a resource management perspective, every dollar used to support duplicate governance structures is an immoral use of funds that could better be used to fulfill the Great Commission.

Doing away with our current structures to create something new will have little effect on most of the local churches.  Those which are mono-cultural will likely stay that way, and those multi-cultural ones won’t regress.  But whether I have an African American or Caucasian or Hispanic Conference President should make no difference.  Our unity is not in our ethnicity or nationality; our unity is in Christ.  In him there is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave or free.  If gender is irrelevant in Christ, certainly there can be no division over ethnicity. Let’s get over any paranoia and do the right thing, the moral thing. The loving care of people must drive us to alter our insane attachment to self-preservation, and the abandonment of any program, policy, or profit that stands in the way of doing the right thing.

This immoral use of resources must end.

Andy McDonald