What the Church Can Learn from the GOP
8 May 2009
What the Church Can Learn from the GOP
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Of course, some might question the linking of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the GOP. But as Adventists prepare to gather in Georgia for our quinennial General Conference Session and select a new leader in about a year, we might look around to other institutions as we seek to navigate the 21st century. We might be surprised at the similarities and what we can learn.
The Republican Party began to form in the 1840s and held its first meeting on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. It grew out of the great compromise of 1850 and unified much of the fragmented anti-slavery movement, quickly achieving organizational power under the charismatic leadership of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s. Seventh-day Adventism grew out of the great disappointment of 1844. Throughout the 1850s, the Advent movement was a loose confederation of Millerite fragments, and finally, through the charismatic leadership of Ellen White, et al, it officially organized on May 23, 1863 in Battle Creek, Michigan.
As Shakespeare wrote: “what's past is prologue.” While I don’t want to make too much out of some shared history, it lends itself to recognizing that both institutions come from a discrete historical context. There are more similarities and dissimilarities, but beyond the beginning, there are some lessons we might consider as both institutions search for leadership today.
Among both SDAs and the GOP, during the 80s and 90s, and even much of this century, the loudest voices preached conservatism, particularly on social issues. The GOP fought the Equal Right Amendment; the Adventist Church voted several times to exclude women from much of church leadership. The GOP embraces creationism, although many of its members are more nuanced; the same applies in Adventism. The GOP has its most traditional believers in the South and so does the Adventist Church. But recent demographic shifts and intellectual changes have reduced the power of the GOP and many of the same moves affect Adventism as well.
This is no paean to the Democratic Party, although I am a member and proudly voted for President Obama. Among the Dems, I find things to critique – the Wall Street bailouts/bonuses, the corruption that will surely sneak in due to majority status, the go-along approach to war. However, polls show that 22% of Americans now identify as Republicans. In all except the official numbers, Adventist membership in America has lately been declining as well.
Of course, correlation does not equal causation. And these things do cycle. But as a proud member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I think that we might peer past the last 100 days to perhaps the last 1000 days and look for mistakes to avoid and lessons to learn as we look toward our own presidential election coming up in 2010.
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-Don’t Bring Back the 80s
Early in the 2008 presidential election, ten wannabes gathered at the Reagan library for a GOP debate and they all pledged, like a VH-1 show, to bring back the 80s. But in November America just said “no.” Judging by the news stories when Barack Obama won, was inaugurated, and has traveled abroad, the rest of the world agrees. People want hope, not bi-polar apocalypticism. They want ideals matched with actual development. Adventists are relatively conservative theologically and we should stay that way. (Yes, that’s right, this is appearing under the SPECTRUM masthead.) Theology is a framework and it’s vital, particularly during epochs of great change. We must respect our traditions. If I may reprise Edmund Burke on society:
Adventism is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
That’s smart conservatism, recognizing the organic nature of human experience. Our doctrines matter because they define us even if we reject them. In thinking about our future as a community of faith and action, we need a new General Conference president who is faithful to our tradition precisely so that Adventists continue to learn to distinguish between past and principle. History progresses. The world is more connected, electronic, gender-inclusive, ethnically-mixed, carbon-saturated, media-driven, biblically-illiterate, religiously-skeptical, faithfully diverse, scientifically predisposed, gay friendly, economically stratified, and existentially lost than ever before.
We don’t need a leader who reads the word “lost” and forgets about everything else true in that list.
Remember that Jesus died for everyone, not just the people who read handbills. We need a fearless, forward-thinking leader because there are too many opportunities to show God’s Love to the world for us to confuse being a theological remnant with being a numerical one. In Education, Ellen White writes,
“The Vaudois and the Huguenots, Wycliffe and Huss, Jerome and Luther, Tyndale and Knox, Zinzendorf and Wesley, with multitudes of others, have witnessed to the power of God's word against human power and policy in support of evil. These are the world's true nobility. This is its royal line. In this line the youth of today are called to take their places.”
It should be noted that every one of those leaders Ellen White names broke with the status quo, started something new, and actually increased religious interest. That hopeful mix of – “Here I Stand,” “Yes We Can” – is the noble progressive belief that we need today.
-Think Glocally
Post-9/11, Obama won, in part because he embraced his variegated identity and offered hope. The GOP often emphasized fear – of Muslim terrorists, China, Mexican immigrants, and, of course, the gays. Of course, right-wingers like to point out that liberals didn’t tolerate the folks who preached against those Others. What they forget is that you don’t get credit for being tolerant of what’s familiar.
Adventism needs leadership that doesn’t just preach diversity, but represents it. Many of the biggest Adventist stories of the 80s happened in the Caucasian majority countries. Just look at the names: Ford, Davenport, Hart, Rae, Chamberlain; but more recently there’s been more names like Ntakirutimana, Speight, and Nkunda. It appears that the power centers of our church are moving an ocean or two south of Silver Spring.
That said, a sense of local mission would solve a lot of church problems. We need to hear less about what are actually context-dependent standards and more about the value of doing justice and loving mercy. Social justice helps us to all to understand our various identities by starting conversations, which create empathy, which leads to action. Adventists need a leader who doesn’t just talk about unity in diversity; our global church will benefit from someone who embodies, but more importantly, inspires, both global and local action in others.
-Take Action, Transparently
American health care and education need serious attention and Obama has been making a pretty big deal about tackling both of them soon. It’s not clear what the GOP has planned. Like America, Adventism has built well respected medical and educational institutions. But many face serious issues as well. How will Adventism keep its holistic health and education identity as the trends lead away from the homogeneity that’s defined us?
Part of Obama’s bipartisan appeal resulted from his commitment to results: to accomplish more, more openly. Too many Adventists feel disconnected from church leadership and they aren’t always sure what the layers actually accomplish. The “Tithe is up! Go back to giving” messages that trickle down don’t inspire the sort of confident relationships that keep institutions up and running.
The next generation wants action. And smart too. Under Elder Paulsen, the Adventist Church has reaffirmed our non-combatancy stance, connected our creation doctrine to care for the environment and turned our attention to advocacy on issues like HIV/AIDS in Africa. Future leadership must keep this action alive as Adventism has to convert truth to action for the next generation to care.
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In many ways, both the Republican Party and the Adventist Church would benefit by drawing on their early movement history. Speaking present truth, both stood for change, and an embrace of new theories of the day – abolition, health reform – and achieved significant growth and success in the 19th century as a result. Now institutions, both are at a crossroads. Some say that Adventism lags about ten years behind the mainstream culture. That puts us at 1999.
By avoiding 80s nostalgia, by thinking glocally, and by openingly up the beaucracy to focus on real social issues, the Adventist Church could save itself an unnecessary experience in the bush, as the Australians say. But that might mean choosing the road less traveled.
Whither Adventism in 2010?
Search
- Elaine Nelson on Why Can’t I Own Canadians?: Grace, the Holy Spirit, and the Threat of Fundamentalism
- Donna Haerich on “Panentheism” Is Not a Four-Letter Word!
- Tom Zwemer on Cornel West Speaks on Truth at Oakwood University
- Tom Zwemer on Why Can’t I Own Canadians?: Grace, the Holy Spirit, and the Threat of Fundamentalism
- Just an Engineer on Satire: The Miracle of Chance
- Jeannie Brown on Strangers in the House
- Alexander Carpenter on Why Can’t I Own Canadians?: Grace, the Holy Spirit, and the Threat of Fundamentalism
- David Read on Why Can’t I Own Canadians?: Grace, the Holy Spirit, and the Threat of Fundamentalism
- Eric Webster on Wilson's War
- Kenneth James on Why Can’t I Own Canadians?: Grace, the Holy Spirit, and the Threat of Fundamentalism
Comments
I'd add that, like the GOP, Adventism should relate to marginalised groups in authentic ways. Sarah Palin and Michael Steele come to mind as recent examples of this. We should meet the aggrieved in our community (women, young people, minorities etc.) with less tokenism and more gospel empowerment like that in Acts 6!
/Rachel's interview with Monte (link) points to regional conferences as an example of this
This is one of the best articles I have read in this space, and considering the outstanding contributions from numerous quarters that show up here, that's saying something!
I especially appreciated this:
The world is more connected, electronic, gender-inclusive, ethnically-mixed, carbon-saturated, media-driven, biblically-illiterate, religiously-skeptical, faithfully diverse, scientifically predisposed, gay friendly, economically stratified, and existentially lost than ever before.
We don’t need a leader who reads the word “lost” and forgets about everything else true in that list.
We talk about hating sin and loving sinners, but too often laity and leadership alike do well at hating, and less well when it comes to loving.
We talk about being in the world but not of the world, but too often laity and leadership alike have nothing to offer a leaky boat because we're too busy groping for an escape hatch.
But it doesn't need to be that way, and maybe it will some day be less so.
In many ways, both the Republican Party and the Adventist Church would benefit by drawing on their early movement history.
Alex, that is a SUPERB analysis and comparison of the Adventist church and the GOP. We see the demise of the latter in their struggle to find a message that extends beyond negativity. Where are the plans for the future that recognize the seismic demographic changes in the SDA church in only the past decade? The rapid growth of the third world and the gradually declining additions in the NAD should be of major concern simply because the power centers, both in financial ability and organization are centered in D.C. area.
Either the SDA church must change to accommodate with a much wider tent or continue to flounder with an out-dated message like the GOP
hammer looking for that elusive nail. It can either grow with us or we will leave it behind, as many have done, and will continue to do. When any institution and its message becomes both obsolete and irrelevant, those so affected will simply leave it behind. Without change there is death. The SDA church may be just one measurement of the global change occurring everywhere. People are no longer content to be told what to do and what to believe. In churches, congregationalism is the fastest growing segment. That's a growing tendency that any religious institution should rightfully fear.
Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion just won't cut it anymore!
Once we were the land flowing with milk and honey. Now it is all sour grapes. We are not only our brother's keeper, we are our brother's brother. The world is much too small for isolationism. In WWII it took me 18 days to get to Australia now 18 seconds. There is no longer room for a Fox News mentality within a Christian ethic or ethos. Never has so much wrong been done in the cause of the religious right!
We are now on another "hinge of history". Will we vote for an open or closed door? If we vote closed: Who can save us? As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy and they are us. Tom
From the article:
--
Early in the 2008 presidential election, ten wannabes gathered at the Reagan library for a GOP debate and they all pledged, like a VH-1 show, to bring back the 80s. But in November America just said “no.” Judging by the news stories when Barack Obama won, was inaugurated, and has traveled abroad, the rest of the world agrees. People want hope, not bi-polar apocalypticism.
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I take it Alex does not remember the 1980's in fact one of Obama's Earlier speeches as President was modeled after Regan's "morning in America" speech. The above statenement is either a sad commentary on our educational system or the myopic views of political partisans.
From CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama addressed Congress shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, but a casual viewer might have believed it was actually morning in America.
"Morning in America" was the theme of Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign, and it was front and center in Obama's most critical event since Inauguration Day.
The president who has pledged to reverse much of Reagan's economic revolution took a page from the 40th president's playbook in his 52-minute speech, striking a defiantly optimistic tone that belied the nation's sour mood and rebutted critics who have accused him of intentionally talking down the economy for short-term political gain.
"Though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,"...
"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama argued at the start of last year's Democratic primaries.
Reagan, Obama said, knew that Americans "want clarity. We want optimism. We want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that [has] been missing."
Tuesday night's speech featured all of those elements.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/24/analysis.obama.reagan/index.html
Ron
RC,
A name in a speech proves what?
In the material you quoted:
"The president who has pledged to reverse much of Reagan's economic revolution. . . ."
Ron, I'm not sure what you mean by writing: "The above statenement (sic) is either a sad commentary on our educational system. . . ."
But you might parse the difference between evoking the psychological associations of a name vs. invoking those policies.
If you were making a tighter logical argument, you'd quote an example of President Obama employing "bi-polar apocalypticism" not some pundit noting a similarity in tone.
It's actually funny to read the whole article, because it contrasts the inverse nature of Reagan and Obama.
From the article you decided to use to prove me wrong that Obama is not a return to 80s Reaganism:
My point, exactly. Yours?
Well clearly you only see what you want to see Alex. The whole emphasis on hope, well I guess that was just something Obama invented.
But then what can we expect...those wacky right wing CNN pundits.
Ron
Ron,
Huh? Did I say that Obama invented hope?*
*Hint: nope.
My first professional position was as an instructor at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisc. The Alma Mater of Senator Joe McCarthey. I was a "devote practicing Seventh-day Adventist" and elder of the Milwaukee Seventh-day Adventist Church. That was perfectly alright with the University, as long as I didn't try to "convert" any young Roman Catholics.
However, to speak out against Senator McCarthy was an entirely different matter. My chair lost his job over it.
I being a much smaller fry, was not a target. However, when Senator McCarthy was rebuked by the Senate, the entire climate changed. Never-the-less, the McCarthy legacy still remains in the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, et al.
Why, in the name of all that Seventh-day Adventists consider Holy, and in the name of all that iT considers civil discourse--must the Seventh-day Adventist Church condone, support, and mimic such uncouth dialogue.
Years ago, the theme song of a General Conference Session was: "We Have This Hope, that burns with in our hearts!"
Now it seems to be bile, steaming hot bile. The equivelent to inter-net stoning.
If the Seventh-day Adventist Church can learn anything for the GOP, it is to run as fast as possible in the other direction.
One would think the Church was already in the New Jerusalem, looking over the walls watching the sinners burn in hell and enjoying every minute of it. Anyone got at camera?
The low point is SDA leadership was Robert Pearson and Neal Wilson--they cowed the scholars and sent the Church back into the 19th Century. Oh maybe as recent as Harding. Now the scholars fight back with peripheral issues that don't rise to the level of pot shots from Tokoma Park. Like defining sin rather than proclaiming Salvation.
Tom
Seems to me that the most precarious position a person (or church) can occupy is beliving themselves to be God's choosen people.
Alex, I'd have thought that a GC president from an ocean or two south of Silver Spring would represent the antithesis of much of what you stand for and post on this blog about. Wrong?
I do find your accusations of the GOP as the party of negativity to be rather biased in light of the Democrats' role during the time of each of the last Republican administrations. Of course, they play the role of the party in opposition, as the GOP is now. But negativism clearly is hardly a GOP exclusive.
Anyway, I got a kick out of the fact that next to your blog, Google had placed an ad with a smiling Governor Palin that read, "Like Palin? Vote here now."
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