decision to implement Sunday morning worship services, representatives from the Pastoral Evangelism Leadership Council (PELC) have insolently and threateningly voiced their resolution concerning the Sunday worship question, in connection with the issues of women’s ordination and worship styles in an article entitled “No More! Affirming the Need to Ignore Naysayers.” The author, Rebecca Davis, associate pastor of Atlanta’s Berean SDA Church, opens her article by stating “There’s a quiet riot among us. It’s like an underground movement happening right in our midst! It’s because pastors are no longer satisfied with the status quo. There are pastors who are no longer ok with the exclusive, separatist, controlling, traditionalist, one size fits all mentality that has consistently threatened the life of our denomination.”
Davis’ choice of words is intriguing yet calculated, as she juxtaposes the usually peace-loving pastors with a tumultuous throng of rioters, referring to the movement of dissatisfied pastors (of which she belongs), as an underground riot. As she goes on, it becomes very clear that this movement is soon to emerge from the underground and penetrate to the very core of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination; and indeed it has already begun to show itself.
She continues, “You see no matter how many times you explain to some members or some denominational leaders why space should be given to have Sunday eleven am worship service, no matter how many Ellen White quotes you throw their way, they still will never get it. And I mean, you can talk and argue until you’re blue in the face! We have become so focused on internal battles such as, whether or not ethnic conferences should be dissolved, worship styles, women’s ordination and why we shouldn’t have services on Sunday, that it has effectively restricted our ability to move forward. However, there are so many of us who are standing up saying, ‘No more!’ We, like Hannah, are not content with a portion of meat! God has promised and he can deliver more!”
According to the premise of and sentiments expressed in the article under analysis, the methods of evangelism used in times past to carry forward gospel evangelism, as well as the position to remain true to the historic identity of Adventism, are today outdated, ineffective and inhibit church growth/progress and therefore need to be challenged, changed and new-modeled. “This is not to incite insurrection,” Davis states, “but to state very clearly to the powers that be that we have a systemic problem that dates back to before any of us were thought of."
To that we say, ‘No more!’” Individuals with such opinions as thus expressed, view church growth only from a numeric standpoint and are therefore willing to lower the standards that God has established and use any method (i.e. worldly music, sports, secular entertainment, etc.), in order to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by worldlings, and bring them into a denomination that is almost identical to the popular non-SDA churches. And indeed, an increase in membership has ensued from these endeavors, yet these churches that souls are brought into, in no way resemble the Seventh-day Adventism.
The question is put forth to us in The Great Controversy, “what was the origin of the great apostasy? Looking back centuries before and comparing the state of affairs today, it is undeniable that the very reasons for the origin of this apostasy are prevalent in the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, which indicates that the great apostasy has reemerged and is in its omega/ending phase.
“What was the origin of the great apostasy? How did the church first depart from the simplicity of the gospel? By conforming to the practices of paganism, to facilitate the acceptance of Christianity by the heathen…During the lives of the apostles the church remained comparatively pure. But ‘toward the latter end of the second century most of the churches assumed a new form; the first simplicity disappeared, and insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children, along with new converts . . . came forward and new-modeled the cause…’ To secure converts, the exalted standard of the Christian faith was lowered, and as the result ‘a pagan flood, flowing into the church, carried with it its customs, practices, and idols…’ Great Controversy p.385 E.G.W.
In these times when postmodern thinking, relativism and pluralism have permeated every level of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, it is crucial that God’s people return and cling to the old paths and He who designed and Himself trod those paths;" Hilari Henriques
Thus saith the LORD,
Stand ye in the ways, and see,
and ask for the old paths,
where is the good way,
and walk therein,
and ye shall find rest for your souls.
But they said, We will not walk therein.
Jeremiah 6:16