How can we understand what happened in the 1950's? The elements of the experience have been reported by so many participants that we may feel relatively secure in reconstructing an outline of events like this:
- Donald Grey Barnhouse, editor of Eternity, a magazine for Protestant evangelical ministers, cooperates with a young scholar, Walter Martin, who is studying American "cults." Some of Martin's findings are printed in Eternity.
- Dr. Barnhouse presents a radio sermon, which is heard by a Seventh-day Adventist minister, T. E. Unruh. Unruh writes Barnhouse a letter of appreciation.
- Reminded of the existence of Seventh-day Adventists by the letter, Barnhouse suggests to Martin that this group should be the next subject of his investigations.
- Martin approaches the Seventh-day Adventist world leaders in Washington, D . C . , and requests their cooperation. After some hesitancy, the request is granted.
- An extensive series of conversations and comparisons of views between Martin and a small group of Adventists finally results in his conclusion that Seventh-day Adventists are not a "cult."
- One of the major influences leading to this conclusion is the assurance by the Adventist group that the Seventh-day Adventist church, aside from a poorly informed minority, had always believed, like Martin and his evangelical colleagues, that the Lord Jesus Christ had come to this earth in the nature of the unfallen Adam. The evidence supplied to Martin centers in the document that we have examined in Section Four and found to be grossly erroneous.
How could it happen?
Let us resolutely require ourselves to consider, without flinching, all of the possibilities:
1. The Adventist group and Walter Martin were alike dishonest persons who collaborated in deliberately deceiving the world.
This would be contrary to all that we know of them. Walter Martin's record of service would certainly not give support to any such indictment. And those of us who are familiar with the Adventist's life-long devotion to the cause of Christ find this conclusion utterly unacceptable. We may point out in this connection (though some, charging collusion, might reject this evidence) that until this day Martin has remained convinced of the Adventist's sincerity and integrity, as they have remained convinced of his.
2. Either the Adventists were dishonest, and Martin was honest; or Martin was dishonest and the Adventists were honest.
Here we must recognize that we are treading upon a mine field. Smoldering resentments of past decades are likely to burst forth into new explosions, as persons on both sides decide the issue in harmony with their previous conceptions and/or misconceptions.
We are compelled to recognize that both the Seventh-day Adventist community and the Protestant-evangelical community have long regarded each other with great suspicion, and it might be safe to describe that as the outstanding understatement of this paper. Can we unflinchingly face the facts? Many Protestant-evangelicals have long regarded Seventh-day Adventists as dishonest, for reasons that I will let them supply (while not conceding their validity). And on their part, many Seventh-day Adventists have long regarded Protestant-evangelicals as dishonest, for reasons that I am well able to supply. I have a drawer full of papers, pamphlets, and books that have been written and circulated about Adventists by Evangelicals which are literally filled with gross miss-statements of fact, not excepting the hideously false allegation that we Seventh-day Adventists believe that Satan is our Saviour.
It is doubtful that a reasoned inquiry into the nature of the problem before us will be possible if we permit these ancient misunderstandings and prejudices to be revived. And must we not concede that questions regarding the sincerity and integrity of human hearts are largely beyond human judgment? Would we not be best advised to concern ourselves with the work of human hands, and leave the judgment of human hearts to the Lord? We might consider at this point the counsel of the Adventist writer, F. D. Nichol, who asked us to remember that men may hold in sincerity to preposterous propositions; and the counsel of Ellen White, who urged that we always assume that those who disagree with us are sincere in their beliefs. The third possibility would be this:
3. The members of the Adventist group were not as well informed about their own church history as they should have been, and Walter Martin was not as careful about examining primary sources as he should have been.
This appears to be the most acceptable and defensible explanation of what happened. As we consider the role played by the Adventist group, we discover that the plural term is hardly appropriate.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the arrangement of evidence was mostly done by one person, Dr. L. E . Froom, and that the others simply published his findings to Martin and to the world. Their explanation might be that because of the heavy responsibilities they were carrying, they did not have time for extensive research activities. In any case, effective checks and counter-checks regarding the discovery, selection, and arrangement of materials were obviously lacking.
Dr. Froom, it is equally apparent, had not become as expert in the historical theology of the Seventh-day Adventist church as in European historical theology. Again, he might plead that the massive research that he was doing in European historical theology, which resulted in his monumental works, The Prophetic Faith Of Our Fathers, and The Conditionalist Faith Of Our Fathers, left him inadequate time for a detailed examination of Seventh-day Adventist historical records.
Thus a few items that came to light were quickly shaped into a statement that did not reflect an awareness of the total existing evidence.
As for Dr. Martin, it does not appear that he made a careful enough personal examination of the relevant primary source material, or that the properly critical attitude that a careful scholar must assume toward all arrangements of evidence was functioning in this case. We remember that the statement set forth by Froom and his companions was entirely historical in nature, and consisted entirely of interpretations of statements by Ellen White. It would seem that if Dr. Martin had systematically examined these statements in their original context he surely would have had misgivings about procedural irregularities, and that if he had thoroughly surveyed all of the statements Ellen White had published in books and magazine articles about the humanity of Jesus, he would not have been able to escape the conclusion that she believed, with great conviction, that Jesus Christ came to this earth in the human nature of fallen man, and emphatically not in the nature of the unfallen Adam.
In drawing this conclusion, we need not be critical of anyone's motives. If the Adventists were motivated by a desire to improve the relations between the Seventh-day Adventist church and other churches, we would not fault them for that. And if Walter Martin were motivated by a desire to move the Seventh-day Adventist church toward theological positions that he believes to be correct, we would not fault him for that. But it is surely neither unreasonable nor unchristian to insist that there be no compromise of historical accuracy in the seeking of these goals. It is on the point of historical accuracy, in my judgment, that both the Adventists and Walter Martin should have been more careful.
This leaves us with the question, How did the erroneous conclusions of this small group find acceptance among Adventists?
It would appear that the answer may be given in a single word, authority. There were several dynamics working in the situation.
The anti-authority, anti-establishment attitudes of the 1960's had not yet appeared in American life in the 1950's. Respect for authority in all areas was much more common then than now.
The majority of Seventh-day Adventist ministers at that time had received no seminary or graduate school training, but had gone into the ministry immediately after graduating from college with a major in religion.
The source materials required for a historical analysis of the Adventist church's and Ellen White's Christo logical views were available only at the church's world headquarters in Washington, D.C. They had not been distributed among libraries around the world (by micro-film) as they now have been.
Those who had questions, as some did, found themselves looking into the two barrels of a double-barrelled shot-gun of authority. By what right would they presume to disagree with leading scholars of their own church? And by what right would they presume to disagree with Dr. Walter Martin, whose scholarly qualifications were represented as being impeccable?
So when the book Questions On Doctrine was published by a Seventh-day Adventist publishing house in 1957 , supported by a very strong advertising program in Adventist journals, purportedly approved by many Seventh-day Adventist thought leaders, and bearing the stamp of approval of General Conference officers, what Adventist minister or teacher would presume to raise objections?
(There were a very few knowledgeable persons, including an outstandingly competent Adventist scholar named M. L. Andreason, who did raise objections. They were dealt with firmly, if not ruthlessly, as being trouble makers who were violating the principles of church order. Others undoubtedly found their experience an instructive object lesson.)
And when Dr. Martin's book, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventists, was published by Zondervan's (1960) and supported by his impressive scholarly credentials, who would have supposed that such a wildly inaccurate document as the one which we have examined could have survived his professional scrutiny?
Dr. Martin himself reports that when the editors at Zondervan's expressed misgivings about his manuscript, he calmed their fears by affirming his scholarly authority rather than by setting forth evidence.[1] From this distance it would appear that it might have been better for the church and for the world if the editors at Zondervan's had stubbornly insisted on examining the evidence.
Note:
- Adventist Currents, July, 1983, page 19.