Lately it seems the SDA church has steamed ahead full throttle in trying to stem the tide of defections and apostasies. Never before have I seen the church go into damage control mode so quickly and collectively marshall her forces in an attempt to clot the steady flow of membership hemmorraging. They try to do everything possible to keep people in, and more and more of them just keep heading out the back door. For every convert they win, Dale Ratzlaff, Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland and the Colleen Tinker drag three more out.
Just lately we have had Bob Pickle's book
A Response To The Video: Seventh-day Adventism-The Spirit Behind The Church, Graeme Bradford's books
More Than A Prophet, People Are Human, Prophets Are Human, Don McMahon's book
Acquired Or Inspired, Herbert Douglass's book
They Were There, Leonard Brand's book
The Prophet And Her Critics, the Ellen White Summit seminars complete with George Knight and Jon Paulien pleading with the church for a more realistic understanding of Ellen White and her ministry, Doug Batchelor's book
Advindication, Alden Thompson's book
Escape From The Flames, Clifford Goldstein's attempts at IJ/1844/Heavenly Sanctuary apologetics in a recent Sabbath School Quarterly and his book
Graffiti In The Holy of Holies as well as his article in the Review
Blood In The Holy Of Holies.
Amazing Facts recently had the
Here We Stand seminars, reaffirming the pillars in the face of intense attack from the opposition.
And now, just recently released, is Skip MacCarty's book
In Granite Or Ingrained? dealing with the question of the two covenants.
GYC continues to put on yearly meetings with the intention of retaining the youth who have chosen to stay with the ship, and the EGW Estate desperately targets the children with a magazine with the purpose of solely promoting and selling EGW to the next generation in the church.
It's a full-on campaign to keep and retain the sheep that are left and somehow win back the ones that have already bailed.
On the one hand, you have to admire them for at least acknowledging there are serious issues that need to be dealt with. They are attempting to respond to the criticisms. But really, what choice do they have now with the advent of the internet and a much more savvy, aware membership in the pews? They have been pushed into a corner far enough to the point now where minimizing or denial is no longer an adequate or acceptable response, so this is the only option left in the face of individuals leaving left and right. Many in the church see the problems for what they are and are trying to meet them head-on. This is a good thing.
On the other hand, I can't help but wonder how many fingers are going to be available to desperately plug the holes in the dam of Adventism until the water of dissent brings the whole thing crashing down around them. The cracks are already showing, the wall is groaning under the weight and pressure of the tide waters and it is becoming too much to keep up with the problem areas. Heaven knows that church apologetics (especially Ellen White apologetics) is a line of work even some Adventist Pastors and scholars are not at all keen on undertaking for obvious reasons. Many SDA ministers would rather just preach Christ and Him crucified, and leave the rest of the baggage for someone else to deal with. So it is left to a few (valiant? brave? incredibly stupid?) souls to plunge into the lions den of criticism and charge into battle raising the tattered Adventist flag high.
President Jan Paulsen recently affirmed all of the church's historic stands on the fundamentals. I wonder if he realizes just how much manpower, effort and energy is being expended into sustaining and maintaining this bold proclamation as a reality?
Even Fritz Guy, a prominent Adventist scholar and professor, shakes his head sadly at the display. He went on record as stating that the 1800 Adventist paradigm will not be sustainable much longer in the 21st century.
It is an interesting human drama, worthy of a Hollywood production, don't you think?
2008 should be an interesting year...