Shared Responsibility -- Shared Trust
*Official text as prepared for delivery
Jan Paulsen
Paul is confronted with a dilemma which we find referenced in 1 Corinthians chapters 8 to 10. It is a dilemma which impacts both responsibility and unity in the leadership of the church. The question before him is this: How do you counsel people about the eating meat that has been offered to idols? On the one hand, referring to Israel, he says that “those who eat the sacrifice participate in the altar”, and, on the other, he muses: Does that also hold when it comes to idols? And he answers it basically by saying that ‘As for me I don’t believe in idols’ – they are nothing to me – so, I can eat meat offered to idols without doing damage to myself.
But, he says, -- and this is the critical point for leadership – if the exercise of my freedom causes damage to you, then it was wrong and not in harmony with the will of Christ. My exercise of freedom and the choices I make in my realm and in my world must be disciplined by consideration, love, and concern for those who may in some way are affected by it. This is a biblical principle which must define what we do as leaders. “Everything is permissible”, he says, “but not everything is beneficial”. And he adds: “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others” (1 Cor. 10:24). And then Paul concludes by saying: “follow my example as I will follow Christ’s”.
Clearly, for Paul the issue is not food. Food is just the illustration. The real issue is: What should govern the decisions and actions we take? His answer clearly takes us to showing consideration and deferring to others. It has to do with being willing to forego rights rather than claim and assert them. It is about you and I, people entrusted with leadership, asking ourselves: If I do this, which I think I have every right to do, what good or damage will it do to others who may in some way be impacted by what I do? – For while a man has a duty to himself he has a greater duty to others. The passage is about discovering what it means to be part of something which is larger than any of us and our immediate communities. And the principle which it brings out is of foundational importance to us as a global church. So, may I suggest, maybe with a bit of license, that arising out of this passage come some thoughts we should take with us – thoughts such as:
- The high value of mutual trust. It is a good thing to be able to share resources while at the same time letting go of the controls. It has very much to do with trust without which we cannot lead this church; trusting that those who receive the support that comes from me will know how to best use it in the interest of the life and mission of the church where they are. You and I have our designated areas of responsibility. Let’s do our best there; and trust others to look after theirs, as well as you and I will do ours, for all of us will eventually be held accountable for how we have performed, maybe already in this life (when election time comes), but certainly in the one to come.
- It is good to understand what the passage teaches us about deference, and about acceptance of that which is different from me and mine. ‘Acceptance’, not in the sense that I may take it on as mine, for it may not work for me or indeed be acceptable to me personally, but in the sense of not judging its value to the others under different circumstances and cultures. We don’t all live in the same world, but we all share the same family ties. We are not all children of the same culture, but we are not independent of each other. We are bonded in unity, and we have to trust each other to do right.
- Understanding that there is at least a hint in this passage telling us to be sensitive to what is core Adventist and what is not, and not to unduly elevate a particular perspective that occupies me and impose it on others, remembering not to over-rate the value of my particular culture as I relate to others.
- Understanding that this passage, very fundamentally, has to do with nurturing the bonds which hold us together as a “family”, for that is what the Seventh-day Adventist Church globally is. You support this family because of your love and loyalty to the Lord and his people. You will give no support to those who seem bent on, or, possibly even more dangerously, feel ‘called to’, offering an array of judgmental statements and messages of negative criticism, which become an offence to the Lord and harassment of the church and its leaders, for that is harmful and destructive to the church as a family.
- Understanding, says Paul, that in everything I do, I want Christ to look good. Although I am free, he says, I make myself a slave – I discipline myself – for the sake of Christ, the Gospel, and His people. Whatever I do, says Paul, I do it “so that I might win as many as possible”, and so that the voice of Christ and his love for the church may be clear and untarnished.
This mind-set of shared responsibilities and shared trust, for the sake of Christ and the unity of the church, defines our leadership-style and the decisions we make.
The church, which we are a part of and have responsibility to give leadership to, is far from a perfect community. And none of us is making any strong or boastful claims for ourselves as elected leaders. But the church is God’s people – this is the Body of Christ, and looking after the Church is an act of worship. The church is not a business corporation, and you and I are not corporate executives. We did not aggressively market ourselves to get to where we are today; the process which brought us to where we are was different. We may not do a perfect job, but we will give it our best. And, somehow, I think that is all the Lord expects of any of us. What you do as a leader in the church, do it with love for the Lord and his people, do it with integrity, and keep your heart clean. I really believe that is all the Lord asks of any of us. And I think he will honor you for it.
Between us who come together for Annual Council, and among the many other leaders in local conferences and missions who are not here, there is a vast array of leadership assignments. Don’t get involved in managing the task given to somebody else. Stay with the assignment you have been given – for now. I know there are interesting challenges out there that you wouldn’t mind taking on, but just stay with what you have been entrusted to look after for now. It is good to draw the line there. I know there are local leaders who receive unsolicited requests for intervention, with respect to something that is happening in another country or another part of the world church – or, conversely, should have happened but is not – and you may feel drawn into it because you feel you have the solution. My counsel is: “Don’t”. The ‘flaws’ that may have been brought to your attention, whether they are real or just somebody’s agenda, are not yours to fix. You may think that you can help if they would just listen to you. I have to tell you honestly that I don’t think you can. You probably haven’t got the full picture. I frequently get what I call “10% stories”; it is in the 90% they don’t tell me that the real substance is found. The task elsewhere is not the responsibility you were chosen to handle – at least not just now. Others have been chosen for that role, and the extent to which they succeed or not they will have to answer to the Lord for, as you and I will for ours.
Then there are some individuals who work under your, if not immediate at least general, supervision. Try to restrain them in their zeal to fix a short-coming they think they identified in some other part of the world. For when they do, they become contributors to tensions and misunderstandings, and not to solutions, and they are not helpful. Hold them accountable ‘for the sake of the Gospel and the church’.
We cannot be fixers of things out there beyond our mandate. I have to trust others who are nearer to the matter and whose responsibility it is to take care of it. People write to me about a great variety of things they want me to fix, from ASI-type supporting ministries, to the state of our church in a country in Latin America, to gone-astray liberalism in secular Europe, to the state of leadership in India or other parts of Asia. If there are issues really in need of fixing, it is not going to work for me to try to do it; I have to trust others to care for it, as must also you. I trust you.
You are all familiar with what we call “policies”. (Somebody defined policies as something administrators quote when they want to say “No”.) There is nothing sacred about policies; we keep changing them regularly and irregularly. But they do keep order in the system; they are agreements on how we are going to try to do things, and in that sense they are instruments of unity in the church. Let us honor them and work by them. If they are flawed, and some of them are, let us make that discovery collectively, and together go about to rewrite the way (policies) we are going to do it differently. Mavericks who act independently and by their own wisdom do not make good administrators in this church.
We have two commissions appointed by Annual Council to address two very important matters in the life and mission of our global church: One addressing the policies we have for the use of tithe; the other to look at the structures and services that we have established in our church. One of them is ready to bring a report to this Annual Council; both of them will finish their work this quinquennium. These are examples of how we work together as a global community to address very comprehensive and complex issues. They are examples of how unity in our church is nurtured. They will provide ample opportunities for our commitment and loyalty to the unity of the church to be tested and tried, but we will be better for it.
The Church is unique. It is not only God’s idea, but it is a community which is of the highest value to God. “Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard.” (AA, p. 12) The church is deeply loved by him. It is the “theater of His grace”, and he has an unwavering commitment to the church. The message from Scripture, from the pen of Ellen White, and from our own history tells us that God wants this church to stay united. Let us make no mistake about this. From time to time issues come up which test our commitment to unity, such as in the oft-discussed matter of the role of women in ministry, a matter which keep surfacing from time to time. Whether in conversation with young adults or with a group of local church pastors from North America on television a few days ago, the matter keeps coming up. And some ask: ‘Do we always have to keep talking about this’? Well, it seems so. We may well be of the opinion that we should have handled it differently from the beginning. Maybe. But this is how we did it – we consulted together as a global family and we came to a decision, and this is where we are today. Maybe you were in a minority on that day, but we shared in the process and we share the outcome, and we cannot step out of our shared past and say: “I don’t like it! Whatever others may think, I will correct what I think was a mistake in my little corner of the vineyard”. It does not work like that in the church. Before we embark on a new course, particularly in a difficult and potentially divisive matter, a broad-based consensus of leadership must, listening to each other, conclude that the time has come to think differently.
In my recent conversation with church pastors they tell me that the greater concern of many women who feel called to the ministry, and who take the professional training to function as church pastors, is not the ordination issue, but just being employed in ministry. Local churches are reluctant, and conferences find them difficult to place. That I think is a most unfortunate failure. I encourage young people, men and women, to follow the calling God has placed within them. To deny the calling God may have given them is often at the risk of their own spiritual life. If this is an employment issue which you need to fix in your part of the world, then let us do that. We are going to need everyone to finish our mission, and for God to usher in eternity.
I came away from my recent conversation with church pastors reinforced in my conviction that we need to listen carefully to what these servants of the Lord say to us as leaders. Some of them feel that there is a disconnect between leadership and themselves. Where that is true, and it may be extensively true, leadership must take the initiative to correct it. Adventists around the world are engaged in all kinds of professional assignments and work places. We have, however, all this in common that we come to be nurtured at least every Sabbath from these gate-keepers and shepherds of the flock – 22,000 of them globally. There is no one in our church with a more important assignment. If we do not get it right in the local church, it cannot be fixed anywhere else. So, let us listen carefully to what the local pastors say both about the flow of ideas, about diversity and unity, about the needs of our people, about standards, and about the use of tithe. Their voice must be heard, or our decisions will not be safe.
The secular civil society and the church share virtually everything, except some important values. And society will test our conduct in some of these areas. Marriage, cohabitation and same-sex partnerships are matters that are already lodged within both the larger society and the church. Laws in society will impact our conduct as a church, maybe particularly in employment matters and in the way we run our institutions. I see tension ahead between our being fair to all and not wanting to attract litigation, on the one hand, while, on the other, at the same time not being willing to give up what we hold to be important biblical values. We are a law-abiding people, obedient citizens of any country; but obedience to God takes first priority. It is important that we do not lose sight of that when the values of two different worlds collide.
But even when that happens and things get difficult, we have to ask ourselves: How do we do mission in an imperfect world, surrounded by legal and social parameters the values of which we cannot accept? In such scenario we have to remember, I believe, that we are called to do mission in a world where sin abounds. And we will inevitably meet on our mission journey that which we hold clearly to be wrong, but the laws of the land restrict us as to whether and how we can publicly discredit that which we do not condone and share. This is difficult, but this is the world in which we live, and we cannot step out of it. And this is where we have been placed to do mission.
Let me come back to the matter of unity in the church. It is strange, but I know of nothing which has the potential of dividing the church more that theology itself. It has always been like that. Some of you who are students of church history may remember from your reading that many centuries ago a controversy arose which split the church of the East from the West, Constantinople from Rome, and the Orthodox Church and Western Christianity parted ways. The heart of the issue became known as the ‘filioque’ controversy (”And from the Son”). It had to do with the procession of the Holy Spirit after Christ’s ascension. The Eastern Christianity said that he proceeded from the Father; the Western Church added “and from the Son”. And that divided the church.
We as Seventh-day Adventists have strong convictions regarding doctrines and theology. That should not surprise any of us. It has to do with our roots and our self-understanding. It has to do with eschatology, and it has very much to do with preparing a people to be ready for Christ’s Return.
Some time ago a senior person in our church, one who has given much to our church and for whom I have the greatest respect, came to my office and urged me to convene a re-study of some of the theological issues which were published in the Book “Questions on Doctrines” – issues which he felt have created distress and, in his view, misrepresented the position of our church. It had to do particularly, but not only that, with the nature of Christ. We talked about it, and I had to tell him that I would not convene such a restudy. – I appreciate that it troubled him, as it may some others these days.
The book was an attempt to answer specific questions put to us by representatives of the evangelical community in North America. Elder Figuhr was GC President at the time, and some of the finest minds of our church were consulted and were involved in formulating our answers which were published in that book. But there were some who differed. Opinions were strongly held. Adventists always do that. While I suppose that maybe 98% of the book was considered to be a wonderful statement of where we stood and stand as a church, it was the other 2% that caused charges of apostasy to fly. -- I understand that an event is coming up to mark the fifty years that have passed since the publication of that book. I have questions about the constructive value of having that event, particularly as I see on the list of participants the names of one or two presenters whose track-record has been to attack aggressively the church and charging particularly those of us who are leaders of leading the church into apostasy.
Maybe the time will come, although it will not be at my urging and it will not happen on my watch, when church leaders will restudy the sensitive points of this issue. But I think there is a reason for why we have chosen generous language in describing our position as a church on the nature of Christ. The uniqueness of Jesus Christ (Wholly God and wholly man – no one else matches that of the “only-begotten” One) leads us to that. I just cannot imagine a post-modern person in Europe, a business man in Asia or Latin America, any more than a farmer in Africa will care one iota whether Christ had the nature of man before the fall or after. The realities of the world in which we live have other concerns and other priorities which occupy us.
Let me just say one more thing about this: The discussion about the human nature of Christ comes often in the setting of discussions about living victorious lives, about overcoming sin, and preparing a people for the coming of Christ. The question is not: Can we gain victories, or are we by our sinful nature destined to constant defeat? Of course we can gain victory, but that will not be by settling the precise human nature of Christ; it will be by experiencing the “power of His resurrection”. It will not be by the power of His example; it will be by the “power of his resurrection”, for in that lies the power to live a new life. Let us strive in our preaching, teaching, and writing to direct the attention of our people to the Risen One, for he can work wonders in our lives.
I say to you as leaders: We have the statement of 28 Fundamental Beliefs. They hold together our core identity in terms of faith and doctrine. Resist any tendency to pluck out strains from any of these and make them into a separate and new doctrine which will divide the Seventh-day Adventist global community! We are in such a rapid global growth today as a church, and to me it is important that we have the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, as stated, understood and held to by all the new members who are joining us. That in itself is a monumental task. The wonderful fact that we are growing rapidly around the globe is also our great challenge, and we cannot afford to become distracted.
None of these Fundamental Beliefs statements is intended to be a complete statement on how we see a given issue. There are numerous other official publications by our church, and occasionally an Annual Council action, such as the recent one which states in a more detailed way how we understand our position on Creation, which give further clarification of our fundamental belief with particular reference to a discussion which is current.
So, what is it that really matters, when all is said and done, to us individually and personally, as well as to us as administrators of the church which we believe is God’s community in these last days of earth’s history?
If I were to express it with just one word I would probably use the word “OBEDIENCE” [to God], for obedience expresses the practical side of faith, and its reference point is always someone or something outside my own person. Faith has no other way of expressing itself.
On committees we are often facing the dilemma of how we should respond to a ‘tricky’ matter; what decision should you make to handle a potentially difficult and problematic issue with consequences which are uncertain and unpredictable? If, after we have talked the matter through and prayed about it, and the mind finds rest with what we believe is right, it is important that the prospect of uncertain consequences do not then hinder us from moving forward. If you are clear about what is right, just do it. Don’t be political. Keep your heart clean. Be self-critical with reference to potential conflicts of interest, and, then, just do what you know is right. You will sleep better for it, for you did your best to be loyal and obedient to God.
In an uncertain world with an uncertain future, that is, I believe, the only safe stand we as church leaders can take.
As I opened my thoughts today by reference to a biblical passage, let me now exit by a similar gate:
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” -- Galatians 6: 9,10
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