QOD conference bulletin one

By Richard Rice

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

“To Rick from Grandpa Klose March 25, ’58.” That’s the inscription on the flyleaf of my copy of Questions on Doctrine. My grandfather, an Adventist missionary and minister for his entire career, always gave me books as gifts, usually ones written by Arthur Maxwell. But if a study of church doctrines seems an odd selection for an eighth grader, I must admit that I was a rather serious child and my thirteenth year proved to be the most deeply religious of my entire life. So I was glad for another book to add to my growing library.

The much anticipated conference on QOD begins tonight at Andrews University. It commemorates the publication fifty years ago of the book that was supposed to build bridges between SDAs and the larger Christian world, and would up generating bitter divisions within the church. Not everyone is looking forward to the conference. In his address to SDA world leaders at annual council a short time ago, GC President Jan Paulsen expressed his own reservations about it. He hopes that the conference will not refuel the controversies that the book ignited over the atonement, the nature of Christ, and a number of other issues.

Organized by Michael Campbell and Julius Nam, young scholars specializing in Adventist history, and sponsored by several Adventist Universities, the QOD conference features keynote addresses by George Knight, a retired Seminary professor who has authored a stack of  books on SDA history, Herbert Douglass, onetime president of Weimar College and associate editor of the "Adventist Review," and Angel Rodriquez, currently the director of the church’s Biblical Research Institute. 

The seven sessions scheduled for Thursday and Friday will be devoted to presentations and panels on the following topics—the history and impact of QOD, the relation between Adventists and Evangelicals, the theology of QOD, and “QOD and the Church.” Along with a number of SDA scholars, the slate of participants includes scholars from outside the church, Edith Blumhofer of Wheaton College and Donald Dayton, who taught most recently at Azusa Pacific University. It also includes some people who have been highly critical of church administration and theology, such as Colin Standish.

I don’t recall reading much of QOD until I found the list of Ellen White quotations in the appendices helpful in my college theology courses. And I was only vaguely aware at the time of the clouds of controversy that Questions on Doctrine stirred up. So, idea that we should have a conference to commemorate its publication came as a bit of a surprise to me. I don’t know what the mood of the conference will be—celebration, reflection, or controversy—and I’m not sure what it will accomplish. The conveners look forward to “an engaging, reflective, scholarly dialogue.” It won’t be long till we find out if they are right.

Here is a link to the QOD conference website.

Comments

[Pat Travis]

Thanks Richard for the Info. Helps me feel better that the legitimate "personal feelings" of Paulson did not squelch investigation as has occured under previous GC and Conference Presidents.

pt

[Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer]

Congratulations to Andrews University for hosting a conference on QOD. I understand they reprinted the book with some revision.

I hope the Conference will not be a repeat of Glacier View. At that conference it was determined that the Administrators and not the Scholars were in charge of doctrine.

It was during that era that Kenneth Woods was editor of the Review and Douglass an Associate. Woods was very direct in stating that the Book: Answers to Questions never should have been written. Not a word of apology to the memory of M. L.Andreasen.

I noticed that Herbie Douglass will be a participant. His Book: Why Jesus Waits is 99.44% M. L. Andreasen yet Andreasen was not referenced once—due obviously to Andreasen’s disciplining by the Brethren for his Letters to the Churches.

If the conference is successful in building a bridge to the community of Reform Churches from which Barnhouse came it will have to seriously revise or eliminate Fundamental belief 13, 18, and 24.

Good Luck. Tom

[Carrol Grady]

The one thing I remember about Elder Andreasen is that, I think, it was he who promoted the idea that there must be a generation of people (presumably Adventists) who will live without sin before Jesus can return. I've never read QOD, but I guess I'd better go see if we have it in our bookcase.

[Pat Travis]

Ditto on your comment Tom...also good SS lesson review.

pt

[Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer]

Yes Carrol

Andreaen was the authority on the Book of Hebrews and the final generation portion of Great Controvery.
He was a very fine little man, very intense with a good sense of humor and a high ethic for historic E.G. White's end time pronouncements. An aside, In a conversation with a SDA scholar I questioned the Book "Why Jesus Waits". The reply was: Well Tom you know how perfect Herbie hair is, and his teeth,and his profile, and his grooming, and his speach, and his GPA, and his interpersonal relations with the brethern--of course there will be a final perfect generation! With Herbie at the head!" Tom

[Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer]

Thanks Pat

For your concurence with my first entry and your complement on the SS lesson. I have had several favorable (even surprised comments) I guess they thought I had horns. Tom

[Johnny A. Ramirez]

Tom,
Your comment on this bridge to reformed churches is so very interesting to me being that I'm currently in the UK's most conservative divinity school studying under quite neo-orthodox professors. Really it is a third way through the mistakes of fundamentalism and the relativism of liberal protestantism.

For me at least QOD was a very important book which did serve, in part, as a necessary corrective against the divergent last generation theology our church has been wise to repeatedly reject.
Thanks!

[Pat Travis]

Johnny,
Some of us nuance the difference between Fundamentalism, Conservative, neo-orthodox and Liberalism.Your comments may interest you in a book that I greatly value.

Christianity & Liberalism by J.Gresham Machen- Eerdmans.1923.185pp.

You may have read. "Practical read" on Issues on which Machen and other conservative profs. left "Old Princeton" and started Wesminster Theological Seminary.

Still remeber my dad and mom being excited by the printing of a book by a friend, Leroy Froom,(QOD) that was suppose to help remove our cult status with other Christian churches.

pt

[Lisa Diller]

I'm here at the QOD conference at Andrews and I think the Spirit is totally present. I'm enjoying the talks and getting a HUGE education. Sorry there aren't more women though. I know AAW is on, but we're seriously short of people under 50 and women. Can't help but think that if more women were leading our church in the 50s we might have avoided some of this.... I'm definately getting the impression lots of this could have been avoided with some basic social skills. But I'm glad to say that many of the presenters here are good at not taking themselves so seriously and I think the future of this issue is bright.
Could I hear comments from any other attendees who read this blog? Am I just a Pollyanna?

[Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer]

I don't know who is there but if Rick Rice is there there will be wisdom, experience, common sense, and good humor present. Let us pray that God will also be there. Tom

[arlyn]

Thanks for the schedule. I'll try to attend tomorrow, and raise the estrogen level in the room.

[arlyn]

Tom,
great SS commentary! Thanks!

[Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer]

Arlyn

Thanks

I have had a welcome comment from a brother, two sisters, Two sons, and a daughter, as well as several readers of Spectrum on line. I appreciate it very much. Much of the passion came from a private room in arehab center in the middle of the night. Thank God Almight! It is well with my soul!. Tom

[Dr Steve Parker]

Thanks for the bulletin, Richard! For those of us in Australia who can't be at the conference, it is important to get info on what is happening. Much appreciated and I look forward to further bulletins.

[Henry Neufeld]

As an ex-SDA, I'm glad to have found these reports. I think conducting such a discussion is a sign of health in an organization, and I hope it will be constructive.

[Arlin Baldwin]

I was a student at PUC when QOD was published in 1957 and Andreasen's Letters to the Churches were being circulated in opposition. Roy Allan Anderson came from the Ministerial Association to our Biblical Theology Class to explain QOD. Dr. Walter Martin's evangelical response, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism, came out in 1960. This was a period of frank and open discussion between faculity and students at PUC, and among the wider SDA community, and with the Evangelicals. There is need for frank open discussions today among SDA's and with other Christians. Too many Adventists still exhibit a "shut door" mentality. God's Truth is many-faceted. This conference, if frank and open, will offer opportunities to gain new perspectives.

[Nic Samojluk]

I grew up in Argentina, and in Spanish "cult" means "worship", for which reason I had a hard time figuring out why so much effort was made to avoid having our church being associated with worship. I thought it was a nice compliment!

[Edwin Reynolds]

Lisa requested other readers who were there to report also. I was there and it was great. The Spirit was clearly working to bring together a broad spectrum (pardon the allusion) of people of different theological perspectives, both SDA and non-SDA. There was unity of spirit within the diversity that existed. I don't think anyone changed their views, but there was greater understanding and fellowship as a result. The emphasis was on healing the wounds of the past and embracing unity rather than uniformity. It was repeatedly emphasized that we are brethren and that the bonds and teachings that unite us are stronger than those that we may have with other Christians. It was wonderful to celebrate communion on Sabbath with footwashing and sharing the Lord's Supper together side by side, with leading figures from different perspectives sharing in the distribution of the tokens of Christ's broken body and spilled blood. You really had to be there!

[Shane Dresen]

Refreshing! Open, honest
communication on QoD. What is so encouraging...a perfect Knight fouled out but a Knight in progress repeatedly hit grand slams...and helped countless others do the same.

We are complete 'in HIM'
'We are not to worry about what GOD thinks of us, but of what He thinks of Christ our Savior.' EGW

That frees us from anxiety to enjoy the freedom, to revel in God's love. It rubs off on us by contact.

We are not saved by our works...but we are recognized (judged) by them...in the same way the disciples were recognized as having been with Jesus.
They began to think about people, life, the future the way He did.

Christ in us the hope of glory.

They changed the world.

Shane

P.S. I became a Xristian at 21...And SDA due to imperfect but nice believers...The cosmic war concept really held me.

Christos Victor!