c. 2004 Religion News Service
SILVER SPRING, Md. _ Worldwide leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church tackled two sensitive subjects _ creationism and appropriate music for worship _ during their Annual Council meeting that ended Thursday (Oct. 14).
After three years of discussion across the globe, the Adventists affirmed the church’s historic stance supporting the biblical account of creation. They also approved “A Seventh-Day Adventist Philosophy of Music” that shied away from specifics because of concerns about the diversity of cultures represented in the worldwide religious body.
Church leaders also learned that the adult membership of the church grew to 13.6 million, up 3.86 percent from the 2003 total of 13.1 million.
“We reaffirm the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the historicity of Genesis 1-11: that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week; and that the Flood was global in nature,” reads an executive committee response to a report from the church’s faith and science committee.
Jan Paulsen, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, acknowledged that there are “shades of difference” among Adventists about how long it took to create the Earth and how long the Earth has existed, but he believes there is more agreement that “life as we know it on Earth is the handiwork of God.”
“I think the vast majority of Seventh-day Adventists will strongly assert the position that says … life on Earth was created in six literal days, continuous days,” Paulsen said in a news conference at the church’s headquarters Thursday.
Drafters of the executive committee response said the report and three years of conferences included discussion of the tensions between the scientific and theological world on how human beings came to be.
“Adventists come down clearly on Scripture in terms of living with this tension,” said Bill Johnsson, an Adventist theologian and editor of Adventist Review, the denomination’s weekly newsmagazine, in an interview.
Jim Gibson, director of the church’s Geoscience Research Institute in Loma Linda, Calif., said “most Seventh-day Adventist scientists … have knowingly and intentionally chosen to live by faith.”
But archaeologist Ervin Taylor, executive director of the independent bimonthly Adventist Today, was disappointed with the documents discussed at the meeting because he thinks they did not permit individual differences on the topic.
“I think the church has lost a golden opportunity to confront an issue that has serious ramifications, and it didn’t want to grapple with the implications of it in a serious way,” said Taylor, a third-generation Adventist and professor at University of California at Riverside. “We’ve been set back a generation.”
On the matter of music, church leaders decided to remove suggested “applications” from the church’s philosophy that would have recommended that congregations “shun theatrics” and say “Amen” instead of applauding during worship services.
`Not all sacred/religious music may be acceptable for an Adventist,” reads the statement that is considered to be guidelines rather than policy. “Sacred music should not evoke secular associations or invite conformity to worldly behavioral patterns of thinking or acting.”
Paulsen said his world travels for the church have impressed him with the wide range of worship that is considered appropriate by church members.
“I have learned that there is a huge variety of instruments, of rhythm, of sound that can convey beauty and convey joy in the Lord,” he said. “I think it is … far better to state the principles that should serve as your value statement and not be overly prescriptive in terms of details.”
Ekkehardt Mueller, associate director of the church’s Biblical Research Institute in Silver Spring and a member of the committee that presented the document, was disappointed that the entire statement was not adopted.
“Culture plays a role, but we have to live by principles, which are … not derived from culture,” he said. “You have to evaluate each type of music. … Not everything may be the best for a worship service.”
Reger Smith, public relations director for the church and a singer and songwriter, said he doubts the document will significantly reduce tensions surrounding the range of worship styles in the church _ from congregations featuring classical music to those favoring praise and worship songs.
“Most of the tensions are around people who have very cut-and-dried stances already,” he said. “`I don’t think this does anything to really change that.”
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