THE CHURCH AND ITS SEMINARY

THE CHURCH AND ITS SEMINARY: PARTNERS IN MESSAGE AND MISSION
Sermon delivered by R S Folkenberg on October 25, 1997
to the
Andrews University Seminary Faculty
during a retreat held in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I. Introduction

I have a great respect and appreciation for the contribution that the Seminary is making in the formation of pastors, Bible teachers and theologians who are serving the church around the world. Your influence is significant and positive. I rejoice in having such a well qualified group of women and men serving the church in this institution.

It is also a pleasure for me today to share with you my vision of ministerial and theological training in the church and the role of the Seminary in that important task. I only hope to stimulate your thinking in these areas.

It is useful for us occasionally to come together and examine the foundation of what we are doing and the goals that we have set for ourselves as an institution and as individuals. Here, I am not interested in evaluation as much as in describing what I feel is the constant need of the church from you.

It is no secret that some individuals in a number of our institutions are being accused of sharing with the students ideas that undermine some of our fundamental beliefs. This weighs heavily in my heart and makes necessary for me to stop and remind myself and others of the reason for the existence of our colleges and universities.

Paul said to Timothy: "Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you--guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you" (2 Tim 1:14; NIV).

The teacher should leave no doubt as to his or her commitment to Christ and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This cannot be taken for granted-it must be publicly and personally stated.

We too have received this deposit of truth and the call to guard it also is addressed to us. In this task we confront some challenges. Today I would like to open my heart to you.

II. Guarding the Deposit: The Seminary and the Church

The Seminary and the church exist in a partnership of message and mission. Those elements belong to the very core of the relationship and justify the existence of both, the church and the Seminary.

Both are guardians of the good deposit entrusted to us. Consequently, mutual support is indispensable to the fulfillment of our mission. The church should provide for the needs of the Seminary and the Seminary must meet the needs of the church.

The Church looks to the Seminary faculty to provide and promote a better understanding of theology from an Adventist perspective and to form ministers, educators, administrators and theologians who can contribute to the fulfillment of the mission of the church.

Of course, the church is in partnership with all of our colleges and universities around the world. But we fear that in some of our institutions the partnership is less visible as these tend to become more generic in their approach and perhaps even in some ways secularized. In those cases the results inevitably limit support for the Adventist message and mission, and creates a serious disruption in the partnership.

There used to be in our institutions and classrooms a pastoral, even a custodial concern for what we as a church stood for. We were persuaded that we had something worth passing on to the next generations and we took that responsibility very seriously. It was precisely that mentality that justified the large investment that the church was making in terms of financial and human resources in the education of his members.

I would like to encourage the Seminary faculty to continue to resist the temptation to abandon this fundamental commitment to our heritage. Should we fail in this task, as our message is undermined our identity becomes blurred. We will lose the reason for our existence. Our students will be left in an ocean of ideas and conflicting views without a spiritual foundation, without a frame of reference, a cosmic perspective, by which to interpret and evaluate what they are learning.

Any hint of skepticism with regard to our fundamental beliefs or heritage is out of order. We can acknowledge flaws and faults without putting down the past. I wish every teacher would project a health pride in being a Seventh-day Adventist.

Further, an ill-defined message reduces the prophetic urgency which is the heart of our mission. This would inevitably lead the church to question its heavy investment in an educational system which was created to transmit that which was indispensable but which is now considered optional.

I believe that you chose to do what you are doing because you considered our message and mission to be existentially relevant for you and your students. We must continue to recommend to them our system of beliefs, our world view, as worthy of consideration, analysis and personal commitment. A failure to recommend to them what we stand for becomes tantamount to recommending them a different set of beliefs.

Telling young people that the fundamental purpose of the study of religion is to help them to understand others and to be tolerant of other persons views and systems of beliefs is not good enough. In fact, it seems to me, this approach only promotes relativism, skepticism and agnosticism.

If the teaching of religion does not lead to the inculcation of convictions and values based on our Adventist understanding of the Scriptures, we are doing a disservice to our students and to their parents who support us because they believe in Adventist education.

Perhaps the question we must ask is: Is it possible for us to maintain our approach to academics, characterized by our commitment to and by our proclamation of a set of authoritative truths, in a society controlled by an open-ended approach to the study of religion?

Are we committed only to a scholarly pursuit of truth and knowledge detached from a personal commitment to the truth as it is found in Jesus and in the Scriptures? These options and many others always will be available to us but they are not real options for us and should be resisted.

Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not rejecting or discouraging the search for truth and knowledge as an academic enterprise. Neither am I advocating a process of indoctrination that would render our young people mere reflectors of our own ideas and teachings. On the contrary, I firmly believe their intellects must be challenged to the utmost, that they should be confronted with the full impact of different ideas and systems of beliefs. But they should also be confronted with a logical and persuasive exposition of our world view and the way it addresses the difficult issues of humanity.

The Seminary teacher has a duty to expose students to difficult questions and issues, such as those non-believers and skeptics within the Church may raise. However, I believe that the teacher should never leave students "dangling" where vital issues are concerned. After exploring options, the teacher has a duty to share how he or she personally handles the issue or question. For students to go from a class with the impression that major beliefs are up for grabs is irresponsible.

We should package that which we as a church stand for, in an intellectually and experientially attractive format, making it appealing to both the minds and hearts of our students, with an unashamed goal of leading them to a personal commitment to our Lord. Yes, the pursuit of knowledge is correct but we must allow special revelation to set the proper and needed parameters.

At times I find some Adventist students disoriented and uncommitted. There is no reason or justification for this state of affairs. It is time for us to go back to our roots and heritage, not to tear it down but to build on it.

It is time to go back to the Scriptures and to the Protestant principle of sola scriptura. It is there that we find an anchor that could bring stability in the midst of conflicting ideas that threaten to relativize everything.

III. Guarding the Deposit: My Vision of the Graduates

What we do in the classroom has a direct impact on the end product of our educational system. Let me share with you what I consider to be some indispensable elements in the formation of ministers; elements that will contribute to the realization of our call to guard the good deposit entrusted to us.

A. Our graduates should have a clear understanding of Christ's work of salvation.

We find in the church different interpretations or emphases on the salvific work of Christ reflecting in most cases a lack of biblical, doctrinal and theological balance on the part of their proponents.

A student who leaves this place to join the ministerial ranks of the church must have a clear view of the work of Christ on behalf of the human race. They should go out to proclaim the gospel with power and this requires from them conviction and a solid biblical understanding of it.

We must restore a proper balance between faith and works, grace and law and avoid a one-sided emphasis on justification by faith that condemns any call to obedience and to a Christian life style as legalism.

B. Our graduates should have a clear understanding of all of our fundamental beliefs.

We have a particular identity within the Christian world and it should be preserved. Our graduates must understand and be able to teach those fundamental beliefs using the Bible alone.

But this does not mean other theologians should occupy a place of honor above that of the prophetic gift which was given to this movement. No. Ellen White's writings should be respected and used. It isn't good enough to have one class about her-students should be encouraged and required to research her counsels, along with reading of theologians, in all their classes.

We should make an special effort here at the Seminary to make the study of those beliefs a fascinating exploration into the different facets of the person and work of Christ. It would be good to work together deepening our comprehension of our doctrines, finding new biblical insights that will make our beliefs relevant for our churches without changing their fundamental content and guarding the good deposit.

The area of our fundamental beliefs is probably the area where we find more diversity of opinion among some of our theologians. Some seem to believe that some of our doctrines, particularly those that make us unique, are no longer relevant or may even lack biblical support. These are the ones who attempt to reinterpret those doctrines in radical ways or who opt for not dealing with them at all in the classroom.

Ellen White's counsel to these was clear:

"Those who present matters to the students in an uncertain light are not fitted for the work of teaching. No man is qualified for this work unless he is daily learning to speak the words of the Teacher sent from God. . .

"There have been teachers in our schools who could pass well in a worldly institution of learning, but who were unfitted for the training of our youth because they were ignorant of the truths of the gospel of Christ. They were unable to bring the simplicity of Christ into their labors. It should be the work of every teacher to make prominent those truths that have called us out to stand as a peculiar people before the world, and which are able to keep us in harmony with heaven's laws" (Counsels to Teachers, p 250).

Lack of conviction on the part of the teacher is very often contagious and the graduates perpetuate it in their ministry. The options are very simple and easy to understand: honesty, integrity, and accountability to God and the constituents we serve demands our loyalty or our resignation.

C. Our graduates should possess a clear understanding of the mission of the church.

In order for our ministers to perform their task as shepherds of God's people it is indispensable for them to be persuaded that this church has a prophetic origin and function. We believe that it was raised by God to restore biblical truth that for centuries had been cast to the ground and to prepare the human race to meet the Savior at his second coming.

A de-emphasis on the subject of prophetic interpretation will result in a loss of our sense of mission and in a crisis of identity. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why there is a sense of disorientation in some sectors of our church. We came into existence as a result of the study of the books of Daniel and Revelation. Our graduates should leave this place with a clear understanding of the prophecies of those books and the prophetic role of the Adventist church.

I know that at times it is not easy to achieve this goal for some ministerial students come to you from institutions where a different approach is used in the interpretation of those books.

I know of some college teachers who in their class on Daniel never go beyond Daniel 6 and in the case of Revelation they spend the whole course discussing backgrounds and analyzing only chapters 1-5.

You can easily imagine the damage done to those students and to their commitment to the Adventist faith. I thank God because here at the Seminary those teaching Daniel and Revelation still believe in the historicist method of interpretation. Please, I beg of you, continue to do all you can to make ensure that your students are reestablished in our prophetic interpretation.

Without conviction our graduates will lack commitment. They ought to understand as clearly as possible the cosmic conflict and the function of God's remnant people at the close of the conflict. We do have a message for the world and we must proclaim it and invite others to join us.

The Seminary needs not only to impart knowledge but light a fire in students' bones-a passion for souls, a spirit of dreaming and daring for God, a burning desire to get involved in the global mission of the church. We need graduates who are ready to go out and put everything on the line for God.

D. Finally, and more important than anything else, our graduates should be personally committed to Christ as Savior and Lord.

I know that this is a personal matter and not something that you can easily achieve in the classroom. Nevertheless, I would like to insist that our graduates give evidence to indicate that they know Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.

I urge you to provide opportunities for their spiritual commitment and growth, not just in the classes dealing with spiritual matters, but in any class as well as in the extra-curricular activities of the Seminary program.

Theological training is important but more important is a surrendering of the whole person to Jesus Christ. We need ministers who know the Lord and who will be able to lead others to the cross. It would be simply unforgivable if a seminary graduate had never learned how to give a gospel presentation and how to lead someone to Christ.

The graduates that I have described for you will be able to "guard the deposit that was entrusted" to them. They will possess the proper understanding and commitment needed to become guardians of a deposit that should be shared with the world.

IV. Guarding the Deposit: The Theological Task

I realize that my emphasis on guarding the truth could be misunderstood as a call to preserve a tradition or even worse a creedal statement.

I do not consider the Seminary to be a museum of truth. Adventists do not believe in a fossilized corpse of truth that need to be guarded and placed in a special artificial environment in order to protect it from extinction.

Yes, we should all guard the truth but in the process we should realize that the search for truth never ends. It is here that the theological task, your work, becomes relevant for the church and the world.

A. Guarding the truth implies there are dimensions of present truth that need further development.

One of the tasks of the community of Adventist theologians should be to deepen the biblical understanding of our doctrines and teachings. I am sure there are aspects of our beliefs that we have not yet uncovered but that through a careful reading of the Bible could be brought to light.

We have done very well with the doctrine of the Sabbath and to some extent with the doctrine of the second coming of Christ but there are other areas that need further study. I would even say that our doctrinal statements need to be fleshed out into theological formulations that will make them more attractive in theological circles, in the market of theological ideas.

We must witness to theologians outside the Adventist community and this will require careful development of our theology. In this task we must remember that we do have a non-negotiable set of beliefs and we should not sacrifice them in order to feel accepted by those with whom we disagree.

B. Guarding the truth implies that there is more truth available to us in the Scriptures and that we must search for it.

Truth cannot be circumscribed to a set of ideas, even though that particular set of ideas contains truth relevant to us. The Bible contains a wealth of material that we will never be able totally to fathom.

I encourage you to delve deep into the Bible in search for new light that will broaden our understanding of our message and mission. We should never be satisfied with our knowledge of biblical truth because the Lord has much more to share with us. In this search we should keep in mind that new light does not contradict the light already entrusted to us. You do work within a particular religious community.

C. Guarding the truth implies making it relevant for the church and the world.

The world and the church face difficult ethical, theological, scientific and sociological issues and problems. Does the Bible and our church have something to say about those issues? More important, Is the message of salvation proclaimed in the Scriptures still relevant at the end of this century?

There is much work for our theologians as they, through prayer and Bible study, attempt to provide guidance to our leaders and to the church in our modern and secular society. The Seminary is not a museum of truth, because truth is still alive. It belongs to the church in worship, to the home, to the market place, to the work place, to every sphere of our lives, and it is the task of our theologians to help make it relevant in any of those spheres.

The integrating factor in the preservation of the deposit of truth is the Holy Spirit. He has guided us in the past to the discovery of a meaningful body of beliefs and he is still willing to use theologians and the community of believers to gain a better and deeper understanding of the Scriptures. It is he who helps us to preserve the deposit of truth intact in order that. . . "through the church, the manifold wisdom of God . . . be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm" (Eph 3:10).

V. Conclusion

In closing. . . .

I would like to challenge you to renew your commitment to a scholarship that will make a contribution to the fulfillment of the mission of the church and to a better understanding of our message.

I would like to challenge you to do your utmost in avoiding giving the impression through actions, teachings or methodology that God's word is in some way less than reliable. Our students need a solid foundation; they need direction, they need a vision, they need conviction and these come from a solid knowledge of Scriptures.

I would like to challenge you to place the Bible once more above any human book or academic work. Let its light illumine the mind of the students and fill their lives with meaning and purpose.

I would like to challenge you to uplift the ministry and counsels of Ellen White. While the Bible is the foundation, we neglect this light from the Lord at our eternal peril.

I would like to challenge you to guard the good deposit entrusted to us; to guard it by sharing it, by deepening our understanding of it, by drawing out of its richness new light, and by making it relevant for all of us.

I would like to challenge you to envision together with your students a glorious future, a time when the glory of the Lord will encircle the planet in an explosion of heavenly light through the radiance of Christ's coming.

"He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen" (Rev 22:20, 21).