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| Tackling Tough Issues |  | |
| | | A minister who no longer believes the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church should probably resign; and the same might be said of its members. | | by Richard W. O'Ffill | | If you have ever installed software on your home computer, you know that, at one point in the installation process, there is a screen that spells out the terms and conditions for the use of the program. At the bottom of the page there are two little boxes. One box says, "I agree",” and the other box says, "I disagree".” If you happen to check the box indicating that you disagree with the terms and conditions, the installation aborts. Is it asking too much to insist that a minister of this church subscribe to all of its twenty-eight fundamental beliefs? I believe it is not too much to insist, not just for spiritual reasons but for ethical reasons. In business and industry, executives and employees are required to respect the policies of their employing organizations. Should it not be the same for a religious organization? When we became a Seventh-day Adventist, we affirmed at the time of our baptism that we subscribed to the fundamental beliefs of the church. We became members by our own free will. We were not condemned to do time as members of the church. Although there are beliefs that are not classified as testing doctrines (by that we mean conditions for church membership), we have an ethical responsibility to uphold the twenty-eight doctrines of our faith. The Nature of Christ is not included in the list of doctrines, but the Gift of Prophesy and the Investigative Judgment are. While the church does not have a Creed (meaning our doctrines are dynamic--could be changed subject to reinterpretation), there is no reason to believe that the founding mothers and fathers of our church were mistaken in these two important fundamental beliefs. A person who feels they can no longer teach with personal conviction the unique doctrines of this denomination may do well to consider the ethics of their position. | | |
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