Elephants in the Room: The Regional Conference Debate, pt. 2

It's been said that unless we learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it.  Last week, I shared some experiences of missionaries in the South and the initial struggles they faced in trying to reach out to the southern Black population.  They encountered unequaled racism in an area that they called "a closed field, where violent men defended prejudices with guns and whips."1

According to Kessia Bennett, who dedicated her master’s thesis to the study on the resistance and accommodation that Southern Adventist missionaries had in reaching out to Blacks during this time (again, this series is based on that thesis; a link to it can be found here), this probably explains why, in part, the church was so late to begin laboring in that region.  It certainly helps explain the reactions of mild astonishment when Northern missionaries encountered Southern racial customs at the time.

We also saw how the original two separate entities in the South (the Southern Union Conference and the Southeastern Union Conference) were created with the intention of "better reaching the needs" of Black people. However, Bennett writes that the missionaries who sought to evangelize the area did not believe this rationale as part of their missionary endeavors.  They believed that the barrier to true racial harmony was not integration, but prejudice, which explains why they viewed the segregation of conferences as a concession to prejudice. 2

If you noticed the dates in the last blog though, you will see a 40 year gap between the violent acts that Mr. Rogers had to endure (not the Mr. Rogers you might be thinking of, this is the non-PBS missionary) to the formal establishment of regional conferences in the 1940s.  So what happened during this time?  This leads me to the point of this week’s look at the debate: it would be nice to say that the church established regional conferences as a concession to only the “external” societal pressure that they faced in trying to reach out.  However, historically, that is sadly not true.  Racism, particularly in the form of segregation, infiltrated the policy and unconscious culture within the Seventh-day Adventist church in America.  This racism was manifested in hiring discrimination, underrepresentation in leadership, unfair financial practices, and persistent segregation of policies.3

This is why this situation has become a hot button issue and an “elephant” within our church: because we have to sit down, look at ourselves in the mirror and admit, “Yes, we as a church treated our fellow believers no better than the rest of society at the time… the only difference was that we were better at keeping our racism under wraps through the guise of piety” (and it's hard to admit that kind of glaring hypocrisy).  This lack of knowledge in many ways is what keeps this issue from being dealt with in the honest way that is needs to be.  By the 1940's the formation of regional conferences was the climax of long dissatisfaction within the Black community about the church's treatment of their community and mission; it was an easy and convenient way to provide a “separate but equal” administrative structure where Black Adventists leaders could advance professionally while having their own structure and White Adventist could have their own.

I know that is a pretty bold statement to make.  However, I am comfortable saying that because there is plenty of historical evidence to support it.  Below are some examples of leadership discrimination manifested when the church appointed White leadership over the Black work during the early part of the 20^th century, even though the church had already produced some very capable Black leaders by then:4

• Although the equivalent departments for Germans and Scandinavians were led by people of the targeted ethnicity, for nine years (1909 through 1918) the North American Negro Department was led by a White man.
• The editor of Message, the denomination's magazine for Black leadership, had a White man as its editor for 13 years from 1932 through 1945.
• Until 1932 Oakwood's top administration (the Historically Black Adventist university) was White.

These influential and important leadership positions in the Black work were held by Whites, revealing that the denomination either did not trust that Blacks could lead the work, or that they felt they should lead it instead.  You may think "Hey, how can you know what they thought at the time?"  You are right, I can't know for sure, but history shows that hiring discrimination was not limited to the key leadership positions.  Doctors, nurses, and office secretaries were all underrepresented on the church payroll, thus revealing a disturbing trend at all levels of the adminsitrative structure.  Being hired did not guarantee equal treatment either, though.  W. H. Green was the first Black man to lead the Negro Department at the GC.  Here are his words regarding his treatment on the job:

“It was very uncomfortable from the very first… I could not eat in the General Conference cafeteria with everyone else.  Some whites would not even greet you when they saw you in the morning.  When they saw you coming, they would look at you, look by you - there would be no greeting at all.  This was largely on the part of the womenfolk, but once in a while the men would do it too.” 5

One of the most visible features of racial inequality in the North American Church was the segregation of Adventist facilities.  Black students were denied entrance to the Adventist schools on the basis of their race; Black Adventist patients were even denied care at Adventist hospitals.6  By the 1940s, enough dissatisfaction with the status quo had occurred among the Black community that the church was forced to take action.

 “Black ministers felt that the only way to improve the work among Negroes of the country was to organize colored conferences, whereby the colored people may handle their own money, employ their own workers and so develop administrative ability in all cultural lines of work ... to organize Negro conferences that would function in exactly the same relation to the General Conference as white conferences.” 7

Bennet notes that "Some thought that regional conferences would advance the mission to Black America (which indeed they did), but there were other Black Adventists who opposed it.  It ended up being something like a lukewarm compromise -- better than being ignored and kept from leadership positions, but not the full recognition and integration that had been hoped for."8  Regional conferences were voted in the Spring Council of 1944, long after they had been proposed.  This was not full integration and empowerment, but but it did mean much more self-determination for Black administration while remaining in the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist church.  Regional conferences are not segregationists in the sense of the Jim Crow laws of the past era; they are not attempts to keep Whites and Blacks socially separated because of racial superiority or inferiority.  The formation of regional conferences as a parallel structure within the church did, however, testify to the failure of North American Adventism to offer full legitimacy to its Black American members.9

Two non-Adventist historians looking at the Adventist church, Bull and Lockhart, claim that the establishment of regional conferences was adopted only to appease the Whites, not for the sake of Black people.  In what some have called a "singing criticism," they wrote about the church during the 1940s, "[Adventism] was still a White movement, with a mission to White America, and Blacks were not allowed to jeopardize the evangelistic objective of the denomination."10

One bright spot in this dark time of our history was that there were key leaders within the church who knew that there was inequality within the Adventist church and its facilities, and tried to take action to stem the tide.  In 1950, the president of the world church, W. H. Branson, sent a letter to denominational leadership (including every Union president and every local conference president) urging integration.  He pointed that the progress of the rest of the world was passing by the church in this area.  He said, "Perhaps no religious group in United States or the world claims so fully that it is intentional in its attitudes and services as do the Seventh-day Adventists and yet, in this manner of Negro segregation, we are trailing behind the procession."

Sadly, still no change took place.  Twelve years later, at the 1962 General Conference session in San Francisco, it took physical demonstrations, written demands, and front-page news stories for the announcement to come that indeed the church would desegregate.11

Preview of next week's blog

I believe this post covers much of what led to the establishment of regional conferences.  Granted, this is not intended to be an exhaustive/comprehensive study; there are other people who have done a better job at looking at the factors from all sides than I have.  If you want a summary of 15 events that were directly or indirectly the catalyst to the establishment of regional conferences, click here.  In this post I am only sharing interesting points that I have found on this study.  However, having established all of this groundwork, the next question that I hope to address next week is a personal/practical note on this matter.  Why is this subject so important to me, and what can really be done about solving this issue?  Should anything even be done, or should we just ride this thing out until Jesus comes and hope that He will clean up the mess we got ourselves in? (You may sense what my feelings are.)  Thanks for reading and see you all next week!

1.                  Arthur Spalding, first volume of a history of Seventh-day Adventist covering the years 1845 through 1900.  captain of the host, page 488.

2.                  Kessia Reyne Bennett, Resistance and Accommodation to Racism Among Early Seventh-day Adventist Missionaries in the American South, (Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, MI), p. 36.

3.                  ibid, 63.

4.                  Ibid, 65

5.                  Malcom Bull and Kevin Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (Indiana University Press, 1987), pg 201.

6.                  Bennet. Pg. 65-66
7.                  Justiss, Jacob. Angels of Ebony (Justiss, 1975)
8.                  Bennett, Kessia. Personal interview. 19 Feb. 2014.

9.                  Roy Branson, “Adventism’s Rainbow Coalition,” In Make Us One, edited by Delbert W. Baker. (Pacific Press) pg.77-80

10.                Bennett. Pg 68.

11.                Bull and Lockhart (1989), pg 197.

Elephants in the Room: The Regional Conference Debate pt 1

I think it's pretty safe to say that an elephant is hard to miss in a room. I mean, they're huge animals.  My wife, Sarah, and I go on weekly walks for a few miles on a trail that happens to overlook part of the elephant exhibit at the Greenville Zoo.  We can see those huge creatures and we can testify to this fact.  So, if an elephant were to casually walk into our living room, it would be impossible for either of us to overlook; we would have to consciously choose to ignore it.  Thus the idiom "the elephant in the room" has been used to describe an obvious truth that is being ignored or unaddressed.

Maybe if we ignore him, he'll leave on his own.

Well, it is time to address one of the the "elephants in the room" within the Adventist Church in North America... the existence of institutionally segregated conferences.  While we as a denomination are currently discussing the issue of ordination (a very important topic in its own right), you would figure that in 2014 when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of many events in the civil rights movement, and in a world where we already have the first biracial American president, we as a church would reflect the rest of the nation.  However, the sad reality is that this issue has been kicked down the road as long as the issue itself has been on the table.

This post strikes a very personal chord for me for reasons that I'll discuss later on in this three-part series, but for now, I want to give you the backstory to why we find ourselves here today.  The majority of the evidence is cited from other published works and I'd especially like to thank my friend Kessia Reyne Bennett for her study on this issue.  I remember us talking in seminary about her Master's thesis on this subject and it is an extraordinary work.  I will be highlighting some of her work.  If you'd like a link to her entire thesis, you can check it out here.


If you were like I was up until the age of 18 and have no idea what I'm talking about, let me spell it out for you: in several unions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church within North America, there are administrative divisions in the church divided primarily based on race.  There are "state conferences," which cover one or more states, and "regional conferences," which cover the the same area, but usually also larger territories than the state conferences (hence the difference between "regional" and "state").  However, among some circles, the former have been referred to as "white conferences" while the latter known as "black conferences."

If you were as shocked as I was to realize this difference, understand that at their inception, they were the best option at the time.  Without going into too much detail (you can read all about it in Kessia's thesis in the link above), the Southern part of the United States was a pretty racist place to live in before, during, and after the civil war while in the Reconstruction era... and pretty much up till the 60's (at least publicly).  Missionaries who tried to reach out to black people during this time were frequently the targets of death threats and violence because of the prejudice that existed during this time.

For Southerners, the integration of blacks and whites was an attack on their way of life and faith.  For instance, take this quote published in a newspaper defending segregation as the order of the natural world and obedience to God's will:

"This rule of color and law of race has always been preserved in the South.  We have treated the Negro always kindly and considerately, but always with a firmness that could not be misunderstood.  We have built him a home, but have not permitted him the liberties of our own; we have built him a church, but have not allowed him to mingle with us in worship; we have built him a schoolhouse, and taxed ourselves to support it, but we have seen to it that his children have not mingled with our children in the study hall, on the playground, or elsewhere.  We have treated him justly; but in doing so, we have also been just to ourselves.  In doing this we have simply enforced natures law, and obeyed the will of that Being who created a superior and inferior race."
"Seventh-day Adventists," Yazoo Sentinel (07 June 1900), quoted in J. E. White, "The Southern Field Closing to the Message," 86.

Somehow, Adventist missionaries had to fight against this wave of animosity in order to reach this group.  So, when the SDA church began formally organizing in the South in order to better minister to the growing number of churches in 1895, they took up the name of the Southern Missionary Society or SMS in order to legitimize themselves as a group.  In 1901, the General Conference decided to establish Unions in order to better service the areas where work was growing and the SMC became the Southern Union Conference.

However, in 1908, the Southern Union Conference became two entities, one bearing the original name and the other called the Southeastern Union Conference.  Accordingly, in 1909, the SMS was renamed the Southern Union Mission in the new, smaller Southern Union conference: the correlating department in the new Southeastern Union conference was named the Negro Mission department (better explained in the following diagram).

According to the aforementioned study, this change was part of a larger movement within the denomination to "make a more noticeable impact on the growing Negro population."  This department was designated to oversee the evangelization of blacks, including all matters relating to educational institutions connected with this work and the publishing ministry in this line.  However, looking at the historical context, it seems like this move was done in order to distance the two groups out of fear of violence.

I believe this theory to have merit because of many turbulent events ranging from 1898 through 1899.  One example is the removal of F. R. Rogers, a white missionary, from teaching in classrooms of black students.  At first, the Adventist missionaries resisted local cultural custom by having white teachers in black classrooms.  Then, late in 1898, Rogers received an in-person threat at Yazoo City regarding the destruction of the boat Morning Star and was told that the missionary work must stop. When the work didn't stop, half a year later, a mob looted the Adventist facilities there, breaking their materials, forced at least one Adventist into an outbound train, and physically attacked a black Adventist with a whip and shot his wife in the leg.1


The troubles for Rogers were not of a general nature only.  This same source records that when Rogers walked down the main street of Yazoo city, a choir of boys would chant and hang onto his coattails, shouting: "Nigger lover! Nigger lover!"  On other occasions, his hat was once shot off, and he was pelted with brickbats.2

Members of the Edgefield Junction Church–the Allison family. The first SDA Church to be established in the south was at Edgefield Junction, Tennessee.

This example is but a drop in the bucket of many similar stories which could be brought up to point out that the initial divide was based on fear rather than an intentional initiative to reach black people.  The Adventist church was slow to act in any radical, countercultural way.  However, the Negro department was relabeled the "colored department" in 1942 because it somehow seemed "less harsh, less divisive."  Yes... that actually happened.  Unfortunately, it would be long before the constituency of the church would demand more than a name change. Dr. Delbert Baker, former President of Oakwood University mentions that, "in 1940 a vote was taken at the Spring Council to establish regional conferences, and between 1945 and 1947 seven such conferences were created in six of the nine unions; there are nine operating today."3

It all seems pretty harmless and straightforward right?  This week, I'm really oversimplifying the issue. Next week, we will look deeper at why I call this issue the "elephant in the room" of the SDA church.  It may be somewhat uncomfortable to read, but unless we take an honest, brutal look at the past, we won't be able to see how we can really move forward.  So, if you'd like to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, subscribe and be the first to catch next week's post!

1-J. E. White to Ellen G White, 25 May 1899, quoted in Grayville, E. G. White and church race relations, page 56 through 57.
2-Kessia Reyne Bennett, Resistance and Accomodation to Racism Among Early Seventh-day Adventist Missionaries in the American South, (Andrews Univeristy Press, Berring Springs, MI), p. 56.
3- Delbert W. Baker, "Regional Conferences: Fifty Years of Progress," Adventist Review 172, no. 49 (November 1995): 12-14.

Bruno Mars' Masonic Baby Haircut and 5 Ways to STOP Misinformation on the Internet

Bruno Mars and his inverted pyramid guitar (joke)

Okay, so Bruno Mars doesn’t actually have a masonic baby haircut, but you are reading this, which shows that you are the target audience for this article.  In today’s world where anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection can claim to be an authority, you have no doubt come in contact with (and maybe even shared) information which is simply not true.  It has become especially important for people to be able to identify the difference between real information and misinformation that floats around online, as well as how to properly respond to it.
That being said, here are FIVE easy principles to stop misinformation on the Internet.

1) Source check:

Sometimes the easiest and simplest way to determine if something is true or not is by checking out the website providing this information.  There are many fake news websites that are dedicated to writing news that isn’t actually real (yes, believe it or not, it does exist and it is hilarious!).  If you see any “news” coming from The Onion, The Daily Currant, The Borowitz Report, News Mutiny, Hollywood Leek, The Spoof, etc., the news you are reading is not real; it is fake and intended to be a joke.  A few sample headlines would be things like:

"BREAKING: White House Authorizes Search for President's Mojo"
"Human behavior is no worse than it's ever been, it's just now we have camera phones"
"Mitt Romney Adopts New ‘Ronnie Ferocious’ Persona for Debates"
"Michael Phelps Returns To His Tank At Sea World"
"Obama Plan to Extend Mayan Calendar – Approval by Drop Dead Date Doubtful"
"Find Jimmy Hoffa Craze Causing Shovel Shortage in America"

A great example of fake news

A key word that you may want to keep in mind here is satire.  Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.  Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. Elliott, Robert C (2004), "The nature of satire", Encyclopedia Britannica.

If you are not sure if something is true or not, here are some good websites to keep in mind: 

Snopes.com
Google.com (it’s really that simple)

Get the point?  This brings me to our second principle:

2) If it sounds too ridiculous to be true, it most likely isn’t true.

Have you heard that Pope Francis recently said at a Vatican council that, “the church no longer believes in a literal hell, Adam and Eve were fictitious, all religions are true, and the Catholic Church is going to start ordaining women priests”?  Hmm, the Pope will really admit that his entire church has been wrong all along?  Doesn’t that all sound just a little too out there?  Yeah, that’s because it most likely is not true.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... it's a duck.

3) Don’t post up anything that you’re not prepared to defend.

This is a great principle that I go by which has probably saved me more times than I can count.  Just because something is interesting to me doesn’t mean that I should share it.  This goes with the previous two principles; if I haven’t done my research and am not prepared to defend what I have found, I don’t waste my time by hitting “Share.”  Only share what you yourself have checked into and can defend.  Don't share something because it is shocking and you want to be the first person on your News Feed to break this incredible news you just heard... that's usually the fastest way fake news is spread.

4) Be ESPECIALLY suspicious when it comes to any conspiracy theory.

Did you hear the one about the SDA logo being masonic (because the letter A looks like a pyramid and we all know how Freemasons loooooove hiding their symbols right under our noses?).  Insidious… I’m not saying that there isn’t something going on behind the scenes (after all, Adventists do believe in this thing called “the Great Controversy,” which exposes a conspiracy of sorts).  But by their very nature conspiracies cannot be proven either fake or true.  So what have you just done?  You've put a piece of unverifiable information on the Internet which doesn't edify the body of Christ as much as it creates a feeling of fear and dread about the "Devil's work".

The Freemasons all up IN that GC logo... as well as the letter "A" in the alphabet. I see you, Sesame Street.

As a pastor, I would rather uplift Jesus and His work instead of anything that the Jesuits, Illuminati, Knights of Columbus, Masons, The Muppets, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, or any other secret organization may or may not be up to.  More than that, though, posting these kinds of things that cause fear/speculation do nothing to bring people into a closer walk with Jesus.  Oh, it may scare them to think, "Man, times are really getting close to Jesus' second coming, I should really get my life together."  But fear is typically a very terrible and short-lived motivator because once the feeling of fear wears out, you tend to slip back into old habits.

For a GREAT article the dangers of conspiracy theories, check out this article from Liberty Magazine.

5) Don’t be a fact check Nazi.


Okay, so you may have followed all of the above principles and realized that Bruno Mars doesn’t have a masonic baby haircut.  But, how do you go about in pointing out this error to your friend who has this misinformation all over their social media page?  Remember the golden rule: do unto others as you would like them to do to you.  How would you feel if someone publicly called you out online?  Sometimes, the best thing to do is one of three things:

A) Send them a private message (if they are a friend).
B) Write them a simple note that corrects their information and provide them with a source for your corrected information.
C) Do nothing.  Yes, this is sometimes actually a good option.  As another blog site put it:

This will show them!

"Being helpful and pointing out a hoax or false rumor is nice, but if doing so begins to damage your ability to be productive, it's time to hang up your hat.  Everyone has that one friend that will continue to re-share everything in their feed, no matter how many times they're reminded to double-check.  Sometimes the best solution is to say nothing at all.


Ultimately, you have to realize that you're not going to fix the Internet's problems single-handedly, which is a very liberating thought.  You are free to do other things.  Your life does not need to center around exposing Nigerian princes."

Put these principles into practice in your life and you will soon be a helpful, trusted source of factual information for those around you!

In the words of...Satan

I’ve been meaning to post this up for quite some time. There is a great song that I hear from time to time called “In the Words of Satan” by a South African Christian band called The Arrows. I find the words really powerful and telling but, I wanted to put it in my own words (I’m not blind to the irony in that statement, lol). Basically, it’s Satan letting you in on his “game plan” for the human race. Here is my rewording of what I hear when I listen to that song. A link to the original song will be at the bottom for you to check out if you’d like.

--

Revelation 12:7

I've been here before any of you existed

By now, I know exactly how you work

I know all of your cravings

I know what makes you go bezerk

Been lying from the start just to make you play a part in my Great Rebellion against the Father God

I Hate

Everything he is

And I’ll make you hate him too

Make you hate him with your actions it's so easy for me to do

'Cause you like it...

“Sinning” feels good for the ego...

You love it...just admit it, let your hair go!

And every day I’m looking for ways to wind you up

Like my perfect little puppet, you're my favorite robot, you think you’re watching the world but I'm the one who’s watching you and all of hell is with me too, helping me make my lies look true

Oh and  believe me, there is a lie that works for everyone. Everyone.

A lie that opens your hearts so I can get me some more of your free will

I'm winding you

Winding you

Give me the control that's why I'm telling you

Selling you

Anything!

Everything!

Appealing to your human way of being and I use it all against you to just keep your eyes from seeing past the life you're living

Past the moment you're in

Past the pleasure of your sin

2 Corinthians 11:14

Or the drug in your system

Choke on your lust

I'll make you drunk with pride and hate

So deeply spun into my system that you won't see the light

Never mind that I'm drowning you

I keep deceiving you...

`Cuz I don't tell you

Bout the God in Heaven

Who loves you

Who yearns for you, no

I don't tell you

`Bout the freedom of forgiveness and truth

Why would I tell you?

Why would I tell you, the truth?

Instead, I’ll say that millions of years ago an anomaly exploded

And you're the result of this cosmic unknown, with no real purpose

You weren’t created for any real intent

The “reason” for your living or existence is so statistically impossible; it might as well be considered coincidence!

So all the remains is what you can gain and whatever meaning you attach to your days…you decide

Mmm, but I help you recognize the important things in life

Introducing money! It’s the root of all evil…or so they say

The concept is simple: I attach your self-worth to the salary you're paid. Be a slave to your desire for property

Your jewelry

Your cars and material things

Advertise that lie up on the TV so you want that bling

Selling and compromising bit by bit the little pieces of your soul, all to climb up the ladder of economic control

Oh, the greed of man makes it so easy to pervert the Father's plan

Or I'll tell you...

Revelation 20:10

Sure, there is a heaven…but there's many ways to get in…then see people fight over which is the best way to view the world

Keep you so confused with the search for the truth that you will be paralyzed from actually looking for the truth

Tell you there are many ways to the same God…it’s all relative.

For you religious people, I’ll keep you distracted with your methods so your heart stays hard,

I'll make you think you've got spirituality, but it's really just emotional alchemy

Oh, the vanity of self-idoltary I never let you see that it breeds

Hedonism! Whoo!

And it's the anthem of this generation

Come on, drink it, snort it, smoke it, swallow it

Chew on my illusion of freedom til you vomit it

And still I don't tell you

Bout the God in heaven

Who loves you

Who yearns for you

No I don't tell you

Bout the freedom of forgiveness and truth

Why would I tell you?

Why would I tell you the truth?

---

Want to hear the original version? You will probably like it better. Check out the link below!

 In the Words of Satan- Original Song