One hundred and one years ago, at the opening meeting of the General Conference session in the Battle Creek Tabernacle on April 2, 1901, Ellen White admonished the 237 delegates, "God has not put any kingly power in our ranks to control this or that branch of the work."1 Largely as a result of Ellen White’s urging, at that session the General Conference reorganized itself to decentralize Adventist ecclesiastical authority through the establishment of union conferences.

Two years later she used the same metaphor in correspondence: "In the work of the Lord for these last days there should be no Jerusalem centers, no kingly power.…Brethren are to counsel together, for we are just as much under the control of God in one part of His vineyard as in another.…The kingly power formerly revealed in the General Conference at Battle Creek is not to be perpetuated."2 "God has not set any kingly power in the Seventh-day Adventist Church to control the whole body or to control any branch of the work."3

The announced purpose of the International Board of Ministerial and Theological Education (IBMTE) is to "foster a dynamic theological unity among [the church’s] leaders and members around the world" and to "sharpen the focus on Seventh-day Adventist message and mission."4 The emphasis on unity is understandable in the face of what William Johnsson has called "the fragmenting of Adventism."5 Many of the rest of us are just as seriously concerned about the future of our Church. But the current endeavor is wrongheaded, confusing spiritual unity with enforced orthodoxy. "Enforced unity" is self-contradictory as an idea and counterproductive as a strategy.

If fully implemented, this attempt by General Conference officials to control all Adventist theological thinking and teaching could mark the beginning of the end of Adventist educational integrity and strength. It could also signal the beginning of a hierarchically defined and dominated Adventism—and, at the same time, the end of an intellectually viable and vital Adventism. Hierarchical domination and intellectual vitality are mutually exclusive.

The present IBMTE project could turn out to be an administrative blunder even more damaging to Adventist faith and life than the decision at Glacier View in 1980. That decision was aimed at one teacher from Avondale College, but it inflicted long-lasting damage on the Adventist church in Australia, which eventually lost more than a third of its ministers.6 By contrast, the current thrust toward the ecclesiastical control of teaching and thinking is aimed at all teachers of religion in Adventist colleges and universities around the world. What academic discipline will be the next target? Biology? Literature? Psychology? History?

Of course we don’t know the future. Indefiniteness is, after all, part of the meaning of "future." But we can see possibilities—and danger signals. The present form of the IBMTE project reveals a profound ignorance (or, even worse, a deliberate disregard) of at least four realities:

1. The nature and dynamics of a true community of faith, which is collegial rather than hierarchical, and based, not on official authority, but on mutual trust and a recognition of the diversity of spiritual and intellectual gifts

2. The Adventist heritage of decentralized, participatory ecclesial governance, epitomized by Ellen White’s denunciation of the attempt to exercise "kingly power"

3. The necessity of intellectual openness for the spiritual health and maturity of the community as a whole

4. The role of college and university teachers in encouraging and facilitating the theological development of the community

To put it bluntly, this project is not merely an organizational innovation; it is a betrayal of a fundamental Adventist principle.

The basic assumption underlying the IBMTE and its proposed BMTE clones is the notion that a few church officials, usually minimally educated in the scholarship and teaching of religion, are in a better position to evaluate the competence and impact of Adventist religion teachers than are professional colleagues, local administrators, and boards of trustees. This assumption is both arrogant and insulting—arrogant in its concentration of administrative authority in persons who may be far removed from the actual places and processes of education, and insulting in its distrust of persons of greater relevant experience and expertise and greater knowledge of local circumstances and needs.

So the current IBMTE project must be vigorously opposed. The opposition needs to be broadly based because the potential danger encompasses the entire Adventist community. If it is only religion teachers who protest, their opposition will be dismissed as self-protective and self-serving—and cited as additional evidence that the IBMTE is exactly what Adventist higher education needs. So there must be protests from colleagues in other disciplines, and especially from thoughtful, articulate Adventists outside of academia.

The opposition needs to be principled rather than pragmatic. The potential loss of regional accreditation by Adventist universities and colleges, however realistic and disastrous, is evidently not taken seriously by most General Conference officials. So the objections must be based on the essential nature of our community of faith, which is subverted by the IBMTE as it is presently defined and designed.

The opposition needs therefore to be official and institutional as well as informal and individual. This is a time for administrators and boards of trustees not only to "call sin by its right name," but also to "stand for the right though the heavens fall."7 This is a time to "just say No" and respectfully but firmly decline to participate.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that even this kind of opposition will succeed in ending—or at least radically revising—the IBMTE project. The envisioned efficiency of centralization, reinforced by the seductiveness of anticipated power to control, can be an irresistible temptation, especially in a time of ecclesial fragmentation. It is always easier to judge than to persuade. And there are people who, ignoring both the essence and history of Adventism, are quite willing to say, "Our leaders and administrators not only must define the parameters of our faith; they have the right—even the responsibility—to enforce them."8 This is blatant hierarchicalism.

Without significant opposition, the IBMTE project will certainly continue to proceed down the track at full speed, and there may well be a major wreck in the Adventist future. Adventism could and probably would survive such a calamity. But would it be an Adventism in which intelligent, thoughtful Adventists—our children and grandchildren, for instance—could safely ride?

In the interest of the Adventist future, the present form of the IBMTE project must be resisted and rejected—respectfully but diligently and vigorously.

Notes and References

1. Ellen G. White, in General Conference Bulletin, 1901, 25–26, quoted in Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1915), 386.
2. Ellen G. White, Aug. 4, 1903, "To the Leaders of the Medical Work," in Testimonies for the Church, 9 vols. in 4 (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1948), 8:232–33.
3. Ellen G. White, Nov. 17, 1903, Testimonies for the Church, 8:236.
4. International Board of Ministerial and Theological Education, Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Ministerial and Theological Education (Silver Spring, Md.: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2001), 1.
5. William G. Johnsson, The Fragmenting of Adventism: Ten Issues Facing the Church Today: Why the Next Five Years Are Crucial (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press, 1995).
6. The late Paul Landa put the figure at 40 percent.
7. Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, Calif.: 1903), 57.
8. Clifford Goldstein, "The Pythagoras Factor," Adventist Review, July 26, 2001, 28.

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