For All Seasons

In the summer of 2010, Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens retired after almost 35 years of service on the country’s highest court. As Elena Kagan was sworn in to take his seat, a striking shift took place. For the first time in its 221-year history, the United States Supreme Court was without a Protestant Justice. For the first fifty years of the Court’s history, every single justice was a Protestant and prior to 1980, ninety of the court’s one-hundred justices had been what we would call today, evangelicals. The disappearance of Protestants at the Supreme Court is just one of the many canaries in the coal mine to have stopped singing and dropped dead during our lifetime. We’ve tired, at this point, of cataloguing all the evangelical exits from the American stage: the biblical worldview being written out of public-school textbooks, the contraction of the local church, the collapse of Christian values, the withering away of bible colleges, the shuttering of the Christian mind, and on and on and on. The Protestant Evangelical hegemony once enjoyed in American culture is long gone. Ours is now a pagan country and her church may be wide in places but is nowhere deep.

This sobering assessment is an important factor for us to consider as we weigh whether or not to vote in favor of the 2026 Declaration of Principles at this summer’s Triennial. The current Declaration of Principles is certainly a serviceable statement. I think that anyone who is more interested in the wellbeing of the tomato than the structural integrity of the cage upon which it grows will concede that out current statement is sound enough to do the job. If the Lord can bring revival through the flawed prognostications of a Low Hampton gentleman-farmer then He can certainly make due with our current Declaration of Principles.

That said, I believe we owe it to the future generations of Advent Christians to adopt the proposed 2026 Declaration of Principles. Our current statement was written and revised back when Protestantism was in the ascendancy. The drafters of that document could afford to be broad, imprecise, and assuming of much because of the general consensus enjoyed within American Christendom. There was a Pax Evangelica, so to speak, in the American Church that allowed for us to be inexact and accommodating. If, for instance, you were to assess the denomination’s current statement on the godhead the way a high school teacher might grade his student’s essay – you would likely give it high marks. For in the document’s stated position there is much of what you’d want to have recapitulated back to you. But should that teacher make a more thorough examination of the offering or, better yet, should he sit the student down and quiz him, he might find that there are some small but important pieces missing in the answer. Jesus is not just Lord, is He not? Isn’t it important to state the He is also co-equal with the Father? Most Advent Christians would certainly assert that Christ’s equality with the Father is a load-bearing beam holding up much of the gospel. And what about our current statement’s description of the Bible? Both the current and the proposed statements declare the Word of God to be divinely inspired but the current declaration only further affirms the Bible’s infallibility. While we all agree that the Word of God is incapable of erring in all that it is saying, wouldn’t it be good to also state that the Word of God is inerrant – being also without error in what it has said? In an era when the retaining walls are giving way, wouldn’t it be important to declare that the Bible is not just able to speak truth going forward but that it has also spoken truth all along? These are but two instances where the existing language is either a dull blade that no longer makes clean cuts or a bridge that doesn’t quite span the chasm.  

Because both Americans and the American Church in the twenty-first century have lost their anchor and are in danger of being stove in by the dashing tempest, I believe we need to adopt a denominational statement that secures us more firmly to the truth. We would do well to be more discriminating. Remember that when the Israelites entered into the Promised Land, they didn’t pass by Mount Gerizim alone, hearing only of the blessings. No, they were made to walk under the shadow of Mount Ebal as well and hear the curses.

I’m thankful for the current Declaration of Principles and I praise God for the wonderful heritage of hope that He has created through our movement. Should the delegate body decide against the adoption of the new statement this August, I’ll be disappointed but not discouraged. There’s far too much fruit to tend to and revel in to be hangdog about such a thing. But I strongly believe it’s time the delegates update the denomination’s flagship statement to reflect the needs of the times it serves. It is in real need of updating.

Should you buy a house because its square footage, price, and location suit your needs, you will likely find, having made the purchase, that there are many things about the house and property that don’t suit you. These are things you must learn to deal with. Let’s say, for instance, that in the backyard of the property you’ve purchased there’s a twenty-year-old above-ground pool. You didn’t buy the house because of the pool but there it sits all the same. If you’re not going to tear it down and remove it – you might as well maintain it and use it. If the pump stops pumping, the filter stops filtering, or the liner stops lining – you’ve got to work to fix these things so that the pool remains the crystal clear, refreshing oasis that your wife and kids inscrutably adore. While many of us aren’t Advent Christians because of its Declaration of Principles – there it sits all the same. And if we’re not going to tear it down and toss it altogether, I believe we ought to maintain it to take advantage of it. And because it’s been leaking a bit – I say we give it a new liner.    

John Tate serves as the senior pastor of Emmanuel Advent Christian Church in Rochester, New Hampshire. He and his wife Lisa have three children; Bryn, Ingrid, and Brooks.