HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2013 / FALL / EDITORIAL

F A L L • 2 0 1 3
VOLUME 14, ISSUE 3

 

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D E P A R T M E N T S

Editor's COMMENTS
 

Gospel
 

I first encountered “gospel contextualization” in the mid-1990s when I interviewed Jerald Whitehouse, director of the Global Center for Adventist-Muslim Relations, for an article I wrote for Adventist Today magazine. At the time I didn’t realize that the contextualization Whitehouse described wasn’t actually about the gospel at all, but the process he described opened my eyes to postmodern efforts to find common ground in order to reconcile opposing religions and philosophies.

In brief, Whitehouse explained that Adventists had begun “evangelizing” Muslims by integrating into their culture, adopting their traditions and dress and building trust. He explained that Muslims respect Adventists’ observance of Old Testament food laws and abstinence from alcohol. Moreover, he claimed, they share a respect for the Torah and for the patriarch Abraham, and both religions worship the same God. Allah, Whitehouse assured me, is the same Creator in whom the Adventists believe. Thus, as the Adventists built trust with the Muslims, they gradually introduced Jesus to them, and as the Muslims learned to believe in Jesus, they could become “Christians” without ever forsaking Islam. Jesus, he said, integrated well with Allah; Muslim “believers” didn’t have to leave their tradition.

It was startling to be told that Allah of Islam and the God of the Bible were really the same, yet his explanation seemed logical. I left the interview with unanswered questions, but the concept of somehow contextualizing the Christian idea of Jesus within the Muslim monotheism was intriguing.

Just a few years later, I sat in Trinity Church one Sunday and listened to our women’s pastor, Elizabeth Inrig, who had just returned from a mission trip to a Muslim country. She was dressed in a black burqa, and she told us about meeting with Muslim women. Then she uttered the words that struck me with the force of a blow: “Allah is a false god. Any god that is not a Trinity is a false god.”

Of course! Allah never had a son named Jesus!

Suddenly my lingering cognitive dissonance over Jerald Whitehouse’s words was resolved. As urbane and smart as his methods sounded, they were wrong. Allah is not the same Creator God revealed in Scripture. Moreover, I was beginning to realize with horrifying clarity that the Trinity described in Scripture—One God in three Persons—was not the same “trinity” I had understood as an Adventist. That trinity was not one Being; it was a “heavenly trio,” as Ellen White described it.

Now when I encounter Christians who want to evangelize through this kind of “gospel contextualization,” I understand clearly why one cannot reconcile or combine the biblical gospel with the beliefs and practices of a false religion that pointedly denies it. Such attempts at syncretism destroy the true gospel and divide the intended convert’s heart between opposing loyalties.

Adventism itself is a distortion of Christianity that tries to add the works of the law and another Jesus. It creates confusion in its members and breeds a distrust of Scripture and of God Himself. The biblical doctrines of the new covenant, an infallible Jesus, and penal substitutionary atonement are all incompatible with the fabric of Adventism. And while Adventist vocabulary sounds authentically Christian, its underlying assumptions and definitions are not.

In this issue we share the faith stories of Aarika Shewmake, Stephen Pitcher, Dondra Cuff, Winona Miller, and Eunice Sellers. Martin Carey reflects on the difference knowing Jesus makes when one faces life and death, and he also shows us how God has connected the faithfulness of His promises to the fixed order of the cosmos.

Carolyn Macomber explores the Bible’s permission to mourn, and I take a closer look at what we really need (and need to avoid) as we exit our former religion. Also in this issue, Dale Ratzlaff explains why we have to separate ourselves from false beliefs in order to draw near to Jesus; Rick Barker unpacks the seventh Adventist Fundamental Belief; and Chris Lee challenges us to listen carefully to the stories of former Adventists who are awed to be living in intimate relationships with Jesus. †

 

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COLLEEN TINKER

 

 

 

 

ESPANOL

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