For Canale's article go to: http://www.atsjats.org/publication_file.php?pub_id=374&journal=1&type=pdf
1. “Although using Scripture functionally, as a means to receive the Spirit, this generation will not think or act biblically.” What greater purpose is there for Scripture than for the receiving of the Holy Spirit? What presuppositions does Canale have to define thinking and acting Biblically?
2. “To overcome the protestantization and secularization of Adventism we must reach the postmodern mind and keep the young in the church with a combination of a critical evaluation of our own experience, a systematic understanding of biblical truths, and the application of the biblical ministerial and liturgical paradigms.” Has Canale considered the outcome of a sincere application of this proposition? What if the results alter the theology of Adventism in a way he does not agree with?
3. “Perhaps in this way we can overcome the secularization of Adventism, foster the unity of the Church, and finish the final mission of restoring Christianity to its eternal basis.” “We” may have nothing to do with “restoring Christianity to its eternal basis”, if the Holy Spirit is the One working.
4. “All positive changes come from understanding and following God’s Word.” Is it we who do the following by our means? Canale seems to be out of touch with the issue. It is not we who understand and follow by our critical capabilities. It is all born of the Spirit.
5. “For instance, the eclipse of Scripture and its impact in the thinking of Adventist leaders becomes apparent in recent liturgical changes centered in the use of popular and rock music for worship.” Canale provides an Administrative regulation to address this issue. Taking the position that scripture is in jeopardy he does not provide examples but extra-Biblical authority to refute the musical rendition of some church services. He throws a highly polarizing issue with no hard evidence in order to support his case with . . . a symptom of spiritual decline rather than a cause.
6. “The hypothesis explored in this series, is that the eclipse of Scripture results from the process of protestantization of the Adventist mind; which in turn, results from the generalized assumption that Evangelical theology is correct in every Christian doctrine but the Adventist distinctives.” Who in the world is taking this approach to Biblical study, theology and ministry? Have we like mindless sheep just look for a ready-made religious diet that may sound good? If so this exposes another symptom of spiritual depravity rather than the cause of Adventist apostasy. Sound like the Holy Spirit is completely absent from churches that they simply follow the latest theology package.
7. “The method I will follow is the phenomenological and analytical description of selected texts and events in Adventist and Evangelical history as they relate to the Protestant/Evangelical theological and ministerial paradigm from the epistemological perspective of theological methodology.” In other words, Canale is going to use human senses and reason to describe Protestant/Evangelical theology and ministry in order to measure it against “the Truth” as defined by a human method. In classic computer lingo- “garbage in, garbage out”. What he will end up with is modern scholasticism. But let’s see where it goes.
8. “In short, from the perspective of Fundamental Theology there are three conditions of method: the cognitive, hermeneutical, and teleological conditions.” In short- what we have on hand, how we use it and what we intend to accomplish with it. Sounds like we are in control of the business of theology, not God.
9. “In theological methodology, the formal condition stands next and depends on the material condition. The formal condition consists of the macro hermeneutical principles necessary to interpret Scripture and construct the system of Christian theology (ontology [God and human beings], cosmology, and, metaphysics (the whole of the one and the many). Evangelicals never used Scripture to define their macro hermeneutical principles. Instead, they implicitly assumed the philosophical principles of Plato and Aristotle as retrieved by Augustine and Aquinas. Unbeknown to most Protestant and Evangelical believers, these ontological principles condition and permeate the Protestant-Evangelical system of theology.” On the one side we have Protestant/Evangelicals applying what they have not developed themselves, creating a shallow intellectual religion and on the other Adventism which creates a robust intellectual religion. One worships what they do not know, the other what they do know- “an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24) Shallow gets you anarchy, but robust gets you legalism. Only by the Spirit will worship and the Gospel be revealed.
10. “. . .early Adventists discovered the ontological and metaphysical keys to the inner logic of biblical thinking in the Sanctuary and the historicist interpretation of Daniel’s prophecies.” So is Adventism method based or Sprit based?
11. “The Adventist final warning message includes presenting the real Christ of Scripture to all Christians who belong to denominations that persist in constructing their understanding of Christ from tradition and culture. . . The preaching of the gospel to the whole world in the context of the end time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation included helping other Christians to move from a tradition based understanding of Christianity to a fully Biblically grounded personal relation with Christ.” Is our relationship with Christ informed by tradition, culture , method or is our relationship with Christ crafted by the work of the Holy Spirit- a surrendered vessel in the hands of the Creator?
12. “They implicitly assumed that little Bible study was necessary for Church growth or Church unity. Gradually, they came to rely more on Ellen White’s writings and less on their own personal theological understanding of Scripture.” On this I wholeheartedly agree. We did what protestants did. No surprise when we consider it the work of human minds.
13. “Doctrines had replaced theology and spirituality. A macro shift in the Adventist mind had taken place. Adventists were ready to live parallel lives. On one hand, they would continue to preach the “orthodox” doctrines of the early pioneers without understanding them theologically or receiving their spiritual power.” Apparently Canale presupposes theological knowledge leads to “spiritual power”. I thought that came from the Holy Spirit despite our cognitive capabilities?
14. “As Adventists communicated Scripture but did not seek to understand its contents, theologically and spiritually, they lost the hermeneutical vision that the early pioneers and Ellen White had found in the Sanctuary Doctrine.” The Adventist Sanctuary doctrine as a hermeneutical principle will color all reason based Biblical interpretation with the color of the Law. It is no wonder why an “immutable Law” would produce a Law based measure of sanctification accomplished by behavior modification in order to stand apart from Christ at the second coming rather than a focus on a testimony by the works of the Spirit in earthen, sin-stained vessels.
15. “Thus, in many ways, Froom implicitly assumed the Gospel as the new hermeneutical principle in Adventism. As we have seen above, the sanctuary doctrine continues to be an important distinctive eschatological emphasis but leaders no longer conceived or used it as the hermeneutical key to understand all Christian doctrines including the Gospel.” Pardon my naiveté but isn’t the Gospel (as revealed by the Spirit in scripture) the hermeneutical key to understanding the role of the sanctuary?
16. “Thus, we see Froom did not spiritualize the reality of God’s acts and the heavenly sanctuary according to the timeless ontology of Christian tradition but rather reaffirms the biblical historical ontology. This reveals an inner inconsistency and tension in Froom’s doctrinal view because the application of the Evangelical understanding of the Gospel as hermeneutical key requires the rejection of biblical ontology and the implicit or explicit adoption of ontological principles originating in Plato and interpreted by Augustine and Aquinas. When a Platonic ontology of God implicitly or explicitly replaces the biblical ontology of God, the protestantization of Adventism becomes complete and is ready to become modernist and ecumenical.” So Adventist’s God is historical- based on the Bible and Protestant’s God is Spiritual- based on traditional. What do we do with statements like, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) and , “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ”? Where should the source of our doctrines come from? Tradition, method or the Spirit of Prophecy (Not the red books! The actual Spirit of Prophecy)?
17. “Early Adventism stood on the sola Scriptura ground because they interpreted the whole of Scripture in the light of the Sanctuary doctrine. This marked the dawn of Scripture in the incipient discovery of an historical understanding of Christian theology, and led Adventists to come out of Protestantism.” While I agree with Canale on sola Scriptura I must point out- like the influence of the Sanctuary doctrine and the immutability of the Law caused Adventism to come out of Protestantism a discovery of the Gospel will inevitably cause Christians to come out of Adventism, but not back into Protestantism. What I hope we see is God’s Church.
When I became a regular (voting) member of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination in 1959, I considered adventism to be a continuation of the protestant reformation. I find it difficult to imagine how anyone could read the book Great Controversy without realizing that Ellen White thought of adventism that way. It wasn't until 2008 that a member of our denomination told me adventism isn't protestant. Within a month, another member, not related to the first, told me the same thing. So I asked my Sabbath school teacher to let me take five minutes at the beginning of each class period to address the question. I provided pencils and paper and asked each member of the class to write down the basic principles of the reformation and hand in the paper the next week. several people listed one or more of the Roman doctrines protestants DON'T teach such as transubstantiation, the effacacy of the mass, the Catholic version of the imacculate conception, etc. Onle one, a lady who sometimes substitutes for the regular class teacher, provided ANY of the basic principles of the reformation--and then only one or two. When I asked for s show of hands by thos who had read the entire book, Great Controversy, every class member raised his hand. I have written some letters to officers at various levels of administration, asking for clearification. No replys yet. ***** At first glance, it appears that you are questioning the treatise by Canale from an entirely different perspective than mine. I'm still assuming that the advent movement itself IS and always has been protestant. Are you writing from the perspective that adventism isn't and never was protestant? Roger Metzger, Buckley, Michigan
ReplyDeleteRoger, Your questions and the answers provided by the students reveals a perception of the reformation that is common, doctrines. I believe the Protestant Reformation was about politics and doctrines were the political fodder. Although the reform of doctrines in both movements were based on theological study it is apparent to me that both were derailed by human depravity. Luther's discovery of Righteousness by Faith was eclipsed by the Princes' political ambitions and Luther's own carnal zeal. The Adventist movement was derailed by the Modernist intellectual influence that drove the theology toward a hermeneutic of Law. Both movements failed to allow the Spirit to fully control because both held the reins strongly in the grips of human means- political sovereignty and intellectual primacy.
ReplyDeleteI propose it would be impossible for the Adventist movement to be truly Protestant. The Protestant Reformation was a political revolution that severed the Pope's religious rule over heads of state who evoked their sovereign liberty of conscience to rule their dominions. Martin Luther provided the theological premise for the protest of the princes against Roman religious authority. Adventism's motive was not political autonomy but theological reformation. It can be said Adventism enjoyed the theological liberty reformers did not. However, Adventist pioneers lacked the political authority, enjoyed by the reformers, to enforce their dogma.
It comes down to defining the word Protestant and Reformation. Adventism arose within a culture that enjoyed liberty of conscience beyond the intent of Protestant Reformers, a context pioneered by Roger Williams. The context of religious liberty does not make the movement protestant because there was no political abuse to protest. Is the Adventist movement a reformation? Has the Adventist movement led its adherents to a truer manifestation of Church? As long as the Adventist Church is led by human reason, hermeneutics, and Law it will be of this world. When it is led by the Spirit rather than men we will see Christ revealed.