At first sight the combination of the two elements in the title of this article may appear to be unlikely. As will be demonstrated, however, the link between the two is not as strange as it may seem. First a word about the Seventh-Day Adventists, their origins and present status.

Adventist Origins

The denomination arises from the Adventist movement of the previous century. In the year 1844 many adventists, also called Millerites, after their leader, William Miller, expected Christ’s immediate return. Many became disillusioned when the event did not occur. But a young preacher named Hiram Edson discovered that one of the prophecies on which Miller had relied for his prediction, was to be understood differently. He received a following. Subsequently the Adventists adopted one of the teachings of the Seventh-Day Baptists. They declared that the keeping of the seventh day as God’s holy day of rest was still mandatory for Christians today. This is how the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination was born.

The fledgling organization, guided by the visionary Ellen G. White, established its headquarters initially in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1903 Washington, D.C. was chosen as the church’s center. Professor Sidney Ahlstrom states that this denomination in his opinion displays “the largest measure of lay dedication of any church in America.” It has organized extensive works of mercy, notably in the realm of health and medical care. Ahlstrom judges that, while the church has moved somewhat closer to the doctrinal position of American fundamentalism, it has nevertheless remained somewhat aloof from other churches. The church holds unusual doctrines on the Atonement, Satan, and the damned. Prof. A. Hoekema treats this denomination among the four major “cults.”

The Present Problems

The Seventh-Day Adventists do not subscribe to a formal creed. Nevertheless, as appears from recent developments, they do have a firmly definite understanding of what is church teaching and what is not. Last year it was reported that about 100 ministers of the denomination had resigned because they could no longer in good conscience agree with what they were expected to believe and teach. It was these events and their aftermath which prompted the present writer to use the title which is now printed over this article.

The thought of comparing the Seventh-Day Adventists with the Christian Reformed Church was not entirely original. Others have done the same. When the troubles which led to the resignations just described were developing one could hear it said that the SeventhDay Adventists were facing the same problems which we in the Christian Reformed Church were facing. By this was meant that in both churches there was a number of persons who found it difficult to adhere to the church’s traditional understanding of its doctrinal tenets, but who nevertheless were expected by the church to teach in the traditional fashion. This conflict has now apparently in the SDA church led to mass resignations within the ministerial force of that church. The matter should not be exaggerated however. G. Merlin Kretschmar, President of the Greater New York Conference of the church, states in a letter to the New York Times, dated Nov. 10, 1982 and published Dec. 7, 1982, that his church employs a total of no less that 9,400 persons as a ministerial force around the world. Of these, far less than 1 percent have resigned. The figure 100 involves, he informs us, pastors, workers and other members.

A Principle Illustrated

Mr. Kretschmar’s letter was written in response to a news article published in the New York Times, in which the question of intellectual freedom had been raised. Of particular interest for those who, like the members of the Christian Reformed Church, live within a creedally-bound church communion is Mr. Kretschmar’s reasoning concerning the point of intellectual freedom. Mr. Kretschmar maintains that “if one is engaged to teach Adventist theology that has been accepted and affirmed by the great majority of the church constituency and then elects to teach opposing concepts, a very practical problem is posed.” The problem he sees is that “the salary of the teacher is paid by the church body that affirms denominational theology.”

The point that is made cannot very well be overlooked and is not without cogency . A church body commits itself and its members to certain well-defined doctrines and it also expects its teachers to adhere to these doctrines in their instruction. For that very purpose they are appointed and salaried. Mr. Kretschmar uses the comparison of a corporation which would not allow its training force undue intellectual freedom in presenting other than company-approved guidelines. Likewise, so he argues, the members of his church consider it inappropriate to permit its religion teachers to deviate unduly from the “guidelines.”

Applicable to Us

Allowing for certain weaknesses in the comparison inherent in most use of comparisons, we nevertheless believe the main point is well-taken. It applies with even greater force to a church such as the Christian Reformed Church which not only has a fairly well-defined theology going back to the Reformation and then to biblical times, but also possesses precisely formulated creeds and a form of subscription to these creeds to which all in special office subscribe. Such subscription goes back to early Reformation times. One of the first synods of the Reformation churches of Calvinist persuasion decided to require it from the members of synod and also from those ministers not present. Hence it was the church, met in synodical assembly, that agreed to the adherence to creedal teachings. The subscription formula is not just a device whereby ministers promise ministers to teach according to the creeds. It is the church, which, as Kretschamar well remarks, is in the final analysis people, that requires such adherence of its teachers and other officers.

To What We Subscribe

This raises another point which in the present writer’s opinion is of equal importance. Ifit is the church which requires subscription to the creeds and if the church is people, then the subscription that is required is made to the creeds as understood by the people. This amounts to saying that it is the traditional understanding of the creedal doctrines to which we make our office-bearers subscribe. If the church is people it can hardly be otherwise. For t he great majority of the church people are not theologically trained. They are the truck drivers, the store clerks, the electricians, the hospital nurses and the school teachers. Among them are housewives and factory workers, farmers and, yes, also some professional men and women. But even they cannot be expected to be at home in all the intricacies of theological language. A medical man who is also an elder in the Christian Reformed Church once confided to me that the report called “Hermeneutics and Women in Office” was one of the few reports in synodical agendas of recent years that he had been able to read with some profit.

So let us not overrate the ability of the average church member, of whatever station in life he or she may be, to make the fine distinctions with which theologians are wont to operate. By implication this also means that when the church requires of those in special office that they subscribe to the creeds, it does so in the expectation that the language of the creeds shall mean what the church has traditionally understood it to mean.

Room for Inquiry

This does not preclude proper theological inquiry. The same church which binds its teachers to the creeds of the Reformation also expects them to pursue their task of research and reflection, in the light of the Bible and under the constant stimulus of the ongoing theological debate. The creeds which have authority among us, though never of a primary sort, lay down some of the basic teachings of the Reformation understanding of Scripture. But they do not speak the last word. On many of the contemporary questions of faith and morals they only speak obliquely and implicitly. Yet, let us not underestimate the century from which they (at least two of them, the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism) have come. That was the 16th century. The 16th century has been called “the modern century.” It was an age of unprecedented inquiry in more than one respect. Theologically, and doctrinally too, it contained the seeds of much of what has subsequently developed. It has long been pointed out, e.g., that the first beginnings of what later became the critical approach to Scripture, can be traced back to the 16th century . The humanists and the Socinians against whom the Reformers had to take up positions have been very influential in subsequent developments of Biblical study. We recall, too, some of the emphases of the Anabaptists.

We are therefore of the opinion that subscription to the 16th and 17th century creeds is not as out of date as some of us would make it out to be. These creeds still set the fram ework without which one cannot be Reformed today.

In a recent address presented by the Rev. Clarence Boomsma upon the occasion of the imminent retirement of President J.H. Kromminga of Calvin Seminary the speaker bemoaned the fact that in recent years the Christian Reformed Church had not witness-any-large-scale and-vigorous theological debate. Even among the ministers, so he argued, there was a lack of desire to engage in the discussion of questions of theological import. The Rev. Boomsma, who has been known as a rather perceptive analyst and critic of the life of the church, put a good part of the blame on the strictness of the Form of Subscription. And he called for a revision of this formula.

The Right to Require Subscription

We for ourselves are not convinced that this is the direction in which to go. We believe that all people of good intention desire a Christian Reformed Church that takes its creeds and its theology seriously, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ which can be helped by a vigorous yet charitable and fair-minded discussion of current issues. But we see as yet not the slightest indication that a loosening up of the Form of Subscription will bring about such desired ends. The phenomenon to which the Rev. Boomsma calls attention may well be due to a great extent to the spirit of the age. Changing the Form will not greatly affect this.

Moreover, a very practical consideration is this: Where will the theological deba te be carried on? The theological journal published by Calvin Seminary appears twice a year and its pages are often taken up with articles sent in from outside the denomination. Maybe this can be changed and we believe it ought to be. Yet, the Calvin Theological Journal does not appear to be the organ for doing what Rev. Boomsma is seeking. The church papers lend themselves to some discussion of theological questions but not in great depth. In the days of L. Berkhof, H. Schulze, M. Monsma and others, these papers had regular columns which were filled by seminary professors. Such has not been the case for decades. Only recently has the Wachter engaged a Seminary professor to do some writing on a regular basis. And again, neither Wachter nor Banner are suited to what Rev. Boomsma seems to be seeking. I doubt that even the monthlies lend themselves to this end.

I shall not pursue this discussion further. Rev. Boomsma’s desire is a good one. The way in which he seeks to achieve his goal does not appear the correct one. Perhaps more light can be shed if we first begin to discuss how we can best discuss!

Yet, in all this—and with this we conclude—the right of the church to bind its scholars to well-defined formulations of doctrine, traditionally understood, should not be subject to question. To insist on this right has nothing to do with anti-intellectualism, which is an ever-present danger; neither does it smack of fundamentalism, another threat which is by no means imaginary among us. It simply is the consequence of the incontrovertible truth that, in the final analysis, the church is the people of which it is composed. Reformed people expect their scholars to be scholars, but in full submission to the doctrines of the Word as laid down in the creeds.

Marten H . Woudstra is professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary at Grand Rapids, Michigan.