Starting this week I added another link in the chain of my participation in the Seventh-Day Adventist “system”. That chain began almost literally at birth, followed by grade school, academy, and college, along with my church membership confirmed by baptism at age 12. And now, work (with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, if you didn't know). It should be noted that this is not uncommon. The potential to forever remain in the SDA subcultural bubble is very real, and often desirable, for many Adventists. Whether you're an Angwinite, Loma Linder, or a Caroll Avenue kid (or countless other SDA niches), you know that there is always a place for you if you want to stick around.Depending on your school, church, and friends, however, your “SDA life” could look very different from someone else's. That is because, like any religious community, SDAs are far from monolithic. I, for example, grew up in a rather liberal version of SDAism that puts it's emphasis on mainstream Christian theology and values, while shying away from prophecy, orthodox Sabbath-keeping, and the writings of Ellen G. White (though I did write a paper that showed how pervasive she is in our literature, even when unmentioned). That version seems to be virtually nonexistent in South America, and it has therefore been a little difficult to cope with my new situation, even though we are supposedly the same (I had to laugh to myself when I agreed with someone that I was experiencing some “culture shock”; not—like they thought—from being in Argentina, but from being amongst conservative SDAs).
I say only a little difficult because most of the things that really separate me from these SDAs are ideas, which are rarely communicated—in either direction—due to my partial language barrier. Yes, praying before every meal and singing songs before a planning meeting is a little foreign to me, but certainly not alien. As for the ideas, the solution is simple: keep my mouth shut. Even if I hear an idea I think I disagree with, I remain content to keep silent for fear of attacking a point they didn't actually make and/or making myself look like an idiot, or worse, an apostate. Perhaps I am not standing up for myself, but as both an outsider and a new employee, it seems easy enough to justify it as social and cultural sensitivity.
The first two days of meetings were unbearably boring (not only that, they started at 8 AM, death for a night owl like myself). Hours and hours were spent describing the the history of ADRA, it's financial and administrative structure, and overviews of the national emergency plan we would eventually be constructing. The only benefit was the snack breaks, which made up for the breakfast I didn't have (decaf tea with cookies and tasty little cheesy breadballs). The only time my ears pricked up were when the words “evangelism” and “proselytism” came up in a long discussion of ADRA's purpose. This is because I am definitively against evangelism, especially in it's typical SDA form: fear tactics and emotional appeals based on the doom-and-gloom Bible prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. To me an emphasis on prophecy has the potential to create passive people who, while they recognize that the world is getting progressively worse, choose to analyze the decline as a “sign of the times” rather than take an active role in preventing it. Furthermore, in my view, evangelism merely reflects the hubris of the group that is proselytizing, as it suggests that their perspective is true to the exclusion of all others. It's not so much that I disagree with the SDA message, but that it I think it only has partial truth—just like the other religions it is trying to convert people from (more on this later).
This is why I love ADRA, because while it is funded by the Church, it is not associated with any religious motive apart from the imperative of the social gospel (i.e. Jesus' call to help the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the “least of these”). Unlike other sectors of the Church, it refuses to overspiritualize Christianity into a matter solely of belief to the exclusion of living a life of discipleship, doing good for the sake of goodness. Thinking that this view was common, I felt great discomfort when one person kept interrupting to insist that we are doing nothing if we are only giving bread and water and not the “bread of life” (i.e. the spiritual gospel). I felt something close to horror when someone suggested that we put SDA literature in relief packages, and even more so that the only response to that idea was not that it was contrary to ADRA's mission, but that doing so could create legal problems with governments that are unfriendly to proselytism.
As it turns out, keeping my mouth shut was a very prudent decision. First, because this kind of talk eventually disappeared as real work on the emergency plan began. Second, because I later found out that the people making those arguments were Church administrators, not ADRA representatives. Third, and most importantly, my local supervisor is in accord with my thoughts on the social gospel, and conducts all of her work on that principle. Although we disagree on some things, it has been a great comfort that I seem to have found the most open minded SDA in Argentina, so that I do not have to pretend to be something I am not for the sake of my work. Her determination and attitude really shines in comparison to the other regional directors I met, who were thoroughly lackluster.
For the most part I tried to stay off to the side during the planning sessions, but eventually I got dragged into being at least somewhat productive. After about half a day of trying to figure out what they wanted me to do, I finally realized that I was to draft the response “menu” for attending to psychological health in the case of a natural disaster. Although I was certainly not qualified to do so, with a little research—and a lot of help from a few bilingual aides—I was able to create something acceptable. So in reality the meetings weren't all bad. In fact, the EVP of ADRA told my boss that he took some of my ideas about the psychological health of volunteers—i.e. not just the affected—and is planning on working them into ADRA International's response plan.
I want to finish with a return to the evangelism issue, because I have been thinking about it a lot now that I am in a context where it is common. In the United States, where individual domain is sacred, it is very easy to hold the opinion that I related earlier. In Argentina, however, I can't seem to refute the many positive benefits people face when they join the SDA church. For me, I care most about the practical impact of evangelism. I definitely do not like it when conversion destroys a family—which is common in very Catholic families—but for many people it gives them a new energy in life that seems to save them from many pitfalls in life: addiction, disease, poverty. In pondering that point, I think I have come to understand what my esteemed professor, Dr. Greg Schneider, meant when he said—echoing William James—that the validity of a religion comes from “fruits not roots”. That is, from what they accomplish, not from what they believe. What do you think?
