Tony Hunter

Sunglasses are fascinating.

We wear them for a variety of reasons. To be fashionable. To convince ourselves that we look as awesome as awesome people who wear the same sunglasses. To look tough. To shield our eyes from the sun. To shield our eyes from other people.

Or some combination thereof.

I’m not saying sunglasses are bad. I wear them at times for different reasons. But it is interesting how a hunk of plastic placed upon our face carries so much sense of value and identity.

The idea that we need something external to give us a sense of value and identity is probably worth exploring at some point.

But sunglasses actually do change the way we see things. Both in how we see ourselves and how we see the world. Ourselves in that we have altered our appearance in a way we find an improvement, and the world in that we are filtering out some of the light we would otherwise take into our eyes.

The world looks different when they are on. Tinted. Darker. Not as clear.

And that is just with normal sunglass lenses. What if you go with darker or lighter ones? What if you go with colored ones? Everything we see is filtered through those lenses and our view of the world becomes skewed towards those lenses’ technical make up and intended purpose.

So, whether one wears them for fashion and identity purposes, or whether one wears them because of light sensitivity issues and the need to protect themselves, one is choosing to restrict their view of reality and reduce the accuracy of what they see so that they can fulfill the alternate purpose dictated by the reason they wear sunglasses.

And yet, almost everyone chooses to wear sunglasses at some point for some reason.

As I said, it’s not wrong. But it does make a great metaphor.

Because, if we are talking about worldview, how we see the world matters. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called “world view.” Our view of the world. How we see things.

Sorry, I can’t resist one more metaphor. I may have a problem. If I’m driving down a highway with the sun at my back, the vision in front of me is pretty clear. If I’m driving directly west as the sun is dropping down, at the right time I am almost blind as I drive. There are some roads near us that I hate driving in a westerly direction as late afternoon turns into evening. I just can’t see anything. So, it is when we look into the sun. It’s just too much to take in.

Back to worldview. So much of how we see the world is dictated by very specific variables. Our age, gender identity, sexual identity, varying health issues, personality, personal needs, fears, joys, desires, frustrations, pains, traumas, social needs, physical needs, and a whole list of others I won’t keep listing because you get the point.

And even some of those variables have variables of their own.

When you start breaking down all the things that go into forming a worldview, you realize that every single worldview is a house of cards waiting to fall. This is because no one is seeing reality clearly and without bias. We simply aren’t capable of doing it. Not truly. We can try, and sometimes we can filter out a lot of the variables that distort our view, but never all of them.

Fortunately, that never applies to our religious and spiritual worldviews, right? The Adventist worldview is never distorted because of such things.

Right? Right …???

*big sigh*

Of course it does. The Adventist worldview is just as prone to bias and distortion and inaccuracy as anyone else’s. Just because our beliefs came through committee over time doesn’t change any of that. Ever sat in a committee? Ever witnessed how messy that gets as decisions are made?

No. We are not immune. We are individuals with a limited perspective on reality trying to tell everyone how reality works. When we try to state that our interpretation of the Bible is the correct one it is nothing more than a statement of our own arrogance and ignorance.

But you might say “but God makes up the difference and will bring truth to those who seek Him and His truth.”

I mean, that sounds pretty great. But, unless one believes that only Adventists have sincerely sought that, it becomes clear very quickly that things do not work that cleanly.

Do we believe that no Catholic has ever sought God and truth with every humble and sincere and loving fiber of their very being? And, at the end of the day, felt the peace of Christ come over them as Catholics to remain Catholic?

Or a Baptist? Or Pentecostal? Or Hindu? Or (insert spiritual worldview here)?

The Adventist world view has some good stuff. The concept of Present Truth, for example. When used correctly, it is a great path for seeking God and learning. It truly is. When used correctly, the idea of a great controversy has value as it speaks of the struggle between good and evil.

When used correctly.

Now for some problems. For starters, no one can really agree on a worldview. Not really. So, for Adventism, ask three Adventists what the Adventist worldview is and you likely get three different worldviews. For that matter, ask three Adventist theologians what the Adventist worldview is and you will likely run into the same problem.

It won’t matter if you ask pastors, administrators, conference presidents, or a group of General Conference presidents, former and not. You won’t get a clean answer.

Does that mean it’s wrong to form worldviews?

Of course not. One can’t help but form a worldview. The problem isn’t the forming of a worldview. The problem is forming a static worldview. Our individual and collective worldviews are so flawed, they have no choice but to be dynamic if one also desires to live with any sort of honesty and integrity at all. As we grow, individually and corporately, our worldview must change because we are endlessly learning and experiencing.

The issues in the Adventist worldview lies in that paragraph. If there is one thing that my cynicism would offer as a major piece of the unspoken, but widely practiced, Adventist worldview it would be a resistance to change and growth.

You remember that thing I mentioned earlier called Present Truth and that it’s awesome when used correctly?

We don’t usually use it correctly.

Adventists like to reinforce their worldview, not expand it, alter it, or allow it to mature and grow. I’m not saying it has never happened, but I am saying it’s exceedingly rare.

Now, to be fair to Adventism, they aren’t really any worse at this than any other group, on average. Every group, every person … everyone, struggles with this in some way at some level.

And, if you look at the history of most religious groups, almost every time one of them had enough internal momentum and push to change their worldview for the better you will find that the outcome was very similar almost every time.

They split. Or, if not an outright split, a splinter group left and formed something that reflected the altered worldview.

This isn’t a bad thing, even if most in the middle of it felt like it was. People need to and are obligated to follow whatever direction God gives them, no matter who likes it. And, if that ends in leaving a group for another, or leaving and starting your own, or a large group splitting off, or a group splitting in half, then so be it.

It isn’t just about people getting what they want. It’s about following the Spirit as it leads. If God causes you to grow, you have to honor that growth.

The problem is that not everyone gets the same leading and growth spurt at the same time about the same thing. Not everyone gets to see what someone else saw in the same way. So, maybe some need to stay where they are, and some need to follow what was given. If this weren’t a true thing, then Adventism wouldn’t even exist in the first place.

When we are able to remove our tinted spectacles long enough to see clearly, even if just for a moment, some piece of reality might just flood in that we hadn’t been noticing.

It was Paul who said that we see now as though through a dark glass, but one day we will see clearly.

To mix and alter my metaphor, it’s past time we clean our lenses and add a prescription and get that laser surgery we’ve been putting off.

There is a lot of light waiting to be seen if we are just willing to see it.

Tony Hunter is a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and a hospital chaplain working for UCHealth. Tony, his wife Nirma, and daughter Amryn live in Firestone, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]  

In my head, there is a difference between a “reason” and an “excuse.”

A reason is a good excuse. An excuse is not always a good reason.

I like reasons, but I don’t usually like excuses. Although, I will acknowledge respecting a well-crafted and clever excuse even if I don’t believe it to be a valid reason.

Also, a reason is something that prevented us from doing what we set out to do. An excuse is what we provided to get out of doing something we needed to do but didn’t want to do.

Or an excuse is what we told ourselves so that we could justify doing things a certain way even if there wasn’t a true reason to do so.

The dog ate my homework. I caught all the stoplights. The cops were really out in force today. I was hangry. This is a therapy animal, I swear. All common excuses for something we didn’t get right. Sometimes they are technically true, and sometimes they are complete fabrications.

Which brings me to the last difference between a reason and an excuse.

One is honest and true, and the other one is a lie by intent whether technically true or not.

Unfortunately, I have been guilty a time or two of leaning on excuses when I didn’t have a good reason.

And now that I have clarified for you how I see these two concepts in my own head, I want to use this as a segue to what this article is really about, which isn’t reason or excuses specifically.

When I was a kid in church, I remember sitting through the Mission Spotlight videos that they used to show a lot. I’m sure some churches still do. They were stories of missionaries going to some country and starting churches and baptizing people as converts from some version of tribal paganism. And I remember thinking, even back then, that there were always some similarities between all the recorded stories even though I didn’t really understand what it meant. As an adult, however, I see those stories very differently.

The missionaries would do their work and the video would show their success. And their success was all these former tribes sitting in rudimentary churches on rudimentary pews singing American church songs (sometimes even in English) wearing shirts, ties, and, sometimes, full-on suits and American style churchy cloths.

I’ve had this conversation several times with other pastors and chaplains, and we’ve all recognized some of the same things. What many of these missionaries were doing wasn’t simply teaching these people about Jesus, they were attempting to change their culture. We know this because there isn’t one good reason to make them dress like us when they weren’t already. And they didn’t need to learn English to sing songs about God. They didn’t need to adopt the American Adventist order of service to worship God, and they didn’t even need to do it in any overtly church oriented way.

These people had a culture. They didn’t need to look and act American to meet God. As a result of these practices, we have found that when some of these converts eventually come to America, they are disappointed that we aren’t all like what the missionaries said. Because, as it turns out, the missionaries weren’t all using accurate theology and, instead, were teaching them a version of Adventist cultural Christianity as opposed to introducing them to Jesus.

Ask any pastor how difficult navigating imported theology is within their church.

Now, I want to be very clear here. I’m not against missionaries. I’m not against cultures being altered to create better environments for people to be healthy and thrive.

But there is a difference between helping lift a people up and simply imposing our comfort level upon them.

And now, 630 words in, I get to the actual purpose of this article. What are we actually doing as Adventists to contribute positively to the world around us, including here in our own country?

To Adventism’s credit, we have a lot of hospitals here in America and have done health work around the world. We do have an education system that has done some good as well. I want to acknowledge these things. These efforts aren’t perfect, but no effort is.

But neither of those are large culture impacting phenomenon.

Adventists are known for a couple of things primarily by those who are not. Sabbath keeping and vegetarianism.

Adventists have been leaning into vegetarianism since the late 1800s. And yet we had almost nothing to do with huge rise in vegetarianism in America that has taken place over the last 25 years. That has been driven by other forces. Eastern spiritualities account for some of it, and a combination of better mainstream health research combined with companies willing to cash in on it by utilizing better science to create quality non-meat foods.

Other factors are in play as well including counterculture reactions against excessive lifestyles and the accumulation of material things. The need to live a simple, stress reduced, and healthy life. The roots of some of this can be traced back to the late 1960s and early 1970s in the peace and love era.

Where it doesn’t trace back to is Adventism. We’ve been making and selling vegetarian foods for well over 100 years that anyone can buy … as long as they weren’t looking in any mainstream grocery stores. In fact, you usually couldn’t find any of it outside of a conference office or local church, with some rare exceptions.

Adventism had a useful health message the whole time, and we did nothing but try to use it as a tool to get baptisms. Health became a spiritual test as opposed to simply trying to alter the culture of our world’s health.

This is simply an example of how Adventism has approached culture. We somehow took the idea of being “in the world, but not of the world,” a saying that does not actually exist in the Bible but is an interpretation of a broader point, and instead just said, “stay out of the world.”

We interpreted it in an ostrich head-in-sand sort of way. This mentality resulted in us using missions and evangelism to try to change culture into Adventist culture by pulling people out of their own culture.

When we try to impact culture what we are really doing is trying to make people like us and bring them to us so that we don’t have to change ourselves and go to them. And by “go to them” I don’t mean travel to their country. I mean live with them. Be a part of their lives. Lift them up to be the best they can be in their setting, instead of forcing them into our own setting.

This is why I don’t like the term “culture” as we use it. It’s a noun. It has a static definition. It’s about preserving what was. It’s an excuse for being a certain way and not moving forward to become more. It promotes stagnation and stagnation promotes death.

But culture is also a verb. In this usage it’s about creating an environment where growth can happen. It’s how live bacteria are created that we use to benefit digestion, for example. It’s a biochemical process.

Maybe instead of impacting culture or changing culture, both noun realities, we could instead culture our people and our towns and our cities and our churches and our communities. What if we fostered an environment where people could grow uninhibited and healthy without someone holding them back and tethering them to the past? Anchoring them to bad theology and isolated, controlled realities?

Until we change the Us vs Them mentality that drives us organizationally, we will never truly be relevant to the culture around us because we will never have anything meaningful to contribute to the growth of humanity. We will be too busy fortifying our walls.

But if we could change our corporate mindset, we might stop making excuses for not truly being a part of our communities and as a result might finally have a good reason for existing
as a group.

And I do like good reasons.

Tony Hunter is a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and a hospice chaplain working for Gateway Hospice in Northern Colorado. Tony, his wife Nirma, and daughter Amryn live in Firestone, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]  

By Tony Hunter … The ability to think is horribly inconvenient.

And, while it’s bad enough that I possess this uncomfortable ability, other people can apparently do it as well. This is both unfortunate and problematic. How are we, as a people, supposed to maintain a perfectly identical and uniform set of beliefs and practices if just anyone can have ideas and inspiration and original thought? How can we all be the same and be comfortable in our homogeny if someone else somewhere else thinks better and differently than the person responsible for the thinking that led to our uniform traditions and practices that allow us the luxury of conducting ourselves without the burden of thought and consideration?

Don’t the newer thinkers, with their more complete palate of information and subsequent alternative perspective, understand that our forefathers already figured everything out? I mean, really. Those original pre-Adventists who became Adventists already went through the trouble of coming from different backgrounds with different ideas and shared them together so that everyone could learn from each other and gain a perspective of God and reality that they didn’t already possess. They already took the extra time to fellowship together, but then encourage each other to continue fellowshipping with their original groups so that they could learn from both sides and maybe come to even greater and better understandings, and maybe help those around them do the same.

As we all now know, they figured it all out so that we didn’t have to put any real thought into our faith and beliefs and God and reality and health and science and love and anything, and then they predicted the end of the world with accuracy so stunning that they sold everything and left their fields unplowed and succeeded in going to heaven.

Well, okay, they got that part wrong, but they gave it a good think, figured it all out again and moved forward through shared ideas about health and the Sabbath and revised it all more than a few times so that we don’t have to. They even took the time to make sure they never formulated a creedal statement or organized a formal religion because to formalize an organized religion would be akin to becoming Babylon because focus would shift from

real progressive thought and continued present truth, to simply doing whatever to maintain the organization at the expense of the true mission. And they never made a creedal statement because they knew we would keep learning and thinking and discovering and if they cemented stuff, new thought couldn’t really take place.

Okay, okay, that’s my bad again. It took them less than 20 years to decide to formalize their organization for the sake of finances and expansion of ministry, and then another 25 or so before the very organization that they started, against their own judgment, started ostracizing the very people who formed it for the high crime of thinking better thoughts and valuing love over tradition. At least they had the clarity of thinking to ship off their primary thought leader, who they believed had an inspired and prophetic gift, to a country far, far away so she couldn’t promote uncomfortable ideas and encourage people to think more.

Whew, right? They totally dodged that bullet.

But at least they never formalized any sort of creed like they said they wouldn’t. At no point did they create a list of fundamental beliefs that in many, and even most, circles became the criteria for baptism instead of the cross of Christ and Him crucified.

I mean, okay, I guess they sort of did that too. But thank goodness, right?! At least then they had this document written down so that people could officially not have to think anymore. Well, sure, they could think, obviously,

as long as what they thought was even better ways of coming to the exact same conclusions they had already come to. Because that’s what thinking is for. It’s for thinking the same thing they thought before and discovering new things, as long as they were the same things they

already knew. Because to come to a different conclusion meant they might fire you and ship you off to another country again.

And really, who can af-FORD that kind of inconvenience?

It’s just really fortunate that we figured out that to use the minds that God gave us and the ability to think with them was a terrible idea. What was God thinking? I certainly don’t know, but He clearly wasn’t thinking it as good as we were. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have let us do it.

Obviously.

God should have known, as we do, that difference and diversity are bad. How can we be all the same with that kind of mess? If someone else starts thinking, they will come to a conclusion that may be different, and then we will have to tell them they are wrong and bad. If people just weren’t allowed to think, then no one would ever be wrong and bad!

See how simple and blissful thoughtlessness can be? It’s such a peaceful, beautiful thing.

If we can just keep thought and thinking away, we can keep everything the way we like it and everyone in their place—all the men where they are supposed to be, all the women where THEY need to be, and all the not-white people in their place too. Because if we think about it

too much and do it with any sort of integrity, another problem to be avoided, we might find that none of us is better than the other and that God doesn’t hate the differences in any of us, and we’d have to treat each other with equality and love.

It’s a good thing we already showed that God doesn’t really know what’s up.

What we really need is to randomly be that one thing Jesus named us, and do it out of context, and just be like sheep. And then just follow whichever fluffy white one is in

front, and if we can all do it, it will be okay. Because when whichever mostly blind sheep in front walks off the cliff, all the rest of us can go down with him.

Okay, now I’m going to step off my soapbox of sarcasm.

Everyone is different. This was an intentional design by our Creator. We look different, sound different, act different, and think different. This is as it should be. It was God’s will and desire and that has not changed. We are finite beings with finite knowledge who know very little. If we want to know more, we have to pray, study, and think. If we want to grow, we have to think.

Muscles only grow when they are placed in tension with themselves and their environment. That is also how we grow. We place our minds in tension with ourselves and the thoughts around us. We don’t already know it all. We haven’t thought all the thoughts.

Adventists don’t know everything. We haven’t thought everything. We don’t have all the facts. And the ramifications of that are huge.

Perhaps that’s something worth thinking about.

–Tony Hunter is a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and a hospice chaplain working for Elevation Hospice in Northern Colorado. Tony and his wife Nirma live in Firestone, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]