LOVE AND CRITIQUE
Love has a smiling, gentle eyes
But diverse hands:
One is soft but the other tough,
Yet both are warm.– Steingrímur Thorsteinsson.
It has been said oftentimes that love is the core of Christianity—and correctly so. This the Bible affirms in many places: God is love (1 Jn 4:18), his commandments are love (Mk 12:28–31; Rm 13:9–10), his salvation is love (Jn 3:16), and to be a Christian is to be loving (Jn 13:35).
The Two Sides of Love
Since the essence of Christianity is love, it is paramount to understand thoroughly what love entails. In the discourse on love through the history of Christianity, it has been pointed out that even though love as such never changes, it still has two different manifestations due to the fact that we humans are so variable. This classical viewpoint is brilliantly reflected in the poem above. Thorsteinsson describes love as being beautiful (it has “smiling, gentle eyes,” i.e., a gentle countenance), but the way it behaves has different aspects (it has “diverse” or different hands): one is soft and the other tough (i.e., it hurts). And yet both hands belong to the same love (“both are warm”), even though one of them does not appear to do so.
When the Bible is perused, it is inevitable but to see the tough side of love intertwined with the soft one. It is also possible to observe why this aspect of love is as essential as the soft one. Mankind is sinful, and since God wants to help humans, he needs to correct, critique, warn, rebuke, and even punish.
Someone might say: “Those who took upon themselves such a serious responsibility were saintly men and women, patriarchs, prophets, kings, apostles, and the Son of God. Today, however, this is not our responsibility towards others.” But if none of these are examples for us today, then there are sparse role models left for us ordinary people in the Bible, since the Bible centers around people like these. The Bible says their lives serve as exemplary to us in their positive ways and as admonitions in their negative ways (Heb 12; 1 Cor 10; 1 Pt 2:9). And the point is made directly in the Bible that Christian practice includes the tough aspect of love (Lv 19:17; Prv 27:6; Mt 18:15–17; Lk 17:3; 2 Thes 2:15; 1 Tm 5:10; 2 Tm 4:2; Rv 3:19).
When we Adventists teach church history, we say that people have had to apply the tough aspect of love. The Reformers who wanted to advance progress often needed to criticize the Church of their time. We Adventists believe we are in the same position: to proclaim some tenets of what we know (e.g., what the fourth commandment entails), we also have to point out, directly or indirectly, what is amiss.
As Adventists, we teach that our Church is not exempt from this pattern of history, i.e., the need for being critiqued. We literally teach that our Church is not perfect and that the letter to the Laodiceans (Rv 3) is addressed to us—in particular, to our ministers (the letter is addressed to the “angel” of the church, i.e., the pastors).
The EXCOM’s Discourse on Love in Connection to the Mining Case
Christian love has a soft but also a tough aspect. That means that valid and necessary criticism is an integral part of Christian love. This is a red thread through the Bible and church history through the ages to the present.
It is therefore not inherently wrong or unchristlike to criticize the Seventh-day Adventist Church or its administrators. The question is simply whether the criticism in question is valid or not.
As was pointed out in the introduction of this document, the mining case became a major issue due to the fact that the EXCOM has not provided church members with sufficient information. Church members have set forth questions—but no substantial information has been given. As church members probed into the matter themselves, their questions became more pointed and even turned into criticism. The reason for these questions and criticism have been advanced is not because church members are antagonistic towards the EXCOM or want to cause friction in the Church. They only want substantial answers and solutions.
This, however, the EXCOM has refused to provide. As has been pointed out in this document, the ECOM terminated Kristján Ari Sigurðsson’s investigation in the spring 2021 on the grounds that the GCAS would take over the investigation. But then the EXCOM did not ask GCAS for an investigation until October 2021, and withdrew most of its investigative questions. When it became clear that the GCAS investigation was limited, the EXCOM said they would be ready to hold an information meeting, but then decided against it, since they believed that a discussion about the case would be hurtful and damaging for the IC. The EXCOM then presented a motion in this vein to Session in September 2022, which stated that church members should cease all discussion about the case.
Throughout their term, the EXCOM has postponed the act of providing answers. They have excused this delay by portraying the questions and criticism of church members as loveless and unchristlike behavior. Whatever the presuppositions of such theology are, such theology is wrong as this chapter has demonstrated. The EXCOM works on behalf of church members, receiving their authority and mandate from them. They therefore have a right to know what the EXCOM is doing. Church members’s demand for information is not against the nature of love but in accordance with it.