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Adventism In Time Of War-3
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Saturday, June 20 - Adventism In Time Of War-3

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Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Rom. 13:1, 2, RSV.

Adolf Hitler's favorite text! He stipulated that it or its companion in 1Peter 2:13 be read at least once a year in every church in the Third Reich.

Romans 13 leaves no doubt that God's appointed agency (the government) tells us to perform things that put us in a position of disobeying some of God's other teachings? That was the question troubling the Adventists during the American Civil War-the first war they had had to face as a church.

James's August 12, 1862, article inthe Review stirred up quite a bit of heat on the question. As he put it on August 26, "Several brethren refer to our remarks. . .two weeks since, in a rather feverish style. . . This is no time for Christian gentelmen to give way to feelings of prejudice, and virtually charge us with teaching Sabbath-breaking and murder. . .If any of you are drafted, and choose to have a clinch with Uncle Sam rather than obey, you can try it. We shall not contend with you, lest some of you nonresistants get up a little war before you are called upon to fight for your country."

At that point White significantly added that "any well-written articles, calculated to shed light upon our duty as a people in reference to the present war, will receive prompt attention."

That invitation prompted a tidal wave of responses for the next three months as Adventists argued publicly through the pages of the Review regarding the duties of Chritians in their conflicting roles as citizens of both the kingdom of heaven and a particular nation here on earth, with each having its own laws-sometimes in conflict.

One theme that surfaces in the discussion is that we should study such controversial yet important questions during periods of peace when emotions are calm and there is time to do a proper job.

Such wasn't the case here, though. They were struggling to find an answer in the midst of an emotion-fraught crisis. But the idea of thinking through important issues before a crisis is important.

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Help us, Father, to use the times of peace in our individual and our collective lives a church to come to You in study and prayer so that we might more fully discern Your will.
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