Zest for the Zeitgeist? Why Adventism Must Contend to Keep Current
Issachar was the ninth son of Jacob and the fifth child his wife Leah gave him. We know only a few details of what preceded Issachar’s birth. It involved some negotiations between Jacob’s wives and a belief in the effectiveness of an aphrodisiac (see Genesis 30:15-16). But besides this, and apart from the remarkable blessing the dying Jacob gave his son Issachar in Genesis 49:14-15, we know preciously little about him, except that he became one of the twelve founding fathers of the nation of Israel. His descendants provided a significant number of warriors when preparations were made for the conquest of the “promised land” (Numbers 1:28, 29; 26:23-25). They were allocated a piece of fertile land in the central part of Canaan (Joshua 19:17-23). Beyond these features there is no mention of the tribe of Issachar in the Bible until we meet the name again in the time of David.
After Saul’s death, David was finally recognized as the ruler of Israel. In 1 Chronicles 12, men from all tribes came to Hebron to declare their loyalty to the new king. There are specifics about the number of men from each tribe, about their weapons and their fighting skills. As to the tribe of Issachar, two hundred “chiefs, with all their relatives under their command” joined the queue. Interestingly, nothing is said about their military hardware or their proven courage on the battlefield. They are described as “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32, NIV). In other words, they had a good sense of what people around them, and further afield, were thinking. They understood their ambitions, and recognized their strengths and weaknesses. To have such people would be extremely valuable for King David, not only for his immediate future but also for the execution of his long-term plans.
Adventists understood the times
The members of the tribe of Issachar were “Adventists” avant la lettre. Knowing the times has, from the very inception of the Advent movement, been a crucial feature of its self identity. The signs of the times informed the early Adventists where they were on the divine timetable. The catastrophic Lisbon earthquake on the All Saints Day of 1755, “the dark day” in the northeast of the United States on May 19, 1790, which caused animals to seek their night’s shelter, and the massive Leonid meteor storm in the night of November 12-13, were the indisputable signs the Bible had predicted as heralds of the second coming.
As Adventists developed their teachings and fine tuned their evangelistic arguments, a distinct presentation of the “signs of the times” emerged and for a considerable time dominated Adventist preaching. Political events in the Muslim world (the so-called “Eastern Question”), and then the two world wars and, later again, the threat of nuclear destruction during the cold war, were at the top of the list. Developments in the world of religion came as a close second, with emphasis on the healing of the “deadly wound” of the papal “beast” and the ominous events in the ecumenical arena as a prelude to the final rise of a persecuting, Rome-inspired, religious tyranny. The most destructive earthquakes of recent times and other natural calamities were also an important category of signs that pointed to the fast-approaching end. Growing up in the Adventist milieu of the 1950’s, I became used to a constant diet of sermons about the signs by pastors who preached with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
It was clear that Adventists understood the times. “Soon” still meant “soon.” Many church members firmly believed that Christ would come during their lifetime. Considering the chaos in so many parts of the world and the rapid decline in human decency and compassion, they found it difficult to believe that the world could continue to exist for more than another ten or twenty years. When I studied at Newbold College in the UK, in the early 1960’s, several students protested that our course of study was unnecessarily long. They believed we were wasting our time studying Greek and complicated theological issues, while millions needed to hear the Adventist message before it was too late. We really did not need a class in homiletics but could rely on the Spirit to convince people of the Three Angels’ Messages!
Do Adventists still understand the times?
The soon-ness of Jesus’ second coming has become rather problematic. Seventh-day Adventism is now a global movement, but in many areas in the world—and in particular in the West—the church is in maintenance mode. And in places where the church still succeeds in recruiting significant numbers of new members, it simultaneously experiences a steady exodus. Statistical reports indicate that over forty percent of recently baptized members leave the church again within a few years. It makes me wonder what still attracts many men and women to Adventism, and what is the reason why many leave again so quickly? Could it be that the Adventist faith and praxis is no longer experienced as relevant in the same measure as it was in earlier decades?
Admittedly, I do not preach as often about the signs of the times as I did in the past. And this is also true for most of the ministers I know. Luke 21:11 does not only mention earthquakes and famines among the signs of the end times, but also “pestilences in various places.” In recent years I preached only once on that text, and it struck me that I heard very few sermons from others during the COVID pandemic on the topic.Â
As war rages in Ukraine, and the Gaza Strip is experiencing what many regard as a horrific genocide, and conflicts throughout the African continent and elsewhere continue to exact a deadly toll; as millions of refugees barely survive under the most inhumane circumstances, and thousands drown as their small boats capsize in rough seas; and as millions suffer from famine and malnourishment—while all this is happening, I hear very few sermons about the signs of the times. If these catastrophes are mentioned, it is mostly just in passing, and the speakers assume that we are all well aware of these situations. The signs are still “understood,” but for most of us they have lost much of their earlier power to convince that time is short.
For many church members several aspects of traditional Adventist theology have become problematic, such as elements of the sanctuary doctrine and the reality of a pre-Advent investigative judgment. And many, though believing in God as the almighty creator, deny, or at most pay lip service to, the idea that God created everything between 6,000 and 10,0000 years ago, in six literal, 24-hour days. But perhaps the most critical issue that seriously threatens the long-term vitality and credibility of the Adventist movement is the “delay” of the return of Jesus. How can a group of Christians hope to maintain the initial urgency in their proclamation of the second coming, after almost two centuries have passed. Adventist opinion leaders must now deal with the same problem the apostle Peter had to address. He anticipated that if the coming of Christ would not occur in the very near future, people (Peter called them “scoffers”) would say: “Where is this ‘coming’ He promised?” and “Everything goes on as it has been since the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3, 4). Adventist (and other Christian) authors have had to grapple with this issue. They have emphasized that we should not impose our human concept of “soon” on the eternal God. I also struggled with this “delay” in my recent book about the return of Jesus, He Comes: Why, When and How Jesus Christ will Return (Stanborough Press, 2021), without finding fully satisfactory answers.
What does “understanding the times” mean?
Returning to the chiefs of the tribe of Issachar in 1 Chronicles who “understood the times” might provide clues about what understanding the times could mean today. Could it be that we must shift our emphasis from a regular updating of our traditional list of significant signs of the times to something that may be more germane if we want to preach a message that touches the people of 2024? Could it be that we should replace the question: What are the signals that point to the second coming? with this: Who are the people we want to reach with the message of Christ’s coming? Do we know them well enough to really connect with them?
Understanding the times is not primarily a matter of calculating the number of earthquake or tsunami victims, or providing statistics to prove that our world is indeed becoming ever more violent and dangerous. In 2024 understanding the times probably has more to do with climate change and its enormous consequences for humankind than with the signs Jesus enumerated in his sermon about the end of time in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Will the further warming of our planet result in the end of everything in a way we did not foresee even a few decades ago?
This point may be worth considering, but I would suggest that knowing and understanding the times, and the world in which we live, is first of all a matter of knowing how the people in our world—us included—have changed, and how this has made the announcing of the parousia, and of holding out the promise of a new kind of life, a totally different kind of undertaking.
I do not have the expertise to give a definitive analysis of how today’s men and women—in particular in the Western world—differ from what people were like when Adventists began to proclaim their message in the middle of the nineteenth century. However, I have no doubt that people have fundamentally changed and continue to change. The first time I realized this in a profound way was when I watched the film Easy Riders. This 1969 film was about Wyatt and Billy, two motorcycle enthusiasts who dreamed of freedom and happiness as they traveled, using the proceeds of a drug deal, from California to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I remember how it deeply troubled me that I knew nothing of the totally foreign world these hippie-like men represented. This feeling, that there is a big chunk of this world that I know nothing about, has stayed with me and is, I believe, shared by countless others. I was sharply reminded of it just a few days ago when I watched the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade. I have (I think) shed my earlier prejudices toward people with a different sexual orientation than mine, but the colorful parade that moved through the historic canals belongs to a world that remains foreign to me.
About every twenty years or so a new generation is born that is very different from the previous one. The Baby Boomers were followed by the Generation X, and then the Millennial Generation and the Generation Z came on the scene. Those born since 2010 belong to Generation Alpha. It is the first age group in our society that has no idea what a world without social media looked like. Could they ever understand people like me who for many years wrote their letters (rather than “posts” or “tweets”) on a typewriter and looked for a phone booth if they wanted to tell their partner they would be late for supper?
Understanding the Zeitgeist
Beneath the characteristics of the various age groups is something that is at least as important, if we want to understand the present times and the people around us. For some ideas, Germans have terms that no other language has. I am not thinking of sauerkraut or wanderlust, but specifically of the word zeitgeist. There is no exact equivalent in English. It refers to the spirit, the kind of thinking, that permeates society in a particular era. The Cambridge Dictionary describes zeitgeist as “the general set of ideas, beliefs, feelings, et cetera, that is typical of a particular period in history.” The “et cetera” in this definition is significant, as it encompasses a lot of things that are difficult to catch in one sentence. The zeitgeist of the western world, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, comprises a range of elements that impact on most of us, albeit in different ways and with different intensity: an appreciation for comfort and technology, and a preference for some form of democracy; the defense of human rights and the need for personal freedom. Above everything else contemporary people want life to be fun.
Other important elements of the zeitgeist include a predominantly secular worldview and a capitalistic and materialistic layer under much of our society. Moreover, the nature of religion has changed from what it was before. Religion remains an important part of who people are and the values they want to uphold, but organized, institutional religion (“the church”) is in many places in a free fall.
A prominent feature of the current zeitgeist in the western world is its overwhelming tendency toward individualism. While individualism is not all negative, it has some serious drawbacks: egocentrism and diminished empathy and compassion, for starters. Many three- or four-year old toddlers already spend lots of time before the screen of a mobile phone or an iPad, which sets an individualistic pattern for their later lives.
Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of the zeitgeist which inevitably emerges in any discussion of postmodernism—and of post-postmodernism or meta-modernism, which many believe have gradually replaced postmodernism—is truths versus Truth. Individualistic people believe they are entitled to their own opinion, their own beliefs and their own value system. They are convinced their truth is as good as any other truth. There is no longer the solid conviction that there is a universal Truth. This relativizing of Truth is a tremendous handicap for any person who believes he/she “has” the Truth and wants to share it with others, or for any organization that believes it is the end-time guardian of Truth.
The ongoing challenge
Christians in the western world face enormous challenges when they want to tell others about their faith. What is true for Christians in general applies in an even more urgent way to Seventh-day Adventist Christians. They formulated their belief system in the nineteenth century, and tried to align their mission with their contemporary audience. Adventists knew their time and the people of that period. They made adaptations as years passed, but today we, twenty-first century Adventists, have reached a point in which the people around us are so diverse and so different that most of us no longer know how to connect with them.
The issue has, in fact, two components. Not knowing the zeitgeist that defines the people outside the church hampers our mission dramatically and seriously limits effective communication. But there is also the undeniable fact that many (most?) of the leaders of the church, at all levels, do not realize that an ever-growing percentage of the members—and not just the more educated ones—also have imbibed the zeitgeist I described. It means there is a major gap between a significant part of the church’s leadership and a major portion of the membership. Many members feel these leaders are living in a nineteenth century bubble and answer questions people are no longer asking. At the same time key leaders, in particular at the top of the church’s hierarchy, are convinced that a “shaking” must take care of those who no longer speak of their faith in traditional terms, and who want to pick and choose which beliefs they continue to embrace rather than accept the entire Truth package. Fortunately, a part of the church is like the tribe of Issachar and still knows the times. But another, probably larger, part does not.
Christ knew the times
When Jesus came, He knew the times. He came at a particular moment in time. He entered a distinct culture, in a society with a particular political constellation. He stepped into a unique religious landscape. He entered that world as a Jewish working-class male of the first century. Yet, he was able, and eager, to communicate with everyone, regardless of ethnicity, religious persuasion, social status, age or gender. The gospels make clear that he knew the people around him often better than they knew themselves. The apostle Paul insists that this is the kind of knowledge, and the kind of openness toward all people, that we must also strive for as we try to communicate the Truth in ways that will impact on the truths of the people. This demands curiosity and empathy. It requires study, and prayer, and lots of reading, watching, listening, and discussing. It must be anchored in genuine love for people. Our prayer must be a plea for divine enlightenment as we seek to understand our times and do our very best to comprehend the zeitgeist that has made today’s people into who and what they are.
