In one of his famous epics, Homer describes the clever device the Greeks employed to conquer the city of Troy during the Trojan war.

To enable the Greeks to enter the legendary city by stealth, the master carpenter, Epeius, built a huge hollow wooden horse. According to Homer, 100,000 soldiers besieged Troy. The ten-year siege ended when the Greeks concealed some soldiers in the horse and then left it behind as they pretended to withdraw.

Despite the warning of Laocoon, Sinon persuaded the Trojans to move the horse inside the city walls. At night the Greek army returned and the soldiers who had hidden inside the horse opened the city gates to their comrades. In this way, Troy was invaded successfully and destroyed.

Although the war between the Greeks and the city of Troy is generally considered a historical fact, the episode dealing with the Trojan horse has been considered a mythological tale. Nonetheless, from this epic we can derive some timely illustrations that are applicable to the situation our church finds itself in today.

For many years, the Seventh-day Adventist Church succeeded in bravely and tenaciously resisting the fearful assaults of the enemy. The walls of the "holy city" remained impregnable. But, in his determination to conquer and destroy God’s church, the prince of this world has undertaken to employ clever and deadly secret weapons.

"There is nothing that the great deceiver fears so much," wrote Ellen G. White, "as that we shall become acquainted with his devices." (Great Controversy, 516).

After many attempts to conquer the "city of God" by applying the same kind of deceitful action employed by the Greeks, the great adversary has been able to obtain his ends by surreptitiously introducing the Trojan horse of liberalism within the walls of Zion.

Why are these people advocating liberal views among us? Why are they so enthusiastically playing the role of apostles of change in our theological system?

First of all, it seems to me, they are eager to discard the "cult" label that has been used so widely to characterize Seventh-day Adventism. They long to see our religious movement become a part of what they consider mainstream Christianity. In their endeavor to attain religious "respectability," they suggest the reinterpretation of some historical views of our theology that they believe are Biblically indefensible.

Although accepting some aspects of our distinctiveness, such as the Sabbath and our health principles, they believe that the time has come for a revision in our theological system. In fostering such a revision, some feel uncomfortable with the "remnant" concept as understood by the founder of our message. They believe that all "sectarian mentality" should be rejected as presumptuous and arrogant.

Other liberals, in their endeavor to make our theology more "relevant," question the integrity of the sanctuary doctrine and unite their voices with those of our opponents in this matter. They explain the two-phase ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary as a face-saving device created by Edson, Crosier, and others to bail our pioneers out of the Millerite failure.

There are those who are alarmed about what seems to them to be excessive borrowing by Ellen White of material from a variety of sources. Misguided by distorted ideas about the way inspiration works, they are willing to challenge the validity of her claims, rejecting her prophetic authority.

Some liberals define our eschatology as a by-product of the nineteenth-century North American culture and, as such, as deserving of substantial reformulation. They insist that, after 145 years of proclamation, we can no longer preserve the fervent expectation that permeated the church in its formative years.

Liberal scientists in the church insist that the creation doctrine should be re-evaluated in the context of current scientific information and hypotheses.

During the early 1980s, an unprecedented number of ministers and lay people left the church in Australia and New Zealand. During the 1970s, our church in those two countries lost one believer for every three who came in. In 1981, after a particularly notable attempt to effect a liberal change, the percentage of loss rose to 46 percent. It peaked at 63 percent—a loss of one member for every two believers (See Australasian Record, October 28, 1989).

We must not remain indifferent to such staggering losses. We must not minimize the tragic consequences of our internal confrontations caused by new theologies. The casualties are thousands of perplexed souls who, spiritually confused, are departing from us, throwing away their confidence in the validity of our message. They have lost the landmarks of our faith and no longer have a clear understanding of what we stand for.

Years Annual Growth Rates

1931-1940                 4.4%

1941-1950                   3.1%

1951-1960                   2.9%

1961-1970                    2.8%

1971-1980                    3.2%

What is the message in these numbers? Oscar Wilde, famous dramatist of the past century, with inimitable irony affirmed that "there are three kinds of lies in the world: common lies, small lies, and statistics." Thus Wilde underlined the fact that statistics may deceive and lead us to wrong conclusions. But even though statistics are susceptible of incorrect interpretation, we dare not minimize their importance in an analysis of the crisis that we face. They can help us understand the gravity of our problems.

It is true that we can be deceived by numbers and conclude that, in spite of what seems apparent, the North American Division is still growing. But it is not growing. According to reliable sources, 30 to 35 percent of our believers no longer attend church. With this decrease in attendance has come a decrease in offerings. Sharp cutbacks in church budgets have been approved. Enrollment in our schools is declining. Institutions have been closed. We are in the process of trimming down our church’s operations and reducing our task forces. The market for our books is shrinking. Denominational periodicals have been merged and yet their circulation has still dropped. We have come to a time of financial restraints, with most conferences cutting back on their ministerial forces. These are inevitable consequences of what has happened in theological areas.

After so many seeds of doubt and uncertainty have been sown within the church by those who are obsessed with the desire to reinterpret our theology, after so many years of theological disputation, what else should we expect? We are witnessing the inevitable harvest of liberalism. When unbelief is sown, the harvest is bound to be apostasy.

"On fundamental beliefs, unity on non-essentials and liberty in everything, love" is the popular dictum that inspires pluralistic scholars in their appeal for flexibility and openness. But who is going to determine what is essential and what is negotiable? Individuals, independent ministries, theological societies, the annual council, or the church as a whole under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Would we be able to retain our self-understanding as God’s last prophetic movement, if we were to fragment our beliefs by including in them divergent schools of thought?

We need theological unity in our preaching and in our publications, but above all, we need unity in the theological departments of our colleges and universities. I submit that no school of theology, under pluralistic influences, shaken by the confrontation of ideas, is able to produce preachers with strong convictions. Without preachers having certainty, there is no power in their preaching.

The successful spread of the gospel over the Mediterranean world in the days of the apostles threatened Christian unity. People of widely divergent backgrounds were baptized, bringing into the church some of the popular religious concepts of the age. Thus, there was a real danger that the teachings of the church would be affected by syncretism. Aware of this danger, Paul exhorted the Ephesians to maintain unity (see Ephesians 4:4-6).

Today the Methodist Church is in a steep numerical decline. "In the 1965-1975 period, the United Methodist Church lost over one million members," says C. Peter Wagner, Leading Your Church to Growth, 32. And who is responsible for this sharp defection? The exodus that the Methodists are facing is not to be blamed on outside forces. The real blame lies within their church. If the Methodist Church were attacked by enemies from the outside, if it were suffering persecution as a result of its endeavors to evangelize the world, there would be hope. But the world does not persecute a church that seems to stand for nothing. The Methodist Church is declining as a result of its failure to preserve its own religious heritage.

In the books of Daniel and Revelation, our pioneers found our time and our mission. Applying the historicist method of prophetic interpretation, which had been used by the majority of Christians over the centuries and which earned the subsequent endorsement of Ellen G. White, our forefathers were able to unfold the history of the long conflict between Christ and Satan. They were able to look upon themselves as an integral part of the cosmic program.

Today, however, we sense a gradual rejection of the historicist approach and a growing acceptance of the Counter-Reformation schools of prophetic interpretation. Furthermore, historical criticism does not allow for true long-range prediction. As a result, in some quarters our message has been changed and has lost its distinctiveness and power.

According to Norman Blaike, American Christians today can be divided into two groups, the "supernatualists" and the "secularists." The "supernatualists," Blaike observes, are generally to the right theologically while the "secularists" are to the left. The "supernatualists," he states, prize Christian virtues such as devotion, piety, and church commitments while the "secularists" admire tolerance, success, efficiency, and academic achievements (see N.W.H. Blaike, "Altruism in the Professions: The Case of the Clergy," Australia and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 10 [1974]:87).

The process of secularization is affecting not only believers but also institutions. According to George Marsden, Duke University historian, the religious character of many erstwhile Christian institutions has been eclipsed with "nobody noticing and nobody seeming to mind." (see Time, May 22, 1989).

In the past two decades, we have seen Seventh-day Adventist institutions affected by substantial changes that have not all been on the plus side. Surreptitiously, secularism makes inroads that tend to eclipse the religious character of these institutions. Religious services are still held in their chapels, but they are more a form than a spiritual force.

It is impossible to prevent the teaching of aberrant views within the church, when the concept of academic freedom without sound confessional responsibility is accepted. Defenders of academic freedom in our midst state that we are not a creedal denomination and so every believer should be free to endorse different theological views. But we understand that if an individual is to be a Seventh-day Adventist, he or she should subscribe to our fundamental beliefs in their entirety. Otherwise, he or she ceases to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

I still remember the strong opposition manifested by some Adventist scholars when the historical critical methodology was condemned officially by the General Conference on the basis that this method, by definition, excludes our belief in the transcendence of the Scriptures.

I believe, however, that the church has the unquestionable right to decide which approach should be used by our scholars and preachers. This is our only safeguard to protect our religious heritage, which subscribes to the Reformation principle that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and its own interpreter.

Among the lessons that history teaches us, we find the fall of empires and institutions that succumbed to eternal forces. The historian, Gibbon (1737-1796), ascribes the fall of Rome to internal, not external, causes. He mentions the fourteenth-century Italian poet, Petrarch, who described the fall of Rome as follows: "Behold the remains of Rome, the shadow of its early greatness! Neither time nor the barbarians can glory in having brought about this stupendous destruction: It was accomplished by its own citizens, the most illustrious of her children."

Many civilizations have been defeated by the internal sabotage of fifth columnists. History warns us what can take place in the church. External opposition is not our worst enemy. Instead, the insidious deteriorating influences introduced by Satan, our great adversary, do the most harm.

Our message and movement deserve to be characterized by a triumphant spirit. They are not based on "cunningly devised fables" but on the unshakable foundation of "the sure word of prophecy."

"The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out—the chaff separated from the precious wheat." (2 Selected Messages, 380).

The conviction that God guides this movement allows us to declare, without a shadow of doubt that the fire on Seventh-day Adventist altars will never go out. The determination to win the world to Christ will motivate us in our united evangelistic program. The world will be lighted with the glory of our proclamation of the Advent hope.