Where the Adventist Society for Religious Studies and the Adventist Theological Society Most Differ and What We Should Do About It

More than  seven thousand religion scholars of all faiths and no faith at all convene each year at some city in the United States the weekend before the nation's Thanksgiving holiday for the joint annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).  They begin at noon on Saturday and continue through noon on Tuesday.

The meetings of the AAR and SBL are usually integrated.They meet in the same hotels and convention centers.  Scholars may belong to either society or both.  They have the same schedules.  They print the sequence of their hundreds of sessions in the same thick 81/2 x 11 catalogue that also features many advertisements for new books and other things.

When the catalogue is open, the times and places of the AAR sessions are often presented on the left page and those of the SBL are often presented on the right page.  Both societies host large plenary sessions in the evenings.  Even if they theoretically they are not open to everyone, practically they are.  Members of both societies browse among the scores of booths in the same book exhibition where they examine new publications and converse with old friends and make new ones.

On the Thursday evenings immediately before the joint meetings of the AAR and SBL begin, hundreds of SDA religion scholars convene in the same city and continue to meet until Sabbath noon or afternoon. Despite their small number, they meet in separate societies.   One of them is the Adventist Society for Religious Studies.  Some SDA religion scholars started it in the early 1970s. The second one is the Adventist Theological Society. Reportedly not satisfied with how things were going in in the ASRS, other SDA religion scholars started it in the late 1980s.   Both societies have grown over the years  At this time, a number of SDA religion scholars successfully participate both groups.

Members of the ASRS and ATS begin Sabbath together on Friday evening with a meal, one or more presentations and a discussion.  Other than this, they meet separately. Those who belong to both societies have a detailed understanding of what is happening at each place. Most of the others don't know and don't wonder.

The standard explanation for this is theological with the members of the ASRS usually thought of as being less traditional and the members of the ATS usually thought of as being more so.  Without denying this, I believe that the deepest difference between the two societies is not theological but cultural.  

As I am now using the words, a group is a plurality of anything, a society is a group of living beings who have something in common and a culture is that which they have in common.  The culture of the ATS, what all of its members have in common, is some degree of dissatisfaction with the way most of those in the AAR and SBL study the Bible and other things.

For everyone in the ATS, this dissatisfaction is intellectual.  According to their own reports, for others it is intensely existential as well.

For example, their methods have led many scholars in the SBL to believe that less than one third of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament were actually written by the persons to whom their authorship has long been attributed.  If one believes that the truth of a statement depends upon who makes it, this is a problem.  

Some respond to such problems by abandoning their Christianity.  According to their own reports, there are some in the ATS who came close to doing this but not quite.  They edged back from the abyss of disillusionment not by solving the theological problems that unnerved them but by dismissing them as ill-willed.
  
This is where the cultures of the two societies differ most deeply.  Most members of the ASRS have either solved these problems to the their own satisfaction or they have found a way to live successfully with major unanswered questions.  Except for those who belong to both societies, doing either of these things is difficult for all members of the ATS and it is impossible for some. 

Most members of the ATS hold that the way the ASRS does things is too similar to how the AAR and SBL do them.  By "hold" I mean that they think this and, to a lesser or geater degree, they feel it.  This feeling is a major element in the cultural glue that holds them together.  It is deeper and wider in each member and in the society as a whole than is any doctrine or combination of them.  It largely why they feel more comfortable with each other than with many members of the ASRS.  It deserves respect.                                  

The different admission requirements of the ASRS and ATS manifest this deep cultural difference.  Although there are other ways to see it, this is the easiest and the best.

The Adventist Society fr Religious Studies has low admission requirements.  It actually enforces only one.  It is that one must pay the society's annual dues.  In this respect, the AAR, SBL and ASRS are culturally the same.  None of them has any doctrinal admission requirements. 

The ASRS is a good example of a "culture of internal control."  It's doctrinal requirements are implicit. Its members are theologically self regulating.  It's consensus is nurtured.  Its boundaries are flexible.  It welcomes change,  Members rarely doubt the theological authenticity of other members.  Most of them believe that answering "yes" or "no" to a list of doctrinal requirements is needless. They hold that if someone cannot tell by how they live and serve that they are genuine SDAs nothing can.  To be sure, now and then there are outliers.  The society's officers do not react to them from the top. It's members interact with them side-by-side.

The Adventist Theological Society has high admission requirements. The most important of them is that one must agree with all eight doctrinal formulations  in its "Statement of Affirmation."  In this regard, the ATS and the Evangelical Theological Society, with which quite of number of ATS scholars often interact, are culturally identical. 

In both groups, the ATS and ETS, paying the society's annual dues is not enough.  One must also meet the society's doctrinal admission requirements. The doctrinal admission requirements of the ATS and ETS differ,  Theologically, these differences are important.  Culturally, they aren't.  That both society's have doctrinal requirements of some sort is the culturally decisive variable.

The ATS is a good example of a "culture of external control."  It's endeavors are society-regulated. It's doctrinal requirements are explicit.  Its comfort with variations in conviction is minimal. Its consensus on major issues is mandated.  The penalties for noncompliance are either denial of admission or expulsion. It's boundaries are inflexible..   It is wary of change. Members sometimes wonder if other members theologically loyal..  Most of them cannot imagine how a society can be genuinely Adventist without a list of doctrinal requirements that makes it so. For them, a theological society without any doctrinal admission requirements is impossible.  It is an oxymoron.

The different admission requirements of these societies are not the sum and substance of their cultural differences. They are windows through which we can see much of the rest.  These differences are real even though they are difficult to describe.  

As a member of the ASRS and not the ATS, I have often felt them at the Friday evening events when the members of the two societies get together. The food is reliably excellent and so are the presentations. In the discussions, though, some members of the ATS sound to me as though live in a different theological world than I do and speak a different theological language. I'm confident that I sound the same to them.

Some bemoan the fact that we have two societies with two cultures. I don't.  Although it isn't ideal in every way, I believe that for at least six reasons our denomination is better off at this time with two societies with their different cultures than it would be with one.

1. Historical.  Both societies were established by SDA religion scholars who saw a need and figured out on their own how to solve it.  We should commend such academic self-determination and respect its results.

2.  Communal.  People sometimes find it easier to be together when they are apart.  Being thankful for tour two societies recognizes this fact of life.

3.  Logistical. The combination of membership growth and a preference for plenary sessions resulted in insufficient opportunities for members to make presentations.  Having two societies increases these opportunities.

4.  Institutional.  Berkeley and Stanford are both better universities because the other one is nearby.  The same is true of USC and UCLA, Harvard and M.I.T., Columbia and NYU and Duke and UNC.  Likewise, the ASRS and the ATS are both better societies because the other exists.

5. Professional.  There is a difference between Religious Studies and Theology.  In this context, the word "Theology" means all of the longstanding specialties in the study of Christian doctrine:  Old Testament, New Testament, Church History, Systematic or Constructive Theology, Ethics, Liturgy and Ministry. These are rightly the focus of the ATS. 

Religious Studies includes all seven of these traditional theological specialties; however, it also includes some other specialties that are not theological. These include history of religion, philosophy of religion, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, anthropology of religion and phenomenology of religion.  Much scholarship of this sort would not be appropriate in the ATS but it very much would be so in the ASRS.  We can hope that members of the ASRS will increasingly do more of it.

Some say that theology is done inside the circle of faith and that religious studies is done outside of it.  There are too many counter-examples, however, to be permanently pleased with this way of putting it.

6.  Eschatological.  Christian hope is for a mult-lingual and multi-cultural new heaven and earth. This is another thing that we can do our best to realize now in anticipation of all things being made new.

According to the Pew Research Center, SDAism is the most ethnically diverse Christian denomination in the United States. This is because at this time we are not imposing one culture on all SDA ethnic groups. We allow no congregation to exclude anyone for purely ethnic or cultural reasons. On the other hand, we allow or even encourage the various ethnic groups to develop culturally distinctive congregations.

A leading Protestant theologian in the United States once regretted at length with me that his denomination had greatly decreased its effectiveness with a major ethnic group by insisting that its congregations conform to the cultural expectations of the entire denomination.  We have not made this mistake with our congregations  Hopefully, we won't make it with our societies for our religion scholars either.  

Bottom Line.  We should relate to our two societies for religion scholars the same way we relate to our culturally different congregations.  Some might wonder if the ASRS's culture of internal control will devolve into theological anarchy.  It hasn't for half a century and more and it won't.  Some might wonder of the ATS's culture of external control will devolve into theological tyranny.  It hasn't for the better part of that long and it won't.  The leaders of both societies are too loyal to each other and to the denomination to let that happen.  

Besides, no one has to belong to these societies.  If either of them goes too far astray, the members have two effective remedies.  They can stop participating and they can stop paying their dues.