In many ways I am fascinated by the phenomenon of borders. You drive through an area. Suddenly you see how houses change in architecture. Most cars now have a different kind of license plate. People speak a particular language, but a few miles down the road that is no longer the case.

Today, in much of Europe, there are virtually no checks at land borders. In the past few weeks I have crossed six national borders, but nowhere did I have to take out my passport. I experience the Schengen arrangement of the 26 European countries, which in principle no longer apply mutual border controls, as a very positive development.

Unfortunately, it is still quite cumbersome to get visas to travel to some parts of the world, while certain countries still have themselves completely sealed off from the outside world. I think back with horror to the controls between the former ‘free’ West and Communist East-Germany. But even between our own country and the outside world, real borders existed until not so long ago. On my first (school) trip across the border, men in uniform came into the train at Oldenzaal (at the station at the Dutch-German border) to check our passports, and when I worked in the Adventist publishing house in the 1970s and 1980s and regularly took quantities of books to Belgium, there were still stops to be made at the Dutch-Belgian border because of VAT obligations.

In some parts of the world, one sees not just occasional signs to mark the border, but formidable border fences. The division between North and South Korea is perhaps the most tragic example. But also the walls between Mexico and the U.S., and between parts of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and in a number of places in Eastern and Central Europe, keep people cruelly away from each other.

A world without borders is an utopia. Borders are necessary to order our society. This is true on a large as well as a small scale. A country must know where its right to demand taxes begins and ends. A farmer needs to know where he can let his cows graze, and a homeowner needs to know what is the extent of his garden.

At the same time, it is also good to realize that borders are man-made and that they can sometimes be very problematic. The straight lines on the map of Africa often run right through the territories of peoples who have lived there for centuries. Now their lands may lie partly in one state and partly in another–with all the ethnic tensions that result. Closer to home we also see examples of this in Europe, especially in the Balkans.

Sometimes, however, you see the relative nature of borders. Between Pakistan and India—which have been at odds with each other for decades—there is, just over 20 kilometers from Lahore, a border crossing in the highway between the two countries. On a visit to Pakistan, I was taken to see the daily ceremonies at the border. I was not the only one who came to watch. The grandstand built on the Pakistani side was packed with spectators. At exactly four o’clock a spectacle begins in which a group of the tallest soldiers from both countries participate. Finally, after much marching and menacing shouting, the metal gate is slammed shut with the loudest possible bang. If there is a real border somewhere, it is between Pakistan and India. But as soon as the gate is slammed shut, you see how the participants in the ceremony, via a shortcut, meet socially and have a drink together! The countries are in a state of war, but the individual people apparently see each other not just as enemies but primarily as fellow human beings.

In a collection of Dutch Revival Songs there is the song entitled “Together in the Name of Jesus.” The second stanza refers to boundaries being demolished by the Spirit, because those boundaries are man-made. It is often almost impossible to break down the boundaries that people have made. You see this everywhere-in world affairs, and in national and regional politics. Sometimes the boundaries between different churches and within a community of faith are perhaps the hardest to break through. This can only happen when we realize that these borders are made by people, but that with the help of the Spirit we can jump over those borders, or even dismantle them.

I enjoy reading a paper book, but during a vacation it is convenient to use an e-reader. Besides more serious reading, I usually enjoy a book with a good deal of suspense. I then often go for a Scandinavian thriller. Somehow the Scandinavian countries have produced a multitude of good writers of police novels.
Last night I reached the denouement of one of the most recent books by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, in his series about the Q department of the Danish police that deals with unsolved murder cases from the past. I read Natrium Chlorid (2021) in a Dutch translation. I can read a Swedish book without too much difficulty, but Danish is a bit more challenging. So I opted for a Dutch translation. Unfortunately, the quality of the translation left to be desired and perhaps (in retrospect) I should have chosen the English version. But the story was no less exciting and the plot of the book no less sophisticated!

The staff of Department Q eventually managed to discover the identity of a criminal who managed to stay under the radar for several decades and gruesomely murdered a total of 17 people. She was finally unmasked while in the process of carrying out her final murder,

The remarkable thing about this criminal woman was her motive. She felt that God had called her to eliminate on His behalf people who were a moral stain on society. She was an avenging angel and her divine calling provided the motivation for her murderous career. This allowed her to thank God for allowing her to be His tool when, after days or weeks of torment, she administered a lethal injection to her victims.

Perhaps it is a professional deformation on my part that even when reading a police novel I look for material that I can possibly use in a sermon. In this case, it was rather obvious. In this novel, the perpetrator’s religious beliefs led to a spate of deadly violence. Often a person’s religious conviction–the belief that God has called you to a particular task-leads to a life of loving devotion to an ideal. But often religion is also the basis for all kinds of questionable activities. Religion can become the cover for political extremism, as well as for all kinds of other forms of fanaticism and intolerance. Religious people can be very unpleasant or downright dangerous, especially when religion is linked to nationalism and a sense of ethnic superiority. Within a spiritual community, a link between religion and unbridled ambition can be an enormous threat. And when the idea of being chosen by God, to call his church to order, is coupled with a fundamentalist approach to dogmatic certainties, it can easily lead to spiritual coercion and verbal abuse.

We can hardly defend ourselves against the accusation that religion has through the centuries caused enormous misery. In many conflicts, religious intolerance is a major (and often deadly) component. In doctrinal and ethical conflicts in the church, the peace of Christ is often tragically absent. Ultimately, the religion of Jesus Christ is about becoming better people. According to Matthew 25, the final assessment of all us is how compassionate we have been and whether we have met Christ in those around us. The question then is not how religious we have been, but how Christian (i.e., Christ-like) we have lived.

When, some sixty years ago, I traveled to Sweden for the first time, my first stop was in Jönköping. It is a city of almost 100,000 people on the southern tip of the large, elongated Lake Vättern. If you drive into Sweden from the south you have about 300 km ahead of you before you get to Jönköping. Back then, over sixty years ago, I hitchhiked from the Netherlands to Jönköping in less than two days. I arrived at the apartment of Pastor Stig Sjölander in the middle of the night. He was the coordinator of the canvassing program of the Swedish Adventist Church. Every year more than a hundred young people came to Sweden (and also to Norway and Iceland) to earn their schoolfees by selling Adventist books and magazines. A steady stream of them also came from Holland. I had heard of this adventurous method of earning money, and had applied for one of the slots. Soon I received a letter telling me to report to the indicated address in Jönköping. After arriving, I was allowed to sleep for a few hours on a traditional Swedish couch in the kitchen. But early in the morning I was awakened by Stig Sjölander. He told me that we would be taking the train to the Värmland province. There he had arranged lodging for me and there would be my work area. During the trip he would give me the necessary instructions!

It was my first introduction to Sweden, and I could not yet have imagined that I would go there again and again over the years–perhaps some 40 or 50 times. The first stay that began that night in Jönköping lasted six months with a brief interruption after three months. I earned enough to pay for the first year of my studies at Oud Zandbergen (the theological school the Adventist Church had in the Netherlands at that time). A few years later, I and two fellow-students went to Sweden for a summer with the goal of scraping together the tuition for Newbold College. A year later, almost immediately after I married my wife Aafje, we went to Sweden together for three months, this time to earn enough to be able to survive financially for a year at Andrews University in the US.

In the meantime, canvassing with Adventist books is no longer an option. Government regulations have gradually made it impossible to come for a few months and do this kind of work in Scandinavia. This, by the way, is what has happened almost everywhere in the western world: door-to-door sales activities have been more and more restricted. This meant a huge disadvantage for the denominational publishers who, for decades, generated a significant portion of their income from these door-to-door sales. In the Netherlands, the church’s colporting system fizzled out by the end of the 1980s.

For some fifteen years now, my wife and I have been regularly traveling to Sweden to visit our son and our grandchildren, who live some 800 km further north of Jönköping. When we drive through southern and central Sweden, we often pass through places where we once tried to sell our books. That was also the case last week. A number of times we have stayed a night in a hotel in Jönköping. This time we decided to stay there for two nights and take the opportunity to go to the Jönköping Adventist church on Saturday morning.

Such a visit to an unknown church is not always a great success. Sometimes you hardly feel welcome and are barely greeted. But here, in this beautiful church building, with a gorgeous view of the lake, we were warmly welcomed. Among the people were also some retired Swedish pastors, with their wives, whom I knew from the times when I had an international role in the church. After the service there was a free meal and we were told we definitely had to stay for that! Then we were invited by one of the retired pastors to have a drink at their home, and soon after we arrived in their home the other two retired couples also appeared. All in all, it was the kind of Sabbath that reminded me once again how good it is to belong to the worldwide Adventist Church.

But, I was assured, the next time we are in Jönköping, we should not book a hotel room, since there are several homes where people will be happy to accommodate us. And then, of course, I must do the preaching in the Sabbath morning service!

On Tuesday mornings I can usually be found in the basement of the office of the Netherlands Union of Seventh-day Adventists. A few volunteers are steadily working on getting the denominational archives in order. Documents from the past are analysed and professionally described and stored. Materials from a few succesive periods of 20 years each have already been worked on. What is ready goes to the Provincial Archives in Utrecht, where the storage conditions are optimal and where interested parties can consult it.
The archive boxes with material from the 1965-1985 period are now ready to be taken to Utrecht, after one more final check. Work on the subsequent period from 1985 to 2005 is already well advanced.

Today I spent a few hours in the archive again. I worked my way through a thick stack of paper–documents that in one way or another have to do with the activities of the Dutch Union Office in connection with the World Congress of the Church that was held in the Netherlands in 1995. Much of it need not be kept, such as, for example, the correspondence of delegates from around the world, who sought assistance in securing a visa for entry into the Netherlands. But there are minutes of meetings and important letters that must be preserved. After all, this was the most important Adventist meeting that ever took place in the Netherlands, and the church organization in the Netherlands was closely involved.

Sometimes one comes across something that may not be of real historical importance, but still sheds light on certain aspects of who and what Adventists are. For example, this morning I came across a letter that had been faxed to the Dutch Union, with copies to a list of other individuals and agencies. Among the addressees I also saw my name. In 1995, prior to the GC session, I was working in the church’s regional office for much of Europe (the so-called Trans-European Division), as the person responsible for, among other things, communications.

What was going on? It had come to the attention of the organizers of the conference (in the headquarters office of the church in the USA) that pastor C.E. van der Ploeg, the person responsible in the Dutch church for the communications department, had included in a bulletin for the Dutch church members a warning, that, if they visited the meetings in Utrecht, they would have to do without their cup of coffee or tea. A message went out from the US to the regional office in England criticizing the Dutch bulletin. After all, the Dutch union was supposed to be positive about the church’s attempts to keep coffee and tea away from the conference. The president of the division (Dr. Jan Paulsen) then sent a letter to the Dutch Union (which will be preserved for posterity) to convey the complaint from the GC. He regretted that van der Ploeg had written about this topic. That only generated resentment. Moreover, it was completely unnecessary because, he commented, Dutch Adventists need no advice where, if they need their national drink, they can find a place to satisfy that need.

Unfortunately, I cannot remind van der Ploeg of this incident, for he is no longer with us. But it may one of these days be a good occasion to write or call Jan Paulsen, who was elected President of the World Church after his presidency of the Trans-European Division. I don’t know if he remembers this event, but it was a small but striking example of his gift for de-escalating problems. And that is one of the most important qualities of a good leader.

It is often very difficult to define concepts with precision. To cite an example: When is someone an extremist or a fanatic? When is he/she more aptly called tenacious and principled? Sometimes it is very clear that someone has crossed a definite boundary, but often it is not. In many cases it remains very subjective whether you find someone to be tenacious in holding to his/her principles or consider that person an extremist. For me the most important criterion is whether one wants to impose a certain point of view on others or whether one grants freedom to others and is prepared to change one’s mind if there are decisive arguments for doing so.

Another example is the opposition between orthodox and liberal. There is a line between these two categories, but where exactly? Are you a liberal if you doubt certain teachings of the denomination to which you belong? And is it primarily about “doctrine”, or first and foremost about lifestyle? Can you be liberal in your theology but orthodox in your way of life? And vice versa? And how does one determine orthodoxy? In the eyes of some fellow believers I am a liberal, but other Christians may consider me as very orthodox. Who is right?

Perhaps it is even more difficult to mark the boundaries between conservatives and fundamentalists. In some denominations–including, certainly, the Adventist Church–both categories occur in ample measure. Initially, the word “fundamentalism” applied to the resistance in certain Protestant circles to the “modernism” that had gained the upper hand in many churches. The fundamentalists’ struggle focused primarily on the inspiration and authority of the Bible. The Bible, the fundamentalists argued, was verbally inspired and inerrant, and was also authoritative in historical and scientific matters. This fundamentalist movement gained–to this day–much influence among Adventists. [Over time, the term "fundamentalism" broadened considerably. People now often also refer to Muslim fundamentalists.]

Fundamentalism is often characterized by aggression. George Marsden, a well-known American church historian, once said that a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about all kinds of things. It is not so easy to point out exactly what the difference is between conservative Christians and Christian fundamentalists. There are certainly points where the two groups overlap. This week I came across a concise but very clear explanation in the book Profile of a Religious Man, written by Dr. Edwin Zackrison (b. 1941). With its 600-plus pages, it is quite a bulky book. I have agreed to critically review this autobiographical book in a theological journal.

Zackrison grew up in an Adventist bubble, became a pastor and, after receiving his doctorate, taught at one of the Adventist universities in the USA. Eventually he became persona non grata there. Anyone who wants to read this complicated but fascinating story should order the book from Amazon.

Zachrison definitely denies that he is, or ever was, a fundamentalist, but he did not object to the conservative label. He points out that a fundamentalist, unlike an average conservative person, usually has a very negative attitude toward the academic study of theology. A fundamentalist usually already knows everything and needs no further study. In the Adventist Church, the main issue centers on the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Fundamentalist Adventists have a rigid doctrine of inspiration and usually assume that Ellen White was inspired in the same way as the Bible writers. For them, Ellen White has the final say regarding the proper interpretation of the Bible, rather than the other way around. Most conservative Adventists agree that our atonement was completed when Christ died on the cross, while many fundamentalist Adventists deny this. Fundamentalism is also usually linked to perfectionism.

For me, Zachrison’s comments were enlightening. One difference he did not mention, but which I have often experienced, is that, while conservative Christians tend to have very outspoken opinions, they are usually open to dialogue. With die-hard fundamentalists, however, no real conversation is possible. They have the Truth. They are right. Period.

Fundamentalists are a danger to the church. They cause rigidity and paralysis. The church, on the other hand, needs both conservatives and liberals. Liberals are good at asking questions. Together, conservatives and liberals should seek sound answers. This ensures that the church remains a living organism where we can grow together in our faith.