History a “powerful force for doing better”
Elizabeth Lechleitner
Editorial coordinator
Adventist News Network
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Historian Dr David Trim wants Seventh-day Adventists to better appreciate their heritage because an awareness of success—and failure—can bolster identity, confidence and purpose.
Brainy Brit: Dr David Trim reviews documents in the basement of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church’s headquarters. His plan to digitise the archives will make a more complete record of Adventist history searchable online. Credit: Ansel Oliver.
The director of archives, statistics and research for the worldwide church is a Brit with a doctorate in post-Reformation religious warfare.
The 42-year-old looks the part—perhaps the only employee to pair an embroidered brocade vest and pocket watch with cowboy boots. He recites dates with surety, once speaking at Westminster about the history of humanitarian intervention, on which he has published a book. And he discusses with enthusiasm obscure aspects of Adventist history, learning recently that rather than hunkering down during World War II, the church expanded its reach to Africa, India and the Middle East.
David describes the latter as “astonishing.” “It’s because we have that sense of who we are and a belief that God will empower us.”
When Adventists lose sight of their history, this sense of identity and confidence can erode, says David. “If you know your history, you can say, ‘OK, we’ve had troubles, but we’ve emerged stronger from them.’” An awareness of the flaws of the church’s founders can also be encouraging. “These people have got feet of clay, so we don’t have to think, ‘I could never aspire to be like that.’” Even in the Bible, David says, God’s portrayal of people and events is candid. “When God tells His people to remember their history, which He does repeatedly, He wants them to remember their failings as well as their successes.”
“[Church co-founder] Ellen White writes at length about the Bible telling the truth, the good and the bad. We don’t. We tend to write about our pioneers the way Catholics write about Mary and medieval saints,” says David. “It’s as though we fear if they had any flaws, it somehow discredits the church then, and now, which is nonsense. The church is bigger than any individual.”
Acknowledging the commission to take the gospel to the world can be daunting, David feels Adventists have lost their self-confidence, “that conviction we have something vital to take to the world. We need to recover that sense of missionary identity and purpose.”
Analysing the motives behind evangelism can help, says David. “People say, ‘Let’s finish the work.’ But what does that mean? Does it mean bringing about the Second Coming? I’m not sure we have a mandate to do that. What we do have a mandate for is to ‘go and make disciples.’”—Adventist News Network
David will argue the case for Adventist studies in an Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church-sponsored seminar in Ladies Chapel this Saturday (August 20) at 3.00 PM.
The digital archive challenge
Director Dr David Trim hopes to correct misconceptions about the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Office of Archives, Statistics and Research.
It is not the archive of “all things Adventist” but of material produced by the worldwide church.
Among the 1.7 million digitised and searchable documents accessible from adventistarchives.org: a collection of church periodicals from the first magazines published by the Millerites in the 1840s.
David wants to broaden the archive to include more documents in their historical sense—unpublished material such as letters and notes reflecting a personal side of church leaders.
He also wants to archive emails, videos and other electronic media. Archiving church websites—particularly social media sites, which are constantly in flux and present new legal responsibilities—is equally challenging. “We have the technology,” says David, referencing the catch phrase from The Six Million Dollar Man, a science fiction television series from the 1970s.