One hundred seventy-six years ago, Ellen White received a vision from Jesus instructing her to start a publication that would go around the world as streams of light. During the following year, she and her husband, James, would start on the audacious endeavor to circulate The Present Truth, which would later eventually become known as the Adventist Review.
The Past 175 Years
We may be tempted to let our modern sensibilities relegate this legacy as merely one of human historical interest. After all, we don’t often celebrate 175 years of anything. Regardless of whether the celebration is historically or prophetically important, however, we must pause at the power of the endurance of God’s promises as well as His commands. How did a group of New England young adults, poor, uneducated, not wise or powerful in society’s eyes, become a group of pioneers that would eventually lead to an international publication as well as a global denomination? Surely this was and still is the work of God.
Within those 175 years, one must imagine the hardships that rattled the ministry upward, downward, and sideward. Having sustained through two world wars; several economic downturns; and great upheavals in technology, science, communication, media, and other social phenomena, the
Adventist Review continues before the church. And that’s just a secular perspective. How many further hardships has the Adventist Church gone through, with apostacies of leaders, theological threats, dangerous trends to Christianity, let alone the Adventist identity and mission. By God’s grace the Adventist Review has continued to endure.
The Present Challenges
As Merle Poirier’s fascinating series “Still Printing” on the previous editors of the Adventist Review and its preceding titles (see pp. 28-32) has shown, each era has presented its own share of challenges and opportunities. Each editor and his corresponding staff have also guided the publication through these trials. In seeing God’s handiwork through the history of the publication and the denomination, as well as throughout all sacred history, we first give thanks to how God has led us in the past. But second, we derive courage and inspiration for the future. Surely as He led the Israelites through the Red Sea, the early church through persecution, the Reformation church through medieval darkness, our pioneers through the Great Disappointment, missionaries through oceans and jungles, institutions through administrative and financial turmoil, and His people through personal and corporate Laodicean indifference, He will continue to lead us until we reach the heavenly Canaan. Nonetheless, there are several challenges that the Adventist Review faces today.
First, current attitudes of communication have become vitriolic across media forms. It is no longer a contrast between reasoned liberal and conservative paradigms, or progressive and preservative trends. While institutions and leadership need accountability, today’s trends sow seeds of doubt to demolish, not chastise, from both sides of the aisle. To raise internal metrics (such as subscriptions, likes, hits, views, and visits) for financial incentive, traditional and social media now customize their appeal to that of the salacious and the carnal nature. Blogs take angles that are unfair and shocking; podcasts interview and showcase the sensational; and news is understood from a conspiratorial angle, whether from the right or left. Steve Jobs rightly called out media as having become harmful. There is a need for the constructive rather than the destructive. In an era in which destructive “sells,” there is a greater need for constructive light that speaks truth simply because it is true.
Second, media has exploded beyond control. While having several choices is always an amenity, having too many can be paralyzing. Globalization and technology have provided for many luxuries and comforts, but they have also provided so many options that individuals can no longer exercise their ability to decide. When it comes to food, music, clothes, and even churches, there is too much to choose from. Like someone trying to buy bread in a supermarket aisle, choice paralysis kicks in, and in the end nothing is bought. As a result of this media explosion, things are getting lost rather than being found amid the media jungle, not only in terms of searchability but also the self-identity of organizations.
Third, communication itself is changing. When The Present Truth was started, printing was the common form of transmitting ideas and viewpoints. Through the years, the Adventist Church has pioneered various media formats, such as art, radio, television, satellite, and online. Not that the platform of media is different, but now even the modality of communication has changed. Conversations have become provocative in nature and topic, aesthetically nuanced, politically sensitive, yet also rashly confrontational for this generation’s complex media palate.
Last, with fatigue over political globalization, that which is local is trumpeted. In the Adventist Church, the greatest arena is where the discipled member works in the local field. But he or she does not work as an isolate. With political trends that seek localization at the expense of global entities, the church is also threatened with the same temptations of congregationalism, provincialism, and ecclesial insularity. In eras past, Adventists enjoyed the news and tidings from faraway lands; today we seek to know only what happens in our backyards. Congregationalist thinking continues to attack the worldwide nature and work of the church.
The Future Trajectory
The challenges are not unique to us today, but they have coalesced together at this time in a notable way. As a result, we hope to prayerfully address these challenges with the following pivots, emphases, and adjustments at the Review.
Whereas other church media outlets may be destructive in nature, attitude, or presumption, the Adventist Review will be constructive to the mission and message of the Adventist Church, our movement of prophecy. This doesn’t mean glossing over human mistakes or difficult contexts, but it does mean taking an intelligent and prayerful view of how the body of Christ can learn, forgive, overcome, and move forward through any trial, while also celebrating the advancements of the church by the Spirit’s enabling.
The Adventist Review will be guided by its original call and identity. Amid the myriads of media sources, we hope to continue its legacy as a shining light of Bible exposition and the Adventist worldview. We seek to continue our legacy of publicizing solid Bible studies and the latest contributions and applications from theology, and to reprint the legacy writings of our pioneers. We seek to be faithful to the Spirit of Prophecy and to continue to echo Ellen White’s admonitions, her encouragement, and her light to the remnant until Christ’s return. We desire to continue to push the work and responsibility of the church to the forefront of leadership and membership consciousness. Through our media resources and publications, we hope to prepare a people for His return.
The Adventist Review will adopt and experiment with new forms of communication while holding on to the rich legacy of the written word. This organization has always been known to experiment with different technologies thanks to its Media Lab and work in its projects of innovation. But now we will be intentional to find synergic combinations to be constructive to the mission of the church. We are seeking ways to get the Adventist worldview out in different forms—short and long, video and audio, podcast, and social media. Our Adventist Review TV will be rebranded as Review Video. Our podcasts and spoken articles will be regrouped as Review Audio. We will continue creating partnerships and alliances, as our pioneers of old did, with every faithful entity, ministry, and administrative unit of the church to push our precious movement forward.
The Adventist Review will continue to take on a worldwide perspective for three reasons. One, we live in a globalized world, which prophetically will become more so, whether we like it or not. Two, we believe in a worldwide church because of Revelation 14’s three angels’ messages that go throughout the earth to every tongue, tribe, nation, and people group. Three, we believe our mission is to prepare the world, not just our local churches. And we know that the more we contribute to the world work, the more the Lord will bless our local work. Jesus will be coming not only for our own neighborhoods but for us all.
In light of being the world church’s flagship media source, we will be debuting different strategies for the twenty-first-century Adventist. We will be employing a digital first strategy. This does not mean we will be digital only, but rather we will apply Ellen White’s vision of “streams of light” through digital formats also. The material and theology will still be the same. However, the forms may take different approaches.
We have created a new navigable website that showcases our news and features in a more stylistic yet accessible manner. Articles from and for all parts of the globe will be artfully organized. In the future we plan to have multilingual entry points to this website for different cultural contexts.
To freshen our ideals, we have created a new logo, one that hearkens back and pays homage to the nameplates of the old Reviews. We seek to move forward in the new, yet with the values of the old. Just as our publication used to be called affectionately the Review, we chose the letter R to represent the 175 years of its legacy.
Last, we will be looking at various options to rename our sister magazine, Adventist World. In the plethora of Adventist media sources, there is great confusion with our magazines in every part of the world. The Adventist Review and Adventist World magazines are often confused with the Review and Herald Publishing Association, Adventist World Radio, Adventist World Aviation, Adventist World Mission, as well as the other union and division publications. Stay tuned for updates on how we will retitle our global publication as we consolidate our brand.
News will continue to be robust, as we seek to unite the church missionally by sharing what the Holy Spirit is doing throughout the world. More than statistics and broadcasts of events, we seek to showcase the fallings of the latter rain as well as what is happening in last-day events. We seek to give a clarion call of the times we are living in and to rally God’s people together.
We must treasure that which unites us as a large group of 22 million people. It is our doctrines, or teachings of Christ, that identify us. It is our practice, as agreed upon in the Church Manual, that coordinates us. It is our study, in the Adult Bible Study Guide and Scripture, that inspires us. And it is in our communication with each other, to each other, and for each other through the ministry of the Adventist Review that will continue to unite us.
That you help us in the endeavor of unity for Christ is our request and prayer.