Every one of God’s laws can be traced back to an underlying principle. These principles are usually themselves based on other principles. Working from a final application backwards, we find that every element of God’s law can be traced back to two basic principles: love for God and love for man. And we find that even these two foundational principles are but an application of the single great law—the law of God, the very expression of who He is: LOVE.

I arrived in the Tawbuid village of Balangabong with fear and trembling. I wasn’t afraid of snakes or malaria. The violent drunks in the lowlands and the rebel forces in the highlands didn’t bother me. It was the Adventists that had me sweating.

You see, I knew a bit about the history of the church in this village. It had been planted by certain individuals who were strong on zeal but weak on understanding of the deeper things of God. I had been to plenty of similar churches, and I had planned to steer clear of this one. Better to put new wine in new wineskins, I thought to myself. But apparently God felt differently. He shut every other door and threw open the door to Balangabong. There was nothing else to do but walk through it.

The problem started more than 400 years ago. When the first missionaries—Catholic priests—arrived in the Philippines, they found tribe after tribe of animists who believed in nature spirits. These tribes spent their lives manipulating the spirits, either to help them get what they wanted or more often to keep the spirits away.

The missionaries immediately began to teach what they felt were the essential parts of Christianity. Interpreting these new teachings from their own understanding of the world, the tribes began adopting the new Christian ways as extensions of their own worldview. Syncretism was the result—the original animism thinly overlaid by Christian forms, ceremonies and rites. These syncretistic “Christians” replaced the old rituals of shamans and incantations with the new rituals of “doing church.” They followed the new rules to the letter in order to manipulate the biggest spirit of all—God.

There was no change of allegiance, no fundamental difference between the old and new beliefs. Christianity simply added more layers of ritual and ceremony. And once the mold had been set, it was very, very hard to change. For centuries, Christian missionaries of all denominations came. Many tried to affect true heart change, but the syncretism ran so deep that it was virtually impossible to overcome.

When the Adventist church arrived and began gaining converts mostly from the Catholic majority, it experienced the same failures. It didn’t help that many of our pioneers to this area were as firmly legalistic as the rest, just about different doctrines. The result was a fast-growing, zealous Seventh-day Adventist church that appeared very orthodox but was still fundamentally animistic at its core.

It is a peculiar characteristic of animistic societies that they don’t comprehend the difference between a principle and the application of a principle. Do you understand the difference? Growing up in the Church, I know I didn’t.

For example, when the missionaries came, they taught the original converts the importance of singing. They translated select hymns and printed nice Adventist hymnals. The people interpreted this to mean that singing hymns from the Adventist hymnal must be done in order to please (manipulate) God. They never grasped that singing hymns out of the Adventist hymnal is, at least in part, an application of the principle found in Isaiah 49:13: “Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted.” They never understood that lifting our voices in joyful praise is an expression of the principle of love for God and a way to worship Him. Since they didn’t grasp this underlying principle, they also didn’t grasp the corollary concept that other songs or types of singing which similarly express our love and joyful worship to God would also be appropriate applications of the principle.

Finally, since they did not know what a principle was, let alone that there were principles that governed the appropriate use of music in church, they did not realize that singing songs only out of the Adventist hymnal in a lifeless, bored and jaded way was not appropriate.

Throw in a few more interrelated misunderstandings, stir in a couple of interesting interpretations of Biblical prophecy, and let the concoction simmer for a few decades. Then serve this stew to an unsuspecting group of fresh-out-of-the-stone-age animists, and you get the disaster I walked into when I moved to the village of Balangabong.

One Sabbath a few weeks after I arrived, one of the church elders told me in all sincerity, in front of the church, that they had been taught that the hymns in the Adventist hymnal had been written by the 144,000 for Adventists to sing. “Furthermore,” the elder informed me, “they must be sung, and they must be sung exactly right in order for people to be saved.” Finally I was told in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed to sing anything but these hymns during church services. We were never to sing those “blasphemous” hymns that our evangelical friends across the way sang (hymns which happen to be in our American Adventist hymnal, but not in the Tagalog version).

Add the fact our members had no training in music, and you can almost hear the auditory debacle from where you sit reading this. The people sang their hymns with great sincerity and diligence, but with little enjoyment and even less understanding. This singing was definitely not worship.

For some unknown reason, upon my arrival, I was immediately branded a heretic. I had come at the suggestion of the district pastor, and he accompanied me. I also had the blessings of the local Union and Conference. But no matter. I was a heretic until proven otherwise. In light of this I decided to put off addressing the hymns and a number of other odd beliefs until a later date. My first job was to establish trust and rapport. And in the meantime, I needed to do some research and preparation.

While looking into this hymn issue, I started thinking about how things were back home. In America, we don’t have to deal with such silly notions. We clearly understand the Biblical principles and their applications. We know that principles don’t change, but the application of those principles can change, depending on cultures and circumstances.

We do understand this, don’t we?

We would never have silly squabbles over the music in our churches as long as the same underlying principle was applied, would we? We would never forget that the principles of selflessness, stewardship and modesty govern how we dress and present ourselves and how we spend money on things like cars, houses and entertainment, would we?

Friends, I’ve come to realize that we, as American Seventh-day Adventists, are sometimes just as animistic, just as syncretistic, and just as blind to our own lack of principle-based living as our friends in the “less civilized” parts of the world.

Our church, especially in America, is fractured over issues that are clearly addressed in the Bible as principles. Yet instead we teach our own applications in issues like diet, jewelry, music, worship styles and money as everlasting truth. We fail to understand that, by their very nature, principles are to be applied differently in different times and circumstances even as their root meaning remains unchanged.

I’m not here to draw conclusions for you or even to discuss each of the hot-button issues I have mentioned. The fact is that God’s laws are principle-driven. I leave it to you to you to find the appropriate application in your context.

Back in the Philippines, in my little Adventist church nestled in the foothills of the great Tawbuid mountains, nearly a year had passed. During that time I had wrestled with principles and applications. Using principles taught in the word of God, I had tried to think through many issues facing the church. I had also spent the year working with the Tawbuid, treating their sick, making friends and bringing Christ back as the foundation of the church.

When the appropriate time came, I spent an entire Sabbath speaking to the issue of music in the church. Opening their Adventist hymnal, I showed them that nearly every song in it was written by a non-Adventist. I reminded them of the true meaning of the 144,000 in Revelation and pointed out that they hadn’t even been around when those hymns were written.

I traced the history of sacred music, showing how ideas of what was and was not appropriate for worship had changed from generation to generation. I also pointed out that what we call hymns today were written in the style of what was playing in bars long ago. No matter how old and holy they sound to us today, back then, they were just as catchy and revolutionary as any modern music is today.

I also brought my computer to church and played a scene from the “Jesus” film where Jews are singing in the synagogue. Pointing out how different the singing and worship style was, I reminded them that this was how Jesus Himself had worshiped. Since Jesus had worshiped differently, perhaps it was okay to worship in a way that wasn’t exactly the same as the lowland Adventists had taught them.

Finally, I led a Bible study on the meaning and purpose of music and singing. We studied the principles God taught us in the Bible and how they could be applied rightly or wrongly in different times and cultures.

Only time will tell if my explanations will make a difference. It will take time for this little church to learn that there is more than one right way to sing in order to please God. Many other bizarre beliefs still need to be addressed, too.

As I continue striving to broaden my friends’ minds and ground them firmly on principle, may I ask how it is with you? Do you follow God’s law blindly simply because “it’s the right thing to do?” Do you ever stop and wonder why you believe and do what you do, and then use what you learn to look more clearly at the beauty of God’s law? I’m not advocating cynicism, but God isn’t afraid of honest questions. He told us, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). He also invites, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isa. 1:18).

What I’m trying to say is, will you start looking for the principles in God’s law, and then prayerfully apply those principles rightly in your own life and situation? I think that if we all did this, many grey areas might start looking clearer, and we could come much closer to fulfilling Jesus’ prayer, “That they may be one, as We are” (John 17:11).

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