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Issues Being Debated In the Church: Why My Apparent Silence?
By
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD.

In recent times, I’ve received lots of emails, asking why I have been apparently silent on issues that are presently being debated in the church. I have been urged to write or add my voice. Here’s my three-fold answer:

1. Sometimes silence is as powerful as speech. We learn this from Christ’s example—when He consciously refused to speak on the problem of Herod and Herodias, after John the Baptist’s message to the renegade couple had been rejected by them:

“Christ might have spoken words to Herod that would have pierced the ears of the hardened king. He might have stricken him with fear and trembling by laying before him the full iniquity of his life, and the horror of his approaching doom. But Christ's silence was the severest rebuke that He could have given. Herod had rejected the truth spoken to him by the greatest of the prophets, and no other message was he to receive. Not a word had the Majesty of heaven for him.” (Desire of Ages, p. 730).

2. Whatever I personally need to say on the current issues being debated in the church, I have already said—and my works are still available and accessible to all who care for truth, despite the calculated efforts to ban them or suppress their witness (Click Here). For example, the left panel of my apologetic website, WWW.DRPIPIM.ORG, has a list of some of the issues I have already addressed. Specifically, in my book MUST WE BE SILENT, and in other works like Here We Stand, Receiving the Word, and Searching the Scriptures, I have offered biblically-compelling responses to the contemporary issues tearing our church apart. (Much of the arguments today are recycled versions of the same old arguments that have been weighed and found wanting).

3. I’m presently focused on soul-winning--actively reaching out to folks who are most difficult to reach with our distinctive biblical message. My priority is not on endless chatters that generate more heat than light, and which contribute little to soul-winning. Frankly, much of what's going on today is a distraction. The motivation is not so much about proclaiming sound theology, but more about legislating ambient ideology. Not about light from God's Word, but more about our flashy strobe-lighting. If you're genuinely confused by the noises in the church, I challenge you to apply this simple Truth test from the pen of EG White:

“Truth is straight, plain, clear, and stands out boldly in its own defense; but it is not so with error. It is so winding and twisting that it needs a multitude of words to explain it in its crooked form” (Early Writings, p. 96).

In short, my silence is my speech. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light” (Plato). Alas, that seems to be the case in certain quarters of our church today. We prefer the adornments of pretty white lies to the simplicity of naked truth.
 
The real question is whether we shall repent and follow the example of J.N. Andrews when he said: “I would exchange a thousand errors for one truth.” 

Peace!
 
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, PhD
April 27, 2015