7. “Architects of Crisis: A Decade of Obscurantism”, 1984

Item — Box: 1, Folder: 7 Empty Folder, Call No.: 024006

Staff Only

Content Description

From the Collection: This is a very extensive collection of well over 250 scholarly papers, the vast majority of them written by Cottrell. There are papers covering the topics of hermeneutics, exegesis, church polity, governance, and history, Daniel, Revelation, Ellen White, science, plus many others. Cottrell surely had a wide range of interests and seemingly an input on almost every subject which became current in the second half of the 20th century. Nearly all of the papers are unpublished meaning they were designed for limited circulation. Many of the papers were prepared for distribution to a church sponsored study group or committee such as the Bible Research Fellowship or the Biblical Research Institute.

Perhaps one of Cottrell’s greatest contributions to the Adventist Church was his work on the authoritative Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary series. As mentioned above he served as the associate editor of the series along with editor Francis D. Nichol. Besides editing many thousands of pages of other peoples work he wrote about 2,000 pages. The Commentary articles are not signed. Cottrell provides a list of the various authors and what books of the Bible they contributed to on the project.

A significant work of Cottrell’s which is not well known is his Eschatology of Daniel. It is at number 222 in the inventory. It was never formally published. Cottrell says the manuscript awaits a climate of openness and objectivity in the church, which is essential to a fair examination of the facts.”

Dates

1984

Extent

40 Pages

Language of Materials

From the Sub-Group: English

Additional Description

Materials Specific Details

During his thirteen years as president of the General Conference, however, Elder Pierson set systematically about restoring the corporate Bible research of the church to its level at the time he left in 1936 for overseas duty. He repeatedly stated, on committees and in personal conversation, his policy that administrators and not Bible scholars be involved in making biblical and doctrinal decisions for the church. Implementing this policy, the 1969 Spring Meeting of the GC eliminated the Bible scholars of the church en masse from the Biblical Research Committee. Vigorous protests from the Seminary, however, averted implementation of this policy. Before the next meeting of BRC, however, he achieved a similar result by appointing a number of non-scholars to BRC. This paper reports thirty-one incidents over the years 1969 to I 979 in which Pierson was able to control BRC in harmony with his policy, which precipitated the misguided way in which the church related to Desmond Ford and W alter Rca at the close of the decade. This paper explores in considerable detail the way in which Gordon Hyde and Gerhart Hasel played significant roles in implementing Pierson̓s policy with respect to biblical studies. Official biblical study and theology of the church today are still under the control of the principles and policies they established.