Some of you may have
heard that we are not singing at the Indiana Acapella Gospel Sing this year after all.
We were looking forward to seeing you there, and are disappointed that we won’t
be able to do it this time. You may be surprised to hear this, especially after
seeing our name on the group lineup on the AGS website. And so we feel we owe
you an explanation!
New Heights Quartet
has from the beginning strived to share a clear Gospel message, and do it in a
way that honors Christ. We are not perfect and have much to grow in many areas.
But we do believe that if we know something will probably not bring glory to
Christ, God’s blessing will also likely not be in it. And if God’s blessing is
not in it, our ministry will be poor and will not really touch people’s hearts
like it should.
Our group has come to
understand that joining hands in spiritual ministry with other groups that
don’t have similar biblical beliefs does not truly honor the Lord. We
understand that unless public statements clearly defining and exposing unsound
teaching are made at venues such as AGS, we would be compromising the clarity
of our message in song. In other words, if from the same stage come
contradicting expressions of Truth, whether explicit or implicit, our message
will be weak, blurred, and confused. And since we are not keen in making such
public statements, we feel the only other option is withdrawing for this year.
We remember with a
smile our first AGS experience. We were the guinea-pigs along with the other
groups! Ray did a good job in making us feel welcome. Those were two
nerve-wracking happy days! We all must have been good little guinea-pigs,
because we’ve been invited over and over again. And over the years, it’s been a
good opportunity to share the Gospel message with hundreds of people, get
acquainted with other Anabaptist acapella singing groups, and make new friends
like you!
When we were invited
to sing at this year’s AGS, we were not fully aware that a Seventh-Day
Adventist (SDA) group (Emmanuel Quartet) was invited to participate at the AGS.
When we did find out, we were already on the list. We want it to be absolutely
clear that we love SDAs in a Christ-like way, as we do people from any other
denomination, religion, or philosophy. We have no issue with relating to them
in an unaffiliated basis, getting acquainted with their beliefs and way of life,
or listening to a presentation of theirs.
The thing we have
come to understand, as we have already said before, is that Christ would have
us make a clear distinction when engaging in spiritual ministry. We understand
that the differences in belief between Anabaptists and SDAs are so vast, that
our expressions of faith are incompatible and cannot be joined in a concerted
ministry. And we have felt that while there may be three options to take
(joining hands, exposing error, or not participating), we only see the two last
ones as valid, and have chosen to take the last one. We see that the tendency
in ecumenical programs (where unity in
diversity of belief rules) is to lower our expressions of Truth to the lowest common denominator, and to hide
the deeper tenets of our faith under a bushel.
This decision was not
an easy one to make. Upon submitting our resignation we were not completely
sure what the response would be. The AGS organizing committee did reply with
kind words, and removed us from the lineup, while, to our knowledge, all other
groups remain as they were before.
We are sorry to
disappoint you this year. Hopefully another year will be different!
In Christian love,
New
Heights Quartet
Paul, Tristan, Bryan
and Eddie
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