Record Live Podcast

 Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zanita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well. We believe as

followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice.

Let's go live. 

Hello everyone. It's, another week. It's coming up to the Easter weekend. We hope you've, yeah, had a good term one for those of you that are on school holidays, it's starting to, yeah, get a significant chunk of the way through the year and it's a little bit scary how fast the year is going.

The next presentation you're about to hear is from a mentor of mine, Dr. Bruce Manners. He's a long serving editor of Record Magazine and Signs of the Times. He's a pastor. He worked at Avondale, for the time I was actually studying at Avondale. So I was, interning with him at College, church News.

But Zanita, my cohost is gonna introduce him at the 125th anniversary celebration of Record, and we're going to play his presentation. It takes us through the history of the Adventist Record, but through the lens of the editors, the men and women who shaped Adventist Record to the point where it is today.

And so Dr. Manners has some really interesting insights, a little bit like we did last week, and I hope you enjoy, Record Live today.

Bruce was scouted by a man named James Coffin, who had been commissioned to find potential writers during his time as an editor for the Record. He noticed Bruce was one of the most prolific writers of the Adventist Church and approached him to join the team.

In 1988, Bruce started and two years later, he went full-time and was appointed as editor when James Coffin returned to the United States. Bruce was the editor for the next 13 years. He resigned from his position in 2004 to return to pastoral ministry. But he still writes for the record and Signs, and I believe he is writing another book.

So would you please put your hands together for Bruce Manners.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to be here. I'm here to talk about Record editors. Nice folks. Editors. For this presentation, I've divided it into four areas, starting with the hinson years, what's called the Hinson years, and I'm using that one as a guide because she was, Anna Hinson was the first editor of Record and she worked on Record as editor for 28 years.

That's 28 years. Jared has another 20 years to go. That's what I'm saying.

In 1897, Anna Ingles was voted Union secretary and the editor of Record that lasted for exactly six months because she got married and went to, Western Australia with her new husband. But she did come back. She returned to, take on the role again.

And in the list you'll notice I've put admin. I've put admin because so often in this era, the president, the secretary, or the treasurer, and sometimes all three were listed as editors. And, I suspect they really weren't editing. They may have given final approval. They may have said, look, we need to get something in.

And that's kind of backed up where in 1924, the administrators are listed as editors, JE Fulton, WG Turner, FA Allen, and um, then Anna l Hinson is listed as office editor. So I think we'll just go with admin when that appears. For most of its life Record has been in a subscription magazine. You had to purchase it.

And it started out as a subscription magazine. People had to pay for it. It had obituaries and weddings from the very earliest. Advertising began in 1,901 when the storekeeper on the Avondale estate wanted to sell his house and his business. A little further on 1915, we discovered that it costs you two and six, that's two shillings and six months for 40 words or less.

But if you wanted more, you could pay a penny per word. Sounds exciting. Henson continued, 1926 to 1933. When she died suddenly. She died suddenly. And, um, she had developed a Record that had kind of a letter from home quality about it. You could read it and over time you begin to recognise names and everyone was brother and sister unless you were pastor.

So it had this, this old feel, I guess we would say today. Um, strong spiritual emphasis. Please pray for this. Keep in mind that this is happening. This camp meeting is coming. Tell your friends all, all that kind of thing was happening. Long articles from officials within the church, some from the United States particularly, and that letter from home feel was just in it.

Next period is a very short period, well, less, uh, editors. By the way. I noticed there was another female editor. I don't think there are anyone after Viola. Obviously men are better editors.

Sorry.

Um, same process. Editors having a little longer life in this period. But not many there. W.E. Batty, the associate editor was the retired union president and he was taking care of the Record. Until they actually worked out what they were going to do with the Record in this period. Then we get to what I call the maturing years, because this is when the Record really found what it was and how it was meant to proceed in this era.

Batty, by the way, this is when the personality of the editors began to come through and, and they were recognized as individuals. It just wasn't coming from a group of people. Um, and for this information in this section on dependent on quite a lot on research I did

probably 10 years ago now, where I actually talked to the various editors to get this information together. Robert H Par, former Adventist school teacher. He was a Sydney grammar school teacher as well. He, became an editor working for Shakespeare's head company. Where they were, they were looking after academic publication.

And he told me that one day he wander into the division office and he caught up with the editor at the time, Batty. And he offered to look after the Record. The offer was accepted. As simple as that. I'm sure it went through committees. You know how the church works, I'm sure it went through committees.

And he, um, then became the editor down in Warbaton. For the first time. And uh, he was quite proud to be able to say, printing it here, we get it printed more quickly and we get it out to you more quickly. And so that was one of his reason for saying this is a good thing. At the time, PA was listed as editor, the division secretary was listed as associate editor.

That was later changed the more realistic senior consulting editor. When Barry Oliver, a division secretary down here, when he became president, he kept the title. So it's since stayed with the division president. PA reckoned there was not a lot of creativity or innovation coming from "chaps in high places. So I just went on," he said.

And went back into my shell and tried to brighten it up a bit. What he did, he brought his personality. And if you've ever met him, there's quite a touch of humor about him. At the back page, he called flashpoint, little bits of news, and he would shine in that area and he started the trend of having an editorial.

And here also, he began to gain a following and with his editorial ship, numbers of subscribers went up quite well. July, 1980 was a difficult year. This was the era of Desmond Ford, the glacier View and so on in, in that period. And, um, PA and Ford were friends and Pat told me, he said, "because we were friends, I thought I was in trouble with my job."

And he said quote, "this is the end for me because I'm known as a friend of Ford and I'll get the axe." And he did. Whether that was the reason or not, I don't know, but, it happened quickly. Uh, one, one more thing we should add there is that this was also the year the Record was sent free, and that happened so quickly that PA didn't realise it was happening.

And the first free episode of Record went out to the churches before the churches knew it was coming, which was kind of interesting. And the next week, PA had to write an editorial. Oh, by the way, you got that record last week, blah, blah, blah. Told the story. The vision President KS Parliament in September 8th, 1980 explained the provision of a copy of the Australian Australasian record for every home is one recent action taken to ensure that we have an informed membership in our churches.

When I read that editorial, I read that Glacier View was one of the reasons why it came out. Now that's been debated. Um, but when you read the editorial and the news about Glacier View, back to back, go read it. You, you make up your own mind. Jeffrey Garn from South Africa replaced Pa. The theological crisis meant that unfortunately there were strong suspicions that he was here to fix up Australia, fix up the record for Australian readers and rather sad, actually. Unfortunately, he wrote his first editorial entitled My Mandate. And he wrote, I have received a very clear mandate and then quoted Ellen White.

The publications that come forth from our presses today are to be of such a character as to strengthen every pin and pillar of the faith that was established by the word of God and by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Wow. He'd come to fix us up. There was even talk of the division president calling into South Africa on his way back from succession over in the U.S.

And talking to him and telling him what they wanted here in Australia. The truth was, he had no idea he was the Record editor. No idea he was, he and his wife were visiting with Pa and their wife having a meal together. Bob Pa invited him up for a meal at Warton and just happened to mention he was the Record editor as well.

He go, what? He thought he'd come to be Signs of the Times editor, because that's what he was in South Africa. So anyway, the theological crisis brought the tensions between what were commonly called the CBS Concerned Brethren and Fordites and Bar used these descriptors when he talked about.

And it was, it was rather sad. And he, uh, really was not, not welcomed and misunderstood. And actually, when he died, I actually wrote an obituary and, and just told this story saying he was not who a lot of people thought he was. Many pastors just would not talk to him. It was sad. It was sad. I couldn't accommodate everybody, so I simply decided I wasn't going to accommodate anybody.

There you go. Guard continued the same style that had been set up. The next division session, James Coffin was appointed to replace him. This is when Record changed. This is when Record matured and became the journalistic piece that it now is. Because that's what he brought.

Walters Greg, the division president, and experienced communicator in his own in his own way. He had worked with radio and television, understood communication. He and the other senior officials wanted Record to move on from the theological issues. To get to the real stuff, real life stuff because, uh, this, this was just dividing the church. Coffin was in his mid thirties at his appointment, one of the youngest Records of editor and he was instructed, make the record contemporary, enliven it in a quote, "deliberate attempt to move down a generation."

And he was given freedom. Imagine this. He was given freedom to include letters. That were against what was in the Record. Oh, Greg said this to me. "We tried to make record more representative of the whole church, not just administration. The idea was that we should convey the idea that the record is owned by the whole church and you have your right to be heard, even though it wasn't something which the editor or the church leadership agreed with."

That's a grownup approach. He had worked with Adventist Review. He was the news editor born in the United States. He'd studied at Avondale College, had been associate pastor at the church on the corner of Avondale College for from 78 to 81. And that was during this crisis. So he understood the tensions that was there and coffin negotiated that it should be a journalistically sound newspaper, spending more time on editing and rewriting if necessary. Quote, "my goal was to support the 27 fundamentals of the church, but at the same time allow people a significant amount of latitude to express views and opinions and try to use this as a sort of catharsis to help bring hearing."

He received vindictive, hateful letters. This is Jim Coffin, and he came under fire from administrators, particularly about the letters page, but also because they'd lost access in the way they were used to. There was a push to bring the editor back to the division to bring him under control. But this changed.

And over time there was this sense of tension going down and he said he sensed a change of tone, a general respect, and, Coffin resigned in 1991, but he had changed, matured. I like to think the magazine. He made it easy for someone to take on the role because of what he'd set up. One of his jobs was to find editors.

As has been mentioned, I remember going to ministers meetings in Victoria. It was lunchtime. I saw him sitting across the way and I went over and introduced myself. It was funny, the reaction. He immediately stood up, hand out, you are Bruce Manners. You write more than anybody else in the whole division.

Oh, okay. Um, and probably a year later I began working with him as one of the editors. They were searching for Gary Kraus as mentioned a little while ago. He was the other one and I did beat him at, uh, table tennis. That's important. Nathan Brown was the next one, the youngest editor appointed in this era and first to hold the position without ordination.

Um, let me embarrass the man a little. He came well qualified, continuing student working on a PhD in English, teaching undergraduate English. Had degrees in law and literature, and was freelance writing at the moment when he was asked to come on board.

Uh, won a writing competition with Adventist Review in 1998. I went across and worked with Adventist Review, came down a publishing company, did an internship with us. Bill Johnson's named him the best English language writer in the Adventist church. Enough embarrassment yet. Oh, okay.

Um. When the Record came to the media center here, he was offered the role here. But made the point that what was planned at the moment, gave the editorial role a, a bit of a diminished role. I think that was true. I dunno a lot about, I think that was true because that changed after the first editor left

there. Continues as book editor Signs publishing and actually. Has made the publishing house as a book publisher, well known throughout the English speaking world of Adventism. Then we go to the media centre, dunno much about these years, but lemme say Pablo Lilo came on first issue that he was the editor of, came out in black and White.

I didn't know that till I checked and he was editor. The next edit, the next issue, they'd discovered color and he was then called news and head of news and editorial. You'd have to ask them what they meant by that, but I think it was trying to use some of the record material in other ways to spread the value of it around. James Standish, an Australian American was communication director of the division.

And, uh, he stood in for a while as an interim editor and when they couldn't find an editor, he became what he called in his first editorial as editor, the accidental editor. Uh, he came to Australia to write a book, but he ended up working for the church, which stopped him writing a book. He did write three chapters.

He confesses. And then Jarrod Stackelroth. What can we say? He's the editor. Each of them benefited from the Jim Coffin years. Let me just say that. Journalistically Sound Magazine. Um, big difference now is we're in the digital age and they're now taking the record out into the digital age because guess what?

In the digital realm, you don't have the edge of the page. Which stops you from wanting more words in? And so while we get the Record at a certain time, you'll find that news goes out before we get it in the, in the paper record. Uh, there's more photos, longer quotes, and, and they're experimenting as they go.

I'm sure. And, uh, Jarrod reminded me that Prince still has a valuable place in church because it's part of the culture, but I suspect that culture will change over time. But the focus today for me has been on editors, let me say a huge thank you to those people who assist editors because they're the people that really make the editors look good.

Let me tell you, they're the ones that do a lot of work without them, their work, their input, their dedication, their creativity, the magazine would've been poorer. So anyone here who is not editor, but working on Record, thank you.

So there you have it, Bruce Manners presentation on the editors of Record. Hopefully that gives you a little insight into the history of Record, where it's come from, and who the people are that have worked on it. I'd like to echo Bruce's sentiments at the end there. That, um, Record wouldn't happen without

those who are working on it as editorial staff, but especially, and also, church members who write frequently, submit letters, submit articles. And it was interesting to hear the, the evolution, and the addition of letters and things like that. And when that came in, the history of Record. But definitely acknowledging that the Adventist Record is standing on the.

The shoulders of giants that many who went before us have made it possible. But yeah, thank you to all of our church members who read, who engage, who write, who comment, who, respond and share our articles, our material, our podcasts. Record now is on most of the social media channels. We have a weekly eNewsletter as well as the print publication.

And it's grown a lot with the new technologies over the past few years. Thanks for joining us again on Record Live. I hope you have a good Easter and we will be back. We've got some interesting topics and guests coming up, so we hope that you join us again next week. But until then, God bless.