For someone who has observed many of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's peaks and valleys, William G. Johnsson, who will soon leave his leadership role at both Adventist Review and the year-old Adventist World magazines, seems remarkably unruffled. Easing
For someone who has observed many of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s peaks and valleys, William G. Johnsson, who will soon leave his leadership role at both Adventist Review and the year-old Adventist World magazines, seems remarkably unruffled.
Easing a lanky frame into his office chair, Johnsson smiles happily and speaks warmly of a job whose demands go far beyond wielding a red pencil or approving page layouts: “It’s been a wonderful ride,” he declared.
“People think the job is essentially editing and writing,” Johnsson, a chemical technology engineer who became an Adventist theologian after joining the church in his native Australia, said. “In a good week, it’s 20 percent of the job; in some weeks, it’s zero percent.”
Although “I’ve been writing since I was in seventh grade,” he added, “I write [now], but it’s done in haste.” (He later expressed a hope that retirement would allow him to do more writing, and at a more relaxed pace.)
Instead, Johnsson finds himself wearing the hats of diplomat and reconciler, working to keep a variety of constituencies happy. Along with the magazine readership, Johnsson also hears from the church’s administrators, at the world headquarters, its North American region, and various world areas, the Review & Herald Publishing Association, which prints the Review by contract, and others.
For a man who says he is “not confrontational,” Johnsson views his task as a resolver of these various interests, he says.
In that role, Johnsson said he drew on the legacy of W.A. Spicer, a former world church president and later editor of the Review and Herald (as Adventist Review was once known). Dubbed “a man of the people” by the “Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia,” Spicer was renowned for encouraging his coworkers.
“I hope I exhibited some of the legacy of Spicer,” Johnsson said. “We need hope, we need to be pointed to Jesus and His grace.”
Time moved swiftly since he assumed the editor’s chair in December of 1982, Johnsson adds: “The last few years have been a blur; this office has changed so much.”
Part of that change came in 1995, when Johnsson added the job of executive publisher of Adventist Review to his portfolio, a title he also holds at Adventist World. Under the direction of a publishing board, Johnsson oversees the business and marketing aspects of the magazine, where he has worked to maintain or increase circulation. In an age of declining overall print readership, that’s been a challenge.
However, the arrival of Adventist World, a free monthly distributed throughout the Adventist Church’s global region, has been a bit of “grace, late in my career,” Johnsson said. A monthly circulation of 1.2 million worldwide has brought the work of this editor, his staff and contributors, to a worldwide audience.
Retirement will see Johnsson and his wife, Noelene, remaining in the suburban Washington, D.C. area, enjoying the music of Mozart, gardening, visits to the beach and visiting his grandchildren. He also hopes to remain active in ministry.
Although he has “visited every place in the world save for Antarctica,” Johnsson said he looks forward to some more relaxed travel, with Noelene at his side.
And there’s yet one more challenge Johnsson looks forward to: “I want to learn Spanish,” he said, with the kind of determined tone that makes one believe he’ll accomplish this goal with the same unruffled grace he brought to the editor’s chair.
