Is the Adventist Church Really Pro-life?

[Twilight]

Originally Posted By: Twilight

Didn't Jesus say "suffer the little children to come to me."

How then is murdering the child allowing this to happen?

God gave the gift of life and only God has the right to take it.

If you are a medical professional and you think you have this right, then you have placed yourself in the place of God.

Mark

Mark,

Yes indeed; Jesus did say that, and he also stated that our eternal destiny will be determined by the way we treat “the least.” Can we imagine any other groups of human beings deserving the “the least” label? We prefer to focus our sight on our attitude towards the Sabbath forgetting that this is not enough. Those who crucified the Son of God were very particular about Sabbath observance, and after killing the Author of life they rushed to keep the Sabbath. Now we allow our own hospitals and our own members to engage in the killing of innocent human beings whom Jesus identified with and rush to make sure we worship the Lord on the correct day of the week.

I agree with you on this.

But I think you are dealing with the inroads of "humanism" more than anything else. :-)

Mark

[doug yowell]

Perhaps I should have said ... the problem I have with the attitude displayed is it is "I'm right and you are wrong". "So there is no need for discussion"

OK,Redwood,I get what you're saying but I think you're missing something important. Challenging your conclusions is a necessary part of any meaningful discussion and is necessary both for the sake of clarity and the pursuit of truth. And sometimes we ARE wrong so we shouldn't be so strident to protect our status quo. I mean, even I was wrong once!! And if you've noticed, those of us who(like our early SDA leaders) are convinced that elective abortion violates every Biblical principle that our church stands for are the ones who are inviting this discussion. Isn't that the way God works with us?(Praise the Lord!!)"Come now,let us reason together..." Isn't there that possibility (however remote it may seem) that THIS is the way God has chosen to appeal to our violated consciences and get us(corporately) back in harmony with His will?

[doug yowell]

Originally Posted By: Nic Samojluk

Mark,

Yes indeed; Jesus did say that, and he also stated that our eternal destiny will be determined by the way we treat “the least.” Can we imagine any other groups of human beings deserving the “the least” label? We prefer to focus our sight on our attitude towards the Sabbath forgetting that this is not enough. Those who crucified the Son of God were very particular about Sabbath observance, and after killing the Author of life they rushed to keep the Sabbath. Now we allow our own hospitals and our own members to engage in the killing of innocent human beings whom Jesus identified with and rush to make sure we worship the Lord on the correct day of the week.

[/quote']

I agree with you on this.

But I think you are dealing with the inroads of "humanism" more than anything else. :-)

Mark

It's hard to argue with that,Mark. It is reported by the abortion(oops, I mean health care)industry that the busyest(or is it most busiest?)day for abortion clinics is Saturday. I suppose there is no coincidence there!

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Perhaps I should have said ... the problem I have with the attitude displayed is it is "I'm right and you are wrong". "So there is no need for discussion"

OK,Redwood,I get what you're saying but I think you're missing something important. Challenging your conclusions is a necessary part of any meaningful discussion and is necessary both for the sake of clarity and the pursuit of truth. And sometimes we ARE wrong so we shouldn't be so strident to protect our status quo. I mean, even I was wrong once!! And if you've noticed, those of us who(like our early SDA leaders) are convinced that elective abortion violates every Biblical principle that our church stands for are the ones who are inviting this discussion. Isn't that the way God works with us?(Praise the Lord!!)"Come now,let us reason together..." Isn't there that possibility (however remote it may seem) that THIS is the way God has chosen to appeal to our violated consciences and get us(corporately) back in harmony with His will?

Not sure what I could add to the discussion. I agree that abortion is wrong. It would just be singing to the choir.

[Pete Chibibis]

Originally Posted By: Pete Chibibis

Good points Nic. I read just this morning that it is projected that in 25 years the number of people in the US who are eligible for Social Security will have doubled to 72 million. I don't think there is the slightest chance that there will be money enough to provide benefits to those people, even if the SS program still exists, which probably isn't very likely.

Pete,

Yes, the future is rather bleak, unless drastic changes are implemented to avoid the slow movement towards the extinction of the Christian world as we know it. Yesterday I watched a video describing the trend towards the eventual take over of Europe and North America by the Moslem world. The argument is very simple: Demographic requires that the average woman bears 2.1 children in order for a society to survive.

Statistics show that in Italy, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. the average woman has between 1.3 and 1.6 children. This means that while the population in these countries is shrinking, Moslems are expanding. This is why Khadafy made the following prediction: Moslems are going to rule the world without a fight and without the need for terrorism.

The Lord said to Adam and Eve: Be fruitful and multiply. Not long ago, Pastor Randy Roberts lamented the fact that the Adventist Church is not growing in our country. How can it grow if we, like the rest of the society, have been deceived into believing that it is morally acceptable to kill our own children under a variety of circumstances? How can it grow if some of our own church members own a large number of abortion clinics?

As a church we need to wake up. Hitler killed six million innocent human beings and our church cooperated with his regime. Now our own government has facilitated the genocide of fifty million, and we seem to be siding with the enemy. I believe that our hospitals should stop offering abortion serviced to their patients. The God-given duty of our physicians is healing instead of killing. Aren’t we called to be the Remnant of God who keeps God’s Commandments?

Nic, I agree in general with your stand on abortion but I am afraid that you make an unwarranted exaggeration when you say that "our church cooperated with [Hitler's] regime." It is well documented that the Adventist church in Germany and Austria supported the Nazi Party, but I don't believe it is accurate to say that as a world organization the church supported Hitler's regime. Even today, the GC does not micro manage the various divisions, Unions and Conferences. I fear you lose influence by what may appear to be gratuitous church bashing.

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that there were young men who belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement who chose execution rather than serve Hitler as combatants in the military. Thre are also stories of individuals who were forced to serve in the German military and survived the war without compromizing their faith.

[Gregory Matthews]

Nic:

I am aquainted with reality. I know what our guidelines are. I understand the situation in our hospitals. That is why I responded as I did.

[Woody]

Quote:

I fear you lose influence by what may appear to be gratuitous church bashing.

I have to agree. The church bashing does get real old.

[doug yowell]

Nic:

I am aquainted with reality. I know what our guidelines are. I understand the situation in our hospitals. That is why I responded as I did.

Gregory, do you think the question should be modified to correspond with direction of the ensueing comments,since, as you seemed to point out, the original question appears to have been already answered? Am I reading you right? Do you think the focus needs to be on how to bring our practice into harmony with our self-perception? Is there something broken that needs to be fixed? Or are you suggesting that the whole issue should be aborted,uh,terminated,uh,dropped?

[Gregory Matthews]

Doug said:

Quote:

Gregory, do you think the question should be modified to correspond with direction of the ensueing comments,since, as you seemed to point out, the original question appears to have been already answered? Am I reading you right? Do you think the focus needs to be on how to bring our practice into harmony with our self-perception? Is there something broken that needs to be fixed? Or are you suggesting that the whole issue should be aborted,uh,terminated,uh,dropped?

There are many people posting here who are well able to defend their views. I am not certain that any post that I would make would add much to the conversation. Why repeat what has been said before?

Therefore I have not yet decided to post my view.

I simply decided to post what I thought in regard to the question/comment that began this thread.

[doug yowell]

OK Gregory,I'm a little slow but I think I get it. So I will anxiously,but patiently wait for your next post.

[BobRyan]

Is the Adventist Church Really Pro-life?

by Nic Samojluk

The Question. Two and a half years ago the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists publicly declared that the Adventist church is pro-life. [1] My question is: Is this a factual statement? Is our church entitled to be described as pro-life? Have we been acting as truly pro-life organizations? Do we deserve the pro-life label? Could it be that the opposite is true?

Perhaps we should consider some hipothetical situations first before trying to answer this question. Suppose a young man never ever mentions anything about his girlfriend. Should we conclude that he has serious intentions towards the young woman he is dating? Or just imagine a man who never ever talks about his wife and family, should we conclude that his home life is uppermost in his mind and affection? Or imagine a tribe leader who sets specific guidelines detailing which members of his clan should be allowed to live and which ones could be killed at will. Would we be safe in concluding that such a chieftain really cares about the community and about the right to life of its members?

The Evidence. You may wonder what this has to do with the question at hand. Well, the answer is quite simple. Our church president claimed that our church is pro-life, but we never talk about the main pro-life issue in our sermons and magazines. We avoid the subject as if it were a plague,

First of all - you raise some very good points. The church leadership and members will be held accountable for their actions on the issue of the value of human life -- when it comes to silence on the subject of the murder of unborn babies at the altar of convenience. Jericho comes to mind.

Secondly -- the church has a rich history of being very outspoken and politcally active on the subject of the value of human life -- in the days of slavery in the U.S. Strong statements of condemnation are to be found in the historic records of the 1800's - where SDA church leadership condemned anyone failing to promote the end of slavery.

The same is true of the issue of prohibition where church leadership was very outspoken on passing a constitutional ammendment banning the sale of alcohol -- political action based strictly on Christian values at the cost of freedom of choice, right to privacy, moral relativism.

Sadly - the church has since those days - floundered and lost a certain level of moral clarity.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Richard & Nic:

You ask a question: Is the Adventist church really pro-life?

The answer, as is typically defined in the popular public today is: No.

Yes, some would say that it is pro-life. But, to do so one would have to re-define what "pro-life" means.

One can respond to the question and the debate as to whether or not it is could stop.

Though it speaks from time to time as IF it had taken pro-life positions - in the OP we see a good commentary about the fact that the "walk" does not match the "talk" on the subject of a supposedly pro-life SDA church.

The church is "supposed to function" as a voice of moral clarity for society. But the light has gone out for many SDA leaders -- on this particular subject. They seem to be "confused".

in Christ,

Bob

[Nic Samojluk]

Nic, I agree in general with your stand on abortion but I am afraid that you make an unwarranted exaggeration when you say that "our church cooperated with [Hitler's] regime." It is well documented that the Adventist church in Germany and Austria supported the Nazi Party, but I don't believe it is accurate to say that as a world organization the church supported Hitler's regime. Even today, the GC does not micro manage the various divisions, Unions and Conferences. I fear you lose influence by what may appear to be gratuitous church bashing.

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that there were young men who belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement who chose execution rather than serve Hitler as combatants in the military. Thre are also stories of individuals who were forced to serve in the German military and survived the war without compromizing their faith.

Pete,

Thanks for your response. You made several statements which I would like to respond to:

1. “Nic, I agree in general with your stand on abortion but I am afraid that you make an unwarranted exaggeration when you say that "our church cooperated with [Hitler's] regime."

My answer is: Please, read carefully the report I will cite below from our official magazine and tell me whether you still think that I was exaggerating. I tried to be factual, but if I failed in this attempt, I would like you to point exactly where I failed.

2. “I don't believe it is accurate to say that as a world organization the church supported Hitler's regime.”

My response is: I was talking about our church in Germany and Austria when Hitler was in power. I was not referring to our world organization. I have no specific knowledge of the extent to which the General Conference might have been aware of what was taking place in Germany and Austria.

3. “In all fairness, it should be pointed out that there were young men who belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement who chose execution rather than serve Hitler as combatants in the military.”

My answer is: Yes, and the Reform Movement is currently an independent organization not associated with our official Adventist Church. They split over precisely this issue.

Now here is the official report about the extent to which our German and Austrian Adventist Church cooperated with the Nazi regime. I hope you do not rely exclusively on the short clips I gleaned from the article, but rather read the entire referenced article:

*********

Church Leaders Say "We're Sorry"

"Noting the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Seventh-day Adventist church leaders in Germany and Austria have released a declaration saying they "deeply regret" any participation in or support of Nazi activities during the war. The church bodies "honestly confess" a failure "in following our Lord" by not protecting Jews, and others, from that era's genocide, widely known as the Holocaust. Millions of people perished from war atrocities, including more than 6 million Jews who were exterminated in Nazi persecutions during the 12-year period of 1933 to 1945.”

“The church says it also regrets "that in some of our publications . . . there were found articles glorifying Adolf Hitler and agreeing with the ideology of anti-Semitism in a way that is unbelievable from today's [perspective]."

"Under various racial decrees, some Adventist congregations expelled members of Jewish heritage. One, Max-Israel Munk, was placed in two concentration camps by the Nazis and survived and returned to his church after the war. He said he did not wish to act toward his congregation in the way in which he had been treated, according to Daniel Heinz, a church archivist at Friedensau Adventist University who has studied Adventist activities during the National Socialist era.”

“During World War I a portion of the German Adventist church had split off, opposing any military service. This led the National Socialists in 1936 to ban the so-called "Reform Movement" during their time in power. Brugger said concern over a Nazi closure of the main Adventist churches may have weighed on leaders in that era.”

"We not only kept silent, but we also published things we never should have published. We published anti-Semitic ideas that, from our perspective, weren't really needed," Pahler said in a telephone interview.”

"I found some very impressive stories of Adventists who helped Jews in the Third Reich, risking their lives, and I found the opposite," Heinz said.

http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=92

[Nic Samojluk]

Richard & Nic:

You ask a question: Is the Adventist church really pro-life?

The answer, as is typically defined in the popular public today is: No.

Yes, some would say that it is pro-life. But, to do so one would have to re-define what "pro-life" means.

One can respond to the question and the debate as to whether or not it is could stop.

Gregory,

Yes, pro-life means different things to different individuals. This is why in my doctoral dissertation I tried to stick to a precise definition of the term in order to avoid misunderstandings as far as possible. You can access this document online at the following Internet address: http://sdaforum.ipower.com/page13.html .

For some individuals pro-life means that when the baby is wanted it should be allowed to live and if the baby is unwanted it is morally justifiable to tear it to pieces.

[Nic Samojluk]

Quote:

I fear you lose influence by what may appear to be gratuitous church bashing.

I have to agree. The church bashing does get real old.

Redwood,

I checked the dictionary and found the following definition for the “bashing” term: “Informal or slang. a. indicating a malicious attack on members of a group.”

Please, read my response to Pete above and tell me whether you still think that the above definition of the term “bashing” applies to what we are doing in this blog. I would also like you to read my doctoral dissertation about this issue and tell me whether you find in it a “malicious” intent to hurt the church which nursed me with spiritual food all my life.

I hope you agree with me that there is a fundamental difference between how a criminal uses his knife against a victim and how a physician uses a knife while performing surgery to remove a cancer. I do believe that our lax policy about the killing of the unborn is a dangerous tumor which is growing in our denomination. If I fail to sound the voice of alarm, the Lord will hold me responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.

[Woody]

Quote:

If I fail to sound the voice of alarm, the Lord will hold me responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.

Wow. You certainly have a big responsibility placed upon your head. Did you receive this from a vision ?

[Nic Samojluk]

Is there something broken that needs to be fixed? Or are you suggesting that the whole issue should be aborted, uh, terminated, uh, dropped?

Doug,

Excellent question. The majority of Adventists I am acquainted with here in the West would dance out of joy if the issue of abortion among Adventists were to be dropped and aborted.

When I reflex on this, I feel like crying Prophet Jeremiah’s style. Sometimes I wonder: Didn’t Jesus die for the unborn as well? How can we be so cruel against the children the Lord entrusted to our loving care?

[Woody]

Quote:

I feel like crying Prophet Jeremiah’s style

When I reflect on this ... I can understand. You have a lot on your shoulders.

[Gregory Matthews]

Pete said:

Quote:

Nic, I agree in general with your stand on abortion but I am afraid that you make an unwarranted exaggeration when you say that "our church cooperated with [Hitler's] regime." It is well documented that the Adventist church in Germany and Austria supported the Nazi Party, but I don't believe it is accurate to say that as a world organization the church supported Hitler's regime. Even today, the GC does not micro manage the various divisions, Unions and Conferences. I fear you lose influence by what may appear to be gratuitous church bashing.

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that there were young men who belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement who chose execution rather than serve Hitler as combatants in the military. Thre are also stories of individuals who were forced to serve in the German military and survived the war without compromizing their faith.

1) Documenetation that the SDA Church supported Hitler: The full picture is becomming known, but, in my opinion, has not yet been fully developed.

2) Micro-manage the Divisions: The Division is not a seperate organizational level. The Division is the General Conference in a specific part of the world, notwithstanding what may people think.

3) SDA Reform Movement: Their hands are not clean in regard to the events which led to SDA support for Hitler.

4) During the War, the hands of the General Conference were tied in regard to intervention in Europe and the support for Hitler. That could only take place after the war was ended at which time attempts were made to rectify the situation--in a large way these attempts failed.

[Nic Samojluk]

Quote:

If I fail to sound the voice of alarm, the Lord will hold me responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.

Wow. You certainly have a big responsibility placed upon your head. Did you receive this from a vision ?

Redwood,

Vision? Ellen White or Daniel the prophet style? NO! Strong impression which you cannot shake off? YES.

Do you think that I would have sacrificed fifty percent of my working time during the last decade to devote to this pro-life project without any hope of ever recovering the thousands of hours I have invested in this unless I felt that this was my sacred duty to my church and to God?

If you are interested in getting a glimpse of how I feel about the danger of having my hands stained with the blood of the innocents by association, please read the following allegory I wrote a few years ago: “A Stigmata Case in Loma Linda” http://sdaforum.com/page38.html .

[Pete Chibibis]

Gregory, thank you for the clarification.

[Gregory Matthews]

Gregory, thank you for the clarification.

Keep in mind that what we know today in regard to SDA support in Germany for Hitler is worse than what we knew in the 60s. It is not a pretty picture. Yet, I beleive that there is probably more to learn and lessons in this.

As I recall, as SDA sociologist, Ron Lawson (?), in New York City has enlightened us on some of this.

I remind you that a SDA official was indited by the International War Crimes Tribunal for genocide in Rawanda, extridated from the U.S. to face trial, convicted and served his prison time. Following his release he returned to the United States and shortly thereafter died.

Read the book on the Rawandan genocide with the title something like: Tomorrow we Die (not exact). It has material on the SDA involvement in that.

We have to face reality.

It should be clear that as far as Hitler and Europe is concerned, the SDA Reform Movement does not have clean hands regardless of what they say.

Sometimes there is enough blame to go around to everyone.

[Gregory Matthews]

Stories from Rwanda:

Gourevitch, Philip. WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES. 353 pages

Gourevitch is a staff writer with the NEW YORKER

[BobRyan]

I remind you that a SDA official was indited by the International War Crimes Tribunal for genocide in Rawanda, extridated from the U.S. to face trial, convicted and served his prison time. Following his release he returned to the United States and shortly thereafter died.

Read the book on the Rawandan genocide with the title something like: Tomorrow we Die (not exact). It has material on the SDA involvement in that.

We have to face reality.

[olger]

Originally Posted By: Pete Chibibis

Gregory, thank you for the clarification.

Keep in mind that what we know today in regard to SDA support in Germany for Hitler is worse than what we knew in the 60s. It is not a pretty picture. Yet, I beleive that there is probably more to learn and lessons in this.

As I recall, as SDA sociologist, Ron Lawson (?), in New York City has enlightened us on some of this.

I remind you that a SDA official was indited by the International War Crimes Tribunal for genocide in Rawanda, extridated from the U.S. to face trial, convicted and served his prison time. Following his release he returned to the United States and shortly thereafter died.

Read the book on the Rawandan genocide with the title something like: Tomorrow we Die (not exact). It has material on the SDA involvement in that.

We have to face reality.

It should be clear that as far as Hitler and Europe is concerned, the SDA Reform Movement does not have clean hands regardless of what they say.

Sometimes there is enough blame to go around to everyone.

ok