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Dr. George Knight has written a book, published by the denomination, that discusses the manner in which the writings of EGW have been used in this denomination, following her death. The following is an interview with Dr. Knight about his new book. https://spectrummagazine.org/interviews/2019/ellen-whites-afterlife-author-interview-george-r-knight NOTE: The following quote is a part of the above article. Read the full article for all of the questions.

It is sad when we look at our roots. When the town of Washington N H incorporated the community could not decide on a church. Some people wanted an established church with only approved theology to be taught. Others wanted a church were anyone who believed that they had a message from the Lord were free to share and the members had their right to accept or reject in part or in whole of what the speakers say. Since they could not decide the town made two churches to meet these two factions. The one church who welcomed the views of everyone became known as the first Seventh-day Adventist Church. (although there may have been Adventist churches in some Seventh-day Baptist communities that might dispute Washington NH's claim, but which is also part of our roots.) As for our other early churches, our pioneers were misfits who were kicked out of their churches. They had a dream of forming a church where the pain that was inflected among them would not be inflected among others. They were influenced by the political views of the American Revolution, especially Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and applied those principles to religion. They formed a religion that agreed upon a handful of landmarks, and beyond those, as long as they were not fanatical, they were free to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience using only their understanding of the Bible to be their personal creed. Interestingly this first generation appears to have had a foundation from reformation theology and thus a foundation similar to Des Ford's views upon which they built on that foundation the ideas of Adventism and 1844 and God's law including the Sabbath. While their preaching was based on the difference between them and other Christians, that preaching was based on the more evangelical foundation that was in their hearts. The second generation had built more of a foundation on our differences. It is sad that this foundation has been assaulted by the spirit of wanting to have our particular subgroup of Adventism to be seen as the only real Adventists and to tell everyone else to shut up and comply.

Very interesting articles. I'm not just sure how to comment, so please forgive this awkward attempt, but too much of the church still wants it to be basically the two views of Ford on one side and the so called "Historic Adventists" on the other. And I feel that some of the other perspectives tend to be getting over looked Ford's view tends to be more focused on modern "evangelical Christianity" where there is a set of "Christian" traditions that we find in like "Bible Colleges" and a more sticky sweet Jesusie and who's scholarship tends to be focused on how the Bible was interpreted by Christians over Church history, especially the reformers. Their whole approach tends to be more devotional and not digging very deeply. The so called "Historic Adventists" have another set of traditions which was repeated in these articles. Besides Ford and the so called "Historic Adventists" there is the Adventist Theological Society. The ATS is/was first of all one option between Ford and the "Historic Adventists" The big difference is that they are more exegetical/Biblical Theology (think William Foxwell Albright and archaeology) than Ford and the Historical Adventists. Now all three of these groups tend to be very forensic in their view of salvation and they also tend to be quite fundamentalists in their approaches. Then we also have the subgroups who tend to be non-forensic and more or less anti-Fundamentalists. We have say Alden Thompson and the theology department from Walla Walla, the "Larger View" people from California (Graham Maxwell and company) and the views from the theology department from Atlantic Union College from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s (John Wood, James Valentine, Dean Davis, George Rice) who like the ATS was very exegetical/Biblical Theology, but did not cling to all the traditions that the ATS would cling to. All of these perspectives of Adventism had different perspectives of 1844, and while I pointed out these specific subgroups, they are reflections of ideas that stem from the late 1800s and early 1900s. At times we learned how to play together. But our problems come when one or another of these groups see themselves as being the "True Adventists" and want to force their particular flavor of Adventism on all the rest of us.

The folowing posits that Dr. Ford had caused changes to take place in the SDA denomination that are with us today. https://atoday.org/part-2-how-the-church-changed-because-of-desmond-ford/

Recent events in China have caused some people to be concerned as to religious activity in China. The following article lays out aspects that may be of concern and balances them with other aspects that may reflect positive values. https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/march/sinicization-china-wants-christianity-churches-more-chinese.html?utm_source=ctweekly-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=16245031&utm_content=641555608&utm_campaign=email

For an interesting article, which I wish was more extensive, can be read at the website below: https://atoday.org /christ-the-eschatos-a-meeting-with-gnu-and-the-general-conference/?fbclid=IwAR2Xk9iZPQ8YyilM1AIQWKLHV5Bq05sDk_ZryXrNM-q5FLPRN4J-WX6rHckddddd NOTE: I think that Smuts van Rooyen was given back his SDA clergy status at a later time.

This came off of a website that has other starange photos. In one of them the bathroom door had a cutout that fit the toilet as the door could not be closed absent the cutout. So, there was a large hole cut out of the door.

Wanderer, what I meant by "misfits" was the way their other churches did not want them to stay members because of their love for William Miller's teachings. These were people from a very wide number of churches. As the pioneers formed our church, they needed it to be flexible enough for not only their unifying points of Millerism, and the landmarks, but also for the wide range of religious experiences and denominationalism to include the wide religious backgrounds of our pioneers.

Prayer and supplication

5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Twitter On March 21, 2006, the social media website Twitter launched with the first tweet by co-founder Jack Dorsey. In honor of changing the way the Web works, we gathered these 5 cool facts you might not know about Twitter... Twitter Could Have Had a Creepy Name Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter, reportedly wanted to call the social networking platform “Friendstalker.” It could also have been called “Jitter,” “Twitch” or “Twitcher.” The company finally decided on “Twitter” because of the sound made by some birds when they are excited or agitated. Naming the Twitter Bird Logo Twitter’s co-founder, Biz Stone, had recently graduated from high school near Boston when Boston Celtics’ great, Larry Bird, was preparing to lead the team to two NBA championships. Bird was named most valuable player three years running between 1984 and 1986, so he was a big favorite among Bostonians. Stone admitted on Twitter that Larry the bird was named after the legendary Larry Bird of the Celtics. Mobile Phones Were Responsible for the Character Limit Because SMS messages that are more than 160 characters split the message, Twitter originally limited tweets to 140 characters. This resulted in some interesting conversations as Twitter users tried to shorten their messages by using bad grammar. After testing it out, Twitter doubled its character count permanently at the end of 2017 to the delight of those who use the social network. Hashtags Weren’t Invented by Twitter Hashtags(#) came into use in 1988 on Internet Relay Chat and were similar to vernacular from old-fashioned chat rooms. In 2007, Chris Messina, a Silicon Valley product designer, suggested using hashtags to tweet to groups and make it easier for laypersons to find updates and search contents. Top hashtags in 2018 included #ff and #followfriday, where users suggest other people interesting to follow. The Price Went Up on the Domain Name When the Name Was Changed Twitter originally started out at Twttr.com, but about six months later, it was changed to Twitter.com. According to TechCrunch, that small move cost $7,500 for the new domain name. Around 78 percent of the traffic passes through the website at Twitter.com, while around 300,000 third-party apps handle the rest.

What are you afraid of? Chapman University conducts an annual survey of the American public in an attempt to discover what are considered to be major threats to life. The following comes from the results of its 2018 survey: 1) 72% Corruption of government officials. 2) 62% Pollution of oceans, rivers and lakes. 3) 61% Pollution of drinking water. 4) 57% Not enough retirement income. 5) 57% People I love becoming seriously ill. 6) 56% People I love dying. 7) 55% Air pollution. 8) 54% Extinction of plant & animal species. 9) 53% Global warming & climate change. 10) 53% High medical bills. From: Bonker, Dawn, "Feeling Afraid? You've Got Company," Chapman University Magazine, Vol 42, # 3, Page 17.

Christ in you