Former Adventist Writes Book on Fundamentalism

[Gregory Matthews]

See: www.atoday.com/content/former-adventist-releases-book-fundamentalism

As an alternative try the following:

http://by120w.bay120.mail.live.com/mail/inboxlight.aspx?folderid=00000000-0000-

0000-0000-000000000001&inboxsortascending=false&inboxsortby=date&n=747251405

Go to the bottomof the page and click onthe links there.

If this does not work, I do not know.

[Gregory Matthews]

Here is a brief statement regarding his book:

"Readers interested in the topic of fundamentalism may want to peek at the latest book by former Adventist James Alexander, titled Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist: Understanding and Responding to Christian Absolutism. Alexander's part-memoir / part-research publication recounts the author's journey as a member of the fundamentalist subculture as a child and his life among the Jesus Freaks (Jesus Movement)-- a congregation of deserters from the hippie drug culture of the late 1960's and early 1970's.

He is now an education professor at a small liberal arts college, a minister and part-time author. Alexander also blogs regularly at The Repentant Fundamentalist--covering topics such as the "psychology of fundamentalism, the fundamentalist subculture, the dangers of fundamentalism, fundamentalism and the Bible, and leaving fundamentalism."

Although he clearly states that his blog is not meant as a platform to discuss Adventism, his most recent "mini-series" happens to cover his ten year sojourn as an Adventist. In two of those postings, he recounts what he liked and didn't like most about Adventists.

Excerpt on what he liked the most:

The people-- I met many people among the SDA's who were not conservative. They had read widely and were products of the fine Adventist higher education system. These folks could think for themselves. They were not afraid to challenge the old ideas just because they were tradition. Yet, they just didn't capriciously throw the old away. They found creative ways to understand the old in the light of modern scholarship and were not afraid to say that Adventists had made mistakes.

Daring to be different-- Adventists are not afraid to challenge widely held (largely unbiblical, I might add) views concerning the state of the dead, hell, the soul, etc. They may not have always been right, but they were gutsy enough to buck the religious power brokers of the 19th century and today.

Read the whole entry.

Excerpt on what he didn't like about Adventists:

They are fundamentalists-- Maybe not in the same sense as say, Southern Baptists, but they still are. The basis of fundamentalism is absolute truth claims. Not all Adventists claim that they are in the realm of the absolute. Still, I can't count how many times I heard statements such as "we have all the truth," or "we have the final truth." A court from which there is no appeal.

Strange literalism-- On one hand, you might say that Adventists don't take the Book of Revelation literally. In other ways, their "symbolic literalism" is as strange as any Left Behind book, with Satan faking Christ's second coming by coming to earth in a flying saucer, the US government enforcing Sunday worship, etc. "

[Woody]

Thanks for posting this Gregory.

We do create big barriers when we declare "We have the truth". I would never utter those words. Present truth .... but let the individual heart decide and declare that. Otherwise ... you are just pushing others away.