SDA's, Evangelical Christianity, Ecumenism, Sectarianism...

[wicklunds]

I have been wondering lately whether it has been a good thing for the educated in our church to attempt to evangelicalize our theology and thereby make our denomination more "user friendly" and less "sectarian". Part of this process seems to include rejecting the SOP (or major parts of it) and also our traditional historical grammatical interpretation of the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. Our SDA Church history has been revised in order to emphasize the 1888 righteousness by faith conferences as the pivotal moment for our church's focus. The touters cite a progressive message that has "unfolded" to accomodate more "believers" in the faith. This seems to advocate a theological pluralism. Is this good for SDA faith? Another thing I have noticed being on an SDA College campus is that we are bending toward a more ecumenical agenda. This has (arguably) positive and negative consequences. What do you think some of those consequences are? Other comments??

[there buster]

Too many SDA's tend to be paranoid about ecumenicalism, even refusing to join in prayer groups and so on. But I see two ecumenical movements at the end of time, one good and one bad.

Here's a corroborating opinion.

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Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust as company after company from the Lord's army joined the foe and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God.--8T 41

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[cricket]

Seems to me that we might as well call ourselves "non-denominational" if we do this. This certainly would bring about a great change in attendance.

There is no reason whatsoever that we should give up seeking and preaching the truth. There is a certain term in the Bible, the "very elect", that indicates that there is something that sets apart some believers from others. Truly, this something must be that they really do follow Christ, keep His commandments and share His word.

[Guest]

As long as there is the "Happy Sabbath" greeting heard by people entering the church...I don't expect much in the way of non denominational...

Rom 8:7 filters out many and sabbath morning meetings just are not for the typical conventional religious person out there.

Society is composed of mostly follow the crowd types...and this is even exhibited by SDA's on religious dope.

Hey Ed thanks for the article on the tribulation in Signs

[there buster]

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Hey Ed thanks for the article on the tribulation in Signs

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My pleasure. The cover article for April is also mine: "Where Was God When Jesus Died?"

[Guest]

Pathetic stats

Attendance at religious services

According to the ARIS survey, in the United States, 76.5% of adults identified themselves as Christians during early 2001. 2 This number is dropping almost one percentage point per year. There has also been a drop in the percentage of American adults who attend religious services regularly. It has gone from 49% in 1991 to 36% in 1996. Reduction in attendance is a worldwide phenomenon among industrialized countries. The US is believed to have the highest attendance rates; Canada has about 20%; Australia, England and the rest of Europe are 10% or less. The general trend is downwards as societies become more secular.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS NOW IN 2005????????????????????????

[wicklunds]

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Too many SDA's tend to be paranoid about ecumenicalism, even refusing to join in prayer groups and so on. But I see two ecumenical movements at the end of time, one good and one bad.

Here's a corroborating opinion.

Quote:

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Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust as company after company from the Lord's army joined the foe and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God.--8T 41

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I guess I do not see how the particular testimony corroborates with the assertion that many Adventists are paranoid about ecumenism. I could find many quotes that affirm a certain level of awareness with regard to compromising and fellowshipping with unbelievers. I am not saying there should never be a time for sharing and witnessing but going out of our way to water down doctrinal beliefs for the sake of "unity" is to me a compromise of the highest order.

[Kevin H]

This tends to be a two edged situation both used by Satan. There are those who go for the complete sepperation, where we end up becoming such spiritual imbreds that our weaknesses streanthen and control us, and tradition grows and replaces the truths that we have been intrusted with.

To see how this has harmed us, look at 1888 and the issues of the daily, and notice that those who got some of the harshes letters by Mrs. White accusing them of massively quoting her but in a way that was not in accord with her message and thus abusing her writings, and how these men with their use of her writings have become the heros and examples for our more conservative subgroups.

Also it ignores our history. Yes, we started out with the closed door theory, but before the end of the 1800s there was a large amount of interaction between Seventh-day Adventists and non-Adventists. Seventh-day Adventists worked with Billy Sunday. Mrs. White became a very popular speaker in Sunday morning churches for their Sunday services. And let's not forget the interaction of Adventist Archaeologests such as Lynn Harper Wood, Sigred Horn, and Lorinia Runnings (sorry if I mispelled her name) in the world of Biblical studies, our involvement with people such as William Foxwell Albright and the Society of Biblical Literature.

But on the other hand, with your specific question, I am very worried about the attraction and corting of the evangelical movement. In 1923 General Conference leaders that Ellen White hand picked and groomed where accused of being unbelieving liberal higher critical scholars and thrown out of office, demoted, or as in the case of her son Willie, he got to keep his job, but it was striped of all power and influence. They were faithful, but our members wanted to appeal to the Fundamentalists and the conservative parts of Christianity.

I fear the same thing with the Investigative Judgemnt, the truth about Hell, and creating distance from the fields of Biblical Archaeology and the Society of Biblical literature, and honest Bible Study, by instead wanting to appeal to the evangelical movement. Too many of us think that this aspect of Christianity is all there is to Christianity.

Seventh-day Adventism is ballanced between liberals and conservatives, law and grace, and have the principles of historisism while others are either preterists or futurists, but our use of historisism has become majorly corrupted by taking the evidence we have presented but view them from a futerists/fundamentalists perspective.

Satan wants to shove us into one ditch or the other, while the truth is high and narrow between the two.

[wicklunds]

Well maybe in your own opinion you disagree. Would you like to offer refutations point by point or will we end up in a hopeless argument? I think my initial point is clear enough. But I will try to be more specific.

The current thrust seems to be to make our church into something it was never intended to be. We are not the First-day Adventist Church. We might like to entertain the possibility of the loosening of the percieved restrictive and eschatological emphasis of our traditional Church. Most classes I have taken all renounce the traditional evangelistic efforts of our Church stating that they are historically inaccurate and outmoded. They are too focused on Rome and not enough on Jesus. I wanted to pursue work as a traditional evangelist but after I was exposed to liberal SDAism, I rarely hear positive comments about evangelistic efforts. They complain of them setting dates and bashing Rome. Now if I want to hear accurate and effective evangelists, I need to watch 3ABN or go to one of the local churches to listen to them and receive what should be intertwined into sermons regularly. But that is asking too much I guess.

1888 spawned a certain type of theological division and has placed Waggoner and Jones on the pedestal of the evangelical champions of the Adventist faith. Now, there is rarely an Adventist that knows traditional Adventist doctrine. Everything is Paul Paul Paul. No more interpreting Daniel and Revelation. Forget about the OT. Somebody pinch me. There is a great sermon by Jay Gallimore that you should read if you are so inclined. http://www.greatcontroversy.org/reportandreview/gal-relevancy.php3

My main gripe is that I am surrounded by these issues and it seems when I start to express my concern I am hushed as intolerant and judgmental. When do I get to say my piece? Does God speak to me in His still small manner? Well here is what He is telling me. Dont reject the writings of the prophet EW. Dont sacrifice principle to become relevant. etc...

The problem is that it (1888)shouldnt be eclipsing the three-angels messages and the other pillars that the SOP identifies. Righteousness by faith, sure, but lets not use the argument as a means to undermine Sabbath relevance. IMHO things are way out of hand and need reigning-in. We are getting much too liberal in our interpretation of what liberal arts colleges should focus on as SDA schools.

I hope this supplies some points for you to ponder. I hope you could at least understand these some from my perspective. I am seven years new to this church and I appreciated what I heard initially. I feel lately like that is now something that church pastors and administrators are marginalizing and saying it isnt good enough because that is not how Jesus works. I know it does, I have seen and heard for myself. Praise God for honest and uncompromised evangelistic teams.

[wicklunds]

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Seventh-day Adventism is ballanced between liberals and conservatives, law and grace, and have the principles of historisism while others are either preterists or futurists, but our use of historisism has become majorly corrupted by taking the evidence we have presented but view them from a futerists/fundamentalists perspective.

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Kevin,

Thank you for providing key details that I did not. I do have questions though about the above point. How is it that we are viewing the historicist interpretation from a futurist/fundamentalist perspective? Can you give an example to flesh out what you are saying? How is this compromising the historicist perspective? Thank you.

Dennis

[there buster]

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I guess I do not see how the particular testimony corroborates with the assertion that many Adventists are paranoid about ecumenism.

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That's because it was corroboration of the next sentence: I see two ecumenical movements at the end of time, one good and one bad.

[Kevin H]

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Seventh-day Adventism is ballanced between liberals and conservatives, law and grace, and have the principles of historisism while others are either preterists or futurists, but our use of historisism has become majorly corrupted by taking the evidence we have presented but view them from a futerists/fundamentalists perspective.

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Kevin,

Thank you for providing key details that I did not. I do have questions though about the above point. How is it that we are viewing the historicist interpretation from a futurist/fundamentalist perspective? Can you give an example to flesh out what you are saying? How is this compromising the historicist perspective? Thank you.

Dennis

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Hi Dennis:

As I understand it (and sadly I'm depending on secondary to third level sources for the information on these two men, and I'm sorry that I don't know the spelling of their names) the method of historisism that we are familiar with was first suggested by a Biship who's name started with the letter "A" Augustsomething-- but he was instramental in the final list of the books for the New Testament. There was controversy over his inclusion of Revelation. Apperently he defended it by acknowleging that it was first written about events dealing with the Domitian persecution, but that you could apply what could have happened there and find them being [i'm using the terms "Types"] of what will happen over history, with the different churches representing the condition of the church at different stages of history.

But the church got away from that when St. Augustine (if I remember correctly) went from historisism to spiritualizing and analogiseing away Revelation.

Historisism returned when Jeochoin of Flore began receiving visions, shared his visions and was accepted by the Church as having the authentic gift of prophecy, yes a prophet. His basic principles was that Revelation was not an analogy as the church said, but would teach the church about events that were happening and would guide the church through the events that would lead to the actual second coming of Jesus.

The principles of Jeochoin was accepted by many, and as history went on, and more knowlege of the Bible they would modify the applications of the principles behind his visions.

Although the church proclaimed him a true prophet, and he was the spiritual guide for a pope, as many church leaders were more interested in earthly power and temperal wealth than spirituality, these leaders did not pay attention to Jeoachim's prophecys. However others who did continue to study and apply and modify the principles of Jeoachim came to the understanding that the Pope was meeting many of the principles they saw in Daniel's little horn, and the Beast of Revelation 13, and the Protestant Reformation grew out of his visions and prophetic ministry.

But the method had been liquid, and would be modified as historical changes came and as more was known about the Bible.

In the late 1800s Protestantism split into two groups, the modernists, who did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, and took a method of studying prophecy called preterism, where the prophecy has ONLY a local application for the time of the writer and no other revelance. The second trend was a reaction to modernism called fundamentalism, where they believed in God, the inspiration of the scripture, and God active in history and thus predictions in the scripture that apply to us today. But in their defence of scripture, they took a very narrow view of inspiration, and choose the methods of futurism to do away with the "if"s in scripture and make everything set in concrete.

What we have done with our interpetations over the years is change historisism from a principle that could be modified as we learned more about both history and scripture, we have made the applications as concreate as the Dispensationalists have with theirs.

Today we can learn lessons on the correct view of historisism in Scrupture. We find that texts had local applications with a plan for the current generation to either be the last generation, or to prepare for their children to be the next generation. (Both Mrs. White and SDA Bible Commentary are correct in the chapters "Distroyed for lack of knowlege" and "The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy). But the people had a cyclic (as opposed to linier) view of history where events cycle around again (See Henri Frankfort and others, Before Philosophy, 1946[about]University of Chicago Press, and a book titled "The Myth of the Eternal Return") [This cyclic view of history is the key for the year-day principle] and if the event is not fulfulled at that time, history will cycle around again where the principles will apply and be fulfilled.

Let me warn you that this next part may be a little complicated, but I'll try to use some clearer examples a little later. For the first example, in the book of Amos we find two writing styles, in the first there is no mention of Judah, it is written in a nice poetic form where Israel is the 7th nation mentioned and the whole book applies to Israel. The second style are comments that interupt the poetry pattern, makes Judah the 7th nation, and applies the cursed that were focused on Israel to Judah.

For some other examples: Deuteronomy gives two possible routes that history could take. One is what would happen if the Hebrew nations (Judah and Israel) lived in the land and was faithful, and the world would come to and join the Hebrew nations. The other is if they were unfaithful, God would send curses to encourage them to repent, but if nothing worked, then they were to go into exile. In exile they were to share with their neighbors their unfaithfulness, but their God's faithfulness, and that the exile would be the last days ending by God coming to take them home.

Daniel 1-6 was based on this theology, that they were living in the last days and that the exile would end with the Messiah leading a second great exodus home to set up God's kingdom. Daniel 7 and 8 are transision chapters where the exile could be the last days, but opened the possibility of time continuing beyond the exile, with Daniel 7 leaning towards the exile being the last days, and Daniel 8 leading away from it (Daniel 8 happened to be written approxamately 2300 days from the end of Babylon). Then Daniel 9-12 is focused on what Israel is now supose to do since the exile would not be the last days, the return home would not be a glorious exodus lead by the messiah, but they were to go back and reinstate and reapply Deuteronomy's land theology, and restart the 2300 evenings-mornings to the decree to rebuild and restore. These chapters actually teach what would have happened had Jesus been accepted.

Moving on to Revelation, when the people in the 7 churches first heard the book read they did not leave scratching their heads and saying "What was that all about?" neither did they leave saying "The Pope is coming, and after that the United States" but they saw the book relatied to their current events. Although many liked names equaling 666 due to the mystical powers seen in it, the believers would have equated it with the name Nero, and also Nimrod. Although Cagulia was the first to go to an extream of taking emperor divinity and worship serious, he was more suffering from mental illness than crulety. But Nero continued but out of crulety and had such a horrible persecution of the Christians. After his death the persecution was not that severe. Then came Domitiation who, sounded as much like the little horn in Daniel as the Pope does, who was renewing the persecutation of Nero. Any renewal of the Nero persecution fits the principle of 666.

The true principle of historisism is to look at what could have happened at the time the text was written and see how the principle has been reapplied over history, and we will know what to do when a similar event comes again, because the prophecy was not only meant for that time, but is the living word of God who sees the end from the begining.

I hope this was not too confusing, but to summerise and hopefully clearify. All prophecys had local applications, and historisism is allowing the principles guide us through similar situations, trusting that God knows the future and that what we learn from back then will help us when the time comes, the final cycle that takes in the whole world. Preterism has the word of God dead and limited to the time of the writing. Futurism keeps trying to figure out the future from the words of scripture and their imagination. Historisism gives us a more sure word of prophecy as we can study what could have happened back then, see similar examples throughout history, and while we may not have the specifics of the future, we have the living word of God which gives us the principles that we can apply when it is needed from what we have learned from the past.

Had they been faithful in spreading the Gospel in Babylon, Daniel 2 could have been fulfilled in the 4 kings: Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus and what would happen after Cyrus. Through historisism we expand Daniel's prophecy over history to kingdoms: Babylon, Medio-persia, Greece, Rome, feet of iron and clay (Holy Roman Empire-Papal Supremicy), toes of iron and clay (No world empire, but independent nations) and an attempt for the toes to join together, but which ultamately does not suceed and ends in total chaos (a coming world empire, whch we learn in Revelation 18 is based on a world-wide economic system and uniting under economic cooperation, and rather than being forced like the other empiers, the nations will be flattered and coaxed and seduceed into joining by the deception of the two horned beast. But this will eventually end in Chaos and earth becoming a wasteland where all life would end were it not for the second coming.) Even Stephen Haskel noticed this 7 part of Daniel 2 (and this corrisponds to the 7 heads of Rev. 13), but our typical Adventist goes no further than Uriah Smith, and since the Reformers lived during the 5th period, then the antichrist of the 5th period must be the ONLY antichrist in the whole scheam, and what was pressent truth for them, and what was God's way to lead them for events they faced at their point in history, we have made as the ONLY truth for us and for later points of history.

We need to give up the inflexability of the Fundamentalists, to the flexability of our historisists forefathers. We need to stop speculating about the future, but look at the local application and other applications through out history as types that will lead us to the great antitype. Also, a weak point of earlier historism was their lack of knowlege of the historical context of the writings of the text, thus the applications had a tendency of being hit or miss. Some very good applications, some very poor. We need to mix the historicist's principles with modern Bible study, and as we learn more about what could have happened back then, the better we can be in making accurate applications. We are in the right ball park, but if we are afraid of serious, deep study of the Bible but only repeat tradition we will be in trouble.

I hope this helps.

[wicklunds]

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I guess I do not see how the particular testimony corroborates with the assertion that many Adventists are paranoid about ecumenism.

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That's because it was corroboration of the next sentence: I see two ecumenical movements at the end of time, one good and one bad.

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okay. I suppose I could see it that way but I guess I see ecumenism in a more traditional sense. Mostly those Advenitists who stay in the church under a veneer of Adventism but fight to be more inclusive of Romish ecclesiology. This is spurious and will lead many souls astray. If that is what you meant by the type of ecumenism that leads those out of the church, then I agree.