There have been several reports and responses to General Conference President Ted N.C. Wilson’s, Sabbath sermon during the 2021 Annual Council in Spring Maryland. I spent some time reading and listening to the last 2 Annual Council Sermons. The 2021 Sermon “Trust God’s Prophetic Word in the Coming Conflict” and the 2020 Sermon “God Will Have A People” This is my analysis of the implications of both together, as usual my take is far different from what one reads on most of the Adventist Media outlets.
Both of Ted Wilson’s sermons are pretty much the same though I will point out that the 2020 sermon does an admirable job of pointing out just what Adventists think the messages of the 3 Angels of Revelation 14 are. This is important because I have long said that the Adventist use of the 3 Angels messages is simply a shorthand way of saying Seventh-Day-Adventist distinctive doctrinal beliefs. In this sermon we hear that very clearly pointed out with no obfuscation which normally occurs when you ask an Adventist what are the 3 Angel’s messages.
Ted Wilson set forth a list of bullet points which I quote below with excerpts. If you are familiar with them you can skip to the Implications section.
1. The Word of God Not Accepted as Authoritative
“The Spirit of Prophecy indicates we should read the Bible as it reads…” “…Seventh-day Adventists believe in the historical-biblical or historical-grammatical approach, allowing the Bible to interpret itself line upon line, precept upon precept, verse upon verse. We believe in the historicist approach to prophecy, not the preterist or futurist approaches. The historical-biblical hermeneutical method is the only method accepted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”
2. Attempts to Diminish the Spirit of Prophecy
“The Spirit of Prophecy was given by God through Ellen G White as special instructions to God’s last-day church and is verified by Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 19:10. The Spirit of Prophecy is absolutely reliable and is to be believed and accepted in its entirety. Ellen White was absolutely a prophet of God and her ministry including strong messages from the throne room of God about apocalyptic prophecy and instruction are for all time. As we read the Spirit of Prophecy we are convinced of its accuracy, truthfulness, and relevancy.”
3. Misconceptions of Justification and Sanctification
“Christ’s righteousness encompasses His justifying and sanctifying power and is at the very core of the three angels’ messages. It is through Christ’s justification that we can be righteous in the Father’s eyes. It is through Christ’s sanctification that we can keep the commandments of God.”
4. Denial of the Urgency of the Times
“However, in the Bible, God has provided many signs indicating Jesus' return. We are very close!”
5. Humanism versus Heavenly Inspiration
“My fellow leaders, fight against humanism and lift up heavenly inspiration according to His word!” [He does not define humanism.[ Humanism is defined as:
1. A system of thought that focuses on humans and their values, capacities, and worth. 2. A cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized human potential to attain excellence and promoted direct study of the literature, art, and civilization of classical Greece and Rome. 3. The study of the humanities; learning in the liberal arts.]
6. Disregard for the Sanctuary Service and the Gospel Message
“…Promote and teach the sanctuary doctrine with Christ, His righteousness, and the everlasting gospel at the center. Biblical prophecies are real and Daniel 8:14 is absolutely rock solid. Don't believe anybody who says, “Oh no, that was only 2,300 literal days and it ended with someone called Antiochus Epiphanes.” No, my friends, don't believe that. We use the biblical day/year principle given to interpret prophecy. Allow the Bible to interpret itself. The historicist approach shows us that history has accurately unfolded according to His Word!”
7. Ecumenism versus The Shaking and Sifting of God’s Church
“I strongly urge you to stay away from ecumenism. Instead, focus on the proclamation of the three angels’ messages. Believe what The Great Controversy says about the end time setting when the shaking and sifting of the church will take place…”
8. Congregationalism versus God’s Worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Remnant Church
“There are those who wish to focus only on local church and community settings ignoring the worldwide family of Seventh-day Adventists in about 215 countries…”
9. Attacks against the Godhead
“There are those who advocate that the Godhead is not three distinct Persons thus diminishing God. We know from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy that there is absolutely a Godhead made up of three Persons united in One…”
10. Opposition to God’s Law and His Ten Commandments
There are those who will say the law has been done away; however, God’s law is eternal. We do not keep God’s law, the ten commandments, through our own power but only as we lean on Christ and His righteousness… This will be our test.”
11. Evolution versus Biblical Creation
The devil has attempted to obliterate all references to God’s authority as the Creator, including the erroneous idea that the earth evolved over billions of years. Both evolution and theistic evolution are opposed to the account of creation found in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. The global flood, also denigrated by non-believers, is another indication of God’s power and authority to remake the world…”
12. Aberrant Lifestyle Behavior versus Biblical View of Sexuality
This subject is a delicate one, but we cannot be silent on what the Bible teaches as correct living and practice. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has carefully studied these topics and has issued voted statements by representatives of the world church that reflect the biblical view on human sexuality including statements on homosexuality and transgenderism. ..”
13. Rejection of Temperance versus God’s Comprehensive Health Ministry and Health Reform
“…The devil will use anything to distract people from God’s laws of health and health reform, but God has given us enormous counsel in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy for living a healthy lifestyle. Read and follow it as part of the third angel’s message to stay away from anything that will defile you. My fellow church leaders and members, stay faithful to God’s pure health principles. According to His Word!”
14. Disastrous Influences of Eastern Mysticism
The devil is using eastern mysticism to bring in all sorts of syncretistic beliefs into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including pantheism and other forms of aberrant theological twisting of the Word of God...”
Implications
This article is not an attempt to counter any of Ted Wilson’s points. I have read several articles in the past few weeks from the Progressive Adventist viewpoints that dealt with some of these 14 points. I want to point out that these 14 points are pretty much in line with the views of Traditional Adventists. There might be a couple that some Traditional Adventist would quibble with, however I can say that there is relatively few on this list that Progressive Adventists would say are important and we must accept and teach these denominational concepts. Most notably I would point to the authority of Ellen White as a prophet and assertion that we must believe in a recent 6 day creation and literal worldwide flood.
As equally to be rejected by the Progressive Adventist is the Historicist view of history and the dismissal of anything but a “historical-biblical or historical-grammatical approach, allowing the Bible to interpret itself line upon line, precept upon precept, verse upon verse”. The statement, “line upon line…” is interesting since it reflects an Ellen White viewpoint that is based on a misused Bible verse. The context of the verse in Isa 28:10 indicates that those erring teachers (vs. 7 “they err in vision, they stumble in judgment”) who use repetition without imagery or illustration and without an appeal to understanding or respect for reason.
Several of the statements on this list would seem to many Progressive Adventists to encourage what is often termed Last Generation Theology. Some of the articles from Progressives also took the political progressive view of LGBT+ non-affirmation as their most important take away from the 2021 sermon.
This leads to the question the members of the SDA denomination should be asking themselves. Which of these points is important and which ones can be discarded. If I as a Traditional Adventist am in agreement with Ted Wilson, I would say none of them must be discarded and all must be proclaimed as essential to our denomination? If I as a Progressive Adventist say I disagree with most all of Ted Wilson’s points, I would think that most of those points should be discarded. What would be my essentials that the denomination must proclaim?
It would be interesting to ask the Progressive Adventists that question and if their websites were not so restricted maybe someone could. I do guess that the Progressive Adventist would say their essentials would be fairly nonspecific. Preach the Gospel and likely essential to reject eternal torment in hell and possibly a respect for the park in time of a Sabbath. That seems to be about it, certainly there are other essentials but those would be common among most Christian denominations.
This is the point where the implications of all this really hits me. Why should the Progressive Adventist even try to change the SDA denomination? The Traditionalist would say save the denomination by proclaiming the things on Wilson’s list and the Progressive SDA would say leave those things behind. If this ever becomes a real struggle for the denomination as in if an actual schism occurs there is nothing that the Progressives would give up to the Traditional Adventists. But the Traditional Adventists would have to give up most of their beliefs.
Does it make sense to take away all these things from the Traditional Adventists? Progressive Adventists believe that many of these things the Traditional Adventist believes are harmful to the cause of Christ. Let us for sake of argument say that the Progressive Adventists are correct and many of these teachings hurt the cause of Christ. Would not the best thing be to leave the Adventist system altogether; spend their time on spreading what they believe is the gospel to the world rather than spending their efforts trying to dissuade the Traditional Adventists to change their beliefs. Having the SDA denomination infrastructure would certainly be helpful to the Progressive Adventists but it is not likely to happen is it?
I would assume that Progressive Adventists likely have most of the faculty of SDA colleges and have had them for the last 20 years at least. But because they still cling to Ellen White as something of an authority even if not accepting all her statements they don’t really have a consistent message that could dissuade Traditional Adventists. When you read the two sermons by Ted Wilson you will see that on much of his sermons he backs himself up by using Ellen White. The Traditional Adventist can always point to anyone not accepting Ellen White as a fulfillment of prophecy (making her of none effect). So in simple terms I see no way that Progressive Adventists can get what they want. They can’t even chip away at the Adventist church as they have been doing, as I have been doing for most of my life, because the church is built on Ellen White. To think that the SDA denomination will give up their distinctive message, that 3 angels messages that they think firmly places Ellen White and the Adventist denomination inside the Bible is something that simply will never happen.
At the Adventist Today zoom Sabbath School Class I asked this question:
“Should there be pluralism in the Adventist church? Should there be pluralism in the Adventist Today publication (and website)? I am using the last half of the Cambridge dictionary definition of Pluralism: "...different beliefs and opinions, within the same society" (I am not using the different people groups/culture/races meaning…”
No one there really offered an answer to the question but Loren Seibold did reply at one point: “Ron, we don’t expect the denomination to be pluralistic. Not sure where you got that idea. We have seen little evidence that they want to be.”
My question was not is either the Adventist Church or Adventist Today pluralistic but should they be. It has long been my opinion that Adventist Today has become politically progressive and that is their main emphasis. If a person thought that the Denomination should be pluralistic it would seem appropriate for a website serving other members of the church to also be pluralistic.
But if a Progressive Adventist has no expectation of the denomination being pluralistic what is the point of being a Progressive Adventist?
One thing that is quite a big difference between the Traditional and the Progressive Adventist is that the Traditional Adventists are pretty sure that what people believe in the way of doctrines is important for their salvation. I can say that for myself and many of the people who attend the AToday Sabbath school class this is not their belief. I place myself in the Universalism camp. See my article What About Universalism which interestingly enough was first published in Adventist Today back before I was persona non grata there. While that may still be a minority view of Progressive Adventists, most certainly believe that Adventism is not now or in the future a requirement for salvation. You will notice that ecumenism was one of the things on Wilson’s list.
While I would love to persuade the Traditional Adventist of my Progressive Adventist views because I think it is closer to the truth and better for society and better for the cause of Christ. It is not to me a salvation issue for them to change. The Traditional Adventist expects that people who are not totally in on the Adventist belief system to be shaken out of the church, to be shaken out as non-believers that is a salvation issue!
So I can’t see any reason to be a Progressive Adventist. Certainly not if I was like Loren Seibold and thought that the Adventist church is never going to be open to different beliefs and opinions in the denomination. I in fact do agree with Seibold on that. How much effort should Progressive Adventist put in on changing what does not want to be changed? Traditional Adventists certainly have the right to their chosen beliefs and it should not be too much trouble for me to accept their beliefs as I accept so many other people’s beliefs. My having been raised in the same denomination as them should at the very least make me more accepting of their beliefs. So again what is the point in being a Progressive Adventist?
There is as far as I can see only one reason for Progressive Adventists to continue. It is not however a good reason, it is a quest for power and control. That is, to attempt to take over churches and schools from the control of the Adventist denomination.
I have been what I have called a Progressive Adventist for over 20 years, (See The Problem of Progressive Adventists ) though back then I always noted it was not at all related to political progressive. 8 or 9 years ago places like Adventist Today and Spectrum merged with political progressivism and I used the term much less. Today I feel it is time to complete the dissolution of the term Progressive Adventist. I no longer see any use for the term and no benefit to continue it at all. Thus it is not only the end of a term but the end of my involvement with Seventh-Day Adventists. I appreciate the history I have with the church and people. I wish the church well and do not want to see a schism disrupt the people. So I offer this to all of Adventism, but as I am always learning if anyone can explain to me a reason for Progressive Adventism I look forward to hearing it.
