Another Aunt Sevvy lie

Adventist Today's Another Aunt Sevvy Purposeful Deception or Illiterate Interpretation?

By Ron Corson

 It never ceases to amaze me how the writers over at Adventist Today lie so often. I suppose they write for a select group of people who will only agree with their writers and who won’t even bother to check out what they say. Take this for example from the anonymous Dear Aunt Sevvy:

If you don’t believe in 1844, why remain Adventist, Aunty?

One General Conference official has written that religious liberty in the church means you can leave if you don’t agree with what it officially stands for. Because he sees it only from the office at the top, he doesn’t understand what a church is. 

Here is what the article by Clifford Goldstein said back in 2013:

All this leads to the gist of what constitutes true religious freedom issues, and why I would, as Liberty editor, often tell those church members who wanted to drag us into their church disputes, "Sorry, wrong department."

Why? Because as already stated, at the most fundamental level, church affiliation is voluntary. You freely choose to be part of that body. The state, and the power of force it wields, has nothing to do with your membership. If something happens that you deem unfair, you are as free to leave that church body, just as you were to join. As long as no state coercion is involved, it's not a religious liberty issue in the classic sense.

So in fact the General Conference official was saying you can leave or join a church that is not the meaning of religious liberty. He states the meaning of religious liberty earlier in the article by saying:

This concept gets to the heart of religious liberty and church-state separation. In essence, people who join churches do so voluntarily. They are there of their own free will. They are not forced to join, and certainly not by the state. By joining a church, one publicly associates oneself, to some degree, with the teachings, mission, and goals of that church. What makes that membership meaningful is, however, the free association with that body. That association, and the public proclamation that comes merely by linking oneself to the name of the church, has potency only because one has freely chosen it. Forced membership would all but denude that proclamation of any public witness, of any testimony, public or private, regarding your convictions. You would be there because you had to be, not because you necessarily believed in what the church stood for.

John Locke, one of the patriarchs of religious freedom, wrote in 1698, in the context of religious liberty, that "I may grow rich by an Art that I take not delight in; I may be cured of some Disease by Remedies that I have not faith in; but I cannot be saved by a Religion I distrust, and by a Worship that I abhor."

It is hard to believe any thinking person could produce what the Aunt Sevvy column says. 
There was only one place in the Clifford Goldstein article that actually used the word "leave" and in that same paragraph, it says leaving your church is not religious liberty in the classic sense. Then she continues by saying that he does not understand what church is. To believe that this is just misinterpreting a fairly simple article is hard to believe. It appears that it is meant as an attack on Clifford Goldstein, without actually mentioning his name though he is a constant nemesis for the people at Adventist Today. So the answer is pretty clearly not a simple misinterpretation of the article that Aunt Sevvy linked to. No, it is an attempt to fool people into thinking someone at the General Conference said something very dumb. Of course, the writer who remains anonymous could have given the quote from the article linked to but as that would not work at all with the writer's intentions they only linked to the article hoping that if the reader actually opened the article they would see Goldstein's name and let their bias take over. 

 I am sure though if their comments section worked many would praise the column. But as of now perhaps the Adventist Today site was hacked as when you click on their link to comment it takes you to a page that says

This content isn't available right now When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.

It has been a few days and I don’t think they have even noticed!

 Update: 10-12-22

So it does turn out that I have been blocked from viewing the public posts of Adventist Today. I did not think that was possible but searching the internet led me to an article on how the administrator can do that even though it is not something mentioned on FaceBook's Help Center. It did sound like it would take a bit of time but since they apparently don't edit out errors in their articles they seem to have time to do it. It does appear from the first answer in the comments that the insertion of the false information had its desired effect.

G.W. 

"This is a great reply from Aunt Sevvy!

The flip side to this conversation is, "I don't feel comfortable around the leaders of my church, and those within their circles.

They seem to be looking for ways to exclude me.

I have no problem with doctrinal differences, but being at church doesn't feel comfortable.

Can I ask those people to leave?"

 

Goldstein...you don't belong!

Today I saw and interview with Clifford Goldstein on 3ABN The show was 3ABN Today. I saw it on 5-16-2015 though I don't know if that was the original air date or not. In this portion which I have recorded and placed on YouTube Goldstein the following is stated:

Interviewed by Shelly Quinn on 3ABN Today; speaking of a new series Goldstein is introducing on the 3ABN channel:

“…Why would Adventists want to watch your program, who already believe in the Bible?”

Goldstein:

“Well we are all assaulted by this in the church being assaulted by this, we are also in the church being assaulted by evolution by a lot of you know even professed Adventists who believe in evolution and I am sorry if you believe that God used millions of years what they now call neo-darwinian synthesis to create life you do not belong in the Seventh-day Adventist church.”

Quinn:

“I agree”

Goldstein:

“You don’t  belong  here, some people say they can reconcile it well I think they are being deluded. But there are a lot, particularly our young people who tend to be a lot more honest  and if I were a young Seventh–day Adventist and I were convinced that evolution were true I don’t know how I could remain a Seventh-day Adventist…”

 

There are a number of problems here. First he miss defines Neo-Darwinian synthesis apparently conflating it with Theistic Evolution.  The definitions follow later. The really key problem here is that his view produces a self fulfilling prophecy. His view is that if Adventists believe that God used millions of years then you don't belong in the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. Then in his estimation if you are a young person who believes in evolution (apparently any kind, I don't know, let us for this article assume he just means that evolution was a involved in millions of years to get to life that we see today) then you simply could not remain an SDA. Why would that be? The simple answer is because people like him say that you don't belong. He then thinks that these young people are more honest then those older deluded Adventists who came to realize the reality as they see it in the principles of evolution and the evidence for an earth that is much older then traditional Adventism says. These older people did not have people in General Conference leadership roles telling them they did not belong in the SDA church. Well he clearly is out to fix that! They simply don't belong!

 

The Adventist church has somewhat allowed the divergent beliefs of those who can synthesize modern science and theology but it has become an exceedingly unfriendly place for such people. After all why be part of a group that says you don't belong. Not something I would fight to remain in, but that may be because I find so many other problems in the SDA church.

 

If any of you think that this is simply about the wording of a fundamental belief to be decided at the upcoming General Conference session...you are in for a disappointment.

 

Now for some definitions.

        

Theistic evolution is the teaching that God used natural evolutionary processes to bring     life  to its current level of speciation. Theistic evolution would deny the specific creative act of God in bringing the person of Adam, who would be the first human and the representative of mankind, into existence.https://carm.org/dictionary-theistic-evolution

 

Theistic Evolution would include most of the variants of Intelligent Design and has been the view of notable Christians such as C.S. Lewis: "C.S. Lewis clearly believed that Christians can accept evolution as common descent without doing violence to their faith. This is what Lewis was getting at when he wrote to evolution critic Bernard Acworth, "I believe that Christianity can still be believed, even if evolution is true."¹⁸ In Lewis's view, whether God used common descent to create the first human beings was irrelevant to the truth of Christianity. As he wrote to one correspondent late in his life, "I don't mind whether God made man out of earth or whether 'earth' merely means 'previous millennia of ancestral organisms.' If the fossils make it probable that man's physical ancestors 'evolved,' no matter." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/darwin_in_the_d_1079231.html

 

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago. http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php1. T

The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis (also called the "Synthetic Theory of Evolution")

• formulated during the decade 1937-1947.

• updated Darwin's ideas using new information from many scientific fields.

• main features of this view are mutation and natural selection.

• genetic mutations produce variation within a population (Darwin could not explain variation).

• natural selection preserves the most fit varieties within a species, as explained by Darwin.

• macroevolution is simply microevolution extrapolated.

• evolution is slow, gradual, and continuous, as held by Darwin.

• this view has difficulty explaining the fossil record with its lack of transitional forms.

In the 1930s and '40s evolutionists worked to incorporate new data from various subdisciplines of biology into a revised version of classical Darwinism. The primary focus on natural selection was maintained, but other aspects of Darwin's thinking were updated.  http://www.creationbc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=124&Itemid=62

 

You can see that there is a large division between Neo-Darwinian Synthesis and Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design...that being the unseen hand of God somehow at work. Which makes Goldstein's use in the sentence completely wrong. "I am sorry if you believe that God used millions of years what they now call neo-Darwinian synthesis to create life you do not belong in the Seventh-day Adventist church.” If he meant to say that naturalistic atheistic evolution then I could agree because why be a part of a theistic church if you don't believe there is a God then I would not have a problem with his view. But since in the sentence he specifically said "if you believe that God used" and then reference an entirely naturalistic evolutionary process his statement does not work on any level. Sadly like the interviewer Shelly Quinn there are far to many people who will simply agree with Goldstein's incorrect logic and use of terms.

 

 

 

Redefining Theology, Goldstein and Genesis

There was an interesting comment over on the Spectrum Magazine blog concerning Clifford Goldstein's March 2012 article in the Adventist Review, the subject of my previous article. In the comment section one atheist/former (you have to know his history of comments to know this fact it is not present in this comment) Adventist writes:

“All of you seem to have skipped Cliff's challenge: "For years I’ve been asking someone to give me a reinterpretation of the texts, based on the Darwinian worldview, that doesn’t undermine almost everything we believe: the trustworthiness of the Bible, the origin of sin and death, the character of God, and the meaning of the cross."

In the interest of not repeating the same old arguments and posts we've seen so many times before, why not seriously address his point. Cliff's argument is not with science per se; his point is that he is not willing, under any circumstance, to give up on the Christian gospel. If evolution allowed him to keep his faith intact, he would be happy to acknowledge the science behind it, if I read him correctly. The reason I think he is so angry at you is that he believes that you're eroding the ground upon which Christianity is built.”

I think this raises an important observation, Goldstein has not seen anyone produce a theistic evolutionary response that leaves in tact all of Goldstein's theological assumptions. No one really tries to answer Goldstein because it can't be done and contain all of Goldstein's assumptions that make what Goldstein considers the gospel. In brief what does his view of the trustworthiness of the Bible mean. Well he means that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are literal and historically accurate. Something no theistic evolutionary accepting Christian would accept. So to Goldstein to deny the literalness denies the trustworthiness of the Bible. But for those of us who accept theistic evolution trustworthiness is not based upon literalness.

The origin of sin and death is not really the topic of the first chapters of Genesis. Sin is not even mentioned until the story of Cain and Abel. Death is mentioned as a consequence of actions. Because of Adam and Eve's actions the tree of life is removed from their access. The story is hardly about the origin of sin and death, even Adventists seem to acknowledge that sin originated with Satan and Satan is not even mentioned in the Genesis story. He is a later addition to Jewish thought and then attributed to be the serpent of old in the book of Revelation. So even to the Adventist the subject is not the origin of sin.

What Goldstein means by the character of God I don't know, I would guess from his article he is thinking; how can God create through a system of death where animals and plants grow change and die and evolve. Apparently it is OK for God to make animals become predators upon others and virus and plants to attack and kill a host because God is upset by human sin. But he has to draw the line somewhere and he choses the evolution of nature to be somehow contrary to the character of God. Personally I don't see any problem with death before Adam and Eve, the assumption that it is not involved in the Genesis story seems wrong to me as the people in the story eat. So they are destroying cellular material and that is death. This is not a real problem unless you take the perfect world idea to it's logical conclusion, bacteria would grow and exponential rates and cover the earth in less then a week (maybe even 24 hours) if there was no death. The story is not trying to tell us there was no death, that is something people like to read into the story. Goldstein's assumptions are part of the things read into the story and he wants them maintained when they should be let go.

Last is his meaning of the cross. Goldstein is a forensic atonement person. I don't accept the substitutionary atonement, so I really would not find my meaning of the cross to be the same as Goldstein. In fact I think the substitutionary atonement theory speaks terribly about the character of God.

So can anyone do what Goldstein wants done? No, because what he wants is to find his beliefs encompassed with a totally different understanding of theology. His view is traditional but that hardly makes it correct. Traditions come and go, they are constantly adjusted and changed and just because they are traditional does not prevent their evolution. But that is what Goldstein wants; his tradition to be maintained, if not he can't accept anything else. But that really does not leave him in the position of authority in rejecting other views. It only means he won't look at anything other then the way he sees things.

The atheist commenter on Spectrum wants us to admit that the idea of evolution destroys the gospel. It does not, it destroys the fundamentalist or the traditionalists gospel. But is that really a bad thing?

Adventist Review publishes smear terms.

I may have been too hard on the editors of Liberty Magazine and Adventist Today online. It could be that Adventists are simply incapable of being sensible editors of any publication. Consider this from the March 15 2012 Adventist Review:

No question, Genesis 1 and 2 present challenges. Bible students have been trying to work their way through the Creation account for thousands of years. The issue isn’t that the texts aren’t without difficulties; everyone knows that they are. The issue is the “solution” Seventh-day Darwinians want to impose upon them.

So who are the Seventh-day Darwinians? Is there a definition in the article by Clifford Goldstein? No, no definition. Can we find it in the dictionary or Wikipedia. Not listed there either. Maybe there is an organization called “seventh-day Darwinians” Again no.

But we can search the internet and see that the Adventist Review and Clifford Goldstein has published articles using the term before. In 2003 Goldstein wrote an article entitled Seventh-day Darwinians. No definition there either, in fact the title is the only mention in the article of Seventh-day Darwinians. Then Again in the Adventist Review again in an article by Clifford Goldstein we read another article entitled Seventh-Day Darwinians,Redux. Again I suppose that is what the Redux means, the term Seventh-Day Darwinians is only found in the title of the article, again no definition, no reference to the group known as Seventh-day Darwinians, it appears to be some kind of smear or code language. 

Should the editors be publishing articles with terms that have no definition? Or should opponents of an idea be free to title someone of a different view as with prejudicial terms. For instance should I refer to Goldstein’s articles as information geared toward Seventh-day Totalitarians? 

It is rather sad that in Adventism Darwinian has this biased negative view put forth by people like Goldstein. Darwinism actually has a dictionary definition. And it is perfectly acceptable within the bounds of Christian theology as well as science.

Dictionary.com defines Darwinism as:

the Darwinian theory that species originate by descent, with variation, from parent forms, through the natural selection of those individuals best adapted for the reproductive success of their kind.

 

Or the American Heritage Science Dictionary as:

A theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Darwin's ideas have been refined and modified by subsequent researchers, but his theories still form the foundation of the scientific understanding of the evolution of life. Darwinism is often contrasted with another theory of biological evolution called Lamarckism,  based on the now-discredited ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.  See Note at evolution.

The acceptance of natural selection is pretty universal among biologists, not just atheist but also Christians, numerous examples of this type of natural selection have been produced. In fact I know of one Adventist who wrote book on Dinosaurs (though not a scientifically viable opinion on dinosaurs) who uses natural selection (Darwinism) to explain the immense diversity of animal life which he asserted to occur after the world wide flood since clearly that many animals would not fit on the ark of such recorded dimensions. He is a supporter of the six literal, consecutive, contiguous, 24-hour days of recent origin creation theory as well. Would a belief in natural selection actually place him in the Seventh-day Darwinian label? I suppose it depends upon who you ask and why do you think you should even respect their answer or ability to define a term that has no definition.

So who is more foolish the writer that uses a prejudicial but meaningless term or the editor that just passes on the prejudicial but meaningless term? They seem to both be doing it multiple times, so it is difficult to say. Perhaps they are equal in their prejudice and poor reasoning capabilities. It seems The Adventist Review editors simply pass on the biases that they agree with. When editors can’t be objective then they fail at their jobs and they fail to maintain a standard of trust of the magazine. This seems to be a theme in Adventism today.

Brain Dead Administation

I think I have figured out the leadership of the Adventist church. Ah you may say no one can figure out their inscrutable minds. After all the Board Chairman at La Sierra University Ricardo Graham recently asked 4 people to resign after listening to a secret recording of their private conversations. As if private conversations should be supplied to employers for their use in deciding faculty and staff positions. You may think they would not want their words recorded and played back to their constituency. But I think they don't even think about that. It is to Clifford Goldstein that I owe this new understanding of Adventist leadership.

Here is the paragraph that led me to my new understanding:

“The dead, therefore, know no delay in the Second Coming. It’s we, the living, who fret over it, but only because we look from the wrong perspective, the perspective of the living. But that’s too narrow a view, because most people are dead a lot longer than they are alive. From 
the perspective of the dead, things appear quite differently.”

You see if you have perspective of an active and thinking brain you act differently then someone who as Goldstein says in his article: “--what would death do to that experience when we have no brain function or, if dead long enough, no brain?”

So he wants people to look at the wider view of things. That view, that perspective, in his article is that of the inactive, non functioning, dead brain. Are you getting the picture? The goal of the Adventist leadership is to have the wider view of things. The perspective of the dead with no thoughts and no brain. What is the perspective of someone with no brain; normally being brain dead is not a something to be desired but it appears to be good and we are to emulate it and it does appear that the administration at La Sierra University are doing their best not to think. Strange how not thinking and fundamentalism go together, but that is the subject for another day.

Idealogues; impossible to explain to them

I could not think how to point out this problem with President Obama in a way that reflected the purpose of this blog until I read something from Clifford Goldstein this last week. First President Obama, in an example of saying one thing the opposite of what is true. At the recent Obama question and answer session at the House Republican Retreat in Baltimore President Obama in referring to a fictional account of some none existent Republican plan that was to do twice as much as Obama’s plan and cost nothing Obama said:

“And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs -- why would I resist that? I wouldn't. I mean, that's my point, is that -- I am not an ideologue. I'm not. It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me you could do this cheaper and get increased results that I wouldn't say, great. The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made.”

Notice the part where he says I am not an ideologue. An ideologue by the dictionary definition is:

1 : an impractical idealist : theorist
2 : an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology

It is the second definition that is most often used, a partisan advocate of a particular idea.

Notice later in the speech how Obama verifies that he is an ideologue:

“Now, what I said at the State of the Union is what I still believe: If you can show me -- and if I get confirmation from health care experts, people who know the system and how it works, including doctors and nurses -- ways of reducing people's premiums; covering those who do not have insurance; making it more affordable for small businesses; having insurance reforms that ensure people have insurance even when they've got preexisting conditions, that their coverage is not dropped just because they're sick, that young people right out of college or as they're entering in the workforce can still get health insurance -- if those component parts are things that you care about and want to do, I'm game. And I've got -- and I've got a lot of these ideas.”

This is an ideologue position because it puts forth that these components have to be met; even though they cannot be met. For instance any insurance plan that includes preexisting conditions will not reduce people’s premiums because the premiums have to cover more people with already known problems that will require more treatments. If you cover more people who currently don’t have insurance then again those already paying for insurance will have to pay more to cover those who don’t have insurance. Of course the young people just out of college could get health insurance but don’t want to pay for it because they don’t expect to use it that much. So what he has done is present an impossible ideal that he claims if you have a plan that can cover those components he will listen. But of course since there is no plan including that coming from the Congress or the Senate democrats that can do that, clearly the Republicans can’t do the impossible either.

Now why this example is included on a Adventist religion blog is because it is a frequent tactic of Adventist as well as other Christians in dealing with ideas that they oppose. Here is a portion of what Clifford Goldstein recently wrote on the Spectrum blog comments in response to Ron Osborn’s article:

“My big question, as I said, was in reference to evolution and the cross, because I can't see how evolution can be true and the cross, at least the subtitionary model (the only model the Bible teaches [I know that's a zinger on here]) could possibly be reconciled with it. I was waiting for your response to that.

I must admit I was disappointed. Is what you wrote above your answer? If so, then I am confirmed even more in my belief that one has to chose evolution, or Jesus, but not both.

Your words, "Or does this narrative in fact keep the cross as far away from the creation as possible? The standard legal-forensic model of Christ’s death may in fact be a desperate attempt to isolate the creation story in Genesis in a way that allows us to read it without any reference to Christ at all" . . . ? Maybe I'm missing something here, but what in the world, brother, are you talking about? Am I alone in finding those two lines uncomprehensible?

Can anyone on this blog give me a logical, coherent, biblical way of harmonizing evolution with the cross? I'm even willing to listen to someone harmonize a Maxwellian-subjective-view of atonement with evolution, if they can. “

Goldstein even while challenging someone to show him an alternate view posits that his view is the only real view anyway. In other words he sets himself up in the ideologue position. He is asking for someone to explain a different view from his own that incorporates all of his already preconceived notions. Particularly his Substitutionary view of Atonement. He says: “at least the subtitionary model (the only model the Bible teaches…)” and then later says “Can anyone on this blog give me a logical, coherent, biblical way of harmonizing evolution with the cross? I'm even willing to listen to someone harmonize a Maxwellian-subjective-view of atonement with evolution, if they can.” Setting up the impossible mission where the subjective view of atonement most be based upon the Biblical version which he has already told us is only Substitutionary. There is thus absolutely no way for anyone to present a logical coherent view that will be viewed as logical and coherent to Clifford Goldstein. The ideologue position prevents the ideologue from ever listening to anything that is not their position even if their position is impractical.

This does remind me that I have to finish my article which may help answer Cliff’s question. But even as you read it you will realize that there are vast differences in ways of interpreting things that have to be considered. You can’t declare this is what has to be incorporated for me to accept the idea behind theistic evolution and the reconciliation to God through the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. I even doubt that people like Cliff would read to the end of part two and maybe that is why it has taken me so long to work on part 3. See: Ecclesiastes the Anti-Fundamentalist Book

Why won't Goldstein take on Historic Adventists

Cliff Goldstein is not alone in his dismissal of “Thinking Adventists”. The following is from Lancashire Evening Post:

Bishop blames intellectuals for Church's decline

12 November 2008 By Sonja Astbury

The leader of Lancashire's Roman Catholics has blamed education for the Church's decline.

In an interview with a Catholic news agency Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue, the retiring Bishop of Lancaster, said university-educated Catholics were misinterpreting Church teachings.

In Catholic newpaper The Tablet Bishop O'Donoghue is reported to have said: "The Second Vatican Council tends to be misinterpreted most by Catholics with a university education – this is, by those most exposed to the intellectual and moral spirit of the age.

"These well-educated Catholics have gone on to occupy influential positions in education, the media, politics and even the Church, where they have been able to spread their so-called loyal, dissent, causing confusion and discord in the whole church."

A week or so ago I posted the link to my blog article on Thinking Adventists on Cliff Goldstein’s Adventist Today Blog. In it I mentioned that I recently got a copy of a newsletter/newpaper (Eternal Gospel Herald ) from some historic Adventists, one of the editors being Ron Spear. I mentioned that I did not want any part of their brand of Adventism. Cliff responded that he did not want any part of their brand of Adventism either. My post where I said that is no longer on Cliff’s blog and neither is the response Goldstein made. Gone I have no idea why but in a later post that is still there I stated the following:

“We read a lot from Cliff about how crazy we progressive, liberal, left wing Adventists are. We even hear from him how we are few in number. So why does he not spend anytime, any columns dealing with crazy rightwing. They are certainly more numerous then Progressive Adventists and very visible, I see their material at our church literature displays all the time.

I will ask this question again on my blog later this week where it can be seen by a larger population. But it is an interesting question isn't it?”

Since Cliff purged his blog of his comment about not wanting to be a part of the Adventism presented by such publications as Ron Spear’s Eternal Gospel Herald you will have to take my word for it or ask someone with a good memory who subscribes to Adventist Today and reads Cliff’s blog. You can read back issues of Eternal Gospel Herald at http://www.eternalgospelherald.com Though they still don’t have the copy up which I received (though some of the articles are recycled from earlier issues). You can certainly get a feel for the paper by looking at their PDF archives. The paper is made up of a lot of material written by SDA church leaders of the 40’s and 50’s and a good deal of criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Most importantly, and the reason I think that Goldstein spends practically no time talking about the far right wing of Adventism, is the many Ellen White quotes used by Historic Adventists. A good example would be this PDF article The Crisis Comes as an Overwhelming Surprise —By Pastor Ron Spear which is filled with Ellen White quotes.

The fact is that these historic Adventists have abundant quotes they can use from Ellen White; we all know just how quotes from Ellen White can be used to pound people over the head so it is little wonder that Goldstein avoids dealing with them. Better no doubt to fight the Progressive Adventists who may counter that Cliff is not logical or is anti-intellectual then to deal with the Historic Adventists who will club him over the head with his own prophet.

Will Clifford Goldstein answer the question I asked on his blog, no I doubt it and will he change his practice and actually deal with the right wing historic Adventists? I hope so but I doubt it.