It's Okay Not to be a Seventh-day Adventist Part 5

This is the final segment in the review of It’s Okay not to be a Seventh-day Adventist. The book ends with much of the same antagonism and misinformation that it began with. It was set under the guise of Transitioning out of Adventism. Of course it would be irrational of me to think that something that began poorly was going to get better with more researched and honest information. But I do confess that I had some hope in that regard. As it stands I don’t think this book should be published or circulated regardless of the occasional good arguments used. The book should be revised but clearly the authors have no interest in doing that. They rather keep claiming that two dozen editors went though the book. Teresa wrote on Bill Cork’s blog :

We had almost two dozen copy editors and people who volunteered to help do “checks” on the book (many were SDA) who said the book was copiously documented–even when they disagreed with my conclusions.

You won’t find attributions to those people in the book, not even in the thanks section which makes me think that these were simply people who were asked to look over the manuscript. As some of you know if a friend asks you to do that you usually say nice things to them about how well they did, few people really spend much time critically analyzing such tasks. Before I get to the part of the book about Transitioning out I am going to cover a few more of those areas where a little research would have helped them and where even some of those copious notes are simply wrong. Yes I have done this before but these really demonstrate the writer’s attitude and sloppy methodology, and remember the authors claim that they aren’t sloppy or inaccurate that it is just over sensitive Adventists. The subject of transitioning out of Adventism is very important so I will deal with my thoughts on the subject in a forthcoming article. Before I move on I see Bill Cork had quite a dialog with Teresa on his blog. There we find that the authors transitioned into the Roman Catholic church.

On page 236-7 under the heading Theological Dissonance the authors write:

An example is the pro-life controversy. Many believe that speaking against abortion will lead to enacting laws to protect unborn humans. They fear that involvement in this political issue will break open the floodgates of morality legislation and lead to blue laws fulfilling the prophecy of their demise. Because this fear is so strong, all attempts at legislating morality are taken as a sign of the end and must be condemned. According to this thought pattern, all legislation that protects their beliefs (and them) is constitutional, but any attempt at laws to protect unborn children would be oppressive and conspiratorial.

So the General Conference has in the past been aligned with the pro-choice movement. 431 [footnote 431 states: George Reid, former head of the Biblical Research Institute, theological arm of the G.C. once told us that Adventists are pro-choice under certain guidelines. Some Adventist-run hospitals perform abortion-on demand.] They will agree that abortion is a terrible offense to God, but cannot agree that there should be laws against it in America. However if this line of reasoning is carried out thoughtfully, we shall reach a very ominous and confusing conclusion. Adventists believe that God would have us sacrifice the lives of unborn children in order to preserve their freedom to go to church on Saturday. It comes down to this – their lives or others’ lives. This is in direct opposition to scripture that says there is no greater love than this, that a man should give his life to save his brother.

Unless you have close connections to Adventism, this may be a difficult concept to grasp. Although there may be some legitimate arguments made against enacting legislation to regulate abortion, to Adventists the reasoning is purely self-centered. They place their potential suffering above all attempts at alleviating the suffering and wholesale slaughter of the unborn. This is but one of countless theological dichotomies Adventists find themselves in.

This is one of the clear examples where the authors inject their ideas into Adventism. The denomination has for many years published it official statement entitled Guidelines on Abortion you can read it here. What perhaps could George Reid have meant when he said Adventists are pro-choice under certain guidelines? If the authors had done their research they would have seen the following from the Guidelines on Abortion article:

4) The Church does not serve as conscience for individuals; however, it should provide moral guidance. Abortions for reasons of birth control, gender selection, or convenience are not condoned by the Church. Women, at times however, may face exceptional circumstances that present serious moral or medical dilemmas, such as significant threats to the pregnant woman's life, serious jeopardy to her health, severe congenital defects carefully diagnosed in the fetus, and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. The final decision whether to terminate the pregnancy or not should be made by the pregnant woman after appropriate consultation. She should be aided in her decision by accurate information, biblical principles, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, these decisions are best made within the context of healthy family relationships.

Now I don’t care if the Beems agree or disagree with that statement the fact is abortion is not simply about some fear Adventists have of losing religious liberty. We have a whole statement on the subject yet the Beems offer us nothing, no statement to back up their assertion, nothing to corroborate their opinion. Note even a footnote to direct the reader to what the Adventist denomination actually says.

So is the above example just a chance mistake? Well let’s continue with the next paragraph and see if they become more accurate as they change subjects.

Page 237 under the heading Pride and Separatism:

Recently, SDA General Conference President Jan Paulsen used the idea of Adventism being the zenith of religious knowledge to encourage young people not to leave the church and equated it with abandoning Christ: “Just don’t walk away from it. For walking away, that is the worst possible thing you can do. Look, it’s Christ we are talking about. Don’t turn your back on Him. For if you do, all you are left with is Peter’s haunting question, ‘to whom can we then go?’”432

[Footnote 432 says: Newly re-elected Paulsen in his address to the assembly, General Conference 2005, St. Louis.]

First the footnote is wrong Paulsen was not the newly re-elected President, this is from the opening presentation given on the opening day. Second I can find nothing that indicates that Paulsen ever asserted that Adventism was the zenith of religious knowledge. Here is what the Adventist News Network reported on the speech (the words in red are those the Beem’s quoted):

But it was Pastor Paulsen's report that was the main feature of the evening. After paying tribute to his wife, Kari, for support during 50 years of marriage, the Paulsens presented stories of church members serving their communities in various parts of the globe. A question for church members, he said, was "is your city, your community, your country a better place because you [as an Adventist] are there?"

To the youth of the church - members between 15 and 30 - Paulsen said, "I want you to come in and to partner with the rest of us. I want to make room for you, for you have energies and ideas which no one can quite match. If you don't find the church interesting, you can make it interesting. Just don't walk away. That would be the worst possible thing you can do: It is Christ we are talking about. Don't turn your back on him, for if you do, all you then all you are left with is Peter's haunting question: "To whom shall we then go?" (John 6:68)

Lay members, youth and women each and all need "to claim and accept a much greater share of ownership in our church," Paulsen said. "The church is not defined by election nor is it by who pays your salary. The church is defined by faith. Do you have faith? OK, you're the church."

The Edge Blog reports what follows the reference to John 6:

"They [young people] represent in large measure the future of this church," he says. "There must be a more intentional dialogue with young people, and a greater recognition of the contribution that they can and do make within the church. I recognize that many, many of our young people feel distanced from the church—they feel as if they don't have a voice, they don't feel that they have been heard, they don't feel that they have been understood," says Pastor Paulsen. "But I want them to know that the church cannot be defined and cannot survive without them."

What a difference between the context of the speech and how it is presented in the Beem’s book. If Paulsen had actually said that Adventism was the zenith of religious knowledge I would be right with the authors. But that can’t be found, I don’t think they were at the G.C. session and again they offered nothing to support their statement. The book is largely a self indulgent vent against Adventism. I admit Adventism has a lot of problems, there are a lot of insensitive people and a lot of trivia in place of gospel and a lot people who would lie to get their way. But that is the same thing I could say of the authors of this book. Over these past 5 articles I trust I have offered sufficient evidence as to why I can make that statement.

I had hoped the book would offer some salient information about transitioning from the Adventist church but what it offers is not to relevant to my perspective. One paragraph I thought was interesting. On page 249 under heading We Are Family:

Don’t expect too much from other Christian denominations. They may have healthier theology, but they are just people with more foibles than merits – like all of us. Mainstream churches can be cold and unfriendly too. Go in with the idea that you are going to love them and accept them. These are the new brothers and sisters in Christ that God has given you. You are going to spend eternity with them, so enjoy getting to know them now. If you don’t learn to accept other Christians, you will end up in lonely isolation. Find a church that spiritually uplifts you in both worship and doctrine. They can be hard to find but don’t give up.

Before we think of transitioning out maybe we should think about what is happening in Christianity that makes finding a church so hard. Why are practically all the denominations shrinking? Why is Christianity which is built upon love and acceptance of God to the human race so filled with lack of love and lack of acceptance? Why is it that if I think about transitioning out of Adventism I can’t think of any church or denomination to go to.

There was one noticeable area of Adventist theology that the book never mentioned, that is the idea of eternal torment in hell. If you don’t believe that doctrine you will find it very hard to transition out of the Adventist church. The book chapter 17, Conclusion on page 259 by saying:

Ellen was wrong. The great controversy between Christ and Satan was not how to rid the cosmos of sin. It was to reveal that Satan was a liar about God. God’s (sic) is not foremost a lawgiver. The mystery of iniquity, the mystery of redemption was to show that that (sic) God is love.

God is love but He is going to torment you in hell for all eternity, well at least that is what the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline denominations believe. So yes it is going to be hard to find a church where you can be uplifted in both worship and doctrines.

To transition or change that is the question that we will deal with in the next article and we will leave behind this book and once again try to use our God given intelligence for some useful task. Because frankly if it is hard to find a good Christian church something, is terribly wrong. Certainly God can save us in our numerous misunderstandings but maybe we could help God just a bit and be real ambassadors to help others rather than to be so concerned with losing or gaining our own salvation. I am with Jan Paulsen, you (we) are the church where ever you (we) are, so now what are you (we) going to do?

The following links will take you to the previous reviews.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Judged by the Ten Commandments connected to part 4

Part 4

Review It's Ok Not to be a Seventh-day Adventist part 3

Before I begin my review of Chapter 5 on Ellen White from “The Untold History Its Okay Not to Be A Seventh-day Adventist The Doctrine that Attempts to Repair the Temple Veil” I would like to address something Teresa Beem said in the comments of the previous blog review segment. She commented:

“Remember our audience and I think it will help you understand why we wrote as we did. Many, many former SDAs and general Christians believe the SDA church to be a dangerous cult. We were severely reprimanded by many readers for "concealing" the devilish doctrines of Adventism and not telling the FULL truth of its horrors. We do not share that opinion, but tried very hard to remain objective to both our SDA readership, our former SDA readership and those very few who have never studied Adventism (especially those who consider it a looney cult). I think in the end, you will have to admit that anyone reading the book who believes SDAs to be looney fringe cult will be very disappointed that the book did not support that view.”

So far most of my complaints have been about factual errors. From my perspective if you write a book it should be of factual use to any reader, not made to appeal to a certain reader who already believes a particular point of view. Most people who use the term “dangerous cult” are speaking about a cult that ingests poison or separates by mind control family members. The others who use “dangerous cult” are the judgmental types who believe if you don’t believe as they believe on religious issues you will be lost, as if their ideas dictate who God saves or loses. So my perspective, I will have to grant is different than the authors. That I have higher standards of how a book should impart knowledge is neither here nor there, if a book says it is giving us the untold history I want that history to be accurate and not be simply an untold history because it never really happened.

As I begin my review on the Ellen White section I will begin by mentioning something that I learned from the book and relayed recently on the Spectrum blog. A footnote in chapter 4 gave us a portion of the following Ellen White quote:

Examination of Candidates The test of discipleship is not brought to bear as closely as it should be upon those who present themselves for baptism. It should be understood whether they are simply taking the name of Seventh-day Adventists, or whether they are taking their stand on the Lord's side, to come out from the world and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing. Before baptism there should be a thorough inquiry as to the experience of the candidates. Let this inquiry be made, not in a cold and distant way, but kindly, tenderly, pointing the new converts to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Bring the requirements of the gospel to bear upon the candidates for baptism.

One of the points upon which those newly come to the faith will need instruction is the subject of dress. Let the new converts be faithfully dealt with. Are they vain in dress? Do they cherish pride of heart? The idolatry of dress is a moral disease. It must not be taken over into the new life. In most cases, submission to the gospel requirements will demand a decided change in the dress. (Testimonies to the Church Vol. 6 1900 page 95)

Like most Adventists I have wondered why we have baptismal vows other then belief in God and acceptance of Christ. Well there it is Ellen White’s instructions though I doubt any of you have ever been examined about your dress. It was indeed a big deal to Ellen White, not to many people today but it presents the precedence that some pastors use to refuse to baptize people till they stop smoking etc. (Later on page 95 there is a little more on Ellen White and Baptism in the book ) the book said:

“The remnant held high standards for admittance. You must place church membership before almost anything else in life.” (page 59)

As you can see with Ellen White’s quote it is not simply church membership. Ellen White certainly espoused the puritan characteristics applying the meaning to simply church membership is slightly myopic. Her view was that you had to do those things to be part of God’s kingdom whether an Adventist or not. It is a type of legalism and that is how this information could have been used, benefiting both Adventists and non Adventists but it is simply used to show that Adventists had high standards. Something you would find in most 1800’s writers such as D.L. Moody etc.

The first part of chapter 5 is mostly history on Ellen White, childhood, marriage, children, and illness. Nothing new there, not terribly useful unless one wants to apply subjective psychoanalysis to her. The authors write on page 84:

During Ellen’s final years, serious doubts arose about the Testimonies. Adventists became more and more convinced that her visions were not from the Lord. From her house in California she defended herself: "For 60 years I have been in communication with heavenly messengers, and I have been constantly learning in reference to divine things."199 However, the Adventist leadership began to back down as to the extent of the inspiration of Ellen’s writings. She had written earlier in her life that every word was from God. Now the denomination was promoting a kinder, gentler Ellen whose visions were not to be taken so literally and were now considered concept-inspired.

Did you notice the reference to the sentence in bold above? If that had been the case then When Walter Rea’s book the White Lie came out in the early 1980’s the church would have had no rebuttal at all. The plagiarism that Canright wrote about in the 1880’s would have devastated the church and Ellen White. So here we see something of amazing importance claimed with not a single footnote or quote to back it up. There is no case even in her insistence upon it all being from God that that she indicates every word was from God. That is pretty much a claim to verbal inspiration. Certainly something that some Adventist did believe just as some Christians believe it for the Bible but it is not that easy to pin such an idea as directly from Ellen White. Again in an objective book make the case, use the quotes and draw your conclusions.

Chapter 6 deals with analyzing Ellen Whites writings. I liked the section going over Ellen Whites failed prophecies. It is cursory and certainly more should have been added. Some material such as referring to letters from a friend saying that Ellen predicted certain dates for the second coming are not overly credible, as they may just be repeating what the other Adventist predictions were and assigning them to Ellen White. In any case to be objective we really need to go by what she wrote rather than one person’s recollection.

There is a section on Ellen White saying not to say “I am saved”, not terribly important as it is/was a common Arminian view. Of course if you believe you can lose your salvation it is not terribly useful to say you are saved. This is a big thing for Calvinists but not for Arminian Christians.

I read an individual’s review on Amazon.com which mentioned this section of the book where the authors state on page 96:

Spiritual Gifts is Ellen White's account of the fall of Satan to the close of the millennium 241 Volume 1 records that Satan was "driven from heaven.... Then he repented and wished to be reinstated again in heaven”242 Ellen claims God refused. So Satan and deceived angels "repented, wept and implored to be taken back into the favor of God. But no, their sin, their hate, their envy and jealousy, had been so great that God could not blot it out." She asserts that it was only after Satan realized God would not be moved and he would not be taken back that Satan's "malice and hatred began to be manifest."243 To her Satan was in reality a repentant victim and God's mercy was not big enough to cover his sin.

While this entire account is fiction, it is not Biblically derived and as such should be held to be extremely questionable the authors make a good point one that reading this section of Ellen White should really bother Adventists. Ellen White wrote:

After Satan was shut out of heaven, with those who fell with him, he realized that he had lost all the purity and glory of heaven forever. Then he repented and wished to be reinstated again in heaven. He was willing to take his proper place, or any place that might be assigned him. But no, heaven must not be placed in jeopardy All heaven might be marred should he be taken back; for sin originated with him, and the seeds of rebellion were within him. Satan had obtained followers, those who sympathized with him in his rebellion. He and his followers repented, wept and implored to be taken back into the favor of God. But no, their sin, their hate , their envy and jealousy, had been so great that God could not blot it out. It must remain to receive its final punishment. (Spiritual Gifts Vol. 1 page 19)

The problem here though is that as the authors do point out Ellen White wrote so much that you can often find duplicates and slightly different versions in many places in her writings. So which part is correct are we supposed to somehow combine them to create harmony out of conflicting details? We do that with the Bible but the Bible, as with the gospels, is taken from different people, we really should not have to do that with the works of one author. In this case the reviewer on Amazon.com is a bit wrong. In this case Ellen White is woefully wrong, notice the final sentence in this parallel quote from Ellen White in the Signs of the Times 1879 -01-16.007:

“ Satan trembled as he viewed his work. He was alone, in meditation upon the past, the present, and the future. His mighty frame shook as with a tempest. An angel from Heaven was passing. Satan called him, and intreated an interview with Christ. This was granted. He then related to him that he repented of his rebellion, and wished again to enjoy the favor of God. He was willing to take the place which had been assigned him, and be under Christ's command. The Son of God wept at Satan's woe, but told him, as the mind of the Father, that this could never be. Heaven must not be placed in jeopardy. The peace of Heaven would be marred, should he be received back; for sin originated with him; the seeds of rebellion were still within him. He had no occasion for his course, and he had not only hopelessly ruined himself, but the host of angels also, who would still have been happy in Heaven had he remained steadfast. The law of God could condemn, but could not pardon.”

A couple of chapters on Ellen White are really easy pickings in my opinion: the fatal flaw of Adventism. In this particular statement however we see not only Ellen White’s absurd view about what happened in heaven but we see the absurd view that predominates Christianity; the Penal Substitutionary view of the Atonement. God could not forgive, someone had to die, so that God’s law could be satisfied, even if the penalty was paid by God through His innocent Son (literally God Himself in my view). The idea that God can’t forgive hid behind the excuse of a “law” as if the law is somehow outside of God. Just think how quickly any Christian would see a statement as false if it said: “God could condemn but could not pardon”.

Review It's Ok Not to be a Seventh-day Adventist part 1

The authors of a new book entitled It's Ok Not to be a Seventh-Day Adventist by Teresa and Arthur Beem asked me to review their book. They were kind enough to send me a copy, which is kind of a prerequisite for me as I don’t buy a lot of books and certainly I don’t buy them to review. After reading this you may realize why I don’t review a lot of books. In fact I am going to have to review this book in sections because I have several things to say about it and instead of waiting to finish the book I am going to start while things are fresh in my mind.

Right now my opinion is that this could be an important book after it is revised. I would probably think up a new title also.

To begin with there is such clear animosity against Adventism in the Preface that the book is going to be difficult for any Adventist to read further. On the cover above the title the book says “the untold history”, surely the authors don’t want only non Adventists or Ex-Adventists to hear the untold history, so why make the book’s Preface so antagonistic? On page xii of the preface the book states:

The Seventh-day Adventist church is becoming more than just an inconsequential heterodox group. Adventism is quietly cutting a wide swath across believers, causing many people to fall prey to its false teachings.

In Seventh-day Adventism evangelism, the church seeks mainstream status yet its doctrine is not mainstream. The overall thrust of their mission is aimed at people who are already Christians and their ministry is not simply gospel-oriented but focuses on obscure biblical prophecy. Adventism can be confusing because the people can be generous and charitable, so their dogma is assumed to be benign. Unfortunately, the kindness of the members does not reflect the kindness of the doctrines. This church has an eccentric history and culture based in strange, even disturbing doctrines.

So Adventism is not mainstream, ok that is fine but is there something that set’s mainstream apart, does the designation mainstream mean that mainstream churches have no false teachings, no disturbing doctrines or strange beginnings, no personality cults? In the front of the book the authors thank an Assemblies of God Pastor for his inspiration. Their beginning is about as fanatical as the Adventist church, from Brief History of the Assemblies of God:

Seymour had been a student of Charles Parham, who provided the doctrinal framework for the young Pentecostal movement. Parham’s identification in scripture of speaking in tongues as the “Bible evidence” (later called the “initial evidence”) of Spirit baptism became a defining mark of the emerging Pentecostal movement. After students at his Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, began speaking in tongues at a prayer meeting on January 1, 1901, Parham, through his Apostolic Faith Movement, had some success in promoting the restoration of the gift of tongues. While the Apostolic Faith Movement was largely confined to the south central United States, the revival at Azusa Street catapulted Pentecostalism before a worldwide audience.

If you don’t think Azusa street was an excess of fanaticism then you need to read up on the event as well as Charles Parham. For more see Christianity without a Cross on google books. The sad fact is that Christianity has a lot of fanaticism that smooth out into denominations. Martin Luther was not all that peace loving to those who disagreed with him, nor was Calvin and certainly the Wesley’s moved into Holiness movements that probably rivaled the depression that Millerites suffered with their Great Disappointment in 1844. Methodism’s views no doubt stimulated much of the Millerites understanding just as it does Adventist’s understanding. Those are just some of the recent denominations they don’t deal with the fanaticism that preceded them.

So the preface sets up an “us against them” perspective that carries over in the book. Not really a wise method in my opinion. If you are going to deal with something as emotional as religion you had better write as objectively as possible, if you object to a position as you go through the subject objectively deal with it and present what and why you think something is wrong. Some portions of the book do this within the context of reporting the history and that is good.

The book is heavily footnoted which is incredibly important again when dealing with religion, you have to know who said what and be able to check the context since it is so easy to distort statements on religion. The problem here is the book is not footnoted sufficiently. One of the really big problems with this book is that they confusingly use “ibid”. “Ibid. all by itself means that the footnote comes from the same source and the same page as the footnote that precedes it.” The authors use of ibid while technically correct for a small document does not work for a book for example they have a work cited by author and title and page number and then the next footnote says, ibid Knight p. 190-1, the previous footnote is not to Knight, and if you look back you have to go back chapters to find what they are referring to. I still don’t know as I don’t want to waste that much time reading every footnote to find where that book is fully cited. It would be better to cite fully once in each chapter.

Another footnote problem is found with the following quote on Chapter 3 Pillar 1 Ellen G. White pages 81-2:

“Royalties from the sale of Mrs. White’s books began to rise; in fact, she became, as the White estate puts it, “quite prosperous. In terms of today’s money Mrs. White’s income would have been measured in the millions of dollars.” The books footnote then says: “Ellen G. White Published Writings Website”. Just to test that out I Googled “been measured in the millions of dollars” White – and the first citation is an anti Ellen White website entitled. Ellen White Exposed.com . No other citation from any official Ellen White or Adventist site. That is a pretty major error in citation it is also a violation of the statement that began the chapter on Ellen White.

The book introduces the history of Ellen White by saying on page 69:

“The following biographical history comes almost exclusively from the Seventh-day Adventist sources, which you can find the information online as the official Ellen White Estate website…” By beginning with such a statement and then quoting from an anti Ellen White site and attributing it to a SDA supported site is pretty sloppy.

In my next post I will continue will some comments about the section of the book on William Miller. I promise to say some more good things about the book before I rip apart some other statements. I am doing this because I want to see this book revised so that it can be effective for the benefit of both Adventists and non Adventists. I think it has potential and communicating with one of the authors, I found they live only 40 miles away from me, so maybe there is a chance.