BarelyAdventists illogical hypocrites

 One of the pretty correctly titled groups on Facebook is called BarelyAdventist. It is, I think, from the same people who give us Adventist Today and Spectrum online. Lately, they have taken to preaching on their Facebook page, and here is one of their latest declarations.

For decades, the Adventist Church has had people who feel it’s their personal duty to correct everyone else. Emails packed with Ellen White quotes. Whispered critiques in the church lobby about someone’s outfit. Cornering the pastor over sermon points. The assumption is always the same: I am right, and I must set you straight.

“Telling the truth in love” has been distorted. In practice, it often becomes a license to judge, critique, or lecture people you barely know. Love gets a bad reputation. Relationships are damaged. Church becomes a place of fear, not grace.

Here’s the truth: Jesus didn’t go around policing or judging people. Even He, with perfect authority, did not insist on correcting everyone else. You are not Jesus. You are not an Old Testament prophet. Trying to “set someone straight” before even having a relationship with them is the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

Start with relationship. Listen. Engage. Care. Only then might someone actually invite your guidance—if it’s truly needed. Correction without trust and connection is not faithfulness; it’s pride in disguise.

Love in Adventism should not be about pointing out every misstep. It should be about showing up, respecting others, and offering help when it’s asked for. That alone could heal far more hearts than a thousand unsolicited “corrections.”

Let's look at some of the logic that this post makes:

For decades, the Adventist Church has had people who feel it’s their personal duty to correct everyone else.

We will see this “everyone” several times in this post. So far, I have never met a person who feels it is their duty to correct everyone else. So this first logical fallacy is the introduction to their post. It is not simply that I have not met anyone who felt it was their duty to correct everyone; it is impossible to correct everyone. So this horrible person in the introduction is not only set with an impossible “duty”; if that was what they actually thought was their duty, they would have to be mentally deranged.

Emails packed with Ellen White quotes

Is that supposed to be a sentence? Let us assume that it is a continuation of the logical fallacy of the first sentence. The person with a duty has packed up what they want to say, hidden behind an email with only Ellen White quotes. If that is their duty to email Ellen White quotes to people, we can assume that indeed it is from a mentally deranged person. But that mentally deranged person who cannot even tell the recipient the reason for the quotes could hardly be said to feel it was their duty to correct everyone with a bunch of quotes from a dead assumed prophet.

Whispered critiques in the church lobby about someone’s outfit. Cornering the pastor over sermon points. The assumption is always the same: I am right, and I must set you straight.

We will move past the other two points because, as we can tell, this is all built from a false view of, at best, a deranged person. It is possible for a deranged person to always feel they are right. Of course it is still not at all likely that even the deranged person is “always” acting with the assumption that that they are always right and that they must set you straight, apparently to the above author it is by packing an email with Ellen White quotes, or whispering a critique of an outfit or simply cornering a pastor to talk about sermon points.

 
Now we are getting to the point of this author's point. Some people do things the author does not like, it is hard for the author to recover from the initial logical fallacy, so for the sake of continuing the analysis, we can assume that that is their concern.

“Telling the truth in love” has been distorted. In practice, it often becomes a license to judge, critique, or lecture people you barely know. Love gets a bad reputation. Relationships are damaged. Church becomes a place of fear, not grace.

Telling the truth in love is not a thing, “speaking the truth in love” Ephesians 4:15. We have Biblical direction to speak the truth in love, but the key is the truth. So to know something is the truth takes a lot more than to regurgitate Ellen White quotes; critiquing an outfit could in no way be considered in the truth category, it is the opinion category. Love, on the other hand, can be classed as permissive to tough love to discipline. That means that something can be done in love in different ways. Certainly, talking to the pastor about a sermon is not necessarily about truth or love. Why is it even included here? Could it be that what this author wants is for people to simply accept what they are told?

Here’s the truth: Jesus didn’t go around policing or judging people.

Are you sure? He cleared out the temple of money changers (John 2:13–17, Matthew 21:12–13) He called the Pharisees a brood of vipers ( Matthew 12:34, 23:33), and He specifically judged those who were of their father the devil. (John 8:44) Of course, Jesus also called Judas a son of perdition (John 17:12). So, Jesus did do it; what the author means by “go around” is kind of meaningless. We also have a lot of sermons on how people should behave, which could certainly be termed policing, as that is a very broad term, especially if you use the idea of community policing or self policing, which deals with relationship building, problem solving, decision making, and trust building.

Even He, with perfect authority, did not insist on correcting everyone else.

Jesus, in his incarnation, would be in the same situation as the first logical fallacy in that Jesus could not correct “everyone”; instead, he taught, but He did not spend his time personally correcting “everyone”.

You are not Jesus. You are not an Old Testament prophet. Trying to “set someone straight” before even having a relationship with them is the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

It has taken a while, but we have finally gotten to some truth in the above post. You are not Jesus or an Old Testament prophet. Then it wanders off into nonsense again. Can you set someone straight, for instance, point out their extreme use of logical fallacies without having a relationship with them, of course it is pretty common on the internet, though it may not set them straight, that depends on the person. But it is certainly not the pinnacle of hypocrisy. That pinnacle might be more like teaching others not to sin while publicly practicing the same sins.

I am going to end this here because I think the post is pretty much summed up with hypocrisy. It is worse yet because it is fueled by logical fallacies. It ends by trying to sound caring, but it is really uncaring because if one cares, they actually try to be truthful, even when saying difficult things. That was the focus of Ephesians 4 and a pretty fitting way to cleanse our minds from the BarelyAdventist sophistry.

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

17So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.... 25Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 

Response to Karisma1980

This is the response to the comment made on this blog post

It is nice that Andrew Dykstra has a friend to stand up for him. The verse is most notable by its absence, also I did not claim he ignored it he did ignore it. But you would have to talk with him as to why it was not mentioned. I could give a theory but as you noticed I did not. Nor did I mention anything about equal marriage whatever that is

I can see very well you are not using the rule of gracious interpretation for my article. There is no such thing as implied ad hominem. It is either stated or it is not stated. You don't have implied attacks against a person, it happened or it did not happen. As for a strawman how can there be a straw man argument by including non-normative sexual desires in the category of "all non-normative". To be "a straw man argument someone attacks a position the opponent doesn’t really hold. Instead of contending with the actual argument". If he says "all non-normative people" and I argue that that category holds a whole lot of unpleasant things, I am arguing against his stated position. You are simply claiming what he says is not what he really thinks. Maybe it is not what he thinks but it is what he wrote!

The title of my article is also addressed to the editors of the article. A decent editor would have told Andrew that his use of "all" as in "all non-normative" is a huge mistake as is the use of "all" in most generalizations (hasty generalization), any argument that uses all can be defeated if one exception can be found. If you logic fails your position fails. In this case, a good editor could have fixed the problem by simply striking "all" and saying many non-normative. Now, that would be the easiest method but the article does not even define non-normative so the reader has to define it for themselves and the dictionary definition is: "not normative, not based on norms" Kind of a huge category there!

Did I attempt to clarify what Andrew meant by "all non-normative" No as if he was not going to define non-normative in his article why should I expect him to define it for me? So I took his words at face value. I did not assume that he did not say what he wanted to say.

Now that you think that "informed consent" is the norm for "all non-normative" people I would have to ask you why you think that. I would say rape is non-normative, necrophilia is non-normative, pedophilia is non-normative, none of those seem to require consent. The idea that there is one norm of informed consent found in all non-normative people is kind of silly. However, you did not say all non-normative people feel the need for informed consent you said Andrew and other LBGT Christians feel that way. Is that your definition of non-normative, or the more problematic "all non-normative" people. Further, you say bestiality is out at the start...so you feel it should not be included in the non-normative category? Are you saying that Children rapists do not fit into the non-normative category? I sincerely doubt any Psychologist would exclude them from being non-normative, why or what gives you the credibility to tell us that those things are normal contrary to medical and societal opinion.

The only way you have a case is if you defined non-normative other than meaning what the definition is, not defined by having a norm. However, you are correct Andrew did not imply "that these three further states were part of his insight" He specifically stated it using his logical fallacy of "all non-normative people" as he said: "represent all sexually non-normative people"

Of course, all this ignores that his insight is developed using eisegesis rather than exegesis and it ignores that the texts were referencing people without sexual capacity through mutilation or the supreme will power (or the rare born that way). At least for LGBT that is rarely the case and not even close to applicable to the context.

Now if Marygrace would like to tell me the specific absurdity in my article, I wait eagerly...oh and if she does maybe tell me how I am a hater and how she can feel so free to use real ad hominem attacks.

When logical become Traditional

There was an interesting discussion in our Sabbath School class recently. It was posited by one or two of the members that in the Genesis story of Cain and Abel it is logical to assume that God had instructed the brothers upon how to present offering to God. What I found interesting about this attempt to retell the Genesis story is that it conflates logical with traditional. First is it logical to assume facts not present in a story? Well yes to a certain degree, we could assume that when telling a story about human beings that the humans breathe air, they carry on the same physiological activities as any other human.  That we could say is a logical assumption. Now are we still in the land of logical assumptions if in the Cain and Abel story we assume that angels came by and told them how to turn lead into gold? We would say no that is not in any way connected to the story it would not be logical.

The problem comes when we assume logical and really mean traditional. There is a long tradition of the assumption that Cain and Abel or even Adam and Eve were taught about offerings and sacrifices. The traditions of the sacrificial system are assumed to be present in these stories because the sacrifices later on played an important role in the Jewish tradition. Then when Christianity saw Jesus as the focus of the sacrificial system they redefined the stories to make Jesus included in the assumptions of sacrifice instructions which were never referred to in the Genesis stories at all.

Thus what was traditional…the long standing assumptions move into the realm of logical. The two become one even though they are very different. This becomes a real problem when we seek to understand the ancient stories and what they originally intended to convey. Traditions can so color the story as to make it practically unrecognizable. We see this more clearly when we examine how the Midrash adds to the story:

And Cain had words with Abel his brother (4:8)
About what did they quarrel? "Come," said they, "let us divide the world." Cain took the land, and Abel took other the movables (the cattle). Said Cain: "The land you stand on is mine"; retorted Abel, "The clothes you are wearing are mine." One said: "Strip!"; the other said "Fly!" Out of this quarrel, Cain rose up against his brother Abel.

Rabbi Joshua of Siknin said in Rabbi Levi's name: Both took land and both took movables, but about what did they quarrel? One said: "The Holy Temple must be built in my area," while the other claimed, "It must be built in mine."

Judah ben Ami said: Their quarrel was over the first Eve. Said Rabbi Aibu: The first Eve had returned to dust. Then about what was their quarrel? Said Rabbi Huna: An additional twin was born with Abel and each claimed her. (According to the Midrash, twin sisters were born together with Cain and Abel for them to marry--one with Cain and two with Abel.) The one claimed: "I will have her, because I am the firstborn"; while the other maintained: "She is mine, because she was born with me."(Midrash Rabbah)

You can move anything into the realm of tradition. But logic on the other hand has to have some contextual certainty. It requires reliable inference and that is much different from traditions and assumptions that produce traditions. With assumptions you can create a completely different story then the one that was written down. It may have good lessons or it may have absurd lessons. But if you want to know what the story was trying to say you have to limit your assumptions to the information provided and this becomes very difficult when tradition trades places with logic.