More on Newman's Adventist Today Article

After my last post I have been having a bit of an E-mail correspondence with Adventist Today Editor J. David Newman. In that dialog I perceived that the basic problem in our presuppositions is that the literalist creation side has taken upon themselves a very fundamentalist view of scriptures. Fundamentalists have dominated much of Christianity in 20^th century as it was the Christian response to modernist reason, that reason gave us the disciplines of Higher and Lower Biblical Criticism. The Fundamentalist could not argue with the reality of Lower Criticism but they found that the more subjective ideas of higher criticism was to be decried. In Higher criticism we could see an advance in understanding through the timeline of the Bible. That the writers could actually insert their own ideas into the Bible books, that we don’t have to accept the idea that just because a text says that God said or did something it may not in fact be God who did or said what the author claims. Did God really kill thousands of Israelites for David’s transgression, did God really want to destroy Israel and Moses showed God the faulty logic of God’s intention, or that God really was sorry for creating mankind as the flood story says. The Traditionalist side of Adventism on the other hand does not seem to comprehend this idea very well. For them tradition decides their interpretations. For example the Jews have a tradition that the first five books of the Bible are the law of Moses and therefore written by Moses. Apparently even the material that describes the death of Moses, which rather makes the assumption false on it’s face. But with the Jewish tradition the Adventists prophet maintained the same tradition that Moses wrote Genesis and the other 4 books. If Moses the greatest of the prophets wrote the Genesis story it must be from God, though of course the book itself makes no such claims.

On top of this assumption Adventist have added many other traditions, mostly they can be laid at the feet of Ellen White but in most cases they were not ultimately developed by Ellen White but they became incorporated into Adventism through Ellen White. It is one of these that we find mentioned by David Newman toward the end of his Adventist Today article. He writes:

But there is an even bigger curse to come. Genesis tells us that God did not create the world to experience rain. We read in Genesis: “When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up; the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground” (Gen. 2:4-6, NIV).

It was not until the time of the great Flood in Noah’s day that rain began to fall. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights” (Gen. 7:11-12, NIV).

Of course the Gen 2 text is not about rain falling after the creation it is the beginning statement of the alternate creation account of Genesis 2 describing the earth before anything was created. The flood account says nothing about there never being rain before but by placing the two verses together the Adventist tradition becomes there had been no rain before the flood. The creationists then will take this insertion of meaning into the Bible as one of their tools to say that physical laws have changed.

Interestingly enough in my conversation with Newman while he has no problem inserting such meaning as no rain before the flood he does not really want to deal with the idea that the Genesis story includes the law of entropy and the law of conservation. The story of creation talks about eating food, after all that is the meaning of the beasts of the field; the animals that forage on grass.

Genesis 1:30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Food implies entropy and conservation of energy. So you can’t simply pretend it is not there. It is there and an animal like an Elephant would eat a lot of it not to mention what a dinosaur would eat or a whale, and these big mammals are kind of indiscriminant eaters. They aren’t going to be checking for crickets in their clump of grass. Did they just not eat until after Adam sinned even though in the creation account food is mentioned in both Genesis 1 and 2? If an animal was to eat but was not losing energy in someway what would be the purpose of food? It tastes good yes but if the idea was just to give a pleasurable sensation why not just use smell? Were they just to eat until they reached maturity and then stop their lifelong habits? With the ploy to changed natural laws the creationist asserts the change but has no evidence to support the claim and when ideas counter to their claims are made they can simply say the laws were different so it does not matter that they ate the law of conservation did not exist or entropy, a type of magical thinking which always solves any problem because they believe in a circular fashion and their belief is their evidence to support their belief.

In his article Newman writes:

I believe this law [law of entropy]—along with other laws that lead to decay and death—did not exist before sin entered the universe. Let’s take a look at Scripture to see when God changed fundamental laws under which our Earth operates.

He then quotes the curse that God declared on the ground, thorns and thistles. But as is the way of the traditionalists who think they are literalists Newman then adds material that is not found in the Bible, he writes:

All animals were vegetarians, but now some could prey on other animals for their food. This meant a change in how they processed food. Microevolution comes into play. And Satan can use all of his skills to help evil develop.

All that from thorns and thistles, vegetarians yes we could determine that from the story but there is nothing there about predation, nothing there about Satan using his skills, of course the idea of Satan is of much later development. But what of microevolution why did it suddenly appear or was it as the theistic evolutionists believe always a part of the natural laws of God, no change needed?

It always amazes me when listening to the creationists who pretend that they are accepting the literal story of creation and when you really look at it they are inserting all kinds of details to make the story work…the details which the story does not have at all yet for some reason they still think their view is the literal historical view and that anyone who interprets the story differently is not taking the Bible literally enough.

Response to objections of death before Adam

In the Fall 2010 issue of Adventist Today J. David Newman presents his article entitled: Death Before Sin – No

I thought I would take some time to counter a few of his statements.

So Christian evolutionists say that death is natural and normal, while the Bible says that death is an enemy. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ...The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:22, 26, NIV). And it will not exist in the new earth (Rev. 21:4).

This is one of those techniques which frankly we see all the time right now during the political ad season. Blanket statements which seem so certain but are in fact really misinformation. Take the above as the example. The Bible says that death is an enemy. Does that mean that all death is the enemy? After all when I eat my apple or pull up my carrot and eat them I am in fact killing the fruit or for my carrot the whole plant. The Genesis story talks about eating of the fruit of the Garden that means the cessation of life for at least the fruit, or perhaps the nuts which after all are the seeds which if their life cycle was to complete they would grow into a new tree. So actually even in the Genesis story death is not treated as an enemy. At least not until it concerns the human being. And after all that is really what the text quoted above is about. It is not about plants, animals or bacteria it is death that is the enemy of Human beings, those individuals who are capable of understanding the consequences and lost opportunities that make death our enemy.  Death as the enemy of man is the concern and that is the death that will not exist in the New Earth. That statement in Revelation is not really meant to indicate that all things we know will cease to exist and all laws of the universe will change. Perhaps they will but that is not very likely the intent of a statement that reads:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev 21:3-4 NIV)

Newman then quotes the texts from Paul in Romans chapter 5 about how through one man sin entered the world, strangely missing the literary device Paul uses contrasting Jesus as the one man that brings life with Adam the one man who brought death because everybody in the family of Adam dies, which includes Jesus who died but stopped the death cycle by promising resurrection. It is a literary device because of course death still reigns everybody still dies, the hope of resurrection is still future for all the rest of us. So we see that being overly literal when we read these texts is not the wisest course.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--(Rom 5:12 NIV)

Newman uses the above text but is Paul consistent here or is he using it as part of his literary comparison? According to most conservative scholars Paul also wrote 1 Timothy and it says:

And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. (1 Tim 2:14 NIV)

We must therefore ask if Paul wrote both of these verses which is true? My answer is that Paul uses what will fit the comparison or point he is trying to make. He is not bound by the kind of literalistic view that subsequent traditional Christians have placed upon his writings. To Paul we all sin and we all die, the cure for one is the cure for the other. It is simple and pragmatic. We can’t really argue about it we don’t see anyone who does not sin nor do we see anyone that does not die; salvation, the healing; heals both. Death cured by resurrection and sin cured by reconciliation but you have to alive to be reconciled. The cure to sin is meaningless if you are still dead. Resurrection to a life filled with sin and misery is not a terribly appealing idea either; just doing it all over again and again, the two are intimately connected in Paul’s usage.

Newman asks:

If death were taking place in the world before Adam, and if Adam was simply the end result of the evolution of human beings, why would death be an enemy? And why would it need to be destroyed?

In the above I answered Newman’s second question as to why death would need to be destroyed. What about the previous question? This is a purely philosophical question which could probably be answered many ways depending upon ones presuppositions. The most common would be that death that was leading to the human being capable of individual understanding and reasoning to things beyond himself was not the enemy just as the death of my apple or carrot are not my enemy. Death only becomes the enemy when we understand the larger issues involved to thinking individuals. After all is the hawk grabbing up a mouse evil because the hawk lives upon the flesh of the mouse. Is the hawk sinning because Adam sinned? Or if we looked at it from a six day creationist viewpoint who made the hawk behave the way it behaves, who created it with the talons and beak made to rip flesh? Some I am sure would say that Satan did it. That being a popular excuse when all explanations fail but at least we have to admit that such an idea is not presented in the Bible.

Newman than uses the argument that is so very popular among traditional Adventists, the argument those of us who read the various discussion forum of Adventists see often.

This subject is very important, because it impacts how we look at Jesus, at the cross, and at the whole question of sin. If science explains where we come from, then the same science tells us that people do not come back from the dead, and that Jesus may have lived and died on a cross but could never have come back to life again. The same people who believe in Christian evolution also believe what the Bible says about the end of this age—that one day death will no longer exist—even though that is not what science says. So why accept what science says for the beginning of this world but not accept what science says for the end of this world?

In fact science does tell us that ordinary people don’t come back from the dead on their own. It says nothing at all about what would or could happen if there was a God, a supreme being with all power and knowledge involved. Again science tells us what would happen to a man hung on a cross but not what would happen if God came down and became a man and was hung on a cross. Science can tell us nothing about God resurrection Himself if He came as a man and died on a cross. It does not even try to tell us these things. Science has the limitation of only being able to really study what exists now. What the evidence we have now says. Granted there are scientists who will produce theories about things that happened and are not currently observable or without much evidence. For example some scientist will produce theories about what happened in the first 10^th of a second after the big bang. But like a lot of science those theories come and go, science obviously changes it grows and expands and corrects itself but it does not attempt to explain the Christian Atonement.

Ultimately Science never tries to tell us what will happen if there is a supreme being who wants to step into our time and space and do something. So why accept what science says for the beginning? Because there is evidence for the beginning, we look at that evidence we compare different observations and see a lot of evidence which is very compelling. Why not accept what science says for the end of this world? Because there is precious little evidence about the end of this world since it has not happened yet, if there were multiple big bangs in a collapsing and expanding universe all the evidence from a previous end of the world would be gone so all that is left is various speculations and speculation is not science. This is Newman’s most important point and it is totally contrived and meaningless.

I will conclude by discussing the following quote:

If Adam and Eve were not historical figures, then we have no information on how we became sinners. If human beings gradually evolved from the Neolithic man to Homo sapiens, at what stage did they become sinners? If other humans existed along with Adam and Eve, how did they become sinners? Who, then, did Christ save?

This is another commonly held Traditional Adventist idea. It tends to ignore the reality of what we as human do since recorded history which is we hurt each other and often ourselves. Pragmatically we understand we are sinners; is it all that important to know which of our ancestors was the first to realize or to be accused of being a sinner? It does not change the reality of where we are one bit. I suppose it is about as useful as asking where did God come from. We don’t have any idea so we say He always was, fine then why not say humans were always sinners. Historically it certainly works; actually this wanting to know the beginnings of everything generally does not work for anyone. We have a whole Adventist sub doctrine about how Satan was once Lucifer and how sin began in him. It is not from the Bible, it is not from Jewish religion it is based upon early church traditions. Jesus was more pragmatic and simply said of Satan that he was a liar and murderer from the beginning. He did not see a need to invent a back story, just give the present reality. Surely the present reality of being sinners is enough. As for who then did Christ save? He saves whoever He wants and whoever will accept His salvation. I think I can trust Him on that issue, and I only see problems when I try and say who God saves or not, being that I am not God it would only be speculation based upon lack of knowledge and I am enough of a scientist to know that such speculation is not good for science or religion.

Doctrine to irrelevance

A recent Adventist Today article by Melissa Howell entitled Why Are They Leaving? Covers some of the material that this blog has discussed but it also shows a fatal disconnect in Adventism. That disconnect is summed up with this quote from the article:

“Thankfully, one giant we still have in our ranks is the fact that it's almost never our beliefs that make them leave. The Adventist message, our fundamentals, and the Bible truth as we see it are usually not where the problem lies. Most still see ours as the correct understanding. Most still believe in the Sabbath, the state of the dead, the second coming, the health message and the three angels' messages…”

While Melissa’s article is about young people she reflects the same idea that I have seen other denominationally employed writers put forth. The fact is you cannot separate your doctrines from your relevance. After all your doctrines are the teachings of your church, if your church is not relevant how can what you teach be relevant? The other error with the assumption is the idea that youth or adults have this great acceptance of the “Adventist Message, or “our fundamentals” “the health message”  and particularly the code word used “the three angels messages” which covers everything Adventists teach including the investigative judgment and 1844. The importance of 1844 and the Investigative judgment is certainly not readily accepted by many Adventists.

In an article on this blog I quoted Bailey Gillespie, Ph.D. Professor of Theology and Personality Director of the John Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry School of Religion La Sierra University at the Pacific Northwest Adventist Association Forum presentation on what we know from the Valuegenesis studies: He stated:

“However three of the least believed doctrines show up in every study we do in every single group we do they are the same three in the same order. The sanctuary doctrine definitely believed by only 20 percent of your young people in Washington 20 % [meaning Washington state where the forum occurred] of your kids so all the other doctrines except these three are right up there 20% definitely believe this one. The Remnant 42% the next one 42% definitely believe and you know what the next one is Ellen White 36%...”

If we were to state that in a more familiar form it would be 20% believe in the Adventist Sanctuary doctrine, 80% do not believe in the Adventist Sanctuary Doctrine.

42% believe that the Adventist church is the Remnant church. 58% that it is not the Remnant church.

36% believe Ellen White is a prophet. 64% that Ellen White is not a prophet.

Of course in polls you can never simply say the negative is made up of the remainder of those holding to an affirmation. The reason is that there are likely gradients of opinions and then there is always that 5 to 10% who don’t know or have no opinion. I put the negative numbers there to be used as a contrast. When you have numbers like that you really can’t be going around saying that youth or adults don’t leave the SDA church over doctrines.

However if we move back to the concept of doctrines and relevance aside from some particularly troublesome doctrines as listed above there is a good quote from and Adventist Review article by Margaret G. Dudley, Ph.D.,  a counselor and retired Andrews University faculty member, entitled: I don’t want to go to church anymore.

“Youth and young adults like to be able to think for themselves. Foster a thinking climate in which they can explore what the church teaches, in which they can discover the principles and biblical support behind Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, and in which they can determine the church’s relevance for today’s world. They should be able to feel comfortable asking questions as they sort through their values and make their own choices.”

This is very wise advise but notice the disconnect that occurs if one assumes what Melissa does in her quoted statement in her article. If the church feels that they have this giant in their ranks which is that Adventists have the true doctrines how could we or why would we encourage questioning of those doctrines so that the young person can find their relevance? We have simply said that they already believe them so why don’t they find them relevant? We have in effect destroyed their exploration of what the church teaches, what the Bible teaches, what they should support or not support and what relevance it has to them and the world around them.

Our myopic view based upon the assumptions that we are the remnant, we have the truth and most don’t leave the church because they have trouble with our doctrines translates to a church that disregards our own young people and their necessary exploration of what they believe.

Consider this quote from the Adventist Review; Drowning in a sea of Gray :

Kevin Kibble, associate chaplain at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee, believes this may be the case. “Too many still give voice to the external elements of discipleship without witnessing to the heart of the matter. Far too many in the church are preaching to the smoke and not the fire. We are making proclamations about the fruit without giving thought to the root. Many of our young adults are challenging us to speak to the core issues of salvation with a tattoo or two and a cup of coffee in their hands. They are very clever in doing so. In this way they can determine if we really can present the gospel in its greatest clarity.”

Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, addresses these issues in his televised forum for youth, Let’s Talk.² Questions cover topics from Ellen White 
to legalism to morals, but the largest grouping of questions relates to lifestyle. Adventist young adults want to know: “Will disobeying these rules—such as wearing jewelry and eating meat—really keep me from going to heaven?” “How should a young person dress?” “Do I have to ignore popular culture?”

You simply cannot get past the doctrine issue. Melissa goes on to talk of other things that would no doubt help sustain our youth in the church if we actually tried them. But we don’t try them because as the above illustrates we think we don’t have to do anything other then teach what we have been teaching. We have been deluded for so long that we don’t even realize our own lack of relevance and how that lack of relevance destroys our own youth as they look for relevance.

Melissa is right, there is a giant in our ranks, the problem is it is destroying the village and the villagers and in the end the giant will be all that remains in a silent barren world.

The Death of Progressive Adventism

There once was a dynamic segment of the Adventist community which labeled themselves as Progressive Adventists. They even have a nice Wikipedia article describing what Progressive Adventism is or was. A few of my articles were even referenced in the Wikipedia article, and no I did not add them, I have never entered anything into Wikipedia. I had always looked at Progressive Adventism as representative of the following quote by C.S. Lewis:

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. . .There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), Book I, Chap. 5, p. 22.

Unfortunately Progressive Adventism has been hijacked and very nearly killed. If not dead it is dying as it has been stolen by the political progressives. We see this mainly at the two alternative Adventist publications and websites, Adventist Today and Spectrum. Spectrum in particular has become a haven for the political left to masquerade their politics as religion. Everything from economics to California propositions on gay marriage have become their Raison d'être. If anyone reads the main writers on Spectrum and there aren’t that many as they only regularly have a few like minded authors that they publish on the website…most with political views of the politically progressive persuasion, they might as well be reading Jim Wallis and his Sojourners magazine. Not that they make any secret of their affection for Wallis, they endorse him and seem to despise whoever Wallis despises. More on Wallis in a moment.

There are likely still some folks who don’t know what a political progressive is. A helpful article on the subject is found in this article: Politics101: What is a Progressive? What is progressivism? An interesting quote from the article is this describing the difference between a liberal and a progressive:

The Center for American Progress founder John Podesta described the difference between liberals and progressives this way: “Liberals tend to care more about individual freedom, while progressives care more about the public good.”

In Religion terms this kind of Progressivism manifests in such things as President Obama saying:

"It’s because you have an obligation to yourself.  Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation..."

As one website so aptly put it:

"One of their beliefs which is antithetical to traditional Christianity is collective salvation. Sin is not individual, but collective and it cannot be overcome by religious conversion.  According to liberation theologies, God does not save men. Man saves himself through a political process of absolute social justice. This is not in Christian doctrine, but it is Marxist.

Can man successfully redeem himself through collective transformation (salvation) and liberation?

Pope Benedict says emphatically "No", in "Truth and Tolerance." He writes about the fall of the Soviet Union:
"...where the Marxist ideology of liberation has been consistently applied, a total lack of freedom had developed, whose horrors were now laid bare before the eyes of the entire world.  Wherever politics tries to be redemptive (granting salvation from sins) it is promising too much.  Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic."p. 116-Truth and Tolerance"

Social Justice is a pretty popular term on the Spectrum Website even with one Pastor working on video’s saying that they are social justice Christians. Though of course they don’t define what they mean by social justice which is typical of the Progressive movement.

There are other Christian movements who became overly political and it inevitably led to their demise. The Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority became more political then religious and lost credibility and that is what is happening to Progressive Adventism as well. They have taken the precepts of Progressive Adventism, those ideas that you read about in the Wikipedia article and moved the emphasis onto their Progressive political ideas. Progressive Adventism used to be embraced by both politically conservative and politically liberal Christians. But that is no longer the case on the main alternative Adventists websites and publications. Their perspectives are always now politically progressive. As they attempt to redefine Progressive Adventism as Progressive Christianity. Which takes us back to Jim Wallis, the self confessed Marxist who attempts to repaint Jesus Christ as a socialist.

In the Sept 30 newsletter from Soujournes (linked here currently but soon to be found in the archives rather then the current newsletter) Jim Wallis wrote an article entitled: Beck, Nazis, and Civil Dialogue. Notice what he writes:

But then Beck fundamentally mischaracterizes progressive Christians and others. His latest attack last Friday said, "That's why Jim Wallis is so dangerous. All the preachers that surround the president, they are progressives and they are big government progressives. When you combine church and state, and you take a -- you take a big government and you combine it with the church, to get people to do the things that the state wants you to do, it always ends in mass death."

And that is really ridiculous. First of all, there is not a group of preachers who "surround the president." But for Beck to accuse all the preachers or religious leaders who have advised Obama on any issue of being like the Nazi corruption of the church and on a course that "ends in mass death" is the worst kind of civil poison. It's just not right at all, and would be laughable if such irresponsible and hateful talk were a laughing matter.

Remember Jim Wallis is well thought of by those over at Spectrum. First of all Jim Wallis is not being honest not a big surprise if one looks at what he and his magazine have written before. After all they put out a magazine with Glenn Beck on the cover and article which Spectrum linked to entitled Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Community Organizers?  and the article did not even mention Glenn Beck once. There should be one thing in the above quote that should really strike you. That is Wallis does not even deny the idea big government combining with the church, he can’t and in the rest of the article he never even admits to agreeing with Beck that church and state together is not a good idea. Instead he misquotes Beck as if Beck said that all preachers or religious leaders who advised Obama are like Nazi corruption. As if danger only exists when the final corruption occurs. In fact Beck said:

Whenever you bring up Germany and Hitler, it is extreme. And actually, it's less extreme, believe it or not, than communism in Russia. For as horrifying as it is, it's just been our media propaganda that hasn't made us really look and really remember the Holocaust that happened in the other socialist state. The key is socialism.

One never thinks or imagines that this can happen again. No one thinks it can happen here. Well, did the Germans think that it could? Did the Germans sit is there at night and go, you know that Hitler thing, that could end in concentration camps and the liquidation of the Jews? Did they really think that? Or did people say all along the way, wait, wait, wait, this isn't going well, this is —no, this is — no, this isn't us. We shouldn't go down this way.

And then they were told they were conspiracy theorists. They were told that it was wrong. They would even speak out and then the beatings started, and then the execution started, and then that argument just went away.

I want you to be aware that people will say to you that I am trying to get you in religion because I want to control or manipulate you, or I want the churches to control or manipulate you. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I want you one with God. I want you to have firm self reliance or firm reliance on protection of Divine Providence because I want you to be self-reliant. I know if you know your relationship with God, no man will ever, ever put you in a camp. No man will ever tell you that they can create a life — a right, because you know who your rights come from. From the transcript Glenn Beck: Truth About Church and State

Here is as close as Jim Wallis can get to decrying the idea of combining church and state in his article:

…But the leading opponents of Hitler's totalitarianism were social-justice Christians in Germany such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Revelation 13 presents a scary picture of oppression in which the people worship the "beast" instead of God; and all of the Christian leaders I know who have given any advice to President Obama would agree, as would the Christian leaders I know who did not vote for Obama. I believe that at its best, the church should function as a conscience for the state, and not be its cheerleader. Nor should religious leaders be chaplains for any political party, but should instead offer prophetic words to the entire system.

None of that sounds like it is even close to decrying the combination of church and state. Does anyone doubt that during the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church thought of itself as the conscience for the rulers of Europe? The reason he does not decry the church and state combination is because the Progressive belief in social justice only works if the state enforces the redistribution of wealth which is what Jim Wallis thinks is the gospel. As Wallis answered the question, “Are you then calling for the redistribution of wealth in society?” Wallis replied: “Absolutely, without any hesitation. That's what the gospel is all about.”

Wallis then continues upon the subject of social justice. As you notice when you read his article he deceptively limits his understanding of social justice. Like most progressives he won’t define it but he also pretends that it can never be anything but good. Bonhoeffer was a social justice Christian during the Nazi era. While one of the most famous people in America at the time was Father Coughlin who popularized the term social justice and who was a Nazi supporter. Of course there are practical reasons for this since social justice can be defined as socialism it fits within both the Nazi party which of course was socialist as well as those who opposed the Nazi’s in Germany namely the communists who were also socialist. Socialism automatically describes a big centralized government which restricts individual freedom. The difference between the Communists and the National Socialist party was the nationalism of The Germans at the time. Then again anything which focuses upon justice can also be defined as social justice. That is the dodge that those who attempt to mislead people politically use.

With the resurgence and prevalence of political progressives the term Progressive Adventists has been so compromised as to be an affront to freedom loving individuals. Throughout history too many times the so called public good has destroyed individual freedoms and in far too many cases resulted in mass killing of people because after all such things can be seemingly justified as being for the public good. Progressive Adventists might have survived if not for the use by the political progressives at Spectrum and some at Adventist Today, but the damage has been done.

Progressive Adventism is dead.

Defining and Redefining Present Truth

Definition
Present Truth is a frequent term used in the Adventist community. It’s most popular definition is that Present Truth is progressive truth. That is that truth in particular for a particular time or situation. What many Adventists probably don’t know is that the term is used outside of Adventism as well. In fact Charles Spurgeon published a selection of his sermons under the title Present Truth. The Website Heaven Dwellers gives a reasonable definition of Present Truth by saying:

“In each of God's ages and dispensations there has been truth generated from God that was peculiar and particular to that age or dispensation to which it pertained. By that we mean that in each age God made known a truth which related directly to the calling that then stood before God. It has ever been the responsibility of God's people in each age and dispensation to distinguish Present Truth…”

 Adventist Church historian George R. Knight says in A search for identity: the development of Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs:

“…To adequately understand Adventism’s doctrinal development we need to examine three concepts espoused by the earliest Seventh-day Adventists thought leaders: (1) Their dynamic conception of “present truth,” (2) their attitude toward creedal statements of Christian belief, and (3) their view of the pathway to progressive understanding.” (page 18)

Is it Present Truth because we say so?
I would submit that Present Truth is in reality a euphemism for Adventist beliefs. If we (or the Adventists pioneers) believe it, it was or is called present truth. The idea that it is a progressive revelation of truth is not really that compatible with how the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist church used the term. It would be nice if it meant progressive revelation of truth but the usage in history only tangentially touches that idea.

George Knight notes that the term was not unique to the Seventh-day Adventists, that the Millerites earlier employed it in reference to the soon return of Jesus, then to the idea that the second advent would occur on Oct. 22 of 1844. To this Knight finds that the Millerites “find a progressive dynamic in understanding” Knight references the quote from James White’s book Life Incidents page 298-291 where James White says:

"The storm is coming.  War, famine and pestilence are already in the field of slaughter.  Now is the time, the only time to seek a shelter in the truth of the living God.  In Peter's time there was present truth, or truth applicable to that present time.  The church have ever had a present truth.  The present truth now, is that which shows present duty, and the right position for us who are about to witness the time of trouble such as never was.  Present truth must be oft repeated, even to those who are established in it.  This was needful in the apostles' day, and it certainly is no less important for us, who are living just before the close of time.

            "For months I have felt burdened with the duty of writing and publishing the present truth for the scattered flock; but the way has not been opened for me to commence the work until now.  I tremble at the word of the Lord, and the importance of this time.  What is done to spread the truth must be done quickly.  The four angels are holding the angry nations in check but a few days, until the saints are sealed; then the nations will rush, like the rushing of many waters.  Then it will be too late to spread before precious souls the present, saving, living truths of the Holy Bible.  My spirit is drawn out after the scattered remnant.  May God help them to receive the truth, and be established in it."

Knight also references this quote from Ellen White:

“Special truths have been adapted to the conditions of the generations as they have existed. The present truth, which is a test to the people of this generation, was not a test to the people of generations far back. If the light which now shines upon us in regard to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment had been given to the generations in the past, God would have held them accountable for that light.

When the temple of God was opened in heaven, John saw in holy vision a class of people whose attention was arrested and who were looking with reverential awe at the ark, which contained the law of God. The special test upon the fourth commandment did not come until after the temple of God was opened in heaven.”  (Testimonies to the Church Vol. 2 Page 693)

An overused term
Once you read Ellen White, who uses the term over a thousand times you begin to realize that it is not so much a term of dynamic progressive understanding but a shorthand code-word for Adventist doctrine. What the Adventists were teaching was Present Truth. The special understanding that the Adventist had given to the Sabbath was Present Truth. When the Seventh day Baptists taught it a hundred years prior it was not Present Truth.  Note in the above quote Ellen White says that in regard to the Sabbath if generations in the past had known they would be held accountable. But Ellen White elsewhere says that there was almost a continual line of Sabbath Keepers throughout history. (Which is something that the Seventh Day Baptists also said. *See the end of this article an for article excerpt on the Seventh Day Baptists.) But to Ellen White the Sabbath took on special significance because Seventh-day Adventists had determined that they lived in the time after 1844 when the temple of God was opened in heaven.

In Volume 1 of the Testimonies we find good confirmation that the Present Truth is shorthand for Adventist doctrines when it is used with another Adventist shorthand code word, “Thrid angel’s message”:

“Those ministers who have come out from the different denominations to embrace the third angel's message often wish to teach when they should be learners. Some have a great share of their former teaching to unlearn before they can fully learn the principles of present truth. Ministers will injure the cause of God by going forth to labor for others when there is as great a work to be done for them to fit them for their labors as they may wish to do for unbelievers. If they are unqualified for the work, it will require the labor of two or three faithful ministers to follow after and correct their wrong influence. In the end it would be cheaper for the cause of God to give such ministers a good support to remain at home and do no injury in the field.” (Testimonies Vol 1 page 444)

It appears that those ministers from other denominations did not possess the knowledge of the complete doctrines of the Adventists and they had to learn those doctrines otherwise they were going to cause injury. The funny thing about the term Present Truth is that in effect it is quite meaningless. It has no practical definition aside from the claims made by whomever feels they have Present Truth. In the historical context we see that it is the Adventist understanding of the Seventh-day Sabbath, 1844 and the opening of the temple in heaven and the Third angel’s message. We might be able to find a few other distinctive Adventists ideas connected such as health reform, but there is really nothing concrete that is presented as being Present Truth by Ellen White. If the Adventist church actually had something concrete to call Present Truth it would certainly have made the writing of the fundamental doctrines much easier.

As George Knight says:

“Most of the founders of Seventh-day Adventism would not be able to join the church today if they had to agree to the denomination’s “27 fundamental Beliefs”. (page 17)

He goes on to say they would disagree with the Trinity as an unscriptural doctrine, that they would have trouble with the idea that Jesus is both eternal and truly God. They would not only deny the Trinity and eternity of the Son but also deny that the Holy Spirit was a person like the Father and Son. Present Truth for them was simply what they believed as Adventists. It was not Present Truth because it was really true it was Present Truth because they were the remnant, they were the true followers of God and their distinctive beliefs were believed to be true. Here is where they tangentially touch upon progressive revelation of truth. Because they thought they were gifted with the prophetic guidance of Ellen White as the miss appropriated term “Spirit of Prophecy” they had a new revelation of truth that others did not have. In that sense their ideas endorsed by Ellen White could possibly be seen as progressive revelations, but only by those who accepted the prophet role of Ellen White.

Redefining Present Truth

Progressive Adventism has taken the term Present Truth and attempted to separate it from it’s historical use as Traditional distinctive Adventist doctrines into a concept that we should seek to learn how and when it is necessary to reinterpret our doctrines and ideas. It then sounds to the traditional Adventists who hear Present Truth as Adventists distinctives that the Progressive Adventists are talking the same language. The problem of course besides meaning different things is that we get the idea that our incorrect doctrines were at one time referred to as Present Truth. It is difficult to progress past something that we have declared to be the truth especially if it was called Present Truth, a truth of necessity because we were living so near the end of the world. Consider what Joseph Bates said in his pamplet An Explanation of the Typical and Anti-Typical Sanctuary, By the Scriptures. With A Chart Revelation III:

“Why this third angel's loud cry about the commandments of God, because the fourth one, which had been trodden down for many generations, is to be restored and kept as the commandment requires.  The second angel's message and voice from heaven required God's people to leave the churches.  The seventh-day Sabbath could not, nor can not now be restored there.  It is to be done in the Philadelphia state of the church, and no where else.  This is the present truth in the commandments in the Ark of his Testimony.  The present truth in this is: That the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and now stands beside the Ark containing the commandments.  The "Present Truth," then, of this third angel's message is, T H E  S A B B A T H  A N D  S H U T  D O O R. See the picture on the Chart.”

Not too many Adventists still believe in the Shut Door theory even if at one time it was thought to be Present Truth. But then again most think that Present Truth is their accepted Adventist distinctive beliefs and not someone else’s distinctive belief even if it is that of an Adventist church founder. The danger here is found in the idea that we have to align Present Truth with past Present Truth. Here is what the article dealing with Progressive revelation says:

“New light will not manifest itself in a form that is altogether different from the light the church already possesses. It will take the form of a further advancement of present truth. It is a fuller, clearer, and brighter unfolding of the old truth. There will be harmony with the theological landmarks, the Spirit of Prophecy, and historicist principles of Bible interpretation. Thus it will not replace, substitute, radically change, or tear down the foundations of Adventist faith and practice.” (Seventh-day Adventist Doctrines and Progressive Revelation © P. Gerard Damsteegt Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 2/1 (1991): 77-92)

Time to abandon the term
Thus the theologian has closed the circle of Present Truth. It is always what we believe and it will always be what we believe. Present Truth is an illusion, a piece of propaganda to make the uncertain feel certain. It is a term I will no longer use and I hope that the Adventist church will also abandon the deception of Present Truth for a more reasoned truth that is subject to changing interpretations and even dare I say it…acknowledging that some things we thought were true were not.  Because that is really the only way progressive revelation will work for anyone.

* I found this interesting so I thought I would append it here as referenced above.:

 “Thus far we have endeavored to show, and think we have done so, that Christianity was planted in the islands of Great Britain in the apostolic age; that it was Sabbath-keeping in character; that for some six centuries, at least, the Sabbath prevailed in these islands, and that, on down to the Reformation, Sabbath advocates and adherents abounded in unbroken and persistent succession.
We now come to the subject of organized Seventh-Day Baptist Churches.
A.D. 1558.
Chambers' Cyclopedia states that "many conscientious and independent thinkers in the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603)advocated the seventh-day."
A.D. 1552.
The Sabbath Recorder of June 11, 1868, says:- "In 1552 many in England were known as Sabbatarians.
A.D. 1545.
Dr. Samuel Kohn, chief Rabbi of Budapest, Hungary, in a recent work ( Sabbatarians in Transylvania, 1894, pp. 8,9) says:- In Bohemia Sabbatarians sprung up as early as 1530. Such Sabbatarians, or similar sects, we meet about 1545 among the Quakers in England. Several leaders and preachers of the Puritans have re-transferred the rest day from Sunday to Saturday; and the Christian Jews who arose in England and in 1661 partly emigrated to Germany, and settled near Heidelberg, believed, indeed, in Jesus, but they also celebrated the Sabbath and regarded the Jewish laws in reference to meats and drinks."

The Psychology of Adam and Eve, a tough question

Not long ago I was thinking about one of the problems that exist when we hold to a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation account. We normally think of these as the physical problem with the creation account, such as what was light on the first day, or how could it be that the sun, moon and stars were not created until the fourth day. Those are of course large problems for a literal view of the Genesis creation account but there is another science which comes into play in the story. A somewhat softer science but still a very important consideration; that is the psychology of the first humans.

We have for quite some time now as a culture realized that human beings need time to develop reasoning skills. It is of course not just time that is needed it is experience and knowledge of life that take up that time till a human being is thought of as a responsible person. We have in America set that time frame as 18 years and then the person is classed as an adult. Some countries my have less, some more. The Jews have a tradition of a boy moving into manhood at age 12. The different ages for the acceptance of the age of reason my vary and they may be somewhat arbitrary but they have a good number of years of life experience and learning in common before the person is classed among those called of the age of reason or adults or independently  responsible individuals.

Now back to the creation story. Man, Adam and Eve in the story were created. What was their psychological level of maturity? Those years of experiences that humans go through to reach the age of reason were not there for Adam and Eve. Yet the greatest test of their loyalty was placed upon their inexperienced shoulders. But of course we don’t know what level of experience they had perhaps experiences were implanted in their minds. Surely they were not created as adult sized infants. After all the in the story they seem to be able to walk and talk and carry on conversations, something that normally requires years of training and experience before the average child becomes proficient.

But that is a problem when we are about to test someone…because if God is going to test them and God is the one that gave them the knowledge or artificial experience He is not really testing them but testing the information He implanted into them. Now of course if God did not give them any knowledge or experiences then they were in no ways capable of understanding their world at all and their lives for at least a few years would be filled with learning the very basics of life. Perhaps God would have been their instructor during these first years of life but we really have no idea because the story does not say anything about the origins of their knowledge and experiences. But most anyway you look at it if you delve into their psychology they were either on their own and very immature and inexperienced or they were implanted with knowledge and experience or they were trained by God.

If they were trained by God or God implanted the knowledge into them then the fault lies as much or more with God as with Adam or Eve if they fail the test God lays out for them. If they were simply unknowledgeable and inexperienced then the fault lies entirely with God for placing them in a situation that they could not hope to function as individually responsible people. The idea of God plunging the entire world into sin because of the choices of two totally inadequately knowledgeable people would make God out to be entirely insensitive and cruel. 

It seems to me that just on the psychology of the situation it is entirely impossible to accept the story as literal. Because it would destroy the whole idea of God before it even builds up the idea of God. At least to the modern mind, though to the ancients it seems that they had no real need for their gods to behave properly or intelligently or fairly even, just read the stories of the gods of the nations around Israel to see that for yourself. The question we have to ask is; do we have to ignore what we know to accept and ancient story or does the story have uses or interpretations that work beyond the realm of ancient understandings. If we believe in progressive revelation of God then we don’t have to accept the literal story and we don’t have to pretend that what does not make sense makes perfect sense. Instead we can apply what our knowledge and experience adds to the understanding and the methods we use to interpret the Biblical texts.

But if you choose not to go there, and choose to believe in the literal story, do you have an answer for the psychological development of Adam and Eve? I would love to hear some conjectures on that idea.

Doing honest science at an Adventist School

 Yesterday I attended the PACIFIC NORTHWEST ADVENTIST FORUM meeting which featured the guest speaker Benjamin Clausen, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist Geoscience Research Institute at Loma Linda California.

Here is a portion from the Announcement:

Title: Doing Honest Science at an Adventist School?

 "As I teach and do research in geology, I am continually confronted with
questions of how to be honest with the science, yet faithful to the
Seventh-day Adventist church. What do I say to my students and science
colleagues that fairly represents the geology data, while being supportive
of the Bible and an encouragement to faith? This lecture will present some
anecdotal experiences and ideas that have been developing, rather than a
final answer. It will suggest: (1) teaching the standard scientific paradigm
along with the merits and problems of various alternatives, all within the
bigger perspective of the philosophical issues; (2) developing an attitude
that values modern science while recognizing its limits, rather than an
attitude that attacks modern science and sets up some parallel scientific
paradigm; (3) some areas of Scriptural certainty, along with many areas that
may be beyond finite human understanding.”

This was probably the best attended Forum meeting I have attended, about 120 people. It was also practically worthless. That announcement excerpt probably said more than the lecture. Fortunately the question and answer period was a little better. Most of his lecture was citing the process of meetings that the Adventist church has held in the last couple of  decades. Process is his big issue, it seems to be what he has placed his hopes in though if one looks at the process and what the church leadership has determined to be the results such as the organizing committee's statement for the Faith and Science conferences which appear to only restate the Adventist churches leadership desires rather than represent what the conference actually did, one is hard pressed to see much hope for the process.

The lecture presented no anecdotes about how to teach science in the Adventist classroom, how to be true to scientific principles while holding to the Adventist leadership's endorsement of young earth beliefs. He did note that in his area of Plate Tectonics it does not work within the young earth perspective. Basically I found his presentation to be so worthless because not only did it not fulfill its stated objectives but it was almost entirely politically shrouded as to not upset the Adventist Leadership in their campaign to say that the Adventist church must believe in a literal six contiguous days of 24 hour of creation in the recent past. How that works with the science or how we can explain in our Adventist schools was entirely ignored. Because it appears it cannot be done so let's just ignore that and hope it goes away.

Obviously it will not go away. Actually what I hoped was that the Adventist scientific community would stand up to the Adventist leadership and tell them that Adventist leadership's insistence upon six literal days of creation does not work with the science and that we cannot pretend it does and produce scientifically successful students and professionals. But ignoring the issues to let the folks over at EducateTruth.com have their way they insure that the Adventist church will simply lose their Science professionals and youth because the reality does not match well with the churches beliefs.

As with most issues in the Adventist church we are limited because we have to act as though the 19th century views of Adventism must rule us forever. It is these "Whiteites" that will not allow science to be taught because it disagrees with their prophet Ellen G. White. The same prophet who said that volcanoes* were caused by burning coal and limestone is given the credibility as the messenger of God even on scientific issues. Most of them will resort when questioned on this that she was so right on health reform that she is correct on science. Ignoring that her teachings on health reform were the common knowledge of the health reformers that proceeded her.

Hopefully the educated portion of Adventism will stand up before it is too late. But the fear of losing the denominational employment  is most likely muting their voices. Which if that continues will lead to the complete regression of Adventism into a fringe group which will severely limit our Adventist health care system and professionals.

*Ellen White on Volcanoes in Patriarch and Prophets page 108-9:

"At this time immense forests were buried. These have since been changed to coal, forming the extensive coal beds that now exist, and also yielding large quantities of oil. The coal and oil frequently ignite and burn beneath the surface of the earth. Thus rocks are heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. The action of the water upon the lime adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes, and fiery issues. As the fire and water come in contact with ledges of rock and ore, there are heavy explosions underground, which sound like muffled thunder. The air is hot and suffocating. Volcanic eruptions follow; and these often failing to give sufficient vent to the heated elements, the earth itself is convulsed, the ground heaves and swells like the waves of the sea, great fissures appear, and sometimes cities, villages, and burning mountains are swallowed up. These wonderful manifestations will be more and more frequent and terrible just before the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, as signs of its speedy destruction.

Ascend the Hill

There is a new band I heard about a year ago and I really liked them. They are Ascend the Hill When you go to the Myspace link you can hear some of their songs but if you look down below the player you see a link to "Download our new Record FREE!!!!!  (view more)" Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Eisgetical sermons

One thing that I have consistently noticed is that when I listen to sermons there is inevitably something theological horrendous being expressed. Not that they are purposely trying to teach human garbage as if it is facts about God but almost invariably it is there in their sermons. There is, as in almost any sermon, some good material something, uplifting and intelligent. It is just often overwhelmed with the foolishness that pretends to pass as enlightened expositional preaching. I often think that most of this is simply accepted by the congregations…for what reason, I guess it is simply because they don’t want to think about what was just said. The Pastor is a good man he must be giving a good message leading them to accept the message. Perhaps it is why Barack Obama could attend 20 years of Jeremiah Wright’s church and think he never heard any of the terrible things Jeremiah Wright was saying. (If one were to assume that Barack Obama really did not know what Wright was saying.) We acknowledge that the people in the pews listen and are influenced yet don’t connect enough to analyze the material they are hearing. Yet there is little doubt that it does affect people. That it will color their accepted theology.

Following this article is a transcription of a recent sermon segment offered a few weeks ago by the former pastor of the church I attend. Granted I attend less and less frequently and sermons even less frequently because not only are they long (this sermon was  probably an hour and a half) poorly reasoned and boring but because they are a poor method of communication and usually destructive to a reasoned faith.

In the segment of the sermon I transcribed I would say as a description of sermons styles an eisgetical sermon where he starts with an assumption and attempts to find Bible texts to support his assumptions (I looked it up eisgetical is really a word). Thus the Bible texts are used as pretexts to support a questionable beginning assumption. If we were to fit the sermon into a category of sermons we would have to say that it is a Textual sermon. Here the text he begins with is:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (Mat 28:18 NIV)

Pastor Decker then stated: “Why does He have all authority? And I would say that a lot of it is well I would say that it is because He resurrected.” Thus Decker is asserting that Christ’s authority comes from the fact of the resurrection rather than the fact that Jesus Christ is God who has authority because He is God. Something that the book of Matthew set out to demonstrate fairly early on with such verses as:

(Mat 7:29 NIV)  because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

(Mat 9:6 NIV)  But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home."

(Mat 10:1 NIV)  He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

To indicate further Decker’s misunderstanding he ignores further that Jesus Christ was/is God by indicating that Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father.  “… So there and a dozen other places it is saying that God the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead.” In fact there is not even one text that says “God the Father” raised Jesus, only that God raised Jesus from the dead. The closest verse to that idea also includes Jesus Christ saying:

(Gal 1:1 NIV)  Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead--

 But Jesus is also God and Jesus had in the Gospel of John said that He would raise Himself from the dead.

(John 10:17-18 NIV)  The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

(John 2:19-21 NIV)  Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

Interestingly enough in some email conversation with Pastor Decker through a friend Pastor Decker supplied his texts to prove that Jesus was raised by God the Father his list being:

Acts 2:24, Mark 16:19, Rom 4:24, Rom 10:9, Heb 13:20, Acts 13:34, Gal. 1:1, 1 Cor. 15:15

That list of texts uses nothing from the Gospels or the quotes of Jesus in the book of John. Though it includes the questionable text in Mark chapter 16 but that texts says nothing about the resurrection. Mark 16:19:

 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. (NIV)

How one thinks they can talk about the resurrection and not even use the quotes that John gives of Christ about the resurrection is strange unless one remembers that the purpose here in the sermon is not attempting to see what the Bible says but to make it say what the assumption of the Pastor wants the Bible to say.

When we look at what the New Testament actually says we see that all three aspects of God are credited with raising Jesus from the dead. We have seen that Jesus said He would raise Himself. The Pastor has supplied us with some texts where it says God raised Jesus from the dead and there is another verse in Roman’s 8 where the Spirit is cited as raising Jesus from the dead:

(Rom 8:11 NIV)  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

The sermon makes us wonder after all who does Pastor Decker think Jesus Christ is? Is He God or not, did He only have authority after His resurrection as Tom claimed that then all power and authority was given Him. That would come as a surprise to the writer of the gospel of John.  Jesus said He would lay down His life and He would take it up again. God and the Holy Spirit are also declared as being the power behind the resurrection. Rather like the creation of the world references where in various places in the Bible all three are given credit for creation. Because these three are the aspects of God that are we may refer to as the modes of operation of the one God. Pastor Decker’s sermon has confused the issue of who God is, fitting more closely with Arian or Semi-Arian view points. This confusion is carried further as the sermon continues but I won’t deal with the part about Jesus either dying for His sins or humanities sins and not understanding Himself what He was dying for, as he does not even try to justify his fanciful speculations, suffice it to say the New Testament account makes no such indications. Though we all know how the Psalms 22 quote Christ used is assumed to mean all kinds of things to some people.

As Pastor Decker continues we see he does not understand the sacrifice of Christ either. This is perhaps the root of most of his confusion because when one accepts the penal Substitutionary view of atonement they often forget that God presented the sacrifice so it was not a sacrifice to God it was a sacrifice of God. Pastor Decker says:

“So everything stalled in terms of salvation for those three days while Christ sat in the tomb. Is He going to resurrect, is He going to come back to life? If He resurrects if He comes back to life what does that say? It says that God the Father accepted the sacrifice. If He stays in the grave It says that God the Father said no it was not a pure unblemished lamb that was sacrificed He was marred He had sinned. He has to die for His own sins. And Remember God the Father is defending this to the universe to the angels to all who would come and ask. So God the Father resurrects Jesus, when He resurrects Jesus what is He doing? He’s saying I accept the sacrifice…”

(Rom 3:25 NIV)  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—

(John 3:17 NIV)  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The sacrifice is not to God, the sacrifice is offered by God.

(John 1:1-4 NIV)  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

Unfortunately Christianity has made an idol out of the penal atonement theory. That theory being that God had to punish somebody for sin so that when they read a verse like Hebrews 9:14:

(Heb 9:14 NIV)  How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

They will interpret as if God demanded the blood rather then through the voluntary acceptance of the plan of salvation of God and the successful completion of that plan as Jesus Christ offered Himself to the submission of death, not to satisfy God’s demands that someone has to die but to cleanse our consciences so that we may be persuaded to serve God. After all He is God, and even in this verse we see the three aspects of God working together of one purpose and that purpose is to help us not to satisfy God’s demand that someone pay a penalty. After all this is God the God who freely forgives how can we then say that such a God demands punishment? It is illogical it is counter productive, yet it is the traditional Adventist view, the traditional Christian view. It is the codification of tradition treated as the gospel. It is not the gospel it is a distortion of the gospel. And if fills our sermons and destroys the gospel and prevents us from truly progressing in our knowledge of God.

I like Pastor Tom, I simply wish he could open himself to the real gospel. Though I realize the Christian world no longer accepts Christian philosophy not of its particular tradition. Teaching a Christian religion like the following sermon segment, reading into the Bible their presuppositions which make God foolish and arbitrary and vengeful all the while saying He is a God of love. It is no wonder Christianity is dying in the Western World. Christians have been killing it for hundreds of years.

Tom Decker’s Sermon “Go” segment transcription:

After noting that Jesus has all authority and that Jesus is with you always Pastor Decker in his sermon stated the following (I will cut out Umms and such time fillers.)

-----

The other question I have to ask in here is why does He have all authority? Where does that come from? He has all authority in Heaven and on earth we sometimes don’t feel like He has all authority do we? But He has all authority He claims to. Why does He have all authority? And I would say that a lot of it is well I would say that it is because He resurrected. Who resurrected Jesus? I remember getting in a fight with Linda about this, do you remember us talking about this? And she had one assertion and we argued about it for a while and made me study it a lot deeper and I went and started looking at passages and you can look and see a half dozen or 10-12 passages that reaffirm that God the Father resurrected Jesus. Let’s look at Romans 4 OK. Just flip over to Romans 4 not very far. OK after the Gospels Mathew Mark Luke John Acts and than Romans. Romans 4 verse 24; But also for us to whom God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him who raised our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins he was raised to life for our justification. But also for us to whom God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. So there and a dozen other places it is saying that God the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Why is that important? What does that do to give Jesus Christ authority? How does that affect me? How does that impact my life? You see the crucifixion of Jesus was Jesus dying for sin. If He didn’t have to die for sin He would have lived His three score and ten or He would have never come here Okay, but Jesus had to die for sin. When Jesus died He died for one of two things. He either died for His own sin if He had sinned or He died for the sin of humanity. Which is what scripture claims. It seems by some of what Jesus said that He wasn’t even so sure Himself which of those two reasons He had died for when He went to the cross. He felt very far from God and He did not understand it, had a very hard time coping with that. If Jesus had died for His own sin it was because He was sinned He would have died and in that state He would have stayed in the ground. God had no right to resurrect Him. If He had died sinless had died not for his own sin but for the sin of us then He would have died a legitimate sacrificial death. And in dying that death God would have been empowered to resurrect Him afterwards.

So everything stalled in terms of salvation for those three days while Christ sat in the tomb. Is He going to resurrect, is He going to come back to life? If He resurrects if He comes back to life what does that say? It says that God the Father accepted the sacrifice. If He stays in the grave it says that God the Father said no it was not a pure unblemished lamb that was sacrificed He was marred He had sinned. He has to die for His own sins. And Remember God the Father is defending this to the universe to the angels to all who would come and ask. So God the Father resurrects Jesus, when He resurrects Jesus what is He doing? He’s saying I accept the sacrifice. Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven all authority in earth and He is the King of Kings the Lord of Lords. That is the foundation the resurrection is the solid foundation of our assurance of justification our assurance of salvation and our entry point into sanctification and eventually the glorification where we are able to join God in heaven. The resurrection validates the sacrifice until the resurrection we don’t know if the sacrifice is valid. When God the Father resurrected Jesus He told the universe the sacrifice is valid salvation is a reality. You can count on it you can bank on it. Therefore because I have resurrected, because I have all authority in heaven and earth Jesus turns to His disciples and says all authority in heaven and earth has been given me therefore go.

 

Roy Adam’s When All Else Fails Attack

In the most recent edition of the Adventist World Roy Adams has a “special feature” in which he recounts his experiences after writing his first article on William Paul Young’s book “The Shack” First he tells us how his fellow church leaders loved his article. “It was a classic” one tells him and how others wrote in to support Roy Adam’s article. He then leads on to three letters that were against his article.

The first thing we should remember is that letters to the editor are not laid out as articles themselves they are generally simply emotional statements of people for or against something or perhaps small corrections. They are not position papers and thus they are not formulated to be as persuasive and encompassing as an actual article which is intended for publication.

So Roy Adams in effect goes after the by standers in the controversy rather than dealing with the numerous articles which actually were written as counterpoint to his own article. It is perhaps the way of the weak argument to behave by going after the less well armed but in a world of propaganda which is what most of the Adventist Review has become it is one sure way to win the propaganda war. Responding to a few letters rather than to more complex arguments such as my own: See Review of William Young’s The Shack

The Shack and the Adventist Review Article.  

What is striking early on after seeing how Mr. Adams has to shore up his support from the Ministry Magazine editor who termed Adams piece a classic (which if you think about it says a lot about that editor if he thinks that article is a classic, unless he was being sarcastic) how Adams does not even realize the implication of what he wrote in his first article. For example in letter 2 he quotes the following letter and writes:

2. Reader B: “Mr. Adams begins his article by criticizing the beautiful music of Ave Maria…. [I did no such thing!]

 In fact he calls the work improper and unbiblical. He writes in his first article:

But notwithstanding the song’s valid scriptural elements (based on Luke 1), what we have here is essentially a prayer to Mary, disguised to most of us because of its Latin rendition. Would I be as moved by the piece if its words were simultaneously translated as its beautiful melody sounds in my ears? The lyrics end, as follows:

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, 

pray for us sinners now 

and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

If I allow my love for the music to blind me to the inappropriateness of its lyrics, then that would be sheer emotionalism on my part. Praying to the dead is improper and unbiblical.

At least he did note that the song has valid scriptural elements. But it certainly appears to be a criticism and to pretend he has not criticized something when clearly he has shows something wrong in his own mental processes. Beauty does not prevent the need for valid criticism of the content. But don’t pretend that no criticism was intended when it was and people can tell what you intended. Or worse yet parse your ideas to say well hey I criticized the lyrics not the music, but simply making a declaration “I did no such thing!” is disingenuous.

He then goes on to say that what he found in the three letters, again ignoring the other responses that were published throughout the Adventist network of people, Anger, embarrassment of our belief and a simplistic naïveté. Actually that is my normal feeling when reading the Adventist Review. The foolishness of articles like Adams in the Review will also foster anger and embarrassment at Adventist doctrine and leaders. For example here is how Adam’s concludes his article:

…If we’re after making solid Christians, we’d better be completely honest with our audience and not sugarcoat the evidence. To raise The Shack, de facto, to the level of sacred text is silly and naive. Imaginative fiction, however well-meaning, can never trump the Word of God. 

Not one letter writer or any article writer writing to counter Adam’s view suggested raising The Shack to the level of sacred text. So where does that idea come from? It is merely a rhetorical technique, a piece of propaganda to help him sustain his position as a wise expositor of Christian teachings. Certainly he is being naïve; he is also misrepresenting the letter writers which he has set himself against. It is deceptive and manipulative and ultimately since he avoids the real issues he is an obscurantist. But I can say it is a fitting follow up to his first article, poorly reasoned and generally worthless.

There is one final note which I will reflect on; Adam’s criticizes the unbiblical and improper lyrics of the Ave Maria. But there is an equally unbiblical and improper statement made in the Adventist World issue. It is carried on “The People’s Place” Quote of the Month. It reads:

“Eve fell because she thought there was something better. Adam fell because he thought there was no one better.”

There is nothing in the Genesis story or anywhere else in the Bible to imply that Adam fell because he thought there was no one better, i.e. Eve. What that quote does is take an Ellen White idea and raise it to a tradition read into the story and then praised to the World Adventist church. Is that really any different than what the Ave Maria does with Catholic tradition?

One thing I don’t expect to see is that the Adventist Review or World Edition will begin to start thinking critically, and that is the saddest part of all.