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[Emma]

Theology is a wide field, I am sure there would be specialised and relatively noncontentious areas where well grounded SDA ministers could study with profit in non SDA
institutions.  Obviously it is not where SDA ministers would get their basic training.

My training is not in theology - obviously - and I had no choice but to go to the secular institution to study.  Those who have had the opportunity so study in such places are privileged.    Thank you for the offer of references, but at this time I am studying other things. I will chase them up later as I need them.

[Ozzie]

[Neither was I at/near Glacier View, but the battle for truth against the heresies of Desmond Ford (Sorry Gailon, he ain't no "Elder" anymore), was and is waged by many who
But it all makes one wonder, is there something in the water in Australia? Another mega-heretic from down under, by the name of Robert Brinsmead, sent his brand of "another gospel" {2 Cor 11:4} to the US where it split my old church. May God have mercy.

So, anyman, what role did you play in helping the SDA church oust the impostor Ford from amongst our midst?
SDAminister

 

For the record "the imposter" Dr Ford is still a member of the SDA church, as far as I know, and lives in Queensland.

That is my understanding too Emma. I believe that he came down to preach in the Norther Rivers Area of NSW several years ago.

And I think you might have left out some of the Australian influence in the Branch Davidians in your category of megaheretics from Down Under.

In the past I have listened to Dr Ford speak, on various occasions, and while I do not necessarily agree with all he believes, I never heard him speak of more conservative members of the church with the vitriol some with other view points, used.

It would be a good thing if those who believe they have "The Truth'" could show "victorious SDA living".
For the record also, I am a relatively conservative SDA - by Australian standards anyway.

I endorse everything that Emma has stated above. I have never heard DR Ford speak with the animosity that I witness here on many occasions.

[Ozzie]

Thank you Grandma.

All I was asking for was Christian courtesy in discussing others - I have never been a 'follower' of Dr Ford but I have gained some
useful insights in hearing him speak. 

Let me be very clear on this issue to. I am not a 'Ford-follower'. I am merely stating that at all times I heard him speak, he was a gentleman. His views also taught me to study more for myself, and to teach me to be very careful about 'following the crowd', or following a particular person.

[Ozzie]

How many current SDA ministers have doctorates (in theology related areas) from "worldly" universities?  

Too many.

So the SDA church and its institutions have all that is worth knowing in this field?

It's all relative. Could an average Joe from off the street learn something worth knowing by attending a worldly university to study theology. Sure. Is this what SDA's are called to do, to go and learn about God at an institution or church that is based upon the fallen philosophy of Babylon? Categorically--NO! You are familiar with the SDA position on this, aren't you? If you've got the Ellen White CD ROM, I can send you the references, or links to them, if you don't.

But who knows, the best was to study God (theology) just might be to talk a walk in the woods every day to commune and pray with the one who made it all.

So, are you saying SDA Minister, that my degrees from various secular Universities are of account, because they were not obtained at Avondale (despite the fact that Avondale did not have facilities to study those speciality areas until very recently)? In fact, most of my studies are still not available at Adventist study centres (in Australia, anyway).

We can't all be Theologians. God did not create us all to do the same thing. Some people that I have come across have their heads so far in the clouds that they are of no earthly use, so it's just as well that there are some practical people 'out there'.

You know, this SDA elitist attitude is one thing that has turned many away from Adventist beliefs.

It also costs a lot more $s to attend SDA education centres than is does to attend Government Universities. No small matter when a mother with 4 small children is trying to obtain the education which was not available to her in her younger years and her husband is also studying at the same time.

[GrandmaNettie]

SDAminister,

Just a side note to your earlier post.  Ellen G. White drank Australian water for a number of years.  Do you know if that was before or after she wrote her statements on amalgamation of man and beast resulting in a new race of people?

"Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men." (Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p 75.)

Although I am not a Ford follower, I find this odd:  Dr. Ford is called a heretic for getting veil placement wrong and is criticized for his worldly education, but do you charge EGW with heresy when she embraced and endorsed this unscientific, rascist philosophy of Babylon, aka the worldly views of her day?  Remember, scripture was clear about the origins of all men.  Acts 17:24 - 28:

24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

How many current SDA ministers have doctorates (in theology related areas) from "worldly" universities?   

Too many.

So the SDA church and its institutions have all that is worth knowing in this field?

It's all relative. Could an average Joe from off the street learn something worth knowing by attending a worldly university to study theology. Sure. Is this what SDA's are called to do, to go and learn about God at an institution or church that is based upon the fallen philosophy of Babylon? Categorically--NO! You are familiar with the SDA position on this, aren't you? If you've got the Ellen White CD ROM, I can send you the references, or links to them, if you don't.

But who knows, the best was to study God (theology) just might be to talk a walk in the woods every day to commune and pray with the one who made it all.

There will be multitudes of heathens in heaven who will have come to know God far better than any "elitist SDA" (thank you Ozzie!) simply by studying what He has created. 

[Fran]

There will be multitudes of heathens in heaven who will have come to know God far better than any "elitist SDA" (thank you Ozzie!) simply by studying what He has created. 

This is one of my favorite references about the love of God!

Desire of Ages  P 638

...All who have been born into the heavenly family are in a special sense the brethren of our Lord. The love of Christ binds together the members of His family, and wherever that love is made manifest there the divine relationship is revealed. "Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." 1 John 4:7.

Those whom Christ commends in the judgment may have known little of theology, but they have cherished His principles. Through the influence of the divine Spirit they have been a blessing to those about them. Even among the heathen are those who have cherished the spirit of kindness; before the words of life had fallen upon their ears, they have befriended the missionaries, even ministering to them at the peril of their own lives. Among the heathen are those who worship God ignorantly, those to whom the light is never brought by human instrumentality, yet they will not perish. Though ignorant of the written law of God, they have heard His voice speaking to them in nature, and have done the things that the law required. Their works are evidence that the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts, and they are recognized as the children of God.

How surprised and gladdened will be the lowly among the nations, and among the heathen, to hear from the lips of the Saviour, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me"! How glad will be the heart of Infinite Love as His followers look up with surprise and joy at His words of approval!

But not to any class is Christ's love restricted. He identifies Himself with every child of humanity. That we might become members of the heavenly family, He became a member of the earthly family. He is the Son of man, and thus a brother to every son and daughter of Adam. His followers are not to feel themselves detached from the perishing world around them. They are a part of the great web of humanity; and Heaven looks upon them as brothers to sinners as well as to saints. The fallen, the erring, and the sinful, Christ's love embraces; and every deed of kindness done to uplift a fallen soul, every act of mercy, is accepted as done to Him.

[GrandmaNettie]

Yep, mine too.

[Bob Pickle]

SDAminister,

Just a side note to your earlier post.  Ellen G. White drank Australian water for a number of years.  Do you know if that was before or after she wrote her statements on amalgamation of man and beast resulting in a new race of people?

"Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men." (Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p 75.)

Although I am not a Ford follower, I find this odd:  Dr. Ford is called a heretic for getting veil placement wrong and is criticized for his worldly education, but do you charge EGW with heresy when she embraced and endorsed this unscientific, rascist philosophy of Babylon, aka the worldly views of her day?

Why repeat the fallacious arguments of Dudley Canright and a host of other uninformed critics who didn't know what they were talking about?

Certainly you don't buy into this bogus criticism of Ellen White, do you? Especially at a time when the world's scientists are engaged in amalgamation of man and beast?

[Eduard]

What would have been beneficial to Ford and many others, I think, is to put more effort in finding answers to questions, answers that support what we believe rather than answers that tear it down.

For example, I recall Dr. Ford saying something about "within the veil" in Hebrews having to correspond to a particular phrase in the LXX, and thus it had to mean "Most Holy Place" in Hebrews. But when I tried to check that out, it appeared to me that the Greek of Hebrews 6:19 corresponded more closely to that of the LXX of Num. 3:26, which to me definitely is talking about within the first veil rather than within the second veil.

We tend to find what we are looking for, and if we aren't looking for something, we are unlikely to find what is really there.

Bob,

I wonder if you have studied Ford's manuscript "Daniel 8:14, the Day of Atonement, and the Investigative Judgment." Do you really know what he claims? My previous discussions with you (I still have the 500 pages of e-mail we have exchanged) provide evidence that the basis of your SDA beliefs are not the Bible but the claimed writings of Ellen White in spite of ample evidence that Ellen White did not write the books published under her name. This is why, I assume, in one of your messages to me you came to state that Ellen's White's claimed writings are Jesus's direct words to the church.

There are just a few original manuscripts (handwritten documents) that are confirmed to be written by her, and most of them are short letters written in an atrocious language. Ellen White never used more than a poor second grader's English in those handwritten documents until her death. She could not have written, and she did not write what has been published under her name. Others have written those books (actually copied them from different Christian authors), and the evidence is incontrovertible. Ellen White is an SDA LEGEND, and one of the greatest ecclesiastical scams in the history of mankind.

The truth is that the SDA theology is utterly bankrupt and beyond recovery. There is no support in the Bible for the  the claimed "year-day principle" (I wrote an article in Adventist Today showing that the "principle" or "equation" -as Shea names it - has not linguistic basis in the Bible). The SDA perspective on a split atonement and investigative judgment cannot be supported with Biblical texts, while the SDA interpretations of Daniel 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are pure fantasies.


In the past 20 years I have corresponded or talked personally with Desmond Ford (I met him a couple of times and discussed different topics related to his Manuscript.), Richard Davidson, Roy Gane, Jon Paulien, and some of the other "famous SDA theologians." My communication with those theologians has been very disappointing. I asked them questions about key SDA doctrines that could not be supported with the Bible, and I did not get any response to some of my messages, or the answers I received contained infantile responses to my serious questions. I wanted to publish a few articles in JATS and AUSS that argued against the SDA perspectives on different "unique contributions" to the Christian beliefs, but I was told that these journals did not publish anything that contradicted the traditional SDA views.


The SDA hermeneutics still belongs to the 19th century. Most of the SDA "exegesis" is based on etimological studies and morphological hair splitting, something that James Barr criticized brutally in his book "The Semantics of Biblical Languages." The SDA exegetes are less than amateurs. They are ignorant, brain-washed individuals who repeat at nauseam the lies that stand at the foundation of the "movement."  A few of these "experts" used the word "linguistics" in their papers as evidence that they are using current linguistic tools to interpret the Bible, but the fact is that they have no idea what linguistics is. They have no idea that the words have meaning only in context, and that their dictionary definitions or senses matter little in Biblical interpretation.

Desmond Ford was right when he pointed to the serious theological problems that have plagued the SDA church from the beginning . Unfortunately, he could not see that even with the solutions he had proposed, most of the SDA basic doctrines could not be defended with the Bible. If Ellen White's books were not inspired and were not written (copied) by her but by other people, if the "year-day principle," has no basis in the Bible, because there is no lingustic support for it, if the split atonement and the investigative judgment cannot be documented with Biblical texts, and if the SDA interpretation of Daniel 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 is wrong, what is left of the SDA teaching? Nothing?


I have a question for you: To what "tent" or tabernacle "room" does Hebrews 9:6-10 make reference to? After you have given me your answer, I will show you how Roy Gane (in a personal communication) has twisted these texts to reach a conclusion convenient to the SDA doctrine of split atonement.

Eduard

[Artiste]

ADMIN HAT ON

If you wish to discuss theology, you may do so in the proper area of the Forum.  Also, please remember that Advent Talk is stated to be Seventh-day Adventist in content.

ADMIN HAT OFF 

ADDENDUM:  Topic has now been moved to the Theology section.

[Bob Pickle]

This is why, I assume, in one of your messages to me you came to state that Ellen's White's claimed writings are Jesus's direct words to the church.

Not exactly.

The Bible teaches that Jesus testifies by His Spirit through the prophets. Thus, if Ellen White had the gift of prophecy, Jesus testified by His Spirit through her.

But that doesn't mean that her writings are Jesus' direct words, since inspired writings are divine thoughts put into human words.

There is no support in the Bible for the  the claimed "year-day principle"

Why then do Bible translators everywhere as well as Hebrew linguists acknowledge that one of the meanings of the Hebrew word for "day" (yom) is "year" or "yearly"? If yom can mean "year" in everyday speech, why not in prophecy?

Jewish and Christian scholars have recognized the year-day principle for centuries, if not millennia. Of course, one could propose that they were all wrong.

The SDA perspective on a split atonement and investigative judgment cannot be supported with Biblical texts, while the SDA interpretations of Daniel 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are pure fantasies.

I disagree, and I suppose we could go back and forth on that for 500 pages ... in between writing legal briefs.

Desmond Ford was right when he pointed to the serious theological problems that have plagued the SDA church from the beginning .

Do you think he was right in adopting evolution, if that is what he has done?

I have a question for you: To what "tent" or tabernacle "room" does Hebrews 9:6-10 make reference to?

Aah! In all these topics, 3ABN or otherwise, I love specific questions about specific matters.

In my view, the first tabernacle of Heb. 9:6 corresponds to that of 9:1, and refers to the Holy Place. The second tabernacle of 9:7 corresponds to that of 9:3, and refers to the Most Holy. The mistranslated "holiest of all" of 9:8 in the KJV, "the holy places," is the heavenly sanctuary which includes both the Holy and Most Holy, which is consistent with how that phrase is used throughout the book.

I believe what Paul is saying is that in this illustration, the Holy Place on earth represented the daily and yearly services on earth, and the Most Holy on earth represented the services in both places in the heavenly sanctuary. While the earthly sanctuary was in operation, the way into the Holy and Most Holy in heaven was not yet made manifest.


My apologies that I did not connect your name with the discussions we had back in 2002!

[GrandmaNettie]

SDAminister,

Just a side note to your earlier post.  Ellen G. White drank Australian water for a number of years.  Do you know if that was before or after she wrote her statements on amalgamation of man and beast resulting in a new race of people?

"Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men." (Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p 75.)

Although I am not a Ford follower, I find this odd:  Dr. Ford is called a heretic for getting veil placement wrong and is criticized for his worldly education, but do you charge EGW with heresy when she embraced and endorsed this unscientific, rascist philosophy of Babylon, aka the worldly views of her day?

Why repeat the fallacious arguments of Dudley Canright and a host of other uninformed critics who didn't know what they were talking about?

Certainly you don't buy into this bogus criticism of Ellen White, do you? Especially at a time when the world's scientists are engaged in amalgamation of man and beast?

Are  you saying that EGW didn't write those words that mirrored the thinking of the day about where certain races came from?  She wrote them, that was the thinking of the day and W. C. White explained that it was EGW herself who had the statements removed from her writings (The statement was already in caps):

"REGARDING THE TWO PARAGRAPHS WHICH ARE TO BE FOUND IN SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND ALSO IN THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY REGARDING AMALGAMATION AND THE REASON WHY THEY WERE LEFT OUT OF THE LATER BOOKS, AND THE QUESTION AS TO WHO TOOK THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEAVING THEM OUT, I CAN SPEAK WITH PERFECT CLEARNESS AND ASSURANCE. THEY WERE LEFT OUT BY ELLEN G. WHITE. NO ONE CONNECTED WITH HER WORK HAD ANY AUTHORITY OVER SUCH A QUESTION, AND I NEVER HEARD OF ANYONE OFFERING TO HER COUNSEL REGARDING THIS MATTER. {3SM 452.3}
IN ALL QUESTIONS OF THIS KIND, YOU MAY SET IT DOWN AS A CERTAINTY THAT SISTER WHITE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR LEAVING OUT OR ADDING TO MATTERS OF THIS SORT IN THE LATER EDITIONS OF OUR BOOKS. {3SM 452.4}
SISTER WHITE NOT ONLY HAD GOOD JUDGMENT BASED UPON A CLEAR AND COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF CONDITIONS AND OF THE NATURAL CONSEQUENCES OF PUBLISHING WHAT SHE WROTE, BUT SHE HAD MANY TIMES DIRECT INSTRUCTION FROM THE ANGEL OF THE LORD REGARDING WHAT SHOULD BE OMITTED AND WHAT SHOULD BE ADDED IN NEW EDITIONS. . . . {3SM 452.5}"

I have seen James White's written promotion of her view of where the "slave races" came from with my own eyes.  Rather than trying to say it isn't so, why not accept that she admitted to holding some incorrect views and righted those mistakes as she grew in her experience and understanding of theology.  We all grow in the truth if we study and are open to growth, and nobody has arrived at complete understanding of it all yet.

[SDAminister]

I never realized that so many had already booked passage on Desmond Ford's Phantom Ship to perdition. I had thought that his false teachings would be largely ignored and forgotten by people nowadays. I stand corrected.
SDAminister

[Artiste]

I take it that you don't live on the "Left Coast".

[bonnie]

I never realized that so many had already booked passage on Desmond Ford's Phantom Ship to perdition. I had thought that his false teachings would be largely ignored and forgotten by people nowadays. I stand corrected.
SDAminister

What a nice way to tell someone they are going to hell. I thought God decided that