| Author |
Message |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2355
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 5:40 pm: |     |
Pheeki, I know how annoying those PR pieces are. Praise God we're not in bondage to that fear anymore! Romans 8:15.
Colleen |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 438
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 6:01 pm: | |
A Quick Review of "God at Risk"
My wife Sylvia recently read some highlights in the latest book by Herbert Douglass. An SDA friend shared it with us. It is published by Amazing Facts--not a SDA publishing house. This fact alone makes the book even more controversial, dogmatic, Elleneque, and cultish. Furthermore, this enabled the author to bypass SDA book editors and their committees. Sylvia is personally acquainted with the author as a former neighbor and a fellow-tourist of the Holy Land (an archaelogical tour directed by the late Dr. Siegfried Horn).
This book is simply a rehash of SDA dogma with bushels of quotes from Ellen White throughout. Ellen White is by far the most quoted source and authority in this book. I didn't count them, but are literally scores of notes attributed to Ellen White. Sadly, she remains his "favorite author." It is important to note that there is nothing new in this new book. Oh well, you probably surmised that already.
Dennis J. Fischer |
Cindy
Registered user
Username: Cindy
Post Number: 727
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 10:16 pm: | |
Yes, Dennis, Amazing Facts is more cultish...and yet, mainstream Adventism embraces their evangelists and crusades... and considers them part of true Adventism---possibly because their rabid, legalistic preaching actually results in numbers baptised--& tithe payers!--...no matter the damage done to those peoples' souls.
FREEDOM and JOY IN CHRIST are severely compromised by the legalism taught in those evangelistic series.
grace always,
cindy |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 610
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 9:23 am: | |
This is the response I received when I posted about getting the SDA school propaganda in the mail...from a staunch SDA of course. He posted this on CARM.
"Hopefully those who have to send their children to non-SDA schools will understand. But holy Adventist education is certainly similar to that education that Lois gave to Timothy."
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Carol_2
Registered user
Username: Carol_2
Post Number: 348
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 11:43 am: | |
On the subject of SDA education, I was with a group of SDAs last nite, and someone somewhat unfamiliar to me (who did not know I'm a "former,") discovered we had a mutual acquaintance from years ago. This person went on to tell me how this mutual acquaintance has left the church, but has wonderful kids. Just awesome kids. The person went on to say what a perfect fit these kids would be for "our" schools. They would just "thrive."
It struck me once again how exclusive the SDA church can be. Since leaving I have been amazed and thrilled to see how my new church embraces the kids with problems, the lost children.....and while SDA it was my experience that these were the shunned, it was the "perfect" kids that were ministered to and that received attention. These were the kids coveted by the SDA schools.
Just a vent I guess. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2359
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 12:42 pm: | |
"Holy Adventist education"? Well, that's quite a stretch when I recall my own SDA school experiences--including those as a teacher at a boarding school. "Holy" is NOT the word that would first (or second...or tenth...) come to mind.
Carol, I understand your reaction to that conversation. Those kinds of discussions just bring up that old lump in the stomach, hopeless feeling in me. There's nothing to say that they can hear.
Once again, we're left with prayer as our only option...not a bad option, huh?!
Praise God for being sovereign.
Colleen |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 287
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 10:30 am: | |
Well I can understand wholly Adventist education. And hole-y Adventist education (particular in regards to the large gaps in Math and Science in our experience). |
Marcell
Registered user
Username: Marcell
Post Number: 44
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 11:42 am: | |
Back to the reunion subject and tying with the education piece - I found out that my nephew and a cousin's kid (SDA educated and raised) have been sent to some sort of Adventist "brat camp" one is in Idaho and one is I think in California. Both of them were very angry and lashing out. (my only other nephew is in prison after much lashing out and anger and probably some mental health issues as well). I wonder how much SDA hoplessness contributes to this anger? Obviously, other kids lash out and get angry,etc., but if they are in SDA schools the expectation is that they become more and more fitted into the 'system'.
(I remember NEVER really feeling like I would fit in, I had some nagging doubts even in Academy, but I didn't fit in the 'world' either, and was afraid to leave.)
The parents are not ready to see that this might be a contributing factor, and there isn't much I can say. I don't want to shame them or make them feel like they screwed up, because, honestly, who knows all the reasons this happens?
Pray for me this weekend!!!
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Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 612
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 12:04 pm: | |
I knew a guy from the local SDA college who killed himself, leaving a note that he simply couldn't measure up to Ellen, and the SDA's standards, as hard as he had tried. Sad isn't it.
My in-laws related this story to me, and said,"His parent's must not have done a good job explaining Ellen White to him."
Pullllesse! |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2366
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 2:20 pm: | |
Pheeki, where did this sad event occur? Was it recent? We know some people at our church who have SDA relatives whose 19-yr-old son (homeschooled and enrolled in a state college) who recently--within the last 3 weeks--killed himself, leaving a note saying (as we heard it) that "it is just too hard". The uncle who told us didn't know what the "it" was--and who knows whether or not he had the words exactly right. The boy's SDA father has a collection of survival equipment, etc--no doubt using the time of trouble as the excuse...
It's probably not the same person, though, because the one you mentioned was at an SDA college.
Adventism does not breed hope, despite their assertions that they have "the blessed hope"!
Colleen |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 614
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 7:57 am: | |
It was about 2 to 3 years ago. I think he was from Arizona...he was in his late 30's. |
Raven
Registered user
Username: Raven
Post Number: 284
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 8:24 am: | |
There are four SDA's I personally know of who have killed themselves, and one was a close friend. That friend is the only one I knew the circumstances, and I know that person constantly struggled with perfectionism and following EGW as closely as possible. The way I understand it, that person eventually gave up, backslid even from normal Christian standards, and then committed suicide. |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 615
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 12:40 pm: | |
Most of people I know who have become disillusioned with trying to become perfect have chunked religion and God all together and are now Athiests. I guess that is better than suicide. |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 964
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 2:08 pm: | |
quote:Most of people I know who have become disillusioned with trying to become perfect have chunked religion and God all together and are now Athiests. I guess that is better than suicide.
Or the same as.........
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Gmatt
Registered user
Username: Gmatt
Post Number: 14
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 10:23 pm: | |
Spot on, Chris! |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2373
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 11:15 pm: | |
So true. The misery of so many people who have tried to be faithful to Adventism is heartbreaking.
I know one young woman who lost her mental health trying to obey Ellen as she tried to deal with a difficult family--she ended up dead after leaving the house before dawn one morning and hiking into the nearby hills during a 100+ degree summer day. They found her with her Bible and SS quarterly by her head where she had apparently lain down under a scrub tree.
I am so thankful that God alone is our judge.
Colleen
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Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 905
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 05, 2005 - 11:51 am: | |
Yes, following EGW usually leads to either anxiety/mental illness/depression/hopelessness/suicide/death or agnosticism/atheism, and eventually hell.
Even Ellen herself admitted:
quote:"In the night I have awakened my husband, saying: 'I am afraid that I shall become an infidel.'" (Testimonies for the Church, Volume One, page 596, paragraph 3.)
On the other hand, Jesus freely gives us eternal salvation and eternal life with Him and following HIM produces abundant life and hope, joy, and peace.
Praise God for the gift of JESUS and setting us free in HIM!!!
Jeremy |
Cindy
Registered user
Username: Cindy
Post Number: 734
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Friday, August 05, 2005 - 12:58 pm: | |
Oh Jeremy,
Those "Testimonies" are really awful, aren't they?! If EGW isn't attacking someone else, she is doing it to herself.
Of course, she balances this with saying if one doesn't believe in her "testimonies" it will be one of the very last deceptions of Satan! Sick!
grace always,
cindy |
