Adventism and Social Justice

Today in an article on the Spectrum Website entitled: Theological Harmony in New Orleans By Bonnie Dwyer, she reports on the joint meeting Adventist Theological Society and the Adventist Society for Religious Studies, the article states in the opening paragraph:

Adventism’s two theological society presidents agreed on the biblical call for social justice and the significance of Scripture on people’s lives during a historic session in which the two societies met to not only share a meal but to present ideas for discussion.

She does not define what “social justice” means and that is a problem. Today it is often a code word for redistribution of wealth through the government. As this article The Scandal of Social Work Education NAS Study says:

Use of the term "social justice" today generally equates with the advocacy of more egalitarian access to income through state-sponsored redistribution. The phrase is also frequently used to justify new entitlement rights for individuals and whole categories of people, i.e., legally enforceable claims of individuals or groups against the state itself. ("Economic justice" is even a stronger term, largely confined to populist and radical rhetoric.)

Here is a University of Wisconsin student newspaper’s definition of social justice in response to an article by Dr. Hansen mentioned who asserted social justice is misleading rhetoric.

Dr. Hansen’s article proposes, “until ‘social justice’ can be precisely and understandably defined, programs to promote this goal cannot hope to succeed.” Well, is it really that difficult to define it? Social justice is a system, a process, and an end result where all members of society have equal access to resources and benefit from them equally without regard to their identity, specifically race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, religion, class and age.

You notice that the student newspaper author describes the goal not the system. Socialism and communism are the two most commonly used systems or processes which claim to end with this utopian goal. We know from experience that neither system ends in the utopian goal however. Notice the newspaper author included “ability” in the list, let us assume that the government had a medical school. By the social justice definition above anyone could go and demand equal access to the resources and the benefit of the medical school education whether they had any ability or not. We could hope that the person with no ability would not graduate from the school…but if you can’t differentiate due to ability everyone needs to graduate. Achievement and ability mean nothing under this type of social justice.

As one comment I read says:

From Sharpton to Wright, social justice has come to mean redressing the wrongs of the past in the form of government benefits or reparations. The expression has a hint of retribution as in “you owe us.” In actuality, the words haven’t any real meaning. There are always those who grieve, and as long as the government attempts to satisfy those with a gripe, the plaintive cry for social justice will have irresistible appeal.

There is one other definition which we need to look at, from Business Dictionary.com:

Fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice. See also civil rights.

I guess if that is the definition that the two theological societies are agreeing upon that is good. They are agreeing upon the most basic idea or civil rights found in the latter half of the 20^th century. Hardly a newsworthy proclamation unless one of those groups had been opposing civil rights. I think common sense tells us that that is not really the meaning of social justice that is intended, but we have to hold out that possibility sense those involved seem unable to define what they mean…thought when you can’t define your meaning the chances become much higher that the use is a code word otherwise why not define your terms.

In conclusion there is this comment from a blog article which is Christian related under the title “what do you mean by Social justice” Which pretty much says all I could want to say on the subject.

"Social justice" is a phrase currently often employed by "emergent church" types who, in their reaction to the Church's nonparticipation (actual or perceived) in the world, suddenly believe they're the only ones interested in helping the poor and feeding the hungry.

Apparently among many, these problems -- and the world entirely? -- are viewed to have begun yesterday. There's no perspective of history, the fact that people in both the Church and governments have been aware and trying to alleviate poverty before -- especially when it comes to the failed attempts of federal governments to overextend their constitutional (and worse, Biblical) bounds and take the place of the citizenry and religious institutions in terms of charity.

Among such "social justice" advocates, there's also very little perspective of the actual Scripture in these quasi-utopian visions, which indirectly contradict the Bible's portrayal of the rest of human history.

Christ-followers certainly disagree on what end-times events occur when, but there is (or was) an overall consensus against the notion that people would eradicate poverty, hunger, all that sort of thing, without Christ or at least before He comes back to take a look at our planetary renovations.

But now we're back to the same stuff -- and while it's very, very true that Christ-followers are to be a means of "common grace" toward the poor and abused among nonbelievers, this is not the be-all-and-end-all of the Gospel. "Social justice" is only an outgrowth: at the center should be the actual truths of God as Creator, humans as rebels against Him, and Christ as redeemed. Are these professing evangelicals using "social justice" as a means toward proclaiming the Gospel? Or do they operate completely the opposite?

As it is, many of them are advocating a clone religion of Christianity And, as His Utter Subliminity Screwtape (from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters) said is such an effective strategy. In this case, the "new" idea is Christianity And Social Justice -- and it's not so new, either; it's a mere strain of "liberation theology" liberalism that's somehow been accepted as legitimately evangelical. (10 Dr. Ransom at 10:52 AM on Jul 22:)

Alarmist Adventist Blogs

Sometimes I stumble upon really foolish Adventist blogs. Today I found a real case for remedial reading. The Blog entitled Theirmanygods which seems to have articles praising David Asscherick and Walter Veith has an article on Southern Adventist University. Here is what they say:

Southern Accent’s” issue for February 12 contained an article titled “Jesus is dead” which claimed to show that the teaching of the physical and tangible resurrection of Jesus was a rather late addition to Christian belief, one which was not shared by the earliest witnesses of Christianity, whose (possibly hallucinatory) belief was only of a spiritual and insubstantial resurrection." (Donn Leatherman School of Religion, Letters To Editor, Southern Accent, http://accent.cs.southern.edu/?p=587)

Wow! The Adventist university's student paper put out a "proclamation" that "Jesus is dead".

When I first read this I thought they were saying that Donn Leatherman of the School of Theology was the one who wrote the article. In fact he wrote the article in response which pointed out several flaws in the Jesus is dead article. When we look at the Jesus is dead article in the online archives we see the following disclaimer.

Jesus is dead

Filed Under Religion

DISCLAIMER: This is not the official view of Southern Adventist University or The Southern Accent.
Look for the School of Religion’s response in next week’s Accent.

Shane Akerman | Contributor

The following submission is simply an expression of my personal views.

The intention is not to offend but to provoke thought and discussion. My hope is that this campus can be a safe place for tough questions and the sharing of ideas.

The link that was included in the Theirmanygods blog is the link to the School of religion’s response to the Shane Akerman article. Yet that somehow to the apparently unbalanced or at least severely prejudiced mind became a proclamation that Jesus is dead by the Adventist University’s student paper.

There is a serious question here besides the obvious one about alarmists blogs and that is how could anyone take Shane Akerman seriously when he spends that much money to go to a private Christian school when he believes Christianity is a based upon a lie (e.g. all the New Testament books hold to the idea of the resurrection and continued life of Christ). It does appear that the article did stimulate some thought which is important because some of these issues don’t get enough attention even at Christian schools and students should know what the arguments and presuppositions of atheist and agnostics are. Having an article written by someone who actually believes what he is saying is often more memorable than just reciting the standard atheist and agnostic objections. I don’t think we have to believe everything the Bible says, but if the religion’s core is false, if there is no resurrection, if there is no Jesus Christ who is God than Christianity has nothing.

Brooks wants his church back

There are some in the Adventist Church who have noted that they wish every Adventist could hear the sermon by C. D. Brooks entitled “I want my church back”. So I will examine some of the statements from that sermon and see where they take us, taken from the text published on Adventist Affirm.

1. We are now facing an unusual time in which those on the inside of our church are questioning our distinctive teachings and doctrines more than those who despise us. Many of us are walking away from the mandate that God gave to us.

You will note that at the beginning of the printed edition of the sermon a theme that will run through the sermon. God has given the Adventist church a mandate…a message, a set of distinctive teachings and doctrines.

That is a powerful argument if it is true. Can we demonstrate that God actually gave the Adventist church a mandate of doctrines? The answer of course is no, we cannot demonstrate that, we can only believe that. Is that belief correct however? If it is correct then there is no point in questioning our distinctive teachings. That is the presupposition that the sermon author and most traditional Adventists begin with. Presuppositions can be dangerous however, what is the basis for the presupposition, that is an important questions and frankly it has to be dealt with as it is never safe to simply have faith in ones presuppositions. The Bible asks us to have faith in God, not our presuppositions or even our interpretations of the Bible. Faith in God is very different than faith in our message, our doctrines or our belief that we have the “truth”.

2. My dear fellow workers, I want to tell you today, that one of the powerful keys to success and power in our churches and our pulpits and in our evangelism is resolute faithfulness to the word of God, and to the message God has given to us to preach!

As is frequently the case with Preachers they act as if the “word of God” carries no elements of interpretation, either culturally, historically or symbolically. They exhort the need to be faithful to the word of God by which they usually mean the Bible (though some Adventists would include Ellen G. White in the word of God category). Yet we know very well that they have no intention of remaining faithful to the instructions of the Bible. The Bible says that Sabbath breakers, and rebellious children and adulterers should be executed. It tells us to not mix seeds in our fields, to not wear garments out of different kinds of cloth, to wear fringes etc. Are those things part of the message God has given us to preach? If not why not, if not how do this proponents of the “word of God” determine what is the message God has given us to preach? It appears he is back to his presupposition again.

3. We must preach our message. All of it! There are forces that seem to be dismantling what was so laboriously put together under the indispensable aid of the Holy Ghost. There is a picture of erudition which we carelessly call scholarship, but which is more scholasticism. Ellen White says its as certain that we have the truth as that God lives. She spoke of a platform of truth. She knew that we’d always be gathering sources and resources, but she said, "Don’t get off the platform." The Holy Spirit is not one to foster confusion, and He does not divide the saints. He may bring separation from the mixed multitude, but not from the saints.

I think within the first few paragraphs we can see where he is going. Ellen White is our message, we have no need for scholarship we have Ellen White. Whatever Ellen White said is the truth that we have, Ellen White acts as the Holy Spirit to us, we as the church should be drawn together by teaching the things that Ellen White revealed. Whether they agree with the Bible or whether they make sense or whether they were based upon the beliefs of her day is unimportant because Ellen White was the agent of the Holy Spirit, clearly he is part of the Ellen White is the word of God crowd. At this point let us define scholasticism. Since I am not a Preacher I can actually help people learn rather than pretend I am simply telling them what God wants. The Wikipedia defines:

“Scholasticism is derived from the Latin word scholasticus (Greek: σχολαστικός)^[1], which means "that [which] belongs to the school," and was a method of learning taught by the academics (scholastics, school people, or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally began as an attempt to reconcile ancient classical philosophy with medieval Christian theology. Scholasticism was not a philosophy or theology in itself, but rather a tool or method for learning that places emphasis on dialectical reasoning. The primary purpose of scholasticism was to find the answer to questions and resolve contradictions. Scholasticism is most well-known for its application in medieval theology, but was eventually applied to many other fields of study.”

In effect Brooks is telling us don’t question, don’t try to solve contradictions, don’t be involved in the dialog of different ideas. We have the correct ideas from Ellen White, who, because he believes she was simply giving us what the Holy Spirit said all we have to do, is do what she said, believe what she says to believe.

That is what this is really all about. Traditional Adventism has like Brooks reveals in this sermon a cultic view of Ellen White as the voice of the Holy Spirit giving us as he says: “In the writings of Ellen G. White, that inside information which God sent just to us,..” So not only is it insider information it was sent to only Adventists, not to the whole of Christianity just to Adventists. This is a type of Adventist Gnosticism, where Adventists alone have the secret knowledge (gnosis). Again he maintains a presupposition that is based upon Adventist tradition not upon real evidence.

4. Guide. Some of what they’re doing is because they don’t know any better. We’ve got to guide them concerning where they ought to go, what they ought to do, what they ought to wear, what they ought to think. And we ought to do it with the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy.

5. A young woman who had always been friendly came to church loaded down with jewelry. When I approached her, ready to speak, she wouldn’t even look at me. She avoided me. She couldn’t be friendly as usual. No wonder our churches are turning cold! It’s because our members remain guilt-ridden and insecure and not sure of what they really stand for. They hear about easy divorce, about moral falls even in the ministry, Sabbaths on the golf course, or on the bicycle trail, or at the beach, theater-going, attacks on Ellen G. White. What’s happening amongst us?

Notice the greater portion of his problem revolves around Ellen White, her Sabbatarian ideas, her recreation ideas her ideas about jewelry and naturally those who question Ellen White.

We need to finally come to the understanding that there is a segment of Adventism who holds a very cultic view of Ellen White, who fails to acknowledge her errors, refuse to acknowledge what the Adventist church does acknowledge about her literary borrowing and acknowledge that much of her work was in fact the teachings of her own Methodist traditions. Those traditions took on new importance because of the assumption that Ellen White was speaking for God. As such ideas which were never Biblically based, such as not wearing jewelry or what one can and cannot do on the Sabbath (Puritan ideas) became incorporated into the Adventist church as if they were really from the Bible, because there were people who applied to Ellen White the idea that her words were the words of God.

Brooks may say that he wants his church back. I say I want the Christian church back. The church based upon a reasoned view of God, a church that is willing to dialog with other ideas within the Christian community. A church that seeks to learn rather than thinks they know it all. A church not build upon the traditions of some 19^th century special Adventist prophet. A church that learns how to take the good and leave the bad from other prominent Christian as well as our own prominent Adventists.

My fear is that Brooks will get his church back and it will sink into the type of cultic sectarianism that Dr. Walter Martin saved the SDA church from in the latter part of the 1950’s. After all there is no dialog with the traditional Adventists like Brooks. Those who disagree are agents of the Devil or working in concert with the devil. This by the way is a major part of the sermon, dealing with music, naturally based upon obscure presuppositions where according to Brooks the devil says: “Then let’s talk about Christian jazz and religious gospel rock. They are contradictions of terms, you see.”

I really want to say to him take his church back, but for the damage that he does to the cause of Christ with his view of God and his view of the church. It may be there is a place in the religious world for those who think that they have all the answers and that such a fictional assurance is needed by them and their followers. There are so many different types of people in the world and some probably can’t tolerate rational thought or scholarship etc. So maybe we need to save a section of Adventism for those people. But I would hate to see the whole church organization move in that direction; though today the agitation to do exactly that seems to have once again renewed itself.

Rise and Fall of Intellectual Christianity

The Rise and Fall of Intellectual Christianity

The word intellectual when not prefaced by the term “pointed headed,” reflects by definition the use of one’s intellect over emotion or experience. It is by and large in Western society the legacy of early Christianity. The Christian faith is built upon the books written by people after the time of Christ. Jesus wrote no words for us to quote or they would surely have become the Scripture to all Christians. There was no shortage of books about Jesus or about Christians in those first three centuries of the Common Era. There were many literary works with many differing views of God and Jesus Christ.

In the second century Marcion edited and presented his own view of what the Christian canon should be well before the proto orthodox (those who were the first to hold to what would become orthodox Christianity and then compiled a more standardized Christian belief) decided that a canon was a good idea. Marcion’s canon included several books by Paul and an edited version of something very similar to Luke’s Gospel minus the first few chapters. Marcion was a member of the Gnostic form of Christianity. As such the God of Jesus Christ and the God of the Old Testament were two different Gods and as with many Gnostic’s Jesus was not man or God/man He was a spirit, a phantom who only appeared to be a man. We know about Marcion because of what the Early Church Fathers wrote about him, we have none of his writings but we have a good number of other Gnostic writings many found in Nag Hammadi in 1945. Examples of Gnostic writing include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth. Those being the most readable but by no means cover all the Gnostic or other works from the early centuries of Christianity. Recently the news has told us about the new find called The Gospel of Judas. The debates in the first 400 years of the early church dealt with what today some call the “Lost Gospels”. It was from the Early Church Father’s writings until the find at Nag Hammadi that the Gnostic views were known. It was up to the Early Church Fathers to deal with those works and we can still read of their intellectual arguments.

The Early Church Fathers and even the Gnostic Christians were intellectuals. They used literary works to argue their position against the Gnostics and we have even seen Gnostic literary work that argues against the proto orthodox form of Christianity. The very literature we have today can often be traced back to these intellectual debates in early Christianity. Even the very simply logical idea of context of written material was decided by Christian argumentation. What is common sense to us today was part of the battle ground of the intellectual processes of our early Christian fathers. Today we would likely laugh at many of the arguments that some of the Early Church Fathers used. Yet the encapsulation of the Christian Canon was based upon years of Christian debate; arguments, rebuttals and appeals to reason. However these Christians show us intellectual debate does not remove God from the process. God must act upon the human mind; it is the point of contact between the transcendent God and the physical man; the nexus between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.

Intellectual Christianity takes work and as time passed it became easier to merely follow religious institutions. Man by his nature is often lazy and seeks the path of least resistance. Not all men of course, for the Christian church could never have been founded by lazy men and women. As orthodox Christianity grew and spread so did the power of the church. With time intellectual Christianity diminished. The Protestant Reformation gave renewed hope to Christianity as the intellectual Christians began to question what tradition had done to the orthodox Christian religion. The Bible as the accepted standard, again took center stage and intellectual Christians championed new ways of understanding the messages that God had inspired. The mind, perhaps God’s greatest handiwork was used by God through the agency of intellectual Christians to rehabilitate the Christian church from the damage done by tradition. When emotion and experience based upon tradition were opposed by the God enabled intellectuals, the church changed.

Protestants today are in need of intellectual Christianity as much as any other time in history. The intellectual activity of our predecessors does not automatically flow to us. Their wisdom and their folly are there to be seen and learned from by those willing to process the information. Protestant heritage includes great minds; men and women of great accomplishments. But to use our intellectual faculties we have to make decisions that likely will lead us away from traditions which were not well founded. Not all emotion, experience or tradition is contrary to intellectual process. But it is the intellectual process that evaluates emotion, experience and tradition deciding what to keep and what to discard. History is less a guide and more a milepost; a sign to the ever vigilant and a message to those who desire understanding.

As the Adventist church stands at a point where it must decide to cling to tradition or accept intellectual Christian challenges, so also must other Protestant churches. The term Evangelical at one time meant the idea of a church spreading the good news of God found in the four gospels. Today the term has come to mean the same as fundamentalist. Evangelical now means people who hold to the Bible as inerrant, infallible and holding to a strictly vicarious atonement, scientifically and socially out of step with reasonable people. While a Christian may not worry too much about what the world says of them (realizing that as Jesus said the world would reject His followers as it rejected Him). Still there may be some truth to those who now use the word Evangelical as derogatory.

The intellectual Christians that built up the church are becoming less and less visible. Today many of the large Protestant churches have abandoned the long held Protestant church practice of Sunday school. Many churches offer little opportunities for adults to interact with one another in the discussion of religious topics. Cell groups, the popular innovation of the last 20 years are sometimes so authoritarian that questioning a leader is not even allowed. Singing and Sermons have become the main form of religious instruction in today’s Protestant churches with the exception of Televangelists. Divergent views and questions have no place in today’s modern Christian churches. While Adventist churches have not abandoned the Sabbath school program it may be so poorly attended or conducted that it often becomes hard to find a Sabbath school that one feels comfortable presenting a differing view or posing serious questions.

The reason for this situation is very likely that today’s Protestants, as well as Adventists, have accepted the idea that his or her church has “The Truth”. The truth is being preached and there is nothing anyone needs to question or challenge. To challenge and question is what the atheists and the worldly folk do, it is not what we Christians do. It is the decline and fall of the Christian intellectual as the traditional once again gains ascendancy. It is possibly a new Dark Ages at a critical time for Christianity, with the concurrent lack of viability of Christianity in Europe and Canada and the attacks of progressive secularism in America. For Christianity to survive outside of the uneducated third world intellectual Christianity must be maintained. It is something that the Adventist church must fight for; it is something our Sabbath schools must fight for. Sabbath or Sunday schools are a good indication of how well members are assimilated in a church, equally importantly however they are vital to intellectual Christians. Stimulating the thinking process and spurring continued study and application of knowledge.

The Christian church has a long history of argument. The arguments are recorded in the New Testament book of Acts and the writings of Paul. Several New Testament authors warn of the false teachers of the day. Truth and error have always existed inside the Christian Church; even the very godly can produce error and error repeated can become tradition. Christian Intellectuals may not be in agreement, they may even argue in Sabbath school and be critical of their own churches, but it is all a part of the process of thinking and applying knowledge. Christian Intellectuals believe that God will lead them into all truth, as the Bible says. However, since throughout history we have not arrived at all truth it is not likely that we will arrive at all truth today or tomorrow. We are all works in progress, and it is our faith in God manifested in Jesus Christ that maintains our unity even during the disagreements.

* This is an article from my website which I was reminded of this past week or two so I thought I would post it here. http://newprotestants.com/risefall.html

What did Paul mean by Die Daily

One of my frustrations is the way some people make declarative statements with great confidence that are both historically untrue as well as being Biblically untrue. For example here is how it was used today in the Sabbath School Class I attended this morning. This is taken from Larry Kirkpatrick’s article on his Great Controversy Website:

After all, in 1 Corinthians 15:31 Paul says: I die daily. Is this your experience too? Every Christian needs to die daily. Did you die to self this morning? Are you converted anew as of this morning?

Another blog says:

The desires we have are not excuses to endulge, they are simply a result of our fallen state. To follow God means to choose to deny self. Paul said "I die daily."
Victory can be won, through Christ, over all out sinful desires, whatever they may be.

This type of non contextual method of interpretation has lead many Adventists to assert that Paul when he uses the expression “I die daily”, quite apart from the context of danger as he preaches the gospel to some type of metaphysical death to self daily.

Here is the text in question first from the King James Version and then from the NIV to show that there is really no significant difference between translations.

KJV 1 Cor 15:29-32

29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?

31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.(KJV)

NIV 1 Cor 15:29-32

29 Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?

30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?

31 I die every day-- I mean that, brothers-- just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.

32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."(NIV)

Clearly Paul is referring to his life being endangered. But where do SDA’s get the idea that Paul is dying daily to self. It is from Ellen White’s misinterpretation of 1 Cor. 15:31.

Addressed to Two Young Men

Last December I was shown the dangers and temptations of youth. The two younger sons of Father O need to be converted. They need to die daily to self. Paul, the faithful apostle, had a fresh experience daily. He says: "I die daily." This is exactly the experience that these young men need. They are in danger of overlooking present duty and of neglecting the education that is essential for practical life. They regard education in books as the all-important matter to be attended to in order to make life a success. 3T.221.003 (Testimonies Vol. 3 p. 221)

The Lord requires us to be submissive to His will, subdued by His Spirit, and sanctified to His service. Selfishness must be put away, and we must overcome every defect in our characters as Christ overcame. In order to accomplish this work, we must die daily to self. Said Paul: "I die daily." He had a new conversion every day, took an advance step toward heaven. To gain daily victories in the divine life is the only course that God approves. The Lord is gracious, of tender pity, and plenteous in mercy. He knows our needs and weaknesses, and He will help our infirmities if we only trust in Him and believe that He will bless us and do great things for us. (Testimonies Vol. 4 page 66)

The life of the apostle Paul was a constant conflict with self. He said, "I die daily." 1 Corinthians 15:31. His will and his desires every day conflicted with duty and the will of God. Instead of following inclination, he did God's will, however crucifying to his nature. (The Ministry of Healing page 452)

The Lord would have us submissive to his will, and sanctified to his service. Selfishness must be put away, with every other defect in our characters. There must be a daily death to self. Paul had this experience. He said, "I die daily." Every day he had a new conversion; every day he took an advance step toward Heaven. We, too, must gain daily victories in the divine life, if we would enjoy the favor of God. (Signs of the Times Mar. 1887 page 3)

You will notice that this view is not at all the message in Paul, as the Expositor’s Bible Commentary says:

30-32 Another argument for the resurrection is that if it is not true, then suffering and hardship for the sake of Christ are useless. By "endangering ourselves every hour," Paul seems to be alluding to peril looming up in his ministry in Ephesus (cf. Acts 19), where he was when he wrote 1 Corinthians. He is in danger of death every day (v. 31). He seals this assertion with the oath (Greek, ne, "I mean that, brothers") that this is as true as the fact that he glories over them and over their union with Christ. Paul's reference to fighting with wild beasts in Ephesus (v. 32) may be taken literally or figuratively. But since from Acts 19 we see no evidence of such punishment and since it was questionable whether a Roman citizen would be subjected to such treatment, it is best to take the words metaphorically--the human enemies he fought with at Ephesus were like wild beasts. But, Paul says, why go through all this suffering if there is no hope of resurrection? To prove his point, he first quotes Isaiah 22:13, (possibly for the benefit of the Jewish believers at Corinth) from a context of reckless living that the Lord condemns. So without eternal hope through the resurrection, men have nothing to turn to but gratification of their appetites.

From some readily available internet commentaries:

The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible

1 Corinthians 15:30

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?
Not only they that have suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and for this article of it, have acted very injudiciously and indiscreetly; but we, also, who are on the spot, whether ministers or private Christians, must be highly blameworthy, who continually expose ourselves to dangers, and are for Christ's sake killed all the day long, are every moment liable to innumerable injuries, tortures and death; who in his senses would act such a part, if there is no resurrection of the dead? such, as they must be of all men the most miserable, so of all men the most stupid.

The 1599 Geneva Study Bible

15:30 ¹⁶ And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?

(16) The sixth argument: unless there is a resurrection of the dead, why should the apostles so daily cast themselves into danger of so many deaths?

Matthew Henry Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible

And his next is as plain to us. IV. He argues from the absurdity of his own conduct and that of other Christians upon this supposition, 1. It would be a foolish thing for them to run so many hazards (v. 30): "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Why do we expose ourselves to continual peril-we Christians, especially we apostles?’’ Every one knows that it was dangerous being a Christian, and much more a preacher and an apostle, at that time. "Now,’’ says the apostle, "what fools are we to run these hazards, if we have no better hopes beyond death, if when we die we die wholly, and revive no more!’’ Note, Christianity were a foolish profession if it proposed no hopes beyond this life, at least in such hazardous times as attended the first profession of it; it required men to risk all the blessings and comforts of this life, and to face and endure all the evils of it, without any future prospects. And is this a character of his religion fit for a Christian to endure? And must he not fix this character on it if he give up his future hopes, and deny the resurrection of the dead? This argument the apostle brings home to himself: "I protest,’’ says he, "by your rejoicing in Jesus Christ, by all the comforts of Christianity, and all the peculiar succours and supports of our holy faith, that I die daily,’’ v. 31. He was in continual danger of death, and carried his life, as we say, in his hand. And why should he thus expose himself, if he had no hopes after life? To live in daily view and expectation of death, and yet have no prospect beyond it, must be very heartless and uncomfortable, and his case, upon this account, a very melancholy one. He had need be very well assured of the resurrection of the dead, or he was guilty of extreme weakness, in hazarding all that was dear to him in this world, and his life into the bargain. He had encountered very great difficulties and fierce enemies; he had fought with beasts at Ephesus (v. 32), and was in danger of being pulled to pieces by an enraged multitude, stirred up by Demetrius and the other craftsmen (Acts 19:24, etc.), though some understand this literally of Paul’s being exposed to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, at a Roman show in that city. And Nicephorus tells a formal story to this purport, and of the miraculous complaisance of the lions to him when they came near him. But so remarkable a trial and circumstance of his life, methinks, would not have been passed over by Luke, and much less by himself, when he gives us so large and particular a detail of his sufferings, 2 Co. 11:24, ad fin. When he mentioned that he was five times scourged of the Jews, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice shipwrecked, it is strange that he should not have said that he was once exposed to fight with the beasts. I take it, therefore, that this fighting with beasts is a figurative expression, that the beasts intended were men of a fierce and ferine disposition, and that this refers to the passage above cited. "Now,’’ says he, "what advantage have I from such contests, if the dead rise not? Why should I die daily, expose myself daily to the danger of dying by violent hands, if the dead rise not? And if post mortem nihil — if I am to perish by death, and expect nothing after it, could any thing be more weak?’’ Was Paul so senseless? Had he given the Corinthians any ground to entertain such a thought of him? If he had not been well assured that death would have been to his advantage, would he, in this stupid manner, have thrown away his life? Could any thing but the sure hopes of a better life after death have extinguished the love of life in him to this degree? "What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? What can I propose to myself?’’

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible

Verse 30. Why are we - The apostles. Also in danger every hour - It is plain we can expect no amends in this life. Verse 31. I protest by your rejoicing, which I have - Which love makes my own. I die daily - I am daily in the very jaws of death. Beside that I live, as it were, in a daily martyrdom.

If this subject is ever brought up to a Traditional Adventist they generally will have no answer or their answer will be something to the effect that if he was willing to die then he must have been unselfish and being unselfish means that he was daily dieing to self. Which is the classic way of reading information into the text (eisegesis) rather then letting the text speak for itself (exegesis). The funny thing is that as many times as this is explained to Adventists they often will revert to the Ellen White usage rather than the Biblical usage. The idea of dying to self is pretty hard to accept no matter how someone tries to explain it. The best thing is that Biblically there is no need to be telling people they have to die to self. If you want to tell people it is hard to follow Christ that is fine use the text about taking up your cross and following Christ.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mat 16:24 NIV)

In that case you are not dying to self you are discipling yourself, choosing to follow Christ rather than going your own way. Or if you want to talk about killing your “old man” there is a text for that.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. (Rom 6:6 -7 KJV)

In any case if the point one wants to make is that following God is not simply doing as you please there are abundant legitimate texts that can be used which are contextually speaking of the subject. There is no need to rip a text out of its context to make the point. Because in fact a text taken out of context is a pretext and ultimately you are not even making a point. Unless of course you are trying to make the point to people who already believe as you do and who take things out of context as much as you do. But in all honesty what is the point of that? Sometime you are going to have to face the people who don’t believe as you do, the people who won’t accept pretexts, why not learn to speak to them properly now and speak to others in our congregations properly within the context of the scriptures now.

Adventism is not a Zero-sum game

A zero-sum game is one where one person or group wins and the other players or group of players lose. It is often wrongly assumed that our economic system known as Capitalism is a zero-sum game. A good quote on that subject is found on this site:

Capitalism means that no one is subject to arbitrary coercion by others. Because we have the option of simply refraining from signing a contract or doing a business deal if we prefer some other solution, the only way of getting rich in a free market is by giving people something they want, something they will pay for of their own free will. Both parties to a free exchange have to feel that they benefit from it; otherwise there won't be any deal. Economics, then, is not a zero-sum game. The bigger a person's income in a market economy, the more that person has done to offer people what they want. Bill Gates and Madonna earn millions, but they don't steal that money; they earn it by offering software and music that a lot of people think are worth paying for. In this sense, they are essentially our servants. Firms and individuals struggle to develop better goods and more efficient ways of providing for our needs. The alternative is for the government to take our resources and then decide which types of behavior to encourage. The only question is why the government knows what we want and what we consider important in our lives better than we ourselves do.

In this analogy Adventism is the construct we are working within. Inside the Adventist church we are able to influence others but not by coercion. In this marketplace of ideas we succeed when we offer people something that they want or need. Based upon the free exchange of our ideas and their ideas for the benefit of all involved. We don’t have to take their ideas and they don’t have to take our ideas, ideas that benefit the person will be accepted those which don’t won’t find a buyer. Adventism is dealing in the wider Christian marketplace of ideas where we struggle to develop better ideas and services then other churches, though for this article we will just deal within the Adventist church.

Before we go on however we have to look at what the alternative is. For instance in economics the main alternative to Capitalism is Socialism. Socialism being that defined as: social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. In Adventism this would be the Adventist leadership or bureaucracy. Thus the leadership would say this is what we believe and this is what you are to believe in Adventism. Since Adventism does not have the force of government, it has no IRS to collect your tithes and offerings, no prisons to jail dissenters, the force of the Adventist socialist leadership would be in the exclusion of membership of church members. Since in Adventism we are dealing in the marketplace of ideas, we are talking about the exclusion from the Adventist marketplace of ideas. A person or group of people could be excluded but still allowed to go and sit and be preached at or they could still go and sing in corporate song services and certainly they could still give to the Adventist leadership. They would simply be restricted when it comes to the expression of their ideas.

Adventism is not a zero-sum game however, it is not a magisterium, it does not take what ideas it accepts and redistributes them as it sees fit. If a Progressive Adventist becomes a traditional Adventist or a traditional Adventist becomes a Progressive Adventist it is not a win lose situation. In fact there are many or maybe even most Adventists holding to ideas between the quintessential Traditional or Progressive Adventist perspectives. Often we would not even agree upon what each idea is that makes up a Progressive or a Traditional Adventist even among those who label themselves as Progressive or Traditional Adventist when describing their own beliefs.

Since we are not a zero-sum game the various factions should not have to worry about any defections from their camp to the other camp. After all each group could go out and recruit more new members from outside of Adventism. So we are left with this marketplace of ideas, a place where ideas that serve people the best will be most accepted. As in Capitalism we are essentially servants who need to be offering ideas and services that people want and need and are willing to expend their time and energy to become involved with. At some point those being served will want to market themselves and become servants and then besides their time and energy they may offer their money to improve the product. Capitalism is effective because it creates wealth; it is not about redistributing wealth because that is a very temporary solution and much closer to the zero-sum game idea. The church that is creating a wealth of ideas stimulates more people to do more and create more ideas and ways to serve.

Does this seem elementary? Perhaps though today fewer and fewer people believe in Capitalism, usually because they don’t know what it is or because they think that a big government who tells them what to do is a better solution. Why that would be I have no idea, perhaps it is because some people won’t do anything to help someone else unless they are forced to do it. So if government forces them to help others maybe they will actually help some more people; though since the socialism does not create wealth ultimately they defeat their purpose. So it may be inside Adventism where some feel that the Adventist leadership simply knows what is best and they will shower down their wisdom upon the local churches and make them successful and helpful. The fact still remains that innovation comes from the grassroots not from the bureaucracy. It is the innovators that create the wealth.

So how is your local church at innovation, what have they tried, what ideas are being presented. If your church is like mine than it is doing precious little innovation and ideas are routinely limited. I am sure it is more difficult in Adventism since they have the idea that they have inherited the truth…what need of new ideas or innovations then? But really how many of us really believe that?

Jan Paulsen lives in the miracle world

The Adventist church has begun a new You Tube channel called Adventists About Life.

In the Science vs. Faith presentation “Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church talks about miracles and challenges posed by the world of science and the world of faith..”

The following is my transcription of the almost 2 minute video:

The world of science and the world of faith, two seemingly separate worlds are they on a collision course or do they run parallel to each other or maybe occasionally both.

The world of science generally will accept only that which is empirically verifiable for which there really is, they can look back and say this is it how it happened and this is an actual pattern for how it will happen. I tell you what my problem with that is. That when you lock things into that kind of a model they cannot accept something in which the world of faith call miracles. To me the world of faith is a world in which God’s creative powers are constantly on display.

From the beginning, go to the book of Genesis the first chapter of Genesis through the mighty acts of God in history. You see it in the resurrection of Jesus, you see it in the second coming of Jesus, in the resurrection of our own bodies. The way scriptures present it. In the creation of earth made new. These are all displays of God creative power and it’s full of miracles.

The mind of science generally will not accept as reality that which is miraculous. To me this exists this is real. Miracles that is not a problem I have it for breakfast every day. If you cannot accept the miraculous God’s creative powers revealed in miracles ah…your done, finished you have no future.

This is the reality of my life and I observe God’s creative power on display all the time. To me as an Adventist this is important. To accept God’s creative powers and that is being manifested in many many ways.

The series seems professionally done. I did notice several times when he said miraculous that the camera was focused upon his open hand, which I though was kind of a nice subliminal symbolic message. But most of the message was really utter nonsense. That is the reason I transcribed it because somewhere I had read about this and the person thought it was a really good little talk. After I watched it I wondered if we had seen the same thing.

Let’s look at it in more depth:

The world of science generally will accept only that which is empirically verifiable for which there really is, they can look back and say this is it how it happened and this is an actual pattern for how it will happen. I tell you what my problem with that is. That when you lock things into that kind of a model they cannot accept something in which the world of faith call miracles. To me the world of faith is a world in which God’s creative powers are constantly on display.

Our SDA world president has a problem with Science dealing with empirical evidence for what really is and being able to predict what will happen based upon the empirical evidence. Science has given us so many wonderful things we no longer have to think that because it rains or the wind blows it is a miracle of God. Sure that is the way most all ancient religion including the Israelites thought, but we actually have evidence of things like water cycles. It is really not a problem that science has locked into a model of observation and evidence for cause and effect. There would have never been any real progress had they locked into the faith model. Of course recorded human history had a few thousand years of that, times in which man did not really improve himself or his situation and knowledge was limited to a few and even those few limited in their knowledge.

Paulsen continues with the account of God’s creative power’s constant display:

From the beginning, go to the book of Genesis the first chapter of Genesis through the mighty acts of God in history. You see it in the resurrection of Jesus, you see it in the second coming of Jesus, in the resurrection of our own bodies. The way scriptures present it. In the creation of earth made new. These are all displays of God creative power and it’s full of miracles.

Actually we read about the creative power of God in Genesis we don’t see it; neither did the writers of the book of Genesis. They are stories about the creation, the faith is about the belief in God as creator, it is not about how God created, and we don’t have to assume that the stories were meant as the literal method of creation. Even the resurrection of Jesus is not something we have seen. We do count it as credible because we have accounts of people who witnessed or were informed by witnesses and held to their witness even under persecution, more than faith it is a faith based upon some evidence. The other areas mentioned; the resurrection of our bodies and the creation of an earth made new are entirely based upon faith. We have not seen those things; in fact neither have those who wrote those statements in the Bible. We accept them because it is part of our understanding of the kind of person God is. It is our faith and our hope in the gift that God will give us. But it is not seen as a display of God’s creative power, it is an expectation as yet unfulfilled. It may be that we are living in the midst of multiple miracles or it may be that we are not; just as the ancient world thought everything was caused by God only through time and examination and compiled evidence do we see that perhaps the creator creates natural processes which make constant miracles unnecessary. It may even be that the creator’s miracles are so slight, acting upon DNA that we could never witness them until we have greatly advanced in science.

The mind of science generally will not accept as reality that which is miraculous.

And we should be ever thankful that science does not purport the reality of the miraculous. I can’t imagine a more fruitless source of knowledge than to try and study a miracle. Let us assume someone died and after a couple of days came back to life. Documented, the scientists were there and saw the whole thing. They could study the person for the rest of their lives but if the miracle was caused by an outside source say God they are studying the wrong thing. Empirical data may not tell us the origin of something but the processes involved with the thing can be studied. And no one is really studying them if their first or primary reaction is this is a miracle, I eat them for breakfast. If you don’t, then you have nothing, your done, finished; rather an obnoxious put down of science and the scientific method.

All and all Paulsen has presented us with total nonsense but we have to ask why? What is the purpose for such nonsense where he finds the problem of science in that it does not embrace miracles? Even if it did, even if you thought the world was filled with miracles it would not mean that they were produced by your particular God or your particular religious view. There are all kinds of faiths out there in the world, there is simply no reason to pit science against faith in the way that Paulsen has done. This makes me think there is a larger agenda to this. That it is a way to deny scientific reality in favor of the current fundamentalist young earth creationism. At a time when many Adventist theologians and science professors are attempting to reconcile scientific ages and processes with other ways God could create besides by the literalistic 6 days of creation. Paulsen is offering the traditional faith in the literal Genesis account. In other words the same old thing delivered by the science that he decries.

Foot washing ritual; Why Really?

So the Adventist Review has a new editorial on the Foot Washing ritual that the Adventists continue as if it has some relevance. I covered this earlier when the Review covered the topic before. Click the following link to read the article from 2007 Foot Washing - Symbolism over Substance

This time Roy Adams begins his Review editorial by saying:

IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAST SUPPER, JESUS INSTITUTED THE FOOT-washing ceremony, a ritual that has experienced widespread neglect in Christendom. The Adventist Church stands among only a handful of denominations still observing the practice. But the reality on the ground is that a high percentage of its members find reasons to skirt attendance at their local churches when “Communion Sabbath” comes around. Why?

Actually Jesus did not institute a foot washing ceremony. He washed the feet of the disciples as a servant and as a lesson. To make this a ceremony or a ritual is to deny the lesson that Jesus taught.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them.
"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. (John 13:12-16 NIV)

It should be of far greater concern greater concern that Christianity has forgotten the lesson the teacher taught here of real service to each other then some created idea of a ritual instituted here.

The article goes on about how uncomfortable this Adventist instituted ritual is for visitors and particularly single people. I would go much farther in that it is uncomfortable to any thinking American. Most of whom have washed their feet mere hours before the ritual and who wear shoes and often socks or stockings and who walk on paved paths for the actual limited distance they do walk. To clean actually dirty feet from the dust of the road before sitting down (very possibly on the floor) to eat is a real service. It had a purpose, today in America at least it has no purpose and it actually gets in the way of the real lesson that Christ taught.

Symbols work well when remembering the body and the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But do we really need symbols or rituals about being a servant to other people? Jesus' body is not here anymore, the symbols remember the incarnation. The other body of Christ is still here and it is all of us, you don't need a symbol to see it, it is on the street, on the pew and even looking back at you in the mirror.

Ideological differences in the SDA church

David Hamstra is one of the new bloggers for Adventist Today. In his first article he takes on the topic of Liberals and conservatives in the church entitled Freedom and Security.

Unfortunately he begins by using the terms liberals and conservatives even though those are rarely used in the Adventist church. He states:

Few Adventists who categorize other church members with these terms are willing to apply those labels to themselves. And it is clear to many that those categories obfuscate nuance and abet controversy, yet we continue to use them. Why? What function do they serve?

The reason for that is that people in the Adventist church use more descriptive terms than ill defined liberal and conservative. Instead of conservative they use "traditional or historic Adventist" while on the other end of Adventism they use Progressive Adventist. First problem solved... because Adventists do use those terms about themselves and most know what they mean.

David Hamstra than creates novel meanings for the terms Liberal and conservative.

Liberals are those in our church who feel the need for freedom more strongly than the need for security. Liberals seek liberty (which is freedom) and to liberate those who are captive, whom they believe suffer from too much security. They value creativity and see the world as a canvas waiting to the painted.

Conservatives feel the need for security more strongly than the need for freedom and thus try to conserve structures that provide stability. They see the world as a place of danger and the church as a place of refuge. So they warn those they see freely wandering into danger and defend the church against perceived threats from within and without.

These definitions make no sense to the real world, either in the church or in the political world. Liberals in the political world embrace big government with more government involvement in peoples lives, that is not freedom. Conservatives in the political world favor small government and less nanny state involvement which is equivalent to more freedom. Hamstra's definition does not work in the church any better. Traditional/historic Adventists have no more security, it could be argued they have less security because they have more rules and feel that their acts such as commandment keeping will affect their salvation. But even if we accepted the idea that it was security their security is found in their traditional Adventist beliefs. Which explains the name Traditional, thus we don't have to go and use ill defined words with novel meanings that no one in the church actually uses.

One of the common definitions of conservative is:
"Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change."

There is a quote which is helpful in getting a handle on where the starting point for traditional ideas begin. That quote goes like this: "The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution" [Hannah Arendt] Thus conservative is related to the society or subset of people in a society and liberal is a reaction to the conservative elements. A conservative in the old USSR would hold to traditional communist party ideas, the liberal would hold to free market ideas.

His conclusion based upon the faulty definitions then becomes:

"With Jesus meeting our needs for freedom and security, we no longer need to emphasize one need over the other."

A nice tidy answer, not that it answers anything at all but it seems to satisfy his sense of order. Perhaps that is all some are looking for, why can't we all get along. The reality is that different ideas don't always get along. Which reminds me of an article I recently read by Richard Mouw about the split between Evangelical and Liberal Presbyterians, where he writes:

I worry much about what would happen to Presbyterian evangelicals ourselves if we were to leave the PC(USA). When we evangelical types don’t have more liberal people to argue with, we tend to start arguing with each other. I would much rather see us continue to focus on the major issues of Reformed thought in an admittedly pluralistic denomination than to deal with the tensions that often arise among ourselves when evangelicals get into the debates that seem inevitably to arise when we have established our own "pure" denominations.

What we need to do is recognize that we have differences and be able to talk about them reasonably, sharpen our thinking. We need to actually be able to publicize that we have Progressive Sabbath School classes, Progressive Adventist churches, after all if the traditionals Adventists can have those things why not the Progressive Adventists.

What would happen however if your local Adventist school teacher attended a Progressive Adventist Sabbath School class? What would the traditional Adventists say or do? Would they say that such a person does not believe the 28 fundamentals and therefore should not be employed by the SDA school?

That is the reality we live in, where one side (many or most Traditional/Historic Adventist) is seeking a pure denomination. I keep reading articles like David Hamstra's and Alden Thompson who has a new book out on the idea that Progressive and Traditional Adventists need each other. Yet I don't see any such ideas coming from the Traditional side of the spectrum. I wonder why.

Waldenses and the Seventh day Sabbath and Adventists

Through a recent comment discussion over on Atoday.com my interest was peaked about one of the long lasting myths of Adventism. Here is what some of our Pioneers presented as history:

Ellen White, The Great Controversy 1888

The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures. (See Appendix.) Hundreds of years before the Reformation they possessed the Bible in manuscript in their native tongue. They had the truth unadulterated, and this rendered them the special objects of hatred and persecution. They declared the Church of Rome to be the apostate Babylon of the Apocalypse, and at the peril of their lives they stood up to resist her corruptions. While, under the pressure of long-continued persecution, some compromised their faith, little by little yielding its distinctive principles, others held fast the truth. Through ages of darkness and apostasy there were Waldenses who denied the supremacy of Rome, who rejected image worship as idolatry, and who kept the true Sabbath. Under the fiercest tempests of opposition they maintained their faith. Though gashed by the Savoyard spear, and scorched by the Romish fagot, they stood unflinchingly for God’s word and His honor.

J.N.Andrews History of the Sabbath and first day of the week

Uses the quote below from the Eccl. Hist, of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont, pp. 168, 169 With this preface:

That the Cathari did retain and observe the ancient Sabbath, is certified by their Romish adversaries. Dr. Allix quotes a Roman Catholic author of the twelfth century concerning three sorts of heretics,—the Cathari, the Passagii, and the Arnoldistae. Allix says of this Romish writer that,—

Some remarks upon the ecclesiastical history of the ancient churches of Piedmont

By Pierre Allix Google books pages 168-172 plain text:

He lays it down also as one of their opinions, "That the Law of Moses is to be kept according to” the letter, and that the keeping of the Sabbath, " Circumcision, and other legal observances, ought “to take place. They hold also, that Christ the "Son of God is not equal with the Father, and that” the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, these three” Persons, are not one God and one substance; and, " as a surplus to these their errors, they judge and “condemn all the doctors of the Church, and uni" versally the whole Roman Church. Now, since “they endeavour to defend this their error by testimonies drawn from the New Testament and Prophets, I shall, with assistance of the grace of” Christ, stop their mouths, as David did Goliah's, “with their own sword."

This is the quote we frequently read by those who put forth that the Waldenses kept alive the seventh day Sabbath. But we should consider what the author states about the person he is quoting. Notice the last couple of sentences are about the person who he quotes above, the person Andrews is referencing as an authority:

We ought to make this observation with respect to those authors, who in the twelfth century have made mention of the Cathari with this kind of confusion. itai. sacr. Ughellus tells us, in the Life of Galdinus, Arch' p' ' bishop of Milan, that after he had persecuted them, during the eight or nine years of his episcopacy, he died in the year 1173, by his over-vehement preaching against them. Ripamontius, in his History of Milan, gives us the sermon of Galdinus against the Cathari, whom he calls Manichees and Arians. But an indifferent judgment will be able to discover, that that piece is of Ripamontius's own forging, and consequently deserves no credit at all.

D'Achery has published the writing of an author, who pretends to discover the doctrine of the Cathari, of which he had been surely informed by the conversion of one Bonacursus to the Roman faith, who had been one of their Bishops, and had abjured their doctrine. This author makes three sorts of heretics, the Cathari, the Passagii, and the Arnoldistse, whose doctrines he refutes: but a wise reader will easily discern a great deal either of ignorance or malice in this author. (found in the first full paragraph of the above link for pages 168-172 text)

Not high praise for the person who we find often quoted as if it was the scholarly author of Eccl. Hist, of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont. Of course if we read more of Andrews we will see his does use other sources maybe some are better, but overall our knowledge of history has gotten better not worse since the 1800’s and we don’t find this idea about the Waldenses as seventh day Sabbath keepers in our scholarly modern histories. In fact the Waldensian church denies the seventh day Sabbath keeper idea. You can read about it Official response of the Waldesian Church in Italy about SDA claim which concludes by saying:

Therefore, the Waldensians did not keep the Sabbath (in the sense of Saturday instead of Sunday) and were not guardians of the "Sabbath Truth” as somebody calls it. The Waldensians never followed the Seventh-day Adventist’s Sabbath but they followed more Paul in Romans 14,5-8.

We can therefore say very clearly that the Waldensians were not Seventh-day Sabbath keepers and they were not persecuted for keeping Saturday as the Sabbath! Thy were persecuted, [from 1532 (when they joined the Reformation - Angrogna Synod) to 1848 (when they received religious freedom)], because of their Reformed-Calvinistic faith in Christ.

A good loyal Adventist would no doubt counter that they are not talking about during and after the Reformation but earlier in the 1100-1300’s when they were not really what we now term Waldensians. In which case that may be that there were some groups who did continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath, but they are not the Waldensians. That is the point.

For those, most of you know doubt, who won’t be going to check out the links to Google books let me give you the paragraph above the quote so often used by those who quote from of Eccl. Hist, of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont, though I will cut out the part Latin:

He accuseth some of these Cathari of maintaining doctrines that are plain Manicheism ; but then he jumbles others with them that are pure Arianism, and others again which seem to have been defended by the Paterines. I shall pass by those doctrines that are wholly Manichean, as, that the Devil created the elements; that he made Adam; that the old Law was given by the Devil, &c. as also those that are Arian, as, that Jesus Christ is not equal with the Father. It is evident, that amongst these he has mingled some which were maintained by the Paterines, who were enemies to the Romish idolatry: …That the " cross is the mark of the beast, whereof we read in " the Revelation, and the abomination standing in " the holy place. They say that blessed Pope " Sylvester was the Antichrist, of whom mention is " made in the Epistles of St. Paul, as being the " son of perdition, who extols himself, above every " thing that is called God; for, from that time, they " say, the Church perished." We see clearly from this passage, that he confounds the Paterines, or Waldenses, with the Manichees, that having been an opinion of the Waldenses, and not of the Manichees, as the Papists themselves own.

You have got to love Google books, how else would one expect to find such an old reference as Some remarks upon the ecclesiastical history of the ancient churches of Piedmont By Pierre Allix 1821

In favor of absolute truth when we discover it

After some comments made at the last Sabbath School Class I attended I thought I would delve into the subject of “absolute truth”. First here is a statement from the most recent Adventist Today Fall 2009 Seven Questions for…Doug Batchelor by Marcel Schwantes, page 28:

“Theology students will lose their fervor only if they sit under professors who have lost theirs. If professors teach with a perspective that there is no absolute truth or that everything is relative, they cannot produce a crop of pastors who preach with authority and conviction. A mist in the seminary will produce a fog in the church. Jesus taught with conviction and authority (Matt. 7:28-29). Thankfully, there are still some good higher education options with this caliber of professors.”

I use the quote from Doug Batchelor not because it is a well thought out remark because it is not, but because it is very common for Christians to assert that there is absolute truth. I also assert there is absolute truth, however knowing what is absolute truth is the problem. In Batchelor’s comment he asserts that there are professors who teach that there is no absolute truth. That may of course be true of some professors but if they did teach that than they would be teaching a logical fallacy on several levels. The most common explanation goes like this “since saying that there are no absolute truths - that it is absolutely true that no absolute truth exists - is itself an absolute truth.” It is hard to imagine a professor being soundly rebuked continuing to say there is no absolute truth. It would be just as much of a problem if they were to go about saying that everything was relative. Again if everything was relative their statement would be in the form of an absolute truth (everything is relative). The reality of life is that we should seldom use absolutes such as everything or nothing because so often there really are exceptions. In mathematics since it is already based upon logic and definitions it is much easier to use absolutes. For instance saying that no square is a circle is pretty safe because the definitions prevent one thing from being another thing. When you have solid agreed upon definitions you are again pretty safe to use absolutes, no cat is a dog.

So we see that humanly speaking there are actually absolute truths, those are usually based upon widespread agreement between most all people accepting a definition or a formula as representing reality. What if someone rejects the statement? For example we say that it is absolutely true that man has landed upon the moon. Whether they choose to believe the evidence does not change the absolute truth, because man really has landed upon the moon. Still “According to the July 1999 Gallup poll, only about 6% of the American public buys into that conspiracy theory,” that the moon landing was a fake.

So we can say that absolute truth is not dependent upon anyone actually accepting that something is absolutely true. For a variety of reasons like ignorance or prejudice or some other theory to explain something an absolute truth may be disbelieved. This is where we get into difficulties. Do our particular prejudices or beliefs interfere with ascertaining what is or is not absolute truth? One site on the subject puts it this way:

Many religions contain absolute truths. For example, a Christian might say, “ I know Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. By following his teachings, I will live in heaven when I die.” To the Christian this may be an absolute truth. Imposing this statement on others is where this absolute truth, to the Christian, becomes debated. While many may agree that the Christian believes absolutely that Jesus is his Lord, they are unlikely to agree that Jesus is everyone's Lord is an absolute truth. When a person’s absolute truth is extended to all others, it can be viewed as a philosophical statement of exclusion. Those who do not endorse the absolute truth of another are either pitied or attacked.

As with the case of someone not believing an absolute truth it is equally if not more probable for some to believe because of their tradition or upbringing or prejudice that what they believe is an absolute truth. As we have seen however believing or disbelieving does not create an absolute truth or destroy an absolute truth.

In the realm of religion this leaves us in the position of not really being able to declare much as absolute truths. We don’t have the reality of mathematics or of comparison of concrete defined items; we are dealing with beliefs and philosophical ideas and interpretations of others thoughts and ideas. That creates a much larger gray area of information, how we apply what information we have and how we even determine the information in the first place will have an effect upon what is thought or not thought to be an absolute truth.

So indeed there is such a thing as absolute truth, but the truth about absolute truth is we likely do not know what much of the absolute truth really is. Even stories in the Bible often tend to point out the relative nature of truth against those who have falsely determined that they have absolute truth. For example David eating the Shewbread or Jesus performing miracles on the Sabbath. It is possible that more damage is done by those who think they have absolute truth than by those who say that truth is relative to a situation. Jesus was charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death all without the Pharisees becoming unclean by being at the Pilate s house and then they hurried home to keep the Sabbath.

Does Christianity fall without the fall

At the Meeting I attended presented by Jonathan Gallagher there was a point that was mentioned that very much reflected the following statement by Keafan (an atheist I assume) on the Spectrum blog. The idea is basically that without the literal Adam and Eve story Christianity falls apart.

[...]Anyway, I agree that christians who dismiss the recent creation event of Genesis cannot honestly claim that Jesus is still relevant without the literal Adam, Eve, Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, the introduction of sin by them, and our "fallen" state of that origins story. If they believe evolution over long periods of time what, EXACTLY, have we "fallen" from that would need a Savior?

Jesus compares the end of time as like the "days of Noah". John claims that Jesus IS the creator. Paul appeals to the actions of Adam to prove his Jesus. The whole Great Controversy theme Bevin seems to approve of is contingent on the Garden, Adam, and Eve actually existing as historical, literal things.

As Ross is quoted as saying: "If Adam and Eve aren't real people and the fall isn't a real event in history, then there's not a good reason to believe that Christ rose from the dead and every thing else."

Without the Fall the whole theory of salvation from the consequences of that Fall are ridiculous.

Posted by: keafan (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 1:38

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/09/17/creation_fiddling_while_rome_burns

As I stated in the conversation at the meeting which Jonathan Gallagher held in Olympia Wa., (at some point they said they would post the talks, you can read the written presentations at: http://pineknoll.org/ ) We are in trouble if our concept of God is dependent upon getting people to believe the Genesis story which is very scientifically untenable. Even before the advent of Darwin the Christian thinkers did not hold to the simplistic creation story of Genesis. Once people in the 1700’s began to look at the rocks and later the fossils in the rocks they realized that there are many layers of rocks, and different kinds of rocks. So they developed the theory known as Neptuneism, the idea being that there were a succession of many worldwide floods (related idea known as catastrophism) of which Noah’s flood is simply the most recent. Each succession as the water evaporated left a different type of rock strata. Ultimately with the different strata there were different fossils. Each time there was a worldwide flood God created life again and repopulated the world (successive creation). Thus was produced the special creation view that Darwin was taught and which with his observations of volcanism he determined not to be necessary. Further it took away the Natural theology aspects since without the need for special creation it took away the need for God’s interaction with the world. Nature was not so perfectly balanced, why did not God create rabbits in Australia since when they were brought there they did wonderfully? Natural selection saw a ruthless struggle for survival, so instead of the natural theology showing how wonderful the character of God is because of the beauty and harmony of creation we see a nature that uses chance and cruelty. Challenging God’s justice and love.

The idea of the fall to a world of chance and cruelty does not let God off the hook for making the world filled with chance and cruelty, because man sinned does not logically equate the creation of ripping and tearing teeth. Natural theology (as nature revealing the character of God) was never a reality, at best it was once a reality in a brief perfect world (if one accepted the story as literaly), but those who came up with the idea of natural theology were not looking at any kind of perfect world. So we really don’t do ourselves a lot of favors by positing everything upon some perfect unknown world. It leads to the simplistic sin changed the world perspective but then you have to ask what is sin that it can produce all this chance and cruelty? When we look at the natural world around us and then at what we think sin means: that is selfishness or rebellion or even the classics, missing the mark or sin is lawlessness none of those things would really effect the natural world. The thinking world yes because an attitude of sin may make thinking creatures behave in ways that could be described as chance and cruelty but they would not be genetic, they would not leave their records in the fossils and the rocks of the world. You would have to go to something a lot more powerful. Which in religion pretty much leaves you with a God or a devil? Biblically speaking there is no indication that the natural world is the result of some creation of the devil. The natural world is seen as the creation of God.

Those pointing to the literal young earth creation story of Genesis still have no real answers for the problems mentioned above. Faith is their answer, not faith in God but faith in their perceived interpretation of the Genesis stories. That God told people the stories and that God intended the people to forever and always hold the stories as literally historically true.

So as we deal with thinking people we can’t simply say this is what the Bible says, "yes it makes no sense but you need to believe it because the whole Christian world view depends on it". No it does not. The Christian view depends upon the reality that mankind is selfish, that we hurt each other and that we make stupid choices and if we could find ourselves some short cut to knowledge of good or of evil or power we would take it. The Adam and Eve story presents a reality of thought that requires no need for it to be actual history: no need to be a complete refutation of the reality that science demonstrates.

We all know stories can teach important lessons or ideas, they don’t have to be true, they don’t have to involve actual people and events to stimulate, inspire or teach something to the listener. We don’t have to have a literal Garden of Eden or a literal worldwide flood to point out the human condition, the tendency for humans to become destruction or wicked. The stories indicate that there is more to life than our wants and desires. That human beings have the capability to extend themselves to think higher, to live with better morals, to pursue better goals. That is where God comes into our thinking. The stories of Jesus present these ideas in the form of incarnate God living with us. However this is more than just stories because the witnesses to Jesus life actually shared what they had heard and seen and even under persecution never recanted their testimony. Jesus does not depend upon the story of Adam and Eve. It stands in the history of mankind, more than as some story handed down from some bygone age when the world was somehow perfect. It stands in historical time and in an historical place with actual historical people recording the points that the authors thought important or they best remembered. though clearly they were not written as simply historical accounts, history is often built upon whatever historical writings we can obtain.

Certainly the New Testament and Jesus referenced the Genesis stories. God as creator, with little attention to how God creates after all who can really explain how God can create. The stories are used just as every culture uses their stories…to teach or remind people of lessons or values. Adam and Eve become the symbol of marriage of a man and a woman. The Genesis story never says they were married but they become the perfect symbol man and woman meant to live together to create the family. Noah and the flood are mentioned again to make whatever point the author in the New Testament or Jesus was trying to make. A shared culture gives people shared stories and that commonality allows them to communicate quickly and efficiently. Noah and the flood tell of a world filled with people of violence and wickedness. The old stories don’t have to change either. For example in America at one time you could say Miami was the murder capital of the country, then later it is Detroit, or Washington D.C. Ancient shared culture stories don’t change, Noah and the wicked people who necessitated the flood are always linked together, deliverance from the wicked by God is always linked, the rainbow and the promise of are God linked. That is the power of a story.

Without the fall story are we in any different reality? No the reality is simply what is, the fall does not make our reality, it does not make our religion. It is a teaching tool of our religion. It is a powerful shared story that has cultural relevance in many ways. It was never meant to dictate our understanding of the natural world, the understanding of God (who was kind of mean in the story, break on rule and your banished) the understanding of creation and the universe. After all the God in the Genesis story is not too much like the God of the New Testament, neither is the God of much of the Old Testament too much like the God of the New Testament. God is progressively understood as we progressively assimilate knowledge. We simply can’t go back to the most primitive understanding and let it rule over our knowledge of years later with so many areas of increased knowledge. What we do is reinterpret the stories, because the stories still have that cultural familiarity; they still are capable of being used as teaching tools. But they don’t dictate our understanding they were never meant to do that and it is highly unlikely that they ever did that in either the Jewish or Christian religions (at least until fundamentalism).

We are at that uncomfortable place where we have to once again reinterpret our beliefs. Strangely enough it has happened so many times in human history and Christian history that we should be a little more used to it by now. No doubt if not for our love of tradition we would be better able to handle the changes but there always seems to be some who get comfortable with an idea or five and cling to them tenaciously.

Settled into the truth; the views

This Saturday Oct. 03, I attended a meeting put on by Jonathan Gallagher here in Olympia. It was a stimulating dialog which covered a wide range of ideas centered upon the character of God. What was striking to me was the use of the term “settled into the truth so that we cannot be moved.” I did mention that I thought the statement was rather nebulous and Gallagher agreed that it all depends on what we mean by truth.

As I can’t adequately express the context the phrase was used in the meeting I will give a couple of examples from followers of the Larger View so you can get an idea of the usage as it is not unique and seemed to be readily accepted by the others at the meeting. Something they have heard and agree with before it appeared. I have, when thinking about it been a lot more skeptical about its usage since it seems to describe the same attitude that a fundamentalist would have. The truth being those 5 fundamentals and they won’t be shaken out of those fundamentals and those fundamentals define their Christian religion. As we will see of the two sides I will quote, neither side is using it as some fundamental belief rather it is a perception of what is to happen in the future.

First some examples:

Brad Cole A Phone Call From God :

God wants us to mature, to grow up, and to become settled into the truth predominantly about one thing: what he is like in character. And for this high ideal he sends the Holy Spirit who is with us and within us and with no less intensity that Jesus’ presence with his disciples! (Also found on HeavenlySanctuary.com)

Tim Jenning’s comment on HeavenlySanctuary.com:

The HS brings only what Chirst directs Him to bring according to Christ. Thus Christ's intercessions are in the believer and He stops His intercessions once all are either so settled into the truth they cannot be moved or so settled into the lie they cannot be moved. The reason intercession ceases is because we are fully healed and don't need it any more.

Gene Autonomous People article:

God wants us to be so settled into the truth that we cannot be moved. (Romans 14:5; Eph. 1:13) This means we must be able to think through all situations as if we had the mind of Christ in us. (1 Cor. 2:16)

Facebook discussion of the lesson quarterly:

THE RESULT:
God’s friends settle into the truth that God really is just like Jesus The mind is healed of rebellion and distrust The character is re-shaped in the image of Jesus Union and selfless love among those settled into the truth about God’s character and principles The lies about God’s character are fully and forever exposed and defeated Peace, love, freedom, and an eternity of face-to-face companionship with God

I suppose there is a theme there, but really it does look to me a bit nebulous as people are attempting to interpret Ellen White from the Larger View perspective which is that we will see God as worthy to be trusted and we can’t be moved from trusting God. Why that attitude of trust is expected and not the Christian reality since the time of the New Testament I don’t really know other than to make it fit in with a prediction of a future sealing by God. A sealing act which is the Holy Spirit who has been sealing Christians for generations now.

These quotes (both Larger view and Traditional) are all found from a simple Google search of the term "settled into the truth". They are all related to Adventists it seems this is a somewhat unique Adventist view. I chose that phrase because it is most similar to the actual Ellen White quote. A quote you will not find in any Ellen White book published in her lifetime, we find a section of the quote in the Adventist Bible Commentary vol. 4 but I will give you the most complete quote I can find:

From Manuscript Release No. 56 - Compilation on Objectives of Our Medical Work and the College of Medical Evangelists

The leaders in the sanitarium have mingled with unbelievers, admitting them to their councils, more or less; but it is like going to work with their eyes shut. They lack the discernment to see what is going to break upon us at any time. There is a spirit of desperation, of war and bloodshed, and that spirit will increase until the very close of time. Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads,--it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, [250] so they cannot be moved,--just as soon as God's people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come. Indeed, it has begun already; the judgments of God are now upon the land, to give us warning, that we may know what is coming. Ms 173, 1902, pp. 3-6. ("Medical Missionary Work in Southern California," November 20, 1911.) {1MR 249.2}

As used in the Bible Commentary:

(Rev. 7:2.) Seal Is a Settling Into Truth.--Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads--it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved--just as soon as God's people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come. Indeed, it has begun already; the judgments of God are now upon the land, to give us warning, that we may know what is coming (MS 173, 1902). {4BC 1161.6}

The traditional Adventist has a different view of the quote. You can see from some by context where they use the term “settled into the truth” they generally have the view that this is talking about last generation perfection though I can’t show that for all the quotes I am giving. A few quotes:

From Herbert Douglas The Jesus Difference

This is why Jesus remains in the Most Holy Place in the heavenly sanctuary today! He is still working with the willing, He want them so settled into the truth that they will never be moved to say “No’ to God ever again. They will be so settled into the truth that their habits of mind and body will be as predictable, as natural, as habitual as blinking their eyes3. Habitants of unfallen worlds can trust them! Angels can trust them! The whole universe will endorse God’s judgments—that these willing loyalists from Earth are safe to be given eternal life.

Russell Williams Enmity part 2 etc

The latter rain seals the grain..intellectually and spiritually settled into the truth so that you cannot be moved...every position of truth that we now hold we will be tested. knowledge = patience...in your patience possess ye your soul (Luke 21:19).

Last Generation Theology

Cleansing in Heaven Connected to Cleansing on earth Neither Luther nor the Millerite Adventists living in 1844 finished the Reformation or understood the angel messages of Revelation 14 and 18. The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary is connected to the cleansing and purifying of lives on earth. The sanctuary is cleansed when God has a people who have become so settled into the truth that they will never again be moved to doubt Him or to disobey known duty. The torrent of sin that has needed forgiveness is dried up. Christ’s presence remains with those who have chosen Him. The Holy Spirit empowers obedience even after the ministry of forgiveness is closed. (also found on GreatControversy.org)

Robert W. Olson and Ellen White, The Crisis ahead:

Before the sealing of God’s people is finished, what glorious event will take place?

“Before the work is closed up and the sealing of God’s people is finished, we shall receive the outpouring of the Spirit of God” (1SM 111)

“Not one of us will ever receive the seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. It is left with us to remedy the defects in our characters, to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement. Then the latter rain will fall upon us as the early rain fell upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost.” (5T 214)

[I will note here that the above book actually lists Ellen White first but I suspect she really had no say in where her quotes were placed, thus I give her second billing]

Abreast of Truth Advent Perspective

PRESENT TRUTH TODAY REVEALS for us a new and higher experience than has ever before been comprehended. It has often been called the "sealing truth," because those who enter into the experience of the taking away of sin are "settled into the truth so that they can never be moved." ³⁰ "When Christ comes He takes those who have purified their souls by obeying the truth...." "But before that time shall come, everything that is imperfect in us will have been seen and put away." ³¹

Moreover, the eternal security of all those who have gone before, the faithful of all ages, is dependent upon the victory of this last generation; for "...these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Hebrews 11:39,40. This is the truth that unites the whole church of God from the beginning of time ~ "the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven." ³²

There are still a few more on the Last generation perfection side but you get the idea and the last one is pretty clear. I have to reject the last generation perfectionists, they teach a doctrine that the Bible no where teaches and I have to reject the Larger View’s idea as well because there is no need for some future settling into the truth when it has been going on for generations. I also have to reject the idea of some future sealing by the Holy Spirit distinct from God’s actions of sealing us from the New Testament times.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Cor 1:21-22 NIV)

Am I so settled into the truth that I can’t be moved? No, because I am not certain of the truth, there are very few things I know about any theology that I can verify as “true.” There are things I believe but I expect I am open to believing something else should facts or reason or evidence takes me there. I do believe that God has to be trusted if He is really God, if He is really love; because any other kind of God is too capricious too arbitrary to be worshiped freely. If that is the truth I am settled into then I can accept the idea of being settled into truth. If God is not good than to me He is not God. But I still battle with doubt, with faith, with what I should or should not do and what I do and do not do and behind all of that is the why. What do I believe and why do I believe it, how do I explain the things that make us sometimes declare God a tyrant because of ancient stories told by well meaning God loving people.

Ultimately there are a lot of Christians who feel settled into their particular truth about God which I will never be able to accept. They won’t be moved by reason or facts, I don’t doubt their salvation but I do doubt their commitment to truth and their ability to present a real God of love to the world. It does make an interesting question however, what are you settled into? Maybe my favorite Bible verse will express what I am settled into better than my own words:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3 NIV)

Click to read more on the latter rain

The Shack and the Adventist Review Article

As it turns out I was able to find a copy of the review of “The Shack” on the internet so you can see what the Adventist Review published. Present Truth appears to have gotten permission to publish the article, The Shack-What Lessons Can We Learn?

Here is the list of the 17 points the article uses. For many of you this will be completely useless as the page number of different editions varies and like any amateur review this one can’t manage to quote from the book but simply sums up her own often erroneous view of what the book is saying. The Present Truth posting has the numbers wrong on the list. I will take the liberty of renumbering the list so that I can respond with the books actual quotes, most need no further explanation.

Unfortunately, the god of the Shack and the God of the Bible are vastly dissimilar. Let’s consider seventeen of the myriad differences.

1. The god of the Shack espouses universal reconciliation, that is, everyone will be saved. (164, 217,227)
2. The god of the Shack describes a second chance to confess [sin] after death. (217)
3. The god of the Shack has no desire that non Christians become Christian. (184)
4. The god of the Shack calls religion man-created terror that causes mental turmoil and anxiety ( 181).
5. The god of the Shack does not want sorrow for sin. (186)
6. The god of the Shack attributes evil and pain to humanity’s independence and never to Lucifer. (133,134, 138,192)
7. The god of the Shack repeatedly elevates experience or subjective revelation over the Scriptures. (67,68, 206)
8. The god of the Shack denigrates absolute truth or theological certainty (205)
9. The god of the Shack suggests that submission, even mutual submission, is inherently evil. (124-125)
10. The god of the Shack promotes modalism—the non-biblical teaching that God the Father became flesh and died as well as the Son. (97,105)
11. The triune god of the Shack spoke themselves into human existence. (101)
12. The god of the Shack follows Unitarian-Universalist teaching that God is a verb, or by implication, a force. (206)
13. The god of the Shack enjoys funky music, uses vulgar and mocking expressions, and tolerates profanity in his/her presence. (90, 92, 107, 226)
14. The god of the Shack repeatedly devalues and contradicts Scripture. (68,169, 225)
15. The god of the Shack has no expectations or rules. (91, 205,208)
16. The god of the Shack allows defiant communication with the Father without the mediation of Christ Jesus. (121)
17. The god of the Shack has virtually nothing to say of sin, how to escape it, or the reality of judgment.

Lets go over some of these:

1 The god of the Shack espouses universal reconciliation; Yes I think that can be fairly drawn from the book, I grant also that it may also be fairly drawn from some Bible texts. Some other Bible texts would preclude universalism that has been a debate since the days of Origen, it seems to me there are good arguments on both sides.

2. The god of the Shack describes a second chance to confess [sin] after death:Yes in the book Mack sees a vision of reconciliation in which his abusive father is reunited with Mack. I don’t know that is really to far from reality what will Paul say to Stephen I wonder or David to Uriah?

“Daddy!” yelled Mack, and threw himself onto the man who could not even look at his son. In the howl of wind and flame, Mack took his father’s face in his two hands, forcing his dad to look him in the face so he could stammer the words he had always wanted to say: “Daddy, I’m so sorry! Daddy, I love you!” The light of his words seemed to blast darkness out of his father’s colors, turning them blood red. They exchanged sobbing words of confession and forgiveness, as a love greater than either one healed them. (Ch. 15 A FESTIVAL OF FRIENDS)

3. The god of the Shack has no desire that non Christians become Christian; “Mack, I love them. And you wrongly judge many of them. For those who are both in it and of it, we must find ways to love and serve them, don’t you think?” asked Jesus. “Remember, the people who know me are the ones who are free to live and love without any agenda.” “Is that what it means to be a Christian?” It sounded kind of stupid as Mack said it, but it was how he was trying to sum everything up in his mind. “Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian.” The idea struck Mack as odd and unexpected and he couldn’t keep himself from grinning. “No, I suppose you aren’t.”

They arrived at the door of the workshop. Again Jesus stopped. “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.” “Does that mean,” asked Mack, “that all roads will lead to you?” “Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.” He paused. “Mack, I’ve got some things to finish up in the shop, so I’ll catch up with you later.” (Ch. 12 IN THE BELLY OF THE BEASTS)

4. The god of the Shack calls religion man-created terror that causes mental turmoil and anxiety: “What about the institution of marriage?”

“Marriage is not an institution. It’s a relationship.” Jesus paused, his voice steady and patient. “Like I said, I don’t create institutions; that’s an occupation for those who want to play God. So no, I’m not too big on religion,” Jesus said a little sarcastically, “and not very fond of politics or economics either.” Jesus’ visage darkened noticeably. “And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three?”

Mack hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to say. This all felt a little over his head. Noticing that Mack’s eyes were glazing over, Jesus downshifted. “Put simply, these terrors are tools that many use to prop up their illusions of security and control. People are afraid of uncertainty, afraid of the future. These institutions, these structures and ideologies, are all a vain effort to create some sense of certainty and security where there isn’t any. It’s all false! Systems cannot provide you security, only I can.” .” (Ch. 12 IN THE BELLY OF THE BEASTS)

5. The god of the Shack does not want sorrow for sin: “As Mack ate another scone he groped for the courage to speak his heart. “Papa?” he asked, and for the first time calling God Papa did not seem awkward to him. “Yes, Mack?” she answered as her eyes opened and she smiled with delight. “I’ve been pretty hard on you.” “Hmmmm, Sophia must’a gotten to you.” “Did she ever! I had no idea I had presumed to be your judge. It sounds so horribly arrogant.” “That’s because it was,” Papa responded with a smile.

“I am so sorry. I really had no idea . . .” Mack shook his head sadly.

“But that is in the past now, where it belongs. I don’t even want your sorrow for it, Mack. I just want us to grow on together without it.”

In other words God does not want our sorrow He wants the relationship that moves forward, if sin is the separation from God, He wants the reconciliation not our sorrow, sorrow can lead to reconciliation but from then on it has done its purpose.

6. The god of the Shack attributes evil and pain to humanity’s independence and never to Lucifer. You will not find one place in the Bible that attributes humanities pain and evil to Lucifer either. You won’t even find it attributed to Satan. The Garden of Eden story of the fall says nothing about Satan we all make our decisions we don’t need some evil genius hiding behind the curtains to blame. Interestingly if all evil is really because of Satan (obviously Lucifer is a traditional term for Satan, it is not a Biblical term for Satan see Who is Lucifer (Satan Misidentified) ) how could one not be a universalist?

7. The god of the Shack repeatedly elevates experience or subjective revelation over the Scriptures: Mack allowed his oar to turn in his hands as he let it play in the water’s movements. “It feels like living out of relationship—you know, trusting and talking to you—is a bit more complicated than just following rules.” “What rules are those, Mackenzie?” “You know, all the things the Scriptures tell us we should do.” “Okay . . .” she said with some hesitation. “And what might those be?” “You know,” he answered sarcastically. “About doing good things and avoiding evil, being kind to the poor, reading your Bible, praying, and going to church. Things like that.” “I see. And how is that working for you?”

He laughed. “Well, I’ve never done it very well. I have moments that aren’t too bad, but there’s always something I’m struggling with, or feeling guilty about. I just figured I needed to try harder, but I find it difficult to sustain that motivation.” “Mackenzie!” she chided, her words flowing with affection. “The Bible doesn’t teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus. While words may tell you what God is like and even what he may want from you, you cannot do any of it on your own. Life and living isin him and in no other. My goodness, you didn’t think you could live the righteousness of God on your own, did you?” “Well, I thought so, sorta . . .” he said sheepishly. “But you gotta admit, rules and principles are simpler than relationships.” “It is true that relationships are a whole lot messier than rules, but rules will never give you answers to the deep questions of the heart and they will never love you.”(Ch. 14 VERBS AND OTHER FREEDOMS)

Elsewhere in the chapter:

“Of course. You might see me in a piece of art, or music, or silence, or through people, or in Creation, or in your joy and sorrow. My ability to communicate is limitless, living and transforming, and it will always be tuned to Papa’s goodness and love. And you will hear and see me in the Bible in fresh ways. Just don’t look for rules and principles; look for relationship—a way of coming to be with us.” (Ch. 14 VERBS AND OTHER FREEDOMS)

8. The god of the Shack denigrates absolute truth or theological certainty (205) : This is why Evangelicals and Fundamentalists hate this book. It does not hold to their truth and their theological certainty. It does not deny that God has truth and certainty but does acknowledge those things come only through a relationship with God, they don’t simply exist because we claim we have the certainty.

The next several all have to do with the relationship in the Godhead and as such are just about traditional understanding rather than any real Biblical disagreement.

9. The god of the Shack suggests that submission, even mutual submission, is inherently evil. (124-125) This is about the Godhead being equal and in unity, It is One God

“And now,” Sarayu interjected, “we have come full circle, back to one of my initial statements: You humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that relationship could exist apart from hierarchy. So you think that God must relate inside a hierarchy like you do. But we do not.” (Ch. 8 A BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS)

“That’s the beauty you see in my relationship with Abba and Sarayu. We are indeed submitted to one another and have always been so and always will be. Papa is as much submitted to me as I to him, or Sarayu to me, or Papa to her. Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we are submitted to you in the same way.” Mack was surprised. “How can that be? Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?” “Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.” “And that’s how you want us to love each other, I suppose? I mean between husbands and wives, parents and children. I guess in any relationship?” “Exactly! When I am your life, submission is the most natural expression of my character and nature, and it will be the most natural expression of your new nature within relationships.” (Ch. 10 WADE IN THE WATER)

10. The god of the Shack promotes modalism—the non-biblical teaching that God the Father became flesh and died as well as the Son. (97,105): Again this is traditionalism saying that Jesus Christ is not God, “I and the Father are One”, “if you have seen me you have seen the Father”, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made Flesh”. Modalism has the advantage of not separating the Godhead so that one part of God is pleading with another part of God. Again it is the fundamentalist complaint because tradition has been embraced rather than a reasoned view of God. One God in three persons does not mean the three persons are separate from each other. They are they ways the One God relates to us.

11.The triune god of the Shack spoke themselves into human existence. (101): This is a reference to the incarnation of Jesus. Who knows why Cindy Tutsch complains about that?

12. The god of the Shack follows Unitarian-Universalist teaching that God is a verb, or by implication, a force: Is it a problem that God is active and does things rather than just exists?

“I,” she opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, “I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active, and moving. I am a being verb.” (Ch. 14 VERBS AND OTHER FREEDOMS )

13. The god of the Shack enjoys funky music, uses vulgar and mocking expressions, and tolerates profanity in his/her presence. (90, 92, 107, 226): It is always hard to write a conversation with God in it because of the preconceptions each of us has about God. Funky music and vulgar and mocking expressions are often in the mind of the reader whether they exist in the work or not. I mean I am not too happy that Jesus said of some people they were dogs. (Mat 15:26-28 NIV) He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. I unlike some would not call Jesus vulgar or mocking for such an expression. Some however are always limiting God to fit in his proper box in their mind.

14. The god of the Shack repeatedly devalues and contradicts Scripture: Or at least Cindy Tutsch’s version of scripture. Because to write a fictional story about meeting God who should burn you up if you look at Him devalues and contradicts Scripture. No such thing as literary license and suspending disbelief in the world of literature. Not for Good Adventists it appears.

15. The god of the Shack has no expectations or rules. This one is kind of funny and is well answered in the book. After all if God knows all; how could He have expectations for you to live up to? He knows what you will do before you know what you will do.

Papa now spoke up. “Honey, I’ve never placed an expectation on you or anyone else. The idea behind expectations requires that someone does not know the future or outcome and is trying to control behavior to get the desired result. Humans try to control behavior largely through expectations. I know you and everything about you. Why would I have an expectation other than what I already know? That would be foolish. And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me.”

“What? You’ve never been disappointed in me?” Mack was trying hard to digest this.

“Never!” Papa stated emphatically. “What I do have is a constant and living expectancy in our relationship, and I give you an ability to respond to any situation and circumstance in which you find yourself. To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that degree you neither know me nor trust me.” (Ch.14 VERBS AND OTHER FREEDOMS)

The rules part of this was addressed in my previous blog article on the The Shack and the Adventist Review letter

16.The god of the Shack allows defiant communication with the Father without the mediation of Christ Jesus. (121) Is that something like Job and David may have done, or perhaps Moses when he said if you are going to kill Israel kill me too. What does Cindy Tutsch, someone who holds masters of Divinity think the purpose of Jesus as mediator is? Is Jesus someone to keep us from talking directly with God or someone who came from God to live with us and reveal God to us? You can see why she has such trouble with those other areas dealing with the Godhead.

17. The god of the Shack has virtually nothing to say of sin, how to escape it, or the reality of judgment: I am sure many people will cry reading this book, the tragedy of a child stolen away and killed, a father’s anguish and guilt along with their own childhood history. To say it says nothing of sin is to say that “sin” as a theological term is not used. To say it says nothing about sin and how to escape it is frankly too foolish to be believed. If you goal in having a relationship with God is based upon some view of a reality of judgment it is hard to believe that you have any desire for a relationship with God. If your goal is to see the wicked toasted and destroyed than you have no conception of the love of God. Which is why in my review of this book earlier I said it defines the difference between traditional Christianity and emergent Christianity?

I have to thank Cindy Tutsch for so vividly if not articulately expressing that difference. I do feel so sorry for my Adventist church however as they again and again prove that their Christianity is something that I don’t want much to do with. This may explain to some why I don’t subscribe to the Adventist Review.

The Shack and the Adventist Review letter

Apparently I missed the Adventist Review article on "The Shack" on August 30. I may get back to that after I scrounge up the August 09 issues, but for now I will deal with one of the letters to the Review about The Shack:

Dismantling The Shack

Thank you so much for publishing such a fine and concise review of the book The Shack (Aug. 30, 2009). This dangerously popular book needed to be unmasked, and the Adventist Review has certainly come through. Cindy Tutsch has done a great job in summarizing its content. Thank you so much.

Having recently analyzed this book (the one I read said there are 3 million in print, and, yes, the paging seems to be different from the one Tutsch read), I found that beneath the layers of philosophy and tragedy lay a definite aversion and abhorrence to the law of God that The Shack attacks behind a mask and in the name of “relationship.”

This book brings up the Ten Commandments and portrays “god” saying, “Jesus laid the demand of the law to rest; it no longer has any power to accuse or command” (p. 203). To the direct question: “Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?” the answer from this “voice” is also direct and unambiguous: “Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful” (p. 203). It adds, “Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to light and good; they do not have any actual existence” (p. 136). It is truly amazing how these statements fulfill prophecy to the letter (see The Great Controversy, p. 558).

Olga, San Diego

What is most interesting is that last paragraph. The abhorrence at the thought that we are not under law, that “all things are lawful”. First let us look at what the Shack is saying in context, Mack is the human with the questions, God is in the persona of a woman in this interchange:

“But as I’m sure you know there are many,” responded Mack, “who think they are made righteous by following the rules.”

“But can you clean your face with the same mirror that shows you how dirty you are? There is no mercy or grace in rules, not even for one mistake. That’s why Jesus fulfilled all of it for you—so that it no longer has jurisdiction over you. And the Law that once contained impossible demands—Thou Shall Not . . .—actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.”

She was on a roll now, her countenance billowing and moving. “But keep in mind that if you live your life alone and independently, the promise is empty. Jesus laid the demand of the law to rest; it no longer has any power to accuse or command. Jesus is both the promise and its fulfillment.”

“Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?” Mack had now completely stopped eating and was concentrating on the conversation.

“Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful.”

First all things are lawful is a quote from the writings of Paul.

(1 Cor 10:23 KJV) All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

When you read this it is pretty clear the book is getting its idea from the New Testament. “There is no mercy or grace in rules”:

(Acts 13:39 NIV) Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.

(Gal 2:21 NIV) I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

(Gal 3:21-25 NIV) Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

So it appears the author of the letter, probably a very good Adventist has no conception of the New Testament Gospel. That we are not under law but under grace, apparently she missed the whole Reformation thing in her Adventist education. A scary thought that for years some one can sit in an Adventist church listening to Adventist sermons and have no conception of what the New Testament teaches.

Now let’s look at her concluding sentence:

It adds, “Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to light and good; they do not have any actual existence” (p. 136). It is truly amazing how these statements fulfill prophecy to the letter (see The Great Controversy, p. 558).

This is not too difficult a concept to see, as evil and darkness our metaphors for actions and attitudes of intelligent beings, they are like light and good metaphors for actions and attitudes but they are opposites, the metaphors “light and good” find their reality in God, the reality is found in the actions and attitude of God and His influence upon intelligent beings. Here is the context, Sarayu is a personification of the Holy Spirit in the book:

Sarayu turned toward Mack; at least that was his impression. “Mackenzie, evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence. I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life.”

If this is what Ellen White was referring too then she was clearly wrong. The Great Controversy page 558 says:

Even in its present form, so far from being more worthy of toleration than formerly, it is really a more dangerous, because a more subtle, deception. While it formerly denounced Christ and the Bible, it now professes to accept both. But the Bible is interpreted in a manner that is pleasing to the unrenewed heart, while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect. Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God's justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight. The people are taught to regard the Decalogue as a dead letter. Pleasing, bewitching fables captivate the senses and lead men to reject the Bible as the foundation of their faith. Christ is as verily denied as before; but Satan has so blinded the eyes of the people that the deception is not discerned.

The “present form” is spiritualism as the beginning of the next paragraph states:

There are few who have any just conception of the deceptive power of spiritualism and the danger of coming under its influence.

In fact the previous paragraph is pretty clear that it is not even speaking as a prediction of some coming deception but a deception already occurring during Ellen White’s lifetime, as she says:

It is true that spiritualism is now changing its form and, veiling some of its more objectionable features, is assuming (Page 558) a Christian guise. But its utterances from the platform and the press have been before the public for many years, and in these its real character stands revealed. These teachings cannot be denied or hidden.

It is not surprising that someone who does not understand the New Testament Gospel will also not understand Ellen White’s writings. But of course she is not alone, she is after all agreeing with the Adventist Review on the subject. That after all is the bigger problem, that we have a church that does not even know the Gospel. For more on The Shack see my article Review of William Young's The Shack

Is the Bible Really the Word of God Part 2

Click here to read Is the Bible the Word of God Part 1

The website Got Questions.Org is our starting point for part 2. Their article is entitled: Is the Bible truly God's Word?

Answer: Our answer to this question will not only determine how we view the Bible and its importance to our lives, but also it will ultimately have an eternal impact on us. If the Bible is truly God’s Word, then we should cherish it, study it, obey it, and fully trust it. If the Bible is the Word of God, then to dismiss it is to dismiss God Himself.

As you can see the article begins with an all or nothing response. That is if it is the word of God, to dismiss it is to dismiss God. But what if it was not the word of God but contained some words of God and some words of men and some teachings about history or then current events and peoples ideas about God? In other words in some aspects inspired by God such as leading people to Christ and salvation and some great ideas about dealing with people that God inspired someone to write. A useful book that God helped people put together for them to learn from in various ways. Could God not inspire such a book? Could not such a book be inspired and yet not be the Word of God? After all God really did not write it, may not have inspired all writings included in it and the book is the product of human beings?

It is interesting to see the polls on the subject. In 2007 Gallup polled on the subject:

About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. This percentage is slightly lower than several decades ago. The majority of those Americans who don't believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally. About one in five Americans believe the Bible is an ancient book of "fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."

Most Americans believe in the inspiration of the Bible but not that it is the word of God, this is in spite of the long tradition of people calling it the word of God. They are still able to see past the logical fallacy of calling something the word of God when that something makes no such claims for itself, either in individual books nor of course as a combined whole. Since people had to seek out the books and through a process of church acceptance decide which books they thought belonged for use by Christians it is understandable that that assemblage of books could not make the claim to be the word of God. Which kind of explains why tradition does what logic could not do.

As we look at the list of external in internal evidence that the God Questions.org site gives the first question to ask is do their evidences point to inspiration or to the Bible being the word of God. How would you tell the difference? We already know the answer from the very first paragraph that God Questions.org uses. They won’t even consider the belief that the majority of Americans hold. Let’s look at a few examples:

One of the first internal evidences that the Bible is truly God’s Word is seen in its unity. Even though it is really sixty-six individual books, written on three continents, in three different languages, over a period of approximately 1500 years, by more than 40 authors who came from many walks of life, the Bible remains one unified book from beginning to end without contradiction. This unity is unique from all other books and is evidence of the divine origin of the words which God moved men to record.

Well unity maybe a little flimsy considering that people did put the compilation together. Jews compiled the Old Testament and Christians adding the New Testament. We won’t talk about the apocrypha, once accepted by Protestants and now mainly accepted by Roman Catholics. But you can see the problem of claiming unity of something that was made by selecting the books that people thought assisted their religion the best. Of course there actually are contradictions and really who can say that Ecclesiastes really agrees with the teachings of the New Testament.

That one does not work to well for being the word of God but it does work for inspiration. Because people can really pick out inspirational ideas and compile them and even when the ideas are totally different such as Ecclesiastes inspiration can be comprehended as God dealing with people where they were and stimulating ideas to create growth in understanding. It could even be termed inspiration that when we read about those people we learn what they thought about things.

We will quickly go over the next one:

Another of the internal evidences that indicates the Bible is truly God’s Word is the prophecies contained within its pages…

Again the prophecies were given to men so they speak of inspiration not the word of God, though certainly a prophet could at times actually record the words God used or the words they attributed to God. But again that does not make the entire document the word of God.

A third internal evidence of the divine origin of the Bible is its unique authority and power. While this evidence is more subjective than the first two, it is no less a powerful testimony of the divine origin of the Bible. The Bible’s authority is unlike any other book ever written.

This one does not count; the authority comes from the belief of the people involved, it is not really any kind of evidence.

There are also external evidences that indicate the Bible is truly the Word of God. One is the historicity of the Bible. Because the Bible details historical events, its truthfulness and accuracy are subject to verification like any other historical document.

How this applies to making the Bible the word of God I am not sure. That it records history is true, maybe not all the history is accurate, but a recording of history does not necessarily indicate either inspiration or being the word of God. Current events quickly become history and common knowledge can record history hundred of years after the fact or 5 years after the fact. It does not require divine inspiration for this one.

Another external evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word is the integrity of its human authors. As mentioned earlier, God used men from many walks of life to record His words. In studying the lives of these men, we find them to be honest and sincere. The fact that they were willing to die often excruciating deaths for what they believed testifies that these ordinary yet honest men truly believed God had spoken to them.

This one actually only speaks to inspiration, not at all to being the word of God as it refers to the people who were inspired to write some things. Inspiration of course is a wide subject; something can be a very important piece of inspirational thought at a particular time and generations latter be little more than a footnote to history. A story can be inspiration to hearers even if it is not literally true. And inspiration can be found in the writers as well as the hearers where ever in time they may be.

A final external evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word is the indestructibility of the Bible. Because of its importance and its claim to be the very Word of God, the Bible has suffered more vicious attacks and attempts to destroy it than any other book in history.

Again that would not necessarily be the case, even if the book and all its components were not the word of God it is possible for God to prevent its destruction. I am also not so sure that it has had more vicious attacks as there were certain Gnostic books which we now only read about in the writings of the Christian apologists writing against the Gnostic books. So some books were viciously and successfully wiped out. Some of those were only discovered in the 1800’s as what is termed the Nag Hammadi library, but still some are likely gone forever. In fact in the ancient world where everything was hand written it appears a lot of books were lost with the destruction of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. It may seem kind of funny but in some respects the preservation of the Bible may well be tied to the empire of Rome when they made Christianity a state religion. What some people may think as the worst thing to happen to Christianity may have been one of the methods God used to preserve the Bible.

After all the evidence is looked at we arrive back where we started. Some will look at the Bible as the word of God because that is what they choose to believe and some see the inspiration in the book but do not feel it is appropriate to call it the word of God. Rather they look for God’s revelation in the book and like any book we have to weigh the statements against reality, both history and science and cultural knowledge help us to understand more about God and ourselves and that after all is really what inspiration is all about. Because God is really able to draw us closer to Himself as we seek to understand what He is like, what love is like and what we as people are like.

Is the Bible really the Word of God

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states the following:

“That the Scriptures regard themselves as a sure, unfailing, certain, and trustworthy Word of God cannot be doubted. While specific proof texts are of limited number, the Scriptures in their entirety present themselves as the true and, therefore, reliable Word of God. It is true, and it should be recognized, that the Scriptures, for reasons that derive from their very nature as the Word of God, do not indulge in an apologetic effort to demonstrate their reality and truth as God’s Word by reference to something other than themselves. The scriptures no more attempt to prove the existence of God apart from His Word than they attempt to prove the authority, infallibility, and reliability of His Word apart from His Word. For this very reason, the Word of God in the Scriptures presents itself throughout as possessing these qualities without any special, introductory, self-conscious demonstration that it is what it asserts itself to be, namely, the Word of God. It merely speaks in terms of what it is: the Word of God.”

Did you understand all of that? It is actually pretty standard Christian thinking and very much circular reasoning.

1. Scriptures regard themselves as the Word of God, it cannot be doubted.
2. Limited evidence
3. The evidence is that the scriptures in their entirety present themselves as the Word of God.
4. It is true that Scriptures are by their nature the Word of God, no evidence needed
5. Repeat above claims.

Kind of makes you wonder doesn’t it? Let’s test the above with a text from Paul’s writings.

(1 Cor 7:25-27 NIV) Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. 27 Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife.

Is that the Word of God? It specifically says it is not from God yet if the Scriptures claim to be the Word of God it therefore has to be the Word of God, instructions from God to Paul who denied them as being from God yet they must be from God because Scriptures declare themselves to be the Word of God.

In fact the Bible is filled with some pretty terrible stuff, should we really be calling it this the Word of God.

(Psa 137:8-9 NIV) O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-- he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

God’s Word declares that happy are they who kill infants of Babylon. You begin to see the problem here when we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. We strip it of context, we strip it of the human component, the very writers experience and expressions. And we do all that with limited reasons; more accurately no reason other than tradition, the factor the International Bible Encyclopedia ignored completely and used exclusively.

What does the Bible actually refer to as the “Word of God”. Pretty simple really, something that God said, thus it is a reference to God or in the New Testament a reference to Jesus Christ the Word made flesh. Take some time to look those up I won’t list them here. Instead let’s look at some examples of the limited evidence that is put forward to back up the idea of the Bible being the Word of God.

Witness Of Jesus

Any honest person who studies the historical evidence will conclude that Jesus Christ rose from death -- giving Him unique status. Jesus acknowledged the Old Testament, which was all of the Bible written at that time, as the Word of God.

MATTHEW 5:18 NKJ
18 "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

The Bible bears the seal of Jesus' authority. He quoted the Old Testament dozens of times and referred to it as the Word of God.

For example, in Matthew 22:32, Jesus quotes from Exodus 3:6 and 15.

MATTHEW 22:29,31-32 NKJ
29 Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 31 "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 `I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

http://www.believers.org/believe/bel191.htm

As with the Interpreters Bible Encyclopedia this article asserts something that is not true. They say Jesus referred to the old Testament as the Word of God. They even quote the text to prove what they are saying is incorrect. Jesus in the text does quote God but He does not say that the scriptures are the word of God.

In order to keep this from getting too long I will break it up into several posts. In part two I will deal with another websites dealing with what they claim is: “[T]here are both internal and external evidences that the Bible is truly God’s Word.” In part 3 I will delve into what people mean when they say the Bible is the Word of God or God’s Word, do people really agree or do they even conceive what that are saying?

Is the Bible Really the Word of God Part 2

Adventists, Theatres, and tradition

By way of introduction here is a quote from William G. Johnsson’s article in the Adventist Review entitled Four Big Questions from the May 25, 2006 issue:

"To me, this is a serious matter. Many Adventists have lower viewing standards than evangelical Christians. Large numbers of our people, I fear, are being seduced by the all-pervasive media. Instead of the Bible, movies, television, and music are shaping their values and attitudes. They are becoming conformed to the world, rather than living as new beings in Christ transformed by His grace.

We have focused on movie theaters, but the problem is far bigger. Television, DVDs, and VCRs bring the movies into our living room.

We need a higher standard—a much higher one. And one that rests on sound reasons. Some of the arguments we’ve used in the past don’t hold water, and our young people see right through them. Like saying that movie theaters are bad per se (but on occasion we rent them and hold meetings in them). Or that movies are bad per se (but we show selected ones on college campuses or at church functions)."

http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=538

Many Adventists remember our Churches prohibition against movies and theaters. But I suspect few of us really know why our church and Christian churches in history had problems with theaters. While I think our Churches view is basically tradition like Johnsson I realize we really never had a good reason for our statements. Basically our denomination simply carried on the Puritan tradition but the history is pretty interesting.

The history of the theater is pretty nicely and rather humerously written in the article entitled History Of Theatre From Ancient Greece . . . I will join the author after his discussion of the Greeks:

"The Romans weren’t content to simply stand around on stage and recite poetry. They were a blood thirsty, murderous, pillaging bunch, squeezing their toothpaste from the middle of the tube. And they portrayed their lifestyle in their dramas.

The Roman theatre was shaped with a half circle or orchestra space in front of the stage. Most often the audience sat here in comfortable chairs. Occasionally, however, the actors would perform in this space.

The audience was usually more interested in their favorite actors than the play itself. The actors would try to win over the audience’s praise with decorative masks, costumes, dancing and mime.

If the play scripted a character’s death, a condemned man would take the place of the actor at the last moment and actually be killed on stage. Where is the Actor’s Guild when you need it?
At the decline of the Roman empire the Christian church was well established, and frowned upon the depiction of such pagan philosophy. It was at this time that theatre was banned. In fact, it is said drama would have died altogether if it weren’t for the common folk. Bands of actors, jugglers and acrobats kept the art alive performing about the land.

Ironically, drama was revived by the church. During the middle ages when very few were literate - the Priests acted out scenes from the Bible as a teaching tool. This was so popular that the town guilds soon joined in. In fact this became so popular, the performances had to be moved to the front steps of the church. Everyone wanted to get in on the act, and soon the towns people were participating. Eventually, the subject matter moved from a spiritual nature to something more earthy. God bless Shakespeare.

By the Renaissance period, theatre was not accepted by polite society. During the plagues, traveling actors were banned from entering castle walls and city gates for fear of spreading putrid, nasty, disgusting, green-pussed Black Death.

Theatre was also associated with heavy drinking, which led to brawling. And you know what happens after that. Your mama ends up in prison, and a hound dog with tics has no place to call home. Of course a bottle of whiskey comes into play, all because of some woman named Dixie down at the Blue Moon Bar and Grill. Gotta be the lonely sound a train whistle in the background.

On top of that, women of ill-repute were known to ply their trade outside of the theatre walls. At this point the government decided to step in and regulate the theatre.

Nothing changes over the course of 500 years.

In 1642 theatre was banned in England. Up until this time the emphasis was on oration. In fact, there was so little blocking, the privileged upper class audience actually sat on the stage.

During the ban, English actors fled to Italy and France, where costumes, staging and props were the emphasis. Thus in 1660, when theatre was once again established in England, the performers brought back the Italian and French style of acting and changing the face of English drama. …"

When you consider the Roman’s were killing people on stage, even if they were just criminals we have to give the Christian Church some applause for standing up against such things, though the idea of censoring pagan philosophy is a little more dubious. Still we have a bit of a cluttered history with the theater and most of that time it was viewed unfavorably. Then Theater began to get more civilized and perhaps more recognizable to the modern mind, with acting and sets and then even lighting and good writing.

Speaking of the Puritan era The Journal or Religion and Theatre in an article The Prejudice Against Theatre by Debra Bruch, Ph. D. writes:

"During the Italian Renaissance, the prejudice against the theatre found its way into Puritan Protestantism through John Calvin, who perpetuated the medieval belief that the supreme question in a person’s relationship with life was the question of conduct. The English Renaissance theatre was caught between Queen Elizabeth’s use of theatre at times to make a religious and political statement and the Puritans who were backed by a theological philosophy grounded on behavior. However, the Puritan’s prejudice against theatre seems to be more fanatical and less based on objectivity than the objections of medieval scholars. The Puritans seemed to be engaged in a more precise definition of prejudice: to form an adverse opinion of judgment without knowledge of the facts and to hold an irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group.

People following Puritan beliefs blamed theatre practices and practitioners for the misfortunes of life and for the more undesirable aspects of society. In order to promote blame, Puritans infused theatre practices with prejudices that did not necessarily follow the realities of those practices. In other words, what the Puritans said the theatre did, and what the theatre actually did were probably two different things. To the Puritans, crimes of the theatre included emptying the churches, perpetuating pagan custom, distorting truth, showing forth profane, seditious, and bawdy stories, teaching knavery and lechery, causing God to visit the plague on London, leading youth into idleness and extravagance, affording meeting places for harlots and customers, aiding the Pope, and corrupting maidens and chaste wives.

[page 14] The basic assumption for these crimes stems from Tertullian’s and St. Augustine’s concern for causal relationships and the effects theatre has on its audience. If a person attended the theatre, then that person would be influenced by the production and act out that influence in society. In A Treatise Against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes (1577), John Northbrooke writes,

In their plays you shall learn all things that appertain to craft, mischief, deceits and filthiness, etc. If you will learn how to be false and deceive your husbands, or husbands their wives, how to play the harlot, to obtain one’s love, how to ravish, how to beguile, how to betray, to flatter, lie, swear, forswear, how to allure to whoredom, how to murder, how to poison, how to disobey and rebel against princes, to consume treasures prodigally, to move to lusts, to ransack and spoil cities and towns, to be idle, to blaspheme, to sing filthy songs of love, to speak filthily, to be proud, how to mock, scoff and deride any nation . . . shall you not learn, then, at such interludes how to practice them?(21)

While Northbrooke’s view is based on plot and character of the Elizabethan drama, that view displays little understanding of theatre itself. The Puritans saw theatre as a form of direct negative influence on people’s behavior and, consequently on the quality of moral life in society.

The Puritan notion of quality of moral life in the Elizabethan age related to salvation. If a person chose to ignore sacred teachings, he was succumbing to temptation by Satan, his soul would be lost, and he would be eternally damned to hell. If enough people were to succumb, then an entire nation would fall, barbarian people would conquer the land, and the gospel would be lost. Herein lies the heart of Puritan reasoning for the power struggle: a genuine fear of eternal damnation linked to the loss of a quality of life in society based on salvation.

Puritan thought followed the early Christian world-view of the duality of God and Satan. Because the theatre influenced a mass of people, because Elizabeth I at times used the theatre as [page 15] a political weapon, and because theatre demonstrated ungodly thoughts and actions, the Puritans regarded the theatre as source and service to Satan. Puritan exaggeration was based on a high level of anxiety and fear. Northbrooke describes theatres as houses of Satan and asserts that religious themes in drama are sacrilegious. He writes:

Satan hath not a more speedy way, and fitter school to work and teach his desire, to bring men and women into the snare of concupiscence and filthy luste of wicked whoredom, than those places and plays and theatre are. . . . It hath stricken such a blind zeal into the hearts of the people, that they shame not to say, and affirm openly, that plays are as good as sermons, and that they learn as much or more at a play, than they do at God’s work preached. . . . Many can tarry at a vain play two or three hours, whereas they will not abide scarce one hour at a sermon.(22)

To Stephen Gosson (1554-1623) in Schoole of Abuse, the entire classic drama was infected by the blasphemy and immorality of paganism and almost all of the English stage was infected by the abuses of the theatre. Yet Gosson insisted that his intention was not to banish or condemn drama, but to chastise its abuses. Drama contained the germ of its own disintegration and he asserted that disintegration had already taken place in his own time. The delights and ornaments of drama intended to make moral doctrine more pleasing were in reality mere alluring disguises for obscenity and blasphemy.(23)"

Now the next time someone asks what does the SDA church have against theaters you will have an answer…we inherited it because we did not think anything ever changes; even though we live in a world that is constantly changing.

From Enemies to Friends Gallagher sermons

Jonathan Gallagher has posted a series of sermons he gave at Quesnel, British Columbia, August 8, 2009. There are a couple of noteworthy things about these sermons. First it shows how nice is it to have a copy of a sermon which was the subject of last months post entitle Why not publish sermons and second it covers much of the ground on the problem of substitutionary atonement theory and the better view of the moral influence view of the atonement also a recent blog posted here. Gallagher does not use the term moral influence but it is substantially what he is talking about. You can read the sermons, and I recommend you do, in the following 3 parts:
From Enemies to Friends 1
From Enemies to Friends 2
From Enemies to Friends 3

The largest difference I have with Gallagher and Graham Maxwell is developed by their use of Ellen White. We can sum it up by a couple of quotes from Gallagher's sermon 2.

Universe-wide reconciliation

Here we see the bigger picture. For up to now we have been primarily concerned about ourselves, and our salvation—God changing us from enemies to friends. But there is much more than just our salvation at stake. The conflict between God and Satan has a cosmic aspect to it—for the war began in heaven (Rev. 12:7). Even those angels that remained loyal to God surely had many questions, and in God’s wisdom he chooses to work not from claims but through demonstration. So the Cross answers far more than just issues about our situation—it impacts the whole universe-wide controversy over God and his actions raised by Satan the Accuser. So God chooses to make his nature clear, and explain himself and his character through the gift of himself. In this way he reconciles the whole universe:

Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven. Colossians 1:20 TEV.

In fact this might read better “both those on earth and those in heaven.” At which point some may object that those in heaven do not need the atonement—understood as paying some penalty or making amends. But that is not the original meaning—for the word was first used to describe true at-one-ment, and you cannot be truly at one until the controversy is settled and the questions answered. (The NIV uses the term “reconcile”—and in fact the word is actually “completely reconcile,” showing the total extent of the reconciliation needed).

This is why they often call their view the "Larger View" or the "Great Controversy view". It is based upon the assumption that loyal angels have questions about God. He phrases it as surely they had questions but of course we have no indication that they had or have questions, they may well have answers. The Bible of course is not written from the perspective of angels of which we know hardly anything. It is written about man and God, angels are the messengers of God. So when the verse talks about reconciling the things of earth with the things of heaven that is what it means the things of man's domain with the things of God's domain. That is the common interpretation, assuming that it is meant to answer angels questions about God is to use eisegesis placing that idea into the text rather than reading what the text is really trying to say. Clearly the holy angels...the messengers of God are not in need of reconciliation with God. From what the Bible says they live with God, they serve God and they are not in rebellion against God, those who did rebel got kicked out. You don't need to be reconciled if you are never separated.

I do have a theory as to why they feel the need to include these extra biblical ideas into their atonement theory. My theory is that they feel they have to include Ellen White into the mix to make it appear that they are good little Adventists. Good Adventists quote Ellen White so they seek areas that they can quote her because they know that they are also going against what Ellen White says in favor of the Penal Atonement and substitutionary atonement. So they reference the angels questions or as Graham Maxwell does he references the blood thirsty characteristics of the angels in his article addressed here; Response to Graham Maxwell's Great Controversy View The quote from Maxwell's interview article is:

Soon you come to the Flood, where God drowned all but eight. That would seem to be a pretty clear demonstration, and to loyal angels that was the thing to do. Amens (though surely, solemn ones) rang through heaven when he drowned that bunch. "That's the way to do it!" Except afterwards they found it hadn't won a soul. Instead, necessary as it was, it turned the human race against God more than ever, and they built a tower to escape him. "Not by might, nor by power" the angels learned as one thing from the Flood. Though they were at the moment rather satisfied, it appears, and waited for God to do it again.


At least I assume he arrives at this from Ellen White, I will not take the time to find her quote on the subject. But it demonstrates the difference between the moral influence view and the extra biblical view that is attached to the moral influence view to create the "larger view". It may be that many or most Adventists are not capable of advancing past their dependence upon Ellen White. Graham Maxwell and Gallagher are attempting to wean Adventists away from the more harmful elements of their traditional religious views. So I don't want to be too strenuous in my complaints. Because really what does it matter what they think that angels are saying in heaven through history or if they think that the atonement is directed at angels also. It does not really change anything in regard to the atonement for human beings. Maybe it will have the benefit of helping people to see that you can't take everything Ellen White says as true also. My personal preference is to simply leave her out of the whole atonement theory argument. Because frankly it makes no sense that God wanted us to wait 1800 years for someone to really explain the atonement to us.

A response to Evolution in Education article by Jay Gallimore

The President of the Michigan conference has posted an article entitled Evolution in Education. Jay Gallimore begins his President’s Perspective found at http://www.misda.org/article.php?id=642 by saying:

“Adventists have always shown a keen interest in science. After all, the God of the Bible is the God of creation. Unlike some other denominations, we have not promoted a separation between faith and science. In our view God uses true science and true faith to work together to reveal Himself to His children. From the revelation of Scripture we know that the world and nature have been heavily damaged by sin. Therefore, empirical evidence alone is not able to give us a clear picture of truth. So when there is a seeming contradiction between Scripture and science we have chosen to trust Scripture.”

When I read this article I was struck by the rather contradictory statements made throughout the article. As in the first paragraph the author says that we Adventists have not promoted a separation between faith and science and then saying since the world and nature are heavily damaged by sin empirical evidence can’t give a clear picture of truth. Instead of accepting the evidence we have chosen to trust Scripture. That is pretty much the definition of separation between faith and science, at least the way he is using it. It is certainly possible to trust Scripture as a revelation about God and man without the insistence that every story is literally true. But that is certainly not the author’s intention.

One has to wonder what the author thinks sin is that it so heavily damaged the world and nature. It almost sounds like it is some sort of physical presence that goes around stocking the plants, animals and minerals of the world. As if when I see a dike intrusion into Granite I can say, “sin did that!” If I see a dinosaur bone I can say “sin did that” it originally was an animal as cute as a bunny rabbit but sin made it huge and vicious.

The scary thing about this is that many in the Adventist church are allowing scientifically semi-illiterate church administrators to define what education should be. Because he uses undefined terms like “true science” and “true faith” some people believe that he knows what he is talking about. Of course if he can show that his science is true than the battle is over, but since he cannot. His truth is not literally truth it is his interpretation of truth. We see this a bit later in the article when he writes:

“No one is against academic freedom. Yet all academic freedom has a context. In secular universities it is “human reasoning.” In confessional universities it is “divine reasoning.” For the secular, “human reasoning” is the final court of appeal because that is what they trust. For confessional universities, “divine reasoning” is the last word because that is what we trust. This means academic freedom in a confessional university is viewed in the context of our faith in God and His divine revelation in Scripture. If we do not understand and support this criterion, then it is only a matter of time before our confessional schools of higher education will become secular like other universities that started out as institutions of other denominations.”

Gallimore here sets up a false dichotomy “human reasoning” versus “divine reasoning”. We all have a pretty good idea of what human reasoning is because we all do it, some of us more than others, but what is “divine reasoning”? It appears from his usage it means his interpretation of what the Bible says. But would not that be human reasoning? If divine reasoning is simply what the Genesis account says than it is hopelessly in conflict with itself as Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not agree with each other. In that case the divine reasoning seems to actually be traditional human interpretations used to combine the two accounts into one that seems reasonable. The fact is he can’t get away from “human reasoning” it is all we humans have after all. Faith in God is a far different subject than faith in some traditional Genesis interpretation but if one falsely calls their tradition “divine reasoning” they are intentionally fooling themselves and then placing themselves as the authority in all faith matters.

Gallimore continues his fictions by writing the following:

“It is my belief that, by and large, most of our science teachers are creationists, not evolutionists. Many are doing a great job of helping young adults understand arguments on both sides. Where there are appearances of contradictions between science and inspiration they are teaching students to trust divine revelation. This is wise because history is full of examples of how science ends up confirming facts of faith that it once denied. It is also reasonable in a world where science keeps changing its theories. Waiting on God has always brought large rewards. Unlike human reasoning in connection with science, God and Scripture never change.”

One has to wonder what all these examples of faith confirming facts that science once denied. What would those histories full of examples show us? The flood, no, science sees no evidence for a world wide flood. The pillars of the earth or maybe stars created after the earth…no. The necessity of a woman to be unclean for twice as long after having a girl instead of a boy baby? (Lev. 12:1-5)? About the only think I can think of would be that at one time there may have been people who because they did not have any evidence of Hittites did not believe there were Hittites, back in the infancy of the archeological science in the 1800’s. Do God and scripture never change? Well, when was the last time you attended the stoning of someone who broke the Sabbath? Does God still ask you to bring a sheep or dove or flour to be sacrificed, that once was the God proscribed way of worship. The whole progressive of the Old to New Testament is filled with changes in what Scripture is teaching about God and man. The written words certainly don’t change but the concepts continue to grow and expand at least if one allows their human reasoning to investigate things.

One final quote:

“Let me say again that I believe most of our colleges and universities are supportive of our fundamental beliefs. There are many blessings for our youth at these institutions. Nevertheless, parents and students should remain vigilant. I have been assured by Dr. Keith Mattingly, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, that Andrews University, while making students aware of the evolutionary arguments, is committed to teaching that creation, as revealed in Genesis, is the true understanding of origins.”

Why does Andrews University even bother with making students aware of evolutionary arguments? If Genesis is the true understanding of origins what use is it to know anything else? We don’t teach the old theory of germ development from spontaneous generation we don’t teach them how witches cause thunderstorms or moles or insanity. What is the point of teaching in a science class things that you know can’t possibly be true because your faith says they are not true? If they aren’t true then they could have not practical application whether science used them or not after all faith has won so many victories over science, history is filled with examples…I and Mr. Gallimore just can’t think of any right now.

What is the Moral Influence Theory of Atonement

Recently I got an email asking about my stance on Substitutionary Atonement Theory. While I have an extensive article on the subject entitled: What is wrong with the Substitutionary theory of the Atonement? There still seems to be a lot of confusion when people think about the alternative I have often used called the Moral Influence Theory. Some of this was brought to my attention by some comments I read on Heavenlysanctuary.com and even from the website ReligiousTolerance.com which in its article on the Moral Influence quotes from one of my previous articles. First here is Anita’s question:

I read your stance on "substitution theory." I have accepted this as biblical for many, many years both in my Catholic upbringing and as a Protestant. I am not rejecting your thoughts, I am just curious what you are saying. I am a bit confused, so a summary of what your meaning is would be so helpful.

Atonement Theory

The Moral Influence Theory is a theological term, it is like many theological terms not proposed and given the name Moral Influence theory that is simply something that got attached to the view by later theologians. It is a very simple theory, but first let me say that atonement theories are not meant to deal with all aspects of Christianity. In theological terms an atonement theory is meant to explain the reason why Christ died. As Encyclopedia.com says: “In Christian theology, atonement is the reconciliation (‘at-one-ment’) of men and women to God through the death of Christ. The word was introduced by W. Tyndale (in 1526) to translate reconciliatio.”

Through history there have been a number of theories to attempt to explain how this reconciliation to God is brought about by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In simple terms…because in fact the moral influence theory is pretty simple the atonement is God’s showing His love and desire for reconciliation with humanity. In fact you could find that idea in most every other atonement theory. It is very clearly established in the Bible probably most memorably by Paul when he asks the rhetorical question:

(Rom 2:4 NIV) Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? Repentance being the first step in human response to the actions of God leading to reconciliation.

What is the Moral Influence Theory

A couple of quotes from some easily accessible books online are helpful here as most reference works will attribute the teaching of the moral influence theory or at least the popularity of it to Peter Abelard:

“It is only in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (c. 1135?) that Abelard develops the thesis that the redeeming action of Christ does not consist in freeing man from servitude to the devil, but in inspiring in him the true love of God through the example of his life and his death…” Encylopedia of Christian Theology By Jean-Yves Lacoste

“Concerning the doctrine of Christ’s atonement, Abelard set forth in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans a distinctive teaching, often called a “subjective” theory. Abelard argued that the effect of Christ’s death was not an “objective” change in the relation of God and humanity (in light of human sin) as presented in Anselm of Bec’s Cur Deus homo. Rather, Christ’s death reveals self-sacrifice and absolute self-giving love, which evokes in the believer a response of total sacrifice and love and effects not a cosmic transaction involving divine justice but a personal and individual transformation of love and intention.” Medieval France by William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn

Subjective versus objective atonement

The idea of subjective versus objective is actually very interesting because most of the other theories have Jesus doing the sacrifice to change God. In the Satisfaction theory God has been infinitely offended by man’s sin and demands satisfaction. Man who is finite cannot provide any infinite satisfaction so Christ the God Man provides it. This theory for all practical purposes morphed into the Substitutionary theory where God demands that someone pay the penalty for man’s sin and Jesus becomes man’s substitute. The Ransom theory from early Christianity is similar as on objective theory as it seeks to have Jesus pay a ransom to Satan to free people from Satan’s grip.

The difference, the effect of the atonement upon man versus the effect of the atonement on God (or the devil) makes a huge difference from my perspective. God is God and He does not need to change, He is the one who offers the love and reconciliation and the ultimate salvation we look for. Of course the Substitutionary atonement proponent will readily agree to the idea that the Substitutionary atonement reveals the love of God because God is sending His own Son as the Substitutionary sacrifice. However to them the love of God is not enough God has to punish someone for the sin so God pours out His wrath upon Jesus Christ. The problem is; does love demand that someone has to be punished in order to forgive someone else? It produces as confused view of God, someone who loves supremely yet can’t manage to simply forgive. That frankly is not the picture of God given in much of the Bible and it is not a very reasonable view of God either.

Quotes from the confused about Moral Influence Theory

Let’s look at some of the quotes from a thread at Heavenly Sanctuary.com

Let me give my own $0.02 on the Moral Influence Theory. There is nothing wrong with it.... as far as it goes. No one anywhere would deny that Jesus' life and death influenced us morally. That was certainly part of his mission

But if Jesus' only mission was to show us how to live more moral lives, or even to show us how far love would go, there would have been no necessity for his death. It was just a stronger statement that way.

What the MIT leaves out is the whole Great Controversy, the charges against God, the reason that God had to let sin play out and his solution to the dilemma that the results of sin presented. In my opinion it was this larger context that required that Jesus suffer the consequences of sin to demonstrate the truth of God's diagnosis and the full nature of sin. I see no other way in which that could have been addressed that would not have left some crack of doubt about God and his government. Jesus' death was absolutely necessary for the whole problem of evil to be resolved. The MIT does not include that broad a scope.

Mark

This person has made the classic mistake of not understanding what an Atonement theory is meant to address. That is how does the death of Christ bring reconciliation? He is partially right in that all Christian doctrine relates to some other part of Christian doctrine. But there is no Atonement theory that includes all the broad scope of everything in Christianity. There is not even agreement on what the broad scope would be and just saying the code words “Great Controversy” does little to establish any understanding. Though the term is used and misused in Adventism a lot. Practically no one really knows what it means because the term seems to try and cover everything that a particular person thinks is important. The same person continues in another post:

That God would choose to do this rather than "start over" is proof of his love. But to me (and I do NOT NOT NOT claim to speak for all Larger View folk in this) the primary reason for the necessity of Jesus' death was that there was no other way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that sin pays its wages, death rather than sin results in God killing you.

To me this explanation takes our understanding of the atonement out of the realm of the "Moral Influence Theory" because the MIT has no "necessity" for his death. He could have done it without the death but it was simply a stronger statement that way. In this understanding the death of Jesus was necessary. There is no other way in which this "double bind" could have been answered. Jesus had to die to deal with the claims of evil.

This continues the previous misunderstanding of what an Atonement theory is but it also adds a new component which you find in many of those who claim to be students of Dr. Graham Maxwell (people who often say they follow the “Larger View” or the “Great Controversy” view of atonement). That is that for some reason no one would know what death was unless Jesus died. It is an attempt to get back to the objective idea that God had to change something (here it would be humanities view of death). In stead of God having to punish someone for sin they move it to God had to prove that separation from God really is death. That the death we see all around us is not really death at all, only seeing the sin caused the death of Christ as someone who never sinned do we realize the separation from God really kills. I know it sounds silly and it is and it contradicts the New Testament which indicates at least 5 times that people killed Christ, not once saying that God caused the death of Christ. It is a few predicated on Ellen White, for those trying to incorporate her into their theology it takes on major importance, with the idea that Christ suffered the Second death, the death that the wicked will suffer after the second coming.

Another regular member at Heavenlysanctuary, Scott wrote:

If penal substitution (forensic model) is true then Christ could have been killed at two years old at the hand of Herod (acting for God) and accomplished being our substitute for God's wrath.

If the Moral Influence theory is true then God needed not become human at all. He could have come down as God or even sent an angel to accomplish telling men how to live. This would not require his death or resurrection.

Here we see another of the misrepresentation of the moral influence theory; the idea that the reason for the moral influence theory of the atonement was simply to show us humans how to live. First as with Mark, Scott doesn’t understand what an Atonement theory is trying to explain and second the idea that moral influence is meant as telling us how to be moral. So no, his assertion that the moral influence theory would be just as acceptable had an angel come and died is incorrect. At best we would conclude that an angel had self sacrificing love but that does not tell us about God and thus does nothing to create reconciliation.

Kevin writes the following:

A second criticism I have of the Moral Influence Theory is that it is focused too much on works. Jesus died as a demonstration so that you change your life and that life chance is what saves you. It turns the cross into a coach and becomes a very beautiful way of phrasing traditional legalism.

Using the words of detractors to define a belief

This is one of the most popular distortions of the Moral Influence theory. It like so many distortions is drawn not from what the believers in the Moral Influence theory say but from what the detractors say about the Moral Influence theory. We see an example of this on Religious Tolerance website which says under the description “Some brief descriptions of the Moral Theory are:

Phil Johnson of the conservative Protestant Grace to You ministry disagrees with the Moral Theory. He describes it as follows: "Christ’s death was an example for believers to follow, a radical expression of love that influences sinners morally and gives them a pattern to follow..." ₆

People have to really be careful who they get their information from. If you want to know what a certain people believe you go to sources of people who believe that. You don’t go to the Adventists to find out what Roman Catholics believe or to Roman Catholics to find out what Adventists believe. There may be Adventists and Roman Catholics who know what the other believes but they will be able to document the belief from people who actually hold the belief. This is why quotations are so important and it protects us from making wrong assumptions and or judgments based upon faulty information.

Christ as Christian Example

That Christ is an example to follow is nearly universal in Christianity but that is not what the moral influence theory is. You may have noticed nobody said that the book In His Steps was based upon the Moral Influence Theory but that is the premise to the first half of the book and the concept “what would Jesus do”. The moral influence theory is no more works oriented than the works oriented legalism of those who hold to Satisfaction or Penal theory. Atonement theory is not about works or grace of people. Atonement theory is about the grace or work of Christ and how His death leads to reconciliation.

Definitions of Moral often ignored

There are other definitions of “Moral” which convey much better the idea of moral used in the term Moral Influence theory. Three of them found in the definition of moral at Dictionary.com are:

-- Founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom: moral obligations.

-- of, pertaining to, or acting on the mind, feelings, will, or character: moral support.

-- resting upon convincing grounds of probability; virtual: a moral certainty.

Atonement the center of Christianity

A person’s view of the Atonement will serve as the foundation, the center of their interpretation of all other aspects of Christianity. It defines the character of God and that understanding of God defines the rest of our beliefs. This makes it very hard for someone who believes in the ultimately self sacrificing love of God designed to bring us back to a relationship with God to live a legalistic life. In other words to think that because God loved us so much that He came in the person of Jesus Christ to show us His love and even when rejected and tortured by people He still loved and forgave the ones killing Him. Yet He requires the same self sacrificing love and forgiveness from you or He will not be reconciled with you makes no sense it would not even be atonement. That God asks us to love and forgive is very true and a part of most all Christian thought. But that our love and forgiveness is what saves us is the difference between legalism and grace oriented salvation. It explains why those who believe God is defined by His love and forgiveness cannot hope to live lives of sufficient love and forgiveness to merit salvation. We know that there is no works we can do to make up for our lack of love and forgiveness.

That God acts rightly, that love is the conduct of God is the type of “moral” nature revealed in the atonement. That the character of God reaches to our mind, our feeling and character is equally moral. The fact that this love is convincingly given by the record of the life and death of Christ confirms still another definition of moral. We could even add more morals in that Christ conformed to then current laws or that Christ was obedient. But those moral elements don’t bring reconciliation they are evidence of who Christ was. But we can’t ignore the elements of moral which influence us to follow God. Which is what many of the detractors of Moral Influence theory do because they really do like the moral influence theory it just does not go far enough for them. It does not fulfill their view of a God that demands someone has to die because a law was broken…that satisfaction has to be made. If I speculated about their reason other than tradition for their insistence I would have to say it is founded upon a misunderstanding of God and love. And that is why the theory of Atonement is so very important today.

Adventist Review and Theistic Evolution

The Adventist Review has weighed in on the idea that Theistic Evolution should be accepted in the Adventist church. The article by E. Edward Zinke is entitled Creation and the Certainty of the Second Coming asks numerous questions. Strangely though it quotes no one who believes in Theistic Evolution, it does not even seem to paraphrase any beliefs of Theistic Evolutionists. The questions therefore are meant as rhetorical devices to assert that Theistic Evolution has no reason for their beliefs, that it destroys the Gospel. In some cases the article simply makes absurd statements which have no merit at all. For example:

“Spirituality matured through the process of evolution, they say, and finally reached an evolutionary peak in Jesus.”

Who are the “they” apparently not important enough for the author to identify, after all there are thousands or millions of beliefs out there if someone believes it then I guess that is all we need to know. Do you think that the Adventist Review will go out and ask a Christian who is a Theistic Evolutionist to contribute an article to the Review? I highly doubt it. If they publish a propaganda article like this they have no intention of actually dealing with what Theistic Evolutionists really believe. Even so the rest of us should realize that it is unwise to get the idea of what someone believes from people who don’t believe it. In other words you don’t go to Buddhist to find out what a Christian believes. The Buddhist may have a good idea if he has studied Christianity but when he tells you about Christians he will use statements by actual Christians. Objectivity is often not found in the ranks of the opposition to something. It is to those objective people that we should seek our knowledge not the people who simply say “they say”.

The author says:

“If we do not accept the biblical account of Creation, we are left with many, many questions, a few guesses, and no answers. We have an uncertain identity. The nature and even the existence of God are called into question. Our future is in limbo….”

This is a typical statement by traditional Adventists. By Biblical account they mean literal account. They ignore the possibility of the account being a myth used to teach people. If one believes the story is not meant in a literal way then that means that they don’t believe in the Biblical account of Creation. Because you don’t believe in the account the way they believe in the account. See my article Genesis in Symbol and Substance.

Included in the many questions the author asks is this:

“What implication does theistic evolution have for the way God acts in the world? If God either cannot or does not behave in the way that the Genesis Creation account describes, then what does that say for other reports of His activities in the rest of the Bible? Did God bring about a worldwide flood and guide Noah’s ark to safety?...”

What about the other questions about Noah’s flood, that God repented of making man, that God killed every living creature on the planet? There are whole hosts of questions there and that is before we even get to the scientific implications and evidence or better said lack of evidence of a worldwide flood. Clearly there is no shortage of questions regarding how God interacts with the world and they aren’t really answered any too clearly in the book of Genesis if you take the stories as literal. The article continues:

“Suppose God did bring about life on our planet by the process of theistic evolution, developing it through the survival of the fittest from simple life forms to the complexity of a moral and intelligent creature called Homo sapiens. What then would be the meaning of sin and salvation? Is sin simply a lack of progress? At what point could humans be considered to be created in the image of God and therefore morally responsible?”

Would it really matter? Would sin be anything different from what it is now if we did not simply suddenly come into existence. None of us living now or in the Bible times simply suddenly existed like the Adam and Eve in Genesis. Is sin different for someone who has never heard the Genesis story? Adam and Eve and their story do not define sin, selfishness and distrust define sin. But if you don’t know anything about God how can you be distrustful of Him? Sin then is still that virus that infects us with selfishness and hurts us and causes us to hurt others. Salvation would likewise be the healing of that situation. The God who heals would be the same God even if the method of creation was different from the presumed literal account of Genesis.

Sadly this is the kind of article that the Adventist church will produce and market to the membership. Where tradition is the method of understanding and any attempt to scientifically and rationally deal with the Bible and reality is decried as “Relying upon human ability to discover “truth,”… For some reason traditional Adventists don’t think that their interpretations are in any way based upon human reasoning, their default is that their interpretation is not their interpretation it is the literal word of God. Any other interpretation then is based upon human reasoning.

Why not publish sermons

The other day I listened to one of the programs for the Walla Walla Camp meeting 2009. It was on Preaching presented by Dave Thomas. It was mainly about the ways to prepare and deliver sermons. I did think it was interesting that the reason he feels that Preaching sermons is still the best method is because it is Biblical. That is preaching is mentioned in the New Testament. I would argue the usefulness of sermons in the modern information age is not all that useful. I mean really the Bible mentions nothing about Christians writing books yet Christians have probably written millions of books. We don’t really say that books aren’t useful because they are not Biblical. Culture and times change the way we do things…so just because something is Biblical does not mean it should continue with the same emphasis as it had in Biblical times.

But for now we are all subject to sermons because we fear change and fear trying new things. So continuing on the subject of preparing sermons Dave Thomas talks about the amount of time it takes to create a good sermon. 20-40 hours is the amount of time he indicates is needed to prepare the sermon. I find that hard to believe that most any sermon I have heard in the last 20 years of my life has taken 20 hours of preparation let alone 40 but let us assume that 20 hours is the average amount of time a pastor spends preparing a sermon. That is a good deal of work.

So why don’t they publish their sermons? In the computer age most all sermons should be written on computers, even the people who go against Dave Thomas’ instructions and only make an outline and don’t write our their sermons should have the outline in electronic form. They go through all this work give a sermon and that’s it, maybe some will record it to tape and maybe a few will put them on mp3 for download but hardly any publish the written sermon. What may take an hour to listen to can be skimmed for the key points in 10 minutes in written form. If it seems interesting or useful one can read the whole thing or listen to a download. (I think tapes are really outdated but maybe a few older people still like them.) With blog technology it is so easy to publish I can see practically no reason for sermons not to be posted in written form. I think the local church would benefit from posting sermons and distant people would benefit also.

There is one reason in the preparation for preaching program that Dave Thomas mentioned that might explain why preachers are not posting their written sermons. That reason is that sermons are often very personal. The person who gives a sermon feels particularly vulnerable right after giving a sermon. So they may likely feel vulnerable publishing their sermon. I don’t think that would be a good excuse if they really put in the work to prepare a good sermon and if they feel that God had something for them to say. I also think it would be useful because then the criticism of a sermon which people would not likely give to a preacher can be given in a less personal way. In other words it would be a way to get feed back and to improve the preachers reasoning or facts. I think of one sermon I heard where the person said that in ancient days people built lamps into their sandals (thy word is a lamp unto my feet). It is pretty funny when you think about it and it did spur me to see if there was any evidence for such a thing. There is not but I would guess that person is still using it

So publishing might be a little scary that people will point out your errors but if we are really searching for truth let us point out the errors and let the preacher make the corrections and even correct himself in front of the congregation. Maybe that is the first part in changing the sermons, maybe moving from the emotional show, we can move to reasoned arguments and ultimately maybe even dialog with our pastors, who I think are sorely in need of continuing education.

Without Objectivity, What is There?

What makes you respect someone; Honesty, thoughtfulness, compassion, wisdom, knowledge? Do your respect someone who gives a sermon which you know is factually incorrect? Perhaps you can always say he/she just did not know the facts. What happens when you talk to that person and point out the error and they say no, I stand by my statement completely? I can tell you what happens to me I lose all respect for their positions.

In life there are a vast array of opinions and feeling and speculations, more than enough to constantly stimulate our minds. Which is why when someone tells you something untrue and then when pointed out that it is untrue they refuse to acknowledge the error or change their position what does one have left to listen to in that person. They have taken the position that fact and truth are unimportant to them. There is no point in discussion with them because for whatever reason they have lost their objectivity. The strange thing is this so often happens in the area of religion and politics. It seems to not even matter what end of the spectrum one falls on either, liberal or conservative. Some of the most precious ideas are held without any regard for the truth, the facts or reality and reason.

This was brought home to me this last week on the Spectrum blog, which is frequently Progressive Adventist and liberal politically oriented. In a comment under the article entitled A Horrendous Betrayal of the Gospel By Charles Scriven. The article is titled rather like the National Enquirer as the article is really just a criticism of singing the National Anthem during a church service on the 4^th of July. The reason being that Christianity is for everyone not any one country or people. He might have a point if he were referring to the singing of the The Star-Spangled Banner in Canada or China. But it does not make a lot of sense in a church where the majority if not all the people at the church are actually citizens of the United States or Permanent Residents. But that is not the problem.

The problem comes when Chris Blake who is apparently a minister someplace wrote this comment, here is the first two paragraphs:

Last year I preached a sermon in College View Church about the virtue of non-combatancy: our great need for creativity and imagination and resilience when fighting evil; our tendency to believe in the myth of redemptive violence; the penchant when you own the biggest hammer in the world to see everything as a nail; the odd presence of the American flag in front of the sanctuary; and the non-violent model of Jesus. Normally CVC sermons are televised the following week. Mine was not. (Smile.)

The myth of redemptive violence is easily swallowed in a culture that force-feeds the myth every second with every dollar. Thankfully, some still do not buy it, will never buy it.

To which I responded:

By myth I take it you mean fiction, what is the myth of redemptive violence?

To test your definition: If it is really a fiction (myth) then we should be able to demonstrate that no one has ever been saved from the hands of threatening or evil or violent people by the acts of violence by people trying to save the threatened people.

I won't ask you to support the statement about the culture that force feeds the myth every second with every dollar because I am sure even you realize that that statement is a gross exaggeration.

The funny thing is that even after pointing out that the statement is a gross exaggeration in the next comment he said he stood by the comment completely.

He writes:

Redemptive means deliverance or rescue from whatever ails or threatens us. So if we're threatened by violence, we should be able to redeem that threat by, for example:

Overthrowing the democratically elected head of Iran in 1951.
Forcing Ho Chi Minh to retreat from 1955-1975.
Arming Saddam Hussein in his fight against Iran.
Arming Osama bin Laden in his fight against the USSR.
Training Timothy McVeigh to kill.
Creating terms like "collateral damage" to minimize war horrors
Arming the world with military weapons; in fact, making more in weapon sales than we give in foreign aid.

Here I could list 500 more examples of how redemptive violence "pays off" ultimately in more violence and mayhem. (You could counter with Adolph Hitler and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but that's the exception.)

The first thing you will notice is that he puts World War II as an exception. Which means he is saying that Redemptive violence is a myth (a fiction that violence saves anyone except in certain exceptions) Which of course means it is not a myth, that at least some of time it is a reality. The second thing you note is that his list of examples does not include the Gulf war, fought to free Kuwait, The Grenada war etc. In other words ignoring the times when people were freed by violence. You would also note he references where the US is involved, ignoring where doing nothing has resulting in horrible consequences such as Darfur and Rwanda. In the case of Vietnam War where communist North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam when we ended our support of South Vietnam (“Forcing Ho Chi Minh to retreat from 1955-1975”) When we left millions were killed and nearly a million fled the country, hundreds of thousands in boats (boat people). Hopefully the best one can say is that if the US ever gets into a war it may not be best to end with a stalemate.

In the above Chris Blake is just selectively choosing his examples, it is an example of subjective reasoning, choosing what is important and listing that while ignoring what goes against your theory. It is merely an attempt at being persuasive by hoping that others don’t know history enough to doubt your rendition of the facts. The real violation of logic comes when he acknowledges the exception to his thesis that redemptive violence is a myth. When someone acknowledges in their own words that their thesis is wrong because it has exceptions how can they continue to stand by that thesis. Something then is very wrong.

But there was still the very gross exaggeration comment made. Most people realize that words like all, and every are often indicators that a logical fallacy is being used. So when Chris Blake says: “every second with every dollar” most of us would think there is an exaggeration here. I would hope most of us would see through such statements but as you will see that is not the case. Chris Blake then tries to use some statistics from “Stockholm International Peace Research Institute” to back up his statement. I could go into the numbers statistics but even here Chris Blake in his own words shows that his assertion is false. He writes:

More than half of all discretionary spending of the U.S. government goes toward military expenditures.

He has falsified his own statement that every dollar is used to forced feed the myth of redemptive violence. (Again most should realize that our culture spends lots on other things also, healthcare, education, entertainment, food etc)

What bothers me most is that Charles Scriven commented on Chris Blake’s posts:

Chris Blake:

You are gift to us all. Thanks for the Sassoon and Owens poetry. Thanks for the history and numbers you cite. Your passion is seismic.

That sounds like it is meant as praise, praise for history and numbers which are inaccurate and used to defend a thesis of redemptive violence that Chris Blake’s own words show is untrue. But yet Chris Blake concluded:

And you think I'm exaggerating?

I stand sadly by every word of the previous post.

The question then becomes why do some lose all objectivity when certain of their cherished beliefs are shown to be incorrect; Going so far as ignoring their irrationality and the irrationality of others. Being wrong is understandable standing by your error when it is revealed is irrational. I don’t really know the reason but I am sure that it damages us all and is not something that we should ignore when it occurs.

Ty Gibson's Sermon on Penal Atonement

Thanks to the Good News Tour some people may have been under the impression that Ty Gibson is like many Progressive Adventists against the Penal/Substitutionary Atonement Theory; instead holding to Christ’s revelation of His Character of love as the method of drawing us to God. Simply put God did not have to punish Christ, Christ did not suffer the wrath of God but God was through Christ demonstrating the love of God and His ability to forgive and reconcile no need to kill in order to forgive. Today I listened to Ty Gibson’s Auburn Camp meeting presentation from Tuesday June 23, 2009. The first 30 to 40 minutes seemed innocuous enough mainly dealing with the attractive nature of God’s love revealed by Jesus Christ. But then as so many Adventists do he began to intentionally misinterpret the Bible to make it appear that Christ could not see through the portals of the tomb, even though He clearly could from the New Testament stories and Jesus made it plan to the thief on the cross that the thief would be with Jesus in paradise. But the need to incorporate Ellen White’s extra biblical ideas into the Bible is very strong among traditional Adventists. Yes I would label Ty Gibson a traditional Adventist, not simply because of his history on 3ABN, but his theology is very much that of traditional Adventists who can’t seem to pull themselves away from Ellen White and Penal/Substitutionary Atonement. The Good News Tour often uses Ty Gibson in their presentations because he seems to have a willingness to speak on the influence of the love of God, but make no mistake he does not really depart from penal atonement theory as I will demonstrate here. In fact his opening text at the camp meeting sermon was not from the Bible but from Ellen White. I suppose that such things are appropriate at camp meetings since they are mainly attended by traditional Adventists who think that Ellen White is in total harmony with the Bible because they interpret the Bible by Ellen White.

After a highly questionable attempt to indicate that Christ is a separate person who no longer held to the attributes of God. Instead of recognizing Christ as still God but living as a human being because if God was Omnipresent, Omnipotent and all knowing Christ’s life would be like a charade.

Ty Gibson says:

“What would it mean for someone who is omniscient to say My God My God why have you forsaken me, what would it mean?

The answer is probably that Jesus was directing the listener’s attention to Psalm 22 which is a Psalm of tragedy to triumph. There is nothing in the New Testament to indicate that God abandoned Christ, nothing to indicate that God forsook Christ. But it is a founding tenant in Traditional Adventist’s Penal Atonement theory despite its lack of New Testament documentation other then reading into those words “My God My God why have you forsaken me”

He continues:

“What would it mean? Approximately nothing. It would be meaningless because if you were omniscient not to mention omnipresent you would be on the cross in that locale and you would simultaneously be where? In heaven with the Father.”…

“So Jesus was revealing love authentically so that we could look at the cross and believe that He did lay down His life for you and me. That there was a period of time when He couldn’t see through the portals of the tomb. When bright hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave as a conqurer. Jesus hung between heaven and earth my friends and He literally was submerged within the deep dense psychological darkness of your shame and mine. Our guilt our sin”…

He then quotes Isaiah 53 where the Lord laid the iniquity of all of us on him.

“The collective whole of all human sin as though He were the guilty party. Do you know what that means? Just to give a hint as to what it might mean imagine for a nanosecond what it would be like right now if you were made perfectly conscious of every sin you have ever committed. .. all the guilt of sin would come to an acute awareness in our consciousness that would crush us. Jesus goes to the cross and He experiences the full ramifications of our sin. Not as a charade, but as a literal actual sacrifice of Himself, and there hanging upon the cross, unbelievable.”

“Psalm 88 as a messianic prophecy pointing forward to Jesus probing into the inner workings of mind and heart hanging there upon the cross not to mention in Gethsemane he says [I am using the NIV I don’t know which version or paraphrase he is quoting but instead of transcribing I will use the NIV] “my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more,”

He then interjects: “This is second death language by the way”

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. “what kind of darkness, like the turn off the lights kind of darkness? This is a metaphor for what is going on in His mind in His heart as He bares our sins.” Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Selah He said in chapter 26 of Matthew I am exceedingly sorrowful even to the point of death” Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Selah

“Verse 8 is crucial”

You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Selah Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction?

“You hear what Jesus is going through here? Jesus is feeling a psychological and emotional chasm of separation from the Father that is so immense that He begins to feel that He is sinking into a depth from which there will be no resurrection. I am shut out and I can’t get out shall I arise even? Is there a resurrection Father from the death to which I am sinking? But here is the thing my friend. Jesus had earlier told His disciples no man takes my life from me I lay it down freely…”

Now is there some indication that Psalms 88 is a messianic prophecy let alone one that talks about Jesus Christ’s psychological and emotional state on the cross? Here is the whole Psalm.

Ps 88:1-18

CHAPTER 88

1 O LORD, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you.

2 May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry.

3 For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.

5 I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

6 You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

7 Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Selah

8 You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape;

9 my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you.

10 Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Selah

11 Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction?

12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

13 But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you.

14 Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me?

15 From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death; I have suffered your terrors and am in despair.

16 Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

17 All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

18 You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend. (NIV)

Take the time to read the surrounding chapters as well, you will see that there is nothing here to cause one to place this as a messianic prophecy other then a desire to find something in the Bible to back up Ellen White’s statements and the Penal idea that the wrath of God was poured out upon Christ, which we have to remember is another of those ideas missing from the New Testament. If one looks at the lists of presumed Messianic prophecies 88:8 is however listed. These lists are made primarily by comparing any phrase found in the Gospels that is close to a phrase found in the Psalms. For instance the website 365 Messianic prophecies states under number 127:

Psalms 88:8...They stood afar off and watched...Luke 23:49

A site called 324 Messianic prophecies uses the same thing. These type of messianic prophecies are all based upon a very loose comparisons of a few words based upon the King James Version of the Bible. For this Luke 23:49 says: And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things. Compared with the KJV version of Psalms 88:8 Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. The similarity being the word “acquaintance” and “far” of course if you consider going from Hebrew to Greek even those limited words could be questionable.

Considering Psalm 88 does seem to begin naturally in verse 1 (remember verse numbers were not used in the original texts of the Bible and Psalms were referred to by how they began since they had no numbers or some other memorable refrain from the Psalm). This Psalm begins with “O LORD, the God who saves me”, to use this as some sort of evidence that Christ did not think He would be resurrected is to ignore the beginning sentiments. No, there is little evidence that this is a messianic Psalm. This is a good example of having an idea and reading meaning into a section of the Bible to make it appear that the Bible is saying something it is not. This is known as Eisegesis.

Eisegesis is a huge problem in Christianity. Remember above where Ty Gibson said “this is second death language”. Biblically the second death is mentioned only in the book of Revelation and it is described as a death to which there is no resurrection. In Ty Gibson’s sermon he uses eisegesis to arrive at a position very similar to the Word Faith teachers, such as Kenneth Copeland who once said:

"How did Jesus then on the cross say, ‘My God.’ Because God was not His Father any more. He took upon Himself the nature of Satan. And I’m telling you Jesus is in the middle of that pit. He’s suffering all that there is to suffer, there is no suffering left . . . apart from Him. His emaciated, little wormy spirit is down in the bottom of that thing and the devil thinks He’s got Him destroyed. But, all of a sudden God started talking." (Kenneth Copeland, Believer's Voice of Victory (television program), TBN, 21 April 1991.)

The similarities here are interesting, first Ty Gibson set forth Jesus as not God because He did not have the 3 omni characteristics of God. They can then move to the next step which is that Jesus died Spiritually, as in Adventist terminology Jesus died the second death. There is an interesting article by Troy J. Edwards and Victory through the Word Ministries I am going to use some of the sections from this article to point out the similarities between Ty Gibson, Word of Faith movement and earlier Penal Atonement theorists. The above link is to Part 1, most of my quotes will be from Part 2 of the article.

First here is a bit from the article about what the Word of Faith teaches using Psalm 88:

The Old Testament, according to the Lord Himself, gives us a picture of all that the Lord was to suffer. Though the disciples were focused on what the Messiah would suffer at the hands of the chief priests and rulers (Luke 24:20), the OT Scriptures focus on both His physical sufferings as well with His internal sufferings. One of the first passages we find in relation to His internal sufferings is in Psalm 71:20-21:

Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.

Though this might be applied to David symbolically, it's literal meaning can only be applied to Jesus Christ Himself. David never died and had to be made alive again and David never went to the depths of the earth. On the other hand, God gave David a glimpse into the future concerning the coming Messiah that the Father would send in the fulness of time. It was He who died and was made alive again. It was He who went to the depths of the earth. The New Living Translation interprets the first part of verse 20 this way: "You allowed me to suffer much hardship..."

If read in the sequence in which this Psalm is written and applied to the Lord, it would seem that the Lord had suffered while still in the depths of the earth. However, I can understand if this passage from the 71^st Psalm is not enough to convince the reader that perhaps Christ suffering in hell on behalf of His people may have been prophesied. I believe however, that Psalms 88 gives us much stronger evidence of this possibility. Although a sound exposition of this Psalm would do more justice in the presentation of our case, it would require us to make this series of essays longer than we desire. Instead, I will quote the first seven verses from two different translations:

I won’t deal with the eisegesis of Psalm 71:20-21 now, you can read it and see that it is simply another example of reading into a text the meaning you want just as is being done to Psalms 88. When you read into a text you can always make it refer to whatever you want, here we see that they apply Psalm 88 to Jesus in hell, whereas Ty Gibson makes it Jesus on the cross. What is so interesting about this article is how they relate the Word Faith movement beliefs with pervious Christian writers who taught Penal Atonement theory:

John Calvin seemed to believe wholeheartedly that Christ descended to hell and suffered there. In his well known works, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin says:

If Christ had dies[sic] only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. No – it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God's vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgement. For this reason, he must also grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and and the dread of everlasting death ... Christ was put in place of evildoers as surety and pledge – submitting himself even as the accused – to bear and suffer all the punishments that they ought to have sustained. All this with one exception: "He could not be held by the pangs of death."[19]

Now some critics of the Faith Movement would attempt to make us believe that Calvin's teaching is different from that which is advocated by the Faith Movement.[20] Yet we have Calvin saying that Christ had to "suffer all the punishments that they ought to have sustained." Is Calvin saying that men would only have suffered torments in their soul for the rest of eternity if Christ had not suffered them on their behalf? Furthermore, what does it [sic] Calvin mean by having to "grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and and the dread of everlasting death?" Calvin is very clear that Christ's suffering was not limited to the cross alone but He actually descended into hell itself and suffered there:

The article gives several other examples which I won’t list but they are interesting how so much of Christian history believed that Jesus (who is God) had to die spiritually, that God had to literally cease to be God, which indicates a real lack of understanding about the nature of God. Primarily that God is One. In the words of Ty Gibson it becomes a charade. For the Word of Faith movement that Jesus (who is God) suffered in Hell and for Ty Gibson that conservatively 10 Billion lives worth of human sins were placed upon Christ who felt the guilt for all of them though He was guiltless but this feeling of guilt was the second death and Jesus thought He would die forever for undertaking the charade.

While in the main I have not offered the alternative to Ty Gibson and the other Penal Theory proponents you can read more in my article What is wrong with the Substitutionary theory of the Atonement? And Moral Influence Theory and the Adventist World Magazine This is probably the biggest problem in Christianity today as it says horrible things about God, God has to punish, pour out His wrath and place as a penalty on Jesus (who is God) so that God can forgive the guilty. It makes it appear that Christ is more loving than God, Christ loves and offers Himself as sacrifice while God demands that someone even if it is the innocent has to suffer before God will forgive. It is a terrible view of God and it is not the New Testament view of God but a relatively new view only popularized about 500 years ago with the Satisfaction theory of atonement which progressed into the penal/Substitutionary atonement. Still most people don’t think about what their tradition really says about God. But in the postmodern world we need to present a much more accurate view of God than this human based medieval traditions.