There's a Reason German Adventists' Resistance During World War II Isn't Well-Known

 During World War Two, while most of Europe looked away, a secret network of Seventh-day Adventist Christians built one of the most sophisticated escape routes in occupied Europe—and almost no one knows about it. The Dutch-Paris line saved over 1,000 Jewish lives by hiding refugees in church basements, forging documents in Adventist print shops, and guiding families through frozen Alpine passes into Switzerland. This is the untold story of ordinary believers who chose faith over fear, risking torture and execution to stand between the Gestapo and its victims.  

Adventist Churches in Germany appeared to some to be less than openly resistant to Nazi outrages. I had even heard it said that some pastors said they compromised because they thought it was important that the Adventist churches remained open or they couldn't do their good works. What we did not know until fairly recently and for some reason was not talked about in SDA circles was that Adventists were actively working to smuggle Jews out of Germany to escape the holocaust. God bless them.  

This documentary is not created by Adventist, but by historians.

The Seventh-day Adventists Who Hid Jews: The Untold Story of the "Dutch-Paris" Rescue Line

 

Adventist Woman Led the Way a Decade before Rosa Parks

Bet You Didn't Know This:

By Source, Fair use,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31871975

In 1944, A twenty-seven year old Seventh-Day Adventist black woman, Irene Morgan, made the gutsy decision to refuse to leave the "white" section of an Interstate bus and was arrested in Virginia under state segregation laws eleven years before Rosa Parks' famous refusal to give up her seat on an Alabama local bus. She was a little more spirited than Rosa however. She kicked the Sheriff in the groin when he tried to arrest her!

 

She landed two highly skilled lawyers on her defense team, one of whom was no less than future Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. Irene won her case before the Supreme Court. In 1946 in a landmark decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic. 

 

Irene's stubborn singular defense of her rights strengthened the WWII era U.S. anti-discrimination law prohibiting segregation on all interstate transportation and influenced public opinion against Southern racist segregation laws. Unlike Rosa, whose protest was part of a planned challenge of the segregation laws, Irene simply stood up for herself all on her own. With Irene, the NAACP was running along behind her shouting, "Wait for me I'm your leader!"

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Morgan
2. "Morgan v. Virginia (1946)". www.encyclopediavirginia.org. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
3. Lamb, Yvonne S. "Irene M. Kirkaldy; Case Spurred Freedom Rides," The Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2007: n. pag. Print. 
4. "Morgan v. Commonwealth (June 6, 1945)". www.encyclopediavirginia.org. Retrieved 2015-11-04.

 © 2017 by Tom King

No Wonder Adventists Back Then Were Spooked

Rev.Samuel Walter Gamble known
for research in the ancient
literature, enabling him to
reproduce the long lost Hebrew
calendar, upon which he bases
arguments to prove that
Sunday and not Saturday was
the "ancient and true Sabbath."
            - Who's Who circa 1920
 

I found a book published in 1900 and now residing in the Library of Congress by Samuel Walter Gamble, field secretary of the American Sabbath Union (later the Lord's Day Alliance) that purports to prove that the Sabbath is really actually on Sunday. It comes up near the top of the list when you do a search in Google images for the word "sabbath".This poor man, a valiant defender of laws making working on Sunday a crime in the United States, spent 18 years trying to prove his case by studying ancient calendars. He based his research on the assumption that God's people couldn't count to 7, and that God basically gave the Hebrews the wrong date for Sabbath when he gave them the 10 commandments.

He further assumes that despite the Biblical genealogies that go all the way back to creation, that the true Sabbath was "lost" after the flood and no one kept it. Also, because the seventh-day Sabbath couldn't occur on the same date every month, Gamble believes that the Jews and the string of God's followers chronicled in scripture all the way back to Adam, couldn't possibly have counted up to 7 days in order to keep the same Sabbath every week. They could only have done that if the Sabbath was on a fixed date, he says. Thus the Sabbath wandered around all over the calendar and can't be assumed to have occurred every seventh day.

Odd that Gamble seemed unaware that Sunday comes on different dates every month nowadays, but he'd rather we not look too closely at that. Flaws in the argument notwithstanding, Gamble and the American Sabbath Union prevailed in inspiring some pretty strict Sunday laws for some time, toughening up, if not national, then state Sunday laws. They were

Wilbur F Crafts
ASU Founder

 especially successful in the South. It should be noted that more than one Adventist farmer did jail time for working his fields on Sunday around that time, despite having rested the previous day and having attended church services that Saturday. Mr. Gamble heartily approved of this level of enforcement. Aggressive Adventist activists opposed ASU founder Wilbur F. Craft's efforts to promote the Blair Amendment (a national Sunday law) and the Breckinridge Bill (limited to Washington DC). Prominent SDA preacher A.T. Jones and Wilbur Craft got into a series of running conflicts that led in part to both men leaving their respective organizations.

Gamble says that Jesus fixed the problem of everyone worshiping on the wrong day by rising on the first day which was "really" the seventh day and that (reading the mind of Jesus who never said any such thing) Christ intended for the Sabbath to be on the first day of the week all along. He closes his eyes to the fact that Christ, Himself, kept the so-called Jewish Sabbath during his ministry and his apostles did the same afterward during theirs. Also, it's significant that after his crucifixion, Jesus rested in the grave from his labors from Friday to Sunday, only rising from the dead after the hours of the Sabbath had passed. The Sabbath, He had said, was made for man, but apparently Jesus kept it holy Himself.

A.T. Jones - Minister
and SDA Activist

Gamble has no problem with Roman Emperor Constantine, himself a major sun-worshiper, changing the Sabbath to "the venerable day of the sun" (Constantine's own words) in order to make the Pagans more comfortable joining the Catholic and coincidentally Roman State Church. The Vatican quickly held a counsel that accepted the change in order to ingratiate itself with the emperor and to pack the cathedral pews a little tighter with new pagan converts and their money. Apparently, that was not problematic for Gamble.

The author, an ASU officer at the time, was busily trying to shore up the nation's restrictive national Sunday laws. As part of his argument for tougher Sunday laws, Gamble claimed that if Seventh-Day Adventists were to succeed in getting the national Sunday laws of the day repealed, that all workers would suddenly be required to work 7 day weeks. Without the force of a national law requiring all workers to rest on Sunday, Gamble warned Congress that America's churches would be soon abandoned.He also claimed, again without evidence, that it had been "proved" that workers only live 12 years when working 7 days a week and that therefore Adventists would be responsible for the mass slaughter of millions of working fathers far earlier than what God intended.

Talk about logical gymnastics trying to prove that a largely Catholic Christian tradition, established on the Roman Church's own hook without scriptural authority was correct. He would have us believe that the ten commandments are flawed or at least the 4th one is. Given that, apparently, God didn't even know when Sabbath was supposed to be, then Gamble believes that the unbroken keeping of the 7th day Sabbath by Jews is, according to Gamble, impossible and irrelevant anyway. How could anyone have been expected to keep the 7th day Sabbath if it changed dates every month instead of being only on fixed calendar dates.

He went on to claim that the worst of it was that if the Sunday Laws were repealed millions would no longer come to his revival meetings and be saved.

 

And this silly book is enshrined in the Library of Congress, digitized and published online. Interestingly, Gamble acknowledges a debt to the Reverend D.M. Canright. Canright picked up the title "Reverend" when he left the SDA church to become a Baptist preacher. He left because, as he put it to a colleague, "I could be a great and popular preacher if this (SDA) message were not so unpopular." Coincidentally, Canright left shortly after Ellen White told him he was too long-winded and should pare his Sabbath sermons down from 2-3 hours to 20 or 30 minutes.

Gamble could have benefited from the same counsel. It seems this convoluted and often incomprehensible book was designed deliberately in order to encourage people to try to read it and then to give up in confusion. Nobody wants to admit they can't understand what the man is trying to say. So, many readers, looking for some comforting argument that means they don't have to make any big and uncomfortable life changes, decide that this guy must know what he's talking about.

Little hint: he doesn't.

(C) 2024 by Tom King

Last Generation Theology Debunked

My pastor, Bob Stephan, posted this article by Walla Walla Biblical Studies emeritus professor Alden Thompson.  It answers the premise of M.L. Andreasson's Last Generation Theology and the often misused Ellen White quote about the church achieving perfection before Christ comes. He draws quotes by Mrs. White which clearly explain that it is only by grace and not our own feeble efforts that we are made fit for heaven. Christ work was finished at the cross. We do not have to finish the work in our own strength. God knows we are so damaged by millenia of sin that only His sacrifice and His power and forgiveness can save us. For more in depth information on this subject, check out George R. Knight's powerful book."End Time Events & The Last Generation." 

 

 

Ellen White’s Vision of a Flawed Final Generation 

By Alden Thompson, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Walla Walla University. 

Recently I came across some astonishing “last generation” comments from Ellen White in the chapter “Joshua and the Angel” in Prophets and Kings (582-592). As I pondered the chapter, I was startled but encouraged at how clearly Ellen White presents the case for a sinful people standing before God in the last days, but safe under the atoning blood of Jesus. 

I outline some of the key points below. (The italicization in the quotations are added by me.) 

Final perfect generation? 

First, I suspect the idea of a “final [perfect] generation” (aka Last Generation Theology) never would have caught on if some conscientious soul had not isolated a quote from Christ’s Object Lessons from the rest of Ellen White’s writings: 

When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.” Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.  – Christ’s Object Lessons, 69. 

I have concluded that Ellen White must have viewed this quotation in a corporate rather than an individualistic sense. In other words, Christ is wanting his church, the corporate “body of Christ,” to perfectly reflect his character, doing what Christ did to minister to the “least” of God’s children (cf. Matt. 25:40). Interpreting it in an individualistic sense with salvation overtones not only places an impossible burden on sensitive souls, but also overlooks key elements in Ellen White’s interpretation, both in Christ’s Object Lessons and Prophets and Kings.  

The rest of the story 

But now let me introduce you to a remarkable statement that I came across years ago. (This was when I was preparing the material for the Sinai-Golgotha series which was published in the Adventist Review (1981-82).) The chapter from Prophets and Kings entitled “Joshua and the Angel” is based on Zechariah 3:1-5, which depicts the attacks of Satan against Joshua the high priest. Let me first share the entire passage from Zechariah: 

Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And to him he said, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festal apparel.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with the apparel; and the angel of the Lord was standing by (NRSV). 

In the narrative interpreting this passage, Ellen White makes this striking comment: 

But while the followers of Christ have sinned, they have not given themselves up to be controlled by the satanic agencies. They have repented of their sins and have sought the Lord in humility and contrition, and the divine Advocate pleads in their behalf. He who has been most abused by their ingratitude, who knows their sin and also their penitence, declares: “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. I gave My life for these souls. They are graven upon the palms of My hands. They may have imperfections of character; they may have failed in their endeavors; but they have repented, and I have forgiven and accepted them.” – Prophets and Kings 589. 

But this is the astonishing sentence in her interpretation of Zechariah 3: 

Zechariah’s vision of Joshua and the Angel applies with peculiar force to the experience of God’s people in the closing scenes of the great day of atonement (Prophets and Kings 587).  

In other words, this is a vision of a flawed people is a vision of the “last generation”!  

The final (flawed) generation 

And we must ask the question: What kind of people are these who find themselves standing before God (and Satan!) in the great day of atonement? 

Here are several excerpts from Prophets and Kings that indicate quite clearly that these are not people who stand in sinless perfection before God. No! Joshua was “clothed with filthy clothes” (Zech. 3:1). So were his people: 

• “He does not claim that Israel is free from fault. In filthy garments, symbolizing the sins of the people, which he bears as their representative, he stands before the Angel, confessing their guilt, yet pointing to their repentance and humiliation, and relying upon the mercy of a sin-pardoning Redeemer” (Prophets and Kings 583-584). 
• “Because of their sins, they had been well-nigh consumed by Satan and his agents for their destruction” (p.584). 
• “Satan’s accusations against those who seek the Lord are not prompted by displeasure at their sins. He exults in their defective characters. . . .” (p.585). 
• “In his own strength, man cannot meet the charges of the enemy. In sin-stained garments, confessing his guilt, he stands before God” (p.586).  
• “As Joshua pleaded before the Angel, so the remnant church, with brokenness of heart and unfaltering faith, will plead for pardon and deliverance through Jesus, their Advocate. They are fully conscious of the sinfulness of their lives, they see their weakness and unworthiness; and they are ready to despair” (p.588). 
• “The tempter stands by to accuse them, as he stood by to resist Joshua. He points to their filthy garments, their defective characters. He presents their weakness and folly, their sins of ingratitude, their unlikeness to Christ, which has dishonored their Redeemer. He endeavors to affright them with the thought that their case is hopeless, that the stain of their defilement will never be washed away. He hopes so to destroy their faith that they will yield to his temptations, and turn from their allegiance to God” (p.588). 
• “But while the followers of Christ have sinned, they have not given themselves up to be controlled by the satanic agencies. They have repented of their sins and have sought the Lord in humility and contrition, and the divine Advocate pleads in their behalf. He who has been most abused by their ingratitude, who knows their sin and also their penitence, declares: ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. I gave My life for these souls. They are graven upon the palms of My hands. They may have imperfections of character; they may have failed in their endeavors; but they have repented, and I have forgiven and accepted them’” (p.589). 

Imperfection 

That last quotation stands out like a beacon light, for Christ himself declares to the court that his people “may have imperfections of character.” God’s people can stand confidently in court, not because of their sinless perfection, but because their lives are hid in Christ. 

When we compare the material from Christ’s Object Lessons with the material from Prophets and Kings, logically we must give the Christ’s Object Lessons passage a corporate interpretation, for Joshua and his cohorts as individuals have “imperfections of character.”  

These imperfect saints take refuge in their “clean” clothes, which are symbolic of their total trust in the grace of Christ. 

Therefore, we can conclude that if there is a “final generation,” it is a generation that trusts solely in the grace of Christ.  

And all the discouraged Adventists shouted “Amen!” 

Violating the Third Commandment

Once in a while someone pops up to take a shot at the kind of Christian witnesses who proclaim the message that we are "...saved by faith in Christ, not by works lest any should boast." Why this message makes some brethren angry, I will never understand, but it does.

We keep rejecting the message of righteousness by faith. 1888 was the first time and there has been resistance every time since to it's proclamation. I saw it int the 60s and 70s. Righteousness by faith was always a little too loosey-goosey for some of the brethren, preferring the stick to the carrot a little too fondly I think. The authoritarian wing of the church has never quite trusted God to keep the troops in line simply through the power of a deep relationship with him. Like the Roman church, they think we need to insert some "leadership" between ourselves and the Almighty.

They need centralized power and strict rules with strict enforcement or they fear all sorts of rule-breaking horror will break out. They measure hemlines. They tell us how deep could be the water we could wade in on Sabbath. Any deeper than the knees and we'd be considered swimming which would be a sin, I was told. They had big discussions about whether it was moral or not to roller skate to music.They didn't just give a hard time to champions of righteousness by faint like Morris Venden. They tried to run Ron Halvorsen Sr. out of my little town. The same sort of folks even criticized HMS Richards Sr. for being too excited about righteousness by faith and felt he should spend more time preaching on the law. Even poor Del Delker was attacked for singing with young men with guitars and banjos. They went after anyone who placed any emphasis on righteousness by faith or who questioned church authority or encouraged young people, thereby endangering their authority.

Ron Halvorsen Sr.

What a group of Keenites from the church I grew up in did to Morris Venden was Satanic and these people believed they were doing it all for Jesus. As though Jesus needed them to act as some kind of security force. For the same "crime" of not emphasizing the law, they also went after Ron Halvorsen Sr.. Both those men filled the church to the rafters. I never left a sermon by either of them that I didn't feel that I was going home to heaven one day. This group of "saints" hated both men. Why? I believe it was because both men appealed directly to the members without deference to that good old boys network of power brokers. I fear that what one dear saint said to me once is true, "What we need in this church is a visit from the Grim Reaper." 

James and Ellen White

We have a serious problem in the church and it isn't with the likes of Morris Venden. After the manipulation by Elder Butler at 1888 GC meeting to suppress the message of righteousness by faith, James and Ellen White wrote that they no longer had confidence that the GC administration spoke with authority for God to the church. Shortly after James died the GC wrangled an invitation to Ellen to go to Australia. She did, but when she came back, she was no less the warrior for Christ. God had already burned down the GC's power base in Battle Creek and forced it to move to Silver Springs. On her return, Sr. White led a minor revolt at the 1903 GC and the members of the church created the union conferences to divest the central administration of much of its power. Ellen said angels walked the aisles at that conference. With this new "unity in diversity" model the church spread around the world like wildfire until our tiny church had the second largest parochial education system in the world, a huge medical work, a massive publishing work and the largest mission work in the Protestant world.

HMS Richards Sr.

Since then, the authoritarians keep trying to recover their power. They use manipulation, bullying, "working policies" and subterfuge to try and accomplish what they think God wants. And the membership keeps resisting. Why? Because they know Christ and they recognize the enemy when he is among them. We may love our children

I believe it's a clear violation of the second commandment that is happening here at the end of time. There's a reason God put that command early on the list. The second commandent is not about cussing. It's about thinking to speak for God when He has given you no such authorization to speak for Him. To invoke his name in vain just to justify your own ambition and lust for power, is a mighty sin. It's the very sin that brought down Lucifer.

Jesus' followers are the meek, the kind and the unassuming. That doesn't mean they won't get up on their hind legs and fight you when you seek to rule God's church or to turn it into an image of the authoritarianism of the Beast. We imitate Christ. He is our master. When you ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?", remember. That might involve flipping over the money-changers' tables and cracking a few whips. And our role model in that was NOT a member of the Sanhedrin at the time.

God bless us all. Unity in diversity is the way forward! We follow Christ, not jumped up middle managers. No one must place themselves between us and Him. I would not want to answer for that before the judgment throne of God.

Yours in Christ,

Tom King

Shoot Your Own Side First!

When Christians start feeding each other to the lions, we're in trouble.

If you want to read some discouraging stuff, check out the "comments" section on virtually any Adventist sermon posted on Youtube. Now Youtube is a wonderful communication tool for churches, Christian groups and evangelists for spreading the Gospel. At no other time in history has it been possible to physically spread the gospel to every kindred, tongue and people. There are more people alive today at one time than have lived in all the history of the world. Through television, radio and the Internet, the Word can reach anyone, anywhere. It is almost impossible to suppress the Word in the modern world thanks to these amazing communications tools.

And what do we do with these wonderful tools?

We turn it all into a spectacle of Christian on Christian violence. And it's not just atheists, Catholics or Apostate Protestants who are duking it out with us online!  There is plenty of Adventist on Adventist violence out there for your entertainment and edification. At one time the kind of church members, whom Ray Stevens in his hilarious song "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" referred to as "Sister Bertha Better-Than-You", used to foster gossip and church dissension largely within the walls of the local church or the immediate community. With the advent of the smartphone and the Internet, Sister Berthas everywhere can now spread their vitriole world-wide with breath-taking speed.

Adventist have long been a fighting people - stubborn, hard-headed and passionate. We often argue among ourselves over details of theology, hermaneutics (whatever that is), and Christian practice. The big issues, we hammer out in Bible Study Committees like the three iterations of the Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) which sought to resolve an issue that had been already discussed and resolved in 1861 by a General Conference meeting (they supported women's ordination by the way). The GC administration of the time ignored the resolution and swept the whole thing under a rug then as they've tried to do now.

Families have arguments. It happens. If families are smart, they keep these discussions within the family and present a unified front to the rest of the world. If they are not smart, they open up the windows so the neighbors can hear better and even move the "discussion" out into the yard so witnesses can see the conflict more clearly.

That's what you'll see on Youtube in the comments section. It's bad enough to see the heathen denouncing out pastors and evangelists and leaders, but when some of the nastiest comments come from our brothers and sisters in the faith, I rather wonder what Jesus thinks of the whole thing. Civil discussions are one thing and probably should be kept within the brethren until such controversies are resolved.

The late Andrews University professor, C. Mervyn Maxwell once lampooned our self-destructive tendencies as a people in a song he wrote that enjoyed a wave of popularity among theology graduate students back in the late 60s. The song, Shoot Your Own Side First, was wildly popular among the theology grad students as it was during the great Righteousness by Faith uprising that happened about the same time. It was even included on a folk song album Song, Soul and Six Strings by former King's Heralds member, Jim Ayers - an album which disappeared from the ABC shelves shortly after its debut and which you cannot find anywhere anymore.

The song lampooned the propensity for Christians to approach the battle to spread the Gospel of Christ by first taking potshots at those who are lined up beside them in the forefront of the battle. Well we're doing it again!  And with the advent of the Internet, we're doing a much more effective job of making ourselves ineffective as a church. Adventist of every legalistic stripe are lined up to take a swing at any preacher with whom they disagree. And I'm certain Lucifer is helping them write their copy.

The devil loves nothing better than to muddy the waters over any little point of doctrine so that he can divide and conquer the faithful, such that they be. The recent kerfuffle over women's ordination is a case in point. We've seen it before in 1888 when the servant of the Lord lost a battle with the titular head of the church over the promulgation of the message of Righteousness by Faith. Before the devil got through leading all the factions into a muddled power play, we saw Ellen White shipped off to Australia, but not before declaring that the she believed that the GC administration no longer spoke as the voice of God to His church. When she returned, she championed a General Conference in 1903 that divested the GC administration of much of its power over the local church conferences and created the Union Conferences, which, not so ironically were recently divested of power at the GC in San Antonio which was manipulated in precisely the same fashion that GI Butler did the 1888 GC.

While it's obvious I have certain opinions about the power struggle going on in the church right now, there is no way I'm going to come to the aid of Satan. He's doing fine all on his own. But when I see brethren with whom I partially agree making snide comments about evangelists like Doug Batchelor on Youtube simply because he is working with the GC on a recent evangelist series, I despair of having any kind of intelligent conversation over women's ordination or anything at all involving an attempt to increase our understanding of God's Will for us here on Earth.

When we resort to venal accusations and name-calling in public forums, we "Shoot Our Own Side First." And such attacks are not limited to the laity or to offshoot preachers. George Knight has done a series of talks on SDA history that are very enlightening as to the nature of this problem. Even in reviewing the text and speeches in support of the so-called "loyalty oath" that the GC administration placed before this year's Annual Council, much was revealed. I never knew HMS Richards Sr. was at one point considered by some of our leadership to be "in rebellion" and Richards himself a "problem". Elder Richards was listed in a speech by one of the GC execs at Annual Council alongside Robert Brimsmead and Desmond Ford as a threat to SDA unity successfully overcome by the GC administration.

Really? There is either something very wrong going on here or someone is very badly handling the situation. In either case, it is not time to start publicly executing our own people like communists do when their system starts breaking down. Shooting our own side first is a very very bad idea.

Could we please just keep it down folks and try not to disturb the neighbors?  With the Internet it's impossible to keep our disagreements out of the public eye, of course, but we could at least make the discussion a little less Mob Rule and a little more Golden Rule.

How about it?

I think Jesus would be pleased if we did.  I've included a video below of Maxwell's wonderful "Shoot Your Own Side First." It's not very good. I'm no singer, but I cannot find any extant version of the song. I think it's been suppressed. It wouldn't surprise me at any rate. 

© 2017 by Tom King

A Knight Takes a Stand

Retired SDA historian, George Knight is on the hot seat. some of the Adventist Book Centers have even considered removing his books from their shelves as a result of remarks he made at a recent "Unity Conference" in London where division leaders gathered to discuss the ramifications of recent moves to consolidate power by the GC and threats to close certain troublesome divisions who were not properly submitting to the authority of the GC administration. Knight asked how the Seventh-day Adventist Church went from disdaining church organization in its earliest days to becoming one of the most highly organized churches in Christian history. And HE SAID IT OUT LOUD!

It was an interesting meeting to say the least. Knight's talk title was “Catholic or Adventist: The Ongoing Struggle Over Authority + 9.5 Theses.” George is safely retired so I suppose he felt he was in a position to say such things. That he did so casts in sharp relief the trouble brewing between Silver Springs and the world church. The Spectrum article is worth reading as is the text of Knight's talk which is linked therein.

I've had similar concerns about church leadership since the 2010 GC. After that there was a spate of calls for unity and sermons on unity. Why was the church in 2010 suddenly needing to be reminded that we should be united? George Knight seems to have spoken about something unpleasant and did so out loud. The GC may not be able to forgive him.

GC President Ted Wilson's father, Neal, was unhappy at being removed from office in 1990 (witnesses say he threw a fit out in the hall). Four years before Wilson, in a letter to the Unions and Conferences had made it clear that he considered the General Conference was the “highest authority in the church”. This went against the decentralization of church authority that had happened in 1902. After he "retired", he was part of, if not leader of, a group who seemed intent on overthrowing the next president and offered himself as replacement when they were successful. Since then there has been a controversy bubbling around Wilson ever since. There was even a public prayer I heard one pastor give at the 2010 GC where he said, not everybody was happy with or agreed with what they had done, but called for God to bring us together in unity. It's not an exact quote but it was the gist of it. I heard rumors that a group had worked behind the scenes to get Ted, son of Neal, nominated to the presidency. Since then there has been a steady stream of articles and sermons and pleas for unity in our SDA magazines. The San Antonio GC was even more divisive and the ordination of women vote seemed to be more of a power grab than a theological issue. After all two Bible conferences sponsored by the GC had failed to find women's ordination against scriptural authority. What the measure voted on in San Antonio actually did was pull back authority from the Division to the GC - authority that had been transferred to them in 1903 at a GC that Ellen White said that angels had walked the aisles during that decision. She warned, if you remember that the GC administrators should not exercise what she called "kingly powers".

I've watched with dismay as my church has leaned suspiciously toward Babylon in the political maneuvering behind the scenes that took place. I loved Elder Folkenberg and Jan Paulsen as GC presidents but both continued the process of gathering authority to the GC administration. Within these centralizing forces we find the Wilsons supporting the centralizing authority, but jockeying for the place at the top of the administration.  I remember after the 2010 GC, when Ted Wilson was elected, we almost immediately began to hear sermons that my pastor appeared uncomfortable giving in which the chains of authority were discussed and exhortations to members that they should obey pastors, and then conference presidents and division presidents etc. up the chain of authority. Then the editor of the Review wrote an editorial, talking about marginalizing independent ministries on the heels of Amazing Facts being kicked out of Florida Conference, and a Texas Conf. President banning a former (and very good in my opinion) Texas Conf. President from Texas pulpits with a mass email, well something seems wrong. And at its core, the dispute seems to be not about Biblical truth, but about church authority.

Hamlet said the believed something was rotten in the state of Denmark. While not exactly rotten, something feels wrong in my beloved church and that feeling is coming from above. I hate to say it, and nothing will drive me from this church. I am a loyal Adventist always, but Christ is my authority. Him I obey. With every human being, however, it's conditional by a long shot.

I think our church is under a stealthy attack from within. I think Satan would try to convince us to conform to the world more in order to bring in new members. That's where the Roman church went wrong and we should beware. Some change is good. Some not so good. We are students of the whole Bible. I've been studying scripture for my entire 45 years as a Christian. When you spend that much time with the Word you train your internal radar to sense if something is wrong. "If we do these things in the green wood," says Shakespeare, "What will happen in the dry?" When we face an external assault, can we survive if we are crumbling at the core?

I hope the church can work it out. I am kind of rooting for the divisions on this one, though. I think Ted and company overstepped on the ordination issue and it feels like power is being shifted in the wrong direction at this stage of the game. As the church begins to face opposition from the one world church movement, it will become imperative that we shift power and decision making farther afield. A church in which power and decision-making is scattered across the world as the creation of Divisions was intended to do, is harder to kill than one where power is strongly centralized where the head can be lopped off and the whole organization killed in one fell swoop.

We should be planning for the final stages of the work and be drawing more on local energies, skills, ideas and strengths to spread the world to every kindred, tongue and people.  As I've said too many times to count, the church is not a museum for saints, it's a hospital for sinners. If you don't see sin in the church it's because you ain't lookin'. The best we can do is try to use Biblical principles to heal the rifts that arise within the fabric of the church. Power does not corrupt absolutely, but it certainly attracts the corruptible. And to those for whom power is attractive, the temptation to exercise it can be overwhelming. That's why I believe in keeping centralized power away from our leadership and spread it about. Return the power to the people as much as possible and let the "leadership" serve rather than command.

This is just my opinion. I am no prophet nor do I pretend to be one. As a simple Christian man, I serve Christ in any case. The Christian church has a short hierarchy or should have. Our shepherds serve the flock, not the other way round. At least that's how Jesus explained it to me.

© 2017 by Tom King

 READ GEORGE KNIGHTS POWERFUL MESSAGE: HERE

Blowing Up the Dog - Adventist Boys Will be Boys

Grandpa King and Old Bob (left)

I grew up in old oak trees in my yard in Keene, Texas, the home of Southwestern Adventist College. My great great grandpa's name is on the Keene SDA Church Charter and he helped establish the town and the college which was originally known as Keene Industrial Academy.

I must have terrified my mother who finally quit looking out the kitchen window. My brother and I used to swing from the top of one tree to another on those brittle old oak limbs. It was a wonder we didn't fall. I'm sure out angels got a workout.

I blame it on my ancestors. The gene for risky behavior runs strong in my family and we have all these great stories that we don't tell our mothers except on Mother's Day if we want to make them go pale. It's not like they probably don't know, but sometimes pretending you don't know helps mothers maintain a passable blood pressure.

My Grandpa was a great storyteller and he told "this story ". It sounds a bit like an Australian short story called the Exploding Dog, but I figure there's no way this incident hasn't happened before, especially in the days before they invented Child Protective Services and made farmers quit letting their 8 year-olds drive the combine.

Enjoy "the story".  And never let it be said that Adventist Moms raise sissy boys. But do make sure you lock up the dynamite.

Tom King
(c) 2012