Thank you Monique for a wonderful testimony. I’m inspired by your life as briefly summarized by the editor.
No doubt the rewriting of Fundamental Belief #6 is rewriting scripture. Then, again, each of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs is rewriting scripture, is it not?
And the process continues, once undertaken.
I am mindful of the question the young new GYC president Justin McNeilus posed for General Conference Vice Presidents in the San Jose 2008 GYC assembly: “We understand that the Church exists to protect our fundamental beliefs. Some not all of our colleges and universities continue to hire and protect professors who do not believe in our core beliefs, such as creation. Many youth have lost their faith under such teachers. How can this be stopped?”
It is disappointing that none of the General Conference Vice Presidents were prepared to let Justin McNeilus know that it is not the General Conference responsibility to protect beliefs. Rather it is the responsibility of the youth as well as the General Conference leadership to search for the Holy Spirit’s influence among members with a commitment to learn and, where necessary, unlearn, as Ellen White so eloquently explained in her 1892 Review and Herald article.
“Would-be Guardians of the Doctrine.–The rebuke of the Lord will be upon those who would be guardians of the doctrine, who would bar the way that greater light shall not come to the people. A great work is to be done, and God sees that our leading men have need of greater light, that they may unite harmoniously, with the messengers whom He shall send to accomplish the work that He designs they should. The Lord has raised up messengers and endued them with His Spirit, and has said, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”
Let no one run the risk of interposing himself be-between the people and the message of heaven. The message of God will come to the people; and if there were no voice among men to give it, the very stones would cry out. I call upon every minister to seek the Lord, to put away pride, to put away strife after supremacy, and humble the heart before God. It is the coldness of heart, the unbelief of those who ought to have faith, that keeps the churches in feebleness.-- Review and Herald, July 26, 1892.”
There is simply no evidence that there is any heart for such searching with Seventh-day Adventist leadership today. They seem utterly fearful and largely of their own members, including those who believe special revelation and natural revelation are not intended by the Revelator to require blind faith.
Church leaders are looking to young people who want to use the church to change the world, rather than looking to the Holy Spirit to discover present truth that reveals to us each that our ambitions are like the wardrobe of the rich young ruler.
When we realize that no one eternally lives or perishes because of anything any of us are capable of saying or doing or knowing, it will revolutionize our evangelism and eliminate our dependency on a list of 28 fundamental beliefs not 1 in 20 Seventh-day Adventists can list from memory.
Meanwhile the most fundamental achievement of the past five years since Atlanta, is this: http://www.adventistreview.org/assets/public/news/2014-10/FUNDAMENTAL_BELIEFS_STATEMENT-last_version.pdf
Not much by way of accomplishment for five years of labor. Or so it seems. Perhaps there is more.