Annual Council Diary Day 1: The Historic Adventist Village and its People

Spectrum Website
#21

Elmer,
I watched TW’s sermon this morning. He talked about “Stand Firm.” It was an excellent sermon, very carefully crafted, very well delivered. I am serious, it was a superb sermon. Of course, it was perfectly confined within the walls of the Adventist room. Nothing new, nothing bombastic, just the traditional talk. I would say it was a great sermon.

The challenge now starts tomorrow morning. Today I trusted his words, tomorrow I will verify his behavior (actions). As President Reagan said, “Trust but verify!” We all should do this considering the seriousness of the moment.

Today’s sermon may be confirmed by TW’s actions starting tomorrow and during the rest of the AC, OR, they may be completely reduced to being nothing but mere hypocrisy. I can’t wait to see which one it will be!

There is one detail, though, that I caught and that was finally his confession on something we suspected of for a while, and was confirmed with his own words: He is a LGTarian! He said it, he supports the Last Generation idea. He actually used these very words, “Last Generation.” So now at least we have this issue clarified.

Now it’s only the waiting. If his acts in the next few days contradict the words he delivered to that audience today, then the Church - not the GC, but the real Church - has a major problem in its hands.

I am not even comparing his past acts with his sermon today, because those two are already a contradiction. He talked about UNITY today, which contradicts his several attempts in the past that would generate Division, not Unity.

Therefore, let’s wait, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Unless we forget what we saw in the past 8 years, it will be very unrealistic to hope for a change now. But, as a very similar president says,… “We will see, we will see”… :wink: Maybe we will finally see what is behind that beard!.. :roll_eyes:

4 Likes
#22

yes, but that’s obviously not what’s controlling this conversation…TW and the unions are rallying around different realities supported by the same sources and facts…

i agree…that was a great sermon…TW isn’t president for nothing…he does know how to preach, and inspire…

1 Like
#23

tjzwemer, I love to read your posts. Gill Ford

2 Likes
#24

TW: “… he union conferences were given some operational autonomy …”
“… the unions were sub-ordinate to the GC that created them …”

Is this the making of revisionist history by TW?

1 Like
#25

Jeremy,

I will continue to believe that the GC has legitimately established the selection criteria for the unions to apply until it can be proven otherwise.

No amount of fancy footwork by the late Gerry Chudleigh will convince me otherwise. Hence I also believe that both PUC and CUC are out of order in proceeding with the ordination of women as pastoral leaders.

However, I do believe that the 2015 San Antonio vote was wrong-headed because neither a yes vote or a no vote had the potential to create unity on the ordination issue. The wrong question was asked. Jon Paulien said this last Sabbath in the LLU church. I have also said it on this blog on several occasions in recent years.

It is for this reason that the Norwegian model of affirming, blessing and consecrating pastoral leaders among Adventists is so appealing to me. This is what I term the A, B, C’s of pastoral leadership. (It does away with the term ordination altogether).

Those who have followed my writing on this subject over the last decade will have seen how I have fully embraced Bertil Wiklander’s biblical vision of men and women as servants of God. Wiklander’s reconsideration of ordination is founded in his comprehensive reworking of the mission of God theme in the entire Scriptures. It is this theology of pastoral leadership that lies at the root of the Norwegian model.

This is a theology whose time has come.

Adventists dare not just add the ordination of women to the broken model of ordination that for the most part has served us well heretofore. We must accept the challenge that Wiklander offers and engage in _Ordination Reconsidered, _which is the title of his book.__

1 Like
#26

Makes you wonder, who is the wheat and who is the tare? :thinking:

I know my thoughts, and I’m pretty sure I know TW’s thoughts…:wink:

Boom! There’s your problem.:roll_eyes:

2 Likes
#27

I watched most of it…it was just like all the others, IMO. He may have been particularly energized being in the hallowed (in his mind) ground of Battle Creek and EGW.

Without question. I’ve thought that he was from the beginning of his Presidency.

I may have missed that part. I didn’t see the whole thing from start to finish. We’ll see what unity means to him. Is it “unite behind my agenda to achieve unity”? It will be interesting, for sure.

1 Like
#28

Pity a man without a clue of the Gospel. Yea. Pity a denomination without a clue of the Gospel.

3 Likes
#29

Paving the way, preparing people’s spirits… The goal is obvious… The hurricanes is approaching fast!!!

#30

I bet is was the beard. Or was it the "Samson effect " of the beard?
Or was he scared of the “bearded elephant in the room?” :innocent:

#31

It was properly and wisely embedded in the sermon’s text. Only noticeable to mental health professionals… :sunglasses::sunglasses:
@elmer_cupino @cincerity

1 Like
#32

I agree with you. And I agree that the denomination’s focus on the Gospel is gradually fading away. But that does not include everyone. There are many people in the SDA Church who have a refined understanding of and a commitment to the Gospel as described in the Bible.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who cannot think outside the ‘boox’ (the red books).

#33

I didn’t hear all of it, but I don’t think one needs to be a professional to see the LGT leanings. The 2010 GC speech was enough to see that particular conviction.

#34

Apparently you took me literally and seriously on that, right?.. Big mistake…
Sorry if my sarcasm was not surfacing enough… :roll_eyes:

1 Like
#35

No…I got ya! I do want to go back and listen to the parts of the sermon that I missed. TW is weirdly intriguing, but only in limited amounts!

1 Like
#36

Oh snap…he and others did not see that one coming did they

2 Likes
#37

Yes George, the portents are ominous.
What will be left standing after the hurricane?
Doesn’t GC leadership care? Is it, “our way or
the highway - act regardless?”

1 Like
#38

No, but her husband had been old enough to die a decade before she – as an old ‘Grandma’ of her own children’s children – was sent off by the scheming of cruel-hearted SDA GC men (Harmon Lindsay and A.R. Henry, both ‘treasurers’) on a long land and sea trip that even healthier, younger women would find a challenge to survive with grace, as she did.

The coordinates of both Battle Creek, MI and Sydney, Australia are approximately as follows:

Battle Creek, MI: 42.3 N by 85.2 W
Sydney, Australia: 33.9 S by 151.2 E

Since there was not yet a Panama Canal, the route from Battle Creek to Sydney involved a long train ride across most of the U.S. to the West Coast, then across the Pacific Ocean to Australia by steamship, travelling 236 degrees of the available 360 degrees N-S longitude, and nearly as far south of the equator as where she had left Michigan, north of the equator.

So, a rather strong case could be made for the attempted murder – by hard, dangerous travel to beyond the opposite end of the Earth – of a widowed woman old enough to be a ‘Grandma’ , who had made previous arrangements to retire close to ‘the heart of the work in Battle Creek’ a short and beautiful train ride away in Petoskey, where her new hillside house was just a short walk from the train station down on the bayshore, and where she could write what became ‘The Desire of Ages’, in beauty, comfort and peace nearer to all of her children and grandchildren than beyond the opposite end of the Earth.

And, to top off the insult, these days, some of the worst opposition to her life’s work has come from Australia.

1 Like
#39

You do have a compelling argument. No physician would propose a treatment plan without considering the overall physical and mental health of the patient. But some of our GC leaders live in a land of delusions.

2 Likes
#40

From what I’ve been told by a scholar from Andrews the house above the garage on the right was Ellen’s once. No deed was registered. She simply trusted a fellow SDA, purchased and built.

I can testify that as she said, the air in Petoskey is still wonderful, even in summer heat. One fall, while staying at a motel above the bay while working on the construction of a 1st Nation casino, I was driving along the bay in a snowstorm when I was startled to see a ‘snowbow’ above the bay. Truly a blessed natural location !

1 Like