A travesty. TW and those of his ilk are determined to turn the SDA denomination into a sideshow subsidiary of the evangelical movement, complete with worshipping at the political altar of religious conservatives. They have almost completely wiped out the SDA concepts of religious freedom and separation of church and state.
While I support my local church, it becomes increasingly difficult to do so because our local church is part of the global one.
The Good Book never says that the SDA denomination is God’s people.
“ The Seventh-day Adventist Church considers abortion out of harmony with God’s plan
4 for human life.”
Now comes the need for another Compliance Committee. And how will the church implement this policy? When someone is found non-compliant, already ashamed and humiliated, will she be subject to more shame and humiliation?
The definition of abortion given can lead to a condemnation of certain contraceptives as well. it 's not a well thought through piece. 1992’s guideline reveals more thoughtful consideration though it too isn’t perfect.
If you are found non-compliant in the case of WO, you can stop ordain in women to get back into compliance. If it is a fiscal matter, you get a clean audit. If abortions becomes a compliance issue, how do you get back into compliance? You can’t bring the fetus back to life.
In the end this is a moot question as who will drop their conscience to fall in line with TW.
And those women will do it only if their brain is damaged. Otherwise, they will just ignore all those Beautiful Statements made by those men, and will do what their doctors recommend after studying the case carefully.
We cannot give the GC the power they are trying to usurp. They can’t even verify people’s degrees in India, SID, etc, and they want to dictate on personal health issues? This is a symptom of total mental disarray! Nothing but spiritual arrogance and tendencies toward abusing power. They have to be booted out (by vote) asap.
Plus, if they take the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” motif even farther, how does that affect things like Medical Advance Directives? I have one which states “no lifesaving measures” so have I preemptively killed myself, breaking the commandment? When my 85 year old mother was in the hospital with blood clots in her feet and legs, we were told her life could be saved by amputating both her legs. We knew our mom wouldn’t want that so we said no - by withholding this life-saving treatment did we kill our mom? During my reproductive years I used an IUD (too much information?), so who can know how many fertilized eggs couldn’t implant because of that - all murders? If you need a kidney, but I refuse to give you mine and you die, am I guilty? If you knock me out, cut me open and take my kidney by force, your life is saved, but is this okay?? I guess I’m in deep trouble.
It could be construed and applied that way by some zealots, and we have plenty of them in our midst. I think our membership is much like the general population of our nation. Most women don’t agree with abortion, BUT they want it to remain legal. There certainly isn’t any implication of women having much choice. The fetus is given primacy in the hierarchy of protections. It’s a poorly done document that I hope goes no further than a statement. If they seek to move this to some fundamental belief or policy, then that will become a major problem.
Valid concern. It does suggest some contraceptives are not allowed due to causing “abortions” without real clarity of what they mean by abortion, pregnancy and conception. I do hope this stays at a statement/guideline level, and not raised to policy or fundamental belief.
Yes. And when I really study the document, the whole thing is similarly written: It’s full of religious platitudes and in-speak, much like the 28. It’s not really possible to nail them down on much of anything, conveniently leaving things open to interpretation at a later date.
The down side to these ambiguous documents is when the southern hemisphere gets a hold of such a document what they do with it will be anyone’s guess, but you can be relatively sure that their interpenetration will be much more conservative and legalistic. Par for the course.
I appears to be a Catholic/Evangelical prolife talking points document and I agree with the notion there is large scale ambiguity and there is even contradictions, terms left undefined, or assumed. I won’t call it a horrible document, for I like the notion of promoting the value of human life (I am prolife and prochoice), but there is some strange reasoning and inconsistent drawing of conclusions.
Am out of country so am unable to completely follow this thread. I am wondering whether the approved documents could be used as a basis for a Hans Kung-like denial of teaching authority in Adventist universities.
A reliable parakeet told me a couple of days ago that there is already an ongoing plan at the GC level that will target Universities and schools in general.
It seems that a cleansing is about to begin…
Let’s stay tuned to see how many teachers will be taken to the gallows…
