Elder Wilson, It’s Time to Go

Spectrum Website
#1

The Wilson family has led our Seventh-day Adventist community in various ways for about 40 years since 1966. Starting then, Neil C. Wilson presided over the North American Division and then served as General Conference president through the 1980s. After a decade in the role, it was during the 1990 GC Session’s nominating committee that a union president stood up and said what needed to be said: “it’s time” for a change.  

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://spectrummagazine.org/node/11820
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#2

I’ve said it before and I will keep repeating it…We have aproximately 25,000,000 Adventists in the world. Yet, the best we can do is pick the son of a previous GC president as our president? The odds alone say we can do better. But the actions say we must do better. We need to get rid of this politician and bring in someone who wants to heal our divides, not embolden them. Someone who will utilize all the resources of the church to finish the work, not someone who will force half of our human resources, our women, to remain silent and seated in the pews while the same old tired men with tired, ineffective ideas, continues to hold “tent meetings” and point at their posters covered with the beasts, attempting to frighten people into the “truth”. The very word “truth” that these old men throw around so casually, tells the people we are trying to reach that what they have is falsehood, and only WE have the “truth”. If there ever was a wrong way to do thing it is with this arrogance that we proport to own the only way to heaven, and everyone else better fall in line or be lost…and putting out millions of copies of The Great Controversary only sounds that message louder and clearer.

We have a loving God, why on earth don’t we present that instead of 28 rules in order to step through the threshold of our church doors? My only hope is that Righteousness by Faith isn’t going into remission again.

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#3

Thank you Alexander for this article. I read the Pastor Ted Wilson’s sermon, wow! I have no words to describe how I feel about his sermon. The highest position who sits in power and represent all of SDAism is an Ellenolatrist ( heard that word here in Spectrum, credit to the creator). He is Ellen in pants, walking and giving sermon. He is full of the pnevma of Ellen, and fills the church with the pnevma of Ellen. I think he quoted more of Ellen than the scripture. He promotes the Great Controversy book (and those who voted for it) to be the missionary book for 2 years…not the bible? If you can give a book crucial for someone’s salvation who can change his life with an eternal consequence why not give the bible? Ok…Gr Con production is cheaper. To spread the 3 angels message instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Why the substitute? Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 We can go directly to Jesus to access everything we need from him.
The Holy Spirit should be our only and greatest partner in empowering the church to spread the gospel. We have that mandate from Jesus himself Acts 1:8 " But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

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#4

It would appear the liberals will attack Elder Wilson using anything but fair Christian language befitting one who’s had hands laid on him. Our church manual warns us that anything that resembles political campaigning we should refrain from.

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#5

I thought I would point out the irony of your comment. You use a political term to describe those who disagree with Wilson while you point out we should refrain from resembling political campaigning.

This level of thinking is contradictory and inappropriate, please leave political posturing out.

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#6

Easy answer: Nope.

The reason there are only 25,000,000 million Adventists in the world rather than six or seven billion is due to that fact that the sect is “inspired” by things most people find unattractive rather than the vital and vibrant living words of god, i. e., The Holy Spirit.

In these “end times” when a video can go viral In a matter of minutes, SAD-ism-despite all of its strident scare tactics-isn’t impressive or appealing to more than about one in one hundred million people as it only rings “true” with under- or over-educated narcissists, self righteous progressives or conservatives, the mentally inert, would-be masochists or martyrs and the hopelessly gullible.

In other words, I find SAD-ism’s lack of traction among the general population encouraging as it means that the overwhelming majority of people in the world aren’t buying into the SDA/EGW con game.

And okay, any potential audience for this comment probably isn’t inside the denomination. Anyone who stays in the church for more than twenty or thirty minutes, to say nothing of continuing to support the cult with offerings of time and tithes for years on end, most likely isn’t going to listen to any other contrarian messages, anyway. Instead, they’ve already demonstrated a pit bull-like, perhaps even unpardonable preference for stale literary cliches, rehashed sermonizing and outdated messages from long dead, self proclaimed “prophets” over nonverbal and immediate interaction with god’s original evidence of his existence, The Book of Nature.

But then again, it took 25 years for the light to penetrate Adventism’s darkness and (gradually) get through to me, so rather than “cancel”, I hit “Reply”….

(Insert “fingers crossed” and “red-faced” emojis….)

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#7

That is the personification of Ted Wilson…a politician.

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#8

When I heard Ted Wilson’s inaugural sermon in Atlanta as the newly elected president, I could see the handwriting on the wall: it was his intent to take the church backwards.

The symbolism of the GC in Battle Creek with 1800s clothing, music, and themes certainly confirmed his direction of leadership.

The two Great Controversy fiascos showed an ignorance of communication research, persuasion tactics, new media and target audiences.

The Compliance Committees took divisiveness to a new level. The refusal to pray for an Australian woman’s commissioning set the tone and exacerbated his true attitude toward Adventist women with spiritual leadership gifts.

It’s time for an accepter of all the spiritual gifts given to the entire membership. It’s time for leadership of all Adventists. It’s time for representation of all Adventists under the umbrella. Acceptance is missing. And as Alexander points out: stale programs, taglines, as well as under-representation of Adventists of all stripes.

May God and the Holy Spirit divinely intervene in St. Louis.

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#9

Beautifully stated, Lindy. And so true.

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#10

I would go further. Not only does Wilson need to be retired and a change of leadership needed, but the entire theological project of SDAism needs rethinking and renewal. The whole reason for being of the denomination, with its misreading of biblical eschatology and misframing of the gospel, with a resulting irrelevance to the issues of the real world needs revision. And, its insistence on making ancillary matters of diet and days into central issues of remnant belonging that are divisive to the overall body of Christ, needs to be rethought and reworked.

Maybe there are different ways to explore and do this. Without such, the same stale proclamations, and the same ingrown theological emphases will dominate and be repeated again and again, in new packages, with less and less effect. I realize that this is a radical suggestion, but new wine needs to be poured into new wineskins.

I’ve heard that somewhere before…

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#11

Not radical enough, Frank.

The rethink required is the presupposed but preposterous notion that we humans need a middle man, or many men, between ourselves and our creator, of which Jesus is supposedly one of many.

Of course one can find “proof texts” to support the assertion that Jesus is god’s only true publicist.

Just as there are proof texts which seem to show that this was not Jesus’ intent.

So in the end this method, as always, proves nothing and every human is left without a means of reunification with The Self of The Cosmos unless he realizes that any such perceived separation is an illusory con game being sold by sleight of mind magicians who have a vested interest in pushing their “divide and conquer” subterfuge.

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#12

It would be nice, but God and the Holy Spirit have a long track record of not showing up to these meetings.

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#13

Look, I know this comment is going to be…basically childish. So I apologize in advance.

But here we are, what, 5 years later? Still pushing that horrific TMI acronym as though we’ve really come up with something. How many jokes have been made? “Share TMI with your friends today! There’s no place to share TMI like social media!”

It’s embarrassingly out of touch, nobody wants anything to do with it, and…well, frankly, nobody can even explain what it is! No seriously, what is Total Member Involvement? Do you know? Does anyone? Even the About page is just high-level nonsense (“send more money to AWR! organize a health expo!”) and a bunch of EGW quotes. It’s the same stuff we’ve heard for decades.

That’s it? That’s the best we can do? This is what we’ve spent a half-decade building up?

I know it’s such a minor thing to focus on (told you this would be childish), but it’s the perfect microcosm of everything wrong with the GC these days. Keep shoving this pet project that no one wants, no one can explain, and actively turns off a huge portion of the church.

Why can’t we retain The Young People™? Oh, it must be The World™.

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#14

My thought/s also! Start at the top and work the way down. Stagnant is the only word that I can think of. We have become a church of the past, least of all the present and certainly not one for the future. A massive organization that is bloated and cumbersome relying of fear to keep the monies coming in so that it can stay afloat. But, it’s all been said before, so I suspect the majority of church membership is satisfied with the status quo and that is the saddest part!!

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#15

It’s all problematic! I agree with Alex’s declarations that it’s time for TW to go. It’s actrually past due, isn’t it?

There is a dilemma though. If Ted Wilson is re-elected for the rest of this term, it will be a tragedy. But if he is not, then the tragedy may hit in the Church ON STEROIDS! Because the replacement for TW has already been chosen months ago, when the SAD President, the Brazilian Erton Köhler, was brough to the GC as a first step for him being the nex GC Prez. So now what?

If Ted Wilson is re-elected, there will have “grave consequences.” :wink: If Erton Köhler is indeed elected (according to the plan in place), there will be still bigger “grave consequences” - grave consequences on steroids!

Regarding the certainty that Köhler is TW’s successor has a margin of error of only 0.00001%. So, what will the Church do now??? Stay tuned!!!

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#17

Maybe they need to pray more?.. :wink: :wink:

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#18

Frank, your proposition is not too radical, it’s common sense that has not been much common in Adventism.I am afraid, though, that nothing will actually change. A meaninful change would require the desire to grown Adventists capable of independent thinking and a more independent personality. But then, how would it be possible to manage (control) people like that?

Adventism is a system that needs to grow emotionally and intellectually (let alone spiritually) dependend members that
will just obey to what comes fom the top administration.

“Just obey, and you will be OK!” … :wink:

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#19

Twelve years of leading the GC and still mired in polarizing issues should lead any person to refuse further term without being accused of having an incredible sense of entitlement. What can TW do that he was unable to do the past 12 years? If he were to be “appointed” for another term, all members of the nominating committee should undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine their competency to exercise insight and judgement.

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#20

Elmer, I bet you remember that in 2010, when TW was elected at lightspeed (90 seconds!!!) I wrote several posts stressing the fact that the Church’s train was then put on reverse gear, running backwards to 1844. Well, I guess TW actually accomplished what he proposed. The Church went back to 1844, and is stuck there for quite a while now.

The next goal now is to make sure it stays stuck in 1844, as we can see with this idea of having someone in every single Church who will make sure the writings of Ellen white are followed, obeyed, and keps above the Bible. What else can be said??? I would actually support the idea IF there is a requirement that ever person in that position, before having any voice, must read Steve Daily’s latest book,

https://www.amazon.com/Ellen-White-Psychobiography-Steve-Daily/dp/1647018757

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#21

i’m not sure an editorial such as this is really useful…what’s the point…with GC2022 starting today, and ending in 5 days, the cake’s been baked and all but eaten…if TW had withdrawn his name from formal election, which is the usual way GC presidents aren’t elected or re-elected, i think someone would have leaked it by now…and given the contracted session, nothing will be taken up that needs consideration, or takes time…this GC session is obviously all about doing things in order to get them done…my best guess is that africa has decided that they need TW to stay on for the remainder of his term, so that’s what we’ll see…

my other best guess is that TW has seen the futility of manipulating rules in order to punish WO…it isn’t going to happen, and TW is going to find a way for africa to accept that…for all we know, TW’s formal election in order to complete his current term may be the price africa has extracted from the world church in order leave WO alone…

but on this particular point, i don’t even think TW really has a problem with WO, so much as he has a problem with the perception that delegate votes, especially delegate votes from africa, are being ignored…and to be fair, this isn’t an unimportant consideration…it doesn’t look good…in fact it smacks of racism…it’s worth remembering that this feeling of unfair, racist treatment was on full display when africa’s delegates booed President Paulsen in San Antonio…and of course Paulsen was unfairly treated in San Antonio…but since when has anything connected to racism or its push back been fair…

when all is said and done, i think we are going to have to come up with a formula that respects delegate votes, but that also accepts regional differences, which is the unity in diversity formula many were calling for long before San Antonio, especially given that it is the formula outlined in Acts 15…in retrospect, San Antonio was a problem solely because this biblical formula was ignored, or unknown, or set aside because it seemed that winning a partisan war was possible and desirable…but let’s hope that the nostalgia occasioned by the shelving of so many things during the pandemic will spur us on to bigger and better things than the constant re-hashing of differences, and other negativities…adventism is the light of the world…we must understand the value of what we have, and keep ourselves from biting and devouring one another, as Paul would say…

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