Hosting of Stephen Bohr Creates Chaos in Potomac Conference Churches

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Stephen Bohr, at 73, has next to no physical appeal, meaning he’s not going to be able get men to stop masturbating or having sex, while he has sex with their wives and gf’s, one by one …yes, Waco was all about sex and associated delusion…

i’ve never heard or tried to listen to Bohr…but my impression is that he’s comfort food for Adventist conservatives who feel the Church around them is changing too quickly, and leaving them behind…i think Bohr may be playing a similar role as Trump, who’s given White Republicans hope that they can remain relevant, and in charge of their world…

Bohr may be a true servant of God for all i know…i just don’t know enough about him to be able to say…

i’ve never said that a split in Adventism cannot happen…i think it’s clear that TW and the GC are working hard to prevent a split, and i think Church employees, in general, all of whom have a vested interest in a unified Church, are also rooting for a split not to happen…

but if Adventism did split, what of it…Abraham and Lot split, and God worked with both men…Israel split under Rehoboam, and God worked with both parts of the split…Paul and Barnabas split, and God was with both apostles…the apostolic church was essentially split into the circumcision church and the uncircumcision church, and guess what, both churches - both gospels - are represented in the bible…

in fact Adventism today, and from pioneer times, is probably split along a colour line…there’s no chance the Black regional conferences will give up what they have in order to be absorbed into the larger regular conferences…the regional conferences are in a relatively strong position…what do they have to gain by merging with the regular conferences…

i will say, though, that split or no split, the 144,000 who survive the Time of Trouble and the Seven Last Plagues, and then meet Christ in the clouds in freshly minted immortality, will all be Adventists…Adventism isn’t going anywhere, even if leaders and members muck it all up…

headship and WO are theoretically incompatible…for avid adherents to co-exist, a wide berth needs to be given to both sets of beliefs…wise leadership will readily perceive all of this…at the moment, the WO side seems to be wielding the levers of power, so it’s incumbent on them to back down, and give space to those who disagree with them…otherwise you get what we’re seeing now, which, any way it’s looked at, isn’t effective management…

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Quite a bold prediction if a little on the safe side, given that even if Jesus doesn’t return for another two thousand eons, Adventists in the deep, deep future will still be able to say, “Any day now!”

I think it would have been nice, however-and if John was as sure as you are-that he could have mentioned Adventists by name, rather than leaving billions of Christians wondering about whom he was speaking for almost 2,000 years.

:wink:

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Divisiveness is Lucifer’s method of choice. And it looks like Bohr, as Lucifer’s agent, has succeeded no matter what side you are on in this discussion. I must state up front that I find Bohr’s take as repugnant as I do Bachelor’s or T.W. or even Findley. But if there is one thread of Christianity within his messages, he would have understood that this is not how Jesus would have handled this situation. That said, the Conference could have done a better job as well.

I find “the end time theology” issue the most disturbing. The whole notion that people in the “last days” are going to live sinless lives is beyond bad theology, it is downright laughable. Those who find themselves in that period of time will be sinless only because they will be covered with Christ’s righteousness, not from their behaviour. His position on Jesus not being an equal part of the trinity is also a repugnant concept. Those are far more problematic than the take on W.O.

The majority of the SDA church worldwide are against W.O. This is nothing new. But the reasons are relatively easy to understand. Most of the membership is in the 3rd world. Most are poorly versed in the concept of righteousness by faith. I hate to put it this way, but most are not fully informed about theology in general before baptism. And most come out of very legalistic belief systems, be they Christian or even superstitions. I imagine that if you polled all 25 million of us, you would find the majority support some very repulsive beliefs. Majorities are simply majorities, not necessarily right in their positions, and like politics, certainly not well informed.

If we continue to give way to these divisive theologies, we will begin to bring back the evangelistic presentations with the big posters of the statue of gold, silver, iron and clay, and the 10 horned beasts and, again, frighten the youngest people in the audience with the scary notion that the end times are frightening as ---- and it’s time to pack our “last days survival kit”. Yes, I actually remember as a young person in the early 50’s attending an Adventist meeting where they were showing how to pack some of these pre-packaged foods that would keep for years, to be kept in a locker or suitcase to hurriedly haul out the door when Sabbath Keepers had finally made the death list. Not saying this isn’t going to happen, just that it shouldn’t be our focus. And believe me, preparing ahead of time is the same thing as trying to save yourself, rather than trusting in God’s care.

Where’s the loving God in all of this? This isn’t presenting the character of God to the world. This may change hearts, but not in a good way. This will harden hearts and many more will be lost. In judgment day, I would not want to be standing before God and trying to explain why I was preaching Bohr’s message.

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What foolishness on the part of the conference.

Bohr preaches horrible unbiblical theology and is not in harmony with Adventist teaching. But once the conference expressed their disapproval and the reasons for their disapproval they should have shut up and let it happen.

The irony here is that what the Potomac leadership is doing is simply a liberal version of what Ted Wilson has been doing over WO. It didn’t work for him and it was wrong.

Both cases represent a profound distrust that the Holy Spirit is big enough to handle the issues at hand. Gamaliel’s wisdom in Acts 5 should have carried the day.

Honestly the conference has made in a 1,000 times worse. They should have let it happen the Bohr fans would still be fans and life would go on.

Now people who wouldn’t have cared are paying atrention and wondering what good stuff Bohr has.

Scripture is a story about allowing humans to make choices good and bad.

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I hear your argument … and share it to a considerable degree. The difference to me is the lack of dialogue on the side of the ultra conservatives (denying comments, interviews, replying with letters of condemation and unsubstantiated claims). In contrast, the WO issue has been one of constant dialogue, scholarly publications, conferences. But then … I am biased.
In short … I find it difficult for the Potomac Conference (or any conference for that matter) to handle such a situation administratively in a responsible manner (after all protection of those entrusted to them is part of their remit). And yes, I do remember the pain, lasting years, if not decades, after a church was dissolved in a conference I once worked in (similar story - the church board was taken over by ultras). It is not a good solution. However, to believe it is

is mere speculation. We have underestimated the insidious toxicity of a false gospel far too often and need to find ways to take a stand. I am struggling to find better ways to do so. Gamaliel may be a starting point for greater calmness and composure, agreed. But there also is Paul’s anathema. Conferences are between a rock and a hard place…

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Okay, I’m a One Note Johnny obsessed with talking about the big picture but it seems to me that the Roanoke and Gaithersburg kerfuffles are microcosmic demonstrations of the fact that trying to organize religion is as laughable as attempting to train fleas.

I too have relatives in the conference and listened with the detached amusement of an outsider to the stories of how the members in their congregation resented paying the mortgage on a church which they’d built but the denomination owned and where intransigent middle managers decided who would, and would not, preach in what they had thought of as “their” pulpit.

But as I pointed out in a previous comment, that is the bottom line with Adventism, as I suspect is the case to some similar extent in every religion. These are top down institutions where the individual giveth and the organization receives. So if a person is looking to have a say on any issue, or wants at least some chance of an ROI for the time and money he spends, he’d have much better odds over at a local casino or down at a nearby race track.

Fortunately for the “organizers”, however, the conned only occasionally see through the con and for the most part they either keep playing, paying and praying along-hoping for better results from having done the same thing so faithfully those last few thousand times-or in some cases, they fall in with a new conman and get caught up in a different pyramid scheme.

(Can anybody say “Quixtar?”)

:wink:

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Both sides brought about this for which we have something to talk about. The notion of unity among SDAs exploded in this exhibit of underlying disunity, distrust, and disgust with the other party. All lost in this debacle and the name of Christ dishonored.

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I like the way Glacier View was termed the ‘Adventist Inquisition’. Perhaps a little harsh but at the time of the GV Conference it did strike me that way. Frankly, after studying Des Fords views on Justification by Faith etc, I thought his position was unassailable. Also, the revelations about how Ellen White wrote her books in The White Lie left me a bit ‘shell shocked’. In the end I decided as a Pastor to retire from the SDA Ministry in a cordial, irenic manner, because I still was and continue to be a believer and supporter of the SDA church and had no wish to be disloyal to it. To this day I continue to believe in most of SDA doctrine albeit in a liberal and I hope enlightened manner.
I have a lot of respect for our GC President Ted Wison and Mark Findlay, even if I have a few esoteric disagreements with them, but I find it hard to go along with what seems to me to be their somewhat ‘hard line conservative emphasis’. Still, I respect and support them non the less.
Recently I read Steve Daily’s book on Ellern G White, and after my eyebrows got back from the back of my head to the front of my face, I felt he had been a little too radical for my sensibilities. I read the pretty good response the White Estate has given to his book, which restored some of my confidence. Finally, Gilbert Valentine’ book, Ostriches and Canaries seemed to me illuminating, balanced, and extremely interesting for someone who lived through these events.
My conclusion so far is that we have entered an era of change emanating from the explosion of new knowledge in science. Now there are many things we have to learn, many things we have to relearn and some things we may have to abandon. We need to have the maturity to do what the Bible tells us, Prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.
The exciting changes today in the realm of science and faith, is that many scientists are increasingly coming around to believe there is Intelligent Design in the universe. The three cardinal issues being, How did the Universe begin? Since there was this so called Big Bang, there was an actual beginning. What caused that beginning? Second, how come the Universe shows so much evidence of design that there must have been a Creator. Third, what is consciousness? How can you go from absolute random meaningless chance, as Dawkins called it ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, having no purpose, just meandering along in the formation of a universe that sprang out of nothing, then from inert chemicals randomly lead to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Simply by chance?

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I have just joined and I hope this is the right place. I have read all the comments about Bohrs presentation. All that needs to be said is that the Potomac Conference has the final word. The local church facility is owned by the conference. Therefore the conference has the final say. If the conference prohibits a speaker the church needs to obey at least on conference property. We don’t live in a perfect world. No Conference is perfect. But if we are part of the conference we must obey the conference. If we do not then we must leave the conference. As members of the conference we obey the conference. It is that simple. We live in a democratic society so we are free to do what society allows. But we are a part of the society that has certain rules. If we follow them we remain in good standing if not then we are free to withdraw from that part of society and join another part. The two churches mentioned do not want to obey the conference so the members may be excluded from that conference. The is not theology but membership in the conference.

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The information and additional details are helpful. My appreciation to all for their comments. The last few quarters have brought to my mind repeatedly the unity that God desires. What a job Satan is working! The headship idea is in contrast to the individual responsibility for moral self-care. It reminds me of the contemporary issue in government. Namely, is government a democracy or monarchy? God’s kingdom is a kingdom. Earthly structures are bound to fail being substitutes for God’s plan and design. We need to understand God’s plan and put ourselves in His will.

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not really…the implication in harrpa’s questions was what beliefs are correct, and therefore acceptable to God…my point, that headship, although biblically incorrect, obviously hasn’t been disqualifying for any of the bible heroes or egw, and therefore can’t be now, is answering this implication directly…

it doesn’t matter how egregious the logical consequence of headship - that Jesus is not a full member and equal in the Godhead - is…first of all, most headship advocates are oblivious to the logical problems in their position…instead, they are looking at a few isolated texts literalistically, without considering the wider implications of the question, or the broader consensus of inspiration (many don’t know, for example, that egw directly contradicts a key component of headship)…but second of all, and again, God obviously worked with headship people in the past, which can only mean he’ll work with them now…the fact that the Potomac Conference has had the stronger theological position is therefore irrelevant in this incidence…it doesn’t absolve them from having exercised incredibly poor judgement…

superimposed onto all of this, of course, is the fact that the GC voted not so long ago, through a clear majority, in favour of headship at San Antonio…any notion that resistance to WO is anti-Adventist, and therefore must be squelched in order to protect members, is undercut conclusively…that is, you can’t be anti-Adventist when you are in harmony with a majority of the world Church and the world Church President…

it’s a question of proportion, of recognizing and implementing what matches the scope of the situation…no-one is saying the Potomac Conference isn’t responsible for what happens in its component churches, or that it doesn’t have the right to enforce that responsibility…but just because one has power doesn’t mean it’s prudent to exercise it in every instance…the Potomac Conference had the clearly evident option and opportunity to make an effort to understand the mindset operating in the Roanoke and Gaithersburg churches, and to work with them on their level…but not only did they fail to do this, they attempted to force these churches to accede to a position, the Potomac Conference’s position, that the churches were clearly unprepared for…this means the Potomac Conference failed to do the prerequisite groundwork that would have legitimized their exercise of power…

i have no sympathy for President Tapp, and even less sympathy for the Potomac Conference…they’re sitting there talking about shepherding their flock, when they’ve demonstrated conclusively their lack of even basic levels of understanding of what shepherding means…and they’ve proven that they haven’t learned the relatively costly lesson from San Antonio, that forced uniformity isn’t appropriate, or in harmony with Acts 15…their entire perception of this situation has been off from beginning to end…one can only wonder what else has been going on in this conference…

at this point, i would say that if the Potomac Conference has any designs for evangelism, not to mention undoing the damage they’ve caused in the minds of all who’ve been looking on, inside and outside of their territory, they can start with an open, heartfelt apology to the Roanoke and Gaithersburg churches, whom they’ve so severely offended, and include double restitution of all property, equipment and monies seized and frozen…anything else or less will simply be so much fluff…

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David while this is technically true their only recourse is to lock the congregation out of the building if they insist on inviting Bohr.

Is that really what they want to do?

Is that really what they will do?

This is exactly the same as to WO issue. Wilson and his leadership team made the case rightfully that confernces were denying what was voted at the GC. But his / there only option was to kick whole conferences out of the denomination. It was never going to happen.

Look at how much bigger this is because the confernce didnt simply let it happen.

Have they really protected anyone fro. Bohr’s heresies or have they actually given him a bigger voice?

If they had just let it happen it would have been a nothing burger.

Just because one can does not mean on should.

And in this case they can’t really do anything anyway.

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I find myself thinking that the next step for the conference is to create a squad of truth monitors that fan out each week and check what is being taught in local churches for orothodoxy.

It will be a tough job because to so it right they will have to not only evaluate what is being taught but what is not being taught.

And ultimately all of this suggests incompetence on the part of thr Holy Spirit.

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It comes as somewhat of a shock that there is somewhat of a brawl going on at large in the SDA Church. It is a brawl in as much as few involved have a credible clue as to why they are fighting. Historically there were fights over the nature of the Trinity which started over ideas that no one had anyway of proving except wining a real fight; and these were largely political. Someone thought they had the truth based on a theological presupposition assumed infallible and coercive because of divine inspiration transmitted either directly by God or indirectly through bishops or counsels. It is always easy to start a fight with someone who knows he is right; and there is a high degree of arrogant pleasure in defeating them.

But what people have been fighting over since the beginning of religious institutions is a handful of metaphors, among them the Trinity, and, well, you name it: the true day of worship, the true church, last day events, and the role women in ministry, among others. Recognizing that we are arguing and fighting over metaphors and analogies deflates an arrogant ego affirming the truth by any means, hierarchical, the power of the laity, or of a raving maniac.

When I was a ten-year-old, some of the Shepherd’s Rod sect told us that Ezekiel 9, commanded us to take up our slaughtering weapons and go the General Conference and kill every corrupt and deceitful leader there. The slaughter would go on, but we were to start at the Sanctuary, which obviously meant the G.C. One can easily see the metaphorical nature of this belief.

We should not abandon metaphors because of this kind of use; rather we should scrutinize our metaphors to see where they are leading us. We, whether we are scientists, theologians, or philosophers cannot do without metaphors to give clarity to what we are trying to say or teach; but while metaphors are indispensable, they are capable of evoking different kinds of conclusions. Thus, in life, while we live well by our metaphors, we must recognize that they ultimately are neither true or false, and our attention should focus on what is evoked. This is not a purely rational process as most might think. It involves flashes of insight, intuitions, and imagination. This also applies to our ability to see analogies.

One biblical example of this may be demonstrated by the story of Moses parting the sea with his rod as an act of salvation for Israel, which is then conflated with the separating of the water of chaos, the primeval sea, for the purpose of God effecting Creation–which evokes the insight that creation is an act of salvation. Another prominent metaphor of salvation is the figure of David, once the leader of a band, or gang, of warriors, who, later as monarch, became a saving act of God, and prefiguration of the saving messiah, who by the time of the Chronicler is free of every contamination of sin or questionable deed. The roles of metaphor and analogy in religion, while capable of evoking great moral and spiritual meaning, are, in the minds of others, capable of evoking the opposite. We must examine evocations from different perspectives to find their specific values for human life to achieve meaning. The role of women in the church and in ministry is one of these evocations. One should not argue rationally from the metaphors of headship or patriarchy as if they are revealed truth rather than metaphoric and analogical; rather one should be open to that dawning, that metaphoric flash of insight, that awakens us from our dogmatic slumber, largely due to that persistent, though often suppressed, whisper-voice of Jesus at the back of our minds, that metaphoric evocation to become active in the Creation of the just Christian society in this world.

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i think, in the context of the ill feeling that is percolating in Roanoke and Gaithersburg, that such a measure will likely come across as a spy mission, similar to the one the Pharisees used to try and entrap Jesus…i think the atmosphere now is so hostile towards the Conference that the Conference’s hands are tied…anything they do, short of an apology that can be felt to be sincere, along with restitution, is going to be misinterpreted…

it just goes to show that one false move creates problems that can take yrs, and perhaps an entire change in personnel, to correct…i honestly hope that other Conferences, in looking on, will draw the correct lessons from this situation…we are a big tent Church, filled with disparate, even contradictory, segments…now, especially, is not the time to try to impose uniformity on anything other than the basics, like the Sabbath and the 2nd Coming, which one would hope would not need to be haggled over, much less enforced…

of course the other dynamic happening in NAD is the Democratic-Republican divide, which is having repercussions even in Canada…it’s hard to believe it isn’t amplifying the progressive-conservative divide in the Church…leadership simply has to find ways to make room for all membership voices to feel heard and valued…no-one is saying this is easy…but i think this Roanoke-Gaithersburg situation, brewing across two states, is showing that there’s no other way…

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I’m sorry, Joe, but you unfairly minimize the importance of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity.

Let’s pretend that the Son resides in a box underneath the ground for all eternity. In that box, he doesn’t interact with us, communicate with us, or do anything for us. Would we worship such an entity? No. Would we care about or think about such an entity? No. Would we regard this entity as God? No.

But Bohr would argue that any entity that is eternal is God, so therefore, the entity residing in a box underneath the ground for all eternity is God. And Bohr would also argue that any entity that has the physical essence of the Father is God, so therefore, the entity residing in a box underneath the ground for all eternity is God because such entity possesses the “ontology” (he mis-defines the word), i.e., the physical essence, of the Father whom we agree is God. The premise of neosubordinationism is that God can be dichotomized into essence and function. This dichotomizing of God allows for Bohr and other neosubordinationists to deny that the Son is God while making it seem by virtue of all of the concessions made about the Son’s essence that no such denial is happening.

You should be able to see, as a former teacher of philosophy, that dichotomizing God into essence and function is a philosophical parlor trick. Bohr is not a philosopher, knows nothing about philosophy, is not aware that he is doing philosophy in an amateurish and uninformed way, and is totally unaware that with respect to Being Heidegger is more persuasive than Aristotle and the rest of the Western tradition. But Bohr doesn’t have to wade in these deep philosophical waters. All he needs to do is read the Bible. Paul is clear that if Jesus is not resurrected, our faith is in vain. If the Son is not resurrected, he is not God. If the Son does not function as God, he is not God. If the Son is not sovereign, he is not God. If the Son is not omnipotent, he is not God. If the Son in the functional sense is eternally subordinate to anyone or anything, he is not God.

Again, neosubordinationism has its ultimate origins not in Arius but in Lucifer in heaven. How embarrassing it is for our faith community, which has unique insight into what occurred in heaven, that this anti-Trinitarian heresy has become so popular. How embarrassing it is for our faith community, which overcame anti-Trinitarianism like a junkie overcomes a drug addiction, to relapse in 1987 and not yet recover. How embarrassing it is for our faith community that there are some who despise women so much that they are willing to disrespect and misrepresent the Son for the purpose of modeling why their animus toward women should be the norm. It is not “arrogant pleasure” but duty that compels me to stand for Jesus and speak out.

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Actually, the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the bible. There are a few references that read ~“The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”, but listing these entities does not define their nature and does not imply that they are all God. Which in the early church they were not.

The early church fathers held various doctrinal models that attempted to describe and define nature of Jesus as related to God. The Trinity was only one of them, and a later one, and even it was an outgrowth of an earlier model that didn’t treat the Holy Ghost as a separate being - which the OT also does not.

It wasn’t until the 300’s that the church officially settled on the Trinity, mostly as we know it now, at the First Council of Constantinople, 381. However, the doctrine was not complete until 1014.

It took until the mid 500’s to stamp out other ideas that continued to be held by church leaders and theologians, who openly objected to the concept.

Rome’s insistence on the doctrine actually split the church in 1054, resulting in the Eastern Orthodox church that is still at odds with the Roman church today on this and other extra-biblical doctrinal teachings.

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Before I retired, my boss found out I was born and raised Adventist.

“Adventist? Aren’t you the ones who don’t believe in the Trinity?”

I laughed and said “No. Adventists absolutely do believe in the Trinity.”

But then I did a little research and found out that early SDA’s had rejected the concept on the grounds that it was an RCC heresy which, like original sin, is not-strictly speaking-a biblical concept.

As I recall, it wasn’t until the 20th century, and perhaps in an effort to align more with mainstream Protestantism, that the denomination saw the triune light.

(This comment is based on research I did several years ago, and my recollection of it, so if it is not exactly accurate, I’m sure a better-than-me-SDA will set me straight!)

:wink:

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I thought it was totally wrong back in the 1980’s when Desmond Ford was prevented from speaking in Adventist churches. When people are afraid of other people speaking you can be pretty sure the ones trying to prevent the speech are in the wrong. If they had good arguments against what they think are the wrong ideas they can certainly provide speakers week after week to counter the ideas. A controversy often would raise attendance so why the fear of someone with different views?

I have often heard from leaders of Adventist Today and Spectrum of the power of the local congregation. Then this comes along and it goes back to, do what the conference says. The problem seems to be so many in the SDA church have no real belief in freedom of religion or speech unless it is a speech they like. Sadly that is not freedom of speech at all. I really wonder who in Adventism really wants our leaders to be the gatekeepers of what we should hear or believe. How many times have I heard that we should not have a creed in the 28-29 fundamental beliefs…but we better listen to the conference, ignore the GC etc. Choose a lane but stop this incessant swerving about!

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Great.

Another reluctant, “I have no choice” spokesperson for Jesus.

Just like the situation Bohr and an untold number of Jesus’ other, self-professed minions have supposedly found themselves in for the past two millennia, all of whom insist they only speak pure truth and unadorned philosophy but none of whom agree with each other.

Me?

I hear Jesus is gonna be back any day now.

So I’m gonna wait and see what he has to say for himself when he gets here.

(Given the ambiguous nature of the term “soon”, the wait could be rather long so thankfully I have the Holy Spirit to help out until when Jesus, or some other purported messenger for the messiah, shows up.)

:wink:

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