The president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, Daniel R. Jackson, issued the following statement on June 18, 2015 in response to shooting death of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South, Carolina:
“The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America is heartbroken by the senseless killing of the Reverend Clementa Pickney and eight other worshipers during Wednesday evening service in their church. We are saddened by the heartache it has caused their family, the members of the Emanuel AME Church, and the Charleston community. We extend our deepest condolences and continue to pray for the victims and their families.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church condemns not only the killing of any person, but also the hatred, based on a person's race, that apparently motivated this shooting. We believe that God loves all of His children equally, regardless of race, gender, religion, or lifestyle, and we are called to do the same.
We again call for open, honest, and civil conversation about the realities of the racial divide that continues to plague this country. This conversation must focus on the rights and equality of every member of our communities.
We stand with the people of Charleston and indeed across North America that strive to be agents of peace, love, and grace in their communities.
To bring a lasting change we, as a church, must always treat all people with the love and compassion that Jesus modeled for us. While last night in Charleston, hate took the lives of nine innocent people, we know that in the end love will win.
“We once again pray for the day when all of God’s children will treat each other without suspicion, bias and hatred. As the Apostle Paul reminds us: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28, NKJV)’”
An act perverse and abominable. Yet another evidence of the fulfillment of the words of our Lord regarding the last days: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).
I pray that all our Adventist congregations and pastors in the Charleston area join in the present efforts of community and civic leaders for reconciliation, consolation, and deeper mutual understanding. I truly wish I were there.
We again call for open, honest, and civil conversation about the realities of the racial divide that continues to plague this country. This conversation must focus on the rights and equality of every member of our communities.
Your division is segregated by race, Elder Jackson. In 2015.
It’s more complicated that a short sentence suggests. Many churches in many conferences not among the historically black, or regional, are, are now integrated, with many churches in these conferences having non-white pastors. The presidents of at at least two NAD union conferences, with supervisory authority over men and women and administrators of all races, are black.
South Carolina is an awful place. It has passed voter suppression laws designed to make voting more difficult for black people. The Confederate flag flies proudly on government properties. In fact, while the federal and state flags were lowered during this time of mourning, the Confederate flag was left flying proud at full height. Southern whites in South Carolina, if you are not horrible racists, remove the Confederate flag. Southern whites in South Carolina, tear that flag down!
I know the white-black conference is “complicated.” What makes it so is: control of the flow of tithe money, power and pride of position and authority. On top of this: will the White Conferences allow Black leaders, of other then those of exceptional ability, to share in leadership positions? Maybe not to the level black pastors may wish. Saddest of all, in my opinion, is that the Advent messages has yet to unify its own leaders on this fundamental level–racial respect with cooperation and love for each other.
I am thankful that our church didn’t need weeks or days to react, but reacted immediately to express condolences and solidarity with the Emanuel AME Church.
Fellow Christians, brothers and sisters, gathered together in prayer being slaughtered by a young man who chose a church as the place of his “mission”. To limit this event to blatant, primitive racism seems too simple a solution. How about extending the interpretation to suggesting people of faith were being martyred?
What comforts and encourages me is that the perpetrator was able to instill sadness, desperation, even anger, but apparently not “terror and fear”, not hate, not revenge. Instead larger prayer meetings, blacks and whites joining hands. THAT is a testimony for a Christian attitude. Love drives out fear. Let hate not prevail.
Indeed, this is beyond words. So why not do away with that flag? Being from Australia I only know so much about its history. They (Southerns) will say it is now a symbol of Southern pride. But this will not do. An example of this is in an article I just read, wanting to know more about what you wrote, gives a great illustration why:
After the Holocaust, there was a movement in America to change the Swastika, once an aboriginal symbol of peace, back into its original meaning. The symbol, it was claimed, was once a good symbol and could be used for good again. The movement died when it became apparent that the world would forever associate Swastika’s with the Nazis, never again with anything to do with peace.
The Confederate flag, unfortunately, falls into the same category. You can try to change its meaning, but outsiders will always view it as a sign of hatred and bigotry.
It will never been seen as anything else but a flag of suppression and domination over one group by another.
Well said Robert. Jackson’s administration only recently affirmed the current racial segregation in administration. We are all appalled at this senseless act. Why issue a press release stating the obvious.
I agree, Phil. South Carolinians and Southerners of integrity throughout the former Confederacy need to get rid of that sorry flag. In the words of the late French President MItterand regarding the guillotine, when that instrument was finally retired from use, that flag’s rightful place is in a museum. It does not belong on civic property where only symbols of unity can rightfully be placed.
“How about extending the interpretation to suggesting people of faith were being martyred?”
Were they “People of faith being martyred”?
Well, I just don’t know what to think about that when it comes to how Ellen G. White described them.
She said that according to her revelation that, by the second angel of Revelation 14, that they were the fallen Babylon.
That Satan had taken full possession of them and that even their prayers were an abomination.
That they were deceived in thinking that they sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that it was actually Satan breathing his spirit upon them.
That they were “nominal Christians” Christians in name only.
I have never heard of EGW, or any leadership of the SdA Church, publically renounce any of these condemning statements.
Therefore we would have to conclude that they are of another Gospel and another Jesus and accursed according to the Apostle Paul if Ellen White was speaking the truth as it is in Christ as she is believed to do/have done.
Your comments are a “fly in the ointment of the apothecary.” You are either ignorant of what Ellen White really said, or are deliberately distorting it. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. Ellen White plainly stated that God has His followers in every church, including the RCC. It is the system that is corrupt, not necessarily the average person in the pew. It is not for us to judge the individual church members, but we can judge the churches themselves by their various creeds and activities. It’s similar to Ronald Reagan calling the USSR an “evil empire.” It was, but the Russian people, for the most part, were the victims, not the instigators. Therein lies the difference.
Yes, she did back peddle several times. It seems that see was good at speaking out of both sides of her mouth. For many things that one brings up there is another to show that she said just the opposite. This is what has caused much confusion in SdAism. She did indeed say these things, and more, and never openly admitted that she was in error about them. If there was any “fly in the ointment” she put it there and never removed it. The books are still available in which she made these statements, and she was talking about the people that refused to hear her when she said nominal Christians and Satan breathing his spirit on them. When the Shut Door prophecy was believed, she claimed that all who were not of their little flock of of Millerite leftovers were lost and there was no use praying for them any longer. When Jesus didn’t come in 1844, 1845, 1851, and after, it was because the believers were lacking the purity in unity that was needed. When he got his number He was coming. After the shut door fiasco she said that Jesus was coming in short order and that those who were then coming in would have to learn in months what had taken them years to learn.You can ignore these things all you like, but they’re not going away until the SdA Church comes clean on them. There are myriads of people joining from many lands, and sooner, or later, they will come across the many sources that expose these things and leave, as so many have, or they will join the progressive folks that seek to correct many things that obviously need to be corrected. It’s always better to tell it like it is. Pretending that these things are not so displeases Jesus and he frowns upon us when we don’t repent of our errors.
So glad to see I agree with you, Bird! So glad you remind people not to judge a whole group by the act of one. Please remember that in thinking and speaking of other types of people who you might think are reprehensible to God. You have made a good point about the wrong and dangers of “generalizing” to an entire group the behaviors of one or a part.
You know, it’s nice once in a while to have some agreement on these threads, particularly when an event occurs that we all deplore, like the Charleston shooting.
But when God’s prophet is insulted with lies, and innocent onlookers visit this site and read the lies, a response is in order.
When Ellen White spoke of Satan breathing his spirit on those in Babylon, and that their prayers were an abomination, etc, she was speaking in context of those who had rejected the truth in the judgment-hour message that had been given by the Millerites—that truth being the time frame of Daniel’s prophecy and its true significance for the controversy between good and evil (see EW 45, in context).
In no way did Ellen White ever declare the whole of non-Adventist Christianity from her time onward to be lost eternally. All she ever said regarding the rejecters of the Millerite messagewas that those who had rejected the light God had revealed could receive no further light. That is a Biblical teaching, in case some have forgotten (e.g. Hosea 4:6; John 9:41; Heb. 6:4-6). It is for this reason that the General Conference will never repudiate these statements of Ellen White to which you refer, because they reflect the plain teachings of God’s Word regarding those who reject divine truth.
Ellen White is clear where the great majority of Christ’s true followers are presently to be found:
“Notwithstanding the spiritual darkness and alienation from God that exist in the churches which constitute Babylon, the great body of Christ’s true followers are still to be found in their communion” (GC 390).
“God still has a people in Babylon; and before the visitation of His judgments these faithful ones must be called out” (GC 604).
From all we know about those who died at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, I believe many if not most of them were devout and consecrated followers of God whom we will meet—if we ourselves are found faithful—at the first resurrection. And millions of others, equally genuine in their walk with the Lord, will embrace the advanced light of Revelation 14 when the final crisis breaks and God’s last message to His last generation is sounded.
You Ellen White critics just can’t turn loose of that shut door fantasy, can you? This accusation against Ellen White’s credibility falls flat as soon as the hard evidence is examined. The late Herbert Douglass, in his book Messenger of the Lord, puts to rest most if not all aspects of this illusion so dear to the hearts of those who would undermine Ellen White’s doctrinal and prophetic authority.
No one has disproved Ellen White’s own explanation of this episode in our history as found in volume 1 of Selected Messages, titled, “An Explanation of Some Eartly Statements.” The burden of proof is on the critics to disprove her self-explanation. None have succeeded in doing so.
I was going to respond, but I see Kevin beat me to it and was much more articulate than I could have been. Amen to what he said! And I see that I was wrong in giving you the benefit of the doubt. Your animosity toward the Lord’s messenger is quite evident, but it shouldn’t lead you to distort and even falsify what she wrote. The same charges that are laid against her, have been laid against the Bible. People, by taking passages out of context and not understanding the whole picture, claim that the Bible speaks out of “both sides of its mouth,” when, if a careful study were made, it is really in perfect harmony throughout, and the SOP is in perfect harmony with Scripture.
When a person lies, Kevin, it is when they know what the truth is and purposely deceive someone. This is not the case here. I’ll forgive you for that implication ahead of time because apparently you are unaware of that. People can be honestly mistaken, but that does not make them liars. Concerning what I posted, there is plenty of evidence out there, and people are welcome to make up their own minds and voice their opinions. I’m sorry if that process and the end results offend you, but it would be kinder and in the spirit of Christ if you would approach those that differ with you on these type of subjects as if they had been poorly informed and then show your loving concern rather than treat them as enemies and instead try to persuade them to see things differently.
