In the September 28, 2018 edition of “All God’s People” from the Pacific Union Conference, Adventist historian, theologian, and author George R. Knight sits down with Ray Tetz, director of communication and community engagement for PUC, to discuss the issues facing our church today.
“I would suggest that the situation we are facing right now is the most serious question/issue this church, this denomination has ever faced. We are going to be deciding what we’re going to look like as a church for the rest of our history,” states Knight in the interview.
Watch the 12-minute interview with George R. Knight here:
This video was provided by Pacific Union Conference.
Image: Video Still
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How can Ted ignore the [to me] very clear statements quoted by Dr. Knight by Ellen White, Loughborough, and others warning against just what Ted is trying to do?
Why would Ted and his cohorts in the GC ignore this clear counsel?
The most serious issue the church faces is disunity through disobedience. We have a democratic system in place, the WORLD church voted on the WO issue yet for some reason people like yourself continue to blame GC for the outcome.
If the tables were reversed would it be ok for those who do not support WO to rebel and ban women from being ordained-I guess not, yet that is exactly the response that is being supported.
There are systems and processes that have been put into place for the safeguarding of the church. Do you think the GC should stand by and do nothing in the face of rebellion. You may not agree with the decision but that is what a democratic vote is.
the issue at hand is not the problem, it is the ‘only from the top down’ direction of leadership. our church has, since it’s conception, been a ‘bottom up’ organization.
So what you are saying is that EGW was an agitator and apostate for her admonishments against the very same thing?
In 1896 Ellen White saw the “Paths of Rome” running through Battle Creek.
As has often been noted, in the late 1890s Ellen White lost a great deal of sleep over her fears that the leading brethren of her church were exerting far too tight a control over the affairs of the movement. In 1896 she protested vigorously the plans of the leaders in Battle Creek to “invent regulations through which they compel men to be ruled by their own ideas and not by the Holy Spirit.” Plans “to obtain control of human minds and ability” she considered as “strange fire.” Righteously indignant, she protested that leaders, through various means, were attempting “to control the consciences of their fellow men.”1 It was at this time that she uttered one of her sharpest rebukes ever given to General Conference leaders. From her perspective, they were beginning to act like the papacy. To those who served on the Book Committee in particular she asserted that they were “following in the tread of the paths of Rome.”2
Simple question, was she right in her counsel which rightly applies to exactly what we see happening today?: Mark Yes or No
It’s origin is panic based. it’s theology is extra canonical, it’s primary voice is delusional and fraudulent, It’s leadership is arrogant, it is surprising that so many have found the Gospel in such a mix. But the current direction is calling fo a train wreck.
This is the headline preceding the 4-paragraph ‘News in Depth’ p-article on page 6 of the October 2018 ‘Adventist World’, by Adventist World (and ANN):
So, just what is that committee hoping to ‘unite’ ? . . . with what ?
The members in the pews that only know what the official SDA publications groom and spin their minds and hearts to believe and trust . . . ?
“. . .Step Forward. . .” ?
Thousands of SDAs are leaving their safe homes today and heading for the same old dangers of the church bulletin, committee-whipped Sabbath School Quarterly, peer-pressure brainwashing ‘worship’ that has successfully kept them from personally facing any crisis of the SDA church, let alone this present “. . . Step Forward. . .”.
So, if these comfy SDAs are not awake enough to face the current, critical issue of even greater church dominance by that elite inner-circle ‘denomination’ of ‘committee members’ that insist on running the ‘lesser’ denomination – who are too easily blinded by the smooth talk, spin and personal ‘glory’ of the SDA corporate insiders – then it is obvious that the ‘unity’ that is now the (false) issue has nothing to do with the SDA pews, but only with the SDA pulpits, which have seldom bowed to the needs of the pews over the demands of the SDA GC, anyway. Will those SDA pulpits now go the final step and openly turn against Christ’s ‘flock’ in united loyalty to the GC, instead of to Christ . . . that’s the ‘issue’ that is blind-siding the unwary SDA pews, right now.
It is those GC-paid pulpits, then, that need to face this current crisis, and somehow have the moral courage to turn back and face the pews, at any cost to themselves, and admit to the truth of how the SDA ‘Administration’ has led them astray for over a century of ‘committee’ generations, now, . . . and then do something about it.
SDAs in the pews have a ‘personal Savior’ – even as William Miller, the former Deist, found Him in his Bible – but they do NOT have a ‘personal church’ in the SDA GC.
That can only mean that our personal Savior has left the SDA GC, simply because it refuses to unite with Him, as those in the SDA pews now must, if they haven’t already. But, will the SDA pulpits help, or hinder, that essential ‘unity’ ?
Those shepherds who will help risk their livelihoods, but the alternative is far worse:
“And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. . . .”
“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.” ~ Ezekiel 34:1-4 & 10
She also once described the leading men of the SDA church as re-enacting ‘Korah’s Rebellion’ just as Heaven had told her they were.
Rebelling against those who rebel against God is loyalty to God.
I for one cannot trust a GC leader who promises to spread Ellen’s ‘The Great Controversy’, and then allows it to be reduced to ‘The Great Hope’, scrubbed of anything negative regarding papal activities.
At the Council of Trent, even the Protestants ‘voted’ for traditional Christian church Sunday observance, by default, since that part of ‘sola scriptura’ was ignored by them. So, in the end the Christian church at Trent erased God’s Sabbath Law by a ‘democratic’ vote.
The 2015 SDA GC vote against ‘WO’ openly defied Galatians 3:26-29. If the right form of DNA is required in order to be ‘Christian’ ‘children of Abraham’ and ‘heirs’ with Christ, then only male Jews should be ordained as Christian pastors, not women, not Greeks, not those descended from slaves, not Chinese, not Africans . . . and only Jewish Christians should be Sabbath-keepers. But the ‘new birth’ does not recognize DNA as an issue, therefore even SDA women, Africans and Chinese . . . may be blessed by keeping the Sabbath, and ordained by God to spread the Gospel.
The majority of SDAs attending the 1888 Minneapolis GC Session joined in ‘Korah’s Rebellion’ with the GC leaders who sided with George I. Butler. Anyone with knowledge of that SDA history has no trouble seeing the same rebellion repeated in 2015. Trouble is 1888 history is still down-played by too many SDA thought-leaders. But there is no excuse when Ron Duffield laid that 1888 history out – for free – before the delegates to the 2010 GC Session where Ted Wilson was elected.
Next day:
As I woke up this morning I realized that the same list of types of human DNA that Paul mentioned in Galatians 3:28 were previously mentioned in the Sabbath mandate:
‘stranger within your gates’ = nationality/race,
‘son/manservant’, ‘daughter/maidservant’ = sex,
‘-servant’ = inheritor of slavery by birth.
And since Alonzo Jones explained to the SDA GC session in 1893 that Christ is the ‘Sabbath’, being present in it, then to be ‘in Christ’ as a Sabbath-keeper has nothing to do with the ‘birth’ involving DNA, but only with that mysterious new birth of ‘heart’ described by Jesus to Nicodemus and by Isaiah 66:7. The KJV translation ‘manchild’ in Isaiah 66 is not enough, as the same Hebrew word – ‘zakar’ – is translated ‘Remember’ (in verb form) at the beginning of the 4th Mandate which goes on to include women as Sabbath-blessed.
Women in Biblical times were expected to produce a ‘firstborn’ (or ‘primary’) son who could carry on the ‘memory’ of the father, but even DNA was no guarantee that a firstborn would be the primary son after the father’s own heart-thoughts. Jacob’s Reuben, Simeon and Levi all lost the ‘first-born’ honor to Judah, the 4th-born.
People are upset that the TOSC report was never presented to the church at large and subsequent to that this Administration has been systematically centralizing power in a way that is solely inconsistent with our history as Adventist.
"If the tables were reversed would it be ok for those who do not support WO to rebel and ban women from being ordained-I guess not, yet that is exactly the response that is being supported."
You are using an example of something that has never occurred in the history of the world (world-wide equality) because of the systematic discrimination of women. Thus, this is a poor example of argumentation because it has never occurred and probably never can happen due to cultural mores.
Let us face it. women were created for the cradle roll, the Organ, The Dorcas, baking the wafers, fixing pot luck for visiting evangelists, singing in the chior, being the church sec. Oh yes Harvest Ingarthering. Yes even at times teaching an adult Sabbath School lesson. Of course being a good wife for a male pastor. Imagine attempting to enter the pulpit with a Gospel message.That surely is forbidden fruit.
