Adventists visited again..........

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MarysRoses

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They are at it again!

I made several long posts last year regarding a book the Adventists left on my doorstep. Now there is a new book they are passing out in my town. Its a small “sharing book” published by Pacific Press authored by Mark A. Finley. The title is “End Time Living”, and it is a milder presentation than most Adventist works, but I found some highly interesting things I thought I’d share with the forum.

First thing, there is no doubt that the book is Adventist literature, it is being distributed by the local SDA church ( my mother is a member, and I did check). Mark A. Finley, the author, is a vice president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, here is his bio page on the official SDA site:

adventist.org/world_church/presidential/finley.html

I read the thing, it didn’t take long, only 127 pages or so of folksy, easy reading narrative. Some interesting things I noticed though:

Not once anywhere inside or outside the book is it identified as Seventh-day Adventist. In fine print under the ISBN number, a little notice that you can buy more copies from ‘adventistbookcenter.com’ is a giveaway, but only to someone really looking.

Interestingly, the book never mentions directly the Sabbath, the Catholic Church , the Great Controversy or Ellen G. White. I mentioned before the book a milder presentation of Adventist doctrine than many I have seen. Those themes are not absent from the book however, they are just presented indirectly.

All of what I noticed won’t fit in one post, So i’ll begin with the first chapter:

The book begins in Eden, saying that choices have eternal consequences, and that Eden set the pattern for the human race. It mentions that Satan wants to make people think that God’s commands are restrictive and arbitrary. It mentions that “God’s commands are eternal guarantees of inner happiness.” (pg. 12).
The first chapter says that understanding Genesis is important to understanding Revelation, and that four “eternal principles” for “end time living” are given. (pg. 10).

Here are Mark Finley’s ‘eternal principles” :

Numbers 1 and 2: “Choices have eternal consequences.” and: “Substitutes won’t work”

Numbers 3 and 4 have the theme of taking responsibility for choices and making changes. The chapter sums up: “Living successfully at the end of time means choosing God’s way, not our own.” (pg. 22)

On the surface, this isn’t bad stuff at all. Of course we should obey God, and make good choices. Of course we should accept responsibility for our actions and change what needs to be changed to live in harmony with what God wants of us.

Having been through many training classes as an Adventist on how to convince others of the “Sabbath truth” however, I can see clearly the set up that is being constructed. The chapter never once mentions the Sabbath. However, it stresses commandment keeping as the way to please God and to be happy. It titles an entire subsection with “Substitutes won’t work” and goes on to describe how Satan “counterfeits” God’s plan. (Any Adventist or former Adventist will instantly recognize these key phrases. The only difference in this book is there is no direct mention of the Sabbath.)

Obeying God is something all Christians can agree on, I would think. I would question however, the emphasis on commandment keeping itself as the source of happiness, likewise, that keeping the commandments is what makes us pleasing to God. An interesting quote: “ While the eternal principles of truth in God’s Word are life giving, the consequences of disobedience are devastating.” This quote is in the context of keeping God’s commands, or accepting Satan’s substitutes. Hm……….

Again, this book is way more subtle. It makes it sound good, but is it really Christian?
Are we saved by commandment keeping or by accepting freely offered grace? To live a Christian life, obedience is important, works (our fruit) are important. Something seems wrong though, with the idea that commandment keeping is the source of happiness and will determine whether we are pleasing to God, which seems to be the offered theme of the chapter. The unspoken theme of the chapter, to me as a former Adventist, seems to be targeted to planting the idea that how one interprets and keeps God’s commands will be of supreme importance in the “End Times”.

More coming!

MarysRoses
 
They often start out “mild”. It is later that they get to the “you are the anti-Christ” part. One thing that really annoys me about them is that they are so sneaky. They won’t be upfront about who they are. That is a sign of being ashamed. They put some rather vile stuff on the cars where I live. They know we are all Catholic. Of course that backfires and makes us dislike the sda church all the more.
 
The Seventh Day Adventists name their publishing companies so that they are unrecognizable. That is part of their ploy. I personally would not read the propaganda distributed by the Adventists. Of course they don’t say anything anti-Catholic; they want to plant a seed before they undertake growing a jungle of deception.

And for those who may be interested, they also publish in the US under the names of:

**Christian Record Services International, Inc., Review and Herald Publishing Association
in addition to Pacific Press Publishing Association.

**
 
They are at it again!
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I posted this recently too!

They vist me via my email. I do not want their uncharitable offensive inaccurate intrusions. I have politely and bluntly asked them to stop emailing me. But they just do not seem able to understand.

If I continued to send offensive material to someones private email address, I would expect some sort of policing. But it seems they can just continue with immunity.

Their latest is the usual garbage 'how the roman catholic church changed sabbath worship to sundays at some obscure synod in around 350 AD, how roman catholics brutally tortured and killed millions of bible believers in 400 AD and how they are preparing to rise up and kill all bible believers again.

What I really find offensive is how we are alleged to be storing guns and ammo ready for the day when the pope calls us to rise up and kill! ‘That is the talk of idiots’ you say, but they are pumping out that garbage. That surely is slander. They ended their text by saying that all adventists are living in mortal fear of their lives for the terrible retribution from roman catholics but they are prepared to put their lives on the line to tell the world the evils we are preparing to employ against bible believers.

In English law, that sort of thing is actually illegal as it is called 'inciting religious hatred, punishable by imprisonment. I guess it is not an offence in USA and elsewhere
 
Most Adventist junk that ends up at my house is rather blatant.

This one interested me as it was much more indirect.

I do read the stuff, as a former SDA I like to keep up with whats going on, and I truthfully tell my mother (who is SDA) yes mom, I read it.
I don’t bother telling her I usually take the book and post a rebuttal of it somewhere on line! 😃

This is a smallish town and the tiny SDA congregation knows that i’m her daughter and also that i’m Catholic, so I get a lot of stuff. I figure if they are going to insist on leaving it, I will put it to good use. 😛
 
Last year I came accross a video being distributed to SDA church members called “Maybe on Sunday”. It was also very subtle at first. It was a “docudrama” about the Sabbath issue, complete with all of the historical issues intact. I never did hear anything more about it.
There are differences in liturature that is distributed. Some is approved by the SDA church and some is not. I don’t think that this video was an something that came out of mainstream Adventistism.
Being raised in the SDA church, I know that there are fringe groups out there spouting nonsense to anyone who will listen. They talk about the Jesuit conspiracy and the Sunday Law enforcement, but I don’t see this much in their official liturature and don’t hear it from my family, (most of my mom’s side of the family are still SDA) but they don’t really talk to me about that stuff. Hmm… maybe they think I’m a spy. (😉 😉 I just know that not all SDA’s are so extream in their beliefs in the “catholics are going to come and hunt them down” rhetoric.

That aside, they are very successful in reaching those who are unchurched and/or uneducated in their faith.

Jules
 
Thanks for keeping us updated on the latest SDA literature. It is also good to know the names of the publishing companies they publish under.

I look forward to reading your other posts on this book. I think it is good you are reading it, because that is the only way you can refute it!!

Sincerely,

Maria1212
 
6YRSHOME said:
Last year I came accross a video being distributed to SDA church members called “Maybe on Sunday”. It was also very subtle at first. It was a “docudrama” about the Sabbath issue, complete with all of the historical issues intact. I never did hear anything more about it.
There are differences in liturature that is distributed. Some is approved by the SDA church and some is not. I don’t think that this video was an something that came out of mainstream Adventistism.
Being raised in the SDA church, I know that there are fringe groups out there spouting nonsense to anyone who will listen. They talk about the Jesuit conspiracy and the Sunday Law enforcement, but I don’t see this much in their official liturature and don’t hear it from my family, (most of my mom’s side of the family are still SDA) but they don’t really talk to me about that stuff. Hmm… maybe they think I’m a spy. (😉 😉 I just know that not all SDA’s are so extream in their beliefs in the “catholics are going to come and hunt them down” rhetoric.

That aside, they are very successful in reaching those who are unchurched and/or uneducated in their faith.

Jules
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Its true that not all SDAs are so extreme as to say that we have a gun closet full of weapons and are just waiting for the word to come from the Vatican… (seriously, though there are some who do say this, my cousins were convinced of it when we were kids).

As far as the Sunday Law enforcement, that is mainstream SDA belief, even if there are many progressive SDAs these days who do not push the doctrine. It is found in the book “The Great Controversy”, along with many other anti Catholic themes and twisted versions of history.

MarysRoses
 
Sixtus said:
I posted this recently too!

They vist me via my email. I do not want their uncharitable offensive inaccurate intrusions. I have politely and bluntly asked them to stop emailing me. But they just do not seem able to understand.

If I continued to send offensive material to someones private email address, I would expect some sort of policing. But it seems they can just continue with immunity.
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Have you tried blocking their email address with your spam filter?
 
MarysRoses said:
Its true that not all SDAs are so extreme as to say that we have a gun closet full of weapons and are just waiting for the word to come from the Vatican… (seriously, though there are some who do say this, my cousins were convinced of it when we were kids).

As far as the Sunday Law enforcement, that is mainstream SDA belief, even if there are many progressive SDAs these days who do not push the doctrine. It is found in the book “The Great Controversy”, along with many other anti Catholic themes and twisted versions of history.

MarysRoses
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Thats true. I think they are better now at keeping it more low key. They know it’s going to happen, but it’s not as much a hot button issues as say the Sabbath, and eating restrictions. But they do push it at the seminars once you get to a certain point in there message.

I think it’s the fringe goups who really try to stir things up, keep people agitated. " Oh my, Hobby Lobby is closed on Sundays. See its starting." or " Look, the Pope is talking with the Methodists, this is the beginning"

I just shake my head, say a prayer.
 
Mark Finley is also the host of the Adventist tv series: It Is Written, which usually airs on Sundays. Would you beleive he grew up Catholic?

apruett
 
I have a friend whose husband recently became SDA…I suppose I will be:rolleyes: on their mailing list…
I just don’t understand why they have to attack, attack, attack…It would put me off right from the start, to hear all the criticism of other people, even if I didn’t know how many things I disagree with them about…
 
The first time I ever encountered SD was shen the elders of a local church approached the catholic group with a view to getting their church redecorated.

They seemed ok. We worked hard to get it done as volunteers. I was invited to look around and read anything I wanted. I was very surprised to learn years later their vehemence towards catholicism. But it does show they are prepared to deal with us when they think there is something in it for them.

That surely is hypocritical.🙂
 
It seems like the whole SDA belief system is based on targeting the Catholic Church. I know there are many sincere members who think they have our best interests at heart. Some have been misled, and some mislead for their own personal gain. But I think we as a community, need to do more to reach out to them, to show where they are wrong. There are some great Catholic apologetic materials for LDS/Mormonism, Jehovahs Witnesses, etc. But I hope we can develop some materials aimed at proving Adventists claims wrong, or at least correctly stating the Catholic position. The purpose would be to not only educate Adventists, but to keep Catholics weak in their understanding of their faith, from being fooled.

I know of some materials and books that already do this, but some of them could use a lot of improvement. Fortunately, some of the former Adventists on CAF have made huge contributions on their websites and blogs (SDA2RC and Adventistnomore in particular). I think their websites would make the great basis for a book. MarysRoses, you have made some great posts on this site, but unfortunately, many were lost in the computer server crash over the summer. They would make the great basis for some articles and I hope you can get them published one day. (Maybe The Rock magazine could do a article/series on Adventism).

Does anyone else feel like we need to do more to counter the damage Adventists are doing?

What makes me so angry about some Adventists, is the way they knowingly promote lies. Even for those sincere Adventists, there is no excuse for mispresenting themselves, by trying to conceal their affiliation (eg. hiding their affilation by publishing books under a different name).

I pray for our Adventist friends but know I need to be doing more. I am just not sure how…

Does anyone else feel this way?

Sincerely,

Maria1212
 
First time I ever encountered SDA is via an email containing information about the Pope and his titles and the Mark of the Beast…
 
I have only encountered SDAs in our local health food store. I am vegetarian, and since SDAs are vegan, they opened a store. I guess the owners don’t proselytize because of loss of business?
 
PatienceAndLove said:
I have only encountered SDAs in our local health food store. I am vegetarian, and since SDAs are vegan, they opened a store. I guess the owners don’t proselytize because of loss of business?
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Yep, that would cause me to shop elsewhere too!:eek:
 
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