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Chris
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Username: Chris

Post Number: 589
Registered: 7-2003
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 11:16 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

By the way, as I was skimming back over this thread, I noticed that my use of the personal pronoun "you" in post #585 (1/22 above) could easily be misconstrued as directed at an individual. I feel badly about this because, if taken as if it is addressed to an individual, it is a very strong (even abrasive) statement.

I intended the statement to be applicable to anyone and for "you" to be interpeted in a non-specific general sense.

My apologies for my poor use of pronouns, my overly strong statement, and any offense they may have caused.

Sincerely,
Chris
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1297
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 3:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Chris, I can only wish, as I look back over years of teaching and editing manuscripts, that everyone who "misused" pronouns did it as well as you! I didn't even notice the problem you mention! (And believe me, I've read some that just made me wish I could hold the paper to an open flame!)

Colleen
Loneviking
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Username: Loneviking

Post Number: 309
Registered: 7-2000
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 5:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Cognitive Dissonance--I found a great article on this at the 'Skeptic's Dictionary'...C.D. is:
...'Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit together; that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, considering only the particular two items, one does not follow from the other'. The article argues that there are three responses to this dissonance:

1. One may try to change one or more beliefs, opinions, or behaviors involved in the dissonance;

2. One may try to acquire new information or beliefs that will increase the existing consonance and thus cause the total dissonance to be reduced; or

3. One may try to forget or reduce the importance of those cognitions that are in a dissonant relationship.

How true!
Pw
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Username: Pw

Post Number: 280
Registered: 6-2004
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 8:15 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It shouldn't surprise us about the ever changing regulations and teachings of the SDA's. On another forum, one devout said that the IJ teaching is no longer a topic that is taught at his church. Of course another poster contended that her sabbath teacher had a new theory on the IJ and now it's being taught at her church. Talk about inconsistency.
Bb
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Username: Bb

Post Number: 63
Registered: 7-2004
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 7:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Did anyone read the latest Review? There was an article by a man who said his biggest problem with the church was the inconsistency. He talked about going to movies and how he hadn't seen the Passion, blah, blah, and then how a guy got expelled from an SDA college after going to see The Fiddler on the Roof. Then how different cultures think it is fine to go to the movies. They are so mixed up!

By the way, reading the Review is so different now after leaving. I read into what they are saying where before I believed everything they said. Like how this guy said there was nothing like watching the face of a "Non-Adventist" get baptized into the truth. It is ridiculous. Lives are changed by accepting Jesus in many other churches, and I'm sure their faces are just as radiant! Then later they don't have to deal with all of the EGW stuff to put a heavy burden back on their shoulders.
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1305
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 8:49 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I haven't read it yet, Bb, but I know how you feel. It really produces a heavy feeling, doesn't it?

Colleen
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 1397
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 10:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I have not seen the latest Review. However, the Janurary 2005 issue of the Signs of the Times had several doozie stories. One was a two page story on the state of the dead. The last paragraph has the SDA lady deciding that the idea of staying sleeping in the grave until Jesus comes is very comforting to her because she'll finily get to catch up on the rest he needs. Then on the page folowing the story I just mentioned is a Q. and A. page. Someone wrote in and asked how does the SDA church explain that passage in Collossions that says not to judge another by the Sabbaths they keep or the new mons, the festivals, etc. I still want to get a copy of that article and keep it in my purse as ammunition for dealing with the SDA's I have a lot of contact with because the answer given in that article says that SDA's understand that passage the same as all other Christians and whatever day someone chooses to make as his worship time is fine. But, SDA's just understand that for them they are called to have their church worship on the Sabbath. So after I get my own copy of that article I will have it in writing in one of their own publications that the SDA church makes no judgement about when Christians are to have their worship.
Pw
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Username: Pw

Post Number: 281
Registered: 6-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 7:05 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Susan, that quote about the lady saying she can catch up on her rest in the grave is hilarious. I guess that's where the term "dead tired" comes from.

The sabbath is the main focus of the SDA's. Everything else seems to fall by the wayside as far as importance.
Pheeki
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Username: Pheeki

Post Number: 470
Registered: 1-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 10:30 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Nothing like watching the face of a non-Adventist get baptized into the "truth".

I think I may be ill.
Pw
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Username: Pw

Post Number: 282
Registered: 6-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 12:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I remember my experience getting baptized at the SDA church. Coming in off the heels of the Revelation Seminar, I thought I knew what I was doing. Anyway, I was put in a room by myself and paced around for what seemed like hours before I actually went out in front of the congregation in the baptismal tank. Man, I was so freaked out, all these people staring at me didn't make it any easier. Plus the water was quite cold (even by Florida's standards). I don't know, the whole experience was not at all like the second time I got baptized in another church (wanted to make sure it was accurate) when I left the SDA church.
Tracey
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Username: Tracey

Post Number: 156
Registered: 9-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 1:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was just reading the church manual...

Under baptism (seciton 32) it says ..."It should be understood whether they are simply taking the name of Seventh-day Adventists, or whether they are taking their stand on the Lord's side, to come out from the world and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing. " Testimonies vol. 6 pp. 95,96. ( I copied and pasted)

Comment: We don't need to take on anything but the name of the Lord. And #2. It says "take on the name of SDA OR a stand on the Lord's side"..

Isn't this telling on themselves? clearly they aren't on the Lord's side by their own admission (using or) and Surely the two should not require an either/or decision and
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 1398
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 3:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Given that choice I would hope everyone takes the stand for being on the Lord'ds side. Pw, I did the same as you. It was a big challange for me to convince the Lutheran pasor to baptise me as the Lutheran church has a belief in one baptism. Until I got the pastor in is office to inform him of all the non-Bibical and non-Chistian teachings of the SDA church and of its cultic aspects he honestly thought of the SDA denomination as another mainstream Chistian denomination with just a few different understandings than mainstream Christianity.
Jeremy
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Username: Jeremy

Post Number: 293
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 3:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Tracey,

Actually since it has the word "simply" I think she just meant SDA or SDA + God. She was saying it should be SDA + God. Which is still terrible.

Jeremy
Ric_b
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Username: Ric_b

Post Number: 194
Registered: 7-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 3:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

At our house the review usually goes directly to the trash with all of the other junk mail. On those few occassions when something catches our eye and we read it, we generally wish we hadn't. And once again we ask, how could we have been fooled so much, for so long.
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 1311
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 3:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

YEs, Ric--I know the feeling. It's embarrassing even to myself, sometimes, to realize how duped I was and how strongly I defended my beliefs.

It's that veil 2 Corinthians 3 talks about.

Colleen
Packer_eric
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Username: Packer_eric

Post Number: 9
Registered: 3-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 8:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Tracey,

I wanted to respond to your post "briefly." My wife of 14 years (we got married in 1991) was not a church-goer/Christian-minded woman when we married (BAD sign #1 for any rigid SDA individual). At any rate, after a few years of marriage (and her attending church service with me) she asked to go through "a study" to become baptized. THE ENTIRE TIME SHE WENT THROUGH THE PROCESS, SHE INFORMED OUR DEACON FRIEND THAT SHE DID NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH EGW AND JSUT WANTED TO BE BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST - BLESS HER HEART.

The SDA Senior Pastor "turned things over" to an Associate Pastor (26 or so) and he just could not allow my wife to be baptized. The GC or something "forbids" "general" baptizing of intending and seeking Christians...it was either all the way or no way.

Well, I became furious over several months, asked to meet with the Sr. Pastor to voice my concern...it surely wasn't in Scripture that said my wife could not be baptized (into Christ) but the SDA church at the time had a problem with that. To make this very painful story short, the Sr. Pastor went against the GC's better wishes (thank goodness) and baptized my wife in October of 1994 "into Christ." She felt great about what she had done in front of the congregation...for the next six years in that church all those around just "assumed" she was now an SDA-Christian. Funny, I remember telling many of our closer friends that she was definitely not "entering the church books" and they were more or less cool with that...but the GC must have had fits with this.

This is not Christianity - this is mind control, down-right-rude and not what Christ is all about. It is not about the name on a church registry, it is not about what church you tell people you "go to," heck, it isn't even about going to church. It is about John 3:16 and about Revelation the very last verse...AMEN. We are drawn to Christianity for what it can offer our souls and we want to do good and be good and service HIM and others in any way shape or form...this can be done without belonging to the SDA church, the LDS church, the Lutheran church, the Baptist church, the hee-bee-jee-bee church. ALL OF THAT may be fulfilled in due time - maybe soon maybe later, but Christ wants us all on HIS side to win others to Him...selfish, not reallly...better than the alternative - most surely.

Eric

P.S. - Could those of you that enjoy checking out other sites, please continue to check out RemnantofGod.org and give me your thoughts. The family that I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread are excited about it and have invited me to "come on in" to check it out. GREAT people but I am a bit leary still.
Melissa
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Username: Melissa

Post Number: 695
Registered: 7-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 6:41 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Eric, any group, I don't care who they are, who claims they have something that other "Christians" don't and that they somehow are God special people (whatever term they use) go in direct contradiction to Christ's last great prayer that we all be one. Such groups, even if they don't pervert the gospel, clearly are about division...and that is not the work of Christ. So, the very name of that website tells me "NO WAY". All Christ-followers who are alive and remain at the coming of Christ are the remnant of God. Today, there are many of God's people on the face of the earth. One of the most fascinating things to read in the thread about transitioning out is the variety of denominations/non-denominations that people worship in. Worship is personal. I can't help but believe God is honored by all sincere worship, regardless of how it looks or when or where it takes place. I can worship in my car driving to work and honor God doing so. So, for me, to look at a group that thinks "they're it" is a huge red flag that really says RUN! Your friends may be well intentioned, but I am personally leary of any group that considers itself "the remnant" to the exclusion of those outside its ranks. I wouldn't need to look any further.
Pw
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Username: Pw

Post Number: 283
Registered: 6-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 6:42 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Did anyone who was baptized into the SDA have to sign a certificate of some kind? I seem to recall it had a list of regulations and statement of beliefs on it. Must of been about 18 or 20 of them listed and one was to acknowledge that EGW was a true prophet. Sends shivers down my spine knowing I actually signed it, but I threw it away long, long ago.
Chris
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Username: Chris

Post Number: 599
Registered: 7-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 7:37 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Eric, In regards to remnantofgod:

-they claim to be the one true remnant curch

-they functionally elevate the writings of a 19th century false prophetess to the status of a second cannon

-they forbid the observance of Christmas

-they forbid eating certain foods

-they see themselves as being at the center of a strange endtime scenario

-they rail against Christians believers

-they teach perfectionism

-they deny the biblical teaching of the Trinity!!!

-Let me say that again, THEY DENY THE TRINITY!!!

Eric, seriously, what more information could you possibly want? This isn't a Christian organization. This is a full blown cult.

Chris


Pw
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Username: Pw

Post Number: 284
Registered: 6-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 8:42 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I also looked at that website. I strongly recommend you avoid them at all costs. This is the SDA movement taken even one step further into the extreme.

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