| Author | Message | ||
| Tealeaves Registered user Username: Tealeaves Post Number: 222 Registered: 5-2004 |
I have heard our local Christian radio station advertise the Seventh Day Adventist Schools as a good educational option lately. Should i bother to express my concerns about the SDA school system and what they teach? So many people just don't know what the SDAs believe and teach. ( For example, i know a local non-denominational pastor that sends his kids there. I guess he didn't bother to check out the beliefs thouroughly before he chose the school for his kids.) What do you all think? Should I email the radio station and let them know what I know and how I feel, or just let it be? | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1165 Registered: 3-2004  |
That is one that takes a lot of prayer. I, also, would want to email the radio station and let them know what the SDAs really believe. I will pray for you as you decide what to do. Advertising is usually paid for, so they may be getting money for it. I don't know. Let us pray about it. Diana | ||
| Dennisrainwater Registered user Username: Dennisrainwater Post Number: 111 Registered: 8-2000 |
I think it is important to 'get the word out', but don't be disappointed if they do not take your input seriously... That has occasionally been my experience. The results are God's business... Yet I still feel that shining a light on truth and accuracy are mine, when the opportunity is presented... As Diana said, pray for guidance. I'm praying with you! Grieved by deception, Den <>< | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1549 Registered: 12-2003  |
I echo Diana and Den above. I think it's important to speak the truth--pray for guidance and wisdom. I'm praying with you, also! Colleen | ||
| Pw Registered user Username: Pw Post Number: 336 Registered: 6-2004 |
I'd make the station aware of what they are endorsing. Too many Christian denominations view the SDA's as a slightly different church. If they really knew more about their beliefs and teachings I'm sure they would not recommend it anymore. | ||
| Tealeaves Registered user Username: Tealeaves Post Number: 223 Registered: 5-2004 |
I emailed the radio station, and recieved a reply. The reply thanked me for taking the time to make my concerns known, but said that they are a for-profit agency, and though they play Christian music, they exist to make money, not to purport any specific beliefs. So they just try to make the best moral choices in programming as well as advertising. Since the SDA schools are a paying client, and not generally opposed by the station listeners..... etc.... I think it would take a whole lot more letters like mine to make any difference, and I don't think enough people know enough about Adventism to be concerned enough to write in. But at least I made my concerns known. -tanya- | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 243 Registered: 9-2004 |
That's right Tanya. You did your part. Traecy | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1665 Registered: 11-2002 |
The local SDA school here places ads in the local newspapers and on the radio stations too as a Christian school alternative. I think they stress the teacher/student ratio and that they offer bus service. Very few of the children up at the SDA daycare center which is for 3year olds to kindergarten age come from SDA families. Most are children from that neighborhood whose families want a daycare enter close to their homes. BTW, EGW said children should not be sent to formal schooling until age 8. Yet, in the SDA fundamentals and the SDA baptism vowsa it says EGW is to be taken as a continuing source of inspired truth. What about the age 8 counsil for school? That one, I guess, gets disregarded. Actually though, that is probably one of the few things I tend to think she was right about. Most kids would much rather be home playing and having a good time than having to go to school. | ||
| Pw Registered user Username: Pw Post Number: 339 Registered: 6-2004 |
I'm sure the SDA has some lame excuse for that idea about children going to school at a certain age. Most likley they will attribute it to that time era. Like that really has anything to do with it. Amazing what gets smoothed over and what remains rigid as far as her recommendations. | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 244 Registered: 9-2004 |
question: Did EGW teach kids should or should not ride their bikes on Saturdays? Tracey | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 430 Registered: 10-2004  |
LOL! Tracey, I just had to laugh, because EGW actually said that it was a sin to even have a bike!  So I don't think she had any "Sabbath counsel" about bikes. Jeremy (Message edited by jeremy on March 11, 2005) | ||
| Jerry Registered user Username: Jerry Post Number: 442 Registered: 6-2002 |
When I saw this quote from the radio station e-mail:
it made me sad that they probably won't understand that the SDA church is so opposed to their listener's beliefs, in spite of the PR they show to the outside world. | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1667 Registered: 11-2002 |
My dad if was still alive would be 95. He was raised SDA. He told me EGW said it was wrong to even own a bike but his family thought EGW was stupid about that because bikes were a good form of transportation so they had bikes anyway. If I mention the bike restriction to SDA's I am told EGW just used bikes as an example to tell people to not get caught up in the fads. However, at that time there was a fad going on called pheronology, which is where the practiotioner feels the lumps and bumps and the shape of the head and can tell the person all about himself. EGW had this done to one of her sons. My grandmother had heard that EGW said this was very good so when my daddy was only seven he got real sick. Instead of taking my dad, who was just a little boy then to a real doctor my grandmother took my dad to the pheronologist. The pheronologist told my grandmother what to do to make my dad well. They went home and my dad had to do what the pheronologist told his mother to do to make him well but he just got more sick. So my grandmother took her little boy to a real doctor and got some real medicine (Oh, Colporter will not like the end of this story!) and gave it to my dad and my dad got well. I never understood how come they stayed SDA because even back then in the early 1900's they disagreed with so much of what EGW and the SDA church promoted and taught. Yet, they stayed SDA. The best I can come up with is that they were in a new country and they wanted a totally new religion that was native to their new country. When they left their old country behind they wanted to leave everything associated with their old country behind. | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 432 Registered: 10-2004 |
Actually, EGW condemned phrenology most of the time, I think. But she did take her family and herself to a phrenologist once, and seemed to approve of it when writing about that one incident I think. Jeremy | ||
| Tisha Registered user Username: Tisha Post Number: 3 Registered: 3-2005 |
I had read in non-SDA publications that a child should not start school at an early age. I kept my son out of school until he was seven. He then started in 2nd grade in the small New Hampshire school he attended. They didn't start "hardcore" academics until about third grade. They have a very respected education program, with many students going on to prestigious colleges. When we moved to Washington State my daughter was 5 years old. I started her in first grade at the SDA school when she was 6 1/2, after much persuasion by the SDA church members. The teacher told me (during the first month of school!)that she would flunk her because I had not sent her to kindergarden! She was expected to be able to print all her letters and read before she even started school! I thought then about what EGW had said and wondered why our non-SDA school in NH had a better understanding of childhood education than the SDA school with all of EGW's "guidance"!! Just another question that added up eventually to leaving the SDA Church. I took my daughter out and put her in the public school. She did just fine! On another thread I will tell about my experience with the SDA School and their "excellent" test scores! | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 263 Registered: 9-2004 |
oh Jeremy! <sigh> Didn't know that! lol! | ||
| Lisa_boyldavis Registered user Username: Lisa_boyldavis Post Number: 9 Registered: 3-2005 |
About communicating to the radio station, I have also run into some real misunderstandings in the Mainstream Christian World about Adventists. I called the Bible Answer Man (Hank Hanagraff) and tried to talk to him about the fact that Adventists are not within the pale of Orthodoxy, but what's happened apparently is that at one time MC (Mainstream Christians) wrote a book pointing to Adventists as Cultic.... some politically correct SDA professors got together the authors and talked them out of this stance but telling them all the 1/2 truth's we've been told all our lives. So Hank and other MC stand by the 2nd opinion, that SDA's are not cultic because some SDA's do not believe EGW was a prophet, that SDA's are not the remnant, etc... But this has been my challenge. Yes, there are SDA pastors preaching the truth about God, but in every church there are Adult Sabbath School Quarterlies, and within each are teachings that are lies. So no matter how much Grace might be taught, it will eventually be undermined by the GC who has control, and the hardliners who spend their Sabbath mornings ruining any possible chance to hear God's heart about a matter. I think FA's have a LOT of educating to do, starting with our MC pastors. Mine has been great. So EDUCATE, SPREAD THE WORD! Lisa | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1608 Registered: 12-2003 |
You're right, Lisa. We have an obligation (I believe!) to educate our pastors. The book in question was Questions on Doctrine which the SDA church published in answer to cult-watcher Walter Martin in the 50's when he investigated Adventism. The book rephrased Adventist beliefs using words the evangelical community would understand one way, but the SDA church could still be convinced meant what they always believed. In other words, the Adventists deceived Walter Martin. It's true that the men involved actually thought the church needed a more evangelical theology, and they hoped that publishing said book would help to bring the church around to a more mainstream stance. The church in general, though, was not about to change. The men who wrote the book gradually retired and died, the book fell out of print (but not before it stirred up conflict within the church that still exists over what true Adventist doctrines really are), Walter Martin called the church heterodox but not a cult, and the church didn't change a thing. Martin began re-investigating the church before his death, but he had a heart attack before his new research was complete. Hank Hanagraaf has had manhy formers talk to him, give him current printed material, and even featured Mark Martin on his show in the mid-90s. Apparently he back-pedalled, though--he no longer speaks against Adventism as he actually was beginning to do in the mid-90s. Colleen | ||
| Seekr777 Registered user Username: Seekr777 Post Number: 85 Registered: 1-2003  |
Colleen, I think I still have a copy of "Questions on Doctrine" sitting around somewhere. I haven't looked at it for 35 years. Richard | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1613 Registered: 12-2003 |
Wow, Richard--you have a collector's item!! Colleen | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1214 Registered: 3-2004 |
I had a copy of "Questions on Doctrines" and threw it away with all my EGW books and SDA stuff. My mother had owned it. If I had only known!! Diana | ||
| Bob Registered user Username: Bob Post Number: 129 Registered: 7-2000  |
I have a copy of the book too, Richard. I guess that means you and I are antiques! Bob | ||
| Seekr777 Registered user Username: Seekr777 Post Number: 86 Registered: 1-2003 |
Speaking of "antiques" I think in a box somewhere I have a book signed by J. N. Andrews. If memory serves me correctly he was one of the first SDA missionaries. Richard | ||
| Bob Registered user Username: Bob Post Number: 130 Registered: 7-2000 |
Andrews University is named after him also. | ||
| Tealeaves Registered user Username: Tealeaves Post Number: 225 Registered: 5-2004 |
Just a personal note about the age children should be when they go to school.... I think it is so individual. My oldest son is almost four, and he is extremely cautious, and tends to hang back in groups and just watch and listen. I wasn't even considering putting him in preschool, but he was fascinated with the idea of school and school buses. So we put him in a Christian preschool and he loves it. It has been so good for him. He often doesn't say much, and needs to be prompted to participate, but he LOVES it, talks about it constantly, and has made some good friends, social contacts. I think it is the perfect place for him to be, just 2 and a half hours a day two days per week. So I think we ought to evaluate what is best for our child, and not be constrained by "shoulds". -tanya- |
