| Author | Message | ||
| Mwh Registered user Username: Mwh Post Number: 161 Registered: 4-2006  |
Hello everybody! I was wondering about how SDA are looked upon in the different countries around the world. Like in Spain its a member of FEREDE, http://ferede.org/, a organisation of free evangelical churches. But generally people in Alicante / Spain look upon SDA as a sect. In Denmark people tend to look upon SDA as just another protestant denomination. Also I think that the Lutheran World Federation has changed its view of SDA as a sect to just another christian denomination. http://www.adventtikirkko.great.fi/opetus/advluth.html In Christ! | ||
| Melissa Registered user Username: Melissa Post Number: 1474 Registered: 7-2003 |
I think it depends upon where you go, who you ask and what their exposure to adventism is. Even formers can't agree on how to label them. I've heard cult, sect, denomination. No consistency. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 4562 Registered: 12-2003  |
The reason for the confusion is the fact that since the 50's, three different "kinds" of Adventism have flourished. Chris Badenhorst outlines this phenomenon in an article which will appear in the next Proclamation. The historic Adventists have always been with us. Since the 50's we have the "evangelical Adventists" which developed as a result of some evangelical-leaning church leaders who wrote Questions on Doctrine to satisfy the eveangleical scholars Barnhouse and Walter Martin. Also around the 50's, Adventists began occasionally attending non-SDA schools and even seminaries, and they brought into the church their exposure to liberal theology and textual criticism. They favor a "pluralistic" approach which says, "the Adventist umbrella is big enough for All of us, regardless of what "brand" of Adventist we are." In reality, there is only ONE Adventist church, and only ONE set of Adventist doctrines. Everyone baptized Adventist has to agree to the same baptisimal vows, and Adventism still is built around the core of Ellen White and the 1844/sanctuary/IJ confusion. People are sometimes exposed more to one "flavor" of Adventism than anotherķand besides, the church is REALLY good at presenting a public relations "face" that sounds like what people want to hear. If they want the evangelicals to accept them, they hide the true doctrines and speak in carefully chosen words to sound mainstream. In their evangelistic crusades, though, after the intial deception, they do teach true Adventist doctrine. True Adventism is not hibernating; it is alive and well. It all depends upon who's talking, and to whom. They'll hide if it's helpful for their image. Colleen | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 2342 Registered: 11-2002 |
Colleen, what you say about there being only one real SDA church is just how I understand it. The baptizmal vows and the 28 fundamentals are the same no matter what region of the world someone is in. It's too bad though that a lot of the worlds SDA's aren't even aware of the teachings of the church that they belong to. I bring up the cornball and loony requirements in the baptizimal vows and the fundamentals that are soo whacky and the SDA's I bring them up to just think I'm the far out one and will say things like, "Oh, yeah, I know the church teaches EGW is inspired but I don't have to go along with that to be SDA. The church also teaches the Bible only and I only read my Bible and besides even if they do follow EGW she never contradicts the bible." Then they will say, "Oh, yeah, I know the church teaches to be vegetarian and the Bible says we can eat the clean meats but the Bible was written before mad cow disease or bird flue so EGW is once again right." They absoutelly refuse to acknowledge that the Bible is more right than church doctrine. And, MWH, I understand there are a lot of regional differences within Adventism, cultural differences. I have never been to Italy so I can't say this from observance but I've been told the SDA's in Italy drink a lot of wine. That's o.k. by me but fundamental ? and baptisimal vow ? says it's wrong to use alcohol. If I were to try to make sense of Adventism I'd get dizzy. | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 317 Registered: 10-2002  |
Adventism in Japan... it's actually not too different in statistics from other Christian churches. The Christian church in Japan has had a lot of difficulty sharing the Gospel here. This is most likely due to the thick Western shell that Christianity is packaged inside of here. In China, when the missionaries were expelled in 1950, they worried about what would happen to the new believers. Years later, we now know the Christian church is flourishing inside of China. It seems that the expulsion of foreign missionaries was the catalyst that set it going. Missionaries preached more to the head... doctrine, knowledge. But the Chinese have always historically been more *spiritual*. With the "parents" gone, the Gospel connected to the spiritual part of them and grew stronger roots. It touched that part of them that God had made for Himself. It might not have been touched had the "parents" kept things focused on Western-style knowledge-preaching. I think a similar "connection" is necessary for Japan, but a bit different. Most missionaries come ready to convert the heathen instead of looking for how God has already been speaking to them, and looking for that part of the Japanese soul which God has "set eternity in". SDA here is the same in its Western approach, but the difference is that there's a lot less dialogue with other churches. SDA tends to be conservative, but social (among its own church). When SDA missionaries come here like I did, they have the illusion that "the work" is only fifty years old, and feel that things are still being started from scratch. Oh, the membership lists for the major SDA churches look a bit unnaturally swollen. Most Japanese don't know about Adventism. The most recognizable feature is the letters "SDA"; apparently some years ago they got some positive exposure about health or something like that. They have "San-iku" foods, a few hospitals, an academy, a college, and a few junior high schools, I think. But Japanese people are very wary of "cults". Actually, this wariness extends even into regular Christianity... kind of a wariness of belief in general. The local traditional Shinto & Buddhist things, however, don't make them so wary, of course. A big reason for this is that most Japanese people are not religious---or rather, they are merely religious. You go to the temple a couple times a year, buy some charm once a year, go when you have a test you need to pass or when you're opening a shop, etc. It's basically low-heart-involvement religion. When people "get into" religion more, that tends to become scary in most Japanese eyes. |
