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Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 423
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 10:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I never cease to be amazed - "God holds them accountable for the expenditure of vital energy." How come Adventist pastors never talk about this in their sermons? Perhaps low levels of vital energy are why so many fall asleep during the church service! It's also important not to clap. No drums either. That might wake them up.

"Very few feel it to be a religious duty to govern their passions. They have united themselves in marriage to the object of their choice, and therefore reason that marriage sanctifies the indulgence of the baser passions. Even men and women professing godliness give loose rein to their lustful passions, and have no thought that God holds them accountable for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens their hold on life and enervates the entire system." Testimonies, Volume 4, p. 472

I am so thankful that God has delivered me from this garbage!

Gilbert Jorgensen
Jonvil
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Username: Jonvil

Post Number: 96
Registered: 4-2007
Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 5:12 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This smacks of prurient gossip. How on earth would she even know what is going on in someone else’s bedroom? This criticism reveals her desire to control members conduct, even in the marriage bed. Could this criticism also be attributed to James sexual proclivities and her distaste of an 'intimate' relationship with her own husband, although how she could arouse 'lustful passions' in James is beyond me?

JONVIL
Jorgfe
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Post Number: 424
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 7:38 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I know Seventh-day Adventists, in teaching positions, who promote the thinking that anything even remotely bordering on sex should only occur when they are actively attempting to produce children. They base their "support" on the statements of Ellen White. "This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and was manifested in the ministry of Ellen. G. White . As the Lord's messenger, her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction."

Here is some more "insghtful counsel" that she offered. Of course, how could the "little flock" refuse, when she said that every word came straight from the Lord?

quote:

It was not in accordance with our faith or God’s will that our missionaries should fill their hands with cares and burdens that were not essential to the work… I was shown that Brother and Sister V___ had departed from God’s counsel in bringing into the world children… The time is and has been for years, that the bringing into the world is more an occasion of grief than joy… Satan controls these children, and the Lord has but little to do with them… The time has come when, in one sense, they that have wives be as though they had none. (MS 34, 1885)




quote:

That testimony was read before gatherings of people, but it was evidently destroyed when it met with so much resistance, and the proof of its previous existence can be only had from those who heard it read or was an eye witness to the consternation it caused… Many tried to live up to her instructions. I sat in the Adventist church in Missoula, Montana, and heard the minister, Rollin D. Quinn, get up before the congregation and with tears streaming down his cheeks, confess that Satan had tempted him during the dark hours of the night and he had sinned but with God’s help he would stand firm from now on, only to repeat the scene the following Sabbath. One minister told my father that he did not dare trust himself home with his wife, so he had her meet him at the railroad station. (The Story of Ellen White’s Suppressed Testimony, Limboline, Glendale, California: Church of the Advent Fellowship), Jan 7, 1984, p 10,11)



Gilbert Jorgensen
Lucybugg
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Username: Lucybugg

Post Number: 45
Registered: 2-2007
Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 8:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I can remember when I was at SAU and taking the "Acts of the Apostles" class. The burning question on the students' minds was..is it ok to have sex on the Sabbath? I think the teacher said something about it being up to each individual as to whether or not it was ok.
Philharris
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Username: Philharris

Post Number: 127
Registered: 5-2007


Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 9:17 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The above quotes from EGW have really set me to thinking. It will take a bit of time to sort through my new thoughts on the subject of sex and the expenditure of our "vital force". So, for now, let me just tell the story of my grandparents.

My father's parents went to the St Helena Sanitarium (1909-1911) for their nurses training and were married there in 1911. Ellen provided them a wedding gift and it is my understanding that she personally sent them to the mission field in China, where my dad and his older brother were born. Grandmother was expecting her third child in 1913, so the mission board abruptly sent them home.

Grandfather's father was an SDA preacher and had fourteen children. Grandmother was one of twelve. Together, they had nine children of their own. As the record shows, there was a liberal expenditure of their respective "vital forces".

Apparently my grandparents new their Bible better than Ellen's teaching:

Psa. 127:3-5
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

At best, the application of Ellen's teaching contradicts this passage about having a "full quiver".

Phil
Jeremy
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Post Number: 1974
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Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 1:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just more of EGW "forbidding marriage," which is a doctrine of demons (1 Timothy 4).

EGW's "commands" on this subject are, once again, totally opposite of what God commands in His Word:


quote:

"The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
4The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
5Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." (1 Corinthians 7:3-5 NASB.)




Also, God's Word says:

"And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." (Genesis 9:1 NASB.)

Jeremy

(Message edited by Jeremy on July 23, 2007)
Colleentinker
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Post Number: 6367
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 1:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Funny, Phil!

I know that a great many Adventists have believed that even marital relations were sort-of an "allowable sin" and were not to be indulged in frequently and never on Sabbath. Some people tried to "live as the angels" and suppress their sexuality altogether.

It is no mystery to me that so much abuse and incest has hidden within the privacy of Adventist homes for generations. I have a personal theory that Ellen herself was likely a product of incest or some other early abuse, and her antipathy for the idea even of sex within marriage was the result of her deep brokenness. Her own power because of her visions gave her the opportunity to instill her own fear, resentment, and brokenness into millions of subsequent followers who, because they have tried so hard to be observant and obedient Adventists, have agonized over their "sin" instead of rejoicing in the love God gave them in and through their marriages. She caused something meant to mirror Jesus and His intimacy with us to become something sinful, defiling, destructive, and almost illicit.

It's unconscionable—and no wonder so many Adventists have deep problems with intimacy, fidelity, and—among women—respect for their husbands.


Colleen
Wolfgang
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Username: Wolfgang

Post Number: 169
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 2:33 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

my husband said that Dr. Kellogg did clitoris circumsion,I don't know if he was still a SDA at the time,I knew he was a sicko and it seems to me that the SDA folks would want to distant themselves from him as far as possible. I know of a man who denounced cheese on the pulpit,and today he is in a michigan prison for molesting his grandaughter.
Dawn
Dennis
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Post Number: 1178
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Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 8:15 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

SECRET VICE or SELF ABUSE (masturbation)


quote:

A Mr.__ professed to be a devoted follower of Christ. He was in very feeble health. Our feelings of sympathy were called out in his behalf. He could not hold his head steady. His eyes had a glassy appearance, his hands trembled, and when he walked, his knees shook; he staggered like a drunken man, and often seemed ready to fall. He was obliged to fix his eyes upon an object in the distance before him, and then make for that object. He would thus gain force enough to reach the place he desired...Such are just as surely self-murderers as though they pointed a pistol to their own breast, and destroyed their life instantly.

Because of sickness I was kept from society which preserved me in blissful ignorance of the secret vices of the young...The mother should pursue this matter until she has sufficient evidence that the practice is at an end...Many sink into an early grave, while others have sufficient force of constitution to pass this ordeal. If the practice is continued from the ages of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors. [Excerpts from Ellen G. White; AN APPEAL TO MOTHERS, 1864]




Interestingly, in Ellen White's cited case histories of persons who had practiced the "crime" of masturbation, none ever overcame their habit. According to her, without the verdict of the investigative judgment, they all went into "Christless graves."

Dennis Fischer

(Message edited by Dennis on July 24, 2007)
Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 431
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 10:57 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here are some useful links:

http://www.ellenwhite.org/excess.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html


Gilbert Jorgensen
Luzisbornagain
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Username: Luzisbornagain

Post Number: 64
Registered: 7-2007
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 11:03 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I guess adventism and sexual immorality goes hand in hand if many SDA's believe that sex within marriage is wrong. well I know a couple of adventists who are both registered sex offenders one molested his daughter and the other one had sex with a mentally retarded girl outside his marriage, but I don't know if they read ellen g. white's forbidding sex in marriage, though.
Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 434
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 1:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here is a good example:

http://83.228.115.77/dataup/SDA%20defence%20arhiv/SDA%20defence/Book%20the%20new%20order/thetruthabout_mv.htm

http://83.228.115.77/dataup/SDA%20defence%20arhiv/SDA%20defence/Book%20the%20new%20order/thetruthabout_mvbook2.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=%22Morris+Venden%22+Claudia&spell=1
Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 435
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 1:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Phil,

Evidently your grandmother was not subject to the concerns expressed by Ellen White (the continuing and authoritative source of truth!)in this quote:


quote:

Females possess less vital force than the other sex, and are deprived very much of the bracing, invigorating air, by their in-doors life. The results of self-abuse in them is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, affections of the spine, the head often decays inwardly. Cancerous humor, which would lay dormant in the system their life-time, is inflamed, and commences its eating, destructive work. The mind is often utterly ruined, and insanity takes place. An Appeal to Mothers, page 27, paragraph 1.



Is it any wonder that Adventist sexuality is so sick and twisted?

Gilbert Jorgensen
Asurprise
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Username: Asurprise

Post Number: 71
Registered: 7-2007
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 2:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If a person doesn't have a real relationship with Christ; if they aren't saved; how can they have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them? The apostle Paul said in Galatians 5:16 to "walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." So I'm not surprised at your comment, Colleen, about all the abuse and incest in the SDA church. I suspect that any church where the Holy Spirit is not present in it's members - probably ALL false religions, has a VERY high incidence of abuse.
I once read a heart-breaking story of an Adventist pastor who took his own life because of some sin he was unable to overcome. (It didn't say what sin, in the article.) That is SO sad and SO unnecessary! If people only knew the gospel - the right gospel! And the right Jesus too!
(Of course there may be some SDAs who have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, though I doubt it.) Ellen White teaches that the Sabbath is the seal of God, but Ephesians 1:13,14 says that the HOLY SPIRIT is the Seal and the guarantee of our inheritance!
Jonvil
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Username: Jonvil

Post Number: 99
Registered: 4-2007
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 2:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here is a good example:

http://83.228.115.77/dataup/SDA%20defence%20arhiv/SDA%20defence/Book%20the%20new%20order/thetruthabout_mv.htm

http://83.228.115.77/dataup/SDA%20defence%20arhiv/SDA%20defence/Book%20the%20new%20order/thetruthabout_mvbook2.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=%22Morris+Venden%22+Claudia&spell=1


Well, that was information I didn't need to see!!! I had always considered him the best of the bunch.

Bletch!!!

JONVIL
Reb
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Username: Reb

Post Number: 440
Registered: 5-2007
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 3:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm not going to judge him, that's for God to do. But the story is pretty sickening, isn't it?
Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 439
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 10:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jonvil, Yes. You did need to see it. We all need to see it. We need to rise up, and call sin by its right name! (Allow me to say this in love as a friend.)

The thing that is really sad is that, like a rape victim, who is Claudia's advocate? Who can she go to? It is Morris's word against her. The organization is going to do everything it can to protect itself, and cast doubt on both her character and story. They are going to "wear her down" until she finally gives up, and moves on. So who does she turn to? The laity doesn't want to hear it. It rudely jars them out of their Adventist fantasy land. Granted - it happened in the 80's, and the organization's tried and true tactics worked.

Living at the time in the New Jerusalem of retired denominational conference workers at Fletcher, North Carolina, I heard about it a year after it first happened. Claudia went public at that time after trying to get the conference officials to at least listen to her. Once again the organization won in the battle for public opinion. She lost. It will happen again. Over and over. Because no one wants to be bothered.

Former Adventists have been treated in a similar manner. It is always something wrong with them. Never with the organization. The only problem is that there are now getting to be far too many of us -- and we don't go away!

Meanwhile Morris Vendon has continued to generate lots of revenue for the denomination with his books. He continues to travel and speak. "No. He didn't do anything. What sick mind would dare to besmerch his character like that? It is all imaginary!" They are going to do everything they can to just move him around. I have seen this same thing happen over and over and over. In this case, I personally know a few of the people involved. I grew up next door to one of them at Andrews University, in fact.

How much evidence does Claudia have to present before someone actually will believe her? Does Morris, as a leading Seventh-day Adventist evangelist, have any accountability at all? Or do we just wish it would all go away because it makes us uncomfortable?

So who is Claudia's advocate? Who rises up in righteous indigation? Was she at fault? Like a rape victim, people just close their blinds and look the other way. Oh yes, "If you hadn't been out so late. If you hadn't been in the wrong place, etc." I'm sorry but that kind of logic makes me livid -- just like all the bald-faced lies and coverups that come out of the White Estate (like the supposed 2000 visions!, etc.) make me livid. There must start being some accountability -- or we are part of the cover-up!

Gilbert Jorgensen
Wolfgang
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Username: Wolfgang

Post Number: 170
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 11:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I can bet the average SDA would read this and and not really give it another thought,they would think this lady is lying and think isnt it just like the "devil" to destroy Vendon's ministry.I have posted and given my friends material and they never even look at it.They won't hold those in a powerful position accountable.
Dawn
Dawn
Jonvil
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Post Number: 102
Registered: 4-2007
Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 6:53 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

WE live in a country where the political scene is a fog of allegations where truth is buried under a cloud of charges and counter charges. It deliberately creates an atmosphere in which the citizen is unable to ascertain who’s right and who’s wrong.

The SDA Church is quite effectively using the same tactics. They are masters at throwing up a barrage of denials and counter charges while simultaneously subjecting the victim to character assassination. The members are so bewildered that they are unable to ascertain who’s right and who’s wrong and unable to take a position. Because there is no objective physical evidence (usually a result of being concealed) from which to reach a conclusion it becomes a subjective ‘he’s so nice he wouldn’t…’ – ‘she’s so nice she wouldn’t…’ Unfortunately the scales tip to ‘he’s a pastor and speaks and writes in such a Godly manner he wouldn’t…’ Furthermore, the male dominated hierarchy affords the man an innocent until…, while the woman is considered guilty until…

While this thread was about Venden’s sexual infidelities I believe this can also be applied to the rampant theological controversies as well.

If the churches administrators were truly Christian such a situation simply would not exist – feel free to draw your own conclusions.

JONVIL
Stevendi
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Post Number: 180
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 7:14 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Venden is not the only SDA leader to engage in "special counselling". When I was in academy, the principal was "seeing" my cousin's girlfriend on a regular basis. It was covered up, and he went quietly to another state. This happened here in Colorado also, when my son attended academy. The conference covered it up, even sent out a letter to all church members to not judge this man without knowing "the facts". Then, at the end of the school year he quietly resigned. Then, he had the nerve to attend the next years' graduation exercises, and with the Conferences' apparent blessing (smiles, handshakes, conversation, etc.).

The seventh day adventist church is as full of sin as any other group. It is their particular insidious sin that, while laughing and judging other fallen entities (ie, Catholics), they cover up their own with incredible skill and deceit. This is evil beyond the original sin that starts the whole mess.

Why anyone would want to send their money to a bunch of liars is totally beyond me. The GC is as corrupt as the Catholic church in the dark ages. The malice they practice is just a bit less violent, physically at least. Seems to me like a really bad movie: Mother Church 2: The White Dark Ages.

steve
Jorgfe
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Username: Jorgfe

Post Number: 440
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 7:18 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jonvil,

I think your term, "character assassination", fits very well. Ellen White was a master at that -- and she would publicly proclaim it "in the name of the Lord". See http://ad2ch.org/en/askellen/2006/09/26/tricks-of-the-trade-from-one-editor-to-another

I deeply appreciate being able to share my views, without it being taken wrong. This sort of "high road" behavior on the part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church really upsets me. It is so, so, different from the way Ted Haggart's situation was handled. See http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/novemberweb-only/144-58.0.html

I think I would break down in tears if the Seventh-day Adventist Church would actually confront these errors in high places in the same way.

Gilbert Jorgensen
Reb
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Post Number: 442
Registered: 5-2007
Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:14 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

But they won't do it, Gilbert.

The SDA Church is much like the Mediaeval Catholic Church expect they don't physically kill people(but maybe spiritually kill them).

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