HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2014 / FALL / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

F A L L • 2 0 1 4
VOLUME 15, ISSUE 3

 

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor
 

 

I had no idea

Thank you for your magazine and the article on abortion.

I had no idea that the Adventist church supports abortion. The specific examples are helpful: doctors doing abortions, promoting abortion, and owning abortion clinics.

All this was kept hidden from me. I remember a pastor saying something about soul and breath, but I knew nothing about the consequences of this false doctrine, that one is not a living soul until one breathes.

I am angry about all the false doctrines promoted by the Adventist church. Reading the New Testament over and over has taken me out of the erroneous thinking of this cult.

I try to show my Adventist friends truth from the Bible, but the common response is anger at me.

Via email

 

Commendation for standing up for truth

I was amazed while reading your article on Abortion in Adventism. I felt so sad to read that the Adventist Church “supports” abortion in some of their medical centers! What an eye opener to read your very thorough and well written article. I went to the Nursing Program at Loma Linda University back in the early 80’s because it was a “Christian” school.

I am not Adventist, but am a Sabbath-keeper. I was surprised to find out after a few months that it wasn’t as “Christian” as I had hoped. My first professor, in the very first class I took, opened each and every class with a prayer. I cried each time he opened class in prayer for about a week. It was wonderful and I couldn’t wait to meet the other students and begin what I thought was going to be a wonderful, Holy Spirit-filled nursing program. Well, that class was the only one, in the 4 years I was there, that had prayer!

I slowly learned that “Adventism” was more a works oriented and very status conscious religion. Very few people were “Christians”—ones that knew our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, personally.

To read that Adventist leaders “hide” the Abortion/Interruption of Pregnancy guidelines in a difficult to find web page, just reeks of their internal guilt. The almighty dollar rules here. It so saddens me to know that the devil has deeply penetrated this institution, but they will have to answer to our heavenly Father both on taking the innocent life that God created and also leading young unsuspecting Christians astray. As James 3:1 states... “those who teach will be judged more strictly.” (NIV)

I want to commend you for standing up for the truth and the innocent unborn creations from God.  

I truly appreciate your thorough writing and plan to pass it on to others. Thanks for the hard work you put into writing this article and all the investigative work behind the scenes.

San Diego, CA

 

Fallen daughter joined with Romanism

I am rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ and the three angels’ messages and have been for many years. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation.”

You and your deceived adherents have joined with the mother church (the Papacy) and have become a fallen daughter, as you share major points of doctrine with Romanism: pro-active opposition to abortion, and Sunday sacredness.

Also, you implicitly teach people to sin boldly, as bold, unrepentant, deliberate sinners are saved by grace. Your unconverted authors charge that the law of God is a burden and grievous and as a consequence implicitly espouse cheap grace. You cavalierly teach that sin is O.K. and that grace is cheap, and you ignore the horrible infinite cost that the Savior paid to redeem us from sin. Romans 6:1: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” And you further teach that emboldened sinners will be saved in their sins. Is that concept consistent with Matthew 1:21? You and Lucifer, who is a liar and a murderer, are charging God that His law is indeed grievous.

1 John 5:3-4 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”

You wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction and the destruction of others (2 Pet. 3:13).

I highly suspect that you will not, again as usual, print my letter in your “publication” as I notice in your “Letters to the Editor” that you do not include letters that contain Biblical references, as your methodology of Biblical hermeneutics is highly flawed. I am so sorry about the people that you have deceived and are attempting to deceive. 

American Fork, UT

Editor’s note: John is not referring to “law” or the Ten Commandments when he says believers are to keep God’s commandments. John consistently uses the Greek word entole in the places translated “commandments”, and in context John is saying that we are to keep the teachings of God given through the Lord Jesus. John further states that Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn.13:34).

 

Excellent design

Your article “Abortion in Adventism: Why Seventh-day Adventism Promotes Choice” was great, and there was an excellent graphic design on the cover.

Dallas, TX

 

EGW drove my request to abort

What guts it takes to tell it like it is! Kudos on the subject of abortion in Seventh-day Adventist hospitals.

When I became pregnant with our unplanned third child, I was distraught because I had read in Ellen White’s writings that it is a sin to assume the responsibilities of parenthood without the proper preparation (Ministry of Healing, p. 380; Child Guidance, p. 64). While the context of her statement is the (assumed) need for future parents to study and understand how human organs work so as to be able to teach such things to their children (and if they can’t, it is a sin to assume the responsibilities of parenthood), I nevertheless felt unprepared for our third child in other ways. Significantly, I felt we could not afford another child at the time and thought my husband and I had surely sinned in irresponsibly becoming pregnant again.

“Fortunately” for us, my Adventist doctor at the Saint Helena Sanitarium and Hospital was performing abortions, so I asked him for one, telling him why I felt I needed it.

Praise the Lord, that blessed man who had delivered our first two sons, replied quietly, “It is legal, but if you really do not want this child, my wife and I will adopt him or her.” (I found out later they already had six adopted children.)

“No,” I sobbed. “If anyone is to keep it, it will be us.”

Not surprisingly, we can’t imagine our lives without our third son, and now also his wife and kids, too. How much joy and entertainment he and they have brought into our lives! What a terrible mistake it would have been to abide by Ellen White’s writings and not expand our family because we were totally unprepared (and therefore, I thought, had sinned).

I just can’t put into words how incredibly glad we are to be out from under that false prophet’s guilt-inducing teachings!

Rossville, GA

 

Self-righteous, pompous, smug, condemning

For some reason I keep receiving your magazine Proclamation! although I never subscribed.  I am not and never have been an Adventist and see no reason to fixate on anti-Adventism. I have to admit that the magazine seems self-righteous, a bit pompous and smug, and quite condemning of those who disagree. The magazine is glossy and probably costs a lot to produce, so why not take me off your list and save some money?

Pendleton, OR

 

Not interesting

I don’t find your alternative editorial attacks on Adventism interesting. The paper just gets thrown away. Perhaps your paper would be better spent proactively reaching the wider world with the true message of Christ.

Happy Valley, OR

 

Thank you for addressing abortion

Thank you for your article re: the Adventist position on abortion. When I was an Adventist pastor (for 20 years) I was somewhat ambivalent to the abortion issue. As I look back on it now, I can see that much of that ambivalence was rooted in the oversimplification of Genesis 2:7 (Body + Breath = Living being or soul).  At that time I fully believed that the soul did not exist until there was physical breath. This would mean that the fetus was only potential life, and not yet truly life. After studying my way out of the Adventist church based on the biblical truth of the new covenant, I began to study the Bible from cover to cover with a heart to understand what it truly taught about other subjects as well. Once I discovered that the Bible clearly teaches that the “breath of life” was far more than merely physical breath—that humans are made up of a spirit, soul, and a body (1 Thess. 5:23) and that the spirit or soul is a conscious separate part of who we are (Rom. 8:16, Jn. 11:33), not just mere breath—my attitude toward abortion changed dramatically. At first I subconsciously began to feel differently about it but later understood that it was better biblical theology and paved the way for a greater understanding of human life. It does begin at conception (Ps. 139:13-16). Thank you for highlighting this issue so clearly in your article.

Greg Taylor, Lancaster, PA

 

Be born again and forgive who hurt you

The Ten Commandments are a law of love. Reading your magazine I noticed that you “proclaim” loud and clear your resentment and bitterness toward the Adventist Church. May the Lord help you to “really” be born again, so you can forgive whoever hurt you. Then you will be able to use your money, your time, and your talents to “proclaim” God’s love. So many people don't know Jesus!

via email

 

In support of Ratzlaff’s recent article

Daniel 8 describes the 2300 evening and morning sacrifices (1150 days at two sacrifices per day) prevented by the Little Horn. The angel emphasizes this message by declaring, “The vision of the evenings and mornings which was told is true” (Dan. 8:26).

This vision could not be about heaven or 1844 since neither of these involved sacrifices. Ellen G. White tried to counter the assurance of the angel by claiming that tamid never referred to sacrifices.

Then I saw in relation to the “daily” (Dan. 8:12) that the word “sacrifice” was supplied by man’s wisdom, and does not belong to the text… (Present Truth, Nov 1, 1850).

Quite the opposite of her assertion, the Bible always used tamid to refer to these sacrifices.

Tamid is an abbreviated form for olat tamid (“daily burnt-offering”) and refers to the daily (morning and evening) sacrifices as set out in Exodus 29:38–42 and Numbers 28:1–8 (cf. 2 Kings 16:15; Ezek. 46:13–15; Neh. 10:34, and 2 Chron. 13:11) (Encyclopaedia Judaica).

Nevertheless, EGW declared, “I have been instructed that regarding what might be said on either side of this question, silence [obfuscation] at this time is eloquence” (Woman of Vision p. 512).

This command was enforced on questioners with the usual duress, but her discredited statement that tamid doesn’t mean the morning and evening sacrifices continues to be published to this day. (What do Jewish scholars know about their own vocabulary?)

Bottom line: Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled Daniel 8. 1844 did not.

Harry Elliott, Sunnyvale, CA

 

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