Now to return again to the topic of this thread, the book “The Sunshine Road”. David and Juneau Chagall told their story about going from one mind science or new age cult to another until they ended up at an Adventist church, and then they recognized the same cultic spirit even in an Adventist church, and 20 years after their original book was written, they are still of the same opinion on Adventism.

I have to admit to now having some second thoughts on this topic after re-reading the Chagall’s story, and after some of my interaction with historical SDAs as well as some ultra-liberal SDAs (I certainly don’t feel that way about evangelical SDAs, and some historical and progressive SDAs).

My second thoughts were not helped a bit by my attending the Tierrasanta SDA church yesterday afternoon to hear the ultra-liberal Loma Linda Univ religion professor, Dr. Dalton Baldwin spend three hours literally tearing apart the Bible and its authority by claiming it had many errors and contradictions, and by comparing the OT prophets to Ellen White, in that everyone plagiarized or copied and made errors and contradictions, so what is the big deal?

But, besides the problems with Baldwin’s presentation, I was literally shocked to the core to see large posters in the foyer of the church promoting a New Age mind science cult, “The Church of Religious Science” with a web site describing this “church”:

http://visioncsl.com/ Here is an excerpt:

Welcome

“We are an open and diverse community that welcomes everyone. Our community follows the teachings of the Science of Mind, which seeks to know the Divine in all life, and is based on Universal Principles that work the same for everyone. We are a vibrant community of dedicated members and Practitioners supported by our Founding Minister Rev. Patti Paris and Rev. Suzette Wehunt. We welcome you and hope you will find something here that inspires you and resonates with you. To find out more about our community and our faith click here.”
---------------------------------------------------------

Do you believe this? This is exactly the kind of religion that the Chagall’s were in before they came to know Christ.

Then, I was even more shocked when Greg pointed out to me that this New Age cult meets in the SDA church itself on Sundays and then they have this occultic seance every Wednesday night which they call a Taize service using crystals and meditiation.

Now we talked about before how an SDA church in Anaheim leases out their church to Christ Reformed church pastored by Kim Riddlebarger. I remember making the point that it would be unlikely for an SDA church to be leasing space to a Mormon or JW group. But how wrong I was. This is a blatantly occultic New Age group. What part do Christ and Belial have in common?

However, I have to qualify my comments some, as this paticular church pastored by one of my former classmates at PUC, has a reputation for being the most liberal church in not only Adventism, but probably even within Christianity (loosely defined--this SDA church is not true Biblical Christianity).

So anyway, I will get to the topic of Baldwin’s actual presentation as time allows, but this particular issue really struck me as I had just re-read Chagall’s book.

Stan

Wow Stan, I new that those radical Californians were liberal but not that much!

It is amazing how the Conference will sanction preachers like Des Ford from speaking even after 26 years but they allow such blatant new age connections in their conference.

It is no wonder that the uber-conservatives label everybody who ‘deviates from the norm’ as liberal apostates. When they end up on that end of the spectrum, how can you blame them?

The sad thing is, as you’ve pointed out, that the progressive SDAs are not as radical as some of those folk are but we get branded the same. Guilt by association, I guess.

Mind you, it would be prudent to see if someone has indeed sqawked to the conference about it and see if they are indeed aware of this collaboration.

Guibox, you make an excellent point.  It’s very disturbing that all manner of heterodoxy and downright cultic teachings are tolerated, but when a learned scholar (the best in the denomination at the time) raises questions about the investigative judgment, suddenly this is a battle worth fighting for?

Granted, 25 years of history have passed since Ford was removed from service, and perhaps what we’re seeing now is the fragmentation of Adventism into a million pieces, some of which still see Ford as the greatest threat, while others would embrace him and even open their church to a new age cult.

By sending the message that the truth takes a backseat to denominational viability, it seems that almost anything is tolerated as long as the foundation of Adventism isn’t disturbed.

Greg

Stan, I just LOST a very indepth comment of mine, in which I had quotes from Martin Luther and James Buchanan from his “The Doctrine of Justification” book, many Scriptures,
my own personal comments springboarding from your post
about Dr. Dalton Baldwin’s presentation and the posters in the church foyer advertising for the Religious Science
sect.

I went to make a correction and suddenly it ALL vanished!
I am too weary to attempt to attempt to re-post it.
I leave no little frustrated!

Jess

Posted anonymously by: Phen

It’s amazing how fast the posts go and how much catching up one has to do when one or two days are missed.
Thanks Greg for getting the thread going. Of course it is a sad thing when one discovers one has a devastating illness and my prayers go out to Dr.B and family.We are all in this world of sin and the only consolation we have is that God is in control and knows what is best for us.

I think with the way Adventism is going, with many things I have noticed on the internet, that they are ripe for another deception.

When one has gone so far away from the basics of the bible and teaches people so, what else is next.Isn’t it true that God chooses their deception? From the man who said he found the ark of the covenant to those who insist that going back to the foundation of SDAism is the way to save the church, or the man who says he is the next SDA prophet,I see no other way than what the churches are now getting into unfortunately.

I was amazed to read on one of Dr. B’s newsletters, where he mentioned how many errors the bible has as well.When one lessens the authority of the bible and spends an over abundance of time defending a woman and equating her work with that of the bible prophets, the steps become easier to take.

These past two days were very interesting. I spoke to an elderly SDA gentleman who informed my of a crusade held in his area a few years ago.There were only two people baptised. I asked him if that didn’t seem like a waste of money since there were very few people who attended in the first place. He smiled and said no. He said the two did not even remain in the SDA church.
I asked him why he though they left. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.He then said maybe they didn’t like the Pastor that came to replace the one who baptised them. I asked if there could be any other reason, he said no.
The conversation went on and he told how this one lady who was coming to the current seminar saw her late husband in her room and how it is Satan that appeared to her. He said when you die you are just dead.
I asked him if people have a spirit, he said no. I said, so do you think we just die like animals? He said yes. Maybe that was an unfair question to ask the old man but when I said “like animals” I thought he’d say no, humans are different from animals, but he said yes.There was more that we discussed on this topic but to say the least it was a bit shocking to me some of the thoughts expressed.

When I was talking to him I was thinking,- I wonder how much of the bible did this man actually read on his own and how much he let go of his preconceived ideas and let the spirit speak? What a pity he was so old and has not really grown from the childhood of Adventism.

I guess I know the answer to that question already, because I know how I used to read the bible too. It is a hard thing to say but the sooner we all realize that we have to take responsibility for our own salvation and not leave it up to the minister or the church, the better. I do not mean that we work, or try to do something Jesus has already done, but I mean becoming informed as to what the bible really says and not what some man or woman tells us the scripture verse means. I know Jesus had done it ALL for me and I cannot do it for myself, so please do not read anything more into my meaning(smile).

Jess,

I am so sorry that you lost your post. We would all have been blessed by it. Maybe you saved it somewhere. I hate to miss anything you write.

Phen,

You make excellent points. Adventist scholars who take a low view of scripture in order to justify Ellen White are in my opinion very dangerous.

Dalton Baldwin, in his presentation used a bunch of OT examples to say that it has contradictions and errors. He says that God did not ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. This idea was just in his imagination caused by defects in neuronal electrical transmission in the brain. Baldwin admits that God controls all the synapses in the brain, but doesn’t immediately correct the errors. The error of Abraham was corrected by God just before Abraham raised the knife. (the latter example wasn’t mentioned last Sat., but I had heard this view expressed by him before.

Baldwin claims that Ezekiel 20:26 mistakenly accuses God of ordering human sacrifices, but that Jeremiah 7:31 corrects this error. When I read Ezekiel, I don’t get that from the text.

Baldwin says that God never miraculously caused the death of all the firstborn of Egypt, and that God never sanctioned the ethnic cleansing and Genocide found in the OT. To characterize God’s judgments in this manner borders on blasphemy.

I am getting the tape of the Baldwin presentation. I was one of the questioners at the end of the forum presentation who tried to Challenge Baldwin on his views of scripture and especially ask him about his devotion to the pagan philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.More on this later.

Stan

Well Stan,
You have left me sitting on the edge of my seat.  And this is NOT comfortable!  Please fill us in on Baldwin’s reply.......soon! 

I don’t get his meaning from either of those texts either!
To me, it’s like painting those black font texts RED,
and then saying, “See, this text is RED !”

One quote I included in the post I lost is this one by James Buchanan (1804-1870)

“....all false religions, which originated from men, have a certain family likeness, by which they stand opposed to the Religion which is from God.  ... The grand characteristic of all human systems, as distinguished from the divine method of Justification, is self-righteousness or self-sufficiency, in one or other of its manifold forms, which are all, more or less, opposed to dependence on the grace of God:  and this radical error manifests itself universally amongst men, ~ either in reliance on the general goodness of their character and moral conduct, ~ or in their observance of religious forms and ceremonies, as a compensation for any short-coming in moral obedience, ~ or in their possession of peculiar privileges, viewed as special tokens of God’s favour. .... a third delusion, ~ reliance on their peculiar priveleges as a Church, in special convenant with God; and all the three are equally manifest, in the corrupt forms, and mere nominal adherents, of Christianity itself.” p.64,65 ”The Doctrine of Justfication.

His words are packed with significance to me.

Jess

Stan,

After you pointed out this thread from the Family Altar discussion, I came here to read more on your experience at Tierrasanta.

I’ll agree with you… that’s a strange church. I’ve sung there in a choir (Tierrasanta has the most amazing acoustics, rare in Adventist and most Protestant churches), and found the pastor’s sermon to be just kind of “off” somehow.

Even in famously liberal Southern California I think many “liberal” Adventists would find what you describe to be heretical. There is a strain of over-intellectualization that I’ve encountered in some liberal, Adventist theologians out this way. But to toss a blanket statement out there (like Guibox’s comment on radical Californians) is a little frustrating to me.

Southern Californian Adventism is bizarre in many ways. I don’t think I could categorize it as one thing or another. When I pastored with the Southeastern Cali conference, I was assigned to an extremely conservative church (ugh) in San Diego, only a few miles from Tierrasanta. SoCal Adventism is more of a microcosm where the entire breadth of Adventist beliefs and practice are squeezed into a concentrated geographical location.

There are theologically healthy liberals (Smuts) and theologically adrift liberals (Baldwin). There are conservative churches that contain so much love, and there are conservative churches that will whack you with EGW.

What I find particularly strange, Stan, is that Baldwin was defending Ellen White? And doing so by using a hermeneutic that White herself would reject. Bizarre. But seeing EGW valuable to super-liberals isn’t that unheard of—she becomes a social justice champion, or a women’s rights champion, or a counter-cultural prophet.

I find all of that strange because my experience never really included EGW. I grew up “Adventist” but I’ve never read White’s writings (2/3rds of Steps to Christ, two chapters of DOA). So I’m a poster child for those Adventists who look outside of the Southern California Bubble and go “What the heck....?!?” It’s only as an adult that I’ve encountered those spiritual abuses.

Perhaps Baldwin’s liberal ungroundedness is a result of having been raised in a church for the most part* lacking a healthy approach to Christ and scriptures? By not having an initial grounding in Christ he swung to the far opposite spectrum? When scriptural authority via chaintexting is used as a club of power, truth, and authority, it makes sense that someone reacting against that would swing completely away, remaining ungrounded.

I’d be curious to know about Baldwin: what role does Christ play in his life, and for salvation? Even if he has a bizarre view of scripture, if he claims Christ as his sole redeemer then shouldn’t we accept him as a brother in Christ? I’m just curious and don’t want to be deliberately provocative.

*(I say “for the most part” because my experience in almost all of the Adventist churches I’ve attended have been solidly Gospel- and Christ-centered… maybe I’m an aberration of sorts in that area, or just got lucky, who knows).

(Side-note: Taize services are more of a style than a theology which can be adapted to fit different beliefs both orthodox and cultic. Just another worship form, though certainly a very contemplative one.)

(prays he hasn’t just be rambling nonsense...)

Scott,

I agree with you on Tierrasanta. Pastor Gary McCary is one of the most theologically liberal pastors I know of.

I heard him preach a sermon in 1994 where he said that Daniel didn’t write the book of Daniel. This is an old liberal position that has been discredited by good conservative scholarship. You were right about his sermons being off. I am saddened by this because one of my cousins goes to that church, and the pastor was one of my classmates at PUC. I have a hard time believeing they can justify letting a New Age mind science cult meet on their premises.

Another example of a very liberal pastor is Dan Smith pastoring La Sierra Univ. church. He believes in the doctrine of qualified universalism, in which everyone is basically born saved, and the only way you can be lost is if you consciously tell God you don’t want to go to heaven. This would contradict Jesus’ teaching of the necessity of the new birth.

A lot of the arguments between progressive SDAs and conservative non-SDA evangelicals comes down to what is believed about scripture? Is scripture the infallible word of God or not? Reformed theology is taught by those who take literally what the Bible says about God’s sovereignty over salvation. The same is true for many Arminian Christians following in the path of John Wesley.

Progressive Adventism, according to the blogs out there, don’t seem to accept objective propositional truth, or even think it is important. They suggest that even believing in the Trinity or the Deity of Christ is not all that important.

Dalton Baldwin teaches that the bible is filled with contradictions and errors, and leaves the reader with the responsibility of picking and choosing what he thinks is really inspired by God.

You mentioned Smuts Van Rooyen as being in the liberal camp. I thought he was solidly in the evangelical camp, so maybe something has changed, and would appreciate your input Scott on that.

Stan

You mentioned Smuts Van Rooyen as being in the liberal camp. I thought he was solidly in the evangelical camp, so maybe something has changed, and would appreciate your input Scott on that.

I only have a couple of moments… I think that we simply different vocabulary. Guess I compare evangelical Adventists against most of global Adventism and they come up liberal. I certainly didn’t mean to include Smuts under your definition of liberal.

Hopefully that clears things up a bit.