Over the past 50 years, Seventh-day Adventists have watched with horror as the landmarks of the faith, the pillars which we hold very dear, have been abandoned, one after the other. This abandonment has not occurred by way of any official binding pronouncement or vote by the Church’s leadership in a general session, but rather through a pervasive new attitude that is producing a complete reorientation of the Church. This reorientation would come about through the stealthy implementation of certain policies—policies that are designed to make us just like every other church.
“I was told that men will employ every policy to make less prominent the difference between the faith of Seventh-day Adventists and those who observe the first day of the week. In this controversy the whole world will be engaged, and the time is short.” Manuscript 15, 1896; Selected Message, Book 2, p. 385.
The aim of these new policies is to modify the church, manipulate its image, and introduce new characteristics and new features into the original “blueprint” in order to change the outcome. Ellen White foretold that this attempt to reorientate the church would result in a “controversy” in which “the whole world will be engaged.” Did you get that—the whole world? Is it quite possible that maybe Roman Catholicism or maybe Evangelical Protestantism is partly responsible for directly or indirectly accelerating some of these changes that Ellen White predicted?
There is a controversy in Adventism in which men want to genetically reengineer the movement. How? By combining our DNA, the foundational pillars of the faith, with other foreign strands of DNA, the New Theology, Ecumenism, Trinity, the Social Gospel, and the Celebration Movement, in order to create a new gene that resembles the Sunday-keeping Churches—neo Adventism, a new class of Adventism.
We believe this trouble started several decades ago, and today, we are now entering the boiling point of this conflict. And the fact that Sister White calls this plan a “controversy” means that the faithful cannot just willfully accept this situation.
“When existing evils are not met and checked, because men have too little courage to reprove wrong, or because they have too little interest or are too indolent to tax their own powers in putting forth earnest efforts to purify the family or the church of God, they are accountable for the evilwhich may result in consequence of neglect to do their duty.” Testimonies to the Church, vol. 4, p. 516.
We are living in the climatic period of this struggle. For mainstream Seventh-day Adventism today is a mixture of Biblical, Historic Adventism with the following fabricated novelties:
1. Calvinism—Evangelical Theology or New Theology
2. Charismatic Pentecostalism—the Celebration Movement
3. Left-wing political activism—Social Gospel
4. Ecumenism—Roman Catholicism’s Decree on Ecumenism called “Unitatis Redintegratio”
5. Trinity— The belief that there are three separate personalities of God and all these three are one.
or “Restoration of Unity” proclaimed by Pope Paul VI on November 21, 1964 during Vatican Council II.
New Theology – A Change in our Belief.
The New Theology has certainly accelerated a change within Adventism. The doctrines held by the Evangelical Churches on the nature of Christ, the nature of Sin, the nature of the Atonement, Justification, Grace, and other related topics have become the prevailing emphasis in the church today. While the historical pillars of the faith such as the Sanctuary Message, the Investigative Judgment, the Three Angels’ Messages, Sanctification, the Mark of the Beast, and others have nearly become extinct.
The New Theology is seen, by its ardent proponents, as a necessary progressive development or a theological advancement in the experience of the Adventist people. These doctrinal adjustments have been welcomed by the leaders of other faiths as a positive shift from a “cult” status to a “genuine Christian” status.
On the other hand, the faithful minority view the New Theology as a serious deviation from the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. The errors of the New Theology are seen by the faithful as a fulfillment of prophecy that some would apostatize from the truth by stepping off the historical foundation that God has established.
“I saw individuals approach the platform and examine the foundation. Some with rejoicing immediately stepped upon it. Others commenced to find fault with the foundation. They wished improvements made, and then the platform would be more perfect, and the people much happier. Some stepped off the platform to examine it and declared it to be laid wrong.” Early Writings, p. 259.
“The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity she will have to do in a terrible crisis under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances… And at that time the superficial, conservative class, whose influence has steadily retarded the progress of the work,will renouncethe faith…” Testimonies to the Church Vol. 5, p. 463.
The term “The New Theology” is really a misnomer because it isn’t actually new. All the fables of the New Theology were rejected by our pioneers. It is the same old teachings held by the Sunday-keeping churches being reintroduced into Adventism under a new vocabulary and into a new generation. The New Theology is responsible for all the theological gobbledygook that plagues the Adventist movement; it is responsible for all the theories and speculations that prevail among us, and for all the division, conflicts, and winds of doctrine—How? By starving the church of the truth. God’s people need to be strengthened and rooted into present truth. They need to be nourished with the meat of God’s word and established on the foundation of the faith. But because the New Theology has cast doubts upon those principles, God’s people have been truth-starved. And when a people has been starving for over 50 years, even a piece of moldy bread found in the gutter may look appetizing. As a result, our brethren are seeking for things that cannot satisfy, theories that have not been established “line upon line.”
“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Isaiah 55:2. eternalgospel.com
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