07AR12-43

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Apologia Report 12:43

November 24, 2007

Subject: Responding to Seventh-Day Adventism

In this issue:

NEW AGE MOVEMENT - critique of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret discovered in New Age-friendly magazine

NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM - Bart Ehrman seen by Publishers Weekly as cause of Bible-focused publishing 'avalanche"

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM - critical terminology differences highlighted

+ SDA pastor's magazine revisits perennial challenge to church's credibility: E.G. White's gross plagiarism

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PLEASE NOTE: Our office will be closed for the next week. As a result, the next issue of Apologia Report is scheduled for the week beginning December 3.

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NEW AGE MOVEMENT

"The Real Secret" by Peter Russell -- given that Rhonda Byrne's book and film, The Secret [1], remain a popular influence in our culture, a secular critique always comes in handy. However, to find Byrne's philosophy challenged in a magazine that is sympathetic to the New Age is all the more valuable.

Russell begins: "You create your own reality. Just 'think positive,' and you'll get yourself a new car, a great job, the perfect partner and lots of money. That's a message heard more and more frequently, most prominently in popular documentaries like The Secret, following the success of What the Bleep Do We Know!?

"To offer concrete evidence for their claims, the filmmakers point to discoveries in quantum physics. But does physics really provide the proof for these claims?

"Quantum physics describes the so-called 'observer effect,' which refers to the impact the mere act of observing can have on the phenomenon being observed. Physicists speak about this as the 'collapse of the wave function.' The wave function describes the probabilities of a particle being observed in any of its possible states. When an observation is made, the wave function 'collapses' and the particle is observed in one particular state. A popular interpretation of this is that the act of observation affects physical reality, 'freezing' it into a certain state. Hence the claim that you create your own reality, and the importance of holding a positive vision of a desired outcome.

"The original formulation, however, put forward by Nobel Prize-winner Werner Heisenberg, states that it is your knowledge of the system that collapses. Nothing in the real world actually changes; the only thing that changes is the uncertainty in your knowledge. ...

"I'm not saying we shouldn't think positively, or that we're not interconnected. All I'm saying is it's incorrect to use current physics research to validate these claims and it's highly misleading to present them as the ultimate truth, or the 'Great Secret,' of the universe. Such grand assertions give people a false sense of hope.

"And, on the contrary, the claim that we create our own realities may also be very unfair with respect to people who are ill or poor. The message of The Secret suggests they too are responsible for their own fate." Ode, Oct '07, pp74-75. <http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/47/the-real-secret>

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NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM

"The Ehrman Effect" by G. Jeffrey MacDonald -- notes that with 200,000 copies of Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus [2] sold, "a new avalanche of books on the Bible" are coming out for those "who perceive high stakes in a debate about how the Bible came to be - and whether it still deserves sacred status. ...

"In Misquoting Jesus, a formerly obscure biblical scholar popularizes an understanding long discussed in the academy but freshly troubling in the pews: today's Bible bears the fingerprints of many a scribe who altered the text, apparently to bring God's Word into alignment with their all-too-human agendas.

"Now Ehrman has moved in on a new target: biblical inconsistency. His next book, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer [3], explores apparent contradictions in the Bible's explanations for pain and injustice. HarperOne plans an initial print run of 100,000 copies and interviews on national radio outlets." (Can't you just about hear the collective groan? - RP)

Let the spin begin: "Michael Maudlin, v-p and editorial director at HarperOne [says] 'The church has not done a good job of taking what their scholars are doing and letting it filter down to lay people.... So finally there have been created some other mechanisms, other venues for doing that. A lot more media - TV shows, radio talk shows - are interested in these topics than ever before.'

"Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of scripture as a genre in need of rehabilitation comes from Harvard University professor emeritus James L. Kugel [with his] book, How to Read the Bible [4]...."

MacDonald finds that "writers from conservative Christian circles seem ready to make a cottage industry out of debunking Ehrman. Their tones and styles vary, but they largely agree that what they see as Ehrman's errors stem not so much from his research as from his conclusions about what's at stake." (For all the excitement about an "avalanche," MacDonald seems to have missed plenty of titles.) Publishers Weekly, Oct 29 '07, ppS2-S4 ("S" for "Special Section").

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SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM

"Plagiarism: Alternate Explanations?" by David J. Conklin and Kevin L. Morgan -- long-term damage control efforts still going on here, as this is the second of a three-part response. This article responds to Walter Rea's 1982 book The White Lie [5] which claimed that Ellen G. White, leading prophet and inspiration for the Adventist movement, plagiarized extensively. The authors argue that even a great deal of similarity between written documents does not necessarily imply plagiarism.

Another approach taken by the authors is that "borrowing is not an argument against inspiration." The similarity of "borrowed" material between the first four books of the New Testament is given as an example.

Continuing the effort to offer lame arguments, a follow-up article is promised which "will review evidence showing that Ellen G. White's 'sources' borrowed from one another without acknowledging their sources at least as often as she did." Blame-shifting anyone? Ministry, Oct '07, pp20-22.

Part One of authors' piece appeared in the August 2007 issue, pp22-24. The 3rd and final installment is scheduled for the December 2007 issue.

"Understanding Adventist Terms" by Colleen Tinker and Jeremy Graham -- the critical need to define your terms in discussions with representatives of opposing worldviews (long recognized as being of utmost importance by veteran apologists), makes this resource one of unique value. This article provides a non-comprehensive list of 18 "terms which, within Adventism, have different definitions than they have in evangelical Christianity. This difference in definitions results in confusion among mainstream Christians. When an evangelical hears an Adventist use these words, he or she assumes the Adventist means the same thing the evangelical means. In reality, the Adventist usually means something different, thus perpetuating the misperception that Adventists understand the gospel and salvation the same way the Christian community understands them. We will give each word followed by its Adventist definition, quotations from Adventist publications demonstrating these uses (if necessary), and footnotes showing supportive sources."

The authors explain in their conclusion that "Because Adventists are taught that their theology is 'the truth', the fact that they understand [these] words differently does not cause them discomfort. They believe that they can find 'common ground' with Christians by 'sounding right', thus avoiding being marginalized and Ômisunderstood.Õ Should the Christian become interested in Adventism, then he would be introduced to Adventist proof-texts and taught the in-house understandings of the normal Christian words.

"The one fool-proof way for a Christian to begin to understand what an Adventist really means when he speaks of salvation is literally to study the Bible with him. Unless one grapples with the actual text of Scripture with an Adventist, the true nature of Adventist theology and biblical interpretation will not be clear." Proclamation, Sep/Oct '07, pp6-10. <http://tinyurl.com/2yyrfb>

(The above URL yields a 1.6 megabyte file download named "Proclamation2007_SepOct.pdf.")

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Sources, Monographs:

1a - The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words, 2006, hardcover, 216 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582701709/apologiareport>

1b - The Secret (Extended Edition DVD) with Rhonda Byrne, Paul Harrington, and Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith (Rating: None; Director: Drew Heriot; Studio: TS Production; Release Date: October 1, 2006; Run Time: 92 minutes)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000K8LV1O/apologiareport>

2 - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, paperback, 256 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060738170/apologiareport>

3 - God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer, by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperOne, March 2008, hardcover, 256 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061173975/apologiareport>

4 - How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, by James L. Kugel (Free Press, 2007, hardcover, 848 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/074323586X/apologiareport>

5 - The White Lie, by Walter T. Rea (M & R Pubns, 1982, paperback, 409 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0960742417/apologiareport>

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