10AR15-35

( - previous issue - )

Apologia Report 15:35 (1,040)

September 28, 2010

Subject: Did Seventh-day Adventist leaders deceive Walter Martin?

In this issue:

BUDDHISM - sexual abuse and confusion in American movements

POLYGAMY - yes, the world does seem to have gone mad

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM - "the three greatest challenges" facing U.S. Christians

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM - reassessing Walter Martin's conclusions

---

BUDDHISM

"Sex Scandal Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within" By Mark Oppenheimer -- "Sooner or later, every traditional faith has to confront sexual impropriety by its spiritual leaders: extramarital sex, or sex with the wrong people (members of the congregation, minors) or, for supposedly celibate clergy, any sex at all.

"But there are great differences in how religions handle these transgressions. For Jews and many Protestants, it is the local congregation that decides what sins are too great to countenance, and what kind of discipline is needed. For Roman Catholics, a worldwide hierarchy decides, depending on reports from local representatives. And for Buddhists - well, the answer is not so clear.

"The root of the problem, some experts say, is that the teacher/student relationship in Buddhism has no obvious Western analogy. ... Even sanghas, or Buddhist communities, that discourage such relationships often have no process for enforcing a ban, and as one Zen society in New York is learning, that can lead to problems." New York Times, Aug 20 '10, pA1.

POLYGAMY

Contrary to what most would expect, and perhaps due to a higher number of conflicts with polygamous groups within their borders, Canadian lawmakers have more strongly opposed the practice than their counterparts in the U.S. In "Polygamy test case ramping up," Mindelle Jacobs reports that an "unusual test case on the constitutional validity of Canada's anti-polygamy law hasn't even begun but the pre-trial jousting suggests it will be quite a show.

"In one corner is feisty Alberta farm wife Nancy Mereska, president of Stop Polygamy in Canada [www.tinyurl.com/2erh2u5]. Her grassroots group is so poor it had to put out a plea over the Internet for funds to pay for the travel expenses of one of their witnesses — a woman who grew up in a polygamous family in Utah. ...

"Among the groups in the other corner is the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association [http://polyadvocacy.ca] which supports what it describes as ethical non-monogamy - adults involved in multiple committed intimate relationships. ...

"The polyamorists don't support the FLDS polygamists in Bountiful, B.C., emphasizes Ince. But they don't think free love among consenting adults should be criminalized. 'It's a growing movement. People say that polyamory is the new gay.' Who knew?

"Sadly, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association [http://www.bccla.org] also wants our polygamy law struck down. Criminalizing such practices doesn't serve the best interests of women and children. And making it legal does? Has the world gone mad?" Toronto Sun, Sep 7 '10, <www.tinyurl.com/25uxxpg>.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

"Proclaiming Christ in an Increasingly Hostile Culture" by Frank Wright, president and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), and chief executive officer of the NRB Network -- Wright identifies "the three greatest challenges facing those who want to

communicate the Gospel. ...

"I would put them into three categories: The first is what we have called the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC doctrine that was essentially an 'equal time' provision, that said that if you engage in broadcasting 'controversial' viewpoints, that you need to provide substantially equal time to opposing viewpoints. ... Now, that doctrine is 40-plus years old and was repealed in the Reagan administration – basically on two grounds: first of all, that there is no more spectrum scarcity between broadcast radio and television, satellite radio, satellite television, Internet, wireless, mobile, everything you might have; there's plenty of spectrum out there for every viewpoint to be heard. And then, secondly, it was repealed on First Amendment grounds that it was a violation of freedom of association, as well as free exercise of religion in the case of religious broadcasters.

"But there have been dramatic efforts to try to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine in our day, and the biggest of them today are happening at the FCC under the guise of what the FCC calls 'localism requirements.' They've stopped using the word 'Fairness Doctrine' because we've pretty successfully demonized that in the marketplace, but under the rubric of 'localism requirements' you have the Fairness Doctrine in everything but the name … the same kind of government intervention into the area of content.... [T]he whole notion of the Fairness Doctrine makes an outrageous assumption, and that is that the government ought to be the arbiter of which ideas are controversial and which ideas are not. ...

"Secondly, which sadly passed last fall in the Congress and was signed by the President, is what's known as 'hate crimes legislation.' 'Hate crimes' was passed ostensibly to provide additional federal criminal penalties when a violent criminal act was motivated by hate. But in almost every case where there are hate crimes statutes at the state level, the application of those statutes has eventually bled over into the area of speech. And it's not just hate crimes, or committing some violent crime, it's hate speech which becomes criminalized. ...

"The third, which [targets] not just broadcasters but also the church, is what's called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It is the expansion of the homosexual agenda into the area of employment rights, and would require churches and Christian non-profit organizations to hire people who disagree completely with the fundamental principles of that organization [and] with the teachings of the Christian church." Truth and Triumph, 3:2 - 2010, p6-7. <www.tinyurl.com/285drse>

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM

The latest issue of Proclamation! (11:3 - 2010) examines the historic conversations between Walter Martin, the godfather of the evangelical countercult movement, and Adventist leaders which took place in the mid-1950s (pp7-15). The introduction explains that the feature article "Did Adventist Leaders Lie to Walter Martin?" by Steven D. Pitcher shows "evidence that the Adventists deceived Martin and [Donald Grey] Barnhouse, [and] is an important contribution to the body of existing work that has recounted and analyzed those discussions occurring over 50 years ago. ...

"Martin did not realize that while these men were the official representatives of the Adventist church, they did not represent 'official' Adventism.

"One long-term consequence of these discussions ... is that the Adventist church has been widely accepted as an evangelical denomination. In fact, it has engaged in discussions with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and in 2007 produced a joint agreement [www.tinyurl.com/2cztntg] which required the Adventists to endorse the WEA's statement of faith, thus perpetuating the same lack of disclosure they practiced on Walter Martin. ...

"Today, although Adventists vary in the ways they articulate their doctrines, Adventist beliefs have not changed. The denomination is as dependent upon Ellen G. White now as it ever was. Adventists are still as adamant about the Sabbath, their state-of-the-dead doctrine and annihilation, and their 'great controversy theme' as they have always been."

As a timely confirmation that Adventism’s core doctrinal distinctives have not changed and remain confusing for unwary non-Adventists, Proclamation! founding editor Dale Ratzlaff provides an analysis of new General Conference president Ted Wilson's message in his first sermon to the world church on July 3 (pp25-29).

"Why Seventh-day Adventism Is Not Evangelical" (pp16-23) is a reprint from the April, 1957 issue of The Kings' Business, the official magazine of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University). It offers a detailed analysis of Seventh-day Adventism written by Louis Talbot, then the chancellor of the Institute, and remains among the clearest explanations of its kind.

--------

( - next issue - )