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AR Survey Falsely Links Antitrinitarianism, LGT, Anti-WO

The Adventist Review recently posted a survey on Facebook which appears to be designed to link Antitrinitarianism with Last Generation Theology and with those who oppose women’s ordination.

The current resurgence in Antitrinitarianism is not justified by the Bible or the Ellen G. White writings. A small number of persons have recently adopted Antitrinitarian notions and are presenting teachings such as

    – There are two persons in the Godhead—the Father and the Son Jesus only—and that there are not three distinct persons.
    – The Holy Spirit is not an actual person in Himself.
    – There was a time when Jesus as a distinct person actually had a beginning.

All three notions are false. There are three persons, not two (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:13). The Holy Spirit is a distinct person in Himself just as the Father and Jesus. And, Jesus has always existed as a distinct person in the Godhead; He never had a beginning (Micah 5:2; John 1:1-3).
Meanwhile, “Last Generation Theology” is basically a shorthand way to refer to the distinctive Adventist sanctuary package. In the last days God has raised up a movement to follow Jesus fully, and to receive His forgiveness and power for victory over sin (Revelation 14:12; 18:1). As Ellen White writes,

Christ is cleansing the heavenly sanctuary from the sins of the people, and it is the work of all who are laborers together with God to be cleansing the sanctuary of the soul from everything that is offensive to Him (Manuscript Releases, vol. 11, pp. 54, 55).

There is more to say, but Ellen White stated a profound truth in The Great Controversy that

The subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844. It opened to view a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious, showing that God’s hand had directed the great advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of His people” (The Great Controversy, p. 423).

Meanwhile, other voices seem determined to give the impression of a strong connection between LGT and Antitrinitarianism. George Knight, not content to compare General Conference leadership to Nazis and Catholics over the women’s ordination issue, follows a guilt-by-association plan in his new book End-Time Events and The Last Generation (ETETLG). What he does here is similar.
Knight claims in ETETLG that “anti-Trinitarianism is especially strong among the believers in Andreasen’s last generation theology,” and, “It should be noted that not all of the newer voices among the last generation theology believers are anti-Trinitarian,” and, “it is important to realize that the last generation segment of Adventism is far from united on Trinitarian issues,” pp. 113, 114 and 114, respectively). Knight’s attempt to link the recent interest in anti-Trinitarianism among a small number of Adventists and former-Adventists at the margin falls flat. All of the prominent contemporary voices Knight names as supporting Last Generation Theology and who are named in the Seminary book God’s Character and the Last Generation, are fully Trinitarian and fully supportive of the Fundamental Beliefs of the church including the Godhead or Trinity.
Adventist Review editors in early May 2018 posted a short survey on Facebook titled “The Godhead Survey.” Most of the questions composing the survey are significantly misleading. Do we believe that the one God in three persons, whom Ellen White refers to as the “heavenly trio,” are co-equal? or co-eternal? Do we believe that Jesus is eternally submissive to the Father? or functionally submissive? Here are the survey questions:

  1. God the Father and God the Son share co-equal, co-sovereign divinity. T or F
  2. Jesus may properly be called God’s only begotten Son because He had a beginning at some stage in eternity past. T or F
  3. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit share co-equal, co-sovereign divinity. T or F
  4. Jesus’ eternal subordination to His Father is a divine dimension of the hierarchy also present within God’s created order. T or F
  5. Jesus’ eternal subordination to His Father illustrates the same principle of headship applicable between husband and wife in God’s ideal for marriage. T or F
  6. The life of Jesus proves that victory over sin is assured to everyone who trusts in God as Jesus did. T or F
  7. Before Christ returns God is looking for a generation of people who will vindicate Him by showing a perfect reproduction of the character of Christ.
  8. Because Christ shared the same human nature that we do, we know that we may overcome as He did.
  9. How old are you?
  10. Gender? M or F

What is intended in the survey to be the meaning of “co-equal”? Adventist Fundamental Beliefs do not make this claim. Instead, FB #2 states, “There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons.” The full texts of FBs #2 The Trinity, #3 The Father, #4 The Son, #5 The Holy Spirit, never use language stating that the three divine Persons are co-equal. But Survey questions #1 and #3 use “co-equal” and ask the respondent to indicate True or False.
The second survey question states “Jesus may properly be called God’s only begotten Son because He had a beginning at some stage in eternity past.” The title of the survey, “Godhead,” seems calculated to interest antitrinitarian respondents, who will certainly mark question two as “True.” This response, along with others, will cause it to appear that there is a connection between those who believe regular Adventism, who are thus “LGT,” and those who are Antitrinitarian!
Survey question #4 states, “Jesus’ eternal subordination to His Father is a divine dimension of the hierarchy also present within God’s created order.” But “eternal subordination” is a straw man argument of the pro-women’s ordination faction in the church. Rather, from what we read in the Bible and EGW writings, Jesus chooses to be in functional submission to the Father. Eternally subordinate could indicate a structural or organic difference within the Godhead. We have Bible evidence for functional submission but not for eternal subordination.
Survey question #5 states “Jesus’ eternal subordination to His Father illustrates the same principle of headship applicable between husband and wife in God’s ideal for marriage.” It is wrong to use the term “eternal subordination,” which, again, is not employed by any who support LGT or who oppose women’s ordination. But this question, if answered “True,” would lend support to the idea that male leadership or headship is based on a mistaken view of the relation between the three persons of the Godhead or Trinity.
What the Adventist Review would seek to prove about male leadership using the potential survey results of this misleading Survey?
Questions #6 through #8 would likely be regarded by most Adventists as close to true. We believe that Jesus’ victory shows us how to overcome. Yet we have to ask, Who can claim to trust in the Father with hearts as deeply committed to Him as Jesus did? Yes, that should be our goal. But those trusting the most in Jesus will feel deep distrust in themselves. Such might hesitate to mark this “True.” Christ has not yet come, as He seeks to see His character closely copied in the last generation (Ellen White uses the term “perfectly reproduced.” See Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69; Counsels to Teachers, p. 324). But we must beware of claiming that they vindicate Jesus. By living holy lives, they will give testimony to God’s goodness, and those lives will have a vindicating aspect to them (The Desire of Ages, p. 671), but all should be clear that Jesus’ death on the cross provided the complete sacrifice for our sins and that humans living holy lives in no way add merit to the sacrifice of the cross.
Most will be comfortable answering questions #6, #7, #8 “Yes,” but what would be the result of the finished survey? Question two would assure receiving many “True” answers from Antitrinitarians, while questions 6-8 would provide many “True” answers from Adventists who believe what the Church teaches. Thus, survey results could create the false impression that there is substantial overlap between Antitrinitarianism, Last Generation Theology, and those who support a biblical-qualifications only position with reference to women’s ordination (those opposing women’s ordination).
Thus, the Antitrinitarian error might be used misleadingly to portray conservative Adventists as heretics. The Adventist Review “Godhead Survey” appears to be intentionally designed to create false impressions, false linkages between truth and error.
Was it so designed? We will likely never know.
Hopefully, the survey will be deleted from the Adventist Review’s Facebook page during the next few days. But “The Godhead Survey” is filled with misleading questions, seems to treat the members of the church with contempt, and to be designed for political purposes to divide and confuse conservative Adventists and to unite and advance the insubordinate position of those now combining against the authority of the world church in session and the General Conference. Are the editors at the Review working to unite the Church at this time? Bill Knott’s remarkably awful 2015 article “A Time to Marginalize” reminds us that the Review has been a deeply-divisive source of disunity, right when we need to unify over biblically sound decisions the church has made which have been decided by duly elected delegates in Session.
Let us pray for the appointment of new leadership at the Adventist Review and apology for this remarkable exhibit of deception.


The editor of the Review can be contacted at revieweditor@gc.adventist.org. But at this point, a more effectual course really would be to write to the chair of the Adventist Review, Elder Ted N.C. Wilson, at president@gc.adventist.org.

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President Requests Prayer for Annual Council

The following is drawn from an article appearing the the Adventist Review, September 9, 2017, titled “A Personal Message from Ted N.C. Wilson Regarding Recent Disasters,” available in full here:
http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story5442-prayer-for-gods-protection-and-proclamation

I would like to make another special prayer request for the upcoming Annual Council of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist as we focus on Revival and Reformation, Mission to the Cities, Total Member Involvement, Comprehensive Health Ministry, Nurture and Retention of members, unity in our mission and the church, and so much more. Please pray that the leaders of God’s church will be humble, faithful servants and that we will humbly carry out the mandates of heaven to proclaim the prophetic warning messages with Holy Spirit power. Please earnestly pray for revival and reformation in our lives and the general life of the church. Pray for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit. My brothers and sisters, Jesus is coming soon and He wants to use all of us to proclaim His last-day message of salvation only in Him. May Christ’s focus found in John 9:4 be our focus today and until He comes: “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.”

May God bless your work and witness for Him as Seventh-day Adventists all over this world as we pray for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s soon return.

Ted N C Wilson

President

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

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NAD Disunity Statement Surfaces


The North American Division Union presidents presented to the General Conference president and officers an antagonistic statement in the January 19, 2017 meeting. The NAD leaders indicated while they see no consensus favoring women’s ordination among church members in the NAD, that the General Conference in seeking to maintain unity in the church, is overreaching its authority. The NAD Union Presidents’ statement offers no Scripture in defense of its position. Nor does it acknowledge the authority of the world church in its July 8, 2015 San Antonio vote which refused to authorize actions presently being taken within the North American Division to ordain women to the gospel ministry.
The presidents claimed “strong personal and collective unity” with the church, but also indicated themselves to be unified in support of women’s ordination to the gospel ministry, an unscriptural innovation which the Church has never, since its inception, practiced. The Union presidents go so far as to offer their “personal general observations” that in the NAD unions, membership sustains “a grass roots support for women’s ordination,” with “opposition in a few conferences.”
We believe that actually, the majority of church members in NAD oppose women’s ordination, and that the most telling statement in the document is the presidents’ claim that “An inclusive NAD survey taken in 2014 of conference, union and division leadership revealed a 90%-plus approval of women’s ordination” in the Division. That claim may actually be correct. If so, it points out the extreme disconnect between leadership and membership within the Division. The NAD presidents are trapped in an echo chamber of their own, and are operating in rejection of the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to them through the world church.
The presidents’ document claims that they “acknowledge the conscientious convictions” of those who oppose women’s ordination. But actually those who oppose the practice have been shut out of the main publications of the church. Excluded from publishing in union papers or the Adventist Review, these Adventists whose convictions are allegedly so respected have been refused opportunity to publish on NAD-run denominational presses and their only recourse has been to publish privately.
Even NAD young adults have been marginalized by NAD leadership, as evident in the video above.
The January 19 statement complains about the General Conference’s rejection years ago of NAD’s attempt to change the E-60 Working Policy. Read about the current NAD president’s role in that debacle in “E-60 and the WO Endgame” at http://ordinationtruth.com/featured/kirl-e60-and-the-wo-endgame/. On the even longer history of NAD’s decision to block opposing viewpoints and use NAD publications for pro-women’s ordination propaganda, read the 1997 NAD’s own words in “President’s Commission on Women in Ministry Report” at http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Presidents-Commission-on-Women-in-Ministry-Report.pdf
Notable is statement number six in the document: “We believe the GC is dangerously overreaching its authority and potentially endangering the current and future unity and mission of the church (see SOP below).” But the statement goes on to say that “Non-doctrinal issues on which we have no consensus are not a basis for splitting the church.”
Then why is the North American Division leadership determined to split the Church? Are they so trapped within the culture they are charged to witness God’s revealed truth to, that they would burn down the Church rather than subordinate themselves to the humble, Spirit-led decision reached in General Conference Session after so much study and prayer?

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REVIEW Promotes Woman President Fantasy

Delegates to the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference have refused to recognize the validity of a woman serving as an ordained minister three times (1990, 1995, 2015). By definition the Working Policy of the church disallows that a woman can legitimately serve as a conference president. And yet the Adventist Review, a publication representing the world church, published an article on February 20, 2016 identifying Ms. Sandra Roberts as “the first woman conference president.” Whether intended or not, the editors of the Adventist Review with this article are contributing to the establishment of an alternate line of reality. Ms. Roberts is recognized by neither the General Conference nor by many Adventist members as the president of the Southeastern California Conference.
The General Conference requires unions and conferences of the world church to adhere to the Working Policy and to the wording in bold print in the model Constitution and Bylaws provided. That text reads “President: The president, who shall be an ordained minister of experience, is the first officer and shall report to the executive committee of the conference in consultation with the secretary and the treasurer/chief financial officer” (General Conference Working Policy, 2011-2012 ed., pp. 181, 182). This bold print wording is required text. Unions and conferences have no authority to act in contradiction to it.
On October 27, 2013, the Southeastern California Conference “elected” Ms. Roberts to the office of president over that conference. Those particulars are discussed here: http://ordinationtruth.com/2013/10/27/secc-elects-woman-president/. The General Conference is bound by the voted policies of the church, and in publishing the Adventist Yearbook which lists ordained ministers and leadership data for conferences, of necessity left the officer slot for president blank for Southeastern.
On to the present matter. The Weniger Society voted to offer an award to Sandra Roberts because she was the “first female conference president.” Andrew McChesney, news editor for the Adventist Review (a publication of the General Conference), reported on the Weniger awards, and identified Ms. Roberts in print as “the first female conference president.” Yes, this is the same “president” who presided at a post-San Antonio “ordination” of a woman on December 19, 2015:

SECC Insub-Ordination from CAP on Vimeo.

The Review has no obligation to report the issuance of an award by Weniger Society based on a false premise, and certainly no business contradicting the voted position of the church. Adventists have phoned the Review and sought to post corrections to the article only to have the comments deleted without being posted. If not corrected, the article will contribute to the establishment of an alternate reality in which in spite of the refusal of the General Conference in session to approve the ordination of women, the legitimacy of this unbiblical practice is established through insubordination.
The Review article is seen at this link:
http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story3722-weniger-society-honors-branson-lemon-and-roberts
As the publication of record, this article in the Review cannot be permitted to stand as it is. The Council of Adventist Pastors asks that the article be withdrawn from publication.

If we see no necessity for harmonious action, and are disorderly, undisciplined, and disorganized in our course of action, angels, who are thoroughly organized and move in perfect order, cannot work for us successfully. They turn away in grief, for they are not authorized to bless confusion, distraction, and disorganization. All who desire the cooperation of the heavenly messengers must work in unison with them. Those who have the unction from on high will in all their efforts encourage order, discipline, and union of action, and then the angels of God can cooperate with them. But never, never will these heavenly messengers place their endorsement upon irregularity, disorganization, and disorder. All these evils are the result of Satan’s efforts to weaken our forces, to destroy our courage, and prevent successful action (Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, p. 26).

The Bible says, “A bishop [elder] then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable,able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2 NKJV). The New Testament church had no office of woman elder. This is a point of reform that will help the church come back onto Bible ground and advance in unity. May God guide all and help all to work together on His plan.