Adventist Deconstruction by Trojan Horse Liberals as listed by their own works

 

By Koot van Wyk

 

Christ said that by their fruits you shall know them. If my eyes have to perceive and decide whether they are fruit or not, I may make errors in calculating people or listing people that are not belonging. But what if someone who prides himself to be “open”, “different than traditional”, “liberal?” like Arthur Patrick from Avondale College, Australia, does the listing? That is exactly what should be done. He published an article in 1987 giving quite illuminating incriminating evidence:

Patrick first sets out to list the traditional Adventist pioneers with a stable consensus about the Investigative Judgment doctrine. He said:

“The nineteenth-century writings of Joseph Bates, J. N. Loughborough, Uriah Smith, James White, J.N. Andrews and particularly Ellen White developed and stabilised the nineteenth-century understanding of the sanctuary teaching, including the investigative judgment.”[1] Luckily I ran into all the articles published between 1846-1904 collected by Paul A. Gordon of the Ellen White Estate whom I have personally met in South Africa, which he published July of 1981.[2] Arthur Patrick is correct. I was of course interested on the issue of the pioneer interpretation of 1 Peter 4:17 in the light of the Investigative Judgment since 1844 or whether anyone of them suggested it refers, like the Reform Tradition [Luther, Calvin et al] position, that it refers to “persecution permitted in the lives of the saints”. Answer? All of the names listed by Arthur Patrick said that 1 Peter 4:17 is talking about the Investigative Judgment in Heaven since 1844. The consensus of pioneer Adventism was this way.

Then Arthur Patrick did something surprising. He cited Investigative Judgment renouncer Raymond Cottrell saying in his own paraphrase: “However, often at about two-decade intervals, dissenters have challenged the orthodoxy of their time.”[3]

A list is then provided by Patrick and he is not the first to give this list:

“Dudley M. Canright (1840-1919) wrote the most-quoted attack on Adventism in general and its sanctuary teaching in particular. Canright liked to emphasise Owen Crosier’s claim that his famous 1840s article was written to ‘support the theory that the door of mercy was shut.’ Paul McGraw’s doctoral dissertation (2004)[4] observes the church did not do well in answering the questions Canright posed in such books as Seventh-day Adventism Renounced (1889).”[5]

Having a purpose or objective while you are writing or doing research? It is an ingredient in research. Why not? You should have a research problem or question you wish to answer. Crosier did that, did he not? Strange that Paul McGraw in 2004 fell victim of Canright apologetics? ”Birds of a feather flock together?”

Patrick has a second person listed contrary to Adventism.

“Albion Fox Ballenger (1861-1921) found nine “misfits” in the way Adventists interpreted the first-apartment ministry of Jesus. In Ballenger’s view, prior to Calvary Christ ministered for thousands of years in the first apartment and then moved into the second apartment at His ascension.”

Patrick goes on to say that Gary Land and Calvin Edwards wrote a biography of Ballenger and their presentation is “coherent understanding”.[6]

Coherent with whom or with what? This is very important. With whom is a heretic coherent or how can a biographer of a heretic give coherent understanding? Positionless? So-called “objective” or “neutral”? Historiographically impossible.

The biblical position is that Christ entered the first apartment at His ascension and not before that. We have a Highpriest in heaven Who is accustomed to our infirmities since He suffered Himself with it. The Bible says that the earth experience of Jesus gave Him the key and authentication for His ministry in the first apartment. It can be the two-third angels undoubting realization that Christ is able. Ballenger’s view is based on an Atonement Ministry in Heaven since Adam and Eve but in theory it sounds nice but the purpose of Books in Heaven are exactly that records are kept for later considerations. The questions Ballenger raised was dealt with in the articles collect by Paul Gordon in 1981. Ballenger was not the first one to raise these issues.

In his article in December of 1849 in Present Truth, David Arnold said that “there is no intercessor in the first apartment and in vain do misguided souls knock at that door” meaning it is shut. Being in the Most Holy does not mean that Christ do not do intercession for sinners after 1844. Arnold is clear on that when he said Christ in the Most Holy for judgment sake and having a breast-plate before the Father “all for whom He is now acting as intercessor”. Double function here. Judge and Mediator in One. There is a continuation of the Meditorial Work of Christ but in a different function before the Father than before. 1844 is the closing of that door and opening of the Most Holy function.

Imagine someone writing a nice biography of Lucifer or Satan? To explain how nice he was and yet?

Then Patrick introduced another “hall of fame” dissenter of Adventism: ‘William W. Fletcher (1879-1947) was born in Tasmania, served as a church leader (many roles, including president, South Australian Conference, president of the Indian Union Mission; Bible teacher at Australasian Missionary College) in Australia and Asia. Fletcher contended that at the time of His ascension our Lord entered the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary and “sat down at the right hand of God.’ Another Australian, Keith Moxon, spent years gathering data that illumines Fletcher’s gracious life, deep convictions and tragic severance from the church. Fletcher’s major book is entitled Reasons for My Faith (1932).”[7]

Tragic severance from the church, indeed. But one cannot blame the church or the Investigative Judgment doctrine of the Old and New Testaments for this tragic. He made his bed and he slept on it. If someone is wrong, no matter how much you polish data about the person, wrong is wrong, biblically. People will quick react saying: what a biblicistic judgmental position. “What a Fundamentalist!” as James Barr cried out in his books of 1948. Barr was out to destroy Fundamentalists and Biblicists and in blog’s I wrote at http://www.egw.org and VANWYK NOTE I have indicated that he is a modern Baal-prophet.

Patrick supports Women Ordination which is a-biblical. LGBTQH accommodation which is a-biblical. Widening views and criticism on Ellen White and her writings. Side with the antagonists of Adventist doctrine and the heretics “polishers of their data”. When someone is skew the vision is on the sideline seeing only the heretics and polishing their appearance and relating with their mood and attitude, they blame the church from which they get their tithe-surrendered salaries monthly and cannot get rid of this uncomfortable “intolerable” bedmate. I have talked about this mentioning Raymond Cottrell. The principle is this: When they are divorced, their vision ends skew and shadows creep in to mislead them from the straight path and now they find themselves surrounded with heretics of Adventism with whom they sympathize.

Patrick’s next listing of a heretic on the Investigative Judgment is L. Conradi.

“Louis R. Conradi (1856-1936) was born in Germany and served the church in ministerial and leadership roles in the United States and Europe for over fifty years. For about three decades, Conradi pondered the questions that in 1932 caused him to leave Adventism and become a Seventh Day Baptist minister.”

From 1932, Patrick jumped to the 1950’s with the Newzealand President Robert Greive and his close associates.

“During the 1950s, Robert Greive, as president of the Queensland conference, opposed the right-wing views of the Brinsmead family, developing a view of Righteousness by Faith that was interpreted as diminishing the traditional Adventist concept of the sanctuary. After his transfer to Auckland, in 1956 Greive was dismissed from the leadership of the North New Zealand conference and from Adventist ministry. At least four of Greive’s ministerial staff were dismissed for identifying with the same issues.”

What Arthur Patrick do not spell out is the controversy and inroads of peccatum originale of Luther in Adventism in Systematic Theology professors in the NAD during this time. There is also the wish of L. R. Froom to appease the Reformed churches so that Adventism does not look like a sect. It is well documented by interviews with those involved even on Youtube.

Patrick also mentioned that Desmond Ford was disgraced in 1980 for his anti-biblical views, which of course Patrick does not call anti-biblical.

To summarize, Patrick just want to show that these heretics had more in their toolboxes than the church allowed them to show: “While these dissenters were all terminated from their employment within the church as was Desmond Ford at a later time (1980), the questions they raised and the answers they attempted to give remain crucial for those who wish to understand the Adventist doctrine of the sanctuary. Also important are the writings of many others who remained within the church even though important questions with which they struggled remained unanswered to their satisfaction. Some of the best known of these thought-leaders are highly-regarded as editors of periodicals like Adventist Review and Ministry or as editors/authors of the SDA Bible Commentary: W.W. Prescott (1855-1944), L.E. Froom (1890-1974), F.D. Nichol (1897-1966) and Raymond F. Cottrell (1911-2003).”[8]

Arthur do list Froom but nothing about his appeasement pushdrive. Cottrell I already mentioned above.

 

 

Sources:

[1] For an introduction to sources for the study of Seventh-day Adventism, see Arthur N. Patrick, (1987, June). “Seventh-day Adventists in the South Pacific: A Review of Sources,” Journal of Religious History 14, no. 3 (June 1987), 307-326. The main frame of this writing is from Arthur Patrick, (2009, 30th of April). Post 35, “The Sanctuary/Investigative Judgment, 1844-2008: A short, documented history of an Adventist teaching.” Posted on January 16, 2012 by adventiststudies. Downloaded online on 11th of August 2018 at https://adventiststudies.com/2012/01/16/post-35/

[2] Paul A. Gordon, (1981, July). Pioneer Articles on the Sanctuary Daniel 8:14, The Judgment, 2300 days, Day-Year Principle 1846-1904. Ellen White Estate.

[3] Raymond F. Cottrell, “The ‘Sanctuary Doctrine’–Asset or Liability,” a presentation to the San Diego Forum, 9 February 2002, in DF 597, Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centre, Avondale College.

[4] Paul McGraw’s doctoral dissertation (2004).

[5] Patrick’s paraphrase and summary.

[6] Gary Land and Edwards

[7] For a short biography of Fletcher, see SDA Encyclopedia. Patick indicated that the Moxon collection is located in the Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centre, Avondale College.

[8] Patrick cites documentation of these individuals. For readily accessible documentation regarding this section, see Desmond Ford, Daniel 8:14, The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgment (Casselberry, Fl.: Euangelion Press, 1980), 11-100. However, extensive documentation is available in the Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centres that serve the church’s thirteen world divisions. For biographies of Prescott, Nichol and Froom, see SDA Encyclopedia (1996). All four were prominent editors of Review, Ministry, and/or SDA Bible Commentary