Showing posts with label fanaticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fanaticism. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2026
Thursday, May 21, 2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Friday, April 10, 2026
Inside Iran’s ruling ideology: How a ‘holy mission’ and messianic doctrine fuel regime extremism
New IRGC commanders shaped by years of conflict may entrench the regime's extremist ideology even further, analysts warn
Published April 5, 2026 2:00pm EDT
Updated April 5, 2026 8:00am EDT
Inside Iran’s hidden power center: Expert says supreme leader’s office runs a ‘state within a state’
Kasra Aarabi of United Against a Nuclear Iran says the regime's durability lies not in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as an individual, but in the institutional machinery surrounding him.
For Mehdi Ghadimi, the ideology behind Iran’s ruling system is not theoretical. It was something he was taught from childhood.
"You were told you are a part a small group chosen by God… to revive God’s religion and fight to defend it," the Iranian journalist told Fox News Digital, describing the message repeated in schools, mosques and state media.
That early indoctrination, he said, framed the world in stark terms: a divine struggle between good and evil, with Iran’s leadership positioned at the center of a religious mission.
Iran’s ruling system is often described in political terms, but critics and former insiders say its core is far more radical — a belief structure rooted in religious absolutism, messianic expectation and a worldview that leaves little room for compromise.
A banner featuring Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is displayed in Tehran, March 14, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu)
As a new generation of commanders rises within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps following recent military blows under Operation Epic Fury, analysts warn that this ideology may become even more entrenched.
Figures such as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Ahmad Vahidi are often cited as part of a cohort shaped by years of conflict in Iraq and across the region — one that sees religion, security and survival as inseparable.
Sunday, February 01, 2026
Leftist and liberal gun groups are seeing a rush of new members
By
Harmeet Kaur
People light candles at a makeshift memorial for Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on January 24. Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Several niche, left-leaning gun advocacy groups said that since the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, they can hardly keep up with the surging demand for firearms training.
With President Donald Trump sending armed federal agents into communities around the country, even more once gun-shy liberals and leftists are considering getting armed. And while Americans tend to think of gun owners as leaning more Republican and male, already more women, gay people and people of color have taken up arms in recent years, particularly after 2020.
Weekend classes at L.A. Progressive Shooters are sold out through March. Registrations for permit-to-carry courses at Pink Pistols Twin Cities, which serves LGBTQ people in Minneapolis and St. Paul, are up from an average of five people per class to 25 — the group recently added seven more courses to accommodate increased interest, and those are filling up, too. To paraphrase a recent meme: The right is arguing for gun control, and the left is buying guns.
“In the past couple of days, there has been a shift,” Lara Smith, national spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says. “This changed views on the left.”
Alex Pretti, a beloved ICU nurse who cared for ailing veterans and an outdoorsman who was concerned about the environment, was also, like one-third of Americans, a gun owner. He was carrying his lawfully owned weapon in a holster before federal agents disarmed him and then fatally shot him.
Jordan Levine, founder of the inclusive gun community A Better Way 2A, says his organization has seen an influx of gun groups and instructors asking to join its resource page in the last few weeks — Ready Rainbow in Chicago, Grassroots Defense in Iowa and Solidarity Defense in Sacramento are a few recent additions. “People are scared and angry and want to equalize the power imbalance that we’re seeing on the news, where you’ve got ICE steamrolling people with no recourse,” he adds.
Philip Smith, founder and president of the National African American Gun Association, says membership in his organization has grown since Trump’s second term began and since Pretti was killed. “People join when they’re scared,” Smith says. “People join when certain people get in office, because it scares them. People join when they see these shootings across the country, and it seems like it’s just madness starting to grow more and more.”
Harmeet Kaur
People light candles at a makeshift memorial for Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on January 24. Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Several niche, left-leaning gun advocacy groups said that since the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, they can hardly keep up with the surging demand for firearms training.
With President Donald Trump sending armed federal agents into communities around the country, even more once gun-shy liberals and leftists are considering getting armed. And while Americans tend to think of gun owners as leaning more Republican and male, already more women, gay people and people of color have taken up arms in recent years, particularly after 2020.
Weekend classes at L.A. Progressive Shooters are sold out through March. Registrations for permit-to-carry courses at Pink Pistols Twin Cities, which serves LGBTQ people in Minneapolis and St. Paul, are up from an average of five people per class to 25 — the group recently added seven more courses to accommodate increased interest, and those are filling up, too. To paraphrase a recent meme: The right is arguing for gun control, and the left is buying guns.
“In the past couple of days, there has been a shift,” Lara Smith, national spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says. “This changed views on the left.”
Alex Pretti, a beloved ICU nurse who cared for ailing veterans and an outdoorsman who was concerned about the environment, was also, like one-third of Americans, a gun owner. He was carrying his lawfully owned weapon in a holster before federal agents disarmed him and then fatally shot him.
Jordan Levine, founder of the inclusive gun community A Better Way 2A, says his organization has seen an influx of gun groups and instructors asking to join its resource page in the last few weeks — Ready Rainbow in Chicago, Grassroots Defense in Iowa and Solidarity Defense in Sacramento are a few recent additions. “People are scared and angry and want to equalize the power imbalance that we’re seeing on the news, where you’ve got ICE steamrolling people with no recourse,” he adds.
Philip Smith, founder and president of the National African American Gun Association, says membership in his organization has grown since Trump’s second term began and since Pretti was killed. “People join when they’re scared,” Smith says. “People join when certain people get in office, because it scares them. People join when they see these shootings across the country, and it seems like it’s just madness starting to grow more and more.”
Monday, December 08, 2025
Churchill & Islam
Photo: The Churchill Book Collector
February 27, 2021
By JAMES W. MULLER
The long-awaited definitive edition of Winston Churchill’s book The River War has now been published. The roots of the conflict in which young Lt. Churchill charged with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman went back to a revolt in Sudan initiated by the Mahdi, a charismatic leader in the Muslim world. The newest issue of Finest Hour explores the subject “Churchill, Race, and Religion” and includes the observations of the Mahdi’s grandson about how the River War affected Churchill. In his introduction to the new scholarly edition of The River War, editor James W. Muller also examines how Churchill’s views about Islam were formed by his early experiences in Asia and Africa. Here follow extracts.
In The River War, Churchill calls Islam “Mohammedanism” and Muslim law “Mohammedan,” terms used by analogy with “Christianity” and “Christian” and more in favor among non-Muslims than among Muslims, who see them as misnaming Islam and the Muslim faithful as if Muhammad were analogous in Islam to Christ in Christianity. In fact, for Muslims the Qur’an as God’s word is the better analogy to Christ for Christians; in Islam true religious devotion belongs to God, who is divine, not to his Prophet, who is human, and whose followers therefore worship not Muhammad but only God. Few would be glad to think that they were fanatics.
The effects of both the “frenzy” and the “apathy” Churchill imputes to Muslims are hardly complimentary. He finds them in the thrall of “a degraded sensualism,” spoiling their lives both in this world and the next. He argues that they confuse women and slaves with property. Despite his acknowledgment that “individual Moslems may show splendid qualities,” that thousands of Muslims are “brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen,” and that all Muslims “know how to die,” he judges them paralyzed in their “social developement” and Islam the strongest “retrograde force…in the world.”
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Monday, August 18, 2025
Pope Leo is becoming the climate champion we need
Aug. 17, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Pope Leo XIV leads the Mass for the Care of Creation in Castel Gandolfo, southeast of Rome on July 9, 2025. (YARA NARDI/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS)
By
Mark Gongloff
Syndicated columnist
While the leader of 340 million Americans furiously works to derail climate action, the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics is embracing it.
In May, when Pope Leo XIV succeeded the late Pope Francis, I suggested he could be the kind of climate champion the world needs when President Donald Trump seems determined to turn the U.S. from one of the world’s leading protectors of the environment to one of its worst vandals. So far, Leo has given no reason to doubt he’ll be at least as green as Francis, who was arguably the greenest pope in modern history.
Italy’s government recently approved a 2024 proposal by Francis to build a solar array in a field north of Rome that will generate enough power to provide “the complete energy sustenance of Vatican City State,” as Francis put it. Leo championed the plan just weeks after succeeding Francis, calling it an example for the world. “We all know the effects of climate change, and it is necessary to truly care for the whole world, for all of creation,” Leo told Italian state TV at the site in June.
The solar array, which still needs Italian parliamentary approval, will put the Vatican among the handful of countries generating all their power from renewable energy. Of course, at 0.17 square miles, the Vatican will be the tiniest of that tiny group.
But a little symbolism in this case could go a long way. Trappings like solar panels on the Vatican roof and an all-electric Popemobile aren’t just green window dressing. They manifest a worldview expounded by Francis in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, which condemned humanity’s degradation of the environment for short-term financial gain.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Christians decry plan in India for death penalty for conversions
Activists display a long list of atrocities against minorities on the first 300 days of the Narendra Modi government on March 19, 2015. (Anto Akkara via CNA)
Activists in India are decrying remarks from the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in which the politician threatened to prescribe the death penalty for religious conversions in Madhya Pradesh state.
“A provision for capital punishment will be made in the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act for religious conversion,” declared Mohan Yadav, BJP chief minister of the state, at an International Women’s Day program on March 8.
Yadav said the state government “wouldn’t spare those behind illegal conversions.”
“Proposing the death penalty for religious conversion of girls is not only bizarre but deserves to be condemned by all who cherish the rights and freedoms enshrined and guaranteed in the constitution,” outspoken Jesuit peace activist Father Cedric Prakash told CNA on March 13.
Asserting that Article 25 of Indian Constitution “unequivocally states that every citizen has the right to freely preach, practice, and propagate one’s religion,” Prakash said the chief minister’s remarks were “demeaning a citizen’s fundamental right,” which he said “speaks volumes of the abysmal depth to which fascism has taken the country.”
The United Christian Forum (UCF) has listed 834 crimes against Christians in India in 2024, shooting up from 127 in 2014 when the Hindu nationalist BJP captured power at the national level.
The majority of the incidents have been assaults and arrests of Christians on conversion charges that critics have deemed fraudulent.
There is “a very clear political agenda behind the conversion rhetoric,” Prakash said.
“It polarizes the people — we against them; majority vs. minority,” he said. “It helps create fear among the majority [Hindus] that the minorities of the country — namely Muslims and Christians — will take over the reins of power in the country.”
While Hindus account for nearly 80% of India’s 1.44 billion people, Muslims account for 14% and Christians 2.3%.
Other minorities like Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists account for the remaining population.
John Dayal, a Catholic columnist and social activist, told CNA that the call for the death penalty for conversions “exposes the cavalier, and cynical, manner in which [Hindu nationalists] have crafted this political strategy to criminalize Christian presence and community growth in the state.”
Madhya Pradesh state has reported several incidents of harassment of Christian institutions and arrest of clergy, pastors, and lay Christians. Christians are below one-half of 1% of the state’s 89 million people.
“The Christian community, and civil society too, must challenge anti-conversion laws in India as a travesty to human rights and a fraud on the constitution of democratic India,” Dayal said.
A.C. Michael, the Catholic coordinator of UCF, told CNA the threat to introduce the death penalty for conversions is “mere propaganda to boost Hindu nationalist forces.”
“As a matter of fact, the very anti-conversion law being framed under the garb of ‘freedom of religion’ is itself an anti-constitution law. We are hopeful it will not stand scrutiny in court of law when challenged,” Michael said.
He noted that the Supreme Court of India itself last year said the law may run afoul of the national constitution.
Though a dozen of India’s 28 states have enacted anti-conversion laws, Michael pointed out: “There has been hardly any conviction for forceful conversions despite hundreds being arrested regularly on conversion charges, mostly in BJP-ruled states.”
Church officials did not respond to requests for comment on the chief minister’s remarks.
Activists in India are decrying remarks from the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in which the politician threatened to prescribe the death penalty for religious conversions in Madhya Pradesh state.
“A provision for capital punishment will be made in the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act for religious conversion,” declared Mohan Yadav, BJP chief minister of the state, at an International Women’s Day program on March 8.
Yadav said the state government “wouldn’t spare those behind illegal conversions.”
“Proposing the death penalty for religious conversion of girls is not only bizarre but deserves to be condemned by all who cherish the rights and freedoms enshrined and guaranteed in the constitution,” outspoken Jesuit peace activist Father Cedric Prakash told CNA on March 13.
Asserting that Article 25 of Indian Constitution “unequivocally states that every citizen has the right to freely preach, practice, and propagate one’s religion,” Prakash said the chief minister’s remarks were “demeaning a citizen’s fundamental right,” which he said “speaks volumes of the abysmal depth to which fascism has taken the country.”
The United Christian Forum (UCF) has listed 834 crimes against Christians in India in 2024, shooting up from 127 in 2014 when the Hindu nationalist BJP captured power at the national level.
The majority of the incidents have been assaults and arrests of Christians on conversion charges that critics have deemed fraudulent.
There is “a very clear political agenda behind the conversion rhetoric,” Prakash said.
“It polarizes the people — we against them; majority vs. minority,” he said. “It helps create fear among the majority [Hindus] that the minorities of the country — namely Muslims and Christians — will take over the reins of power in the country.”
While Hindus account for nearly 80% of India’s 1.44 billion people, Muslims account for 14% and Christians 2.3%.
Other minorities like Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists account for the remaining population.
John Dayal, a Catholic columnist and social activist, told CNA that the call for the death penalty for conversions “exposes the cavalier, and cynical, manner in which [Hindu nationalists] have crafted this political strategy to criminalize Christian presence and community growth in the state.”
Madhya Pradesh state has reported several incidents of harassment of Christian institutions and arrest of clergy, pastors, and lay Christians. Christians are below one-half of 1% of the state’s 89 million people.
“The Christian community, and civil society too, must challenge anti-conversion laws in India as a travesty to human rights and a fraud on the constitution of democratic India,” Dayal said.
A.C. Michael, the Catholic coordinator of UCF, told CNA the threat to introduce the death penalty for conversions is “mere propaganda to boost Hindu nationalist forces.”
“As a matter of fact, the very anti-conversion law being framed under the garb of ‘freedom of religion’ is itself an anti-constitution law. We are hopeful it will not stand scrutiny in court of law when challenged,” Michael said.
He noted that the Supreme Court of India itself last year said the law may run afoul of the national constitution.
Though a dozen of India’s 28 states have enacted anti-conversion laws, Michael pointed out: “There has been hardly any conviction for forceful conversions despite hundreds being arrested regularly on conversion charges, mostly in BJP-ruled states.”
Church officials did not respond to requests for comment on the chief minister’s remarks.
Wednesday, March 01, 2023
Monday, October 21, 2019
Four dead, dozens injured in violence over Facebook post
By - Associated Press - Sunday, October 20, 2019
DHAKA, Bangladesh — At least four people were killed and dozens injured Sunday after security officials in southern Bangladesh opened fire to disperse hundreds of Muslims during a protest over an alleged social media post undermining Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, police said.
The violence took place in Borhanuddin in the southern district of Bhola when angry protesters demanded the punishment of a Hindu man for the alleged Facebook comment, said local police chief Sarkar Mohammad Kaisar. The man denied making the comment, saying his Facebook account had been hacked.
Kaisar said four people were killed and the injured, including about a dozen police officials, were being treated in local hospitals. Bangladesh’s leading newspapers said about 100 people were injured.
Bhola is 72 miles (116 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka.
Local authorities held a meeting Sunday to try to defuse the tensions that began Friday as the Facebook post gained attention in the area. But the angry protesters started attacking security officials, prompting them to retaliate, Kaisar said.
He said that following a complaint by the Facebook account holder, police detained three people for allegedly hacking the account.
Communal tensions often pop up in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, with minority groups saying they face discrimination.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Jonestown massacre: Why the phrase ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ hurts this cult survivor
She escaped the worst murder-suicide in US history, but one thing still haunts this survivor, even 40 years later.
Emma Reynolds@emmareyn news.com.au
November 17, 20189:26pm
Jonestown, anniversary of a massacre
After she escaped the cult, Deborah Layton wanted to get as far from her past as possible, terrified of being labelled the “Jonestown girl” or “Kool-Aid kid”.
She was the one who warned US authorities they needed to save the People’s Temple church members awaiting death in a remote jungle clearing in South America.
Her testimony was the impetus for Californian Congressman Leo Ryan to lead an investigations party to the Jonestown camp in Guyana, South America — an arrival that triggered a mass murder-suicide that left 913 people dead. That was November 18, 1978, but the images of bodies strewn around the community are still as vivid 40 years on.
But Deborah hates how the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” has become a euphemism for unquestioning obedience, after Reverend Jim Jones’s followers downed lethal cocktails of grape-flavoured Flavor-Aid, potassium cyanide, Valium and Phenergan at their leader’s command.
The horrifying images of dead bodies strewn around the compound of the People’s Temple cult in Jonestown, after 913 people drank cyanide-laced grape juice at Reverend Jim Jones’s order. Picture: David Hume Kennerly/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Thursday, March 01, 2018
AR-15s Are Biblical 'Rod Of Iron' At Pennsylvania Church
March 1, 20188:02 AM ET
SCOTT NEUMAN
Jacqueline Larma/AP
Jacqueline Larma/AP
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Jacqueline Larma/AP
Hundreds of faithful at a Pennsylvania church on Wednesday carried AR-15-style rifles in adherence to their belief that a "rod of iron" mentioned in the Bible refers to the type of weapon that was used in last month's mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.
The armed ceremony at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary in Newfoundland, about 20 miles southeast of Scranton, featured gun-toting worshippers, some wearing crowns of bullets as they participated in communion and wedding ceremonies.
Attendants carefully placed a zip tie into the receiver magazine well of each weapon to assure that a clip could not be loaded.
Concern over Wednesday's gathering prompted a nearby elementary school to cancel classes for the day. It also sparked a small demonstration outside the church, with one protester telling The Associated Press that "it's scaring people in the community."
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Friday, December 18, 2015
"Present Truth"
Early Writings, p. 63
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Saturday, March 29, 2014
The Danger of Speculative Ideas
The ministers should not feel that they have some wonderful advanced ideas, and unless all receive these, they will be shaken out, and a people will arise to go forward and upward to the victory. Satan’s object is accomplished just as surely when men run ahead of Christ and do the work He has never entrusted to their hands, as when they remain in the Laodicean state, lukewarm, feeling rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing. The two classes are equally stumbling blocks.
Some zealous ones who are aiming and straining every energy for originality have made a grave mistake in trying to get something startling, wonderful, entrancing, before the people, something that they think others do not comprehend; but often they do not themselves know what they are talking about. They speculate upon God’s Word, advancing ideas that are not a whit of help to themselves or
to the churches. For the time being, they may excite the imagination; but there is a reaction, and these very ideas become a hindrance. Faith is confounded with fancy, and their views may bias the mind in the wrong direction. Let the plain, simple statements of the Word of God be food for the mind; this speculating upon ideas that are not clearly presented there, is dangerous business.—Undated Manuscript 111.
The danger that threatens our churches is that new and strange things will be brought in, things that confuse the minds of the people, and give them no strength, at the very time when they most need strength in spiritual things. Clear discernment is needed that things new and strange shall not be laid alongside of truth as a part of the burden of the message to be given at this time. The very messages we have been giving to the world are to be made prominent.—An Appeal for Canvassers, pp. 1, 2.
Selected Messages Book 2, pp.13,14.
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Saturday, September 03, 2011
Am I a Phariseee … or a Publican?
By Pastor Doug Batchelor
A Shocking Parable
In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were considered among the most pious and religious of all the believers in God. On the other hand, the publicans were branded as unfaithful and unjust extortionists. They were seen as the mafia of their day. You can see why, then, that Jesus’ conclusion of this parable literally stunned His audience. It was an outrageous and politically incorrect illustration to suggest that a publican would be justified and saved while a Pharisee would be unforgiven and lost. We’ll look more at this later, but Jesus turned their ranking system upside down.
These men represent two groups, but we are not talking about two groups in the world. Rather, these two men represent two opposite destinies, the saved and the lost, among those who go to church. Every professed believer today falls into one of these groups. One of these men represents me. One represents you.
Read more
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Sunday, November 07, 2010
Incredible Apostasy: Will it Ever Stop?
(Photo) http://www.stanet.ch/apd/news/archiv/4755.html
[Prague: Adventists and Evangelicals Meet in Dialogue
Prague/Czech Republic, 15.08.2006/APD]
December 01, 2002 ,,,,W
By Elder Lawrence Nelson
In recent weeks I find myself with a heart-rending perplexity. For my soul sighs and cries daily as I see abominations developing within God’s church. No one of high authority seems to have the spiritual courage to stem the rising tide. I ask, “Is everyone at our world headquarters asleep, or are they so afraid because of Jesuit pressure they dare not say a word? Is there not at least one godly leader who knows what is taking place? In the light of inspiration can’t someone visualize what the end results will be in promoting that which God condemns?”
Throughout the world a number of ministries are arising and exposing these apostasies. Surely there must be at least one of high authority who sees and knows what is taking place – one who will arise with power from on high and call for a return to the counsel of God as found in the Spirit of Prophecy, and start a reformation. But we hear nary a word of such. Why? In searching for an answer I was led to the following quotation that describes to a “t” what is taking place in our church today, and it also answers the question: Will there soon be a change for the better? Will this incredible apostasy stop?
Listen, the answer is found in Selected Messages , Book 1, p. 204, 205. “The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.”
Did you catch the answer? – Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of this new movement. How revealing! In other words, nothing will stop this apostasy until the vast majority of Seventh-day Adventists become so involved in apostasy that they finally depart from God’s remnant church and return to Babylon. Now I realize you are startled, and you ask, How and when did all this begin? We had better know the facts or else we may also be captured by this satanic movement.
But before we proceed, let us pray for guidance. Dear Loving Father, we plead that Thou wilt commission Thy Holy Spirit to be in charge of this presentation, giving divine guidance that we may discern truth from error. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
From the beginning of God’s end-time remnant church Satan has constantly attempted to destroy it by introducing false doctrines, knowing that if they were accepted, such would lead to apostasy. Permit me to give you a brief summary of such activity from past years starting with the very beginning in 1844. God’s small group of remnant were immediately faced with the fanatical teaching of magnetism which taught that once you were sanctified you would never sin again. Praise God, knowing that such false doctrines would enter His church He gave His people a prophet to guide and expose such error.
Listen to her words, “Let not God be dishonored by the declaration from human lips, ‘I am sinless; I am holy.’ Sanctified lips will never give utterance to such presumptuous words.” Acts of the Apostles p. 561, 562. And she further warned, “The experience of the past (speaking of fanaticism after 1844) will be repeated. … Most seducing influences will be exerted; minds will be hypnotized.” Testimonies for the Church , Volume 8, p. 293.
So long as the growing church followed the counsel of its prophet every false movement that arose quickly came to an end. For example, in 1851 Joseph Bates (of all people you would suspect) predicted that the second Advent would occur that year. This was but the beginning of many false predictions based on supposed prophetic prophesies. But the servant of the Lord instructed the following, found in Spiritual Gifts , Volume 1, p. 138 – 148; 158, that prophetic periods reached to 1844. “Prophetic time closed in 1844. I was shown prophetic periods ended in 1844.”
Then in 1887 D. M. Canright began to preach “new theology” which the Lord’s servant immediately exposed. And sorry to say, some of his same false doctrines can be found in Desmond Ford’s preaching today. Such was the devil’s continuous attempt to cause disbelief in the Testimonies.
This was followed in 1908 by W. W. Prescott who boldly attempted to change the words found in the Great Controversy book. But Ellen White would not permit this. She wrote, “Such was rejected.” That was taken from her letter “Elmshaven” p. 307.
Now this brings us to the year 1915 when L. R. Conrad tried to change Ellen White’s writings as published in the German language. But the church leadership, now without a prophet, began to fumble by not following her written counsel which caused the beginning of the Advent Reform Movement.
By 1929, without a living prophet, the Shepherd’s Rod Movement found little trouble, under the leadership of Victor Houteff, to secure a following with his false doctrines that the 144,000 were not found in heaven but would be located in Palestine.
Then came 1931, the year in which accreditation of our educational institutions took place. Again, leadership failed to exercise faith in the Spirit of Prophecy. This action opened the door to educating our college and university professors to obtain doctorate degrees in the schools of Babylon, where for the next twenty-five years many of our teachers succumbed to the false doctrines they were forced to study. Thus they gradually brought a change into our denomination as to our teachings.
Now with this short background the evangelical conference took place next in the mid-fifties. It was the decisions made during these meetings that started our church on the road to apostasy. A history of how such conferences developed are as follows:
On November 28, 1949 Pastor E. E. Unruh, president of the East Pennsylvania Conference, heard a sermon on the radio on Righteousness by Faith based on the book of Romans by a Dr. Barnhouse, radio preacher and minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; founder and editor of Eternity magazine . He wrote a letter to Dr. Barnhouse and commended him on his sermon. Dr. Barnhouse was astonished that an Adventist clergyman would commend him for preaching Righteousness by Faith since, in his opinion, it was a well-known fact that Seventh-day Adventists believed in Righteousness by Works.
This precipitated meetings beginning in 1954 between Dr. Barnhouse and Dr. Walter Martin, a consulting editor of the Eternity staff. Dr. Walter Martin was to search out thoroughly the human and historical resources of the Seventh-day Adventists. This developed into a fourteen-member committee and resulted in the book Questions on Doctrines being published in 1957 and it contained serious aberrations of Adventist truth. During these discussions the seeds were sown which are now producing the harvest of apostasy.
The General Conference leaders discovered that the Evangelicals were planning to publish a book containing the names of religious bodies which they declared to be non-Christian or a cult and this list contained the name of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Evangelical reasoning was as follows:
Since our church taught that Christ was now in heaven’s sanctuary making a final atonement, therefore we didn’t believe in the atonement made by Christ at the cross. So they considered Seventh-day Adventists to be nothing more than a cult.
These Babylonian Evangelicals held that Jesus made the final atonement on the cross and nothing more was needed, and if we did not agree with their belief and change our beliefs then they would print the book proclaiming that we were not Christians. And would you believe it, instead of holding to the divine inspiration that states, “Christ is now making an atonement,” these General Conference men compromised and determined to change our sanctuary doctrine so we could be considered by Babylon as “Christians.”
Soon new books were printed stating that we believe salvation was completed at the cross, denying that there was an atonement now taking place in heaven’s sanctuary. This is why you seldom, if ever, hear anything about a heavenly sanctuary from our pulpits today. Some even now preach there is no heavenly sanctuary, but God foreknew that this would take place and what would be the results. Inspiration proclaimed, “The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. … The Sabbath of course would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of this new movement.” Selected Messages , Book 1, p. 204.
So much for the details. Let us now examine what the General Conference leadership actually changed. But first of all, we must secure a foundation in God’s Holy Word so let us read Romans 4:25. “[Christ] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” This amazing scripture of one text reveals that the atonement provided by Christ was of a dual nature which made possible how God could destroy our sins and yet save the sinner. This verse reveals that the atonement at the cross provided the ransom price for sins, for scripture also states, “Christ was delivered (that is He died) for our offenses (that’s our sins) and was raised again for our justification.” This is exactly what the Old Testament sanctuary taught –
1. That the lamb was sacrificed on the alte(a)r for an atonement and
2. Its blood provided for the atonement which took place within the sanctuary for cleansing and justification of the sinner.
Thus the Bible doctrine of a dual atonement became a pillar of our faith established by God’s Holy Word and verified by the Spirit of Prophecy. This Bible doctrine is never to be altered and it stands today untouched by all the intellectualism of Babylon. Yet, our church leadership dared to disregard God’s truth. Consider once more Romans 4:25, “[Christ] was delivered for our offences (that is, He died for our sins) and was raised again for our justification.” Nothing could be stated more clearly. This is why God’s end-time prophet declares that Jesus must perform a work of atonement for the repentant sinner in addition to the atonement made at the cross in order to obtain full salvation. We read in Great Controversy p. 489, “The intercession of Christ in man’s behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan of salvation as was His death upon the cross. By His death, He began that work which after His resurrection He ascended to complete in heaven.”
Never forget, both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy were co-authored by the Holy Spirit. They are always in complete agreement. When we talk of Christ’s death on the cross, and what He is now doing for us as our High Priest in heaven’s sanctuary, we acknowledge that both of these events have to do with Christ’s atoning work for us. In the Spirit of Prophecy the word “atonement” is used in five different expressions as follows:
1. “He made an atonement”
2. “A full atonement”
3. “A perfect atonement”
4. “A complete atonement”
5. “He is making an atonement”
Now let us examine these expressions so you will have a clear understanding of these two atonements. The first, “He made an atonement.” We find this in Signs of the Times , December 17, 1902. “On the cross of Christ the Savior made an atonement for the fallen race.” Now this statement is given in the past tense meaning that the sacrifice was completed. The price agreed upon was honored. The debt was paid in full for the sins of the whole world and it never needed to be repeated. For we read in Hebrews 9:28, “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” This expression, “made an atonement” has to do strictly with that which was done on the cross.
Now let’s consider #2 – “a full atonement.” This statement is found in the book Lift Him Up p. 345, “Christ made a full atonement. He gave His life a ransom.” In a similar quotation she writes of Christ when He arose from the grave. “Christ made a full atonement.” Youth Instructor May 2, 1901. You can see from these two quotations that Christ paid the debt we owed. It was a full atonement – a full payment. He died in our place, making a full atonement on the cross.
Now the third statement – “a perfect atonement” – is found in the book Lift Him Up p. 319. “When He offered Himself on the cross, a perfect atonement was made for the sins of the people.” Now compare this with the following in Manuscript Releases, Volume 5, p. 114 in 1899. “In the council of heaven the cross was ordained as the means of atonement.” So when Ellen White uses the term “a perfect atonement” we may include a perfect sacrifice. Now we should praise God for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and with Paul glory in the cross! What an atonement, what a price for our ransom!
The fourth statement – “a complete atonement” – is found in the book The Faith I Live By p. 91. “God has accepted the offering of His Son as a complete atonement for the sins of the world.” The same expression is used in Review and Herald September 24, 1901, “[Christ] planted the cross between heaven and earth, and when the Father beheld the sacrifice of His Son, He bowed before it in recognition of its perfection. ‘It is enough,’ He said. ‘The atonement is completed.’” These words refer specifically to Christ’s atonement on the cross for she wrote in Signs of the Times July 31, 1901, “As [Christ] hung on the cross, He could say, ‘It is finished.’ The demands of justice were satisfied. The way to the throne of grace was opened to every sinner.”
All these quotes refer to Christ’s atonement on the cross. But those words, “open the way to the throne of God for every sinner,” reveals that the atonement of the cross was the beginning of His atoning work for sinners and that He went to heaven to complete the work He had begun at the cross. In heaven’s sanctuary He now pleads His blood before the Father providing forgiveness and cleansing and a blotting out of sin from the sinner’s records.
Now this brings us to the fifth expression – “making an atonement.” Immediately you notice that this is written in the present tense. It could not mean the sacrifice of the cross which took place nearly two thousand years ago. Making an atonement means that an atonement is now in the process – at the present time. This quotation is found in Great Controversy p. 623, “Now, while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ.”
Now, from these five quotations you can clearly see that the Spirit of Prophecy teaches a dual atonement. The one taking place at the cross, a payment for the sins of the world, and the other, an atonement now taking place in the heavenly sanctuary for the repentant in cleansing and blotting out of sin. This is emphasized in another quotation found in Review and Herald May 6, 1884. “Christ has been manifest in the flesh; his blood has been poured out, the perfect sacrifice that is our atonement for the sins of the world; and now as our Mediator stands before the mercy-seat making an atonement for his people.”
All these quotations are in agreement with one another and summarized in the Great Controversy p. 489. “The intercession of Christ in man’s behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan of salvation as was His death upon the cross. By His death He began that work which after His resurrection He ascended to complete in heaven.” The atonement now taking place in heaven has to do with the results of the investigative judgment which began in 1844 for all those who professed to believe in the atonement made at the cross. If found worthy of the atonement of the cross they were provided with forgiveness and cleansing that is involved with the blotting out of their sins from the books of heaven. Thus justified, they are clothed with Christ’s righteousness.
How important that God’s remnant understand the sanctuary message. “The correct understanding of the ministration in the heavenly sanctuary is the foundation of our faith.” Evangelism p. 221. We should daily keep in mind that “we are in the great day of atonement and the sacred work of Christ for the people of God that is going on at the present time in the heavenly sanctuary should be our constant study.” Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, p. 520. It is now, in this investigative judgment, that our characters are involved.
In Testimonies to Ministers p. 439 it reveals, “God’s claim is placed in one scale and man’s character in the other and by the balance of the heavenly sanctuary every man’s doom is fixed for eternity.” What a solemn thought. We are involved with the scales of heaven – not man’s good deeds vs. bad deeds but it is the ten commandments vs. our character.
Consider this: “Each one in the day of investigative judgment will stand in character as he really is; he will render an individual account to God. Every word uttered, every departure from integrity, every action that sullies the soul, will be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary. Memory will be true and vivid in condemnation of the guilty one, who in that day is found wanting. The mind will recall all the thoughts and acts of the past; the whole life will come in review like the scenes in a panorama. Thus every one will be condemned or acquitted out of his own mouth, and the righteousness of God will be vindicated.” Review and Herald November 4, 1884.
In Bible Commentary, Volume 7A, p. 464 we are further enlightened. “The atonement of Christ (that’s in heaven) is not a mere skillful way of having our sins pardoned; it is the divine remedy for the cure of transgression and the restoration of spiritual health. It is the heaven-ordained means by which the righteousness of Christ may be not only upon us, but in our hearts and characters.” Surely we are living in the time spoken of in Revelation 19:7, “The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” This is no time for celebration; this is a time for a call to prepare for the final atonement in which Christ our High Priest will impute His righteousness to us and impart sanctification, in placing His robe of righteousness upon us.
I beg you, ponder the following found in Messages to Young People, p. 35: “The righteousness by which we are justified is imputed; the righteousness by which we are sanctified is imparted. The first is our title to heaven, the second is our fitness for heaven.” But today, instead of our desperate need for a call from leadership for a revival of holy living in preparation for heaven’s final atonement, we are daily faced with an ever-increasing incredible apostasy – the result of General Conference leaders who dared to tamper with the sanctuary truth, removing the pillar of God’s truth in order to please the Philistine’s of Babylon; that we might become buddies and teach their half-truth doctrines. It is accepting the cross but negating the sanctuary doctrine.
The results are tragic. Today we hear mostly of love as revealed in Christ’s atonement at the cross, that salvation was completed on Calvary, that nothing more is needed to be saved. Thus the sanctuary message is well-nigh forgotten. The liberals among us continue to teach a complete, unconditional salvation at the cross, which reveals their unbelief in the Testimonies and does away with the sanctuary doctrine. Such apostasy is clearly revealed in their writings. “When, therefore, one hears an Adventist say or read in Adventist literature – even in the writings of Ellen G. White – that Christ is making an atonement now, it should be understood that we mean simply that Christ is now making application of the benefits of the sacrificial atonement He made on the cross.” Questions on Doctrine p. 354, 355.How clever these explanations of those trained in the theology of Babylon’s institutions.
I continue to quote the New Theology, “Jesus appeared in the presence of God for us but it was not with the hope of obtaining something for us at that time or some future time. No, He had already obtained it for us on the cross.” Question on Doctrines p. 381.
And our Ministerial Department of the General Conference teaches this false doctrine. “The sacrificial act on the cross is a complete and final atonement for man’s sin.” Ministry Magazine February, 1957. In the light of what the Spirit of Prophecy stated, these three quotations sound unbelievable but they are the present-day teachings of a church in apostasy, contrary to divine inspiration.
“There is to be no change in the general features of our work. It is to stand as clear and distinct as prophecy has made it. We are to enter into no confederacy with the world supposing by so doing we could accomplish more. … No line of truth that has made the Seventh-day Adventist people what they are is to be weakened. We have the old landmarks of truth, experience, and duty, and we are to stand firmly in defense of our principles, in full view of the world.” Testimonies for the Church, Volume 6, p. 17.
Again, “Spurious scientific theories are coming in as a thief in the night stealing away the landmarks and undermining the pillars of our faith. … You know that Satan will come in to deceive if possible the very elect.” Medical Ministry p. 87. And boldly she declares, “The professed people of God have compromised with the power of darkness.” Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, p. 222.
I continue, “I am charged to tell our people that some do not realize that the devil has device after device that he carries out in ways that make sinners out of saints. I tell you now, that when I am laid to rest great changes will take place.” Elmshaven February 24, 1915.
And then she wrote just before she died, “One thing it is certain is soon to be realized, — the great apostasy, which is developing and increasing and waxing stronger, will continue to do so until the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout.” Series 7B, p. 56, 57. And then listen to this, “Are we hoping to see the whole church revived? That time will never come.” Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 122. What a sad picture of the results of a church in rebellion.
May I suggest that you read the first chapter of Isaiah to see how God reacts to such incredible apostasy. This chapter gives a comparison between Israel of old and God’s Israel of today. Time will not permit me to read this whole chapter but I shall close by reading verses nine, ten, and twenty-one to twenty-seven. “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Here the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
“How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy sin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.” Praise the Lord.
God will soon arise, when the Sunday law is made mandatory world-wide, and separate the tares from the wheat, presenting to His universe a church without blemish; a very small remnant who have held fast to the pillars of faith, obedient to His commandments and the faith of Jesus. And by His grace, I intend to be one of them. What about you?
Let us pray, Thank Thee, dear Father, for making it possible through the two atonements of Thy son, Jesus, that we may soon live with Thee in the earth made new. In His name we pray, Amen.
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