Tuesday, October 29, 2019

SDA Issues - 60 Years? Uhm.....

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Amos 3:3
Ganoune Diop, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church, (right) sits next to Roman Catholic Bishop Brian Ferrell, (second from right) Secretary of the Vatican’s Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
October 12, 2016 – Roman Catholic Bishop Brian Farrell (second left) standing next to Pope Francis and Seventh-day Adventist Ganoune Diop (right).
 
"On October 8-10, 2019 Orthodox, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, the Reformed Churches, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics met again this year to “foster coherence within the worldwide ecumenical movement.”
 
This news source and picture is being made available by the Vatican. This is what Rome is reporting. The information contained in here was published by the Vatican City, the Holy See, the universal government of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, the Vatican also reveals that these meetings aimed at promoting unity among the churches have been taking place for “sixty years.” Here is the direct quote:
Meeting without interruption for over sixty years, the Conference has significantly contributed to build trust and partnership among the Church leaders and between their respective traditions, and to foster the coherence of the ecumenical movement worldwide. The Conference is currently chaired by Reverend Dr Martin Junge, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, who is seconded by the secretary, Dr. Ganoune Diop, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the worldwide Seventh–day Adventist Church.”

 Coherence” means “a state or situation in which all the parts or ideas fit together well so that they form a united whole.” And a coherence within the ecumenical movement is an attempt to unite the churches into one body. Rome is the chief architect and promoter of interfaith unity and dialog.

Elder James White also gave us important counsel on the subject of interfaith relationships with other churches. This counsel today has been completely rejected. Notice what he cautions us never to do:
“Here is a man, for instance, who does not agree with us on the subject of the second coming of Christ. He believes
that we are wholly mistaken in regard to this great truth. Can we feel union with such a man, and take him into our fellowship and communion? We cannot. We can but feel that he shuts his eyes to some of the clearest light of the Scriptures, and refuses assent to their most unequivocal testimony. We cannot therefore extend to him the hand of Christian fellowship. Just so with the Sabbath. Can we fellowship the man who violates it? We cannot. On a vital point connected with the teaching of the word of God, we are at issue; and the union that would otherwise exist between us, is of course destroyed. So with the subjects of baptism, the sleep of the dead, the destruction of the wicked, etc. Where there is not agreement in theory, there can be, in the Christian sense, no real communion of heart and fellowship of feeling. (James White, “Fifty Unanswerable Arguments,” Review and Herald, Vol. 19, January 14, 1862, page 52 paragraph 22). AdventMessenger