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A fire storm has erupted with many SDA members over a 'mock-up' end time hunt for Sabbath keepers. In this 'futuristic' melodrama, Sabbath keepers will be hunted down an killed for not taking on the mark of the beast (Sunday worship).
Fear mongering in SDA land is a manipulative way in keeping members fearful of their salvation and afraid to leave the church. Church members, because they are called out from the world, are despised by Satan who will do anything in his power to destroy the 'truth.', actually look forward to being martyrs.
Oh wait, that's Armstrongite mythology too!
Armstrong did the same thing to his cult members. We operated under the same beliefs that many of us would be martyrs for our beliefs. Because we would be martyrs, it was a 'holy thing to do' and therefore none dared lose their salvation by leaving the church. Only cowards would walk away from the glorious 'truth' that had been restored after 1,900 years through Herbert Armstrong. To this very day we have scores of COG members who sit in their respective churches miserable over what they hear being taught, yet too fearful to leave because in the back of their mind "it just might all be true."
It's OK Not to be Seventh Day Adventist had this to say (notice that they use the exact same scare tactics Armstrongism does):
At the very least, it is astonishingly dysfunctional that a church leader would dramatically pre-enact a terrifying prophetic massacre of their people. Can you imagine a Jewish prophet of the 20th century getting together a group of Jews and pre-enacting the Holocaust? Not to warn them to get out of Germany, but just to prepare them for the gas chambers? Or an Old Testament prophet re-enacting the slaughter of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Captivity, not as a warning to repent and turn from their wicked ways, but just to prepare them for the tortures and persecution and martyrdom?
You see Adventists don't see this persecution as punishment from God, not as something they can prepare for and avoid. No, their prophetess Ellen White, had a vision and foretold that because they kept the correct Sabbath, because of their obedience to God, that all other Christians will vent Satan's wrath upon the SDA remnant. Adventists will be hunted down and martyred for keeping Sabbath. Every Christian who continues to disobey God by going to church and worshipping God on Sunday (which they believe is the wrong day to worship) is going to receive the Mark of the Beast.
This recent Adventist theatrical pre-enactment tells us, out here in non-SDA land, that despite their persuasive declaration that the church is no longer fearmongering its youth about other Christians and that it has dropped ridiculous and unbiblical last-day prophecies, that some Adventist church leaders are back to the old scare tactics. "Stay safely inside Adventism, all other Christians are some day going to come after you, torture and martyr you." (Well, actually the word safe to them means eternally, spiritually safe because obviously your physical bodies are going to come to great harm for being SDA.....)
Dictionary definition of fear mongering:
Fear mongering (or scaremongering ) is the use of fear to leverage the opinions and actions of others towards some end. The object of fear is sometimes exaggerated, and the use of fear mongering is often directed in a manner using repetition, in order to continuously reinforce the intended effects of using this tactic in a self-reinforcing manner, like a vicious circle.
10 comments:
Interesting.
There has been a plethora of speculation as to what might constitute the "Mark of the Beast".
Some feel it might be RFID chips embedded in the forehead, a bank account at Bank of America, membership in a universal "New Age" church, a 666 tattoo, some willful violation of one of God's laws, etc. ad nauseum. Who knows? Probably many people won't acknowledge it, or know what it is even if it ends up being upon us during our era. This is yet another case where people turn speculation into one of their official doctrines. It's "fear" religion, a spiritual oxymoron if
there ever was one! Did Jesus cause Peter to deliberately focus on and worry about the wind???
As far as martyrdom is concerned, wow. How would anyone actually deal with this? And, I say this having studied Josephus, the writings of some of the Antenicene Fathers, history from the era prior to, during, and after the Protestant Reformation and the time period involving the translation of the Bible into modern languages, and recent current events involving Christians living in hostile lands, such as North Korea and many of the Moslem countries. I just don't know that any of us in the comfort of our armchairs in our living rooms could possibly imagine the level of testimony that some have been called upon to give through the ages. It is said that the martyrdoms of the early centuries of Christianity are what built the church, and led to the RCC becoming the official church of the Roman Empire.
One of the great lightbulbs which has gone off for me in recent years is the realization that whatever circumstances I wake up to each morning are the will of God for me that day. That's my adventure, the educational experience with which I must deal. In challenging circumstances, it's always comforting to keep Psalm 37 firmly in mind. I also like the passage about the ravens feeding Elijah during the famine!
BB
I think there is a difference between the martyrdom of real dedicated Christians over the centuries as compared to the martyrdom Armstrong threaten us all with. His so called martyrdom was and still is fake and useless. Real Christian martyrs lived and believed in their faith so strongly that they were willing to die for it. Their legacy carries on to this day. Armstrogism's legacy is dying out through a slow, painful, miserable death.
The Monty Python video on "Stoning" is similar to how I was treated (metaphorically and/or allegorically of course) 6 years ago after I explained, during song service, what "Hallelujah" means and after I gave a sermonette on the name "Yahshua / Jesus". One comment from the minister was "What's with all the original Hebrew and holy names?" But now, it really doesn't matter. I find that opinion from the "church" (just like Monty's version of stoning) rather amusing.
There is indeed a difference,
NO2HWA. The type of martyrdom our self-appointed gatekeepers threatened us with always involved the weakest (Laodecean). Traditionally, the Bible principle was that "unto whom much is given, much is expected". The majority of Christian martyrs were the strongest in the faith throughout history!
GTA, in his sermons and lectures, always speculated that he was destined to die a horrible gruesome death. There actually was a very real possibility of his martyrdom, only it might very well have been at the hands of a jealous husband!
BB
Either a jealous husband or a sexually transmitted disease! I am sure over the decades he has had both chasing him down!
Sabbath keepers should take note and be in fear.
The Seventh Day Adventists have made it clear from their persecution of other Sabbath Keepers that the SDAs want to stomp out the competition.
They have been trying to destroy the Church of God Seventh Day for over a hundred years.
So if you keep the Sabbath and are not an SDA, be afraid -- be very afraid!
I have no great love or respect for the SDAs, but I never knew of any overt antempts to stamp out Worldwide in my twenty-plus years of membership.
Just how would they go about such an attempt? This is a free country, where religion is concerned, and they have no more power than any other quarreling faction. We denounced them, and I'm sure they denounced us. Big deal.
No, not Worldwide -- it had too much money and influence. Besides, the WCG would sue at the drop of a pin.
But the SDAs have picked on the CoG7D in rather nasty ways over the years.
And no, not many people would be aware of it unless you knew what the SDAs were doing. They are quite nasty and have been from the 1850s.
On the other hand, the individual SDA's whom I've known as friends seemed almost normal and well adjusted as compared to Armstrongites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others. True, SDA's had a bit narrower world view than we typically see in mainstream Americana. I never did see the level of arrogance or mean-spiritedness towards outsiders that were always present to some degree in WCG. Perhaps we could say that as a mature movement, they had lost many of their cultic aspects.
BB
$120 million per year given to the SDAs by major corporations to use in "charitable" pursuits. Why swat at mosquitoes? Yes, the rank and file member isn't going out to threaten the CoG7D over a logo. It's doubtful that the topic comes up with the rank and file member.
The battles these days are fought as pure Church Corporate battles, where religions have adopted the worst of the corporate model and implemented it badly.
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