One of the characteristic features of fundamentalism of any sort, is the need for clearly defined enemies. For that reason fundamentalists expend a lot of their energy targeting the objects of their hatred, rather than doing good. Fundamentalists can do without a savior but no a devil and his earthly minions.

Adventism inherited the anti-catholic bigotry of conservative protestantism, and because of Ellen White's endorsement, elevated it to doctrine--and modern day embarrassment to the church. The ironic thing is that the adventist church, in many ways, resembles the object of its theological hatred. Both churches insist that they possesse an infallible interpreter of scripture. Both organizations are top-heavy, anti-democratic and authoritarian, often more concerned about bad publicity than morals. And both organizations are struggling to retain the loyality of its followers.

I forget who said, "I've seen the enemy, and he is us"--or words to that effect--but he certainly was right.

The quote is from the comic-strip character Pogo - "We have met the enemy and he is us."

http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm

Alex,

This IS POLITICS and all the more reason for the Christian church not to be in the thick of it!!

Aside...you always seem to focus on "the right and politics" as if it didn't exist on the left. Show me your neutrality and the dark side of the left and politics sometime...or are you blinded to it by your own bias.

Did you notice Obama's pastors comment about Bill and Monica while endorsing Him. It is a nasty business to be in. The church has enough problems as it is.

pat

Pat--of course it's a nasty business, but it's how things get done in our world. If every Christian (or religious believer of other faiths) decided "not to be in the thick of it," what sort of fate are we resigning ourselves, our children, and our neighbors to live in? Jesus was a problem to the religious and political establishment of his day precisely because he did have something to say (and do) about the corruption and oppression of those institutions.

This is how the "progressives" as well as the RCC get involved in politics, economics and the state...thought it might be of interest how this Austrian Jew who left Austria due to Nazi influence prior to WWII views it.

A comment by the now deceased economist Ludwig von Mises in the book "Human Action", 1949, p.675.

This is the meaning of the theorem of the harmony of the rightly understood interests of all members of the market society.[6] When the classical economists made this statement, they were trying to stress two points: First, that everybody is interested in the preservation of the social division of labor, the system that multiplies the productivity of human efforts. Second, that in the market society consumers' demand ultimately directs all production activities. The fact that not all human wants can be satisfied is not due to inappropriate social institutions or to deficiencies of the system of the market economy. It is a natural condition of human life. The belief that nature bestows upon man inexhaustible riches and that misery is an outgrowth of man's failure to organize the good society is entirely fallacious. The "state of nature" which the reformers and utopians depicted as paradisiac was in fact a state of extreme poverty and distress. "Poverty," says Bentham, "is not the work of the laws, it is the primitive condition of the human race." [7] Even those at the base of the social pyramid are much better off than they would have been in the absence of social cooperation. They too are benefitted by the operation of the market economy and participate in the advantages of civilized society.
The nineteenth-century reformers did not drop the cherished fable of the original earthly paradise. Frederick Engels incorporated it in the Marxian account of mankind's social evolution. However, they no longer set up the bliss of the aurea aetas as a pattern for social and economic reconstruction. They contrast the alleged depravity of capitalism with the ideal happiness man will enjoy in the socialist Elysium of the future. The socialist mode of production will abolish the fetters by means of which capitalism checks the development of the productive forces, and will increase the productivity of labor and wealth beyond all measure. The preservation of free enterprise and the private ownership of the means of production benefits exclusively the small minority of parasitic exploiters and harms the immense majority of working men. Hence there prevails within the frame of the market society an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of "capital" and those of "labor." This class struggle can disappear only when a fair system of social organization--either [p. 675] socialism or interventionism--is substituted for the manifestly unfair capitalist mode of production.

Such is the almost universally accepted social philosophy of our age. It was not created by Marx, although it owes its popularity mainly to the writings of Marx and the Marxians. It is today endorsed not only by the Marxians, but no less by most of those parties who emphatically declare their anti-Marxism and pay lip service to free enterprise. It is the official social philosophy of Roman Catholicism as well as of Anglo-Catholicism; it is supported by many eminent champions of the various Protestant denominations and of the Orthodox Oriental Church. It is an essential part of the teachings of Italian Fascism and of German nazism and of all varieties of interventionist doctrines. It was the ideology of the Sozialpolitik of the Hohenzollerns in Germany and of the French royalists aiming at the restoration of the house of Bourbon-Orleans, of the New Deal of President Roosevelt, and of the nationalists of Asia and Latin America. The antagonisms between these parties and factions refer to accidental issues--such as religious dogma, constitutional institutions, foreign policy--and, first of all, to the characteristic features of the social system that is to be substituted for capitalism. But they all agree in the fundamental thesis that the very existence of the capitalist system harms the vital interests of the immense majority of workers, artisans, and small farmers, and they all ask in the name of social justice for the abolition of capitalism.[8]

Footnote 8 …[8] The offical doctrine of the Roman Church is outlined in the encyclical Quadragismo anno of Pope Pius XI (1931). The Anglo-Catholic doctrine is presented by the late William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the book Christianity and the Social Order (Penguin Special, 1942). Representative of the ideas of Eureopean continental Protestantism is the book of Emil Brunner, Justice and the Social Order, trans. by M. Hottinger (New York, 1945). A highly significant document is the section on "The Church and Disorder of Society" of the draft report which the World Council of Chruches in September, 1948, recommnded for appropriate action to the one hundred and fifty odd denominations whose delegates are member of the Council. For the ideas of Nicolas Berdyawe, the most eminent apolgist of Russian Orthodosy, cf. his book The Origin of Russian Communism (London, 1937), especially pp. 217-218 and 225. It is often asserted that an essential difference between the Marxians and the other socialist and interventionist parties is to be found in the fact that the Marxians stand for class struggle, while the latter parties look at the class struggle as upon a deplorable outgrowth of the irreconcilable conflict of class interest inherent in capitalism and want to overcome it by the realization of the reforms they recommend. However, the Marxians do not praise and kindle the class struggle for its own sake. In their eyes the class struggle is good only because it is the device by means of which the "productive forces," those mysterious forces directing the course of human evolution, are bound to bring about the "classless" society in which there will be neither classes nor class conflicts.

Hope this has meaning to some.

pat

Aage,

I've sometimes wondered over this issue as well.

North American Adventist universities and organizations like Spectrum do not really reflect the massive grassroots of Adventist thought and practice. Catholicism has been dwelt upon for so long at the ground level that I wonder if we have been proving that "by beholding we become changed."

Frank

Daneen,

Yes to individuals in the process...no to the Church!!

Let individuals be in the process of trying to make the "kingdom of this world" better.

The "collective Church" needs to be building up the "kingdom of God" and the coming King who alone can create justice and peace for those that trust in Him.

pat

While anti-Catholocism has a much longer history than with Adventism, it was propagated further by EGW's writings and still is strongly represented within much of the church to this day. Fundamentlists must have enemies to function and it is not difficult to find them. Those that have other religious or political views easily become targets. It is the same ideology that is found in Islamic fundamentalists: a coercive dogma and fear of anything new that might question the previous traditions that have become doctrine by time.

Like Spitzer: when looking for the enemy, look first in the mirror.

Elaine,

Isn't that what the doctrine of "human depravity" is?

Always funny to see folks set up the straw men of neutrality. Have I ever claimed it? No, in fact, I have an argument: that there are moral (care for creation) and immoral (blaming hurricanes on divine fiat) ways for Christians to influence public life.

In fact, in this case, I'm biased against pastors who think that God kills babies and poor old ladies because some skin that's touching has the same chromosomes. In what way does this yuck-factor, illogical theology parallel your example of the Rev. Wright?

The problem with these sweeping generalizations (politics is off limits for the Church) is that they fail to make principled distinctions. And as Daneen intimates, they are false, because a silent church is a collaborationist church. And you can often tell the people who fear losing power because they are the ones telling the church to focus more on the afterlife and leave them alone.

On Mises: yes, that is a view. Economics is full of them.

When you think about it, class struggle is competition too, just a little bigger of a picture. Complaining about the struggle misses the point; better to incorporate the reality.

I'm no economist, but last night, at the Environmental Defense Fund SF office party, I had had a good conversation with one of their economists about cap-and-auction market-based solutions for carbon emissions. Objecting to global warming or Christians combining to speak truth to earthly power because of macro-critiques of the Soviet Union just doesn't make much sense in the exponentially-changing real world goal of expanding freedom for all.

Steer away from the John Birch stuff and read more Grist, like today's germane report, Eco:nomics: Immelt vs. the ideologues. Seriously, read it. And let me know what you think.

Frank,
"North American Adventist universities and organizations like Spectrum do not really reflect the massive grassroots of Adventist thought and practice."

You'd be surprised, I think, at how mainstream we are. Loud voices seek to drown out alternate views. There are angry people in our church and they do publish lots of doom and gloom stories on the downfall of this, that or the other.

For example, Adventism in Peru is booming with that country constructing and expanding Adventist colleges at a break neck pace. About a year ago the director of one of their marriage and family programs stayed at my parents house. He came up to meet LLU MFAM folk and talk about possible partnerships. He and my family talked about many things, theology and church playing a large part of our conversation, and their Adventism is very much alive and searching for truth. He did not fit the stereotype often presented of Latin American Adventism.

Part of the reason Adventist Forums partnered with AEGUAE (the largest lay organisation in Spain) is to bring in voices outside of English-speaking Adventism, specifically Hispanic Adventists. This is our sister organisation and we are partnered with them- they like Spectrum and are proud to work with us.

Likewise our journal is well respected in Adventist communities in Argentina and beyond. I can only speak of what I know but I'm sure that the positive reactions I've gotten are indicative of more, not less, support.

As an aside, I was excited to learn that he and his department are driving the establishment of Marriage and Family Therapy in that country with our professors leading the push to create a professional organisation to certify MFAM therapists for practice in Peru. When we spoke they were having their constitution and structures formalised for a vote by the Peruvian congress.

Johnny,

That is heartening to hear. If organs like AT and Spectrum are becoming more mainstream, that bodes well for the church at large.

However, from my experience in New York suburban churches (as limited as that may be) this "brand of Adventism" is light years from the thinking of many, though not all. This is why I see a big gap between academic and progressive circles of Adventism, and the so called "grassroots"...not even moving outside the US.

I'm not observing angry or loud voices; I'm observing ordinary people that get little further than Amazing Facts and Revelation seminars in their view of what is solid Adventism. Never mind process theology, the openess of God, etc., whether we like it or not, this is still the mainstream face that we show to the world evangelistically, and the stream in which many members are thoroughly indoctrinated. And much of it, maybe now softened, still contains anti-papal/Catholic rhetoric.

Again, I am speaking from my own experience; but, maybe there is more of a mixed bag than either one of us think?

Frank

Alex,
You said, "Steer away from the John Birch stuff and read more Grist, like today's germane report, Eco:nomics: Immelt vs. the ideologues. Seriously, read it. And let me know what you think."

Are you suggesting Mises is "John Birch Stuff?"

He was a contemporary of the Nazi experience in Austria my friend! Don't belittle that.

pat

PS. My answer...Big Business and Labor both hate competition and use government regulation for their benefit is my answer and the price of oil is presently under attack due to the debasing of the dollar by the Treasury and Federal Reserve.

Regards

PS. I went to your site and in amusment noted this,

"Disagreements on the degree of humanity’s responsibility for the fluctuations in our climate is a digressing and obfuscating deflection. It remains that there is an abundance of data providing very vivid evidence that we are negatively affecting our environment in serious ways that must be reversed, cooling, warming or not. Such reversal will only be brought about, not through panic, but through collective behavior modification. In addition we will require enormous doses of creativity applied to the development of more efficient methodologies for the uses of energy, and conceiving new sources and forms of energy … if only for self preservation."

So now the crisis may be "cooling or warming" and we are to blame? What science?!

To paraphrase Ellen White:

The more we learn of Revelation, the less we may have to say of Rome.

Not only Hagee, but many within our own ranks should take heed. There is truth in the old adage, "the less said the better."

Frank

Frank,

Last year going on a visit to Atlanta saw a huge billboard on I-75 saying, "Sunday is the Mark of the Beast."

I am sure that is impressive to travelers with absolutely no contextual info.!

Hi Pat...

Sounds like the one that was put up in Florida identifying the pope as the beast. Brilliant marketing!!

How about, you catch more flies with honey?

Frank

Perhaps a clearer explanation is that business owners, labor and government are all in competition and they use whomever they can to get ahead. The faith community too? Perhaps, better a player, than played.

On your amusement at climate scientists: are you really just learning that climate change includes global warming and cooling? But I'm sure your laughter can debunk the fellas on the related topic:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling...

I'm more than happy to debate libertarian principles and climate science, but let's not laud von Mises.

Writers such as Ludwig von Mises wrote about the natural affinity between Christianity and Capitalism. There were also extensive mass media efforts to "teach" Americans of the benefits of a particular form of "Free Market" capitalism over communism, with material from the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Foundation for Economic Education with its magazine Freeman.

dot dot dot

A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1950s and early 1960s worried many conservative Christians [like civil rights, desegregation], and some began to get involved in public policy debates and organizing over issues such as obscenity and pornography, and then other social issues. Groups such as Fred Schwarz's Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, the Church League of America, and the Freedoms Foundation joined other ultraconservative organizations in education and training against communist subversion by liberals in mainline Protestant denominations and even the Catholic Church. In 1959 the John Birch Society (JBS) was born. These and other institutions would form the foundation of what later emerged as the New Christian Right in the late 1970s (Diamond 1989, 1995, Hardisty; Berlet & Lyons; Goldberg)

Hardisty, Jean V. 1999. Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers. Boston: Beacon Press.

Or this, after a quick Google:
http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=17296245&aid=frg
American Opinion, John Birch Society, 1965. Cover displaying large illustration of leading conservative economist Ludwig von Mises. A right-wing, anti-communist publication produced by the 'John Birch Society' headed by Robert Welch, most issues containing many essays articles on communist activity and subversion, the 'sell-out' actions of the American and other Western governments,

Or here's Mises getting the same YAF award as Strom Thurmond. Strange how often JBS and Mises show up together on the same page.

And just so that we're clear, the Mises-loving John Birchers were racist, Christian-fascists and so conspiracy-crazed that Christopher Buckley worked to keep Conservatism and the Review away from them.

If I may quote from one of Mr. Buckley's last pieces:

“How would you define the Birch fallacy?” Jay Hall asked.

“The fallacy,” I said, “is the assumption that you can infer subjective intention from objective consequence: we lost China to the Communists, therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished China to go to the Communists.”

“I like that,” Goldwater said.

What would Russell Kirk do? He was straightforward. “Me? I’ll just say, if anybody gets around to asking me, that the guy is loony and should be put away.”

“Put away in Alaska?” I asked, mock-seriously. The wisecrack traced to Robert Welch’s [head of the society] expressed conviction, a year or so earlier, that the state of Alaska was being prepared to house anyone who doubted his doctrine that fluoridated water was a Communist-backed plot to weaken the minds of the American public.

Alex,

Homeostasis is the property of either an open system or a closed system, especially a living organism, that regulates its internal environment so as to maintain a stable, constant condition. Some refer this as “negative feedback.” So it is the natural adjustment of the environment to various input which is exactly the point of John Christy by the way of why the models don't match weather baloons expected temperature observations.

Actually I prefer this explanation, “There are laws of nature, but they are harmonious, and conform with all God's working; but when the lords many and gods many set themselves to explain God's own principles and providences, presenting to the world strange fire in the place of divine, there is confusion. The machinery of earth and heaven needs many faces to every wheel in order to see the Hand beneath the wheels, bringing perfect order from confusion. The living and true God is a necessity everywhere.”

Mises book was writen in 1949. As you observe the JBS started in 1958 or 1959. So by your reasoning if the pope believes that the sky is blue and I also believe that because it is, then that makes me a Roman Catholic? Or, Because you seem to believe the same principles that the “U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy” does your are a Roman Catholic?

I believe that Mises contribution in footnote 8 was showing the like-mindedness of those listed institutions regarding a “particular” economic attitude. They obviously don’t agree on everything. Likewise, I believe that Hagee is correct about the trinity but wrong about aspects of eschatology. I believe JBS is correct about many economic principles but wrong to blame it on a “communist conspiracy.” Catch on?

I find that you may not have learned that about gleaning truth from whatever source. It seems many of your “links” look for one thing they can debunk then say the source is non-credible. Pieces of truth can be found from many sources…and there should not be guilt by association or that would mean you think like me because we are on this site together…Horrors! :~)

pat

Fair enough, although I'm not primarily arguing association, but guilt by simpatico ideology.

In this interests of fair-mindedness, I thought that McCain's campaign manager's response about Obama's pastor was pretty spot on:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/14/jeremiah-wright-obamas-_n_91555...

Good news Alex, You have the literalistic fundamentalist onboard the movement! Have a good weekend. :~)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337708,00.html

pat

Yep, and it's led by young religion students. : )

Between Arlyn and now the we-take-the-2nd-book-of-revelation-literally-too wing of the SBC, it looks like more and more folks are realizing that creation care just might be the Civil Rights of this generation. Who wants to be remembered as the person who believed an oil company-paid scientist (Christy) over the evidence?

Interestingly, there is already some blowback from the denominational denial community.

http://www.faithinpubliclife.org/content/news/2008/03/organizers_defend_...

Creation Care...yes

Manmade Global Warming ... :~(

PS. Remember JBS and Von Mises? I'm being naughty but can I discredit "global warming" now that there are "fundamentalist" onboard?

:~)
pt

No, my disagreement with you is not over a named ideology, but is rooted in different methodologies for interpreting evidence. One of the benefits of attending an interfaith school is that I'm learning to appreciate the variety of magisteria that people employ to create meaning. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the Southern Baptist Initiative, but their process certainly confirms my growing conviction that there are literally many ways to greater light.

If I may quote young Mr. Merritt:

"We have recently engaged in study, reflection and prayer related to the challenges presented by environmental and climate change issues. These things have not always been treated with pressing concern as major issues. Indeed, some of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that these are real problems that deserve our attention. But now we have seen and heard enough to be persuaded that these issues are among the current era’s challenges that require a unified moral voice."

Clearly they are careful and consistent students of both nature and scripture, and frankly, I'm surprised that you keep using Christy who keeps flip flopping on the issue. He said this in 2003:

"It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century.

Of course he says apparently contradictory things too. Interestingly, he is also a Southern Baptist and a former seminarian.

What I appreciate about Merritt, et al, is that they have sat down and evaluated both the scriptural call for stewardship and looked at the science on both sides and see that caring for creation includes cutting human-caused carbon emissions. They're conservative, but they're not out to re-fight some old anti-commie culture war of the 60s. And I think that this openness across epistemologies (so confident in our faith than we can listen to challenging science) marks a hopeful turn in the next generation of faith leaders.

http://www.baptistcreationcare.org

Oh well...whatever...the analogy seemed good to me. Guess everything becomes legit if it agrees with you.

pt

Pat,
You analogy is right on. I've appreciated your comments here.

Chuck

Pat,

Despite your humorous "naughtiness," the point is that, despite what you assume, just because someone is a fundamentalist doesn't mean that he can't see beyond the limitations of cultural literalism and read a climate report too.

To spell out why your analogy fails, the objection that many people have with a fundamentalist or Biblical literalist approach doesn't apply here. Why? Because the ideology of literalism is deployed differently. On something like a six-day creation, the literalist approach fails because it explains so little of the natural phenomena. On the other hand, while some of the signatories of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative may identify as fundamentalist (contra Pat, most identify as evangelical), in fact, their methodology actually complements the overwhelming body of observable climate change evidence.

To wit: Seminarian Jonathan Merritt pins his epiphany to a class in which the teacher said that not taking global warming and its natural effects seriously is like ripping a page from God's other book of revelation.

Most Christians can agree with that, no matter their "ism."