Featured The SDA Cult

The problem with quoting Ellen G. White to an SDA adherent is that they try to distance themselves from her when talking with a non-SDA person. Pinning an SDA down to what they believe is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

 

A SDA official, Dr. Ben Wilkinson, wrote a book, published in 1930, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, that was the "foundation stone" of the current KJVO myth.

 

The SDA rose from a cult started by one William Miller, a New York farmer, who calculated Jesus would return on Oct. 22, 1844. He wasn't trying to start a cult, nor did he claim to be a preacher, but he spread his message to whomever would listen, & thus a cult was born, calling itself the "Millerites". His message was boosted by a great meteor shower in November 1833 (The Leonids, seen every year. It was especially intense that year.) And it was REALLY boosted by a great comet in early 1843, which was visible in broad daylight when it passed close to the sun.

However, when Oct. 22, 1844 came & went without Jesus appearing, Miller apologized & said his calculations musta been wrong & faded from history. However, some Millerites, including Ellen Gould White & her hubby Ebenezer, declared that Miller got the EVENT wrong, not the date. On that date, Jesus had entered the heavenly temple to complete His atonement & Investigative Judgment, the Whites declared. (Ignoring the FACT that Jesus had made ALL His atonement for OUR sins on the cross!) She was a persuasive speaker & prolific writer who scratched the ears of the disappointed Millerites, & thus, the SDA was born in 1863, when the Civil War convinced many that "the end was near".



Also, the SDAs have given rise to several other cults & cultlets such as Jehovah Witness & Branch Davidian.

Contrary to the belief of many, the BD was founded in 1929 by one Victor Houteff, a former SDA.as the "Shepherd's Rod Davidians". In 1955, one Benjamin Roden led a schism within the Shepherds, & his group took the name "Branch Davidians". But those cultlets remained quite small, and only came to prominence with the David Koresh incident of 1993.

While over 80 members of that cultette died, including Koresh, in that incident, the BDs lived on with several members prosecuted over the deaths of Federal agents, but all have since been released. There's a new incarnation of them, calling themselves "the branch our Lord our righteousness" under the leadership of Charles pace, a follower of Ben & Lois Roden, a member since the 1970s. He says Koresh was a charlaten, and that God had anointed himself as leader, but he says he's only a leader, not a prophet. The group is a recognized denomination, but with only 12 members & no prospect for growth apparent, THANKFULLY!

JUST GOES TO SHOW FALSE BEGETS FALSE! What all those cults & cultettes have in common is that they've each invented their own store-window Jesus manikin to fit their man-made doctrines. They're all false, quasi/pseudo-Christian outfits which are more a menace to send people to hell than paganism is, as their members believe themselves to be saved, & will NOT change unless the HOLY SPIRIT intervenes.

I doubt if the intel in this thread will lead any SDA to drop that cult, but hopefully, it'll keep someone else from falling for their lies & deceptions. Without GOD, one has no chance against Satan, but WITH GOD, resist the devil & he shall flee from you. (But he will be back to try again! That's why we should STAY WITH GOD EVERY DAY!)

 

SDA is not a cult.

 

Well, I suppose that technically the definition depends upon the author of this thread but since he did not define what he meant by a cult and chose the SDA as an example, we really need to ask him.

However, for the sake of debate, I will use this definition, which is short: “a group religious in nature which surrounds a leader, or a group which either denies or misinterprets essential biblical doctrines.”

I would list the three major American cults of the nineteenth century as examples: Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Science.

 

Although you continue to say this, it still remains untrue.

In 1829, Dr. John Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, said, "Let individuals give new versions...but in the days of epidemic quackery, let our authorized version be kept inviolate, and guarded as the apple of our eye."
(John Jebb, 1829, Life of John Jebb, ii, p. 454; cited by Samuel Hemphill, A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament, pp. 21, 22).

In 1819, Henry John Todd, chaplain to the king of England, published A Vindication of Our Authorized Translation and Translators of the Bible.

In 1843, Baptist pastor John Dowling published a defense of the KJV in “The Burning of the Bibles, Defence of the Protestant Version of the Scriptures Against the Attacks of Popish Apologists for the Champlain Bible Burners (Philadelphia: Nathan Moore, 1843).

In 1924, lawyer Philip Mauro published Which Version? Authorized or Revised?

So, the fact of the matter is, Wilkinson's work is not the "foundation stone" of the current KJVO movement.

 

One direct or indirect source of the information and claims in many KJV-only books was the book Our Authorized Bible Vindicated by Benjamin George Wilkinson (1872-1968), Dean of Theology at a Seventh-Day Adventist college (Seventh-Day Adventist Encyclopedia, p. 1609).

Wilkinson's claims were repeated in David Otis Fuller's book Which Bible?, which included several chapters by Wilkinson, making up around one-half of Fuller's book. David Fuller did not tell the readers of his book that Wilkinson was a Seventh-Day Adventist. He deleted a footnote where Wilkinson quoted Ellen G. White favorably in order to conceal Wilkinson's identity as a cultist (Baptist Biblical Heritage, Summer, 1990, p. 1).
A number of later KJV-only authors repeated Wilkinson's claims and arguments second-hand or third-hand (from David Fuller's book or from authors who relied on Fuller's books). Wilkinson is the earlier source that I have found that used the two-streams-of-Bibles argument, which is an important argument used in advocating the current KJV-only theory.

A good number of KJV-only authors have also quoted Wilkinson favorably without revealing his identity as a Seventh-Day Adventist. D. A. Waite's ministry The Bible for Today reprinted Wilkinson's book without any mention of his being an Adventist. In his 1971 book entitled The Case for the King James Version of the Bible, Waite favorably quoted Wilkinson several times.

 

Well, actually, it IS. the key word is current.

Have you ever read that book? I have, so allow me to talk about it briefly. Dr. W wrote it in response to a squabble within his cult. he was not trying to start a new doctrine. That book is full of material from KJVOs, mostly of the past then, altho Mauro was still alive. there's very little original about it. Dr. W re-worded most of the material rather than quote it directly, but he still couldn't get a US copyright on it. (Bear in mind that most of the material was invented before the currently-used MVs came out. The British RV of 1881 was a pretty groddy version & deserved most of its criticism.)

When the squabble was resolved, Dr. W lost interest in that book, but one J. J. Ray discovered it & legally plagiarized much of it in his God Wrote Only One Bible. Then, Dr. D. O. Fuller copied from both Ray & Wilkinson in his Which Bible? (1970) Ray & Fuller hawked their wares with modern media, thus being largely responsible for creating the current KJVO myth. But it can be easily traced back to Dr. W's book. (And I hope you read what Logos posted above!)

Many subsequent KJVO authors use material from that book, re-worded enough so it can't be called a "quote", but the intel contained in the re-wording is the same. But all that is secondary to the FACT that the KJVO myth is false, as it has no Scriptural support.

So, we can trace a good bit of the current KJVO myth to the SDA cult.

 

SDA is among them. Remember, a disenchanted SDA founded the JW.

 

I suppose that you could say that a bad Baptist founded Westboro or something.

 

The blood of Jesus to them does not pardon and wash away all sins!

 

they are like every cult, in that they have the jargon used to speak to those of us outside their group, and the real jargon and doctrine once in their group!

 

His book on the KJVO would be the same as any from Eillen White, bogus, and not from God!

 

Satan was really busy during the 19 Century, as he gave to us at that time the Sda/Mormons/ and JW!

 

His book is indeed the foundation though on which much of the modern KJVO movement was based upon, and it should say something to those holding to it that a cult theologian is where they are getting some of their information from!

 

Those holding to KJVO cannot use the Bible, nor textual criticism to support their case, so had to go somewhere else, and interesting that they discovered a cult teacher as a primary source!

 

I have read dozens of quotes in the books I've read on textual criticism. Very rarely will they mention the religious affiliation of the one being quoted. Obviously, I would have serious issue with many of Wilkinson's doctrinal positions; but, that is true about many other authors who have written on the textual criticism issue.

 

These two statements contradict one another.

If Wilkinson's work is not original with him, then we cannot trace it to him; he simply repeated it. The "foundation stone" was, in fact, the authors that Wilkinson paraphrased and subsequently published.