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TSDA vs. Neo Pentecostals
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Ron Corson
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Jun 12, 2004 19:03 PDT
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Traditional Seventh-day Adventists versus Neo Pentecostals
By Ron Corson
In a recent Endtimes Issues Newsletter
(#110,114)http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/et_114.htm
put out by Samuele Bacchiocchi, Lloyd Grolimund, Senior pastor of
Wahroonga Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sydney, Australia sets forth
his concerns over the intrusion of Pentecostalism into SDA religion.
Toward the beginning of his article entitled “FIRE IN THE CHURCH” Pastor
Grolimund writes; “This is especially evident in youth work where the
Pentecostal form and style of worship is used almost universally by all
the local conferences. A typical youth rally involves powerful
preaching, drama, and plenty of Christian rock music.”
Since Grolimund does not bother to define Pentecostal worship we are
left with only his implications.
Pentecostal worship is made up of powerful preaching, drama and
Contemporary Christian music.
Pentecostalism is presented as a buzz word with the implication that it
is evil and a virus entering the SDA
denomination. Pentecostalism is defined as:
1 : of, relating to, or suggesting Pentecost
2 : of, relating to, or constituting any of various Christian religious
bodies that emphasize individual
experiences of grace, spiritual gifts (as glossolalia and faith
healing), expressive worship, and evangelism
(© 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated)
There is little doubt that aside from the aspersions Grolimund implies
there are a number of things the SDA church has in common with
Pentecostalism. Such doctrinal issues as the “Latter Rain”, “Time of
Jacob’s Trouble” and acceptance of modern prophets are found mainly
within the SDA church and Pentecostal denominations. The early SDA
church also experienced a good deal of ecstatic phenomenon of a nature
similar to glossolalia and being “slain in the Spirit” which can be
found in various Pentecostal churches today. However it does not appear
that these phenomenon are the focus of Grolimund’s article. Grolimund
mentions a little about some of the excesses such as “Holy Laughter” and
other aberrations which had a brief period of popularity about 10 years
ago in the so called “Toronto Blessing” and “Pensacola Revival”. The
phenomenon is well documented in The Counterfeit Revival by Hank
Hanegraaff. If such activities were occurring in SDA churches it would
certainly be a cause for concern. In fact it did make some inroads into
some SDA churches at the time, though it seems to have died down now
also as it has in many of the Pentecostal churches.
Grolimund makes the following claim: “Worship has always been the issue
between Jesus and Satan. This point is very clear in the Bible. Who we
worship determines our eternal existence. How we worship determines who
we worship, likewise who we worship determines how we worship.”
Traditional SDA’s love this type of equation. A truism followed by two
unfounded statements that can be assumed to be true because the first
statement was true. With the implication that Pentecostal worship is
evil already presented Grolimund now shows us that since they are
performing evil worship the how indicates that they must not be
worshiping God. With only two choices to worship between if one is not
worshiping God then that person must be worshipping the Devil.
Grolimund then presents his evidence as to why Pentecostalism is a false
revival, He writes: “4. The Pentecostal movement is uniting the churches
of Christendom into an ecumenical whole. Baptists, Methodists,
Congregationalists, Seventh-day Adventists, Catholics – we all find
unity in a common worship experience – a Pentecostal one. It is not
unreasonable to expect this to play a large part in the ecumenical
movement that will unite the churches and religions of the world just
before the end of time.” Now to anyone who knows a bit of history he
will know that in past years the worship services for Baptists,
Methodists, Congregationalists and SDA’s have been remarkably similar
yet it did not lead to anything like the predicted ecumenicalism that is
the fear of the Traditional SDA. Which should lead to the question, why
should modern worship music and style lead to ecumenicism anymore than
traditional worship music and styles? The answer is found in the superb
power of prediction, since what is predicted is yet future no one can
definitively say it will not happen. It is to this future that the
Traditional SDA points with absolute confidence while carefully ignoring
the many previous predictions that failed to come to pass.
Continuing to demonstrate the evil nature of Pentecostal worship
Grolimund writes: “What makes the neo
Pentecostal movement so subtle is its apparent compliance to the truth.1
However underlying this faith is a set of doctrinal approaches that are
neither compatible with Adventism or the Bible.” The footnote Grolimund
uses points us to a web site which presents Hillsong Church beliefs
(www.Hillsong.com) which indeed present a very acceptable Christian view
as we shall see later. Since most all Christians hold the Bible as their
authority Grolimund compares the Pentecostal beliefs with those of
SDA’s. It should be noted that Grolimund has assumed that every SDA
belief is correct and anything not of SDA belief is in error and thus
evil. He states: “The Pentecostal movement falls down in a number of
areas in respect to the law and the testimony. Take for example the
following:
1. Total disregard and denial of the Sabbath – (Contrary to the law).
2. Rejection of the literal Second Coming of Christ – (Contrary to the
testimony).
3. Immortality of the soul resulting at death in either eternal life or
eternal hell – (Contrary to the testimony).
4. Baptism of the Holy Spirit separate to conversion and evidenced by
speaking in tongues. (Contrary to the testimony)
5. Following the secret rapture there will be a period of 7 years called
the tribulation. After this period Christ will return and personally
establish his rule over the nations for a thousand years period known as
the millennial reign” – (against the testimony).”
Using the numbering above we shall compare Grolimund’s assertions with
the information from Hillsong’s web site.
1. Hillsong offers worship services on Saturday at 6pm as well as
several Sunday services. If we assume that to ignore the 7th day Sabbath
is indeed contrary to the law then all the Reformers were just as evil
as any Pentecostal.
2. They do not reject the literal Second Coming as Hillsong’s web site
says: “We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again as He
promised.”
3. Wisely the web site does not go into specifics about either heaven or
hell it only says: “We believe that our eternal destination of either
Heaven or hell is determined by our response to the Lord Jesus Christ”.
Again like the Sabbath we cannot condemn fellow Christians because of
their belief in eternal souls or eternal hell. It would be necessary to
condemn all the reformers as well.
4. The Hillsong web site says: “We believe that in order to live the
holy and fruitful lives that God intends for us, we need to be baptised
in water and be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit enables us to use spiritual gifts, including speaking in
tongues.” Since speaking in tongues is indeed listed as one of the
spiritual gifts we should not condemn those who expect it even though it
may be abused.
5. There are so many different views about eschatology that it is pretty
bizarre to see someone use it as a test for whether a person is
following the testimony of God or not.
We can see from the above list that Grolimund and his fellow traditional
SDA’s are actively building walls between the rest of the Christian
world and the SDA church. For a long time the SDA church was considered
to be a cult because of her non traditional views. However the gospel is
not about what any one denomination thinks is right or its assumption
that any denomination that disagrees is wrong. The Gospel is irreducibly
about a relationship with God who has revealed himself to us through
Jesus Christ. The “how” of worship is not the “who” we worship. There
are certainly things that every church does that hinder people’s
relationship with God. It may be speaking in tongues or it may be a
condemnation of those who don’t worship the way we like. Those are
things each church should work on within themselves. On the other hand
there are many things each church does that encourage a relationship
with God. The Christian acting out of love should encourage those things
which build up the Christian community. Pentecostal’s have theological
problems just as Seventh-day Adventists have theological problems. But
blanket condemnations will help no one and hurt everyone. Traditional
SDA’s such as Grolimund though well intentioned no doubt have lost their
focus upon Jesus Christ and allowed themselves to follow paths that do
not build up the community of Christians but to tear it down instead.
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