17. Who says the SDA Church is a cult?

It is impossible to say with certainly but it appears that many of the SDA Church’s most vocal critics are in fact ex-Adventist pastors and employees.  Two notable examples include Dale Ratzlaff and J. Mark Martin, both of whom are ex-Adventist pastors.  Another critic, Robert K. Sanders, was an ex-Adventist employee.
One might also compare the subjective views of ex-Adventist critics with more objective third parties, such as Walter Martin and Kenneth Samples, who do not view the SDA Church as a cult.
To demonstrate just how subjective the question of who a cult is, vocal critic J. Mark Martin runs a ministry called exAdventist Outreach.  He also founded the Calvary Community Church in Phoenix, Azinoa USA, a 12,000-plus member church affiliated with Calvary Chapel, where he is currently Senior Pastor.
However, somewhat ironically, Calvary Chapel has itself (whether rightly or wrongly) been accused of cult-like practices.  For example, in the Sonoma County Independent, dated 1998, Cult deprogrammer Rick Ross described Calvary Chapel as follows:
"I wouldn't go so far as to call them a full-on cult. But I will say that Calvary Chapel is an extremely authoritarian group where lots of control is exercised over the members."
Furthermore, according to some observers such as Kenneth Samples, given Adventist theology fits within an Arminian framework, the SDA Church's harshest critics are much more likely to come from a Reformed theological background:
"When it came to the classic Calvinism-Arminianism theological debate, Martin was quite fond of referring to himself as a “Cal-minian.” As long as I knew him, he was always very critical of the traditional Reformed theological system. I know this because I am a card-carrying Calvinist (a member of the conservative United Reformed Churches of North America, URC) and Martin and I differed over some of the relevant theological issues.
I think Martin’s understanding of, and appreciation for, the more Wesleyan-Arminian tradition within Christian history allowed him to relate more easily to Adventist theology. Martin was certainly more sympathetic to non-Calvinistic theological systems than were 1950s evangelical scholars Anthony Hoekema and J. K. Van Baalen who were staunchly Reformed in their theology."
Thus, readers should take note of a critic’s own personal, historical, theological and cultural background.  More importantly, rather than just rely on the accusations of critics, the best way for any outsider to judge Adventists is simply to attend a Seventh-day Adventist Church service one Saturday morning.  

3 comments:

  1. To Adventism's harshest critics, I could quote Jesus’ words about planks and splinters in eyes, but I think the pithy rhyme, 'he who lives in a glass house shouldn’t throw stones’ is perhaps just as poignant.

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  2. J. Mark Martin has been exposed as a cultic false prophet!

    http://takingoffthemasks.blogspot.com/

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  3. Sorry folks, the Bible is not a book that defines what a cult is. But it states about "the MOther of Harlots and ABOMINATIONS of the earth" (Revelation 17:5, 6). Scriptures categorizes the Roman-catholic church as "the mother of harlots" while her daughters are also harlots, the Evangelicals who share the same erroneous teachings of the harlot church such as 1) Sunday observance, 2) Soul immortality, 3) Eternal Torment, 4) Sinless human nature of Christ, 5) Final atonement at the cross, 6) The Trinity 7) Scripture canonization -which is nothing but also a Roman idolatry shared by all Creedal churches. 8) Denial of Ellen G. White's prophetic ministry.

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