The following is an open letter sent to Ganoune Diop, the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
“Dear Dr. Diop, GC leaders and Seventh-day Adventist church community,
I recently watched the Trans-European Division Covid Symposium, paying special attention to your presentation. I am writing to you because I am concerned about three statements you made during the course of your talk:
First, you said that “a distinctive aspect of religious liberty is solidarity with other human beings based on the human conscience.” [1]
Second, “religious liberty in external society is granted due to an external forum,” i.e. international law.[2]
Third, “religious people are often tempted to use verbal violence in the name of prophecy” and “prophecy is at times weaponized and used to cover violence.”[3]
I am not certain what you meant by “a distinctive aspect of religious liberty is solidarity with other human beings’ conscience.” I believe the word solidarity must be clarified. History favorably recalls solidarity in an event such as people banding together in Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights march to end segregation on public transportation. But to say “solidarity with other human beings based on the human conscience” seems to imply collectivism; which is trademark of Marxism.
Marxism is incompatible with Seventh-day Adventism for two reasons:
1.) It may resolve an unjust circumstance and gather sympathy and goodwill from onlookers and victims; but then takes this goodwill, and snowballs it into making a permanent power grab for its selfish purposes.
2.) It removes religious liberty from the individual and only concerns itself with managing group rights.
These two aspects are explored in the book The Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order. Many of us Adventists (including George Vandeman) read this book and are aware that the author, Malachi Martin, was a Jesuit who wrote extensively about the inner workings of the Catholic Church. He revealed that Cardinal Wyszynski, mentor of Pope John Paul II, used Marxist solidarity workers’ rights as a tool to lead Poland out of Communism through redirecting their love for God and country through Marxism. Later, the Pope reworked that same tool to bring new Russia out of the atheist USSR through a Marxist-Orthodox fusion. Martin stated Solidarity was used to bring these nations more into line with the Western frame of mind as part of the Pope’s plan to hold and wield power over the world.[4]
The papal leaders took an unjust political system and appeared to fix it, but instead routed these nations into the New World order. Yet, this very week the world watches as Russia and Ukraine “cleave not one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay,'' despite carefully crafted treaties and agreements. There is no demonstrable evidence that solidarity has produced any lasting political or economic peace in any of the countries Martin discusses. Just a lot of bloodshed and fighting. And the pope has indicated his intentions to broker peace in Russia yet again.
Another consideration for the Seventh-day Adventist, is it advisable to come into solidarity with other human beings based on the human conscience? James 4:4 indicates that we cannot have friendship with the world because it places us at enmity with God.
Adventists accept that human unity is possible as result of the new heart transplant described in Ezekiel 36. This experience draws people together from many different philosophical points, willingly and permanently. Saul/Paul demonstrates this principle after his Damascus Road experience. In one encounter with Jesus Christ, he received a complete moral transformation and no longer murdered those he disagreed with in his church community. Peter’s dream of the unclean animals ushered in a new bond between the Jews and Gentiles, based on God’s permission to invite them into salvation. The New Jerusalem will be home to citizens from all over the globe.
When we come into solidarity with the heart and conscience (mind) of Jesus Christ, He demonstrates His supernatural ability to hold and wield power over the turbulent human heart and convert it. Forever.
By contrast, secular solidarity is a Marxist idea that promises to liberate humans from injustice but fails because it can’t liberate the human heart from evil. And this is why a Marxist-Adventist fusion is not possible. I understand that you are deeply versed in the matters above.
Secondly, you stated “religious liberty in external society is granted due to an external forum” such as international law. Considering the many SDA religious liberty symposiums that have occurred within the past year, reminding us of this most Protestant of issues, that of where our authority originates, I will not belabor the arguments. Simply put, Adventist Protestants believe in individual liberties received from their Creator. The Bible, Great Controversy, Declaration of Independence, and other Protestant founding documents all agree; these are inalienable rights. They may be removed by political whim, and we may be punished for insisting upon them. But to postulate that the law, an international body or country confers these rights upon us is discrediting. They do not.
My last concern is your statement “religious people are often tempted to use verbal violence in the name of prophecy” and “prophecy is at times weaponized and used to cover violence.” I wish you would have provided an example of what you meant. I can only speculate on your meaning based on the myriads of public meetings you have had with papal hierarchy, over the years. Those statements echo the pope’s sentiments. While you have been coming into solidarity with world religious leaders, this closeness has created a chilling effect on your responsibility to speak plainly regarding Adventist prophetic understandings and in particular the antichrist system.
You and other Adventist leaders have been implementing an Adventist-Marxist fusion by permitting social justice movements (and other philosophies) to flourish in Adventist institutions and churches whilst crowding out those who maintain loyalty to the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. The social justice order of things is not the Biblical order of things, because there is enmity between the world and God’s system.
There has been detached silence and distance from the top leaders while our members have been engulfed in a spiritual civil battle below them. Now, we hear you calling us to come into solidarity with the papal mindset. No thank you.
Adventists do not speak with warning regarding the papacy for no reason. We heed the counsel to warn because of her profoundly evil nature that has been supernaturally revealed to us in Daniel and Revelation and the Spirit of Prophecy. Not only that, the papacy has been open with her plans to rule the entire world, through books and the previous 1260 anguishing years behind us.
Malachi Martin chronicled the deep corruption of the Catholic church in his book The Windswept House. Further, our prophetic guide tells us that when her culminating hour arrives, it will be the bloodiest moment humankind has ever seen. Why? Because Rome. Does. Not. Change. We must not believe her golden lie that she will lead us into 1000 years of peace. We must stand firm against the papacy and provide a shelter of spiritual safety against that future moment as God designed thousands of years ago. Even Malachi Martin understood our purpose as Adventists:
“[Seventh-day Adventists] are one in the opposition to Rome as the Red Whore of the Mediterranean…..arose within the context of rebellion against the authority and privileged teaching power of the Roman Church…[Seventh-day Adventists and other Protestant groups] ..all arose within the context of rebellion against the authority and privileged teaching power of the Roman Church…. They sprang up in the womb of Western democratic principles [we refer to this as Constitutional Republic principles] about the rights of man and the dignity of the individual. And with few exceptions, they accept the latter-day American interpretation of the “wall” that separates church and state.” In their eyes, their regard and respect for democratic principles impose upon them the obligation--the religious as well as the civil and political obligation--to defend every person’s right to be wrong. Every person must have the right not only to believe in Hell of the Damned and Heaven of the Saved. Every person must liberally be assured the right to choose Hell over Heaven. It sets them apart from the Holy Father, because democratic principles cannot take precedence over diving revelation. …Nevertheless, it is axiomatic for John Paul that no one has the right-- democratic or otherwise to a moral wrong. And no religion based on divine revelation has a moral right to teach such a moral wrong or abide by it…..in the interim, however, it is evident to Pope John Paul that as an array of groups who have crowded into the arena of the millennium endgame, the importance of the [Seventh-day Adventists] is that they render the world a more congenial place for groups who profess to embrace the same democratic principles, but who are totally bereft and contemptuous of any truly religious element embraced by the [Seventh-day Adventists] and who are far more ambitious than the [Seventh-day Adventists] to establish a practical globalist agenda well before the “Last Day” arrives.[5]
Dr. Diop, you have broken your spiritual contract with God and His people by going after your papal friends the way Balaam went after his friends. Those at the top have permitted this to continue untrammelled. We know they are capable of strong leadership, because this past week, President Ted Wilson finally addressed the church at large to fast and pray for Ukraine. Where has he been for the last two years?
Church community, we must arise, repent of our Laodicean condition and replace these ungodly leaders. If we continue to do nothing, aren’t we complicit in this state of affairs?
Sincerely,
Natalie Furman”
Natalie Furman volunteers in medical missionary projects. She is passionate about getting out the Three Angels' Messages, especially The Great Controversy.
[1] Trans-European Division - COVID Symposium - YouTube 24mins:20secs
[2] Ibid 21mins:12secs
[3] Ibid 27mins:22secs
[4] Martin, Malachi. The Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order. (1990) New York: Simon and Schuster, 40-44,p.
[5] Ibid. 286,287, p.