The Berkley Center at Georgetown University recently interviewed Ganoune Diop, the General Conference director of public affairs and religious liberty. What is Georgetown University? In their own words:
We’re a leading research university. Founded in the decade that the U.S. Constitution was signed, we’re the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university. Today we’re a forward-looking, diverse community devoted to social justice, restless inquiry and respect for each person’s individual needs and talents.
The interview was revealing.
Background: Ganoune Diop is a leading intellectual within interfaith circles and has been part of the G20 Interfaith Forum since its inception in 2014, focusing on issues of religious freedom. He is currently leading the Association’s working group on religious dimensions of racism.
While the article doesn’t qualify the criteria for a ‘leading intellectual’, it does state that Diop joined the G20 Interfaith Forum a full six years ago. It may interest the reader to know that the G20 Interfaith Forum has these working groups,
Gender Equality. While attempting to sound generous and equitable, this group is a canard of the liberal left, promoting feminism under the guise of doing good.
Religion and Environment. This group works to get churches to ‘green‘ their messages, and adopt environmentalism (often radical) into their worldview. Pope Francis and many other progressive leaders are invited to speak at these meetings, such as the 2019 G20 Summit in Tokyo.
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. This group (like many of the rest) is heavily invested in social justice. So is the NAD, (North American Division). You regularly hear terms like inclusion & justice in the commission reports of this group. There have been a few references to same-sex marriage as a point of contention in IF20 and a worthy goal to resolve—in this group.
Officially, from a theological or from an ecclesiological perspective, Adventists position ourselves as part of the continuation of the Reformation. That doesn't mean that this is the only church: absolutely not, but we are a continuation of the reformation. Most Christian denominations claim to champion some aspects of the Christian faith they consider core to their faith….Among some Adventists, for example, you find people who insist on the signs of the times: that some terrible thing will happen. Some Adventists at the fringe of the mainstream faith may develop a rather sectarian understanding, that “we are the best”. To me, that is totally misconstrued, a misunderstanding. To a large degree, without diminishing the dignity of these people, I might say it's misinformation about God's purposes for the world. The gospel is the good news about God's first coming and good news about the second coming, meaning the coming of the savior to deliver people from the human predicament: suffering, disease and death.
I agree that we (as Adventists) should not yield to unsanctified pride, viewing ourselves as better than others. Pride will keep us out of heaven (Matthew 7:21; Luke 18:10—14), and weaken our ability to help souls out of Babylon (after we have left Babylon ourselves).
I do not agree that the biblical prophetic outline of terrible events that will occur in the Time of the End is the work of abstract fearmongers among us. The expectation of increased apocalyptic adversity is a biblical doctrine, and vintage Adventism (2 Timothy 3:1). If you don’t accept that, you are not a Bible believer.
I agree that we should not become ‘Dreadventists’ living in constant terror of Sunday Law. Dreadventists (my term) freely exchange the patience of the saints for the panic of the saints, reacting with fight or flight towards most every national occurrence. For some, they are comfortable with Sodom & Gomorrah, as long as it isn't Babylon. For Dreadventists, it is ok to give the state immoral authority over our lives but it (the state) must not ever have any moral authority. This leads to a subconscious deconstruction of the Law of God down to one Commandment, not two, or ten (for them, the Sabbath becomes the only thing that matters). The result is the importation of lawlessness into our church where it defiles and destroys the hearts of many of our children.
It is not prideful to acknowledge that God will have a peculiar people on earth who know Him and walk where He walks in the End Time, even in the midst of global hatred directed at them.
What I am trying to promote personally is a more universal, more accepting approach. I meet everyone, including Adventists who are less welcoming, again a minority. Some can be even anti-Catholic (as some Catholics can be anti-many things). I position myself as a part of the human family, wanting to make a difference in this world, respecting people's consciences, because to me, that's like an inner sanctum where basically people ought to be. People are sacred, like temples, and therefore, ought to be respected.
Universal accepting approach sounds good, it is also the intonation of social justice warriors who demand the acceptance of practicing homosexuals and same-sex marriage in the Church. You may want to qualify what you mean by “more universal, more accepting.” We are anti-Catholicism, and should see the people enslaved by that false system as candidates for God’s Remnant; some of them have a depth of commitment to God that humbles us by comparison.
Life is sacred, as a gift from God (part of Himself), but declaring all humans and temples sacred (sanctified) is a step I am unwilling to make. It is also a step towards progressive (or integral) spirituality, something that IF20, the UN and other organizations that you belong to are rife with.
Next, he misses a huge opportunity to express concern for the encroachment on religious liberty by a tsunami of licentious liberty, such as the LGBTQ agenda. It was a blown opportunity.
Very true. It's complicated. But first, humans are sacred. Cultures are social arrangements elevated to the status of religion. Promotion of one’s culture with the aim of integrating others into it, in terms of assimilation, has always been problematic. The evils of colonialism, whether socio-cultural or religious, are based on this same logic. Proselytism is a topic that is worth looking at closely as it is tied to the issues of power and culture, but also language. Understanding these as to how they evolve over time and how they are woven into traditions is an essential field of study. There was a time. in the Middle Ages, when prayers were in Latin, for example, but that shifted as people said that Pentecost existed, so people can understand God's wonders in their own languages. In the seventh century, the concept of holy language was reinstated. That happened in Islam, with Arabic as the holy language, so that the Quran is preferably read in Arabic.
“Humans are sacred.” That’s three.
Notice the subtle assumption that all cultures are legitimate.
My thoughts: This is what postmodern multiculturalism looks like—since reality for each person is an internal construct (different in every person because no two are the same), the idea of one sovereign Creator who defines right and wrong becomes untenable. On this basis we must be prepared to accept all other ideas and behaviors as equally correct.
Another religion may be the product of a culture, and culture may not be criticized. It must be accepted as valid for the person holding it. The idea of trying to win a person from one faith to another is immoral. All religions are of equal merit and legitimacy, so any attempt to replace one with another is oppression! On these grounds the Christian missionaries who went out from Europe or America, were in fact, oppressors, imposing a foreign religion on innocent victims. Small wonder that those who accept postmodernism's values now avoid all efforts of evangelism.
This being said, there are traditions within Islam that state that the whole world is a mosque. One can pray anywhere.
Absolutely correct. This passage(s) is being used by Islam to justify the adoption of radical environmentalism into Islam.
Still, I was disenchanted by religion because of slavery, colonialism, and other aspects. I asked myself, as a child, whether, if Islam or Christianity truly reflected essential human values, they could have engaged in this kind of conquest, slavery, and subjugation.
Wise historians do not associate apostate medieval ‘christianity’ with true Christianity, whose presence God has protected down through the Christian era.
The middle part of this interview is Diop’s testimony, centering around his being raised Muslim in Senegal, West Africa.
So, somewhat providentially, I welcomed them all and personally introduced the members of the organizing committee, that included Catholics, Anglicans, etc. When the church saw how prominently I was positioned in this ecumenical setting, they asked me to represent the SDA Church officially at the United Nations.
This, in my opinion, is a mistake by the Church. We should have no fellowship with an organization as corrupt and worthless as the United Nations.
I have had extensive contacts, mainly on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, a little less, but significantly or sufficiently, to be able to have an intelligent conversation with even some shamanic or other Asian traditions. I have studied many schools of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Shamanism? We are dignifying occult wickedness with intelligent conversations? The Bible says to “have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). This is only a short step away from Samir Selmanovic, a quintessential ‘adventist’ mystic himself. The GC should know better, having observed the dangerous spiritualism that festered in Ohio for ten years.
Again, I have embraced the whole human family. What other way there is for me if even of God it is said that God loves the whole world?
We should embrace every person as a candidate for the Kingdom of Heaven. We should not embrace every religion, fraught as they are with doctrinal and teaching errors (Revelation 18:4). Acknowledging this is not sectarian arrogance, but rather the reality of God’s desire to restore biblical truth in a peculiar people (Revelation 12:17; 14:6).
What concerns me the most about Diop, is that he has (to my knowledge) issued no warning to the Church about the fire he is playing with, in mingling with hardcore globalist ecumenical organizations. Such a warning is needed, to remind Adventist members of our task of calling people out of Babylon.
These are not merely separated brethren with whom we can curry favor and share truth. These are dangerous people, with a cosmology that is at variance with the Three Angel’s Messages.
What is the goal of involving yourself with them?
To learn what their motives are?
To share biblical truth with them?
To befriend them? If so, how will you avoid becoming like them? (Proverbs 22:24; 1 Corinthians 15:33).
If your purpose is to stay abreast of religious liberty actions, what will you do if the Papacy begins turning against religious liberty? Will you give them a Bible study and a Great Controversy book, or will you turn to the civil arm of government for help?
How is turning to the civil arm for help in religious matters different from creating an image to the beast? Does not the Bible warn us against turning to Egypt, when we should be turning to God for help? (Psalm 46:1; 54:4; Isaiah 31:1; Jeremiah 42:15-19).
If your purpose is to get inside knowledge on attacks towards religious liberty, why are you helping to promote an agenda that poses several religious liberty problems? Agenda 2030 of the United Nations is a grab bag of globalist leftist goodies that are wholly incompatible with the faith and patience of the saints (Revelation 12:17).
It is not prideful to acknowledge that God will have a peculiar people on earth who know Him in the End Times. They keep His Commandments, and walk where He walks, even in the midst of global hatred directed at them. In the words of Paul, this is a mystery, but it is also a reality.
Let us strive to be among them.
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