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Letter to
Ted Wilson
President, General Conference -
sent Dec. 18, 2013 |
December 18, 2013 |
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Dear Ted Wilson:
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| The snow storm made it difficult for me to attend Manhattan Church on Sabbath, but if you had responded to my message and granted my request to meet, I would have braved the storm for even a few minutes of your time. I did watch the “Celebrating Christ at Christmas” event at Linden Church on 3ABN and the Hunter College event on the Hope Channel both in the comfort of my home. I knew Charles has a special gift for singing inspirational messages because I attended every one of your ‘Revelations of Hope’ meetings in June, and I was especially blessed by the music. |
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| I usually agree with your doctrinal messages and application of Ellen White quotes but, on Friday, I did not agree completely. I agree that Jesus was not born of Dec. 25th which you pointed out to your audience. But when you said that Jesus was actually born in the spring time, I did not agree. I thought that you made a slip of the tongue, but then you said it again on Saturday at Hunter College, so you must think he was really born at that time. |
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| The actual birth of Christ can be calculated from Scripture, and the study of his real birthday is one of the more popular pages on my website getting two thousands views since this page was published in 2010 and 500 views so far in December. I certainly do not want to be misleading anyone or promoting error on the ‘Digging Deeper’ section of my DiggingForTruth website, so I would like to see the evidences or Scriptures you know that allows you to calculate springtime for the birth of Christ. |
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| I am willing to edit the bible study found on this page http://www.diggingfortruth.org/article/540/ and correct it with a calculation that shows his actually birthday in the spring. Please take a quick look at the method used to calculate his birthday, we both may be using the same method but there is an error in interpretation. If you can point out my error, I am willing to make a retraction and apology on the homepage, and replace any error with a corrected calculation which shows Jesus was born in the springtime. |
| Since I believe that Scripture does not contradict itself, there is only one truth that can be found in the Holy Bible on this matter, and I believe it will not show that Jesus was born in the spring time. |
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| This is not an ‘irreconcilable difference’ between us, it is one that can be easily resolved. I do not believe that you are like my former Pastor and the church board at Manhattan Church who believe that my differences with them are valid grounds for disfellowship. Which beings me back to the reason I wanted to speak to you on Sabbath. If you look at the letter I received from the church board in July claiming “irreconcilable difference” as the charge against me and that they would recommend that I be disfellowshipped to the church. I told them that I was able to defend myself against this charge. Then they changed the charge and I received it just three days before the hearing. Here are both letters http://www.diggingfortruth.org/article/2781/ they sent me. I had a question about the proper appeal procedure when the charges are changed, and no one will answer it. |
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| I believe the difference that I have with your statement that Jesus was born in the springtime can be resolved, and I am willing to retract and apologize for presenting a Bible study that presents a different time of birth for Jesus than what you said on Friday and Saturday, and you should know better than I do. |
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| Being able to resolve this with you may demonstrate to my brothers and sisters at Manhattan Church that I can resolve differences, and that if only Pastor Romeo and the Church Board would have spoken to me before they charged me, there would have been no reason to disfellowship me. Unfortunately, it seems that they are not interested in resolving the differences; they preferred to remove me from church membership rather than talk to me about our differences. |
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I suggest that we try to resolve this difference about when Jesus was born, and maybe it will help the members of Manhattan Church to realize that I was unfairly treated when I was disfellowshipped after 25 years of membership and service. May I suggest a way to start, is to show me your study that calculates the time of Jesus birth as springtime.
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| I hope that I will hear from you soon. |
In God We Trust
Mario |
Updates and the progress reports toward resolution of this dispute will appear here
Letter to Mark Finley, asking the same question on Jan. 18, 2014
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