|
Three errors in the Church Manual that will not be
corrected at GC Session in San Antonio |
| June 20, 2015 |
| An incident last year at a church near my home revealed to me a flaw that has existed in the Church Manual for 34 years. The decision by the local church, conflicted with Scripture and with the Church Manual but they insisted they were correct. It seemed to me that the flaw in the Church Manual could have prompted their controversial decision, however, the local conference and union conference are unwilling to deal with it. Unfortunately, the problem got worse and worse. Now it is too late to bring this to the GC Session in San Antonio. However, the Lord revealed to me another error in the Church Manual of a different kind, and one that should be addressed immediately, the solution needed is to restore three sentences that have mysteriously disappeared from the Church Manual. |
| |
| I called Harald Wollan about these three sentences that are missing from the current Church Manual (18th edition). He is Associate Secretary of the GC and the Secretary of the Church Manual Revision Committee. I explained that by missing, I am talking about three sentences that were approved by vote of the delegates at a previous GC Session, published in the 14th - 15th - 16th and the 17th editions but can not be found in the 18th edition, and there is no record of any discussion or vote to remove these three sentences by the delegates of the 2010 Session in Atlanta. A transcript of the discussions and votes was published in Adventist Review in 2010 http://archives.adventistreview.org/article/3510/ and still is on-line. |
| |
| When I called him, I expected him to know about it as a "printing error" and tell me it would be restored to the next edition. However, he did not know about it and his response five days later told me to look in pages 28 to 31 for the missing part. But when I carefully examined these pages there is nothing even close to the words in red that appears in the 17th edition in the section about Self Appointed Organizations. In fact, these words in red do not appear in the current Church Manual at all. |
|
Self-Appointed Organizations - The church in its organized capacity is God’s instrumentality for preserving order and discipline among His people. Its God-given message is borne to the world not only by the personal testimony of the individual member but in the corporate witness of the church as the body of Christ. Such corporate witness requires the recognized administrative structure that has been established with all duly elected officers and all properly organized channels of work such as the Sabbath School, Personal Ministries, Youth organizations, et cetera. It also acknowledges such self-supporting institutions whose activities contribute to the attainment of the church’s objectives. Therefore, although all members have equal rights within the church, no individual member or group of members should start a movement or form an organization or seek to encourage a following for the attainment of any objective or for the teaching or any doctrine or message not in harmony with the fundamental religious objective and teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Such a course would result in the fostering of a factional and divisive spirit, in the fragmenting of the effort and witness of the church, and thus in hindering it in the discharge of its obligation to its Head and to the world.
Church Manual, page 190 (17th edition)
|
| The words after Therefore, do appear on page 59 in the 18th edition with nine changes. But since the words in red have been removed, the word Therefore became unnecessary, so it was removed also. The removal of Therefore makes the part which now appears on page 59 have less meaning because it no longer clarifies the three sentences before Therefore which is missing entirely. For example, the "witness of the church" now found on page 59, is not clearly understood as "the corporate witness of the church as the body of Christ" because this part was removed. And I should add, the section titled 'Self-Appointed Organizations' is not found anywhere in the new edition so any questions on this topic are harder to answer with the manual. |
| |
|
I called Harald Wollen again and told him of my concern about these things, however, I was most concerned about the God given message borne to the world “in the corporate witness of the church as the body of Christ” and what “such corporate witness requires”
|
| |
| He informed me that it was too late to restore any words removed by mistake because there is no process to convene the 35 member Church Manual Committee now that their work has been presented and decided by the Annual Council in October. Which means any error or flaw in the church manual that is revealed between the Annual Council in October and the GC Session in July can not be dealt until the next GC Session five years from now in 2020. |
| |
| Any printing errors, errors of ommission, and even tampering with the church manual can not be corrected if it is discovered during the eight month period prior to the GC Session. When the Annual Council decides on the church manual changes that will be proposed to the GC Session the door closes to any changes including fixing even serious errors. We are going into this GC session with three errors that will not be corrected by this GC Session, unless there is a miracle that superceeds the procedure established in the Church Manual. |
| |
The three errors are
1.) There is no process to correct flaws and errors in the church manual that are discovered in the period of time between the Annual Council in October and the GC Session in July. |
| 2.) The three sentences that were on page 190 in the 17th edition that have mysteriously disappeared. |
| 3.) The confusion caused by the flaw in the church manual which is revealed by the question: When an Adventist sins against a non-Adventist, can the non member bring his grievance to the church in accordance with Matthew 18: 17? There are only two possible correct answers - 'Yes' or 'No' - and if 'No' is correct, there is an obvious flaw is on page 60 in the current church manual. If 'Yes' is corect, the flaw is in a different part of page 60. Either way there is a flaw and this confusion was not even addressed by the Executive Secretary of the local conference and after five months he was accused of misconduct in March. The church working policy requires this be investigated by the Executive Committee, but they were prevented from doing so by conference leaders. When the policy failed it became the duty of the Atlantic Union Conference (see Working Policy L-60 section 15) and after two months the President, Executive Secretary and Treasurer (whose duty it was) were accused of neglect of duty. At the writing of this article the matter has not even been investigated and the serious sins committed remain on the books of heaven. If the Church Manual was not so confusing, the local church might have gotten it right and followed the Biblical procedure described in Matthew 18: 17. |
| |
| The first mistake is simply poor planning, and poor management, it would be strange if this is the first time a mistake has been revealed and they are unable to deal with it, but if not the first time, then they should have a process to deal with errors like words that are mysteriously missing, but they do not. This is so easy to fix by allowing the Church Manual Committee to meet the first day or the day before the GC Session for the sole purpose of considering errors, and if no errors, then they can praise the Lord for a short meeting. |
| |
| When someone claims that three sentences were in the previous published Church Manual's and are mysterious missing in the current edition, the easy way to clear this is to simply cite the page where it appears in the new edition. If it is actually missing, then reference the transcript of the GC Session pointing to where it was discussed and voted that it be removed. Since the Secretary of the Church Manual Committee could not do either, then the Lord may be working to reveal a printing error at least (which should be corrected) or the worst case scenario, which is tampering with the church manual. This is something that should be investigate and restored ASAP. |
I am not making any accusation that tampering has occured, however, if we just look at the missing words, ". . . Its God given message is borne to the world [that would include the three angels message and the health message] not only by the personal testimony of the individual member but in the corporate witness of the church as the body of Christ. Such corporate witness requires the . . ." We know about our 'personal testimoniy as individual members' and that we are held accountable to give this testimony, but there is no other place where we are told about what the corporate witness requires; and now this has been removed. We are more likely to change our corporate witness that we are the body of Christ if we don't know what is required to maintain it. This is an area that Satan would love to tamper with. If Satan were able to tamper with the Church Manual, it would be a text like this, which will negate the corporate witness of the church as the body of Christ. By this example, the possibility of tampering is not so far fetched. |
| |
| I sure hope we are not dealing with this worst case scenario, but this example demonstrates the need to have a process in place to deal with all kinds of errors and all possible cases. A viable solution was right under their noses and they seemed to have missed the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In Harald Wollan's reply to me, he attached a PDF file about the work done by the Church Manual Revision Committee [ Attached to his reply ] - please notice the following on lines 34 → 36 |
| ". . . the full Executive Committee met one more time just before the start of the GC Session in order to make sure they were comfortable with what was being proposed to the delegates. |
|
| A fail safe procedure like this can deal with all possible errors, it was right there in what they did in June 2010, but they did not carry this forward to the next session. It should be easy to write a simple procedure that instead of the full Executive Committee, just allow the Church Manual Committee to meet before the start of the GC Session for the sole purpose to review any errors or flaws that are revealed in the eight month period between the Annual Council vote on the proposed changes and the GC Session's consideration of the proposed changes to the Church Manual. If there are no errors, than praise the Lord for a short meeting. If there are flaws that should not be allowed to wait five years for correction, a process can be put in place to bring this to the GC Session so it can be addressed. |
| |
| I believe the Lord is in control, He may allow and permit certain things be He is always in control. So why did he allow three errors that can not be corrected to be revealed now? I believe it is because God operates according to His timing, and the church needs to learn that a process which does not allow for last minute corrections does not allow for revelations from God. History records that God reveals what He want to reveal, when He wants to reveal it, and we need to be ready with a process that allows the church to respond when He does exactly that. The pen of inspiration says . . . |
| "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." There was order in the church when Christ was on the earth, and after his departure, order was strictly observed among the disciples. And now, in these last days, when God is bringing his children into the unity of the faith, there is more real need of order than ever before; for as God seeks to unite his people, Satan and his angels strive to destroy this unity. {RH, February 16, 1911 par. 8} |
| The inspired writer was shown that we need more order and order means to correct flaws in how the church operates, and whenever an error is revealed there is a need correct it. Early Writings, page 97 says that "there is order in heaven" and in these last days there "is more real need of order than ever before" click on LINKs to read more. |
| |
| I believe God wants these errors to be corrected now. It is possible that a way can be found to introduce to the Session in San Antonio solutions that will allow all three errors to be corrected and especially the one where there is no process to correct errors that are revealed in the eight months between the Annual Council and the GC Session. |
| |
| In God We Trust |
| Mario |
| |
| Read more about three sentences missing from the Church Manual |
| Letter to Secretary of Church Manual Committee - June 9, 2015 |
| |
|
