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Busy Extremists
Extremist followers of Ellen G. White,
prophetess and founder of the Seventh Day Adventist movement, have been
busy early this year. Materials against Sunday worship were handed out to
worshippers as they came out from the Perth combined churches’ gathering,
Church Together, at the Burswood Dome on Sunday 23rd
March, 2003. This is not the first time that such people have targeted
Christians after the Church Together gathering and similar
meetings. As people have come away from such meetings extremist and
fringe group members regard them as a great opportunity for their
literature distribution activities.
Some weeks prior to this, letterbox drops
were held in several areas, including the Belmont/Rivervale area.
Householders discovered leaflets urging people to make themselves ready
for The Second Coming. This leaflet was distributed under the
rather misleading name of: Evangelism Australia. The leaflet
was a collection of Bible passages taken out of context to promote the
notion of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. It also prominently
promoted
‘free, no obligation Bible study guides’
or ‘Bible
Studies via EMAIL’.
No details, other than Evangelism
Australia, were provided, except for an email address.
The originator of the material (and the
person behind the email address) was Michael O‘Neil, the manager of the
Mountain View Health Retreat at Marysville, Victoria. He previously
operated another health retreat in Queensland. From these addresses he,
and presumably others, have distributed materials which have been
Sabbatarian and anti-Sunday worship; very extremely anti-Roman
Catholic; promoting Old Testament Law keeping for Christians; emphasising
the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
A wide variety of names of publishers,
and enquiry contacts, is provided on this and similar/related material,
including:
‘Amazing
Truth Publications’,
‘Autumn Publications’,
‘Bible Sabbath
Association’,
‘Countdown Ministries’,
‘Evangelism Australia’,
‘Friends of the
Sabbath’,
‘Laymen for Religious
Liberty’,
‘Maranatha Ministries’,
‘Mission World’,
‘Operation Contact’,
‘Patriotic Christian
Distributors’,
‘Sunday Law Countdown’,
‘Truth Triumphant
Ministries’.
Some of the material distributed by some
of these people has no indication of the source of origin, and some of it
is rather misleading. Some of the material has come in tabloid newspaper
format with titles such as:
‘The Sunday Law TIMES –
An Australasian publication in defence of our National Freedom’
and ‘The
Coming Sunday Law’. One
such publication was extremely misleading:
‘The Catholic New World
Reporter’ – giving the
appearance of being (a rather dated and old-fashioned) Roman Catholic
publication, it is in fact a rabidly anti-Roman Catholic paper put out by
extremist Ellen G. White followers.
None of this material openly states its
links with the Seventh Day Adventist Church, but it quotes and promotes
some of the writings of Ellen G. White, and occasionally other SDA
writers. All of this material promotes two major books by Ellen G. White:
‘The
Desire of the Ages’ and
(especially)
‘The Great Controversy’.
A number of ‘popular’ titles promoted in this material are, in fact,
extracts and chapters from these two books, including booklets such as:
‘What’s
Behind the New World Order?’,
‘World
Peace or Final War?’,
‘Why
Protestants? – Why Catholics?’,
‘Almost
Armageddon’ – also very
heavily prompted is the booklet:
‘National Sunday Law’
by A. Jan Marcussen (often also promoted is the Ellen G. White/SDA
publication:
‘Steps to Christ’
also titled:
‘Finding Peace Within’).
Many of the people involved with the
distribution of much of this material are dissatisfied SDAs or members of
a number of extreme SDA break-away groups. Though relatively few in
number, they tend to be very active in promoting their ideas and
distributing their, often extreme and distorted, literature.
Next time you are handed something
outside a Christian meeting, or receive seemingly Christian literature in
the letterbox, check it out carefully – and be especially cautious with
offers of ‘free Bible study’ literature and other material which has no
clearly identifiable source, – most of it, unfortunately, tends to come
from religious fringe groups or cults.
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