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Busy Extremists |
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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:
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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