BOLD LIARS!!

[Cynthia]

Good morning, and welcome to 3atalk, Gregory.

Thank you for making your role clear. It seemed likely before now that you were one of the two Pastors she referred to, but of course couldn't be stated that it was fact without confirmation.

I understand your point of view, and don't have a problem with most of it, as I believe you advised based on your assessment and your view and perspective of that at the time. I do disagree about 2 things though, and have a question about a 3rd based on both things I have read and on conversations I have had with some of those Church members. It is not my intention to name them as that isn't the issue or necessary here imo.

The 2 things I disagree with, are these:
1.

The reality is that under the most basic understanding of Ethics as established in the seccular world, The Thompsonville congregation should not have decided whether or not to discipline Linda.

According to my beliefs about Church discipline they are the only congregation who had the obligation and right to do so. If a Church does not act properly, then and only then do you take it to the local conference, and so on. And this is something that imo has been overlooked time and time again in all of this very public bru ha ha which has been the result imo, of people not settling conflicts and resolving them, or making individuals accountable according to the biblical standards laid forth by Christ himself, and outlined in the SOP, and in our very Church manual.

Actually this is the very topic which brought me into all these 3abn issues and discussions in the first place, as I was trying to explain to Bob in a yahoo group we were both members of, not about 3abn being right or wrong, but about the right and wrong way of doing things, and what both the bible and SOP had to say about this but then and now over and over the excuse for all this "lets tell it to the world" ugliness and publicity which is an embarrassment to the church, and to be frank, to me personally, has been " but we told Danny and 3abn they were wrong and sinning and they won't repent and "we couldn't tell anyone else because 3abn is an independent ministry and not owned or controlled by the conference." True, 3ABN is an independent ministry, but each employee, and board member of that ministry, and many of 3ABN's accusers are not independent. Those individuals are members of local SDA churches, and subject to church discipline if they are in error or sin and don't heed counsel and the first two steps have been followed. Each Church, and each member of that church has a sacred duty and calling in regards to this.

In Linda's case, it was at the "tell it to the church" phase with her, which was biblical, and . It is my understanding that Danny Shelton asked the church to not take up the problems they saw with Linda, and to just let it go, and let her go, and he was told kindly but firmly that he couldn't be involved and that the church had an obligation to the highest authority and could not turn away from that or refuse to act.

You say:

What ethical rules would be violated by them disciplining her? Well, to start off: To many people would be in a "Dual relationship" if they attempted to discipline Linda. That one is a fundamental rule of ethics--No dual relationship. There are options that the Thompsonville Chruch could have taken to deal with that issue.

And here is what I have a question about, for try as I may I cannot figure out one member of that Church, with the exception of Danny Shelton who the Church had already excluded, who had a "dual role" with Linda Shelton making it ethically wrong for them to be part of those proceedings, vote and censure. Perhaps you know something I do not, or define "dual role" differently then myself??? I would appreciate some clairification about your meaning here.

2.)

It is not necessary to claim that either the membership of the Thompsonville Chruch or Pastor L. would have treated Linda unfairly in the disciplinary action that did not take place. One can only suppose as to what they might have done. I suppose that all of us think what might have happened. Well, it did not happen.

I don't know what you are referring to here, so let me agree yes, Linda asked to have her membership removed, and joined another in a black conference church by profession of faith. BUT, Linda also uses this to claim she has never been under censure, and actually as she stated herself to avoid the whole church discipline thing (which would of course require her to defend herself). I understand you believe you did the right thing. We will have to disagree. I think Linda made the wrong choice and did not have good advice as her counsellors only knew that church through her eyes ( and the eyes of Mundall, who had both bias and an axe to grind. He himself was placed under censure by that same church for issues not related to Linda) and so her counsel advised her to avoid accountability and ignore Christ's own words about taking it to the church, imo. Also the testimony of Pastor Lomacang, Dr Thompson and those church members is not the same as Linda's. They say that yes, they did vote for censure, and they met and went over all the evidence they had and then drafted an 8 page letter explaining to her where they believed she was wrong and why. So you may believe Linda about this, but of course that would mean an entire church lied. I don't believe they did. Pastor Lomacangs letter above is in my opinion written by a loving and honest man of God. I have been there. IMO, those church members in Thompsonville are also loving and honest Christians who are not compromised, nor partial in judgment who understand the duty to act ethically and morally when it comes to church discipline, and the obligation to not participate when and if they shouldn't. Good people in my book.

[Nestor]

The questions asked are good. As I understand them they are two:

1) To what extent did Linda’s transfer of membership violate denominational policy?
2) Why would I consider it to be unethical for the Thompsonville congregation to determine whether or not Linda should be disciplined?

The above questions are valid and complex. I will respond to them.
It is thought by many, to include myself, that there are two (2) fundamental rights that belong to the local congregation and that cannot be abridged by outside influences. Those two rights are:
1) The right to determine who is and who is not a member of the local congregation. This includes the ability to discipline a member and exiting them from membership.
2) The right of the congregation to elect whomever they chose to the offices in the congregation that are elected by the congregation.

These two rights are perceived by many to “trump” other issues of denominational policy. This is where I personally am. IOW, a local congregation may be advised that they have wronged a person in the discipline that the congregation has administered, but the congregation cannot be compelled to effect a change in discipline, membership or elected office. The congregation can only be advised to do so.

This is how that policy works in actual practice: Congregation X exits a person from membership and that individual appeals to the Conference. The President advises the congregation that they have acted wrongly and the congregation refuses to change. At that point, the President has the option of going to another SDA Congregation and recommending that it accept the individual into membership on Profession of Faith. NOTE: That can only be a recommendation and cannot be forced upon that congregation.

NOTE: There are some minor alternative ways to address specific situations which I will not mention here as they are not relevant to this discussion.

When a congregation places a member under censure, that congregation continues to hold by denominational policy some responsibility for the spiritual nurture of that person. Under this condition, it is problematic by policy for that person to transfer membership, even though a receiving congregation may have the right to do so.

When a member is exited from congregational membership, that congregation is no longer responsible for the spiritual nurture of that person. In this case, the receiving congregation is only obligated to take steps to understand the issues involved the loss of membership prior to taking the person into their membership either by baptism or profession of faith (POF). IOW, the previous congregation can only advise or inform and cannot prevent the person from becoming a member again of POF. If the receiving congregation believes that it has enough of an understanding of the issues involved, it is not required to make any contact with the other congregation. Frankly, this happens often in actual practice.

When the Thompsonville congregation acted to remove Linda from membership, it opened up the way for her to be taken into membership of another congregation which would only have the obligation to become informed of the issues to the point where it would be willing to take Linda into membership on POF. By removing Linda from membership, the Thompsonville congregation no longer had much input into her membership into another congregation.

Folks, you can quote the CHUCH MANUEL to me. You can challenge me. The CHURCH MANUAL does not lock congregations into concrete. People who have been exited from SDA congregations are quite often accepted into membership into other SDA congregations by either baptism or Profession of Faith.

So, what about the Thompsonville congregation and ethics?

As the question was asked, there was an implication that the Thompsonville SDA Church and/or Pastor L. might have acted inappropriately toward Linda. Ethics does not require such to be determined. It does not have to be an issue whether or not individual people would have been unjust to Linda. Perhaps they would not have treated her justly. Perhaps they would have been both just and fair. That is not relevant.

A major aspect of ethics is appearance. Professional organizations have rules of ethics that deal with appearance. One such rule involves “dual relationships.” Ethical standards uniformly require that people with dual relationships recuse themselves, or be removed, in cases of dual relationships. Pastor L. might have been fair and just in his treatment of Linda. I do not charge that he would have been either unfair or unjust to her. But, due to his relationship to 3-ABN and Danny Shelton and how his salary was paid, he had a dual relationship. So, did other people. The common ethical standards of the secular world today raised real “red flags” in regard to the Thompsonville congregation determining discipline for Linda. Compliance with those standards would have required another forum to determine whether or not to discipline her. Such is not easily done in the SDA Church. So, her transfer was arranged by another method that was within the boundaries of SDA policy and is done more often that you may realize.

Gregory Matthews

[Stan]

Although Gregory and I might not agree with how the whole Linda & 3ABN has been handled, I can say that I do concur with my friends understanding of membership policy.

[Nestor]

Stan: I am uncertain if I am the friend with whom you agree as to membershilp poolicy, or if another poster is the friend with whom lyou agree.

In any case, I consider you to be my friend.

Gregory Matthews

[Cynthia]

Although Gregory and I might not agree with how the whole Linda & 3ABN has been handled, I can say that I do concur with my friends understanding of membership policy.

As do I.

Either I expressed myself badly, or you misunderstood, Gregory. I am really not sure which it is, but this was not a question I had: "1) To what extent did Linda’s transfer of membership violate denominational policy?", I thank you for the explanation anyway.

As for the rest we both said what we thought and we will just have to agree to disagree.

[Stan]

Am, sorry, English is my second language, my first language was baby talk.

I meant that I consider Gregory a friend.

[Nestor]

To both of you:

O.K.

No problem and there was not one previously.

I am simply someone who asks a question if I have one. In my thinking, it is better to get it out on the table than to stuff it in a sack.

GM

[Johann]

The questions asked are good. As I understand them they are two:

1) To what extent did Linda’s transfer of membership violate denominational policy?
2) Why would I consider it to be unethical for the Thompsonville congregation to determine whether or not Linda should be disciplined?

The above questions are valid and complex. I will respond to them.
It is thought by many, to include myself, that there are two (2) fundamental rights that belong to the local congregation and that cannot be abridged by outside influences. Those two rights are:
1) The right to determine who is and who is not a member of the local congregation. This includes the ability to discipline a member and exiting them from membership.
2) The right of the congregation to elect whomever they chose to the offices in the congregation that are elected by the congregation.

These two rights are perceived by many to “trump” other issues of denominational policy. This is where I personally am. IOW, a local congregation may be advised that they have wronged a person in the discipline that the congregation has administered, but the congregation cannot be compelled to effect a change in discipline, membership or elected office. The congregation can only be advised to do so.

This is how that policy works in actual practice: Congregation X exits a person from membership and that individual appeals to the Conference. The President advises the congregation that they have acted wrongly and the congregation refuses to change. At that point, the President has the option of going to another SDA Congregation and recommending that it accept the individual into membership on Profession of Faith. NOTE: That can only be a recommendation and cannot be forced upon that congregation.

NOTE: There are some minor alternative ways to address specific situations which I will not mention here as they are not relevant to this discussion.

When a congregation places a member under censure, that congregation continues to hold by denominational policy some responsibility for the spiritual nurture of that person. Under this condition, it is problematic by policy for that person to transfer membership, even though a receiving congregation may have the right to do so.

When a member is exited from congregational membership, that congregation is no longer responsible for the spiritual nurture of that person. In this case, the receiving congregation is only obligated to take steps to understand the issues involved the loss of membership prior to taking the person into their membership either by baptism or profession of faith (POF). IOW, the previous congregation can only advise or inform and cannot prevent the person from becoming a member again of POF. If the receiving congregation believes that it has enough of an understanding of the issues involved, it is not required to make any contact with the other congregation. Frankly, this happens often in actual practice.

When the Thompsonville congregation acted to remove Linda from membership, it opened up the way for her to be taken into membership of another congregation which would only have the obligation to become informed of the issues to the point where it would be willing to take Linda into membership on POF. By removing Linda from membership, the Thompsonville congregation no longer had much input into her membership into another congregation.

Folks, you can quote the CHUCH MANUEL to me. You can challenge me. The CHURCH MANUAL does not lock congregations into concrete. People who have been exited from SDA congregations are quite often accepted into membership into other SDA congregations by either baptism or Profession of Faith.

So, what about the Thompsonville congregation and ethics?

As the question was asked, there was an implication that the Thompsonville SDA Church and/or Pastor L. might have acted inappropriately toward Linda. Ethics does not require such to be determined. It does not have to be an issue whether or not individual people would have been unjust to Linda. Perhaps they would not have treated her justly. Perhaps they would have been both just and fair. That is not relevant.

A major aspect of ethics is appearance. Professional organizations have rules of ethics that deal with appearance. One such rule involves “dual relationships.” Ethical standards uniformly require that people with dual relationships recuse themselves, or be removed, in cases of dual relationships. Pastor L. might have been fair and just in his treatment of Linda. I do not charge that he would have been either unfair or unjust to her. But, due to his relationship to 3-ABN and Danny Shelton and how his salary was paid, he had a dual relationship. So, did other people. The common ethical standards of the secular world today raised real “red flags” in regard to the Thompsonville congregation determining discipline for Linda. Compliance with those standards would have required another forum to determine whether or not to discipline her. Such is not easily done in the SDA Church. So, her transfer was arranged by another method that was within the boundaries of SDA policy and is done more often that you may realize.

Gregory Matthews

I find this discussion quite interesting because it reveals more to me on what Cindy & Co are basing their assumption. If I understand you right here, it appears like you presume that Linda did not follow the "rules" as outlined in the Chrurch Manual and you take that as a proof that she avoided the Church censure because she did not want to "admit" her mistakes? Is that right? Could it be that all of our discussions and "acccusations" are caused because we thus do not base our reasoning on the same premises?

Gregory is right that he was one of the pastors suggesting Linda should request her membership be dropped from the Thompsonville Church and then joining another church by profession of faith, but he was not the only one - besides me - who did that. All basing their suggestion on how such problems have been solved in a number of other instances within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, so this was far from a new idea just out of the blue. People who have used this method before feel it is not against Scripture, the Spirit of Prophecy, nor the Church Manual.

Let me just add right here that by using modern communication vehicles I was in constant communication with many individuals thousands of miles apart, and as I have said several times before, one of my best sources of what was happening was Danny Shelton himself. That does not mean that we agreed on things, nor does it mean that I will dig down in my archives to post a quote from his letters to me just to satisfy any demands.

The procedures in the Thompsonville Church lasted many months. At first Linda requested her membership be transferred from Thompsonville to Springfield, but there was no reaction for several months, and this was one reason it was sugested she would ask for her membership to be dropped since it looked like John Lomacang was not doing anything.

Another reason was that at least a couple of people closely associated with the Thompsonville Church made it known that John Lomacang talked to the board members. What happened then could be compared to what happened between Jesus entereing Jerusalem and a few days later when the same people who had been hailing Jesus shouted "Crusify him!" Insiders warned Linda that the board was prepared to lynch Linda if she came to their meeting - all this in spite of the beautiful and seemingly "christian" letter he wrote.

Since this warning came from at least one member of the Thompsonville Church board, what would you have done in Linda's case? At least a couple of people supported this warning. Would you have just ignored it by stepping into the lion's den? Also when Gregory and others assured her there was a better way out of her situation. How would you handle that?

Johann Thorvaldsson

[steffan]

And now Linda is Jesus Christ? The horror! What would your good friend Pickle say to that? He gets quite white hot when he thinks Danny is being compared to Moses!

What happened then could be compared to what happened between Jesus entereing Jerusalem and a few days later when the same people who had been hailing Jesus shouted "Crusify him!"

And if she was worried about being "crusified" then all she had to do was take that letter (that Pastor L wrote) with her when she went to the board meeting. At the first sign of "crusifixion" she could whip out that letter and show it to the board!
And notice how you go from "one" highly placed insider to "many" - underlined for emphasis.

Insiders warned Linda that the board was prepared to lynch Linda if she came to their meeting - all this in spite of the beautiful and seemingly "christian" letter he wrote.

Johann,
When do the lies stop and the truth really come out from your mouth? ...[edited]...

[Cynthia]

The questions asked are good. As I understand them they are two:

1) To what extent did Linda’s transfer of membership violate denominational policy?
... her transfer was arranged by another method that was within the boundaries of SDA policy and is done more often that you may realize.

Gregory Matthews

I find this discussion quite interesting because it reveals more to me on what Cindy & Co are basing their assumption. If I understand you right here, it appears like you presume that Linda did not follow the "rules" as outlined in the Chrurch Manual

Before replying further I would like to put this issue to rest. It was my post which is being replied to by Nestor and now you here, Johann. I know what I meant.

So allow me to clarify again, as I already tried to in my earlier response to Nestor.

That was not my question, nor do I believe that either denominational policy or the church manual rules were violated by Linda when she requested that her member ship be dropped by the Thompsonville Church. Nor do I believe they were violated by her afterwords joining another Conference and Church . So let us put that issue to rest and not speak of it further, ok?

My reference to the Church manual was strictly in reference to it containing Jesus' instructions in Matt 18, and the SOP counsel in regard to Matt 18.

My opinion and view, is that Linda ( and many others also) did not follow that, nor was the advice given her in accordance with that either in respect to accusations against herself, or her accusations against DS and 3ABN. IOW, my issue is not about worldly or organization policy or rules. My belief is that Jesus should be obeyed without excuses about why that can't be done or why it's impossible to do that, and if he is obeyed he will be in charge of how it all works out... If he is not obeyed, then he can not bless and lead, as he is not being acknowledged as the Shepherd, nor being followed. That was and remains my problem with how all of the 3ABN issues and conflict has been handled, whether in regards to Linda and the Thompsonville Church or Pickle and joys exposes etc...

Now, lets move on here and stop belaboring a problem and difference of opinion which never existed please.