Every church has its rumour mill. Ours comes with prophetic charts and a YouTube channel.
Here are ten that circulate among Adventists, and what the record shows.
1. Jesuits run the General Conference. Some online voices still say so. In 2016 Ted Wilson, then GC president, said the idea has “no basis in reality,” and Adventist Today has asked believers for “one actual, verifiable case.”
2. GC leaders were killed and replaced by body doubles. Adventist Today traced this to a 1982 letter by evangelist Mike Clute, who passed on a claim that “five GC men” had been replaced. The source was a woman who said an angel told her.
3. The COVID vaccine is the mark of the beast. A 2021 church statement says plainly that the vaccine decision is not “related, as some may suggest, to the mark of the beast.”
4. Vaccines carry microchips switched on by 5G. Adventist Today reports that one evangelist spread this.
5. The earth is flat. At a 2021 ASI seminar, It Is Written speaker John Bradshaw described a man who believed it and said, “the church you are a part of does not agree with you.”
6. The White Estate secretly rewrites Ellen White. Ministry magazine says some members point to modern English adaptations as proof. The White Estate says supplied words go in brackets, and no one adds their own words. The EGW Writings site files adaptations separately as “Modern English.”
7. The GC is a secret member of the World Council of Churches. The WCC’s own site says the Adventist Church “is not a member.” Adventists attend some meetings as observers, which is public.
8. The church logo hides an upside-down cross. A church newsletter in South Africa notes the rumour and says it was “certainly not an upside down cross” when the church adopted it. The symbol, in use since 1997, shows an open Bible, a cross and a flame.
9. The Illuminati is about to take over. In 1978 tapes by John Todd, who claimed to be a former Illuminati insider, went round Adventist homes. Todd was later exposed as a fraud.
10. Catholic churches hide torture chambers and guns. Adventist Today’s Loren Seibold recalls hearing this from a church official as a boy, with “an untraceable provenance.” No such room has ever been documented.
What these share is a hunger to matter and a fear of being fooled. We get that. But the gospel does not need a secret basement to be good news. Love the people in your pew, check before you share, and keep your eyes on Jesus. He is not hiding anything.
Image: A Chronological Chart of the Visions of Daniel and John, J.V. Himes, 1843, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Chronological_Chart_of_the_Visions_of_Daniel_and_John.jpg (details cut out, text added)
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