In a recent announcement, the Working Group of Christian Churches in Darmstadt, Germany (AKC Darmstadt) stated that a Seventh-day Adventist pastor has been chosen to serve as the organization’s new chairman of the board. According to their website, AKC Darmstadt is an ecumenical organization that promotes the “visible unity of the Christian Churches.” [1] German news website Echo Online published the following on September 20, 2023:
• “Michael Mainka, pastor of the free church Adventist community ‘Leben im Zentrum’ in Darmstadt, now heads the committee, which includes eleven churches.” [2]
• “At its general meeting, the Working Group of Christian Churches in Darmstadt (ACK) elected a new board. The new chairman is Michael Mainka, pastor of the free church Adventist community.” [2]
• “He will be represented by Evangelos Kyprianidis from the Greek Orthodox Communityof St. Nikolaos, Stefan Schäfer from the Catholic Pastoral Area Darmstadt-Mitteand Carin Strobel from the Evangelical Deanery Darmstadt.” [2]
• “The new board, together with the delegates from the various churches, would like to continue the proven work of the ACK, promote ecumenical contacts and mutual understanding and be present in the city public through joint activities and church services, it is said.” [2]
• “After his election, the new chairman thanked his predecessor for the work she had done over the past two years.” [2]
What we are seeing here has nothing to do with the mission that God has for us as a people. This actually fulfills the Second Vatican Council’s “Decree on Ecumenism,” which was issued on November 21, 1964, and which begins:
• “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.” [3]
• “All however, though in different ways, long for the one visible Church of God, a Church truly universal and set forth into the world that the world may be converted to the Gospel and so be saved, to the glory of God. The Sacred Council gladly notes all this. It has already declared its teaching on the Church, and now, moved by a desire for the restoration of unity among all the followers of Christ, it wishes to set before all Catholics the ways and means by which they too can respond to this grace and to this divine call.” [3]
The modern ecumenical movement is actively working to bring all the churches together in a visible unity, and this is exactly what we can observe happening. This is what the Second Vatican Council mandates. What about the Second Angel’s Message? What about the solemn message that God gave in Revelation 14:8 and Revelation 18:4? Tragically, God’s message is being replaced with the false teaching of the Second Vatican Council. The Roman Catholic Church’s Decree on Ecumenism commands us to “come in,” which is completely at odds with God’s “Loud Cry Message” of Revelation 18:4, which says, “come out.”
Today, there is a voice that calls on everyone to come together in solidarity. Pope Francis is busy building a human brotherhood. This work is undermining the real Seventh-day Adventist mission and message. Our banner is the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, which is an expression of the Three Angels’ Message. This is the foundation on which the Seventh-day Adventist movement stands.
Our God has entrusted us with the work of announcing to the world the everlasting gospel of Revelation 14:6–12. We must stand firm in the preaching of this message. This is what society needs to hear right now. But what is happening is that many of our people are trying to dilute God’s message with all these ecumenical appeals to ignore biblical truth, ignore sin and apostasy, and instead place an emphasis on unity and solidarity.
That is why so many no longer emphasize the Three Angels’ Message clearly to the world. That is why books like The Great Controversy and the National Sunday Law are rejected because they warn against the beast, the image, and the mark. Some today are trying to accommodate our message with Rome’s call to universal brotherhood led by Pope Francis, who says that we all must be united by putting unity and solidarity before truth and duty.
We were told that in the last days, Satan’s one-world church movement will be at work, attempting to unify the entire world. In this solemn time of earth’s history, we cannot pretend to work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church while actually serving the agenda of the beast and his image, who are planning to implement the mark.
“Satan determines to unite them in one body, and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of Spiritualism … Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world” (Great Controversy, pp. 588, 589).
Sources
[1] https://www.ack-darmstadt.de/
[2] https://www.echo-online.de/lokales/darmstadt/ack-waehlt-neuen-vorstand-2873081
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No true SDA would accept this position because it means he would lead out in healing the deadly wound.
He is only another mole in a sea of others.
He needs to make a choice between Christ or Antichrist. You can’t serve two masters.
We must call people out. Who are these people working for?
Have seen multiple GC pastors in SDA churches across NSW Australia making Unity their big issue, they aren’t getting this idea from the Bible or SOP,
Often wondered who has bewitched them?
How does one go from exposing the man of sin and the sins of Babylon to pushing their very agendas?
Found it to be the pastors who have invibed the new theology errors, they deny God’s power to help people get victory over Sin,
Then they become capable of anything.
Amos 3:3″can two walk together except they be agreed?”
{“If unity could be secured only by the compromise of truth and righteousness, then let there be difference, and even war.” GC88 44.2 }
“When the Saviour saw in the Jewish people a nation divorced from God,
He saw also a professed Christian Church united to the world and the papacy.
And as He stood upon Olivet, weeping over Jerusalem till the sun sank behind the western hills, so He is weeping over and pleading with sinners in these last moments of time” (Review and Herald, October 8, 1901)
I agree – it starts with not calling sin by it’s name – denying the power of God to overcome. The SOP which does call us out and admonishes us to overcome is then rejected – and then even the bible is doubted. I joined the official german facebook group of SDA’s and this is exactly what I encountered. In any discussion, if one mentions the SOP or Ellen G. White, one is attacked by several others – they mock Ellen G. White and the SOP – they think that Paul and Moses’s writings were not really inspired and flawed due to lack of their knowledge – they never say thus says the Lord but twist and interpret the bible according to their desires. One really wonders why these people wish to call themselves SDA’s. There are those who still believe in SOP and our pillars of faith but they are mostly quiet on that platform due to the persecution that occurs from within if you believe the good old way.
What is the meaning of the term ” free adventist church ” ?? , what is a “free adventist”??
I noticed these so called sda pastors were pastors of “free adventist” churches. The article didn’t didn’t say , seventh-day adventist church
“Free Churches” in the European context means that they are not financially supported by the state and include Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals and others. Europe still has official “state churches.”