Progressive Adventism just did a compilation of the 19 most influential people in Adventism. Here are 9 of the most colorful. I did include two who are also on the most influential list - Danny Shelton and Clifford Goldstein.
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana - Adventist pastor aids genocide. Yeah, I still remember the first time I heard that.Doug Batchelor - one of those guys who had the wild youth then became a full-time salesman for Jesus.
Vernon Wayne Howell AKA David Koresh - The sad story of a sociopath who was able to use religion as his tool of destruction.
Steve Arrington - Drug-running pilot becomes Costeau chief diver tours speaking to Adventist congregations launches something in Fiji? Yeah maybe his life makes a better story than Doug Batchelor's.
Desmond Ford - Perhaps the most upstanding person on this list. However the church apparently still sees him as a threat.Pitcairn Islanders - Are these inbred islanders really sex abusers or have they simply reverted to practices common throughout the history of humanity? Looks like 1/3 of the population is under suspicion or already convicted.
Clifford Goldstein - The guy from whom I learned the word polemic.
Danny Robert S. Folkenberg - Reading the details of the offshore corporations and holding corporations managing shares of property donated to the church by a non-member that were decided to be too high risk to be held directly by the church makes one wonder where the executive department of the church seeks its talent?
I'm sure there are many more examples as well as a whole slew of colorful characters from the history of the church but those will have to wait until another day.
5 comments:
Interesting people. I lived in Rwanda for six years, and I knew of brother Elizaphan (I was a kid back then...).
You know what else is a fun exercise? Do a search for "Famous Adventists" if you haven't already. Some of it is a bit surprising.
Anyhow, thanks for posting this.
Great post. And interesting that you linked to my Confessing, Cultural essay. I wrote that while in college. Hope that you post soon again.
You left out my favorite notorious Adventist, George Speight. The guy looks great in sunglasses but is just awful in all other respects...
I thought a link might help. http://www.adherents.com/people/ps/George_Speight.html
Websurfing when I should have been working, I saw the term "cultural adventist" for the first time. Some Googling brought me here. I haven't considered myself SDA since I was 17 (1972!), though it took me another couple of years saving up money from campus jobs while my parents paid for Pacific Union College until I was able to move to a non-SDA environment (San Francisco State University) for the first time in my life. And just today, refusing a sample of shrimp when eating out with co-workers, I explained for the umpteenth time just what my form of vegetarianism is: "If it shits, I don't eat it."
Here are a couple of other colorful adventists you left out: Shirley Ardell Mason (better known as "Sybil" of the multiple personalities) and Kenneth Bianchi (a convert in prison, according to a TV movie I saw once about how the Hillside Stranglers were caught).
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