Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

under the title: "Use the Bible Your People Use". In the same article appeared the
findings of a "Ministry" survey which indicated that an overwhelming majority of church
members in North America wished that their pastor would stick to the King James
Version.
Probably, a similar situation existed in Australia and New Zealand, for a veritable
barrage of poorly documented articles upholding certain modern versions as superior to
the KJV were appearing in the official church paper, "The Australasian Record".
Simultaneously, and ever increasing number of church writers were using
modern versions. The Sabbath School Lesson Quarterlies, published by the General
Conference for its world Bible study program, decreasingly used the KJV as authority.
Very significantly, its "Sabbath School Lessons" began to drop the traditional pattern of
systematic study of doctrine in favour of a decidedly timorous approach to Scripture.
Implementing this radical change was the almost complete introduction of
modern versions into the church's significantly large educational system - from its
primary school to tertiary theological training. And, all this, in spite of the results of the
survey published in its official church journal!
Such "meritorious" conduct did not escape the notice of Rome and her
ecumenical lackeys. Was the Seventh-day Adventist Church now sufficiently within the
ecumenical fold to have its co-operation in the translation of interconfessional Bibles?
Apparently it was! The October 1985 "Quarterly Record" of the Trinitarian Bible Society
documents Adventism's new found dimension in ecumenism:
"The work of the Bible Society (United Bible Society) acquired a new dimension
with the setting up of a consultative committee made up of three representatives from
the Roman Catholic, the Anglican and Seventh-day Adventist churches. This committee
will supervise the translation, reproduction and distribution in the Seychelles" ("United
Bible Society Report", 1984). 25
25 A decade later the SDA Church in the South Pacific Division proudly
announces its current ecumenical activities. Writing of the translation of the N.T. into the
ChiLanji language in Zambia which began in 1990, we read in "The Record":
"The project is interdenominational and involves Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist
and Roman Catholic Churches" ("Record", May 1, 1993 p 5).
An indication of Rome's remarkable success with her interconfessional
brainwashing of Adventistism is revealed in a most unlikely New Zealand publication,
"New Zealand Truth and TV Extra". Featured on the front page were the headlines: "Kiwi
Church Cranks in Pope Smear". (The "Cranks" turned out to be SDA lay people who had
emulated the spirit of the original "Protestant Magazine" editors early this century).
According to "Truth" a paper called the "Protestant" had recently been circulated
throughout New Zealand. Although the message, like that of its name sake was distinctly
Adventist Protestant in nature, it failed to please the Adventist hierarchy in NZ. Pastor
Larry Laredo from the Adventist Headquarters in Auckland publicly distanced his Church
from the "underground" publication by allowing himself to be photographed in the act of
tearing up the "Protestant". David Ross, a spokesman for Catholic Communications,
clearly revealed his church's perception of its success in hoodwinking Adventist
administrators through the ecumenical process when he was reported as saying:
"The Protestant paper is an example of bigotry by a few Adventists which will not
upset the ecumenical relationship being developed between Catholics and Seventh-day
Adventists" ("Truth", October 16, 1992).
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