Spiritual Formation floods Adventist Church

A JOURNEY INTO THE INNER SELF

"Close your eyes. Think of Jesus. Jesus is beautiful, isn't he?" (Ty Gibson, Close Your Eyes So You Can See, https://livestream.com/collegedalesdachurch/ad2/videos/184233551, 1 Dec 2018, minute 32) "Visualize the event as if you were making a movie. 

GUIDED BY SEASONED JESUIT SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS

Pay attention to the details: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings of the event." (Kevin O’Brien, SJ, Ignatian Contemplation: Imaginative Prayer, The Ignatian Adventure, https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/ignatian-contemplation-imaginative-prayer)

"When I asked you to, in this thought experiment, imagine Jesus, to bring up an image of Jesus in your mind, 

TOTAL SUCCESS IN WEEK 2 JESUIT SPIRITUAL FORMATION EXERCISES

many of you brought up an image in your mind." (Ty Gibson, Close Your Eyes So You Can See, https://livestream.com/collegedalesdachurch/ad2/videos/184233551, 1 Dec 2018, minute 44) For Ty Gibson, "Jesus was a black man". (Ty Gibson, Close Your Eyes So You Can See, https://livestream.com/collegedalesdachurch/ad2/videos/184233551, 1 Dec 2018, minute 33)

CLIFFORD VISUALIZED A GAY-AFFIRMING JESUS 

"I’m sure Jesus looks approvingly on ‘loving, monoganamous, and committed’ homosexual sodomy". (Clifford Goldstein, see screenshot below)

NOW CLIFFORD COULD TALK OPENLY ABOUT WHAT'S REALLY ON HIS MIND 

"I loved Leaves of Grass" (Clifford Goldstein, It is so, Adventist Review, 16 Jan 2014), "which celebrates the soul through the trope of fellatio: ‘Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, / … Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice’. Leaves of Grass, the title Whitman gave his collected poems, pivots upon this dalliance with a young man in the grass." (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Allied Resource Office, Walt Whitman, University of Illinois Springfield, http://www.uis.edu/lgbtqa/WaltWhitman/)

SO WHETHER YOU'RE GAY, A SUNDAY KEEPER, OR WHATEVER ...

"When Jesus died on the cross, it was a universal embrace". (2019 Collegedale Camp Meeting - Ty Gibson - Friday Night, https://vimeo.com/334752572, minute 14)

THIS UNIVERSAL EMBRACE THEOLOGY HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A WHILE

In the 1970s, General Conference Vice President Dr. Mike Ryan taught at a seminary in Asia where scholars shared the vision of Elder Clifford Goldstein of the Sabbath School Quarterly.  (as shown at right from Coral Cadence, 1977)

"Visualization, a common spiritual practice in Eastern, Protestant, and Catholic religious circles, is more than just conjuring up thoughts and pictures. In fact, guided visualization is hypnosis. Psychologist Michael Yapko explains: "Many times therapists aren’t even aware that they’re doing hypnosis. They’re doing what they call guided imagery [which is visualization] or guided meditation, which are all very mainstream hypnotic techniques."" (Walter J. Veith, Visualization and Hypnosis, https://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-deception_spiritual_formation_hypnosis_visualization#!)

TY GIBSON  CONFIRMS THIS

"We need to enter into the headspace of those around us." (Ty Gibson, Close Your Eyes So You Can See, https://livestream.com/collegedalesdachurch/ad2/videos/184233551, 1 Dec 2018, minute 44)

TY GIBSON SUCCEEDS

"My wife has a cousin who is gay, and then I have other friends and former classmates who are gay." "We should protect the rights of homosexual persons in the United States. Very strongly."
(Roy Gane, Professor, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Tuesday Choice: The Old Testament and Homosexuality, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6KGuJr7jLY, minutes  1, 22)

MIND YOU, SOME CONSERVATIVE ADVENTISTS WERE DISTURBED BY TY GIBSON'S THEOLOGY

But "It is better to risk the displeasure of insiders than to risk repelling outsiders.

THE REAL REASON WHY PASTOR GIBSON'S STORYLINE SDA CHURCH EXISTS

At the end of the day, we exist for them, not for us." (see Ty Gibson tweet at left)(see also graphic at right)

And "them"?

Because "Love alone is credible.  Nothing else can be believed, nothing else should be believed."  (2019 Collegedale Camp Meeting - Ty Gibson - Sabbath 2nd Service, https://vimeo.com/339779240, minute 49)

Clifford says it.  Dr. Roy Gane says it.  Ty says it. 

And those spiritual formation flags are so colorful.



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