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Walter Julius Veith | |
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Born | South Africa | January 25, 1949
Occupation(s) | Evangelist, author, speaker, professor, pastor |
Known for | Evangelist for Clash Of Minds on nutrition, creationism, and "last day events." |
Website | clashofminds |
Part of a series on |
Seventh-day Adventist Church |
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Adventism |
Walter Julius Veith (born 1949) is a South African zoologist and a Seventh-day Adventist author and speaker known for his work in nutrition, creationism and Biblical exegesis.
Veith was professor of the zoology department at the University of Cape Town and taught in the medical bioscience department. During this time, the department was awarded a Royal Society London grant for zoological research. [1]
After joining the Seventh-day Adventist Church, he rejected the theory of evolution in favor of creationism [2] [3] and so had to give up teaching at the University of Cape Town.
As a creationist, [4] he speaks internationally on this and other topics. His lectures, videos, and books promote creationist and Adventist beliefs and doctrines. These include an evangelical understanding of the Bible with a very strong commitment to the Textus Receptus and the King James Version of the Bible. He also promotes a vegan diet and a belief in the imminent fulfillment of Biblical End Times and the return of Jesus Christ.
Veith has written a number of books, including Diet and Health and The Genesis Conflict, which gives a biblical perspective and evidence claimed to support young earth creationism. [5] He is the evangelist of Clash Of Minds, a non-profit worldwide ministry based in Limpopo, South Africa. [6]
Walter Veith was born in 1949 and grew up in a strict Catholic home. His mother, a Protestant, died early from cancer. Veith was told by his religion teacher that because of his mother's non-Catholic beliefs, she would "languish forever and ever" in hell. [7] This prompted Veith to become an atheist at the age of ten. [8] [9]
In 1971 Walter Veith began studying zoology at the University of Stellenbosch, where he graduated with a Master of Science in zoology. [10] [ better source needed ] His thesis dealt with the propagation of dwarf chameleons. A two-year postgraduate course at the University of Cape Town followed in 1979. His thesis was an Autoradiographic and Electron Microscopic study of embryonic nutrition in the teleost Clinus superciliosus. He also attended lectures on zoology at the universities of Durban-Westville and Stellenbosch. [11] Veith's research field is nutritional physiology, concentrating on the effect of modern animal husbandry on the incidence of disease transferral to humans. His research concentrates on degenerative diseases caused by incorrect nutrition and particularly on diseases such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, and also on fertility. [12]
After graduation, Veith became an adjunct professor at the University of Stellenbosch, and until 1987 gave lectures in zoology.
Early in the 1980s, after his young son fell seriously ill (believing it was demonic possession) and recovered, allegedly with the help of a Catholic priest, he and his wife returned to the Catholic faith. But a few years later he developed doubts about Catholicism and, through the influence of a craftsman who renovated his kitchen, he and his wife joined the Adventist faith.
In his first lectures as an adjunct professor, he had had a student who rejected what she called the lie of evolutionism and instead maintained the truth of the biblical creation story. He soundly put her in her place. Now, his new faith and his own Bible studies led him to adopt this belief, which brought him into conflict with what he was teaching. Because of his lectures on the alleged scientific evidence for the biblical creation story he was asked to leave the University of Stellenbosch. [13]
He sold his house in Stellenbosch and accepted a position as associate professor at the University of the Western Cape in zoology. His serious concerns about the theory of evolution had been resolved by the proviso that he only needed to carry out research.
The university closed temporarily due to race riots. This gave Veith the opportunity to travel to California and visit Ariel Roth, a creationist in charge of the Adventist Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda. [14] [15] He researched evidence of the biblical story of creation, and developed a series of lectures to present his findings.
The following year Veith received a one-year contract at the University of Cape Town. His creationist lectures meant that his contract was not renewed, but he was hired in a research-only position at the University of the Western Cape. At this time, Veith began to hold lectures outside university. [16] Initially, his talks were mainly to Adventist congregations in the United States, then in Canada, Australia and Europe. In his lectures on nutrition he promoted Adventist values such as vegetarianism and fasting. His first book was published in 1998 under the title of Diet and Health. [17]
In 1995 he became a full professor with tenure and the head of the Department of Zoology, the content also dealt with the theory of evolution after five years. He used his position among other things to promote his belief in creationism and to deny the theory of evolution, finding a fellow believer in these views in his colleague Quincy Johnson. In 1997 he published his results in The Genesis Conflict. [18]
After conflicts at the University of the Western Cape due to their unorthodox views, Walter Veith and Quincy Johnson left the department of zoology. Johnson joined the Department of Microbiology, while Veith joined the Department of Physiology, where he worked until 2003. With this change, their right to teach zoology was withdrawn. Since his retirement from teaching physiology, Veith has devoted his time to pastoring.
Veith teaches in his lectures the basic pillars of Adventism, [19] which he believes are an extension of the Reformation's founding principles including Sola Gracia, Sola Christos, Sola Scriptura–Grace alone, Christ alone, the Bible alone and a pillar of the Reformation: the identity of the Antichrist. [20] He states that Adventism has proceeded from the beliefs of the Reformation which eventually fell into creeds and made five key discoveries along with the Three Angels' Messages," [21] [22] which make the Adventist denomination unique:
Veith has also presented lectures on diet, how it directly impacts numerous degenerative diseases including his findings of the negative effects caused by poor nutrition, such as osteoporosis, arthritis, and cancer. He also lectures on creationism. [24]
Veith holds that some of the new versions of the Bible coming out came from manuscripts with corruptions introduced by the Alexandrian text and varies and is less reliable than the Majority Text. [25] The Adventist church does not hold a KJV only view, [26] although a number of Adventists continue to prefer the King James Version. Because of his 2004 lecture War of the Bibles Veith was denied access to SDA churches in Germany for a time but was reinstated in 2010. [27]
A periodical recommended that Veith "revise from scratch future comments on this topic to be balanced, fair and serious or to dispense with them". [28]
The Adventist Biblical Research Institute disagrees with Veith's view of Bible translations. [26]
Spectrum magazine, an independent periodical focusing on Adventism, refers to Walter Veith as the leading conspiratory voice within Adventism. [29]
Without specifically naming Veith, the church's official paper, the Adventist Review, has addressed Veith's conspiracy theories. [30] Veith responded to the Review author explaining his views further. [31]
In May 2020 the head office of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southern Africa, the Southern Africa Union Conference, issued a statement repudiating claims that Veith made that Jesus would come around or by 2027.[ citation needed ]
He has also made claims in recent DVDs that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the signs of the imminent coming of Christ - in line with his 2027 claim. This is not supported by the church he is a member of.[ citation needed ]
In a lecture in Nürnberg-Marienberg in October 2012, Walter Veith claimed that the Holocaust was used to "herd together" the Jews from all over Europe, so that they could be resettled in Palestine.[ citation needed ]
The leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany, Austria and Switzerland decided on 9 November 2012 that these statements were anti-Semitic and discriminatory. The church leaders took the view that they were "very close to criminal trivialization of the Nazi reign of terror". [32] In December 2012, the Church leaders banned Veith from speaking in community centers and described his lectures as "conspiracy theories" and "spiritual abuse". [33]
However, various of the German Seventh-day Adventist groups are getting around this ban by inviting Walter Veith into larger, independent event halls. [34]
Amazing Discoveries and Walter Veith replied that the presentation was not meant to be anti-Semitic in any way, [35] and they distanced themselves from anti-Semitism and racism. Veith blamed the accusation of anti-Semitism on "linguistic inadequacy", because German is a foreign language for him, adding that in Germany there is a "hypersensitivity" to statements about the persecution of the Jews. [36] According to Amazing Discoveries Arno Hamburger, a member of Nuremberg City Council and first chairman of the Jewish Religious Community, speaking for the local Jewish community, expressed the view that there was no recognizable anti-Semitism in Veith's statement. [37]
Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher William Miller first publicly shared his belief that the Second Coming would occur at some point between 1843 and 1844. His followers became known as Millerites. After Miller's prophecies failed, the Millerite movement split up and was continued by a number of groups that held different doctrines from one another. These groups, stemming from a common Millerite ancestor, collectively became known as the Adventist movement.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, its emphasis on the imminent Second Coming (advent) of Jesus Christ, and its annihilationist soteriology. The denomination grew out of the Millerite movement in the United States during the mid-19th century, and it was formally established in 1863. Among its co-founders was Ellen G. White, whose extensive writings are still held in high regard by the church.
Ellen Gould White was an American author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she was influential within a small group of early Adventists who formed what became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. White is considered a leading figure in American vegetarian history. Smithsonian named her among the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time".
Flood geology is a pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, the flood myth in the Hebrew Bible. In the early 19th century, diluvial geologists hypothesized that specific surface features provided evidence of a worldwide flood which had followed earlier geological eras; after further investigation they agreed that these features resulted from local floods or from glaciers. In the 20th century, young-Earth creationists revived flood geology as an overarching concept in their opposition to evolution, assuming a recent six-day Creation and cataclysmic geological changes during the biblical flood, and incorporating creationist explanations of the sequences of rock strata.
The Two Babylons, subtitled Romanism and its Origins, is a book that started out as a religious pamphlet published in 1853 by the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland theologian Alexander Hislop (1807–65).
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young Earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris that, according to historian Ronald Numbers, elevated young Earth creationism "to a position of fundamentalist orthodoxy".
Walter Ralston Martin was an American Baptist Christian minister and author who founded the Christian Research Institute in 1960 as a parachurch ministry specializing as a clearing-house of information in both general Christian apologetics and in countercult apologetics. As the author of the influential The Kingdom of the Cults (1965), he has been dubbed by the conservative Christian columnist Michael J. McManus, the "godfather of the anti-cult movement".
Frank Lewis Marsh was an American Seventh-Day Adventist biologist, educator and young Earth creationist. In 1963 he was one of the ten founding members of the Creation Research Society.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church had its roots in the Millerite movement of the 1830s to the 1840s, during the period of the Second Great Awakening, and was officially founded in 1863. Prominent figures in the early church included Hiram Edson, Ellen G. White, her husband James Springer White, Joseph Bates, and J. N. Andrews. Over the ensuing decades the church expanded from its original base in New England to become an international organization. Significant developments such the reviews initiated by evangelicals Donald Barnhouse and Walter Martin, in the 20th century led to its recognition as a Christian denomination.
Criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist Church includes observations made about its teachings, structure, and practices or theological disagreements from various individuals and groups.
The 28 fundamental beliefs are the core beliefs of Seventh-day Adventist theology. Adventists are opposed to the formulation of creeds, so the 28 fundamental beliefs are considered descriptors, not prescriptors; that is, that they describe the official position of the church but are not criteria for membership. These beliefs were originally known as the 27 fundamental beliefs when adopted by the church's General Conference in 1980. An additional belief was added in 2005. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary is a significant expression of Adventist theological thought.
In Seventh-day Adventist theology, there will be an end time remnant of believers who are faithful to God. The remnant church is a visible, historical, organized body characterized by obedience to the commandments of God and the possession of a unique end-time gospel proclamation. Adventists have traditionally equated this "remnant church" with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds a unique system of eschatological beliefs. Adventist eschatology, which is based on a historicist interpretation of prophecy, is characterised principally by the premillennial Second Coming of Christ. Traditionally, the church has taught that the Second Coming will be preceded by a global crisis with the Sabbath as a central issue. At Jesus' return, the righteous will be taken to heaven for one thousand years. After the millennium the unsaved cease to exist as they will be punished by annihilation while the saved will live on a recreated Earth for eternity.
The theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church resembles early Protestant Christianity, combining elements from Lutheran, Wesleyan-Arminian, and Anabaptist branches of Protestantism. Adventists believe in the infallibility of the Scripture's teaching regarding salvation, which comes from grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The 28 fundamental beliefs constitute the church's current doctrinal positions, but they are revisable under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and are not a creed.
Progressive Adventists are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who prefer different emphases or disagree with certain beliefs traditionally held by mainstream Adventism and officially by the church. While they are often described as liberal Adventism by other Adventists, the term "progressive" is generally preferred as a self-description. This article describes terms such as evangelical Adventism, cultural Adventism, charismatic Adventism, and progressive Adventism and others, which are generally related but have distinctions.
The 1952 Bible Conference was a Seventh-day Adventist conference in the Sligo Church in Takoma Park, Maryland from September 1–13, 1952. There were 498 people listed as attending this meeting with worldwide representation. From published reports it appears that there were on average 450 people in attendance during the presentations. The Conference was the second major Bible Conference held by Adventists during the twentieth century, and the next major meeting of its kind after the 1919 Bible Conference. According to the then General Conference president, W. H. Branson, these meetings were regarded as "one of the most important meetings in our history."
Samuele R. Bacchiocchi was a Seventh-day Adventist author and theologian, best known for his work on the Sabbath in Christianity, particularly in the historical work From Sabbath to Sunday, based on his doctoral thesis from the Pontifical Gregorian University. Bacchiocchi defended the validity of the Feasts of the Lord, situated in Leviticus 23, he wrote two books on the subject. He was also known within the Seventh-day Adventist church for his opposition to rock and contemporary Christian music, jewelry, the celebration of Christmas and Easter, certain dress standards and alcohol.
Edward E. Heppenstall was a leading Bible scholar and theologian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A 1985 questionnaire of North American Adventist lecturers revealed Heppenstall was the Adventist writer who had most influenced them.
Samuel Koranteng Pipim is a US-based Ghanaian author, speaker, and theologian. Trained in engineering and systematic theology, he based his office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where, up until 2011, he ministered to students, faculty, and staff at the University of Michigan. He has authored and co-authored more than a dozen books. He has spoken around the world at events for youth, students, and young professionals. He helped begin and has sat on the board of directors for the Generation of Youth for Christ organization (GYC), a revival movement of Seventh-day Adventist youth in North America.
The relationship between Christianity and animal rights is complex, with different Christian communities coming to different conclusions about the status of animals. The topic is closely related to, but broader than, the practices of Christian vegetarians and the various Christian environmentalist movements.
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