Many of our listeners have been on the receiving end of criticism or have found themselves presented with attacks upon me and the teachings of Come And Reason Ministries and struggled with how to answer.

Recently, a regular listener received a letter from a family member who is critical of me and Come And Reason Ministries. The listener asked me to help answer the accusations being raised about me and what I teach.

In the process, I thought it would be helpful for our followers to unpack the methods used by the critics and contrast them with those of Jesus Christ, for the primary purpose of helping our followers improve their own critical reasoning skills and become better defended against such attacks.

So, let’s examine the contents of the letter and unpack the arguments and methods employed by the critic in an effort to discern whether the arguments have merit and the methods are godly—that is, do those methods demonstrate a genuine interest in understanding and advancing truth?

Here is an unedited portion of what was sent to me by the listener:

If you delve into what Jennings believes, you find that he does not believe in the atonement, nor does he believe in the heavenly sanctuary. He also elevates his Divine Law above the Ten Commandments. We also find that he teaches “lectio divina” which is well known in its Catholic origin and is spiritual formation. This is opposed to God and is directly from the devil! And we also find that Tim Jennings knows that Lectio Divina is from Origen of Alexandria and is ok with that. Origen was a gnostic who believed that the Bible was an allegory and said, “Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written”. Origen also believed that everyone will be saved and that you have to “reconcile Christianity with reason.” It gets worse. A man named Jerome used Origen’s writings to translate the Bible and from it came the Latin Vulgate which is the official Bible of the Catholic Church which also contains the apocryphal books. The Catholic Church says you are anathema if you do not receive the Latin Vulgate and the apocryphal books. In addition Helena Petrovna Blavatsky praised Origen’s writings and Alice A. Bailey used her writings to create the commandments that control the United Nations. Both women were major occultists. Hence anyone who follows Origen or uses any method or thought of his cannot be trusted and it is very dangerous. It is treading on dangerous ground when any of us mingle truth with errors like this.

 It was a joint decision that we do not want Tim Jennings writings nor his teachings in our church. We are for Righteousness by faith, but this is not what Tim Jennings teaches in verity. There are also many serious Bible scholars who have found numerous errors in the teachings of Tim Jennings that conflict with our fundamental beliefs.

We should expect that honest searchers for truth will employ and practice God’s methods of truth, love, and freedom. We should also expect that the genuine Christian will wield the sword of truth to demolish the false ideas, lies, and distortions—and that they will not attack the people who have been trapped by Satan’s lies.

Even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him (Jude 9 NIV84).

Satan is a liar and an accuser of people, and those who align with him will use his method of attacking people rather than their sincerely held ideas. Why? Those without truth cannot defeat the truth by focusing on the evidence, facts, and reality of a contested issue, so they will seek to divert attention away from the evidence, facts, and reality by using worldly tactics to influence the minds and hearts of others (a method of coercion), including:

• Alleging that the one being targeted teaches a falsehood they do not actually believe—and then attacking that falsehood to discredit the teacher. This is the logical fallacy known as a “strawman.”
• Refusing to investigate the evidence for themselves and instead simply repeating the opinions and accusations of so-called experts and organizational authorities, often while demonstrating their own ignorance of the issue being contested.
• Pointing out a perceived personality flaw or a history of sin in an attempt to devalue the messenger in the eyes of the seeking public, usually with the goal of influencing others to fear having an open and honest discussion of the facts. It would be like saying, “Don’t listen to Moses—he is a murderer!” Or, “Don’t read the psalms! They were written by a murdering adulterer.” ( No doubt, someone will use my illustration here to suggest that I am claiming to be like Moses or David!)
• Associating the messenger with a person of poor reputation and, through the alleged association, ascribing to the messenger the same errors and sins of the person of poor reputation. It would be like saying: “Jesus associates with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors—don’t listen to Him!”

Sadly, I will show that these un-Christlike methods are repeatedly employed in the critic’s letter.

I do not claim to know the motives of this critic, but what I can do is reveal, step by step, why this person is not engaging in genuine, Christlike criticism—the kind of criticism that advances truth by allowing the truth itself to expose the error.

There is never a reason to attack a person. Yes, there is often a need to contrast a lie against the truth—as Jesus often did when He said, “You have heard it was said to the people long ago …, but I say. …” But Jesus did not attack individuals; neither did the apostles. Yes, Jesus also directly confronted people in error as an act of grace, seeking to lead them out of error, as Paul did when he confronted Peter. But Jesus and the apostles did not attack, slander, or accuse, and neither do we at Come And Reason. Our desire is to use the sword of truth to expose lies, falsehoods, and destructive methods and practices that have ensnared so many of God’s children.

Let’s now consider my critic’s specific allegations and use the clear, readily available facts and evidence to determine whether they are true or not.

Allegation #1: Jennings Doesn’t Believe in the Atonement

In a recent blog entitled “Salvation and the Cleansing of Our Spirits,” Part 1 and Part 2, I wrote:

In this blog, we want to examine how Jesus’ vicarious, self-sacrificial, substitutionary death provides for our salvation, for our redemption, rebirth, and cleansing from sin.

Let me be explicitly clear on this point: No human being could be saved from sin without the substitutionary sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus.

I believe that Jesus became a real human and voluntarily put Himself into a position that was not naturally His own for the purpose of delivering us from the position that was naturally our own; that is, He took our place. He substituted Himself. We should never deny this—for it is eternally true!

The question is: Why was His death required to save us?

In that same blog, I describe in great detail the reality of what Jesus accomplished as our substitutionary Savior. In other words, I clearly “believe in the atonement.”

It’s been said that we should not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance, so I am doing my best to give this person the benefit of the doubt on this one. Perhaps he really meant, “He doesn’t believe what some in our church teach about the atonement.” And that would have been a true statement!

However, it’s also true that stating it in that way would have encouraged a frank and open discussion about those differences. Ask yourself: Why didn’t he address my blog Penal Substitution Versus Design Law—What’s the Difference?, which directly affirms my belief in the atonement while also explaining my different opinion? Or, he could have pointed the way to Seven Levels of Moral Development, in which I explore the many atonement theories that correspond to a person’s spiritual maturity level.

Often, when a person’s views rest on untruths, they avoid discussing the issue because they know their position falls apart when confronted with the truth. Caught in a state of cognitive dissonance, they will often choose to defend their false theology by making clearly false allegations against those with the truth in order to justify themselves in denying an open examination of the evidence, which allows them to feel righteous because they are rejecting “heresy.”

Even despite these readily and publicly available blogs—along with the evidence of my own publications, statements, and public speaking—this critic has chosen to accuse me of something that is clearly and demonstrably false, even insinuating that I am not a real Christian (because I don’t believe in a core tenet of Christianity).

Again, we should expect that honest searchers for truth will employ and practice God’s methods of truth, love, and freedom.

Allegation #2: Jennings Doesn’t Believe in the Heavenly Sanctuary

This allegation is the same type of blatant fallacy as #1—and it is as demonstrably contrary to the easily accessible evidence. Suffice it to say, I clearly “believe in the Heavenly Sanctuary.”

Indeed, I have written and spoken extensively on this topic, and all of it is online and available for review. See for yourself here:

• Light From the Sanctuary.
• The Wedding of Christ to His Bride: Preparing the Church for the Second Coming.
• The Heavenly Sanctuary and Investigative Judgment for the Modern World.

Allegation #3: Jennings elevates his Divine Law above the Ten Commandments.

This is a strange statement, as I don’t have a divine law and have never taught that I have one. I have always taught that God’s law is the divine law and that it existed before the Ten Commandments were given.

I believe that when this person examines the scriptural record and the historical insights of E.G. White (EGW), they will see that both the Bible and EGW teach that the Ten Commandments were added after human sin—and added specifically for fallen human beings—and are based upon the eternal design law of God that existed in heaven before humans were created.

However, this person is likely still operating under the Roman lie that God’s law functions like human law, a made-up list of rules that requires external enforcement.

It is my belief that this is the very lie that the Advent message was raised up to oppose; we are to call people back to Creator worship to prepare for Christ’s second coming.

This is documented extensively in my magazine The Lie That Deceived Angels, Infects Christianity, and Delays the Second Coming of Christ, in which I document how this was the preeminent issue at the 1888 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Minneapolis, where Jones and Waggoner taught that the added law in Galatians was the Ten Commandments. Their message was rejected by church leadership, but EGW endorsed it and specifically said the added law was the Ten Commandments (references for all of this is in the magazine).

Allegation #4: Jennings teaches “lectio divina” which is well known in its Catholic origin and is spiritual formation.

It saddens me to see people who purport to be advocating the gospel to be so misinformed about the facts—confident of things that they seemingly haven’t researched and being duped into advancing an easily dismissed falsehood while believing they are telling the truth.

If this person had gone to my website and researched my teachings, such as the blog Lectio Divina: A Biblical Meditation, they would have discovered that the words Lectio Divina mean “divine reading” and that this form of meditation has the following four required specifications:

• Bible reading.
• Meditation upon the passage read, which means reflecting on its meaning.
• Prayer (conversation with God) about the passage.
• Contemplation or experiencing its application to the inner workings of one’s heart, attitudes, motives, and affections—i.e., abiding in and experiencing the Holy Spirit applying the truth to the heart.

This form of meditation always starts with the inspired Word of God. If one replaces Scripture with other writings, then the meditation will serve to strengthen the ideas in those other writings into one’s being rather than God’s Word. Lectio Divina is restricted to the Bible.

This form of meditation requires deep thinking, reflection, active thought, and communion/prayer with God. Lectio Divina is not an emptying of the mind, nor is it a repetitive mantra or any other form of Eastern Meditation—something this critic would know we oppose if they would simply read our magazine Meditation Guide: Biblical Method Versus Eastern Method.

The goal of Lectio Divina is to expand our finite awareness, cognitively and experientially, of our knowledge of God so that we may know God for ourselves just as Jesus prayed that we would (John 17:3).

As further evidence that this critic is not only wrong about the topic of Lectio Divina but also ignorant as an SDA of the writings of EGW, otherwise they would know that her writings advocate the practice of Lectio Divina without using the name. Here is one of her quotes describing the practice of the methods of Lectio Divina (more quotes are in the blog linked above):

Merely to hear or to read the word is not enough. He who desires to be profited by the Scriptures must meditate upon the truth that has been presented to him. By earnest attention and prayerful thought he must learn the meaning of the words of truth, and drink deep of the spirit [contemplation] of the holy oracles (Christ’s Object Lessons, 59, emphasis mine).

Allegation #5: Jennings is untrustworthy because he advances Lectio Divina taught Origen of Alexandria; and Origen taught various other falsehoods therefore Jennings must be teaching falsehoods.

This is a false allegation about me based in the logical fallacy known as guilt by association. Rather than dealing with the merit of one of my specific teachings, it is being claimed that I’m fully corrupted by all the doctrinal errors of another person. In this case, since I advance a concept in common with Origen, the critic insinuates that I must share in Origen’s errors on other issues. Again, such a practice diverts attention away from the actual message, facts, evidences, and truths that I teach—perhaps because they know they cannot actually engage with those aspects effectively.

The email specifically asserts, “Hence anyone who follows Origen or uses any method or thought of his cannot be trusted and it is very dangerous” (emphasis mine).

The following is a quote from Origen: “Although Christ was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was, God.”

Does this critic have the same thought that Jesus is both fully human and fully God and teaches others the same? Would they claim that they themselves cannot be trusted and are very dangerous for using any thought of Origen’s? Or would they simply acknowledge it isn’t whether Origen taught something or not, but whether what was taught is true or false?

Allegation #6: Jennings’ teachings are wrong because Lectio Divina is associated with Origen and Jerome used Origen’s writings to translate the Bible and from it came the Latin Vulgate which is the official Bible of the Catholic Church which also contains the apocryphal books. The Catholic Church says you are anathema if you do not receive the Latin Vulgate and the apocryphal books.

Here the critic continues to shift away from what I actually teach by attempting to associate me with the errors of others—but furthermore, they appear to not know the historical facts. They advance a false narrative about history, alleging that Jerome used Origen to translate the Bible into Latin, the Latin Vulgate, which they say is flawed because it contains the apocryphal books.

Had they verified their beliefs, they would have discovered that Jerome was tasked by the Vatican to translate the Bible into Latin. He was such a man of integrity that he traveled to Jerusalem and learned Hebrew and Aramaic and then translated the Old Testament books directly into Latin from the earliest original manuscripts available—not from the writings of Origen. Additionally, he determined that the apocryphal books did not measure up to the other 39 books of the Old Testament and petitioned the Vatican to leave them out of the new Latin translation. But the Vatican refused, saying the people had come to believe and rely on the teachings from those books and it would cause confusion to remove them. However, Jerome felt so strongly that the apocryphal books were not inspired that he refused to translate them. The Roman church itself acknowledges this:

St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical [apocryphal] books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon quoted from http://www.justforcatholics.org/a108.htm).

Further, if the critic has a problem with the apocryphal books being included in the Latin Vulgate and uses their inclusion as evidence that that translation is corrupt, then they better not use the King James Version because the 1611 KJV Bible also included the Apocrypha and continued to do so until late in the 19th century, when financial constraints caused Bible societies to stop reproducing the Apocrypha.

Regarding the reliability and quality of Roman Catholic Bible translations, no better expert than A. Graham Maxwell, a New Testament scholar, biblical language expert, and author of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary on Romans attests to their accuracy. In his discussion with Louis Vendon in lecture #5 in his series Conversations About God, {The Record of the Evidence}, he states at minute 38:19:

Catholic translations are very precise. Some of the best are of Roman Catholic origin. It’s true that when they first translated the Bible into English in the Rheims-Douay, there wasn’t concern that it be understood. Well, if the Mass was still in Latin why have the Bible in clear English? So the Rheims-Douay reads like this, where we are used to powers in heavens above, power on the earth and power beneath the earth, [the Rheims-Douay reads] ‘powers celestial, powers terrestrial, and powers infernal.’… So now as the years have gone by, Catholic translations have become clearer and clearer. They are some of the very best. [The] Jerusalem version is very readable. The New American, not New English—the New English is Protestant; the New American is very readable. The Kleist and Lilly version, maybe this will show how candid and dependable these versions are. In Romans 6, where there is reference to being buried in baptism, there is a footnote by these two Jesuit scholars at the bottom: “Paul is obviously alluding here to the early Christian custom of baptism by immersion. The descent into the water is suggestive of descent into the grave. The ascent from the water is suggestive of ascent to newness of life.” Want to write a better note than that? That is by these two monsignors Kleist and Lilly.

Allegation #7: Jennings is untrustworthy because Helena Petrovna Blavatsky praised Origen’s writings and Alice A. Bailey used her writings to create the commandments that control the United Nations. Both women were major occultists. Hence anyone who follows Origen or uses any method or thought of his cannot be trusted and it is very dangerous.

 This is another allegation based in guilt by association.

Allegation #8: Jennings does not teach Righteousness by faith in verity.

Another accusation without evidence, and one that is easily refuted by evidence easily accessible online. Notice that no evidence is offered. Again, giving the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this critic meant that I don’t teach their understanding of righteousness by faith—but why use language that insinuates that I’m not even a Christian? Why not point to my blog Imputed and Imparted Righteousness—Design Versus Imposed Law, in which I delineate the reality of righteousness by faith while exposing the fallacy and fantasy of the fraudulent penal-legal teaching about righteousness by faith?

Allegation #9: There are also many serious Bible scholars who have found numerous errors in the teachings of Tim Jennings that conflict with our fundamental beliefs.

Within Adventism, there are two kinds of understanding:

1. The special message of Creator worship based on the recognition that God’s laws are the design protocols reality is built to operate upon—the message put forth by Jones and Waggoner at the 1888 GC and endorsed by EGW.
2. The imposed-law message based on believing that God’s law functions like human law, a system that came from Rome.

The Bible scholars and church politicians at the 1888 GC rejected the advancing truth about God’s law and chose to embrace the Roman view of law; ever since, the church has been teaching its doctrines through a penal/legal justice system that functions like a human government. (This history is documented with many historical references in my magazine The Lie That Deceived Angels, Infects Christianity, and Delays the Second Coming of Christ.)

I do reject this false human-law legal setting and teach Adventist doctrine in their true setting of Creator worship, whose laws are design laws.

Sadly, this critic may not be seeking the truth for themselves and is, instead, merely trusting various “Bible scholars” and what they have said. This is what many Jews did when the Sanhedrin rejected Jesus—and what many people did when the Roman church leaders rejected the Reformers.

Conclusion

Ask yourself if the critic acted with Christlikeness in the letter. Do the specific arguments stand up to scrutiny? Does it appear that the critic took the time to research my claims before accusing me of grave error? And perhaps, more important to my purposes here, were they given in a Christlike spirit?

I’ll let you decide on your own.

Let me leave you with this: The righteous are those who are fully persuaded in their own mind because they investigate the truth for themselves, are lovers of what is true, and develop within themselves the ability to discern right from wrong (Romans 14:5; Hebrews 5:14; 2 Thessalonians 2:10–13). The righteous are honest and operate with integrity. Furthermore, the righteous wield the sword of the Spirit to demolish the lies and falsehoods about God in order to set hearts and minds free, and they do not use the tactics of the devil—making wild, unsubstantiated accusations to divert from and distort truth.

I encourage you to always present the truth, in love, and leave everyone free to decide for themselves.

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