SDA Church Pressuring Dissident Groups

June 3, 2006

The Ellen G. White Estate and the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists have stepped up their campaign of harassment in an attempt to wrest control of ellenwhite.org from its rightful owners. On April 17 Catholic lawyers representing the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists filed a legal complaint against ellenwhite.org's domain registration service. Their complaint cited copyright infringement over the use of the name "Ellen White" in the domain name. The owners of ellenwhite.org have obtained legal assistance and have pledged to fight the corporate giant. Founder Dirk Anderson tells us:

"What we have here is a case of corporate abuse in the worst sense. We have a giant, multi-billion dollar religious corporation run by bureaucrats who act as if they alone have the God-given right to tell us what we should believe about Ellen White. Their relentless attacks against myself, my associates, and ellenwhite.org prove their intent to hunt down and snuff out any opposing viewpoint. As part of a general downward trend of this "church", they are now displaying their true colors in crushing dissidents in a manner worthy of the Cult of Scientology. It is ironic that the SDA structure that complains so bitterly about the injustices of the Roman Catholic Church in the dark ages would follow in its footsteps by attempting to take away our freedom of speech. In the dark ages the dungeon master and the executioner were the instruments of choice to enforce the Pope's will. Today, in our enlightened world, high-paid lawyers are the weapons of choice to enforce the will of religious bureaucrats. The intent is the same. To silence all opposition and make themselves the only 'source of truth'. We will not stand for it!"

An assault against freedom of speech was successfully launched in May by Spectrum Magazine (a ministry associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church). Spectrum took legal action against former Adventist Bill Thompson's web site forcing it to shut down. Brother Thompson's site contained the disapproved writings Seventh Day Adventism Renounced and Cast Out For The Cross of Christ. Spectrum claimed copyright infringement because Brother Thompson displayed the 1919 Bible Conference Minutes on his web site. Brother Anderson comments:

"I am disappointed in Spectrum. The 1919 Minutes are a documented meeting of the leaders of the SDA Church more than 75 years ago. These minutes belong to the Adventist people and to the public. Brother Thompson had this material on his site for over 5 years and the same minutes are found on a dozen other web sites, some of them Adventist. It is obvious to us the minutes were merely used as a pretext to shut down a web site with views antagonistic to the SDA Church."

In another troubling development, ellenwhite.org has recently learned that the White Estate has contacted other "Ellen White" web sites asking them to relinquish their domain names.

SOURCE: http://www.ellenwhite.org/news/n20060603.htm