Quick Facts
Biography
Ted N. C. Wilson is the current President of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as of June 2010. Prior to this appointment, he served as General Vice President of the church since July 2000.
Wilson was nominated by the church's 246-member Nominating Committee and elected by the General Conference Session delegation, the highest governing body in the church consisting of an international body of 2,410 appointed members. He succeeded Jan Paulsen, who had served as president since 1999. On July 3, 2015 at the 60. session of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in San Antonio, Wilson was reelected for a second five-year term. He holds a doctorate in religious education from New York University, a Master of divinity degree from Andrews University and a Master of Science degree in public health from Loma Linda University's School of Public Health. His nomination and subsequent election had been expected. In the 2010 General Conference session, President Wilson emphasized the need to turn to the scriptures and affirmed the church's strong belief in the writings of Ellen White.
Views on evolution
Wilson has stated that Seventh-day Adventists should reject evolution in favour of a literal 6-day interpretation of creation. Wilson recommends that a Seventh-day Adventist in either a teaching or preaching role should resign if they want to teach standard or theistic evolution, as their stance on evolution is contrary to what the Bible teaches. With regards to the role of evolution in science Wilson has said that evolution is not a science, a type of spiritualism and a false religion.
Views on spiritual formation movement
The spiritual formation movement is characterized by such things as contemplative prayer, contemplative spirituality, and Christian mysticism.
In his July 2010 keynote sermon, Ted N.C. Wilson, newly elected President of the Seventh-Day Adventist church counseled,
Stay away from non-biblical spiritual disciplines or methods of spiritual formation that are rooted in mysticism such as contemplative prayer, centering prayer, and the emerging church movement in which they are promoted.
Instead, he said, believers should "look within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to humble pastors, evangelists, Biblical scholars, leaders, and departmental directors who can provide evangelistic methods and programs that are based on solid Biblical principles and The Great Controversy theme."
He along with others such as retired Adventist pastor Rick Howard had brought what he considered the dangers of Spiritual Formation to the attention of the Adventist church. Many Adventists such as Pastor Hal Mayer and Derek Morris raised concerns as well. The official church paper, the Adventist Review, published articles outlining the effects of spiritualism coming into the Christian Church through the teachings of Spiritual Formation. Howard wrote The Omega Rebellion, in which he warned of the dangers associated with the “emerging church” movement. He identified the teachings of spiritual formation, contemplative prayer, postmodern spirituality, the meditation steeped in Eastern mysticism as dangerous.
Church members were also cautioned to use discernment in worship styles: "Use Christ-centered, Bible-based worship and music practices in church services," Wilson said. "While we understand that worship services and cultures vary throughout the world, don't go backwards into confusing pagan settings where music and worship become so focused on emotion and experience that you lose the central focus on the Word of God. All worship, however simple or complex should do one thing and one thing only: lift up Christ and put down self."
Views on Last Generation Theology
Elder Wilson is a supporter of traditional Adventist beliefs (such as those in the Great Controversy theme) which inform Last Generation Theology. He presented LGT principles in his first address to the 59th GC session in Atlanta on July 3, 2010, and in his Divine Worship message to the GYC convention on January 1, 2011. p. 85.In President Ted N.C. Wilson’s sermon at the 2014 Annual Council he stated,
"Time on this Earth is short. Probation is closing soon. Preparation to see God face to face by repentance and forsaking of sin needs to be done now. The Great Controversy, page 425, explains that: 'Those who are living upon the Earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above, are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort, they must be conquerors in the battle with evil.' However, do not misinterpret this quote and think for a minute that you do not need Christ and that by your own works you will gain salvation. Seventh-day Adventists believe that only through the grace and righteousness of Christ do we have eternal life. However, when probation closes, the work of mediation is over. Your character will be set and your destiny eternally decided. That is why every day we need to be revived and reformed through our Bible study and prayer connection with Christ. We must receive His all-encompassing righteousness through justification and sanctification as daily, through His power, we become more and more like Him."