Enjoying the “Best” From Our Mail
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
This week I was looking back at the January/February, 2007 issue of Proclamation!, and in the process I found myself laughing out loud as I read some of the Letters to the Editor in that edition. In fact, they covered a wide range of ad homonym attacks to personal testimonies, and I realized that some of them deserved to be shared.
First are a couple of letters revealing the writers’ defaulting to Ellen White while barely concealing their defensiveness. From my perspective, Adventists who have their own cognitive dissonance and underlying resentment about Adventism’s strictures and peculiar lifestyle can’t resist personal jabs when they feel that their worldview is threatened.
When I was in junior high at an Adventist junior academy, I began learning may of the threats and warnings that Ellen White leveled against any Adventist who dared to ponder exiting the organization. (Seventh and eighth grades seem to be when many of the Adventist “distinctives”, including emphasis on the importance of Ellen White’s role in the organization, are taught.) I remember learning her warnings that some of Adventism’s “brightest lights would go out”, and she stressed that during the coming Time of Trouble, Adventism’s worst and most threatening enemies would be those who previously had been Adventist Sabbath-keepers but had left Sabbath and the remnant church.
The dire warnings and threats of eternal damnation impacted me, and I KNEW that I would NEVER leave Sabbath and God’s remnant church!
Apparently I was not the only impressionable Adventist who internalized those threats. These next two letters only confirm that I remember Ellen’s warnings accurately:
Dear Demas [see 2 Timothy 4:9–11]
Yes, I will pray for you. How is it that you could leave the Sabbath of the Lord? How is it that you could join with those who believe in immortality of the soul? How is it that you embrace the doctrine of eternal burning hell?
The problem is, you were never really Seventh-day Adventists. You never knew God nor trusted Him. You didn’t want to believe in E. G. White because of what she counseled you to do. So you took the easy road, the broad way that leads to destruction.
No doubt you’ve abandoned the health message, too. Having ham for Christmas? Turkey?
Please reconsider what you’ve left and where you’re headed. Do you realize that you are actually proving some of E. G. White’s prophecies? She said that some of the most earnest enemies of Adventists in the last days will be those who once walked with us.
How is it that you can disregard the counsel of God and join yourselves to Babylon? God be merciful.
Yes, I will pray that God’s Spirit will be able to still reach you, before you abandon Him forever.
The Brightest Lights
Take me off your mailing list. It is also written that the “brightest lights will go out.” Apparently your light went out, and you are not even the brightest.
Indeed, my Adventist “light” has certainly gone out! Yet the light of Christ has revealed that Ellen’s “light” was counterfeit, and it did nothing except whitewash untruth.
The next letter from that 19-year-old issue of Proclamation! addresses one of my old Adventist agonies: my love of coffee. I began to drink coffee in college when I stayed up to study for tests, and I discovered then what I never got over: I feel better and think more clearly if I have coffee on board.
Yet my discovery that coffee helped me not only think more clearly but also feel better physically only produced compounding guilt. I KNEW I was trampling the health message—yet I also knew that I was demonstrably more functional with that condemned brew.
This next letter reveals the harsh condemnation written to the “Dear Departed Brethren”, accusing us of being “part Catholic, part atheist, and part displaced Protestant.” Our founder Dale Ratzlaff took responsibility for responding to these accusations:
Dear departed brethren I read enough of your magazine Proclamation! to know that it is strictly of Satan. You seem to be part Catholic, part atheist, and part displaced Protestant. Evidently, you have departed from all Bible truth. You must read the Bible from a distorted mind-set to begin with. When you turn away from the Ten Commandments, you may as well forget the rest of the Bible, for those Commandments are that which gives birth to Christian living. I am writing rather harshly to you, but on reading from your magazine such awful departure from pure Christian doctrine, I feel that you need someone to speak harshly to you, yet in love.… If Ellen White’s message on proper eating habits were followed today—including her instruction against tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, there would be much less cancer and other illnesses today. Would you happen to be a coffee drinker? Please do not take this personally. It is against your hellacious teaching, not you as a person. Please give it up.
Pastor Dale Responds
Thank you for your letter of concern. It shows that you care that we follow the truth and that attitude is to be commended. You seemed to be very concerned that we might be eating meat, perhaps even unclean meat, and drinking coffee. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my findings on these topics. First, there is not even a hint in the Bible that we should not eat meat today. True, Adam and Eve were given a vegetarian diet, but that ended with the flood. Then God said, “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you.” (Gen. 9:3) We believe there is evidence that all the great men (and women) of faith were meat eaters. Daniel did not want to eat the king’s food and we can only speculate as to all the reasons. Perhaps he did not want to be intoxicated or even poisoned with the king’s drink. He did not want to eat the king’s meat because it probably was not prepared according to the regulations of the Torah, and it also might include meat from unclean animals. It is quite clear that Jesus and His disciples ate meat on several occasions. They ate the Passover lamb and they ate fish on a regular basis. We should remember that Jesus not only ate fish after the resurrection, (Lk. 24:42) but he prepared a fish breakfast for his disciples (Jn. 21:12, 13). Second, my reading of the New Testament causes me to conclude that the distinction between clean and unclean no longer applies to new covenant Christians. (Mk. 7:17-19; Acts 10:12-16; Rom. 14:13-23). Third, the next day after I first read your letter in a draft copy of Proclamation! I received an excellent book reporting on a number of the latest scientific health studies, one of which was on the use of coffee. Perhaps this study will be of interest not only to you but the other readers of Proclamation! By printing this short summary we at Life Assurance Ministries are neither promoting nor condemning the eating of meat, unclean meat or the use of coffee. Rather, we feel that decisions of what a person eats and drinks is a private decision based upon individual health assessments and needs. “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves” (Rom. 14:22). Here is the coffee study entitled, “Dr. Coffee, M.D.” “The health benefits from drinking coffee continue to be reported—and to the extent where they almost seem too good to actually be true. “Coffee decreases diabetes risk. Drinking six cups a day slashed risk of diabetes by 54% for men and 30% for women in an 18-year Harvard study. Even drinking only one cup a day was found to reduce risk by several percent. “At least six additional studies indicate coffee drinkers reduce their risk of Parkinson’s disease by up to 80%. “And other studies have reported that drinking at least two cups of coffee a day can reduce risk of colon cancer by 25%, risk of gallstones by 50% and risk of liver cirrhosis by 80%. “There’s even evidence that coffee drinking offsets some of the health damage caused by smoking and excessive drinking—those who engage in such health vices but also drink coffee have been reported to suffer less heart and liver damage than those who don’t. “And other studies have indicated coffee may help to control asthma, relieve headaches, lift spirits and even prevent cavities. “Coffee can also increase athletic performance and endurance—until recently, it was a controlled substance at the Olympic Games. “Moreover, coffee is even good for children. One study in Brazil indicated that children (age 12 average) who drank coffee with milk were less prone to depression and were more alert in school. No study indicates that coffee consumed in reasonable amounts is in any way harmful for children.” Dale Ratzlaff (Quotes from The Bottom Line Library of Genius, page 34, taken from Tomas de Paulis, PhD, coffee chemist and research assistant professor of psychiatry, Institute for Coffee Studies, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. Used by permission. For more health studies, go to: www.BottomLineSecrets.com.)
Finally, I will share a letter from a stay-at-home Adventist wife and mother who, with her husband, were dedicated to an Adventist radio ministry. Her descent into despair and addiction became suffocating, and she tells how the Lord rescued them and put them on a new path: the path of “It Is Finished!” The gospel brought freedom and life to this earnest couple when they turned from Adventism to Jesus:
God Pushed the “Eject” Button
My husband is a fifth generation Adventist. I was born to Adventist parents, but my mother, being of Baptist background, wasn’t quite settled in the faith. Due to the very unloving behavior she experienced while in the “remnant” church, she began to question whether people so capable of vicious gossip and ignorance could possibly be the “True Church”. We studied with Jehovah’s Witnesses and attended their meetings for three years after she divorced my dad. Eventually, they remarried, but their second union only lasted two years. This time when she left him, she left Adventism for good. My dad got custody of us the second time around, and of course, I was then sent to Adventist schools.…As far as sincerity and enthusiasm go, I was probably one of the best banner-waving, “Thank God, I’m Adventist” persons there ever was. I worked Adventist summer camps for 10 years because I believed so strongly that we had the true message.
I married an Adventist young man, son of a pastor. We graduated from an Adventist college in Texas and then proceeded to join the work in radio ministry. We were very dedicated to this work. My husband poured himself into the ministry with all the zeal he could muster—often ignoring his wife and children in order to do so. I was quite the lonely stay-at-home mom and I began to get caught up in an independent study group who felt the main body of Adventists were watering down the truth. I was taught that wedding bands were a sin, that to keep Sabbath, you should stay in dress clothes all day long, that sex is evil, that we should eat a strict vegan diet of only two meals a day in order to ready ourselves for the diet of heaven. Drums in music were a definite no-no; in fact the only acceptable music was scripture songs. I began wearing dresses all the time, and we refused to allow television into our home. I idolized Ellen White, and we were as strict as could be. Secretly, I loved it when people admired me for my piety. However, the only ripple in this shiny little pond was that I became addicted to internet pornography on the side. I couldn’t get away from it—but hey, I didn’t own a TV, wear make-up or listen to contemporary Christian music! I’ve always had a heart for spiritual things, and feeling such an intense burden of guilt about my secret behavior, I would cry out to God to have mercy on me and help me get rid of all the sin in my life. Anyway, I became so convinced I’d never make it into heaven that I told my husband, “I’ve done everything I’ve been told, and I’ve studied Ellen White until I’m nearly crazy in the head and I’m still just a lousy, rotten sinner. If this is all there is to religion, to try and constantly fail, then I’m OUT!” About that time, God heard my cries for help, and suddenly everyone in the study group was moving in different directions. God scattered us across the country, and two others that I know of from that group have since called to apologize and praised God with me for finding grace.
As we were moving to our new headquarters with the radio ministry, God spoke to my heart in the truck saying, “You are tired because you have been working too hard. I want to give you rest, and I am going to show you My truths, but first we need to tear down this wall of beliefs you have built and start all over again. I want you to read the Gospels and learn about My Son.” It was such a strong impression, I knew it was God, and I obeyed. Starting in Matthew, I began to get a whole new picture of God, faith, and holiness. I found myself a Pharisee of the worst kind as I read the seven woes. I saw that many of the Adventist church members and leaders were constantly cleaning the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they were filthy and lifeless. It broke my heart and brought me to my knees before God. I began to realize that salvation was about a Savior, not my behavior.
It’s a terrible thing to realize there is nothing I can bring to the foot of the cross except a weary, old, filthy, bruised heart. But that is reality. The New Testament began opening for me in a way I had never before seen. I was saved by the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ—not the Law or the Sabbath! Furthermore, Christ IS the Wedding Garment so freely offered in the parable of the wedding feast! My sins are not written in a book and kept as evidence against me—they have been erased by His blood!….
The thing that reduced our involvement with the church was after 11 years of our faithfully moving all over the country, sacrificing family time, selling our house and investing ourselves whole-heartedly into the radio ministry, they fired my husband! It was almost a relief after enduring two years of abusive and power-hungry leadership. This was how God pushed the “eject” button for us.…
The fact that my salvation was sealed forever at the cross has been a bitter-sweet revelation. “It is finished” is Good News! Please pray for me as I continue to seek, ask and knock.
Committed to the Gospel
Nineteen years later, Richard and I know that our sovereign, triune God is calling His sheep out of Adventism. The Adventist worldview has never changed; the fears are still the same, and the guilt and condemnation Adventist feel when they TRY to live by Ellen White’s standards is fatal. I do not say that lightly; I know people who died as they tried unsuccessfully to live more and more obediently to Ellen White.
I thank God that He is still bringing people out of darkness—one person at a time—and granting them faith and eternal life, planting them securely in the Body of Christ. And I pray that He will continue to awaken Adventists to the reality of their darkness and to show them the surpassing joy of knowing Jesus. He is enough! †
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