From Deception to the Gospel of Grace

BETTY MCMINIMY | Proclamation! Contributor |

Eighty years ago I was born into an Adventist heritage. I lived just outside of Washington, D.C., in Maryland. My father’s large family of nine children was Adventist, although he didn’t join the church with two of his brothers until sometime later. Two other brothers were singing evangelists and ministers. My grandmother was a great singer and passed her talent on to all her children. It was passed down to most of her 20 grandchildren as well, and my sister and I were constantly singing duets. I believe if the entire clan hadn’t been Adventist, we would all be in show business.

My Italian stepmother was converted to Adventism when I was about thirteen years old. I never knew love in my family. There was much harshness and abuse, including physical beatings. After my stepmother joined the church, everything seemed to get worse. One summer my sister and I found jobs in D.C. Wanting us to keep our jobs, as he and my stepmother took most of our small salaries, my father wouldn’t allow us to return to school. One day the two of us met after work and ran away from home. We went to our maternal grandmother in Washington, D.C., and lived with her.

Not too long after our flight to our grandmother, our uncle, my father’s younger brother, and his wife needed a babysitter to live with them. He was a student at Southern Missionary College in Tennessee (an Adventist institution now called Southern Adventist University). My father informed him he would have to take both of us girls. While there we went to school at the academy, learning the Adventist doctrines in class. A year later we moved to Massachusetts so my uncle could attend Atlantic Union College. After I graduated from the academy, I returned to my grandmother’s and found a job. College was out of the question, and I wasn’t interested in Adventism.

Saved from show business

In 1949 I entered the Miss Washington, D.C. pageant, a venture which led to the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. I progressed as far as the semi-finals. I was disappointed that I didn’t make it to the finals, but I was relieved also, because I couldn’t afford the long gown that was required for the finals competition. That same year I entered a talent contest at one of the large nightclubs in D.C. I won the contest and was awarded a one-week gig with pay at the club. A visiting talent scout asked me to go to New York and start my singing career, but having a boyfriend (my soon-to-be-husband) and without any sophisticated nerve, I said no. I honestly believe God saved me from show business.

I married in 1950. Up to this point I had no interest in things regarding the church or God. But it was during my first year of marriage that two Hollywood movies caused me to consider seriously the end of the world and the coming of Jesus. One movie was War of the Worlds, the other was Quo Vadis. I began to ponder my childhood teachings, and soon I was baptized into the Adventist church.

There were times when I would become discouraged and depressed because I couldn’t live as Ellen G. White dictated. My husband was not a Christian, a fact which made everything more difficult. 

Such a change occurred in me that I was sure my husband would leave me, but he stuck with me. I became legalistic and almost fanatical. Through the years I attended every meeting or class or “evangelistic effort”, as they were called. There were times when I would become discouraged and depressed because I couldn’t live as Ellen G. White dictated. My husband was not a Christian, a fact which made everything more difficult. 

Five years after our wedding my first daughter was born. Two years later, my son was born. In 1963 I had my second daughter. All three are blessed with beautiful singing voices. Shortly after the birth of my last child, I left the Adventist church for close to two years, but I finally went back to it more grounded in that faith than ever.

Discovering a God of love

My husband worked for the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. In 1967 the Department sent a flyer throughout the United States announcing a job opening in Hawaii. My husband applied for the job, and six months later, the Navy moved us to Oahu. The Hawaiian public school did not seem like a fit environment for my Adventist children; however, my husband would not pay for private schooling. Because of this resistance and because of a life-long dream I cherished, I entered the Licensed Vocational Nurse program at the Adventist hospital there. After I graduated, I worked at the same hospital and was able to send all three children to Adventist schools. We lived on Oahu for seven years, and it was there that the legalism that once had such a hold on me began to relax. I began to feel better about my relationship with a God who is love. Still, the idea that our lifestyle was what gained us entrance into heaven was deeply entrenched in me.

Unfortunately, President Nixon eventually closed my husband’s base, and I had to leave my paradise home. We refused to return to the bitter winters of Maryland, however, and the Navy moved us to Southern California in 1974.

In March, 1981, my wonderful husband of thirty-one years died suddenly of a massive heart attack. My family and I were grief-stricken, but my faith in my Lord remained strong. My children were all connected to the church in some way. By that time my oldest daughter was preparing her wedding to her second husband. Although she had not been attending the Adventist church at the time and was marrying a non-Adventist, she returned strongly to the church after her father’s death. My son had married his Adventist high school sweetheart the year before, and my youngest was a senior at Orangewood Adventist Academy. My grandson was in Orangewood Adventist Elementary School as well.

Eventually I stopped reading Ellen White’s Testimonies; they seemed obsolete for our time. However, I was still riddled with guilt and frustration and never felt that I was saved. In the late 1990’s a thought came to me. To this day, I cannot find a cause for it, but it was this: what if all of my beliefs about Seventh-day Adventist doctrines are wrong and false?

This thought had faded into the background by the time my youngest daughter tried to relate to me, in 1999, what she had found about Adventist doctrines and Ellen White on the website www.ellenwhite.org. Frequently she would try to tell me what she had learned, but I would have none of it. I said I didn’t want to hear it. Often I would say to her, “We are the remnant church.” 

Her response would be, “Mother, you know I don’t believe that anymore.”

An argument would often ensue. My daughter told me later that she struggled with whether or not she should pursue convincing me of the truth. After all, she knew it would devastate me, and at my advanced age, was it really worth it? “Why not just leave her alone?” she would ask herself. Then, however, a determination would come over her that she would not allow her mother to die thinking that she might be lost because she ate cheese!

The challenge

I was convinced at the time that my poor daughter had been deceived just as our prophet had warned. I prayed constantly for her, even contacting one of her evangelist friends about her. What I didn’t know was she was praying for me and asking God for a miracle of His grace.

One day she challenged me by saying, “Mother, the Bible says that we are to test the prophets. If you don’t test Ellen White by reading the opposing point of view, then you’re not following the Bible.” After a half an hour to chew on that, I returned to her and agreed to read a book I had ordered from LAM Publishing: D.M. Canright’s book, The Life of Mrs. E. G. White, Seventh-day Adventist Prophet: Her False Claims Refuted.

After reading Canright’s book I was devastated and filled with anguish, and as my daughter saw my face, she felt such compassion for me. I told her that I felt that my entire foundation had been taken away from me. 

One Saturday morning I was dressed for church, but it was too early to leave. I sat down and opened Canright’s book, skeptical of finding anything but falsehood. Shortly after noon I was still sitting reading when my youngest daughter and her husband came in from their church in Norwalk. After reading Canright’s book I was devastated and filled with anguish, and as my daughter saw my face, she felt such compassion for me. I told her that I felt that my entire foundation had been taken away from me. 

She put her arm around me and said, “No, Jesus is your foundation, Mom, not Ellen White!”

For a while my world was upside down, and I didn’t know where to turn, but I knew that my precious Lord and Savior was with me through it all. I never returned to an Adventist church. I didn’t trust myself to stay silent. I continued to read and study, so shocked at what I found. Soon I became very angry at the General Conference for helping to keep many people in spiritual bondage. When I calmed down I felt wonderful peace and freedom! I was 75 years old. 

I made so many wonderful discoveries in the Bible that I never knew existed. I had thought, throughout my whole life, that I knew so much more than people of other denominations (churches that I used to refer to as “Satan’s churches”)! I was fascinated with and became so well-versed in the subject of the Old and New Covenant that my youngest daughter would call me to ask me questions about it. Things that had once been a mystery to me in the Scriptures now became plain as day, and I realized that I had been brainwashed by the Adventist church all those long years.

Of course the day came when someone of my former Adventist church noticed that I was no longer coming and decided to pay me a visit. A genuine honest soul, he expressed concern for me and was taken aback that I no longer believed in Ellen White nor the Adventist church. I offered him a book to read that I had obtained from LAM Publishing. After reading the book he was convinced of the truth about the Adventist church and is now out of the church himself! Often he has made visits with my youngest and me, and we all discuss the freeing truth of the gospel.

I am so thankful for what the Holy Spirit has done in my life; how He led me from deception through, first my youngest, and then through the books of LAM Publishing. Now I belong to what I call the New Covenant Gospel of Grace Church (my own made up church).

Praise God’s glorious and holy name. †

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Betty Fowler McMinimy was born in 1926 in Washington, D.C. She was raised just over the border in Maryland. In 1974 she, her husband and children moved to Hawaii and, while there, she took the licensed vocational nursing program offered at the Adventist hospital there. After she became a widow in 1981, she learned of the New Covenant gospel through Life Assurance Ministries and left the Adventist church. She resides in Orange County, California, and has three grown children. [2006]

Republished from Proclamation!, July/August, 2006.