HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2012 / FALL / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

F A L L • 2 0 1 2
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 3

 

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor
 

 

Thanks to Chris Lee

Kudos to you folks for your last issue of Proclamation!, and especially to Chris Lee, who had to sit through all those evenings of blasphemy and false doctrine. There’s no way I could have done it…What is it about people that they try so hard to get back to the law and their own efforts?…

The only advice I can give is the same thing Chris said at the back of the magazine. “If you need a little dose of the good stuff, try reading through Ephesians 2:1-10 and making it personal. That’s what I just did, and I can tell you, it’s Good Medicine.”

It’s all good medicine. But for medicine to work, you have to take it, or in this case, read it. Keep up the good fight, folks. You’ll get a reward for your efforts one day.

Phoenix, AZ

 

Prophecy shows in the third world

Having just read the excellent article “Prophecy Show 2012,” by Chris Lee, I'd like to say that it’s not only the annual Revelation Seminars that teach those points in a similar script, in a little over two weeks, and with laptops and projectors that wow the audiences. I’m talking about the short-term missions of Robert Folkenberg’s ShareHim (SH) organization that are conducted by volunteers and pastors in many third-world countries. Short-term missionaries are sent to poorer, less-educated areas of the world where the traveling show is a novelty, and the few people in the audience who aren’t already Adventists, don't have the resources to compare doctrines with other denominations. Those SH volunteers who are to run their own mission site are given strict instructions at orientation not to deviate from the script, or to insert their own experiences or sermons, or change the order of the sermons.…

The baptism statistics, on which the ministries rely for fundraising in North America, are pumped up by local church members getting rebaptized, some for the third time. In some countries, those newbies who ask for baptism are not judged “ready” after such a short time, and are shunted into a baptismal class for a few weeks or months. One incentive for their perfect attendance is that they receive a Bible when they’re baptized. (At least they're Bible Society editions in the local language, not Adventist-specific.)

Phoenix, AZ

 

Spewing hatred

I have never requested to receive your magazine, and it is at best, insulting to receive such rubbish, filled with so much hate against a certain mainstream Christian religion. I am not a Seventh-day Adventist, but I am offended either way, that another human being (so called Christian organization) would spew so much hatred towards another Christian Church.…

You spew venom and hatred because maybe you guys had a bad experience while in that particular building or church. But does that give you the right to spew so much hatred towards other human beings in that church?…

Dale and Colleen, you have so much hatred in your lives, that I feel sorry for you. I have been a soccer coach in my church and church school for 25 years, and I am a teacher. I would hate to have you in my church spewing so much junk to our kids, since they do not understand why you are doing this. Please delete my name ASAP from your mailing list. The magazine is unwanted in my Christian home.

Loveland, CO

 

Free after 90 years!

As a Seventh-day Adventist I had many questions and had no assurance of my salvation. But after studying Romans and Galatians with my son and reading Proclamation! over the last year, I have found the peace and assurance that I have been seeking for 90 years.

Thank you so much for your wonderful ministry. I am free at last!

Highland Ranch, CO

 

Be done with it

I don’t know why I'm receiving your magazine. I did not request it, nor do I appreciate it. If you’re disgruntled with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I’m sorry for whatever caused you to become that way. I live my life by the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I also believe if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I read nothing in your publication that portrays the love of Christ or that would make me want to join your group. Your magazine is so full of hatred against Adventism that I don't see how you can say that you are now “free.” I don't see how any of you can enjoy being a Christian, or life itself, hauling around that kind of baggage.

So you were unhappy as an Adventist. You left. Now be done with it, and leave the rest of us alone.

Fresno, CA

 

Be honest enough…

For several years I have been receiving Proclamation! I have perused it with interest. I commend the article in the June, 2012 issue, “The Bible is Absolutely Reliable”. It confirms what I  have suspected for years and vindicates the Bible’s own claims to be the word of God…

I also wonder what Life Assurance Ministries is doing to alleviate the awful conditions of many of the third world countries. How many HIV orphans, for example, are being cared for  by your organization? What humanitarian efforts do you sponsor?

As a final word I hope you will be honest enough to tell that Dale Ratzlaff’s mother who died 2or 3 years ago was a loyal Adventist and his sister is one even now.

College Place, WA

 

Editor’s response: Addressing social ills is absolutely a fruit of the gospel, but it is not The Gospel. While feeding the poor and caring for HIV victims are activities the New Testament clearly affirms and even commands, those commands are addressed to people who are already born again. People who are not born again can also have a social conscience and often do significant humanitarian work, but those works are not redemptive. They do not offer eternal hope to the recipients unless the aid is accompanied by the gospel. Life Assurance Ministries came into existence with the mandate to do the greatest humanitarian work of all: disseminate the true gospel and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus to people who are bound in a worldview that denies the biblical gospel. A ministry must have a clear focus and purpose, and ours is to help Adventists know Jesus and to help Christians and Adventists understand how Adventism differs from biblical Christianity. God provides us only enough funding to do the ministry of Proclamation!. We have absolutely no surplus funds, and we are obligated to Him to use this money for what He has called us to do. Individually, we who are on the Proclamation! staff give sacrificially of our time, resources, homes, and tables to people in spiritual and emotional and physical need. 

Finally, Dale has publicly spoken of his Adventist mother's death. He has stated in several presentations that it was finding his mother's heavily-marked Clear Word Bible as he was going through her belongings that generated his commitment to expose the heretical nature of that book. Finding that Clear Word when she died was what caused him to drop his reservation that Adventism itself might be redeemable, and he began to call it a cult. None of us at Life Assurance Ministries has ever been reluctant to admit we have loyal Adventist family members from whom we have suffered unresolved relationship breaks.

 

Time to tell my family

The time is coming soon for me to tell my family and friends that I am no longer Adventist. I have not been to church with my family for a couple of months. I just can’t go anymore. I am so happy to be free of Adventism and to rest in Jesus and His complete atonement for my sins. I know I am saved, and for the first time I am no longer afraid of “the end”. What a huge blessing the magazine, blog, and forum have been for me. Thank you so much for all you do to help “formers” and Adventists.

Please continue to pray for me and my family. My [spouse] is searching and beginning to question some Adventist doctrine although currently believing that Adventism is the closest church to biblical truth. Please pray for eyes to be opened and for me to know when and what to share. God bless you!

Tullahoma, TN

 

Stop NOW

Please remove me from your mailing list. I did not ask to receive this trash and want it to stop NOW!

New Plymouth, ID

 

With Jesus

I am so thankful to have left Adventism. We have been able to raise our five children to truly know who Jesus is and to know the promise of the resurrection! I know [my recently deceased husband] is with Jesus!

Pinedale, CA

 

Keep it up!

I received your magazine over the weekend and couldn’t stop reading it. Great job! My husband and I are recovering Adventists. We are so glad there is a ministry to the Adventist church members. Keep it up!

Rio Rancho, NM

 

Move On!

After reading your journal, Proclamation!, I would like to request that you remove my name from future mailings. I found your journal writers obsessed with Adventist bashing. It’s OK to disagree with Adventist doctrine and leave the church to find a community of believers that you feel comfortable with, but move on! What’s your point, your goal, your mission—to continually try to drag down a domination? Move on! Get a life! 

Every single article with the exception of “The Bible Is Absolutely Reliable” by Robert Bowman and “The Stars Are Talking” by Martin Carey had something negative to say about the Adventist Church. I enjoyed the article by Dale Ratzlaff entitled “Wrath”, but even he couldn’t resist the temptation to criticize the Adventists by including their scholars with the liberals in promoting the moral influence theory of the atonement (p.20). Move on!

Now I don’t personally buy into the entire 2300 days prophecy as detailed by the Adventist church, but I have studied and believe that I have come up with an alternate interpretation that is scripturally based, logical, and historical. It is easy to criticize another’s view and tear it apart, but it is an entirely different subject to present an equally logical, reasonable, scripturally solid view of the same prophecies. Move on!…

If you are going to criticize and tear down, then we need to hear about something better that we can put in its place. I would like to see you present an interpretation of equal scholarly merit of each and every prophecy that you disagree with. I will repeat myself—it’s easy to criticize, but it’s much harder to lay out an alternate view. Move on!

Feel free to publish this in your Letters to the Editor if you’re secure enough with criticism.

Modesto, CA

 

Editor’s response: We definitely have come up with something better than the Adventist scheme of eschatology: the gospel of the Lord Jesus! It surprised us to learn that it is not eschatology that determines the true church. Eschatology is a secondary issue. Christians share the finished work of Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection and the inerrant reliability of Scripture. Moreover, Christians are defined by their being born again by the Holy Spirit.

Finally, if you’ve read our publication for a time, you’ll realize that we’re quite secure with criticism! That security comes from our security in the Lord Jesus; because of our belief in Him, He has transferred us out of the domain of darkness (Col 1:13), and we have passed from death to life (Jn. 5:24)!

 

Correction

On page 12 of the Summer, 2012 issue of Proclamation!, paragraph 2, the text Acts 12:32, 33, 39 should have read Acts 13:32, 33, 39.

 

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