HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2014 / SPRING / FAITH STORY CHARLES COCHRAN
When I look back, I’m still puzzled as to why I converted from my Southern Baptist upbringing to Adventism. I was born again when I was about 10 years old, was baptized, and knew Jesus personally; I enjoyed this relationship with Jesus into my early 20’s until I married an Adventist. But I’m ahead of my story.
As a junior in high school I met a girl who was an Adventist. We were young and in love; neither of us took the fact that we had different religions very seriously. Now, however, I wonder how I failed to see how blatantly inconsistent Christianity is with Adventism when I encountered it, and I realize that anyone who knows both belief systems should be able to see the contradictions.
By the time I was 20 we were married and later had a son and a daughter. The crucial differences between our religions didn’t cross our minds for a few years, but the question of how we would raise our children gradually become very disputed. Even though I had married one, I had classified Adventists by that time in the same category as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and looking back, I believe I had been accurate.
I knew my Bible pretty well at that time, thanks to my having been raised by my good old Baptist mom to know it. I set out to prove my case for orthodox Christianity, but to no avail—even though Ellen, my wife, could not defend Adventism from the Bible. Exchanging visits at each other’s churches was also futile in convincing either of us of the other’s beliefs.
One day a lady from Ellen’s Adventist church came over to give her Bible studies. It turned out that these “Bible studies” were actually sessions of reading from a book called The Great Controversy. I heard them reading, and the latter chapters began to intrigue me with their mystical, fantasy-like themes. Being unlearned about what was really under the hood of this Adventist belief system, I dismissed my cognitive dissonance and suspicions to examine this church and decided that there were no significant differences between it and Christianity. In a matter of months I became a member, and that move broke my mom’s heart.
I was not an unwitting, born-and-raised Adventist; rather, I was one who ignored clear, Bible-contradicting evidence and chose the strange new belief. To justify my new pseudo-Christian views, I became pharisaical in defending them.
Disillusioned rebel
Eleven years later, my first marriage to the Adventist girl ended in bitter, volatile divorce. All of us, including my 11-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter, were torn and hurt, and the ripple effects of those wounds took their toll in each of our lives.
For about three years of bachelor life in my early 30’s, I was a rebel without a cause and partied in reckless abandon. I had virtually become agnostic in my behavior as I lived out my days, staying single and unencumbered. It was the 70’s, and the Bee Gee’s song “Staying Alive” was popular then. I identified with that song and with others by icons of the age: The Rolling Stones and Credence Clearwater Revival.
Then one night I was on the dance floor of a nightclub at a singles’ bar. Suddenly I found myself looking into the eyes of an other-worldly, angelic woman, and I was verily smitten. My friend and I soon joined her and her friend at their table, and my whirlwind romance accelerated. It was about a week later when I told my mom and dad, “I’m gonna marry this one!” They seemed a little surprised—but relieved. My mom had become worried about my lifestyle and Christian experience. In fact, she would eventually accompany me back to my Adventist church which she detested, just to get me back on track somehow. That was my mom.
Beginnings and endings
I was married to Joan eight months later in 1974. She was Lutheran by faith. I visited her church and liked it very much and was comfortable there. It should have been a golden opportunity for me to reexamine my beliefs, but I needed far too much deprogramming. Joan agreed to go to my Adventist church at La Sierra University and thought it was “OK”; she went because of my connection to it just to be nice. That’s the way she was—too nice for me, probably.
Life was happy for many years—but suddenly it was 9/11. Surely the end of days had come, I thought, and another meteor was headed my way. Then, just weeks later, on December 18, 2001, my Mom died of leukemia after battling it for years. I had gone home for lunch and received the call minutes after I got in the house (I had no cell phone then). I called Joan, then called the school where I taught to take bereavement leave, and we went to see my mom for the last time before they moved her remains.
I had nothing of her left. It was Adventist belief that my mother was non-existent now that she was dead. My despair was intense; yet, like a loyal Adventist, I had an Adventist pastor for the funeral service because that’s who I was. It didn’t matter to me that my mom was not Adventist nor that she had not believed in “soul sleep”. The family would painfully witness this Adventist minister ramble on, making good and sure that my mom was good and dead now that she was gone. Reinforcing that people do not live on in any way after death is often a favorite topic for them at memorial services. I didn’t care much that it bothered others because I knew ‘the truth’—or so I thought: one doesn’t have a soul; one is a soul, or body plus breath. In other words, in Adventism humans are thought to be a single physical unit like animals are believed to be with no immaterial spirit that survives death.
The next couple of years I roiled in cognitive dissonance, uncertainty, and guilt. I had pleasant dreams of my mom and my dad, seeing them young and gazing at me with looks of expectation on their faces.
In 2003 I retired from teaching and spent a leisurely year waiting for Joan to retire. We then sold our home in the Orangecrest area of Riverside and bought a home in a retirement community in Beaumont in 2004.
Six months later it was discovered that I had prostate cancer, and Joan slept for three days after hearing the news. I pondered life and was not equipped to deal with such tragedy. My faith was weak, and I was not a good loser. I had believed as an Adventist that, if one lived circumspectly, one should need a doctor no more often than a lawyer, as Ellen White taught.
The surgeon explained that the cancer was caught early. It was still encapsulated, and after the surgery he learned that no spreading had occurred; the diseased prostate was removed. My prognosis was considered to be 90% favorable and is increasing over time.
Recurring dilemma
Years went by and my conflicted worldview was more or less dismissed as I feverishly started to study what scientists had to say about this harsh realm in which we live. I found science to be a firm but friendly place for my tormented mind because, after all, it only discusses facts and probabilities—doesn’t it? There was no daring dogma of doctrine, just the amazing progress of technology, and I was once again entertained. Science even had an explanation for human suffering that seemed to be the most reasonable that I’d ever heard: our species has its share of collateral damage as it evolves. It was a simple, impersonal solution. Nonetheless, I couldn’t shake the thought: to what end would this perspective lead? What hope could it offer? Even among scientists there is a popular argument that if one doesn’t believe in God and is wrong, he loses everything. If, on the other hand, one believes in God and is wrong, he loses nothing. My Christian upbringing seemed to be the trump card, and my dilemma resurfaced: what is truth?
Early in 2011 I began searching online for something—anything but Adventist. Thank God for the internet! I found many ex and former Adventist websites, but the lodestar became the Former Adventist Fellowship (FAF) Forum, the online presence of the weekly FAF Bible study based at Trinity Church in Redlands, California. As one who was anorexic for spiritual food, I consumed and inquired—or, as some probably saw it—interrogated them, demanding meat, not milk. Being skeptical, defensive and distrusting, I know that I often was biting the hands that were feeding me, but these people were different from others. They were patient and nice—or maybe they were just tolerant—but I hope they’ll forgive me for lashing out at times.
In June, 2011, I received the magazine Proclamation! and was gripped by an article, “The Great Controversy: living in a worldview of deception”. It rocked my world with disconcerting evidence against the organization in which I had believed for so long. In fact, the evidence was unsettling to my pride as well. Would I have to actually admit that I was so wrong for so long?
Tragedy and triumph
Little did I know that, later that year, I would face the biggest tragedy and breakdown of my life. Joan started having symptoms of something very serious. What was at first suspected to be a heart problem or stroke worsened and was perplexing Joan’s doctors. The symptoms progressed from rapid pulse and sweats to serious imbalance and shock. Eventually she fainted right in front of me before I could catch her. The CT scans earlier had shown nothing indicating the culprit. Finally, when her doctor could not even help her walk steadily down the hall, an emergency MRI with contrast of her head was ordered, and we raced to Kaiser emergency in Fontana where they admitted her. I had just come back from the cafeteria to the ER to see Joan, and I found her and a doctor both sobbing. Joan said, “Did you hear? I’m going to die.”
I was stunned; I didn’t believe it. Two neurosurgeons, though, showed me the scans on the computer screen, and there it was, like a monster. They explained that the tumor was large, a fact which was obvious, and also extensive and aggressive. They said surgery would be futile, leaving too many deficits, and radiation or chemotherapy would only shortly delay the inevitable. She had Senator Kennedy’s disease—glioblastoma, a primary brain tumor which was the second most rare and most lethal. The only good news about the death sentence was what one of the neurosurgeons told us: it would be painless. They seemed to be awestruck even to see an actual case of it.
Within three weeks, in December, 2011, my wife of 38 years died.
My hurt and anger soon turned into hate and hot resentment toward God—or was He a monster? I wanted to hurt someone back. I wanted revenge badly, but against whom or what? Believing, as the Adventist I was, that Joan was annihilated when she died was devastating, and soon I began to lose weight. I was thinking that now I wanted to die, preferably by the same thing that took her life.
I very soon learned that even in the worst crises, the business of life still had its demands, and I rallied to put things in order. At the same time, I was imagining that it would be a great relief to have a fatal accident or become terminally ill with a decisive and fast killer, as Joan had. Life now consisted of my just going through the motions, but being the patriarch of the family drafted me into responsibility and Christian duty. My loved ones were looking to me, and I simply had to sustain somehow.
Should I also continue pursuing my transition into the Former Adventist Fellowship? Therapists and bereavement groups strongly advised me to be around family and friends as much as possible, so I asked myself, “What have you got to lose?” With some kicking and screaming as I wrestled with a couple of doctrines, I eventually joined Trinity Church and felt at peace about it. Thanks to the incredible kindness of the people in my FAF group, I was now an evangelical.
Eternal life now—what a fascinating new concept. Yet I cannot deny it. John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
I’ve asked the Lord Jesus many times to tell Joan things and wonder what’s transpired. Joan believed and was baptized at a young age, and I’ve concluded with clear and redundant Scripture where she is, not just what she was.
Now I no longer have to “get ready”! I am ready to depart and be with Christ or, if He causes me to remain until He comes in glory, I am content.
Death is not the end, and I know I am saved. †
Copyright 2014 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Camp Verde, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised May 5, 2014. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
Charles Cochran retired in 2003 after33 years of teaching high school. He has a biological son and daughter and three stepdaughters. His beloved late wife Joan has five granddaughters, and he has three grandsons. Transitioning out of Adventism was especially hard for him because he was going through bereavement and terrible grief at the same time. Nevertheless, he was also learning the crucial importance of biblical truth.
S P R I N G • 2 0 1 4
VOLUME 15, ISSUE 1
D E P A R T M E N T S
STORIES OF FAITH
I WAS NOT AN UNWITTING, BORN-AND-RAISED ADVENTIST; RATHER, I WAS ONE WHO IGNORED CLEAR, BIBLE-CONTRADICTING EVIDENCE AND CHOSE THE STRANGE NEW BELIEF. TO JUSTIFY MY NEW PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN VIEWS, I BECAME PHARISAICAL IN DEFENDING THEM.
CHARLES COCHRAN
