Electric Fence

By Bruce N. Cameron

Copr. 2008

“I Found Rest on the Journey”: The Royce Earp Story
Royce, a second generation Adventist, who graduated from an Adventist academy and university, decided to learn about Ellen White after his children were born. The story says that Royce graduated from Southern Adventist University in 1984. The family picture shows he has a couple of grinning sons, the oldest of which cannot be more than 15 years-old. According to my rough math, ten years out of school (all the while a member of the Church), Royce decides that he wants to learn about Ellen White.

I’m not sure how much attention Royce was paying in school, but it seems quite remarkable that he could go through Adventist schools, be a member of the Church for ten years thereafter, and know so little about Ellen White. Of course, the story also mentions that he did not know about the book of Galatians either.

According to the story, the beginning of Royce’s break with the Church occurred when he noticed that Genesis 3:6 said that Eve was with Adam at the time when he ate the forbidden fruit, while Ellen White said that Eve was susceptible to temptation because she had wandered away from Adam. That conflict, coupled with reading a few attack articles on Ellen White, convinced Royce she was a false prophet. As Royce wrote: “a thoughtful and open-minded person must reject Ellen White as a messenger of God.”

All this because Royce thinks Ellen White and the Bible have a location dispute!

Let’s look just a moment about what “thoughtful and open-minded” people would reasonably conclude about this alleged location conflict. Take a look at Genesis 3:1-6. A great deal of detail is omitted from this brief account of the fall. Would it make logical sense that Adam would stand mute at the side of Eve during her entire conversation with the serpent? Would he really say nothing when she first took hold of the fruit and then ate it? Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 2:14 that Adam was not deceived, he knew what he was doing. Would an Adam who knew exactly what was going on stand mute while Eve fell into sin? The Bible does not say that Adam was there the entire time and it defies common sense to think he was. So much for being “thoughtful.”

But, don’t listen to me. If Royce had taken the time to study some Bible commentaries he might have decided that Ellen White’s commentary was in line with several others. The Jamieson, Fausett, and Brown Commentary on this section says:

Much is evidently left to the reader’s imagination in this brief statement. We are left to picture the tumult of conflicting emotions that filled and distracted the breast of Adam when he heard the woeful intelligence; surprise at the recital of his wife’s strange conversation with the serpent, astonishment at her fatal act, and the powerful motives that led him coolly and dispassionately to take the fruit-branch from her hand.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft.

Adam was “surprised at the recital of his wife’s strange conversation?” Obviously, these commentators do not think Adam was present at the time of the temptation. Instead, he heard it later. These scholars make their views clear here:

Unto the woman —the object of attack, from his knowledge of her frailty, of her having been but a short time in the world, her limited experience of the animal tribes, and, above all, her being alone, unfortified by the presence and counsels of her husband. Though sinless and holy, she was a free agent, liable to be tempted and seduced.

Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., Fausset, A. R., Brown, D., & Brown, D. (1997). A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments.

Consider the famous and universally respected Matthew Henry commentary. Matthew Henry explicitly says in his commentary on Genesis 3:1-5 that Eve was alone during her temptation: “ The person tempted was the woman, now alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden tree.” Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.

Matthew Henry says this about the later statement in the Bible that Adam was “with” Eve:
She gave also to her husband with her. It is probable that he was not with her when she was tempted (surely, if he had, he would have interposed to prevent the sin), but came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed upon by her to eat likewise; for it is easier to learn that which is bad than to teach that which is good.
Id. (Commentary on Genesis 3:6)

The Teacher’s Commentary by Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987 Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books) says this: “It is fascinating to note the strategies of the tempter. First he isolated Eve from Adam. He gave the pair no opportunity to strengthen each other in a resolve to choose the good (cf. Heb. 10:24–25).” If Eve is “isolated,” she is obviously not with Adam and the time of her temptation.

Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament, Wiersbe, W. W. (1993 Wheaton, IL: Victor Books) says this: “Eve should not have ‘given place to the devil’ (Eph. 4:27); she should have held to God’s Word and resisted him. We wonder where Adam was during this conversation.” Clearly Wiersbe does not think Adam was present with Eve during the temptation.

Not one of these esteemed Bible commentators are Seventh-day Adventists. If Royce had taken the time to check out a few of the best-known Bible commentators he would have realized that Ellen White’s statement that Adam and Eve were apart at the time of her temptation is a reasonable reading of the Bible text. Of course, Royce’s admission that even after getting his secondary and college education at Adventist schools (with their mandatory Bible courses) he is a little vague on Ellen White and Galatians shows that he is not claiming to be a theological heavyweight. He reinforces the point in his article by saying that just after he had thrown Ellen White overboard: “I had a very good non-Adventist friend, Mike, who had recently
become a Christ-follower, and he began to teach me about life apart from the law.” That’s just great. Royce is now taking theological instruction from someone who has just been converted!

Royce is no doubt a sincere guy, but he is hardly someone from who Adventists should take theological direction.

The more fundamental question concerns the Proclamation! wolves. Either they know that reasonable, mainstream Bible commentators agree with Ellen White’s statement, in which case in my opinion publishing this article is a virtual fraud, or they are as uninformed as poor Mr. Royce Earp. I’ll let you choose which is true - but I’ll trust that you are smart enough not to follow them.

(Or, one Adventist’s poke in the eye of the howlers at Life Assurance Ministries)
Bruce N. Cameron, J.D.
Copr. 2008

Introduction: King Solomon complained in Ecclesiastes 1:10 “Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new?’” (NIV) It is hard to find new ideas and new thinking, particularly in the areas of law and theology.  Both “look back” to what has been written and previously decided to determine what is the right thing to do in the current situation.

Most of the time when I read attacks on observing the seventh day Sabbath, Solomon is right, they are simply a rehash of old theories which have always suffered from a wobbly Scriptural foundation.

Only Catholics have a consistent and logical theological base for their views on Sunday keeping.   If, as Catholics believe,  “the Church” holds “the keys” to the Kingdom of Heaven to the extent that decisions made here on earth are binding in heaven (see Matthew 16:18-19), then a Catholic would reasonably defer to the decision of the Catholic Church to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

The problem for Protestants is that they do not accept that this kind of authority has been given to the Catholic Church – or even their own church for that matter.  Thus, if Protestants care about the authority of Scripture, they are stuck with trying to cobble together a defense of Sunday keeping from a few uncertain New Testament references.   Generally the best they can argue is that the specific day of worship does not matter.  The glaring omission from their arsenal of Scripture-based argument is any Bible text from either of the testaments which positively commands believers to worship on Sunday.  None exists.  Any argument that Christians have a positive obligation to worship on Sunday comes from extra-Biblical sources.  (Actually, most arguments I have read in favor of a positive obligation to worship on Sunday are based on Bible texts which mandate Saturday Sabbath worship!)

On the LAM: In recent years, a Protestant organization calling itself “Life Assurance Ministries” has been taking aim at the Seventh-day Adventist Church and some of it more prominent doctrines, including the seventh-day Sabbath.   The organization refers to itself in its publications as “LAM,” which always strikes me as “laugh out loud” funny.  Being “on the lam,” is an old phrase describing a criminal running away from the clutches of the law.  That seems a fair, but unwitting,  description of LAM: running away from the law of God.

LAM has a magazine entitled  Proclamation! which publishes letters to the editor. From time to time Adventists write to LAM to express their unhappiness with its attacks on the Adventist Church and its doctrines.  Most of the letters selected for publication from Adventists sound angry and twisted (or illiterate), which no doubt is one reason the LAM editor publishes them.

Not that I overly blame the angry and twisted Adventists who write.  Each edition of the publication contains stories of ex-Adventists who write as if leaving the Church is the functional equivalent of leaving an addiction to drugs or alcohol.   The Adventist Church gets painted as the “Great Satan” and Ellen White is its satanic prophet.  One reason I find the LAM acronym (as in “on the lam”) so humorous, is that I come away from reading Proclamation! with the impression that these “on the lam” people are by and large a humorless, mean-spirited crew.  Being funny when you have no intention of creating humor is the highest form of humor!

No animosity seems too low to publically vent in the LAM publication.   The current editor of Proclamation!  is a woman.  One edition published an attack on her husband’s ex-wife!  Worse, the attack article was written by the son of the ex-wife. If using your step son to take public shots at your husband’s ex-wife is suitable material for the publication, Adventists can hardly expect that LAM’s editor will show any discretion in publishing any real or perceived problems in the Adventist Church!

One of the truly humorous (and ironic) aspects of LAM is how oblivious it is to the way in which its rebellion against the Adventist Church frames its arguments.  One constant theme of its publication is that Adventists are arrogant in their thinking that they are the “remnant church.”   The obvious truth to those on (or in) the LAM is that God’s people are present in all of the churches.  Yet, the paper constantly publishes personal accounts of how those newly part of LAM have escaped Adventism and become converted.  I have no doubt that these new people are newly converted - but the “point” of all of these articles is that you cannot be a Christian and an Adventist.  You have to “come out” to be converted.  So much for LAM’s idea that God’s people are present in all churches.  It must be “all churches” other than the Adventist Church!

The “mirror image” fallacy of believing you cannot be a Christian outside the Adventist Church, is the fallacy that only those who have left the Adventist Church (and gone on the LAM) are Christians!  It is like a former victim of racial discrimination now discriminating on the basis of race.  If LAM wants Adventists to “grow up” and recognize that sincere followers of Christ exist outside the Adventist Church, then LAM needs to grow up (mature as Christians) and realize that sincere followers of Christ also exist inside the Adventist Church.

The real controversy between LAM and the Adventist Church - which all of its “I came out of the Great Satan” articles obscure - is not who is a follower of Christ. Rather, it is who best understands the will of Christ.

In addition to publishing articles about how some ex-Adventists have wriggled out of the grasp of that “Great Satan” which we call Adventism, LAM also publishes in its magazine what passes for scholarly theological argument.  These are generally written by ex-Adventist pastors and college teachers.   Defying the wisdom of Solomon, LAM makes what I believe is a new attack on the seventh-day Sabbath.  I doubt this argument is original to LAM, but it was only 10-15 years ago that I first started seeing this line of argument.   LAM is part of a contemporary movement making this new attack on Sabbath-keeping. To my knowledge, none of the historic books or articles in support of Sunday-keeping contain this argument.

LAM Logic: The December, 2005 publication of LAM’s magazine printed a couple of well-stated arguments from Adventists in favor of seventh-day Sabbath keeping which were followed by LAM’s rebuttal based in part on its “new” argument against the Sabbath.   To help set up a discussion of LAM’s attack on the Sabbath, what follows are the two letters to the editor written by (what must certainly be) Adventists followed by the LAM rebuttal.

The Adventist letters:
With each issue of Proclamation! I scan for any comments dealing with Sabbath in Eden.  You are very silent on this topic. Neither Dale Ratzlaff nor Proclamation! has answered the fact that the Sabbath was made before any law or covenant.  Genesis 2:2 & 3 says God rested from His work and made the Sabbath holy. He obviously told Adam and Eve what He had done, or how would we know about it today? The Sabbath was created for perfect sinless mankind.  Why should God destroy or change what was perfect?

McGregor Wright wants to nail this perfect Sabbath to the cross???…Sabbath is not a law but a perfect and changeless INSTITUTION.  Eden gave us two institutions, marriage and the Sabbath. God later surrounded these institutions with protective laws …. If the Sabbath was an Eden law and it was nailed to the cross, was marriage in Eden a law that was also nailed to the cross?  Are you opening a new twist on gay theology?…

Thanks for your efforts, Colleen and Richard. You are a good ‘wordsmith’ and produce an artistic journal, but until you answer the above, I can only feel great sorrow for your chosen blindness. Satan is blessing your efforts.

Elizabeth Iskander, MD

The second letter to the editor:

Thank you very much for sending me your Proclamation! magazine. We go through every article, including the letters, with a [fine] toothed comb, analyzing them and comparing them to the Bible ….  It seems like the old worn-out Protestant arguments are repeated time after time.  Nevertheless, it has been very useful to us, as it has helped us to affirm and to appreciate more our belief in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Just as an example, I would like to mention your editor’s note to the letter ‘Nothing to say” in your September/October, 2005 issue. You say: “Nowhere does the Bible command people to keep the Sabbath because it is a memorial to creation.”  It seems to me that you are blinded by your ideology, as you just have to read the fourth commandment to see that verse 11 starts with the word “for,” with gives us the reason why God asks us to ‘remember the Sabbath day,’ (‘for in six days God created heaven and earth….’)

You also conveniently forgot that in Genesis 2:3, it says that ‘God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because (here we have the reason for the blessing and sanctification) in it, He rested from all of His work which God had created and made.’ ….

The truth is that the Sabbath was given to mankind, regardless of race or nationality…

Thank you for your magazine that helps me see in a very distinct way your errors, as I contrast them with the beauty of the Bible and the truths of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Please keep them coming.

I hope that when you publish this letter, you also print my name.  I’m not ashamed of my name or my beliefs.

Antonio Romero

LAM responded:
Editor’s note: Genesis 2:2-3 states that God blessed the seventh day because on that day He “ceased”or”rested”from all his work. His work was completely done, and just as Christ completed His work on the cross, so on the seventh day of creation week, God ceased His work of creation. He might just as well have said, as did Jesus,”It Is Finished.” He and Adam and Eve were in complete oneness. His blessing the seventh day was (1) without evening and morning, unlike the previous six days, and (2) was not a command. It was simply God “ceasing,” not”observing a day.” He was done. He was at rest; Adam and Eve were created and entered that rest with God.

The Levitical Sabbath was a reminder not of creation—God’s working—but of His rest. It was a reminder of the unbroken existence Adam and Eve and God enjoyed after His finished work. It was never about the six days, per se—it was always about God’s finished work—His “ceasing” and rest.

The Levitical Sabbath also looked ahead to the again finished work of God after Jesus shed His blood of the eternal covenant. Again mankind would be able to enter His rest and live in unbroken communion with Him—a communion that had not been possible since Eve ate the forbidden fruit. The Sabbath looked back at God’s once finished work and oneness with humanity, and it foreshadowed the again finished work of God and oneness with humanity after the cross.

God didn’t ask any human to DO anything at the end of creation related to the Sabbath. His rest simply WAS. Just as Adam and Eve did nothing to enter the sacredness of the seventh day (which was timeless—without evening and morning), so we do nothing to enter God’s rest TODAY (Hebrews 4:7) except surrender to Jesus. We again enter the holiness of God’s presence. The ‘institution” of Sabbath at creation was never about “observance” or “holy time.” Always it was about God’s finished work providing the means of God’s people entering the holiness of intimate relationship with Him through no work of their own.

Exodus 16 preceded Sinai by about one month. God gave Israel the symbols of the Bread of Life and His rest simultaneously. They were inseparable. Gathering the manna—the shadow of the Bread of Life—meant also observing the shadow of His rest every seventh day. Both were shadows of the coming Christ (see Colossians 2:16-17).

One month later at Sinai, God made the Sabbath the symbol of His covenant with the nation of Israel.  Until Jesus came, that day would remind them that, originally God created men to live in complete rest with and in Him, and again, they would be able to enter that rest when the Messiah came.

The entire point of salvation is entering God’s rest through His finished work—by no work or observance of our own.  The Sabbath was a reminder of that salvation rest.  Now that we have the reality in the finished work of Jesus and in our birth from above, we have no more need of the day of reminder.  We now have Jesus Himself!

The shadow or reality—it’s an eternal choice.

6 Proclamation! 17-18 (November/December 2005)

Since I did not want LAM to be able to suggest that I was “unfair,” I reproduced the entire response to the two Adventist letters.  It is the end of the response that contains the “punch line:” at the cross we entered into a new time of “rest,” described in Hebrews 4, in which all of our days are  “Sabbath time,” therefore eliminating the need for a weekly day of worship.  As LAM said in the quote above: “we have no more need of the day of reminder.”

The logical conclusion to be reached from this is that unless we attended daily Mass (as some Catholics do), we would have no need to worship weekly.

Thus, we see the clash between Adventists and those on the LAM.  Adventists say that the Sabbath’s position as a day of rest memorializing God’s authority as the Creator began at Creation, was reaffirmed at Sinai in the Ten Commandments, and then reaffirmed again at the crucifixion when Jesus rested in the grave on the Sabbath.  LAM responds that any importance that the weekly Sabbath might have had before the cross, ended at the cross because at that point Christians entered into the new spiritual “day” (age) of Sabbath rest.  We now all live each day in the “Sabbath.”

Is this LAM argument that a weekly Sabbath worship rests on the junk heap of history the actual conclusion of the LAM people?  Quite the contrary,  LAM constantly refers to weekly worship on Sunday.  It promotes weekly worship - on Sunday.  How does that make any common sense or Bible sense?  If we have entered that phase in time when weekly worship is “out the window,” then what are they doing worshiping once a week? The only “common” sense is that everyone else worships on Sunday - but, all of these other Sunday worshipers must have missed the key LAM argument that worship is no longer a weekly event.  We are now in the Sabbath age of rest and worship.

Perhaps the most “common” of senses for those on the LAM leading a church is the need to collect money from the faithful, which would be greatly complicated if you had one continuous Sabbath instead of a weekly event.  I certainly do not understand what motivates the disjunct between LAM’s theory and practice.

LAM interprets the historical Sabbath of the Bible like some amorphous, boundary-less “rest.”  That is not the picture of the historical Sabbath and nothing in Hebrews modifies the importance of the historical Sabbath.

Acknowledging the Obvious: Instead, the historical Sabbath is best pictured as a celebration. In Genesis 1:31-2:3 we find that God creates the Sabbath and then asks humans to celebrate that event. God creates, and man celebrates his transformation from dirt to a living human being.

In Exodus 31:12-13 we find that God says to His people, “I am making you holy. Remember this by observing my Sabbath.”  God again creates, and man celebrates his transformation from a dirty soul to a holy being.

In Deuteronomy 5:12-15 we find God telling His people: “Celebrate My Sabbaths because I freed you from slavery in Egypt.”  God took slaves and made free men and women out of them. Once again we see that God creates, and man celebrates his transformation from a slave to a free human.

This is the historical, Biblical, pattern of God’s work.  God creates something wonderful for humans and He instructs them to remember what He has done by celebrating it on the Sabbath.

With the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we are indeed, as LAM suggests, entering into the great time of rest which will culminate with Jesus’ Second Coming and our life eternal with Him. What is the obvious, reasonable reaction to this fabulous blessing?  This creation on our behalf? This work done on our behalf by our Savior?

“LAM logic” says “forget about the Sabbath.  This is a discard of the past.”

The student of the Bible, on the other hand, sees that at the cross Jesus re-created us, freed us from slavery to sin and covered our sins with His blood, so that we could be holy beings acceptable to a Holy God.  This bundles together all of the historical Biblical reasons why God told His people in the past to celebrate the Sabbath.  Since God commanded a Sabbath celebration for all of these individual acts in the past (Creation, forgiveness from sin, freedom from slavery), the obvious logical response to entering into His great (post-resurrection) time of rest is to celebrate it by observing His seventh-day Sabbath!

What better way to remember and celebrate the Sabbath rest described in the book of Hebrews than to celebrate on Sabbath!

Perhaps an extreme hypothetical will help make this more clear.  Let’s assume that LAM preaches (as it surely believes) that animal sacrifices are no longer necessary because Jesus has fulfilled the Old Testament sacrificial system.  Although our God was sacrificed once for all times (Hebrews 9:24-28), a truth which LAM prominently proclaims, for some reason LAM still clings to animal sacrifices - except that it sacrifices eagles to memorialize Jesus ascending into heaven.  No Bible text anywhere suggests that eagles should be sacrificed, but LAM thinks this has great symbolic meaning.  Can you see the inconsistency in this extreme hypothetical?

If a weekly Sabbath is a thing of the past because we have entered the rest of the “Sabbath age,” then those on the LAM should stop worshiping on a weekly basis!  If those on the LAM are going to worship on a weekly basis, they should at least follow what God said about it: worship on Saturday.   What person who still believed in animal sacrifices would choose an eagle as opposed to a lamb (or some other animal approved by God)?

Why is it that LAM has such a problem recognizing the obvious logic of this?  Why would our perpetual “Sabbath rest” LAM brothers and sisters be celebrating on Sunday instead of the Sabbath?  It must relate back to their chosen name: LAM. They are on the run away from the will of God.

By Bruce N. Cameron, J.D.
Copr. 2008

No one goes in the living room of my home. It is the “museum” section of our house. But, if anyone did they did they would find a cow. Actually, a picture of a milk cow. And, not the front end either. My wife grew up on a large farm and as a result loves bovine art. For her it is “udderly enthralling!”

While dating her, I learned about a lot of things that were not part of life on the acre of ground on which my boyhood home was located. One of those things I learned about was an electric fence. My general view was that a fence had to be bigger and stronger than whatever it was supposed to keep out (or in) the pasture. The issue was, who would be stronger, men or animals? Men or the invaders?

An electric fence was different. It was not force, it was brains. Men could keep out invaders by being smarter, thinking more carefully.

My “Sabbath Sense” article shows that I think the Proclaimation! people (Life Assurance Ministries) are literally “on the lam” (Life Assurance Ministries = LAM). “On the lam” is an old phrase for running away from the police. The LAM/Proclamation! crowd is running away from the law of God. If they were simply doing that, it would make them one small part of a huge unwashed mob. The problem with them is that they are not content to just run away, they attack those who are not running away from God’s law. It reminds me of soldiers on a battle line. Adventists see themselves at war with Satan. The good guys, according to Revelation 12:17 (NIV), are “those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” The Proclamation! crowd are like a pack of deserters who are not simply content to run away, they want to hurl insults at the faithful who remain on the battle line.

This is very odd conduct for deserters. Instead of fleeing from the battle with the real enemy, they engage in battle with the faithful on the battle line. They are constantly taking shots at the Adventist Church and its members. Their goal is to steal or shame the Adventist faithful. For that reason, I decided to create an electric fence to keep out the Proclaimation! wolves and howlers. The Electric Fence is merely an extension of what I have been doing for decades: defending the faithful and the faith.

Money Is No Motive: In one Proclaimation! article early in the Tinker editorial tenure, she complained about her husband not being able to continue to work for an Adventist Church institution. Somehow “wolf logic” says that you should be able to bite the hand that feeds you. Unlike Tinker, I’ve never been an employee of the Adventist Church. The only money flowing from the Church to me has been payment for published articles I’ve written and expense reimbursement for meetings. Compared to what I’ve contributed to the Church, the dollar amount coming back is infinitesimal. The Electric Fence does not exist because I’m getting paid by the Church.

Xenophobia Is No Motive: No part of the motivation for the Electric Fence is that I think the Adventist Church is the only place where faith resides. My entire professional life has been devoted to defending employee religious and political freedom. When I started litigating in my small legal niche (compulsory unionism), Adventists were already protected by the law. The work of my three decades of litigation has been to expand the borders of the law to protect those believers who were not Adventists. I don’t keep count, but I would estimate that one in one hundred of those employees I have defended is an Adventist. This process has proven to me, beyond any doubt, that the highest level of genuine faith exists outside the walls of the Adventist Church. Indeed, I expect that when I enter heaven Adventists will be a small minority of those enjoying eternal bliss.

Today, I teach at Regent University School of Law, which is part of a non-denominational university. My fellow faculty members are devout Christians. Regent is a very special place where the Spirit of God exists in power. I’m the first and only full-time member of the law faculty who is an Adventist. Because both the university and the law school have their own weekly worship, during the school year I hear two non-Adventist sermons for every Adventist sermon I hear on Sabbath. I admire and respect the faith of those who I have defended in court, those with whom I work, and those young champions who I teach to go out and change the world for Christ.

The Defense of Truth: The reason I’m an Adventist is because I think it has things “more right” than anyone else. Would I have “29 Fundamental Beliefs?” No. Five, maybe ten would be sufficient for me. (Check out the Southern Baptists sometime. They have a surprising large number of statements of belief.) Are there nuts and lunatics among Adventism? Absolutely. Sometimes it seems there is a distressing number of them. I remember having lunch with a nationally known Adventist evangelist who said to me “There are too many lunatics in the Church.” I agreed. But, you know what? Every church has them. As far as I can tell, our lunatics are a better breed. Most of the lunatics in other churches don’t believe in the Bible. They might not admit that, but they think they know better than God, and thus they create the word of God in their own image. Our lunatics, for the most part, are very concerned about doing the will of God. They are not bending the word of God to their will. I admire that devotion.

Since I think Adventists are right for the most part, I don’t like to let the Proclamation “lammers” paint the Church and the faithful as some sort of “Great Satan.” What these “lammers” have not figured out yet is that their fight is not against the Adventist Church per se, it is against the “holiness tradition.” There is a very large number of Christians who are diverse in their denominational affiliation, but who share the view that knowing God better and obeying His law more fully, is the first priority of humans. They are saved by faith alone, but the attitude of their life is to understand and obey God’s will. That is why the Fourth Commandment (the Sabbath) is no more optional than the Sixth Commandment (murder).

So, take a ride with me. I’m strapping on my warrior armor, getting on my horse (maybe it’s one of my wife’s beloved cows, I’ll have to check), lowering the level of my lance-pen towards the Proclamation crowd, and charging off in opposition to every issue. I’m not going to challenge every article in every issue. I don’t have the time, and even those on the lam can’t be wrong 100% of the time.

Instead, I plan to focus on the personal “Stories of Faith” section of each issue - the testimony of those who left the “evil clutches” of Adventism to enjoy the elevated life of those on the lam. The tricky part is that I do not want to attack the people who left, I want to attack their logic and theology. If it seems I’ve crossed the line, I apologize. From my point of view those who left are confused people, and I do not want to add to their woes. However, since they have put their names and their stories in print to try to persuade others to leave Adventism, there may be a little “collateral damage.” I apologize in advance.

Beginning with the 2008 Proclamation!, let’s look at the logic of those who are willing to publicly state they left in order to encourage the rest of us to leave too. Let’s see if their reasons hold any logical or spiritual water - or whether they are “all wet.”