Electric Fence

Introduction: If you are already familiar with the Electric Fence, skip this introduction.  If not, give me a few moments to explain this unique blog.  This blog has one purpose: to defend Seventh-day Adventists against the attacks of an organization called “Life Assurance Ministries” (variously referred to here as “LAM,” “lammers,” “wolves,” “whiners,” or “howlers.”) LAM publishes a bi-monthly journal called Proclamation! and its principal purpose seems to be to paint the Adventist Church as the “Great Satan,” and suggest that members should leave the Adventist Church as quickly as possible.  If you want more details, read my entry “Why the Electric Fence?”

 

Each issue of Proclamation! has a section called “Stories of Faith,” in which it recounts why some poor sap left the Adventist Church and joined the lammers.  (By the way, “on the lam” is an old term for someone who is a fugitive from the law - an apt description of the lammers.) The lammers’ purpose in these stories is to explain why you, too, should leave the Adventist Church.

 

Beginning in 2008, each time Proclamation! issues one of these new stories, I intend to “take on” the story.   I’ve been a regular reader of Proclamation! for a number of years now.  (They “spammed” me onto their mailing list.)  As far as I’m concerned, these howlers would throw the Church (if not their mothers) under the train.  Proclamation! has a real hard edge to it.  I’m a lawyer and a litigator, and “brass knuckles” debate is nothing new to me.  You will see a hard edge in this blog that you see nowhere else in my Internet Bible studies because I normally do not believe in taking brass knuckles to fellow believers.  What I am concerned about, and I apologize in advance if I give any offense to the reader, is separating the wolves (for which verbal brass knuckles are permitted) from the poor saps who are featured in each Proclamation!  “Story of Faith.”  I’m sure those people who leave the Adventist Church are sincere, if confused.  They are not the target of this blog, even if it might seem that way.  The target of this blog is the editors and managers of LAM who offer up these poor unfortunates as an example of why you should leave the Adventist Church.  Okay, are we clear?  I’m not out to insult those poor souls who left the Church, this blog is to explain why their reasons for leaving were illogical, and (when applicable) irrational.

 

This month Electric Fence takes on the story of why Sondra Brickell left the Adventist Church.  Read on.

From Torah Observant to New Covenant: The Brickell Story

 

The lammers seem to have lost sight of their goal!  The purpose of the “Stories of Faith” series is to recite why other good Adventists have left the Adventist Church to show why you should too.  Even the title of this story “From Torah … to New Covenant” suggests the story will track the usual goal. 

 

But no, we have yet another story about why someone who was never really in the Church is still not in the Church.  The story starts with Sondra, whose father left the Seventh-day Adventist ministry because of his divorce. Or, maybe it wasn’t his divorce, maybe it was that Ellen White copying thing.  Or, maybe it was the sanctuary doctrine.  Let me guess, would a pastor’s divorce (the story leaves out important information about whether or not adultery was involved), or a pastor’s views about 1844 be more likely to cause his separation from the Church?  Boy, the lammers are in fog about this.  Are they sure global warming was not the cause?  In any event we are told that “one or both” of these events (Des Ford and 1844 or the divorce) “marked the end [of her father’s] ministry.”  Let’s go for “one” of the events – the divorce – and leave 1844 and global warming out of it.

 

So, dad got a divorce, and left the Adventist Church when his little girl is ten years-old.  As he is leaving, dad confides in his daughter that he does not really believe the key doctrines of the Church.

 

In any event, ten year-old Sondra, who is “never persuaded” of the doctrines, gets married, attends a non-Adventist Church and then “for a few years” she joined the Adventist Church along with her husband who “lacked a better alternative at the time.” 

 

Sondra recites that during that very short window of time in her life when she was actually a member of the Adventist Church “something prompted me to start a serious study” of the Bible.  Now here is a lightning bolt – being a member of the Adventist Church inspires reading the Bible.  Who would have guessed that?

 

Apparently, the lammers’ editing skills are not quite up to par. At one point Sondra admits, “But after leaving Adventism, it seems we abandoned out dependence on God and became confident we could find our own way.” Isn’t that the truth!

 

Sondra worshipped with a Bible church for a while, but decided that it “seemed so simple and boring to me.” She moved on to worshipping with a Messianic group, which the article seems to say differs from Messianic Jews because the members were gentiles and not Jewish.

 

To further separate Sondra’s group from other Messianic congregations we are assured, “Messianic Jewish brothers … have a clear picture of the new covenant.”  Hold on just one moment!  I thought one of the major problems with that Great Satan (the Adventist Church) was that it taught people to worship God on Saturday – which shows Adventists do not have a clear picture of the new covenant.  Why do these people get a pass on Sabbath worship and Adventists do not?  I know! Most Adventists are not Jewish.  It’s a racial thing. Now, where did it say in the Bible that Jews and gentiles could read the Bible differently?  Must be in here someplace, Let’s see….

 

Back to our story. Next, we are introduced to the religious background of Jeff, Sondra’s husband.  Turns out (rats!), Jeff has no background in Adventism to renounce. Instead, after his brief membership in the Church he wanders with Sondra through various Christian groups until he reads the book of Galatians.  He reports, “when I finished reading, I stood up with my hands on my chest of drawers and took a deep breath. It felt like the weight of the world just lifted from my shoulders.”   One might think that it was the weight was the chest of drawers, but it turns out that that it was “all the “layers of falsehood [that] started to peel away…. We repented knowing we had only ourselves to blame.” 

 

Who let that statement into the story! It was supposed to be the Adventist Church that is to blame for them missing the Galatians reading all those years.  Surely it must be part of the layers of “falsehood.”

 

Our story ends with Sondra and Jeff returning to the “simple” Bible church where they now treasure the “simple truth.”  There is no doubt the gospel story is simple truth, but how the Adventist Church gets indicted in Sondra’s story is not so simple. It seems that dad losing his job as an Adventist minister coupled with the divorce made such an impact on a young girl’s spiritual development that for years she wandered from church to church.  We cannot help but be sympathetic to Sondra.  These are traumatic events in a young girl’s life.  However, they are hardly a reason for mature Adventists to leave the Church. Guess we are going to have to wait until the next issue where the lammers can take another crack at the Church.