Electric Fence

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.”