Editorial

EDITORIAL On 27th October, 1979, Desmond Ford publicly questioned the integrity of the Seventh-day Adventist fundamental belief on the Investigative Judgement and the Cleansing of the Sanctuary.

Subsequently, his employers gave him leave at the Church’s headquarters to write up his reasons and conclusions for analysis by the denomination’s leaders. Many Church Administrators and members, however, had their minds made up as to whether Ford was right or wrong before the evidence was presented. At a Worker’s Meeting at the South Australian Camp Meeting in January, 1980, Elder C.D. Brooks, General Conference Field Secretary, said concerning Dr. Ford, ‘At the close of the six-month period.1 we will show him his error and then he will decide his future.’2

Over the period of 10th – 15th August, 1980, a committee of 115 of the church’s leading Theologians, Scholars, and Administrators—representing all Divisions of the world field—met at Glacier View Ranch to review Dr. Ford’s submission—a document of seven hundred pages entitled Daniel 8:14, The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgement.3

Raymond F. Cottrell reported that this imposing assembly included, ‘Fifty-six Administrators, forty-six Bible Scholars, five Editors, six Pastors, six graduate students, six members of the former committee on Problems in the Book of Daniel, and fourteen retired persons. Administrators included virtually all the church’s top world leaders. Nineteen were members of the General Conference headquarters staff. Nine of the ten World Division Presidents were present, along with eleven Union and three local Conference Presidents.’4

The attention given by the SDA Church to the questions raised by Dr. Ford, reveals the importance that the Church’s leaders placed upon their teaching of the Investigative Judgement, a unique teaching which sets the Seventh-day Adventist Church apart from all other denominations. One wonders if there would have been a similar response had Ford raised a question about any of the other fundamental beliefs.

In his opening address to the Glacier View delegates, General Conference President, Neal C. Wilson, told everyone that Dr. Ford was not on trial, but that his ideas were. It caused no little consternation, therefore, when at the conclusion of the Glacier View meetings, Wilson and Keith Parmenter (the president of the then Australasian Division) sacked Ford and asked him to hand in his ministerial credentials. Many of the Scholar delegates—who had indicated that they concurred with most of the questions that Dr. Ford had raised on the Investigative Judgement—then wondered if their presence at Glacier View had been intended to provide support for Ford’s dismissal. ‘We have been used,’ commented several of these delegates. ‘We have been had.’

While many of the conservatives within the SDA Church rejoiced over the firing of Dr. Ford, scores of younger ministers and hundreds of church members had their faith in the integrity of the SDA Church severely shaken and either left the Church voluntarily, or were forced out. The cost to the denomination in terms of loss of ministers, members and money was colossal. Many found it incomprehensible that a respected minister and theologian, with thirty years of loyal service in the SDA Church, could be defrocked for blowing the whistle on a cherished traditional belief because of its substantial deficiencies.

If a car salesman sold cars the way the SDA Church sells its doctrine on the Investigative Judgement, he would be quickly labelled as a crook. To focus people’s attention solely on the good parts5 while deliberately covering up serious weaknesses, is deceptive.

In this special Good News Unlimited issue, twenty-five years after Glacier View and one-hundred years after the first scholarly objection to the teaching of the Investigative Judgement, we intend to make some salient points and ask some probing questions of the SDA Church’s teaching on the Investigative Judgement. Our beef is not with the SDA Church per se, but with its false and deceptive teaching on the Investigative Judgement that leads members of that Church to believe that they alone are God’s remnant people.6 We contend that the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus teaches that we are saved, not because we belong to a particular Church, but because we belong to God; not because of our faith in a unique doctrine, but because of our faith in a unique Saviour.

In conclusion, we wish to emphasise that this Special Issue is not an attack on the SDA Church, but a plea for honesty and repentance. We believe that God raised up the Advent movement, but all providential religious movements have errors that should be rectified when the Holy Spirit moves on honest and brave people.

Ritchie Way

ENDNOTES:
1. This six month period was later extended to eight months.
2. Quotation from letter sent by ministers and minister-teachers to the G.C. President, Elder Neal Wilson, on 10th March, 1980. (Lowell Tarling, The Edges of Seventh-day Adventism, Galilee, 1981), p. 233.
3. This book is available from the GNU office. See advertisement in this issue.
4. The Sanctuary Review Committee and its New Consensus, Spectrum (11:2, Nov. 1980), P.3.
5. E.g. See Lessons 8 – 11 in the SDA Oct. Nov. Dec. 2004 Sabbath School Bible Study Guide on Daniel.
6. See the SDA 12th Fundamental Belief, entitled, The Remnant and Its Mission.