He said that our church in the United States did something outrageous to Dr Desmond Ford.I actually didn't know at that time Who Dr Ford was, so Ernesto educated me on the matter because he was very well acquainted with some theological issues that were affecting our church in the United States. Apparently, Dr Ford head addressed some controversial issues that have been discussed many times during the church history and have a chance to present them to a group of 100 representatives from the church to be evaluated. The outcome had been a rejection of Ford's positions, but many people were saying that he had been treated unfairly by the church administrators. That situation was creating a split in the church and many pastors were actually resigning.
I had a BA degree in Theology (class off 1972) but Although I was not a pastor I was very much interested In theological issues and participated actively in our local church. Based on what Ernesto told me, i decided to obtain more information on the issue in order to learn more about who Ford was and what was the issue that was afflicting the church so badly. I soon learned that Ford had been given a paid leave of absence off 6 months to prepare theological documents that would be submitted to a group of 100 pastors, theologians and administrators of the church for critical evaluation - which that happened In August of 1980 a place called Glacier View Ranch in California. Ford's positions were rejected and he lost his employment. Soon he would publish all his research in a book format, "Daniel 8:14. The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgement."
i quickly acquired the book and started reading avidly. After reading a few pages i was astonished! The information I was learning had never been revealed during my sixteen years in an Adventist School including four years as a Theology student. As I kept reading, my reoccurring question was. " can this be true?" but there it was, dr Ford was listing facts in biblical proofs that could not be refuted. "how come that as church members we were never told these things?" the more I was learning the more I was wondering if there was a possibility that the Adventist Church had been dishonest and hiding serious information from it's members and the clergy as well.I could hardly believe-that the church that I had loved for so many years could do such a thing, but the facts that I was contemplating could not be denied. It was all on the table, and now I had to deal with it! "All on the table" - so I thought, not aware that it was not actually "all" but rather just the beginning.
I kept Reading and learning more - and becoming increasingly alarmed. The problems that I encountered were many and very serious like for example Ellen White's blatant plagiarism, her declarations of" I was shown" regarding texts that she had just copy it secretly from other books and even the creation of a new so-called doctrine about 1844 and the investigative judgment. The latter was actually a heresy because it directly contradicted what is clearly thought in in the book of Hebrews. And the there was the false teaching about the "Shut Door" that she said to see in vision directly from God; this lie was finally abandoned by the Church after seven years - thus confirming that Ellen White had actually lied,. It all made me feel deceived on purpose by the church that I used to love. There are many other very problematic issues related to Ellen White and the Church's behavior that I could list here, but my purpose is not the repetition of what can be found in many books available to those interested.
Among many other books, I read Walter Rea's "The White Lie." Ronald Numbers' "Ellen White: Prophetess of Health," and Geoffrey Paxton's "The Shaking of Adventism." All the things that I was learning building up a strong question in my mind, " how can a religious organization lie to its members and clergy In such a blatant and disgusting and dishonest manner?"
In those days we were living in my wife's hometown, Jacareí,. I was participating actively in this church and was actually at an ordain Elder, teaching Sabbath School weekly and preaching occasionally. My in-laws were also members of the same church and among all members they were certainly the most affluent with a history of making large contributions to the church, maintaining a privileged position and holding certain powers in that congregation. At a certain point my father-in-law noticed that I was reading Desmond Ford's book and he started to condemn me for that. Since he was not a well-informed person I have no idea where and how he obtained any information about Dr Ford but the fact is that he actually started a true crusade against me trying to destitute me from any position or any function in the church. The conflict escalated to a point that we moved our membership to another church that was about 10 km farther in another town where a former colleague of Mine in school was the pastor and i felt protected from the in-law's attacks. However my father-in-law had tentacles and kept the crusade against me. Luckily enough my wife understood all the points that I was learning and agreed with me and was persuaded that we were on the right track.
At that time the family M Church conflict had become unbearable so we decided to look for another church of another denomination. We found a very warm and welcoming Baptist Church-and started attending It on a regular basis. The pastor, Charles (Bud) McCord) was an American missionary of about my age that was Very friendly - one of the best preachers that I ever met.I knew that at that point my father in law was pressuring the church to this fellowship me for apostasy so before that happened I asked for disfellowshipment myself. For another three years we had a very positive experience with the Baptists. And, above all, we had peace in our new church - let alone the freedom to think.
I believe that it was in 1983 when I wrote to Dr Ford telling him my experience and he became spiritually very supportive knowing that I was going through a very difficult crisis. We exchanged many letters and every letter from him was uplifting and supportive. In November of 1989 we immigrated to the US and settled in the city of Riverside in California. After a few days of our arrival Dr Ford informed me that he would soon come on a weekend to preach at the Seventh Day Baptist Church and we could finally meet in person.And so it was, I attended his meetings on a weekend in February and we started attending that very warm and welcoming Church where we would stay for about four years. For my surprise, among the members of that Church I found several former Adventists, including the Pastor, Gabriel Bejjani, who was also a former Adventist pastor. then, learning that Smuts van Rooyen was pastoring a 7-Day Adventist Church in town we decided to move to his church since his ministry was in the line of doctor Ford's views. In years past while you're still in Brazil I had translated several articles written by Smuts and distributed them among some of my friends. In December of 1993 I applied for a teaching position at La Sierra academy where I taught Bible classes for 1 year and a half while finishing my doctorate in psychology. I left this job at the end of the 1995 school year to start my clinical work as a Clinical Psychologist.
Having an experience as traumatic as I had with the seventh-day Adventist Church is not an easy issue to deal with. For a person like me, who was deeply rooted in the church for such a long time, it was very difficult to disconnect from the system and in the process there is a lot of emotional pain. It takes many years to reorganize the approach to religion again. But even though it's a hard experience it is possible to regain a sense of freedom from the control exerted by a religious system. At the end of the day i lost completely my interest in organized religion and now I participate in three groups* that meet weekly via Zoom and that are uplifting , but I haven't gone to a physical Church since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. I surely miss the socialization that happens in church meetings, but, again, there is no perfect package for anything. I am very content with the current condition.Now I can interact with different people from several different parts of the world on a weekly basis, which is a different kind of socialization , but one that can be very Dynamic and rewarding as well.
* The three groups mentioned above are, 1. The E-14 Sabbath School in Australia, 2, The Faith and Reason Sabbath School at Sligo Church, and 3. The ATSS - Adventist Today Sabbath Seminar. All via Zoom.
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