Sitting at my computer, I hear the familiar “ding” telling me that another email hit my corner of cyberspace. Curious, wondering who it might be, I leave my sermon preparation for a few seconds to check. Little did I know that it would be hours before I would return to that sermon. Nor did I realize that answering that email would impel me to write this book.
The email was from a Seventh-day Adventist pastor who was walking where I once walked, hurting where I once hurt, questioning what I once questioned, crying out as I once cried out, desperately seeking the will of God. I will share that email with you.
- Thank you for your interest. Yes, you are correct about some internal struggles that I’m facing at this time. I appreciate you keeping my concerns about the SDA church confidential. It seems that I’m having difficulty accepting the views of the SDA church on 1844. I also feel that I’m losing confidence in E.G.W. [Ellen G. White]. I can’t seem to get the SDA timeline on the 2300 day prophecy lined up with Scripture. The connection between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9 is weak.
Since youth, I also have been impressed by the church that if someone does not agree with E.G.W. or leaves the Adventist church, they will be accepting the mark of the beast. These memories keep me from making bold moves upon my internal struggles. Although no one has come out and said, “those who leave the church are condemned ,” the impression is felt! Adventist friends and Adventist family members usually shun or talk about people who have left the church. “Poor so-and-so, did you hear he left the church…we need to pray for him,” etc…
I have countless Adventist friends and family members whom I have brought into this church, not to mention many more whom I have baptized into this church. Any decision I make can make a profound impact on several lives. Thus, I feel that I must give much effort toward my studies and be absolutely sure in the steps that I take in the future.
I understand that you were an SDA pastor. Thus, you understand that asking these types of questions may place me in an uncomfortable position with my employer…I find myself encouraging my members to search out the Scriptures for themselves, to study the doctrines, and draw their own conclusions. Ironic, isn’t it? As a pastor, if I explore beyond the scopes of our beliefs, or probe for answers, I’m looked upon as someone who is confused and need counseling or help.
I would very much like an opportunity to meet and talk with you about the church. My concerns are for my family. I have shared some things with my spouse. She is supportive in my quest to find truth. But, I have not shared anything with my children. I must be sure—convinced. To struggle so long to keep your children in the church, to obtain a Christian educa- tion, and then tell them you have some questions about the church—that’s hard!
I think talking to a former SDA pastor could be helpful. There are many questions about making the transition from being a SDA pastor to being a non-SDA member. In addition, to career changes, etc., I would be very interested in hearing how you crossed that line and the results of crossing that line.
I’m not saying I’m ready to step out of the closet. I have lots of answers to seek first. I must be convinced via the Scriptures. As a youth, I was taught that it would cost my soul to cross that line—thus, the internal struggles. Keep me in your prayers. And, please keep in touch!
As I finished reading the above cry for help and understanding, I started writing out my experience. The words flew so fast that I made many typing mistakes—not unusual for me. The little squiggly lines from MS Word told me that I had a lot of editing to do. After some time, Carolyn called me for lunch. I told her what I was doing and realized that my little email answer had been done time and again for many other SDA pastors and members who had asked about my experience. Never, it seemed, had I taken the time to answer all that was in my heart and history. Suddenly, I knew God was calling me to write another book. I had the same sense of destiny as when I was impelled to write Cultic Doctrine. Within an hour, a rough outline was typed, and I began to think back to how it all started. Yes, it started when I was an Adventist—through and through.
My earliest memories are sweetly entwined with the Adventist church. My mother, Bessie Smith Ratzlaff Ellyson, who passed away at the age of 99 in 2006, was a missionary’s child. Her father was an Adventist pastor, and her mother was a Bible worker.1 Never was there a family more committed to the Adventist message than my family. My parents served as self-supporting Adventist missionaries in Panama just before the Second World War. They raised up a little Adventist church in the Panamanian jungle before they were advised by the General Conference to return to the mainland because of the uncertainties of the war.
Both my mother and my father taught school in the Adventist system. Except for the fourth grade, my mother was my only teacher until I was in academy. I vividly remember my second and third grade in Tucson, Arizona, in 1944–1945. One day there was an unusually loud roar we had never heard before. We all ran out of the school building to see the first jet we had ever encountered fly over the school. My mother took my sister, Opal, and me to the SDA Junior Camp in Prescott. We went to all the Adventist functions and loved them all.
I can still see in my mind’s eye the large chart that was hung across the front of the Tucson church with October 22, 1844, on one end and October 22, 1944, on the other. Its purpose was, as I remember, to help us realize the nearness of the second coming of Christ. The investigative judgment had now been in progress exactly 100 years. That was my first encounter with the 1844 doctrine, but not the last. As a third-grader, it all seemed so wonderful.
My mother was asked to teach the seventh and eighth grade at the Arizona Academy grade school, so the next year, we moved to Phoenix. There, in the fourth grade, I had eyes for a rather attractive and sweet third-grade girl by the name of Carolyn Mundall. I gave her my picture, and she gave me hers. We sometimes traded sticks of gum at recess. One time my parents went to visit her parents and talked about going on an expedition to find Noah’s Ark. Of course, Carolyn’s sisters made sure I played church (I think it was a play wedding) with Carolyn, even though I remember how embarrassed I was to play something akin to dolls!
Before the year was over, my parents decided it was time to get my sister, just finishing the eighth grade, and me out of the big, bad city into country living. This was, according to Ellen White, the best way to keep kids away from evil influences. We moved to a little Adventist settlement called Winter Haven Academy in the “sticks” of North Carolina, some 30 miles from Wilmington. I will never forget the feeling of exhilaration and youthful energy the spring we arrived. The wildflowers were blooming, the yellow jasmine was growing along the ditch bank, and Meadowlarks and Bob Whites were calling. Life seemed so full of promise. I had not a care in the world. The place actually was very primitive, with no electricity or running water. I remember the long trip to the outhouse, especially in the winter when it was dark. My mother was to teach all eight grades in the old schoolhouse/church building. My father was to do carpentry and farming. Not long after we arrived there, however, my father became ill, suffering terrible pain. I remember the day and night we drove him in our ’42 Ford to an Adventist Hospital in Fletcher. The doctors recognized his kidneys weren’t functioning, as he was starting to puff up with fluid. X-rays showed trouble, and they advised we take him to Duke University Hospital. There they operated and found a rare, rapidly growing cancer that spread throughout his body.
My father was born in Kansas, into a large Mennonite family. They were quite poor from all accounts I have heard. His father was the “head of the home” and dictated his wishes to every member of the family to such an extent that when my father was 19 years old he ran away from home to get out from under his father’s heavy hand.
I don’t know the circumstances that caused my father to become an Adventist. However, he was one heart and soul. He worked as a carpenter during the time I can remember him. The Adventists were opening a mission station for the Navaho Indians near Holbrook, Arizona. Hearing of the need for carpenters, he answered the call and gave a full summer’s work to the project.
Sabbath after church—often to my embarrassment—saw any homeless person who came to church at our dinner table. My father, remembering the hardships of his early life, did what he could to help those who were down and out.
When it became known that my father was soon to die, my mother, sister, and I stood by my father’s hospital bed. I my fear, my father told me that upon his death, I would get his carpenter tools, and I was to look out for the family as best as I could.
Six weeks after his going into the hospital, we buried my father in Durham, North Carolina. It was a beautiful spring day: lush, green grass, flowers blooming, new living-green leaves on the densely wooded hillsides, birds signing and preparing their nests, and the air was sweet with honeysuckle. Yet inside my soul, there were dark and somber emotions that made the beauty of spring seem like mockery.
My father’s death was a terrible shock to our family. We had no medical insurance in those days and did not believe in life insurance. My mother was left with a hospital bill that was humanly impossible for her to pay.
We prayed and worked. In the summer, I worked on a gladiola farm earning 25 cents an hour. My mother and sister worked there too, earning 35 cents an hour.
We always kept the Sabbath. Friday evening, we would often sit out on our front porch and sing Christian hymns to welcome the Sabbath. We would do the same on Sabbath evening as we said goodbye to the Sabbath. Often we would sing, “Day is dying in the west, heaven is touching earth with rest.” We always, without question, went to Sabbath School and church on Sabbath. Often on Sabbath afternoon, my mother would organize a “Young People’s Meeting” where the youth would participate in a program designed for their age group. I remember the many times we would drive about eight miles to Bolton and pass out literature, hoping people would find “the truth” and become Adventists.
That year was a difficult one for our family. We barely had enough money to keep food on the table. In fact, if it had not been for my grandmother who sent us beans and a few dollars from time to time, we might have gone hungry.
However, life was not all bad for me. I made good friends with Danny Badzik, a boy who lived about a mile from our house. We spent many happy days exploring the dense North Carolina forest, digging tunnels in the ditch bank, target practicing with our 22s and fishing.
Late one afternoon, I was coming back from Danny’s house. It was nearly dark; I was alone without any flashlight, and the sun was already below the horizon. The North Carolina pines were becoming silhouettes in the gold of the western sky. I had a little over a mile to go, so I started running down the dirt road. When I got home, I was thrilled that I was able to run the distance without stopping. Running, I would find out later, would introduce me to someone whose influence would profoundly affect my life.
One evening a cold north wind set in, and then it started to sleet. The next morning we awoke to see a miracle of nature. Every little twig was coated with about one-half inch of brilliant ice that sparkled like multi-faceted diamonds in the sunlight. The little pine trees were bent over as if a wind were still blowing—they were frozen solid. Everything was glittering and coated with ice.
I had a new jacket my parents had purchased for me shortly before my father’s death. It was the first jacket I had ever had with a fur-lined hood.2 Walking home from school one day, I faced a cold, biting wind with blowing sleet. It was a challenge. I pulled the hood down to my eyes, faced the storm with courage, and felt that I could face any adversity that came my way. I would need that same courage and determination later, on more than one occasion.
The picture Carolyn had given me, I placed in a crack behind the door jam. I figured I would never see her again, and I put it there for safekeeping.
My mother realized that she could not survive under the conditions, and decided to move to California, close to friends of the family.
Ours was the only house on a lonely dirt road about a quarter of a mile from the school and church. Moving day came. As we were driving down that dirt road for the last time in our ’42 Ford, pulling a little green, six foot, two- wheel trailer loaded precariously high with everything we owned, questions rushed through my mind. We had come to North Carolina a happy, healthy family, financially sound, full of enthusiasm, energy, and hope. Now my father was dead, we had little money, huge hospital bills, and I was leaving my best friend. Why, Lord, why?
We moved to Fortuna, California, where my mother taught grades six through eight in the Adventist church school. Summers I worked for Paul Thornburg,3 who owned two dairies and bailed hay for himself and others. The summers after my sixth, seventh and eighth grades, I worked six days a week, nine hours a day. It was a good experience. I worked hard. I often felt like quitting, but I knew my mother needed the money. Mr. Thornburg taught me the valuable lesson of hard work, even in difficult situations, that has helped me time and again.
Sabbaths always found us in the Fortuna church. There was never a question about whether we would go to Sabbath school and church. We always, with rare exceptions, went to both and were on time.
After being graduated from the eighth grade, my mother moved to Escalon, California, where she taught the Adventist grade school. Modesto Union Academy, only a few miles away, afforded opportunity for me to attend an Adventist high school. One day shortly after school started in my sophomore year, I looked toward the back of the school bus, and suddenly, I saw a familiar face. Could it be? Could that girl be Carolyn Mundall, whom I had known in Phoenix years before? I was too bashful to ask, so I asked one of my bold buddies, Burton Maxwell, to find out. Yes, that bright-eyed, sweet-smiling girl was Carolyn. Soon we were best friends again.
That winter Elder Folkenburg gave a series of evan- gelistic tent meetings in Riverbank, a little town which was between Escalon where I lived, and Oakdale where Carolyn lived. These meetings provided an opportunity for me to be with Carolyn. We went to most of the meetings where we watched with keen interest as Elder Folkenburg brought out the black-lighted beasts of Daniel and Revelation and worked out all the time prophecies of Adventism. I can still smell the sawdust shavings in the center aisle leading to the pulpit. I had no question that Adventism was “the truth” and rejoiced as people made decisions to join God’s true remnant people.
The summer after my sophomore year, my mother’s health was such that she was not able to teach. We moved to St Helena, California, so my sister could take nursing at Pacific Union College (PUC) just a few miles away. I stayed out of school that year and worked to support the family. For a teenager, I had a very good job working at a large chicken ranch, which had about 18,000 laying hens. The owner was happy to give me Saturdays off as he had other workers who wanted Sunday off. All went well until one Friday evening he called and wanted me to go to work on Saturday. I told him that I could not collect the eggs on the Sabbath, and I would not be able to help him. When I went to work on Sunday, everything went as usual until quitting time when my boss handed me my check and said he had to have someone who could work on Saturday, if needed. I distinctly remember how good I felt, not that I had been fired, but that I had been faithful to my convictions.
By taking a year off from school, Carolyn caught up with me, so we were both juniors now. She talked me into attending Monterey Bay Academy, an Adventist boarding school near Watsonville, California. We loved it. We imme- diately became involved with all the religious activities we could. We both joined the “Seminar,” a program where four students would learn a sermon—usually an old HMS Richards’ sermon—and then the group would go out into surrounding Adventist churches and provide special music and preach.
I was one of the Missionary Volunteer leaders.4 We both were regular attendees at the Friday night “hill-top” prayer meetings.
One summer, Carolyn and I attended an Adventist Youth Congress held in San Francisco. An appeal was made for people to give their lives to foreign missions. We both wanted to serve God any way we could, and we both went forward, responding to the call.
Near the end of our junior year at Monterey Bay Academy, we were told by one of the teachers that we were getting “too serious” and should not be going steady. We took their counsel and did not date for the rest of that school year.
My cousin, Harry Ratzlaff,5 had an apple ranch west of Sebastopol, California, and he also hauled hay for the many dairies in the area. Because I had stayed out of school one year, I was eighteen years old after my junior year of academy, and Harry invited me to drive his biggest hay truck and trailer—an old Autocar. We usually loaded by hand, and I again learned a lot more about hard work. I would often think about Carolyn, and we wrote a few times that summer.
The next year at MBA was one of the highlights of my life. I loved physics and advanced math, and Carolyn and I were in the same section of Bible doctrines. I remember the textbook for the class was entitled Principles of Life.6 This book covered all the traditional doctrines of the Adventist church. We both memorized the key texts. We could draw the time charts and explain the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation and saw no problems with Adventist teaching. We both got “A” grades.
I was pastor of our senior class of 1956. As graduation neared, I thought long and hard as to what present I should give Carolyn. Because we were both into the Adventist message and believed in reading all of Ellen G. White’s (EGW) books, I decided to get her a set of Testimonies for the Church. The set came in two bindings, the familiar red and the luxury binding in black embossed with gold. I chose the latter. She seemed to be happy with the gift.
After graduation, I worked as a colporteur selling Adventist books in Santa Maria, California. I recall going out to eat with my adult supervisor; I believe his name was Elder Savage, who was in charge of the student program. When ordering, he leaned over and whispered, “Dale, I am going to order meat. Please don’t tell anyone.” He went on to tell me that he would lose weight if he did not eat meat. At the time, his statement seemed very strange to me for two reasons. First, we were selling books by Ellen G. White, who said ministers should never eat meat.7 Secondly, he appeared to me to be overweight and could afford to lose a few pounds. However, I did not let this bother me. We both were in God’s true church, working toward taking the truths of the Adventist message to the world. I, however, would not eat the foul stuff!
Yes, I was an Adventist, through and through.
Endnotes
- A term used in Adventism to apply to people (usually women) who were employed by the local conference of SDAs to gave Bible studies.
- I am sure it was imitation fur.
- Now deceased.
- A Sabbath afternoon program where students had the opportunity to develop leadership skills and encourage others to share their faith.
- Now deceased.
- It is a classic in its presentation of traditional Adventism.
- Ellen G. White, Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 36. “Let not any of our ministers set an evil example in the eating of flesh meat. Let them and their families live up to the light of health reform.”
NEXT WEEK: “WHO AM I?”
Truth Led Me Out. Copyright © 2008 by Dale Ratzlaff. Second printing 2015, E-mail version 2020. All Scripture quotations—except where otherwise noted—are from The New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1979, 1994 by the Lockman Foundation, used by permission. Texts credited to Clear Word are from The Clear Word, copyright © 1994, 2000, 2003, 2004 by Review and Herald Publishing Association. All rights reserved. Life Assurance Ministries, Inc.
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