While studying at the SDA Theological Seminary, then at Tacoma Park, Desmond Ford and his wife lived right across the river from where we were staying, and there was a solid pedestrian bridge between us, and yet we did not get acquainted. I just knew that he was a solid student. 15 years later when I served as a departmental secretary in Norway I was to meet him, but not in person. Elder Spangler, the editor of MINISTRY, visited us and I was his guide. At every spare moment Elder Spangler was telling me of his recent visit to Australia where he had the opportunity of staying at the home of Desmond and his wife, talking to them and observing them in their daily lives. According to Elder Spangler he had never met such God fearing people, nor any family following the blueprints for daily life as outlined by Ellen White so profoundly and consistently.
A few years later I worked together with a pastor who had studied at Avondale College where Desmond was teaching. He told me that hardly a day passed without several calls of the campus intercom stating there was an international call waiting for Dr. Desmond Ford, and most of those calls were from the Washington D.C. church headquarters. Church leaders used him as their counselor.
Some time after that new General Conference officers were elected, and it seemed like none of those knew Desmond Ford. There are varying explanations of what happened after that.
We heard of his sabbatical and that something would happen at Glacier View. Right after Glacier View I attended a worker's meeting where two high ranking officers and theologians were the main speakers. Both of then had just been at Glacier View. I do not recall them speaking of Desmond as a heretic, but rather as a challenger.
Years later a lady I had known very well in College came to the Conference office where I was working. She told me she was associated with Desmond Ford as a chaplain in California, and she gave me a glowing report of his growing Christian experience and inspiring sermons, and she classified him as a solid conservative Seventh-day Adventist.
When I read some of the most critical and scholarly written articles exposing his fallacies, and I compare those with what Desmond Ford writes himself, I wonder. I am not defending his teachings, and yet I wonder if he ever strayed as far from our fundamental beliefs as a number of our Pioneers did in the days of Ellen White, and yet they remained in leading positions in our Church? Are there others still working among us who should rather be defrocked because of their even more serious deviations?
Desmond has become a popular target. Why?
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Topic: Dr. Desmond Ford and Related Views (Read 56574 times)
