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October 31, 2002
Stephen D. Pitcher
Riverside, CA 92506
Pastoral Staff, Church Board
La Sierra University Church of Seventh-day Adventists
4937 Sierra Vista Ave.
Riverside, CA 92505
Dear Friends,
Please remove my name from membership in the Seventh-day Adventist church. After more than three years of in-depth study of the New Testament specifically dealing with SDA issues, it has become clear to me that I am no longer a Seventh-day Adventist.
The Seventh-day Adventist church continues to teach the keeping of the law, specifically the fourth commandment. A proper understanding of the role of the law to bring a sinner to repentance and accept the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ is rarely taught in the SDA church, and there is much argument when it is taught. We should not use the gospel to bring people into submission to the law, we should use the law to bring people into submission of the gospel and the Holy Spirit. The law is a "ministry of death" (2 Cor. 3:7) but Jesus came to bring life; the letter kills, the Spirit gives life.
I am not saying that the law is bad or that it is wrong to teach the law. However it is wrong to equate the keeping of the law with righteousness. Jesus, Paul and others all place the law in its proper context. The keeping of the law is as manure in the sight of God (Philippians). Our righteousness is as filthy rags. Each time we fall, the law breaks us. That should drive us to Jesus, not back to the law. The law of God was to demonstrate in His people their desperate need for a Savior.
As noted in Jan Paulsen's recent address to the General Conference, the SDA church is not to be confused with the rest of the Christian world. Seventh-day Adventism chooses to stand apart from the other Christian churches. In light of the Lord's counsel in 1 Corinthians 1, it is a sin to say that we are unique among Christians. I am either a Christian or not a Christian. Once I have accepted Christ, I have been seated with Him in heavenly places. There is no special status that can be granted a believer. To be a Christian is to achieve the highest and most profound status a human being can gain, and that status is given as a free gift.
Other heretical teachings and practices that I no longer believe are: 1844 and the Investigative Judgment; the sanctuary message and completion of the atonement that was only begun on the cross; the "health message"; the sabbath as the seal of God; Sunday church attendance as the mark of the beast; the so-called writings of the false prophet Ellen G. White; the human nature of Jesus (on which there is great variety of teaching within the church, see Crosscurrents in Adventist Christology, by Eric Claude Webster, Andrews University Press, 1992); not practicing equity on the mission field; sheep stealing; footwashing as a part of the practice of communion; vegetarianism; clean and unclean foods; the state of the dead; temporal punishment in a temporary hell; original sin (as taught by many in the church); jewelry; denying baptism to wearers of jewelry, smokers, eaters of unclean foods, those who work on the sabbath; that the ten commandments are the reflection of God's character; the scapegoat; the tithe; and numerous other minor beliefs and practices.
Salvation consists of this: that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10:9 NASB) I want to share in Paul's determination as stated in 1 Cor. 2:2, For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. (NASB).
I hereby renounce my baptism into the SDA church in 1985 and reconfirm my original believer's baptism administered by pastor Jack Wyne at the San Lorenzo Baptist church in 1975. (Note: I was not baptized into the Baptist church, I was baptized into Christ.)
Thank you for removing my name from the books of the SDA church. I am always available to share with you my faith in Jesus Christ.
Sincerely,
Stephen D. Pitcher
cc: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Former Adventist Fellowship, various others
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STEVE PITCHER
