By Trevor Lloyd
(January 4, 2006)
On October 22, 2005, the Sydney Adventist Forum met from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to look back on Desmond Ford’s historic Forum presentation at Angwin, California, on October 27, 1979, and the subsequent Sanctuary Review Committee (SRC) meetings at Glacier View, Colorado, held from August 10 to 15, 1980. Retired Avondale College senior lecturer Norman Young, Ford himself, and Avondale research fellow Arthur Patrick prepared papers for the meeting. Alwyn Salom, another Avondale research fellow, joined the group for a question-and-answer session.
Young’s paper gave a critique of the six chapters of Ford’s monumental "Position Paper" (PP). Chapter One (PP1) he rated as successful in verifying the ongoing discomposure resulting from challenges to the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s sanctuary doctrine, and PP2 he also found convincing in arguing that Hebrews teaches Christ’s entry to the heavenly most holy place at his ascension. For PP3, Young gave qualified support—in terms of the oft-quoted adage, he agreed with what Ford affirmed (the "little horn" is under investigation in Daniel 8:14), but not with what he denied (that "the suffering saints" do not come into judgment). In fact, it emerged at Glacier View itself that the two were in basic agreement that the faithful saints do not come into condemnation in the judgment rather than that they do not come into judgment at all.
Young considered that most members of the SRC would be comfortable with the argument in PP4 that the Day of Atonement applies both to the cross and "to the judgment at the end of the age." Similarly, he did not find fault with Ford’s position on multiple fulfillments (PP5), or with the claim that Ellen White applied the day of atonement to both the cross and the consummation (PP6).
Young went on to give firsthand details concerning the much-discussed "Ten-point Statement" (TPS) and the subsequent regrettable use made of it in the anticipation of Ford’s dismissal in the Friday afternoon session of Glacier View, when Ford met with the group of nine administrators. Young played a part in drawing up this short document to comply with a request by a number of administrators for an indication of where Ford differed from traditional Adventism. With hindsight, he came to believe that by Tuesday of the Glacier View conference some of the administrators had become aware that an alternative statement might be required to "silence or remove Ford" in view of the fact that the SRC small group discussions were moving noticeably in parallel with Ford—not that they were following him, but were reflecting what Adventist scholarship knew of the problems under discussion.
The second presentation for the Forum meeting coincided with the 11 o’clock worship hour. In it, Ford showed how the treasures of the gospel fulfilled in Jesus were prefigured in the book of Daniel—like Matthew 24, each chapter in Daniel presents bad news followed by good news—oppression followed by a judgment that pronounces vindication for God’s faithful children. Ford indicated that the prophet himself, against whom no sin is recorded, points to Christ. Daniel, for example, went into a pit and had a sealed stone put in place to keep him there, only to be delivered in the morning and proclaimed to the world. As well, in chapter nine, he cried out in prayer, burdened with the sins of his people and was visited by an angel—all vivid reminders of what happened to Jesus in Gethsemane.
In the Forum meeting’s first presentation after lunch, Ford spoke about a chain of key events that led up to the convening of SRC. He spoke about his realization, which commenced in 1945, that the Great Controversy differed in important ways from the book of Hebrews with regard to the timing of Jesus’ entry to the most holy place in the heavens, and went on to refer to providential openings for work in North New South Wales, Australia, and for study opportunities in the United States and the United Kingdom. The presumed temporary transfer to Pacific Union College came later.
Ford mentioned, as well, that, in Glacier View’s Friday afternoon meeting with the small administrative group, he advised it that the SRC consensus statement agreed with him in a large number of ways. He considered that the group was not aware of this. (General Conference president Neil Wilson asked him later for a list of such agreements.) Ford reported having been given an ultimatum at that meeting that he must publish his errors in the church paper, that he would be expected henceforth to preach against what he had formerly taught, and that he should publicly condemn Robert Brinsmead. Given a week to reply, he advised that he could give his answer immediately.
Arthur Patrick, the former director of the Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centre at Avondale College, gave the Forum meeting’s final presentation for the day. The paper, as titled above, was available to the audience on that day and can be obtained by contacting him via e-mail.
Patrick referred to the remarkable consensus that the SRC achieved—gaining in five days as much as in the previous fifty years, and, in the process, even "thrilling" Ford himself with its way of explaining things. Despite such progress, Patrick observed that the post-SRC administrators decided to marginalize the consensus statement and to opt for difference. The norm was not the Bible, but what they saw as traditional, normative Adventism—and, if they had any doubt what that was, a group back in Australia was ready to help them.
With the clear intention of warning his church not to perpetuate what had so sadly eventuated post-Glacier View—the choosing of tradition above Scripture at a time of crisis—Patrick referred to John Loughborough’s outline of a church’s steps to apostasy: from getting up a creed, to telling the members what to believe, to using that creed as a means of persecution and exclusion.
What do you see as the legacy of the Glacier View Conference? Join the conversation on Spectrum's Message Board.
What happened at the Glacier View Conference? For details and analysis, see volume 11, number 2 (Nov. 1980) in Spectrum magazine’s archives.
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