Dr. Raymond C., who had just retired, gave another Adventist forum, this was in San Diego, and he was on the committee that wrote the SDA Bible commentary and because he was the denomination’s best Hebrew scholar, their number one Hebrew scholar, he was assigned to write on Daniel. Well, he got to Daniel 8:14 and he could not get Adventist interpretation out of Daniel 8:14 so he went to Elder Lowe, who was in charge of the committee, and then the two of them went to R. R. F., who was the General Conference president at the time and they said, “Look, we can’t get Adventist theology out of Daniel 8,” and that’s the pillar of the Adventist church. Well, F. said, “You get the best minds of Adventism and you form a super-secret committee and you work on this problem until it’s solved.”
So they did. They got the best minds of Adventism and the men are listed in my work, “Cultic Doctrine,” and they worked on it for five years and realized they could not biblically support it. So they didn’t know what to do. If we say it’s not biblical, then that blows the church up, and if we say it is, we’re lying. So they finally disbanded and left no minutes as if they had never met, and they were instructed to tell the pastors to continue to teach the Investigative Judgment based on traditional assumptions.
Well, so that was the second thing. I knew it was wrong, I knew they knew it was wrong and had tried to cover it up. Then the next thing that happened was in the mail one day I got a set of either five or six long cassette tapes from Dr. Zane K., he was a medical doctor, a friend of mine. I did not ask for them and what happened was that Walter Ray who was a pastor I had known in Southern California and I think you may have his book there…
Larry. Yeah, I’m looking for it right now. Here it is.
Dale. Yeah, Walter Ray, it’s a book, “White Lie.” By the way, we have this on our website. Anyway, he was a really strong believer in Ellen White and he wrote a lot of books summarizing some of the quotes from Ellen White. (I’ll set this down.) Anyway, and he was reading some old books on the life of Christ and suddenly he realized, “Man, that sure sounds like Ellen White.” So he went and said, “Oh, that’s almost like Ellen White says.” So that piqued his interest. He got a copy of all the books that Ellen White had in her library and tried to find them and lo and behold, he found that Ellen White plagiarized huge amounts of material.
Larry. That’s what this book is all about. He documents everything in this book called, “The White Lie,” from the research you’re referring to right now.
Dale. Exactly. Exactly. Now, the way she plagiarized and she had some secretaries that helped her, they would change a word here or change a word there, put in a synonym or something else that would sound the same but change it so it wouldn’t be quite as evident, so it was deceptive plagiarism, if you will. Anyway, he found that she had plagiarized huge amounts in her books, even in her testimonies to individual people, sometimes even her dreams that she had were quotes from some books, and even in places where she said, “Said the angel,” and she would quote. She had an angel that supposedly spoke to her. She claimed to have 2,000 visions and so on. And often she says, “I was shown,” like the angel of God had told her, and then she would quote something, and lo and behold even those, “I was shown,” statements often were from some other author.
Larry. So basically the angels that Ellen White was talking to were really these other authors that had written books that were in her library.
Dale. You might say that. Now, she had written a lot of good things too and she quotes from some good authors at times.
So those are three things. I knew I couldn’t trust Ellen White anymore, I knew the Adventist church, their Investigative Judgment was wrong, and I knew they knew it was wrong. So about this time, all this stuff started to leak out in the Adventist church and there was a tremendous underground. People were discussing it and I was pastor at the Watsonville Church, and people were asking me about my research and so on, and Dr. Raymond C.’s tape was out, and I had some very professional PhD type and MD elders on my church board so I felt free to give it to them and say, “Let’s consider this,” because I had always thought that truth was the hallmark of Adventism and I’ve always sought for truth. I mean, I always want to be a truth seeker.
Well, the quote hit the fan about that time. I got a call from the Conference president, he wanted to talk to me and he said, “I understand you shared all that.” Anyway, to make a long story short, I told him I could not preach the Investigative Judgment. He said, “Well, you’ve got to do it.” I said, “I can’t unless you can show me how to do it.” Well, he had me meet with two people, Harold West who was a ministerial secretary like over the pastors, and Dr. Z. who pastored a large Adventist church in the San Jose area. He had been at the Glacier View trial and he had read that 1,000 page manuscript too.
So we met for four hours, it was recorded. They never gave me a copy and I know it will never be released because both admitted in private that Daniel 8 probably referred to Antiochus Epiphanes. We should not use Ellen White for doctrine. And there was no problem with, you know… Two weeks later at a camp meeting, they were up in front quoting Ellen White, promoting the same Adventist and I began to lose faith in the personnel of Adventism. One day, Harold West knew I was struggling. He took me aside and it was a camp meeting, he took me for a walk and he said, “Dale, let’s go for a walk. I want to talk to you.” So he wanted to go for a walk where nobody could hear us and he said, “Dale, we both know the doctrine is wrong. It’s not our fault. We can’t do anything about it. Look at the church as your employer and do what you can with a clear conscience and don’t make any waves and you’ll be fine. Good retirement here.” And I said, “Harold, God called me to teach the truth of the Gospel. Maybe I’m in the wrong denomination.”
Well, the day came when we resigned. We had to. At the time, we had just built a new house and that was in the eighties. Our first loan was 12%, our second was 18. My wife was employed at the church. She was an evangelistic Bible worker like my grandmother. We thought we’d probably lose our house. We didn’t. The Lord provided and when I left, I had determined we would never speak against Adventism. I didn’t want to be one of these, you know, people.
Larry. Sour grapes people.
Dale. Right. But then over the years, I started a church, mostly former Adventists, a lot of the people, a lot of members of the Watsonville Church came with me when I left and we started a church. It’s in my book, “Truth Led Me Out.”
Larry. In fact, you kept the name Adventist in the name of that church. What was the name of that church?
Dale. Yeah. Well, at first it was the Biblical Adventist Church, and then we got all kinds of flack from that.
Larry. Who was giving you the flack?
Dale. Well, the church was, the Adventist church.
Larry. Seventh-day Adventists were giving you a hard time about using that name because they didn’t consider it you part of them anymore.
Dale. Right. In fact, some of our friends at Monterey Bay Academy, and we have still friends out there, were coming to our church and they got a letter from the Conference president that said, “If you continue that, you’re going to lose your job.” So they didn’t want anybody to come to our church.
Larry. So they were threatening them with their employment.
Dale. So we changed the name to Biblical Fellowship Church. Now, two years after I left, by the way, this is a good insight, I decided I’d put the writings of Ellen White, I’d pick out all of her books and she’s written a stack of books about that high, put them in the garage, and I said I will not look at these for six months.