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 Pacific Union Recorder
Refuses to Run
a Paid SDA Forum Ad
by Nic Samojluk
I want to share with you a letter I sent to the publisher of the Pacific Union Recorder after a SDA Forum paid advertisement was turned down for obvious reasons. The church so far has refused to publish my views on abortion, but has no problem accepting my tithes and offerings!
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Dear Gerry Chudleigh,
Thanks for your E-mail explaining the guidelines of your publication. I understand them, and they make a lot of sense. My frustration Tuesday morning when your secretary called was due to two factors: A. A business of mine, on which my livelihood depends, went sower. B. I did not expect the extra requirement for a simple short ad. Had I suspected that it would require a letter from my pastor to have the ad published by you, I would never have spent the time to go through the motions of submitting my add to you. This does not excuse, of course, the way I handled the call, and I apologize. When the idea of submitting my ad to your magazine crossed my mind, the only requirement I noticed was the following: "Advertising is limited to Adventists in regular standing."
I think I do meet this condition, since I have been in good standing with my church since I joined by baptism 60 years ago, and the proof is that my tithes and offerings were routinely accepted since then without any objection, except for two instances when I send a donation to my local church and to the General Conference designated as Pro-Life donations. Those donations were refused and the checks were returned. This was hard to understand for me, since we have defended the Ten Commandments since times immemorial, and one of them clearly prohibits the taking of innocent life.
Another evidence of my good standing with the church is that God allowed me to be instrumental in collecting funds for the building of several small churches in the former Soviet Union, and your paper did publish a story about this almost two decades ago. I sent those funds through the General Conference, and they were accepted. I also served the church in the mission field at what is now known as River Plate University for seven years, and remained in good standing until I returned to California.
You can verify this by checking the church records. I have no doubt that I could secure a letter from my pastor here at the Loma Linda University Church, but I would not bother him for a simple small add in your publication, and I had no plans to ask my pastor for said letter either. As far as the $65 dollars check, you have no need to refund this to me. I have donated to my church a million times that sum in my life time. You can apply this to any church sponsored project.
I think that your decision not to allow the advertising of any independent organizations is a wise one, and I am glad that you clarified this to me. You have no time to monitor what I publish in my independent web site, and I would not want to be subjected to any oversight by anybody with the exception of God. I am in good standing with my church, as I stated before, but there is one major point where we disagree: I am Pro-Life, and my church is Pro-Choice. This issue is not negotiable, and my pastor knows this, and it is no problem with him. The proof is that my tithes and offerings are not rejected because of this disagreement. We are on good terms, in spite of our divergent views on this issue.
If I had to join the church today, I would probably have a hard time doing so because of this, and I know several individuals who have left the church because of the church's defense of women's right to kill their unborn, as reflected by the opinion of John V. Stevens, which you recently published, who is still defending this position, and arguing that Jesus died in order that women might have the freedom to kill their unborn babies. This is so outrageous that I am having trouble finding the right words to express my abhorrence towards this notion. His position on abortion is reflected by the official document of the church known as Guidelines on Abortion.
If Stevens argument is correct, then perhaps we could also argue that Jesus died to make sure men would have the freedom to rape and murder women, and for child molesters to keep sexually abusing innocent children. I have been tempted to leave the church, but there is no denomination that keeps the Sabbath and is Pro-Life at the same time. Southern Baptists are Pro-Life, but they keep the wrong day. The Seventh Day Baptists keep the correct day of the week, but are Pro-Abortion like my church.
I believe that my church is repeating what took place in Germany under Hitler. You might be aware that recently the German and Austrian SDA leaders issued a declaration apologizing for the role of the SDA church during the Nazi regime when the church supported what Hitler was doing instead of standing for those destined to the death camps. Now history is repeated while the genocide against the unborn is taking place, and I have a hard time finding any SDA's media willing to publish my views on this issue, for which reason I started the SDA Forum website. I can predict that there will come a time when a future leader of the church will apologize for our silence while 47 millions of babies were either dismembered or poisoned before they had a chance to take their first breath.
This is not all. Right now the public is using vaccines manufactured with baby parts harvested while the babies are still alive, and I don't expect your publication or any other church organization to protest against this. It looks like we have a blind spot for anything that has to do with the slaughter of the unborn. Of course, any news about the Sabbath produces an immediate knee reaction in our midst, and we have spent a ton of ink on this subject. Do you think that worshipping God on the wrong day of the week is more offensive to the Lord than butchering the most innocent members of the human race.
You have my permission to publish my comments in your magazine, but I don't believe you will. If you did, you might risk loosing your position, and this is understandable. I am including a couple of links for additional information about this highly controversial topic. And, by the way, we as a church have decided to stay away from the issue of abortion because it is controversial, but we have never refused to publish other controversial topics like the Sabbath and the use of Tobacco.
Can someone explain this to me? We have championed for many years the campaign against smoking because this unhealthy habit subtracts four or five years from the lives of smokers, but the unborn are deprived of their entire life span when abortion takes place, and we won't dare to move a finger to save them from the executioner's destroying power. If you do not agree with me on this, then read what James White wrote on the subject, which has been kept secret from our membership all these years.
Former SDA Religious Liberty Leader Still Defending Abortion
http://sdaforum.com/page67.html
A Corporate Apology From the German and Austrian SDA Church
http://sdaforum.com/page47.html
When does human life begin?
http://sdaforum.com/page53.html
Pacific Union Recorder's Response
by Gerry Chudleigh, publisher
I received the following explanation from the Pacific Union Recorder publisher regarding the management denial to publish an SDA Forum advertisement.
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Dear Mr. Samojluk,
Thank you for understanding. The check you sent is already in the mail back to you, so we don't have the option at this point to apply it to any project here.
While I do not agree entirely with your position, I do hope the church -- sooner, rather than later -- develops the courage to discuss the issue of abortion. We do not intend to continue the discussion in the Recorder, which is a news journal, not a theological journal, but I would like you to remember that the discussion started with a Recorder editorial condemning abortion and ended with a letter to the editor condemning abortion. In between, one letter from a reader presented an alternative viewpoint. Some have proclaimed loudly that the Recorder never should have published the middle letter, but it is that attitude -- that no opinion but one's own should be expressed -- that makes any constructive discussion nearly impossible today.
Gerry Chudleigh, publisher
Pacific Union Recorder
My Follow-up Letter
by Nic Samojluk
Here is my follow up letter to the Pacific Union Recorder publisher:
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Dear Gerry Chudleigh,
Thanks for your response. I am interested in the article condemning abortion you made reference to. Can you give me the Internet link to it, or the date of publication? Also, would you allow me to publish your response in my SDA Forum web site? I did publish my letter to you, and I would like to also publish your response to it.
PUR's Final Answer
by Gerry Chudleigh, publisher
I want to share with you the Pacific Union Recorder Publisher's response to my follow-up letter:
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Dear Mr. Samojluk,
If you were not familiar with the original article to which John Stevens objected, my reference to it as "a Recorder editorial condemning abortion" would lead you to expect more than was actually there. The article ("The Answer is Written in the Heart, Recorder, February 2006, p. 29) is not about abortion but about the Ten Commandments.
In that article Alan Reinach, director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty (PARL) for the Pacific Union Conference, says that abortion is a ten commandments issue, along with marriage, divorce and homosexuality. Reinach's statement clearly implies that abortion is condemned by the commandment not to kill.
In the March issue, former PARL director John Stevens disagrees, saying abortion is not a ten commandments issue, or even a biblical issue. And in the April issue, another reader, Kathleen Jones, says, yes it is.
As I said in an earlier message, the Recorder is a news journal, not a theological journal, so our editor does not plan to continue the discussion at this time.
You may include my comments on your website if you wish.
Gerry Chudleigh, publisher
Pacific Union Recorder
The Recorder archives can be accessed at www.pacificunionrecorder.com
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Shouting From the Rooftop
by Nic Samojluk
Over a decade ago, when I first started publishing the SDA Forum, I remember that a well-known Loma Linda University professor, upon listening to my ardent defense of the pro-life agenda, exclaimed: You should proclaim this from the rooftops! Well, I have been trying to do this since then without success. The problem is that there is no way for me to get to the rooftop. All the stairways leading to the rooftop are blocked to me.
Back in the nineties the then editor of the Loma Linda University Church paper published an article condemning the activities of pro-lifers. I submitted a response asking for equal time. It was denied arguing that the topic was controversial. If the topic was controversial, then why did she publish her opinion condemning the work of pro-lifers? Then I made similar attempts with other Seventh-day publications, both official and independent, including Spectrum and Adventist Today. No luck!
On one occasion I submitted an article on a different topic to the Adventist Review. I received a response notifying me that my article had been accepted for publication, accompanied by a $50 dollar check. I am still waiting for them to publish what I wrote. I realized that it was hopeles to get anything published that deviated from the official position of the church and from the views of the majority of SDA's members. This is what prompted me to start my own web site, and this is how the SDA Forum started. The problem is: How do I get to the rooftop in order to announce to the adventist community that there is such a thing as a pro-life SDA Internet page?
The majority of SDA's think that women have the inalienable right to destroy human life before birth, in spite of the clear biblical condemnation of the shedding of innocent blood, and in spite of the clear condemnation of murder. If you say that pro-lifers are homophobic and that they break the law in their defense of the slaughter of the unborn, you get published; but if you want to defend the right to life of the defenseless, all the avenues leading to the rooftop are blocked to you! You are in the minority, and you have no right to express your opinion.
Everybody is encouraged to pay a faithful tithe and freewill offerings, including those in the minority, but when it comes to say what the Holy Spirit is impelling you to say in defense of the unborn, you have no right whatsoever, and even your paid advertisement is turned down! We have preached in defense of the Ten Commandments ad nauseam, but when it comes to living one of them which is not very popular, then all our committment to God's law is out the window! Nevertheless, let no one doubt that we are the Remnant church of God, keeping god's commandments! the church who has the last message to a perishing world.
This attitude of ours doesn't surprise me at all. This is exactly what took place in Nazi Germany; and recently, as I have stated already, the German and Austrian leaders of the SDA Church had to apologize for the SDA colaboration with Hitler while six million Jews were being exterminated. We are repeating the same mistake, and there is no way to turn the tide around! Forty seven million unborn babies have perished already, and there is no end in sight!
We have invested a ton of ink and large sums of money in condemning the unhealthful habit of smokers with the hope of extending their life by four or five years, but we won't move a finger to encourage pregnant women to extend the life of their unborn babies by an entire life span. We worship freedom, even the freedom to take the life of innocent human beings, forgetting that this freedom is killing the West. The average American and European women has approximately 1.3 babies, when 2.1 is needed to sustain our population at a stable level.
At the same time, we let legal and illegal foreigners to fill the vacuum. Some experts are predicting that at this rate Moslems will conquer Europe not by terrorism, but by the simple fact that they are emigrating to Europe, they are having large families, and they are slowly imposing their way of life on the West. Something similar is taking place in America. Illegals are beginning to demand non-existent rights, and our legislators seem to be powerless to solve this growing problem. A couple of decades we had three million illegals, now we have twelve, and at this rate, by mid century we will have fifty.
If you are one of the few people who somehow manage to read this posting, I would encourage you to state your opinion about this candent issue. Non-SDA pro-lifers are beginning to defend the validity of the Ten Commandments, while we are ignoring one of them, the one condemning murder. We have in the past criticized the Pope and labelled him as the prophetic Beast of Revelation. It is true, the Catholic church has altered the Fourth Commanment; but we are, for all practical purposes, altering the sixth one. Can this please the Lord? I don't think so! Will the fact that we worship God on the correct day of the week excuse us this oversight? I doubt! Those who crucified the Lord did that: They killed the innocent and hurried to keep the Sabbath!
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