The devil has a thousand ways of opposing and besmirching truth in his attempt to bring confusion and revulsion to the minds of honest seekers after light. His bag of tricks seems never to run out. One of his old favorites has been by direct attack, from those not of our faith, upon the basic truths of the message—the law, the Sabbath, salvation by grace, the atonement, the nature of man, and other cardinal positions of present truth. This has succeeded in turning many an inquirer away from further investigation of this message. If the un-Biblical positions sometimes imputed to us were actually ours, we, too, would repudiate and oppose Adventism. But these charges are unfounded falsehoods. We are sound evangelicals.
Satan's flanking attacks through apostate Ad ventists have sometimes proved to be a still more effective method of opposing the onward march of truth. By distorted twists, garbled quotations, and clever misrepresentations, opposition is made more appealing. Seeming to speak from "inside" knowledge, and apparently quoting from unim peachable sources, our opposers fabricate twisted concepts and create distorted pictures that succeed in turning many of the uninformed away in dis gust and resentment. If such plausible assertions were true, we could not blame them. We would follow the same course.
Perhaps the most revolting of all new attacks is for a "neuro-fatigued" former "theological stu dent" with a distorted mind to fall a prey to nudism, and then to publish unblushingly in a nudist journal that he is "a Seventh-day Adventist nudist" in "good standing" in the church. More serious still is an attempt to support and justify this unseemly course and to attempt to entice others into it by alleging that certain other Ad ventists are likewise nudists. And—most blas phemous allegation of all—is the assertion that this "form of life" is supported by "our prophetess" in her simple advocacy of "sunshine" as one of God's natural remedies for disease and a promoter of health. The foul implication is then made that this expression really means "social sun bathing" in mixed nudist companies.
This lying slander is unfounded in any single fact. The unfortunate former student, after earnest but futile efforts had been made to change his way of thought, was disfellowshiped by the church for his unseemly conduct, as was the other "Adventist" mentioned, some three years prior.
He therefore has no "standing or place of any sort in the church. And the insinuation that Ministry of Healing endorses nudism is a libelous product of a diseased imagination. It is a black lie against the spotless white championship of purity, modesty, morality, and the accepted canons of -decency adhered to undeviatingly in all Spirit of prophecy writings from 1844 on to their close in 1915. This position has likewise been held without deviation by the church throughout its entire history. Never in all our history has it even been suggested that such a practice might have any approval. Such a suggestion would be revolt ing to any true Seventh-day Adventist.
We cannot allow such slimy charges or filthy insinuations as contained in that article to pass without instant challenge and denial. Our record is as clear as the noonday sun. Regrettably, the article is being used by certain opposers of truth to turn away inquirers from the faith. If its allegations were true, we would all turn away from it. But there is not a scintilla of truth therein. We must scotch every lie that wriggles out of the pit of darkness.
L. E. F.
