By Rosemary Jackson
Brad Rosenquist graduated in 1968. In 1983 he requested that his name be removed from the SCC mailing list.
He stated that he was a member and a deacon in the Worldwide Church of God, where his loyalties and beliefs now centered.
I wrote him back and suggested that he leave his name on the Southern California College alumni list because, as an alumnus, he would forever be a part of the Southern California College family. He consented!
Through the years he received copies of the Alumni News and the College Spirit. At various chapter meetings and class reunions, his classmates inquired about him.
A couple of years ago, he wrote thanking us for keeping him on the mailing list and to give us a change of address.
Brad completed student teaching in La Puente [California] in the summer of 1968. That fall he began his career in education teaching Life Science at Compton Junior High.
But the Vietnam War intervened and, by April 1969, he received a draft notice.
Brad ended up in Denver, Colorado, as a physiotherapy specialist at Fitzsimons General Army Hospital, where he began his spiritual trek through the Worldwide Church of God (headquartered in Pasadena, California). While in the military, he took the Bible Correspondence Course, offered free of charge over the World Tomorrow broadcast. He was baptized and became a regular member.
Upon his release from the military, Brad returned to California, where he went back to teaching in the Bakersfield City Schools for what would be a career of 25 years--until they moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
By the time he left Bakersfield, he had spent 131/2 years as a central office administrator with the last four years as a resource specialist.
While attending the local congregation of the Worldwide Church of God, Brad met and married Carol Holfelder. He became a true blue member of the church and worked very diligently at understanding the doctrine.
He seized opportunities to lead congregational singing and preach sermonettes. The church was very confident that it was the one and only true church, historically tied together through the ages since the first century of the apostles.
One of the "proofs" was the fact that they still kept the seventh day Sabbath and the Old Testament Holydays as listed in Leviticus 23.
As time went on into the 1980s for Brad, he was ordained a deacon in the church, a job that entailed some spiritual leadership duties, but mainly management of physical matters.
He says, "My salvation from that point on was dependent upon my efforts to become righteous ... to become perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect. We really were into the extremes of working out our own salvation with fear and trembling."
Before Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong died in 1986, he had appointed Mr. Joseph W. Tkach Sr., as his successor, with the encouragement to look carefully at some of their beliefs, especially that aspect of what they believed which would foster more of the love of God in their families and congregations worldwide.
As the new chief pastor of the Worldwide Church of God, Mr. Tkach set out to really dig into the Bible for a clearer understanding of the New Covenant.
One by one, he recognized some basic flaws in their doctrine. They acknowledged such things as when a person accepts Christ as Savior, that person is born again, instead of their previous belief--that they are born again only when Christ returns and they are changed from mortal to spirit.
Most recently, Brad states: "We now see that the Law was made obsolete by the coming of the New Covenant, in that Christ fulfilled the law. No longer do we hold to the belief that Christ fulfilled it so we could be empowered to keep the law as he did.
"The relief from the burden of trying to keep the law so we could be good enough to maintain our relationship with God is such an incredible joy."
But with this great joy and deliverance, Brad asks for continued prayer for the Worldwide Church of God because about 30 percent have left this fellowship to form new groups that want to, and do, continue the old legalistic doctrines.
It is traumatic to those whose family members still lean in this legalistic direction. Thankfully, his wife, Carol, and children (Erik, 20; Maegan, 18; Erin, 16) have all come through these glorious changes intact.
Brad continues to serve the local congregation in Nashville as an elder. He is an ordained minister, but now an ordained minister with the New Covenant. He expresses sincere appreciation to his friends for their love and patience to him over the years.
He is now writing a book about his experience from a personal perspective, and hopes it will be helpful to those even slightly caught up in the deception of legalism.
For an entire worldwide church to make this significant turn with such sweeping and profoundly different doctrinal understanding and approach is according to some "unprecedented."
Brad believed for 25 years that this was the only true church, and now he says, "it is clear to me that this is only one of countless denominations that believe the most important truth of the Gospel--that Jesus Christ has died in our place and has made salvation available to all. All we need to do is accept what Christ has done once and for all."
This article about Brad Rosenquist, a local church leder in Nashville, Tennessee, is excerpted from the July-August issue of Spirit magazine, an alumni publication of Southern California College. It is reprinted by permission.
Nov. 19, 1996, Worldwide News, page 15
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