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Concerning the Shofar Magazine
Self-Described Latter Day Pioneers
The Shofar magazine, is a small Unamended magazine published by Dick Pursell and his two sons Alan and Paul. It has made a reputation for itself by making challenges to 'conservative' or traditional Christadelphian positions its stock-in-trade. As far as the Shofar magazine is concerned, there may be elements of the Gospel truth that have not yet been discovered and the editors of this magazine regularly remind their readership that they are "independent thinkers"*. They cast themselves as latter day pioneers who are busy digging out hidden gospel truths. There are some brethren who want to read a magazine which is still searching for principles of the Gospel and the Shofar has made that search its banner. As such, the trumpet these editors offer is anything but a certain sound.
* If the readers will consult the sources the editors use to "dig out" these "truths" they might not be so impressed since their sources, as a rule, are 'scholars' of the apostasy. "Independent thinking" therefore, in this case really means, non-Christadelphian thinking.
Dogmatic Until They Receive Criticism
The magazine features dogmatic articles, such as on how the Hebrew muth-te-muth must be interpreted, despite long-standing Christadelphian expositions which disagree.
The magazine denounces elements of the brotherhood as Judaizers and legalistic (!) But when the magazine itself comes under fire, "tolerance", and "esteeming one another" become the watch-words of the editorial board.
Anonymous Endorsements
Interestingly, the magazine has a long history of receiving glowing praise from correspondents whose names are routinely withheld from publication. Obviously someone, on one end or the other, has something to hide, which is remarkable since these endorsements are related to expressions of individuals' faith.
Hating Legalism?
Recently the magazine has been on a crusade to convince it's readership that baptized believers are in present possession of eternal life. Mind you, the argument is based on a legal claim (a word that has become synonymous with the magazine's spiritual father, J. J. Andrew), while the magazine simultaneously rails against "legalism"!
Scapegoating Outsiders to Drum Up Native Support
The latest doctrine of the Shofar magazine has raised a significant protest from some quarters of the Unamended community. The Shofar editors have therefore, as part of their efforts to bolster native support for the magazine's doctrines, gone out of their way to attack traditional foes of Unamended teaching. The March 2007 issue includes attacks (through selective quotations) upon Robert Roberts, clean flesh and its advocates and those who have opposed Unamended teachings.
The quote from brother Roberts (as footnoted above) was not consistent with many other things written by brother Roberts during his lifetime. But the Pursells had no interest in examining and presenting a fair "balance" (another key word of the magazine) of a traditional foe of Unamended teaching. Perhaps Dick Pursell's prophetical claims from the last 15 years could be put in the Shofar's own 'balances' and weighed?
Saving The Children -- The Banner of Most Rotten Causes
Of course, no cause needing to bolster itself can go without claiming to be a champion of the community's children: a point the magazine claims a number of times:
False Quotations
The March 2007 issue of Shofar magazine claims to quote from Advocatism Exposed (a.k.a. The Truth Affirmed) as shown in the following image. However, the quotation is not from Advocatism Exposed. Nor did it come from a draft of the book. Nor was it ever the contention of the book Advocatism Exposed (a.k.a. The Truth Affirmed) that the Unamended believe they physically pass out of Adam at baptism.
Nor has it ever been the books' authors assertion that any Unamended brethren believe they are immortal at baptism. Frankly, we would have viewed a man believing he was immortal at baptism as attributable to mental illness rather than to a doctrinal error. It would have rightly been viewed as an error that time would soon have fixed, rather than an error that would live 113 years.
When the Shofar Editors Misrepresent Their Own Works
But these are not the only misrepresentations the Shofar magazine engages in. The magazine republished J. J. Andrew's article The Two Aspects of Salvation showing within the article an inset of The Sanctuary Keeper. This obviously suggests to the Shofar readership that the article was originally published in The Sanctuary Keeper. If the article appeared in a traditional/historical Unamended magazine then the Shofar would be justified in publishing it as well.
It's quite ironic that The Shofar magazine would turn to the final writings of J. J. Andrew to support their doctrine. No mainstream Christadelphians of any fellowship would support the claims of J. J. Andrew's final publication, but even those are not too bizarre for The Shofar magazine. Sadly, the teachings now being promoted are more at home at Harding University than in a Christadelphian magazine.
Few readers would have noticed the byline which indicates the Shofar editorship knew the article was not from The Sanctuary Keeper but wanted to align it with the magazine as closely as they could to bolster their doctrinal and historical claims:
The foundational doctrines of what J. J. Andrew teaches in The Two Aspects of Salvation are found in The Sanctuary Keeper (do a search on "two aspects" across all Sanctuary Keeper magazines) but the article itself never appeared in The Sanctuary Keeper as the inset clearly suggests.
When Admissions Don't Go Far Enough
It is a real irony that the editors of the Shofar magazine, in the process of trying to clear their own name and their embattled author Kyle Tucker, conveniently misrepresent their foes and their own historical writings. It may profit them in the present day of battle, but it will hardly help at the judgment seat of Christ (or is that doctrine now disputed as well?). Perhaps the editors of the Shofar might, in the midst of such deceptions, practice what they encourage their own readership to do: "so let a man examine himself" (p. 21).
"Brethren, we can do better"This witness is true...
