Robert Daniel "Bob" Brinsmead[1][2] (born 9 August 1933, in Victoria, Australia) is a formerly controversial figure within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1960s and 1970s who is known for his diverse theological journey.
In the late 1970s, he again underwent another theological shift and changed his focus from a call to return to Reformation principles to that of systematically questioning and discarding many of the doctrines he had held.
A side effect of this activity was the commissioning of an independent study and report on the basis for Christian beliefs on final punishment or hell by Edward Fudge.
Brinsmead's Verdict Publications published the first edition of the resulting book The Fire That Consumes subtitled A Biblical and Historical Study of Final Punishment.
Richard Schwarz wrote in 1979, "Although there had been dissident groups in the church from its start, none was more troublesome to Adventist leaders than [Brinsmead's]".
According to Larry Pahl, "The name of Robert D. Brinsmead was once capable of evoking strong emotion and division in the Adventist circles brave and informed enough to discuss his controversial ideas.
"[4] His lessened influence is seen in the writings of the Standish brothers, "In the 1980s it is difficult to believe the emotive reaction which the name Brinsmead conjured up in the minds of the majority of Seventh-day Adventists in Australia two decades earlier.
According to one report, towards the close of the Glacier View meeting, "a small group of church executives" confronted Ford with ultimatums such as "Publicly denounce Robert Brinsmead as a troublemaker and heretic or hand in your credentials.
"[4] In 1999 Raymond Cottrell observed: "Robert Brinsmead’s repeated and mutually contradictory positions over the years, together with his dogmatic public insistence on each of them successively, is clear evidence of immaturity.
Robert developed a form of perfectionism after reading the writings of A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner[9] (of 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session fame).
His primary opponents were his friend and former classmate Desmond Ford, for sixteen years head of the Department of Religion at Avondale College, Hans LaRondelle of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University,[3] and Edward Heppenstall,.
The resulting Awakening movement had its own campmeetings, publications[16] and songbook,[17] and the controversy led to Adventist members in Australia and the United States being disfellowshipped.
[8] A few weeks later Robert and John came to the General Conference offices and requested a hearing, and a committee which included Cottrell met the brothers.
[9] He began to target Present Truth at Adventists and also other Christians,[9] with a more evangelical message, and a central focus on the Protestant principle of justification by faith alone.
A survey of issues of Present Truth throughout the 1970s[19] indicated that he studied a wide range of 16th-century Protestant Reformation scholars, including John Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon, and Martin Chemnitz.
In 1972, Brinsmead and his wife Valorie (born 1939, originally from Cootamundra, NSW) purchased the property which they developed into "Tropical Fruit World" in northern New South Wales.
He rejected the roots of the Adventist movement and its prophetic interpretations, the doctrine of the heavenly sanctuary, and the inspiration of Ellen White, and the Sabbath.