area. During his early childhood his parents were a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, a German splinter group that broke away from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the World War I era over military service and conscription. They rejoined the mainstream church when he was 10. According to Schwarz, this background gave him a disposition that was skeptical towards church leadership; although this assertion was removed when Floyd Greenleaf revised Schwarz' work. As a youth he ran a large family banana plantation (near the location of what would become the tropical fruit theme park), and later sugar cane and banana plantations deep in the Queensland jungle. He spent his personal time doing study and research into theology. Avondale College (late 1950s) Brinsmead enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts in theology at Avondale College in 1955 when he was in his mid-twenties. One of his older brothers, John, also enrolled at the college in this year. Robert developed a form of perfectionism after reading the writings of A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner (of 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session fame). His final year was 1958.<ref name="PTM36">"Editorial Introduction" by Robert Brinsmead. Present Truth Magazine''' Volume 36</ref> While still a student, Brinsmead was disfellowshipped from the church in 1961 for his writings on "perfectionism", which would be his theme for the 1960s. Brinsmead wrote he "retained lay membership in the church until 1962." However he would remain closely involved with the church for another two decades. John was also disfellowshipped, and together they formed the "Sanctuary Awakening Fellowship". While it was based in the United States, it also influenced Africa and Asia. Perfectionist era (1960s) Brinsmead's early views were a fanatical expression of "historic Adventism". 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, and Edward Heppenstall,. In the 1960s he advocated a form of perfectionism which he described as the "Sanctuary Awakening" or "Awakening" message. The "sanctuary" element referred to the distinctive Seventh-day Adventist theological understanding of events believed to have begun in the year 1844 in a heavenly sanctuary, of which the earthly sanctuary in the Old Testament was understood to be a figure and "type". Brinsmead believed that after Jesus concluded his mediatorial work in the heavenly sanctuary with the "blotting