Former Adventist friends share comfort food and reminisce at a Great Contentment party on the 175th anniversary of the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844. Podcast was published October 23, 2019. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Colleen: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And before we get started, I just want to remind you that if you have questions, comments, or subjects you’d like to hear us discuss, please feel free to email us at formeradventist@gmail.com. We also appreciate your support and donations, which make this podcast possible. To donate online, you may go to proclamationmagazine.com, and there is a place there to do online donations, and you may also request our biyearly printed magazine if you would like, and our weekly email. So, Nikki, what’s tonight?
Nikki: Tonight is October 22, 2019.
Colleen: And that is the 175th anniversary of…
Colleen and Nikki: The Great Disappointment.
Colleen: So, you ask, “What’s the Great Disappointment?” Well, in 1844, October 22, William Miller had predicted that Jesus would return that night, and many people went out into the fields and stood on rocks and on mountains waiting for him. They’d left their crops unharvested; they’d left their homes, their businesses. Many of them wore, oddly enough, ascension robes, waiting for the coming of Jesus. But when He didn’t come, pandemonium reigned. Many people became so depressed they went back home, didn’t know how they would eat the rest of the year, and went off into other cults or pagan religions.
Nikki: And I read just last week that 30 people went into the insane asylum following the Great Disappointment.
Colleen: Well, in a way it’s not surprising, but it’s horrifying.
Nikki: It’s very sad. I also read that some of them were waiting for the Lord in trees. They climbed trees.
Colleen: Oh, my. And I heard a story of a man who mocked the people waiting for Jesus to come, and he went out at midnight and played his trumpet in loud blasts, hoping to confuse them.
Nikki: That’s horrible [laughter.].
Colleen: I know! That’s probably what drove them into the insane asylum. [laughter]. But, there was a little band of people – later they called themselves “The Little Flock” – that became the Seventh-day Adventist church. They refused to believe the date-setting was wrong. They refused to believe that the date was wrong and that nothing had happened, insisting that they had just gotten the event wrong. The most astonishing thing happened the next day. Hiram Edson was standing in a cornfield, and he had a vision of what really happened. He saw Jesus going from the Holy Place in heaven into the Most Holy Place in the presence of the Father for the first time in history, and He began the work of atonement, finishing the work of atonement that was not completed on the cross. So that became known as the investigative judgment that began that night in heaven, and that became the central doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist church. How embarrassing is that?
Nikki: It’s really sad.
Colleen: It is. And it’s a little horrifying to think that that was what defined the core of the church we left.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So tonight we are remembering the Great Disappointment in a special way. What are we doing?
Nikki: We are having a party that we’re calling The Great Contentment, because we are content in Christ, and we are content to know only what he wants us to know, and so we’ve gathered together with a bunch of friends who used to be in Adventism as well, and we’re eating Freedom Food. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Yes. What did you bring Nikki?
Nikki: Well, actually I brought Orange Chicken, which isn’t all that spectacular, because I realize that it was a clean meat, but I had such terrible food aversions in Adventism, and even for a little while afterwards, and Orange Chicken was the first meat I ever ate as a Christian. We went to P.F. Chang’s in the desert, and I remember praying through that first bite –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – thanking God and telling myself also, “This is food; God gave me this. This is food,” and thanking Him. And it ended up becoming my favorite meal, and I remember the very first time I wrote for Proclamation! blog, I was sitting on my couch with a pile of Panda Express Orange Chicken –
Colleen: [Laughter.] Awesome.
Nikki: – and I just thought it would be appropriate to bring that tonight.
Colleen: That’s awesome. And it is delicious. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] Well, what about you?
Colleen: Well, I made chicken soup and did not grow up making or eating chicken soup, for that matter, but it’s easy to make and quite good, and we’ve kind of grown to think of it as our group comfort food.
Nikki: Yes, we have.
Colleen: And I also made fresh rosemary bread, and we are eating it warm.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: We didn’t let it cool. [Laughter.] Well, we’re going to talk to each of our Great Contentment party guests tonight.
Nikki: Yes, this is going to be fun.
Colleen: So you all can meet some of our local former Adventists, and if you come to town, you can join us on Friday nights and study the Bible with us. Okay, right now we have Cheryl Granger with us. Cheryl is a board member for Life Assurance Ministries, and I always refer people to an article she wrote in – was it 2014 or 2015: Where did the Adventist Health Message come from? What I remember about that article is that you were doing amazing research, and you became deathly ill just before you finished it, and I thought –
Cheryl: Yeah.
Colleen: – “We are not going to push her to finish this article,” and you got out of the hospital and finished that article, but it’s a masterpiece.
Nikki: It’s wonderful, and you can get it online.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: If you didn’t get the hard copy in the mail, you can go online and find it in the archives.
Colleen: Absolutely.
Cheryl: It’s quite long.
Colleen: And very well documented.
Cheryl: It’s over-documented. So –
Colleen: No.
Nikki: No; it was really good.
Colleen: Go ahead.
Cheryl: Well, I did that because if someone said, “She never said that,” I would prove she had.
Colleen: Right. And you did prove it.
Cheryl: I did.
Colleen: So, what did you think of the Great Disappointment as an Adventist?
Cheryl: You know, I was a very good girl Adventist, and thinking about this, I just knew it was real, I believed it. I believed what I had been taught. I guess I was sad that – or felt guilty because I knew Ellen White had said that if we had really gotten our act together as a church, then Christ would have already come back, so that was a big burden to carry.
Colleen: It was a big burden.
Cheryl: Yeah, a big burden.
Nikki: So, can I ask a question about that?
Cheryl: Um-hmm.
Nikki: Was Ellen White referring to October 22nd, was she saying that if they had had their act together then, He would have come back?
Colleen: I don’t think so.
Cheryl: No, uh-uh.
Nikki: So this was later in her ministry.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Nikki: Okay.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Cheryl: The worst thing about the Great Disappointment was that is where the investigative judgment doctrine came from, which is – that I’ve got an opinion on.
[Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: Would you like to share your opinion, Cheryl?
Cheryl: Well, it was like, growing up under that was the most depressing thing ever.
Colleen: Yes.
Cheryl: It was horrid. And I knew I wouldn’t overcome all my sins. I knew I probably had forgotten to repent, and the more I tried not to sin, the worse I sinned.
Colleen: Right.
Cheryl: So I just knew I wasn’t going to heaven.
Colleen: Yeah. Wow.
Cheryl: So I was not looking forward to the Second Coming. It scared me.
Colleen: I shared that. It used to keep me awake at night.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Well, what about now? How do you relate to the Great Disappointment?
Cheryl: It just – it was a face-saving device. That’s very obvious. And when the Christian churches tried to tell them, “No man knows the day nor the hour,” then they just accused them of being on Satan’s side, and that’s how they dealt with it.
Colleen: Of course.
Cheryl: Yeah. And they were rather proud – when people left afterwards, after the disappointment, they were rather proud that they were still faithful.
Colleen: Yes. So, what’s your relationship to that fear and depression now?
Cheryl: It’s gone. [Laughter.]
Colleen: And what took it away?
Cheryl: The gospel, the biblical gospel.
Colleen: What is that?
Cheryl: Christ died, was buried, and rose again, according to the Scriptures, to pay for our sins, and that when we trust him as Savior, we pass from death into life.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Cheryl: So there’s no investigative judgment that’s horrendous. And the first time I heard about the investigative judgment being nonbiblical, I read the book of Hebrews, and when I read it, I realized: If Christ sat down at the right hand of God the Father when Hebrews was written, then Ellen was a false prophet.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Cheryl: No-brainer.
Colleen: I still think that’s a most amazing insight, to just absolutely read that book and go to, “She was a false prophet.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Cheryl: She should have known that.
Colleen: She should have. If she were a prophet of God, she would have known.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Colleen: So. Oh, my. Here we are —
Cheryl: And that fear is gone.
Colleen: It’s a wonderful thing. And here we are, having a Great Contentment party –
Cheryl: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – eating comfort food, and celebrating that we are safe in Jesus.
Cheryl: Yes. Passed from death to life. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Cheryl: We can know we’re saved.
Colleen: Absolutely.
Cheryl: The Bible says.
Colleen: Yes.
Cheryl: Which Ellen said was a sin to say.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We really were rescued from deep darkness.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Colleen: Well, thank you for joining us on this night of the Great Disappointment/Great Contentment, and we’re going to call our next guest in.
Cheryl: Okey doke.
Colleen: Thank you so much for sharing with us.
Nikki: Thank you, Cheryl.
Cheryl: All right.
Colleen: All right.
Cheryl: Talk to you later.
Colleen: All right.
Nikki: Okay, so our next guest is Sharon Carey. She is the wife of one of our board members, Martin Carey, and we’re really glad you came to talk to us, Sharon.
Sharon: Oh, thank you.
Nikki: First of all, we have to ask, what did you bring to eat tonight to the Great Contentment party.
Sharon: [Laughter.] Well, I brought shrimp.
Nikki: Umm.
Sharon: Yeah. Not just any shrimp, though. I learned how to put a nice glaze of butter and garlic on it.
Colleen: It was good.
Sharon: Yeah. I’m glad you liked it.
Colleen: Thank you. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Sharon, you always amaze me, your courage in the kitchen with meat. I love it. [Laughter.]
Sharon: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] I do too.
Nikki: So we’re talking about the Great Disappointment, as you know. What did you think of it as an Adventist?
Sharon: Well, first of all, I was a very bad student. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Sharon: And I would mix up all the craziness, because it’s the only way I guess I could deal with it, so I thought that the Falling of the Stars and the Great Disappointment all happened at the same time.
Colleen: They were kind of taught together, weren’t they?
Sharon: Yeah, and you know, I have the artwork in my mind because I’m a visual learner –
Colleen: Oh, right.
Sharon: – and so I have the image of the people standing on the hill looking up to the sky and seeing stars falling, and yeah, so –
Colleen: I had forgotten about that.
Nikki: Interesting.
Colleen: And I remember being confused because the Dark Day was in the late 1700s, and the stars fell 10 or 11 years before the Great Disappointment, and I couldn’t see how that was the same event.
Sharon: [Laughter.]
Nikki: So what did you think about this event being really the launch pad of Seventh-day Adventism.
Sharon: While I was an Adventist?
Nikki: Yeah.
Sharon: Um, so first of all, I was an Adventist from birth to age 39, so that might, you know, be important to know as a background. I thought that it was very confusing and sad for them, but I was happy because I wasn’t born yet, so –
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] So now you are.
Sharon: – so you know, I didn’t – in my mind, I didn’t exist. I didn’t think that I existed, and I just, you know, that was then, this is now kind of an attitude.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Sharon: And, um, yeah. Later, actually when I was 38 or 39 I tried to start making sense of it. My brother, who was a seminary student at the time, explained it to me, and as he was explaining it, it made sense; and the second that he stopped talking, it did not make any sense.
Nikki: Oh, I understand that phenomenon.
Colleen: Me too.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: What do you think now when you think about the Great Disappointment?
Sharon: Well, sad, but in a different way.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: What’s the way?
Sharon: Well, now I think of it as, you know, sad that these people set a date and have yet to repent.
Colleen: That’s true.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Sharon: And now, I just think that it’s something that I really wish the Adventist church as a whole would denounce.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Sharon: And that they would come to Christ and see that He’s paid it all.
Colleen: Exactly. But it’s hard to denounce your central core doctrine.
Sharon: Right.
Colleen: Yeah.
Sharon: Yeah, and I think it’s a pride thing.
Colleen: Yes.
Sharon: So it’s sad.
Colleen: It is.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Sharon: [Laughter.] Sorry to keep using the same word, but that’s just –
Colleen: No, it’s okay.
Sharon: – it’s just what comes to mind.
Colleen: So when you think – and I know you have Adventist family that you love dearly. When you think of them, if you could say anything you wanted to say on this night of the Great Disappointment, what would it be?
Sharon: I would say, “Please pray that God would open your eyes to the truth. You can know the truth, but you have to be willing to ask God with a really open heart to show you.”
Colleen: Yes.
Sharon: And if you’re going to hold on to any part of what you think you already know, you’re not ready.
Colleen: That’s a good point.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s a really good point, Sharon.
Nikki: Wow.
Colleen: Thank you so much for joining us.
Sharon: You’re welcome.
Colleen: We’ll let you go back to your shrimp and cookies. [Laughter.]
Sharon: [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] Thanks, Sharon.
Sharon: You’re welcome.
Colleen: And we’ll bring in the next person. Thanks for sharing.
Sharon: My pleasure.
Colleen: Now we’re going to talk to Steve Pitcher. Steve many of you may recognize from his articles over the years in Proclamation! Magazine, and we’re really glad that you’re here with us tonight enjoying the Great Contentment party. What did you bring for food tonight, Steve?
Steve: Oh, I brought the mustard potato salad, my specialty.
Nikki: You know, I was so glad to see that, especially because I read this week that they did not harvest their potatoes.
Steve: Oh, they didn’t?
Nikki: No, they did not, because they knew the Lord was coming. I thought, “We need to have potatoes.”
Steve: [Laughter.]
Colleen: And Steve provided those.
Nikki: Yes, he did.
Steve: Very cool.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: What better accompaniment for Orange Chicken.
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: So Steve, you did not grow up Adventist. How long were you Adventist? When did you become one, and when did you leave?
Steve: I was an Adventist for 18 years. I became an Adventist in, I want to say, 1986 or ’87.
Colleen: Okay.
Steve: Left in 2000 and then formally left in 2003 with a letter –
Colleen: Got it.
Steve: – to end my membership.
Colleen: So, coming into Adventism as you did, after being a Christian – correct?
Steve: Yes.
Colleen: Tell just briefly how you came in, because I think it’s worth people hearing how you came in.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Steve: Well, as a new Christian, I was proselytized by a number of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and people from The Way International, these different cults, and I went to look for resources on that, and I discovered Walter Martin. Actually, Walter Martin was shared with me when I was studying with the Mormons. I learned about Mormonism, about Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Way International and the Children of God and the Hare Krishnas from Walter Martin.
Colleen: Interesting.
Steve: And I began to trust him as an authority because he spoke with authority on these topics, and he was trustworthy. I knew he was trustworthy, because when I met with these people, they said the same things that he said they would say.
Nikki: Wow.
Colleen: Oh, that’s interesting. But then, what about the Adventist portion of this?
Steve: Well, he put the Adventists in the appendix of his book, “The Kingdom of the Cults,” so I read, like, about four pages of it, and it said early on, on like the second page, that we should accept Seventh-day Adventists as full brothers and sisters, as evangelicals, and we should not hold them to the same criteria we hold the other cults to.
Colleen: Oh, my.
Steve: I trusted him, and therefore, I didn’t even question Seventh-day Adventism.
Nikki: Right.
Steve: It was never a thought in my mind about Adventism.
Colleen: Wow.
Steve: That was until I met a single Adventist woman who was my nephew’s full-time nurse, and we started dating.
Colleen: Um-hmm. Fast-forward, you married.
Steve: We married. I became a Seventh-day Adventist. I believed that we should be at the same church. I didn’t see anything in Adventism that was a serious problem.
Colleen: So we’re going to just skip ahead to the point where you’re now out of Adventism, back in Christianity. When you look back on the Great Disappointment, what do you think now?
Steve: Oh, my goodness. It was just horrible. I was ashamed of it as an Adventist.
Colleen: Yes.
Steve: I was actually ashamed of the –
Colleen: Of that –
Steve: – of the investigative judgment.
Colleen: Yes.
Steve: Because by then I had heard Desmond Ford speak personally.
Colleen: Oh, got it. Yeah.
Steve: Through the Association of Adventist Forums.
Colleen: Um-hmm. And so what is it that you understand to be the truth instead of that judgment at this point?
Steve: Oh! Believers do not come into judgment. They go before Christ for judgment of works, but not for judgment of salvation.
Colleen: Right. We are out of judgment.
Steve: We don’t go through the White Throne Judgment.
Colleen: No.
Steve: That is for disbelievers only, for unbelievers only.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Right. Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining us and for giving us a little bit of your history and for sharing your impressions of that embarrassing Great Disappointment.
Steve: Yeah, thank you.
Colleen: Thank you so much.
Steve: Okay.
Nikki: Okay. So we’re here with our next guest, Martin Carey. You probably recognize his name. He’s one of our LAM board members. He’s a regular blogger and article writer, and if you’ve had the privilege of coming to one of the conferences, you’ve probably heard him in his break-out sessions. So, Martin, thank you for joining us.
Martin: You’re welcome.
Nikki: Now, before we start with the question of the Great Disappointment, tell us, how long were you an Adventist?
Martin: I was born an Adventist.
Nikki: Okay.
Martin: So that would be, umm, almost 50 years.
Nikki: Okay. So you grew up hearing about the Great Disappointment.
Martin: Definitely.
Nikki: What did you think about it?
Martin: Well, it depended on when you asked me. I remember hearing the story of the faithful band of beleaguered believers all in a little church up on a hill that fateful day, waiting for Christ to come, and they were singing and praying, and then, of course, they waited and waited, and midnight passed, and Jesus had not come. That story really had an effect on me.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Martin: I could kind of feel their disappointment. I thought at the time, “Why didn’t they know any better than that? After all the discussion and all the prayer, how come they didn’t know?”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That’s a good question. Not bad for a kid to ask too.
Nikki: Right.
Martin: It was just bewildering to me.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Martin: It didn’t really make sense.
Colleen: So as you grew, one thing that’s, I think, interesting about your growing up is that you did grow up somewhat in the Brinsmead movement, at least your mother was in the Brinsmead movement. Did that affect how you saw the Great Disappointment? Was there any kind of emphasis on that?
Martin: That’s a good question to ask me. I hadn’t really thought of that, but I’m realizing that as a kid the early Brinsmead movement in the 1960s up until about 1970, had a great emphasis on being ready for the latter rain, ready for Christ’s coming, this final perfection that was to take place. God would take away our sinful nature before He came, and we would stop sinning.
Nikki: Wow.
Martin: So that kind of colored the story of the Great Disappointment. We thought that we had to be at least as good as they were, as far as being ready, being pious, being desiccated – desiccated, no.
Colleen: [Laughter.] Felt like it, huh?
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Martin: [Laughter.] That was a pure mistake, I promise you. As dedicated as the Millerites were, there with their little band that was persecuted. But we had to be better, because this was going to be the real thing.
Colleen: Wow. So as Brinsmead changed his trajectory, moving out of historic Adventism towards reformed Christianity towards neo-Christianity, and you were growing up, you ended up in an agnostic place. How did all of that fit with your belief in the imminence of the return of the Lord and the need for perfection? What did you do with all that?
Martin: [Laughter.] It went into the great round file of doubt and uncertainty and –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Martin: – “Maybe that’s true, maybe that’s true, I don’t think so.” As an agnostic, I was kind of a – there are different kinds of agnostics, and for the most part, I was a semi-believing agnostic.
Colleen: Oh, interesting.
Martin: Part of me believed in God. I thought that Christianity might have some truth to it. I never wanted to get to the place where I was making fun of Jesus.
Colleen: That’s interesting.
Nikki: Yeah.
Martin: I had a sense that He might be more than just a man. Even though Brinsmead turned Him into just, you know, a pious example. Back to your questions, as far as the coming of Christ and the imminence of the end of the world, I pretty much threw that away as an agnostic. I really thought that, you know, the world goes in cycles, we’ve been here for millions and millions of years, things will just go on. We may destroy ourselves, but it has nothing to do with whether Jesus is coming.
Nikki: Hmm.
Colleen: Interesting. So today when you look back on the Great Disappointment and that investigative judgment and the need for perfection, what do you think today? What has changed for you?
Martin: Well, as a Christian who has a lot less trust in my own wisdom about making up my own reality – in fact, I frankly cannot – and believing the gospel, which has really been kind of a thing in a way that ruined my life [laughter.] –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Martin: – as far as my thinking, I had figured things out, and I knew how the world worked. Now, believing the gospel and knowing that in Christ I have what I need, in Christ I have wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, as Paul says, it is a very comforting thought to me, and I have to go back to Scripture every day to remind myself of this and kind of relearn the gospel in a way –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Martin: – because there’s a whole part of me that rebels against it that’s still there.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Martin: But the Lord is good. He’ll bring me back to that point very frequently [laughter].
Colleen: He does that, yes.
Martin: It’s called discipline.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] So Martin, tonight on this night of the Great Disappointment, when we are celebrating our Great Contentment in the Lord –
Martin: Yes.
Colleen: – what food did you bring?
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Martin: Let’s see, I brought shrimp [laughter].
Colleen: I love that! [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: How perfect is that? [Laughter.]
Martin: I like shrimp. They are these little swimming creatures that God made, and I’m sure he made them to be eaten.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Martin: That’s something we can enjoy with each other. If I’m with people who hate them and are offended, I won’t, but it’s something to share. There are many things in life now that I can share with joy with others in a Romans 14 kind of way.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Yes.
Martin: Respecting other people’s sensitivities and their consciences, but always ready to, you know, say hey, we have a freedom in Christ that is radical, that is crazy.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Martin: That allows you to do a whole lot of things that, if they are done in a loving way, are lawful.
Colleen: Um-hmm. That’s so wonderful.
Martin: As long as they are helpful to others.
Colleen: Martin, thank you so much for reflecting and sharing with us here tonight.
Nikki: Yes, thank you.
Martin: Well, you’re welcome, it’s a pleasure.
Colleen: And thank you for the shrimp too. [Laughter.]
Martin: You’re welcome.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Thank you.
[Loud horn blasts.]
Nikki: That’s awesome! Perfect! [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] And that would be Nathaniel Tinker –
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: – my son, who has always made me laugh. [Laughter.] Welcome to our Great Contentment party, Nathaniel.
Nathaniel: Why, thank you.
Colleen: So first of all, what did you bring to the party?
Nathaniel: I brought a shofar.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: Indeed, you did. [Laughter.] And what food did you bring?
Nathaniel: Fritos and salsa and cheese dip.
Colleen: Oh, that’s very un-Ellen. So, you were pretty young when we left Adventism. You were not quite – you were 11 when we officially left, I think. So what do you remember about the Great Disappointment? Did you think about it much as a child? What do you remember?
Nathaniel: I don’t really remember a whole lot as a child. I don’t remember thinking about it. I learned more about it after we came out.
Colleen: Okay.
Nathaniel: Yeah, I didn’t really have a belief in it to reverse, as far as I remember.
Colleen: Right. What do you think about when you think about it now?
Nathaniel: It’s absurd.
Colleen: Okay.
Nathaniel: The whole premise of it is ridiculous –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Nathaniel: – that God could lie to people by holding His hand – you know, intentionally deceiving people.
Colleen: Oh, in terms of the date-setting. Yeah.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Nathaniel: Yeah.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Yeah. Which came from the idea that William Miller had a date for 1843, held His hand over it – when he discovered it was wrong, that he said God held His hand over the mistake, and reset the date for 1844. Is that what you’re referring to?
Nathaniel: The whole idea that Jesus was supposed to come back on either one of those dates.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Nathaniel: And then it turns into the investigative judgment.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Nathaniel: That’s what I’m thinking of.
Colleen: Okay. Okay.
Nikki: So you learned all of that as a Christian.
Nathaniel: Yeah.
Nikki: So as you heard that, was there any part of you that thought a little differently about the fact that your parents were once a part of that? I’m thinking about my kids. When I’ve talked to my kids about what we used to believe, they’re shocked that we were ever a part of anything like that, because their context was so – it was so Christian. So as you learned about the Great Disappointment and the things that we believed in Adventism or that your parents did when you guys were in, did you find yourself confused over how they could get stuck in that?
Nathaniel: Not really. Thinking about it now, anybody could be honestly deceived.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And you were born into it, even though you left early, so the context is perhaps a little different. You did go to Sabbath school for a few years.
Nathaniel: Yeah.
Colleen: So there was a familiarity, I suppose.
Nathaniel: It’s much easier to stay in something that is deceiving if you are born into it –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That’s a good point.
Nathaniel: – than to convert to it.
Colleen: That’s actually a really good point, a really good point. You are about to experience the birth of your first child. Your wife is here, and we’re just counting days. What do you want your little girl growing up knowing that you didn’t know when you were first born? I mean, what do you want her to grow up through her childhood knowing that you learned later?
Nathaniel: I want her to know that absolute truth exists, that it is discoverable. I want her to know that contradictory things are contradictory, that if one statement negates another statement, both cannot be true.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Good point, really good point. What is the greatest thing for you about not being Adventist, but being Christian?
Nathanial: Well, not being in a cult is a good thing.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nathaniel: Not being deceived is great.
Colleen: Yes.
Nathaniel: Being in God’s family, the true family of God, is great.
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: Yes. And it’s nothing we have to wait on the mountain in ascension robes to experience.
Nathaniel: It’s great not to believe the absurd things.
Colleen: It is, isn’t it?
Nathaniel: Yeah.
Colleen: Yeah. It’s a good way to put it. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Nathaniel, for blowing the shofar. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Nathaniel: You’re very welcome.
Colleen: Thanks.
Nikki: Okay. So our next guest is Richard Tinker. He’s President of Life Assurance Ministries, and you all have probably heard him on one of our previous podcasts, where we did an interview. Richard, tell us what you used to think about the Great Disappointment.
Richard: I didn’t like it.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Richard: Every October 22, I hated the fact that I was reminded of it. It seemed really scary to me. I kind of had a fear that somehow October 22 would be the day that Jesus would come back.
Colleen: [Gasps.] Oh, wow.
Nikki: [Gasps.] Oh.
Richard: I knew I wasn’t ready for that, so it just reminded me every year to be fearful.
Colleen: Wow.
Nikki: And you really understood it. You studied the prophesies and the charts, and you had all that memorized, so you really understood what that date meant as a kid.
Richard: Yeah. I was in Adventist grade school, academy, and college.
Colleen: So as you grew and started – well, actually, after you left Adventism, let’s just put it that way, what do you think about now when you look back at it? How are things different? What happened to the fear?
Richard: Well, it’s gone.
Colleen: Why?
Richard: I think there’s a text, “Perfect love casts out fear.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Um-hmm. And how did you find that perfect love?
Richard: By leaving behind all the false teachings and embracing the truth, that Jesus finished His work on the cross. He said He finished it.
Colleen: He did. What did you think that meant as an Adventist when He said, “It is finished?”
Richard: “I’m dead,” I guess.
Colleen: [Laughter.] That’s what I thought. I thought, “Okay, the suffering’s over, I’m gone.”
Richard: He’s done with the cross part of His life.
Colleen: Yeah. But that’s not what He meant.
Richard: No. He was done with the payment for all the sins –
Colleen: Awesome.
Richard: – past, present, and future.
Colleen: So I just have to ask you this. This was the Great Contentment party, and we ate comfort food that we probably wouldn’t have eaten as Adventists. What did you eat tonight that was definitely not from the past?
Richard: Shrimp.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Okay. Did you like it?
Richard: Yes! Especially with that butter whatever sauce.
Colleen: The garlic butter?
Richard: Yeah.
Colleen: Yeah. Well, what would you say as a parting shot to any Adventist who might still be hanging on to that commemoration of the Great Disappointment and the idea that the investigative judgment might be true?
Richard: Trust what the Bible says. Trust Jesus. Leave all that fear and doubt behind.
Colleen: Thank you.
Nikki: Thank you, Richard.
Richard: You’re welcome.
Nikki: Wasn’t that fun, talking to our friends about that?
Colleen: It is so fun. You know, I never get tired of recounting the past and rejoicing in the present with our former Adventist friends.
Nikki: And it’s so fun to hear all the different perspectives that we had, but we also kind of carried that –
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: – that underlying same, I don’t know, emotion.
Colleen: That’s true. There’s a heaviness. There was a fear, an unsettledness and uncertainty, no matter whether it was Martin and the Brinsmead movement or Steve converting in.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: It was interesting.
Nikki: And it was so interesting to hear how Walter Martin played a role in that for Steve.
Colleen: I think that’s really important.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Really important. But as Steve said after the interview was done, Walter Martin now knows the truth. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Yes, he does. Yes, he does. And you know what? At the end of his life, he really did a great service for the truth when he interviewed with John Ankerberg
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: I remember watching that before I met you guys, and that really prepared me to know, “There’s something up here.”
Colleen: And just speaking of that, if anyone listening to this has not seen the online video of the John Ankerberg Show where he is interviewing Walter Martin with William Johnsson from the Adventist organization, it’s a five-part series. You can Google it and find the five videos. They are actually quite riveting.
Nikki: They really are. They’re on YouTube, and they’re wonderful.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And kind of hard to watch, too.
Colleen: They are, because they’re sad –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – and angering at the same time.
Nikki: Yeah. So, Colleen.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Tell us, what did you think of the Great Disappointment when you were in Adventism?
Colleen: You know, I’ve thought a lot about the past, and when I was a kid, I was not like Richard, where I was always afraid, because I knew that they had just been wrong. They had just set a date, and that was wrong. But as I got older, I began to realize there is something deeply ironic about them celebrating something that was a falseness.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That they did – it was heretical to set a date and to establish a religion on a false day for Jesus and then to make up an event. But it was like a family idol in Adventism, it’s like part of their identity, and I remember as an Adventist sitting in the University church where they did a memorial to the Great Disappointment one year. It was the 150th anniversary, actually, and I remember thinking, “This is just bizarre. It doesn’t make sense to celebrate something that’s wrong.”
Nikki: Um-hmm. And now? How about now, as a Christian?
Colleen: Now, I know Jesus is going to come at a date he has already determined, but I don’t know that date.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Jesus said, “No one knows but the Father.” But it’s determined. It’s not a date that’s movable based on my obedience or our finishing the work. It’s when the time fully comes, He will return just as He came the first time, when the time had fully come.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So it’s in His hands. I can trust Him, and I know I will rejoice, because I know my sins are forgiven, because He finished the atonement on the cross –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – not in an investigative judgment. And because I’ve trusted His finished work, I’ve been forgiven for all my sins, and I know I will rejoice when I see Him coming back. But how about you, Nikki? Do you remember the Great Disappointment as a child?
Nikki: I do. I remember learning about it specifically in junior high and also wondering, “Why are we making a big deal out of such a shameful thing?” Because I knew the Bible said that no one knows the day or the hour.
Colleen: See? You were just like me in that respect! Go you! [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] I could not figure out how they didn’t know that the Bible said that.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And you know, “Why are we hitching our horse to this cart? This is embarrassing.”
Colleen: There’s a good point.
Nikki: “Why do we have to even really acknowledge this?”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: I just didn’t get that. And then even later, in my 20s, you know, it came up again at church –
Colleen: Sure.
Nikki: – and I remember thinking, “Why are we talking about the Great Disappointment when actually what we believe happened is something in heaven, that Jesus did something. I couldn’t have articulated whatever it was that He was doing. I didn’t know.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: But I knew He was doing something.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: Because that was, you know, the face-saving story.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: So, “Why isn’t this about the great transition into the sanctuary? Why are we naming it and celebrating it for what we should have repented for?”
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: So that emphasis, I didn’t understand that. But to be honest with you, I only really thought about it when other people brought it up. October could come and go, and it wouldn’t cross my mind most of the time.
Colleen: Yeah. It’s definitely a cultural thing –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – that when you’re in the milieu, it comes up as a cultural icon more than a personal one, I think.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So now? What about now?
Nikki: Well, you know, as a Christian, reading about the Great Disappointment and now that we have this wonderful thing called the Internet –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – being able to read newspaper clippings from that time, I remember a few years ago I found some, and I was reading about – I think there were people even who died that night. It was very cold. And reading those stories made me really sad, but I immediately remembered, realized that our God is sovereign, and on October 22, 1844, our God knew that a time would come when He would call people out of that mess.
Colleen: That’s really amazing.
Nikki: And I knew that He – because He is omnipresent and outside of time –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – I knew that even on that night, He knew me and that He would rescue my family and that He would give us a work to do, and I just remember being moved to tears and thanking Him for redeeming what all of those people got wrong on that night.
Colleen: Wow, Nikki, that’s very moving.
Nikki: And I know that there were some people who did repent and move back into churches after that. And I’ve often wondered what it will be like to meet them in heaven and to talk to them.
Colleen: That will be fun.
Nikki: Yeah. But as far as the return of Christ, it’s really exciting. It’s really – as an Adventist, I wanted Him to wait, to take His time. I wanted to have a family.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: I was afraid of the Sunday Law.
Colleen: Oh, yes.
Nikki: Now, it’s just, “Come soon, Lord Jesus.”
Colleen: Yes. Well, Nikki, it’s fun to do this with you.
Nikki: It’s fun to do it with you too.
Colleen: We want to remind all of you that if you want to contact us, give us ideas or feedback, you may email us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You may request our printed magazine or our weekly email by writing to the same address, formeradventist@gmail.com, and you may do online donations at proclamationmagazine.com. And don’t forget when you listen to the podcast to put in a review and to subscribe. We’re glad you joined us, and we look forward to being with you again next week. Bye.
Nikki: Bye. †
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