Colleen and Nikki talk about their Reformation Day Party on October 31 which included burning books… what? Participants at the gathering reveal their thoughts around the blazing volumes. Podcast was published November 1, 2019. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Colleen: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And we’re bringing you a special edition of this podcast this week because we had a special event last night. For most of the world, or at least in North America, it was known as Halloween, but did you know that Reformation Day is the same day as Halloween?
Nikki: I never knew.
Colleen: I didn’t either! It was such a surprise to figure that out. And what a great alternative to monsters—
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: – and devils and – [laughter]. Anyway, we celebrated the Reformation Day last night. What’s your impression of Reformation Day last night, Nikki?
Nikki: I always love Reformation Day, so this is, I think – is it our fourth or fifth year celebrating Reformation Day.
Colleen: Uh-huh.
Nikki: It was such a joy to me to find out that Reformation Day occurred on October 31st, the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door of Wittenberg; right?
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: When I became a believer, Halloween became offensive to me. I don’t even really know how to explain that, but to celebrate such a dark holiday in light of learning about this holy, wonderful God, it was hard for me, and yet I wanted to offer my kids something so they didn’t grow up completely alienated from culture; right?
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: So then we did this Reformation Party, and my kids have grown up loving this night because of Reformation Day. They don’t miss the Halloween activities.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Well, in fact, it’s interesting that there are people who are not former Adventists who regularly join us for Reformation Day as well.
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: So we always serve hot dogs, because it’s easy, and we can do it outside. We always do that, and sides, and then we have a fire in our fire pit on our back patio, and this is the part that is so meaningful to us and misunderstood by others. We actually burn some of our books from our cultic past.
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: And we have a good reason for doing that. It was interesting to me when I realized that in Acts 19 when Paul had brought the gospel to the church in Ephesus, those people in Ephesus burned their books of magic after they accepted the gospel, and the 19th verse of Acts 19 says this: “And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.” This was a really high price. This was a lot of money in those days. And these people who had found Christ after being inaugurated into the mystery religions of the pagan world in which they lived in Ephesus – and Ephesus, by the way, was famous for its temple to Diana, or Artemis. The city was set aside for her. So when these people discovered the gospel after being immersed in this mystery religion, they came and burned their books of magic in public bonfires, and that was a family fortune.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: The amount of money they had spent was a family fortune, and they burned those books.
Nikki: Someone mentioned last night too that it was more than what Jesus was sold for.
Colleen: That was an interesting point. He was sold for 30 pieces of silver.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: These books cost them much more than that.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So as we leave Adventism, there are many of us, and I know everybody is not in the same boat in this respect, but there are many of us who’ve had large libraries of Ellen White books and official Adventist publications, and I know when we left we were thinking, “What do we do? We have these shelves and shelves of Ellen White books that we don’t want in our home anymore, and we don’t want other people to find them, because other people can be deceived by them just like we had been.” And this was 20 years ago. We had no role models to follow, and we had decided that the only thing we could do to ensure that nobody else would get them would be to burn them.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So we spent two days having a fire in our fireplace and watching those books go up in smoke. It sounds shocking.
Nikki: But it’s a profound moment, isn’t it?
Colleen: It is. So last night was no exception. We had a small crowd here, and after eating our hot dogs and potato salad, we started burning some books, and it was especially moving last night because there was a couple here who has just left Adventism this year. They had been deeply into it and had boxes and boxes and shelves and shelves of books in their garage, and they had been cleaning them out. And you’re going to hear little comments from them. It was very moving and emotional for them to do this. It was very symbolic.
Nikki: Um-hmm. This year, Richard decided to take the microphone around the campfire and speak to our guests. Some of them had been here for a couple of years. I think we had some that were new for the first time. And he asked them what all of this means to them, why do they do this. And so we have some sound bites from several of our guests that we’re going to share with you today.
Colleen: The first couple that you’ll hear – and we’re going to just explain it, not comment on them as we go, but the first couple that you hear were especially interesting to us. They’re Romanian. They’re visiting actually from Romania, visiting their family, who is local here, and they’ve never been Adventist, but they’re Christians, and in their own world, in their own right, they know what it means to have suffered and lost for the sake of truth. So our first two sound bites will be from this couple from Romania, and you’ll hear them speaking in Romanian, and you’ll hear their daughter translating into English. And from there, we will move right into a few of the others. We have some children, teens; we have various people speaking; and at the end, we will sort of explain what we all heard. So we’ll just start right now with the Romanian couple.
Female Guest #1: [Speaking in Romanian.]
Daughter translating: We don’t want other people to be deceived by these books.
Male Guest #1: [Speaking in Romanian.]
Daughter translating: So these books undermine the authority of the Book, the Bible.
Female Guest #2: Because the Bible knows nothing of a doctrine called the Investigative Judgment. It knows nothing of Jesus being Michael the Archangel or of Satan bearing our sins in the final judgment, and if we don’t get rid of them, other people might read them and be converted.
Male Guest #2: Burning these books was an eye-opener and a realization as to the five generations in my family that studied these books and held them in such high esteem, these writings of Ellen White. It’s – to burn them, to get rid of them, is a true acknowledgement as to where we stand as a family, where I stand, and just getting rid of a lie, untruths. God’s Word is God’s Word. It doesn’t need anything else from anyone else. God is a God of peace, not of confusion, and these writings, they are just astray, they’re a distraction. I’m glad to burn them.
Female Guest #3: Burning books is very offensive, but what’s more offensive are the words that are in these particular books because they lead people down a path, a path that could even lead to hell. So it is quite appropriate that we burn these books.
Child Female Guest #4: We burn the books tonight because it’s a symbol of how God is enough and we don’t need Ellen White or any other prophet.
Child Female Guest #5: Burning books is important because it keeps people from getting this false knowledge, so it’s better than throwing things away because people can’t dumpster dive and find your book and learn this fake belief.
Female Guest #6: I just want people to really read the Bible, and it’s something – be a Berean, study this stuff. I mean, if you’re going to choose to read some of these books, why aren’t you reading the Bible? Because the Bible is sufficient, God’s Word is sufficient. There are all these different men that wrote the Bible, were led by the Holy Spirit, and nothing contradicts it, nothing in the Bible contradicts itself. This is why the burning of these books, because it’s false, it’s fake, and Scripture is sufficient, and it’s God’s love song in story for us.
Male Guest #3: So I think we’re here, as I’m thinking about this, because it’s a symbol, and as Christians we kind of fill our lives with symbols. We follow the Lord Jesus, what he told us, to come around the Lord’s table, we drink the cup and we eat the bread, many of us keep crosses around here and there to remind us, and for us, those of us that have come out of real darkness where we were confused by lies that came to us through books and through writings, there’s something cathartic and symbolic about getting together on Reformation Day and burning those lies that we continue to fight against, that we want out of our minds, and it’s just a symbol.
Female Guest #7: I think it’s fitting in the burning of books to show the contrast between the Word of God, which is eternal, and what Ellen wrote, which is not the word of God, and it’s not eternal.
Male Guest #4: As far as burning books goes, generally I am against it. I have a very strong libertarian streak that doesn’t like the idea of trying to forcibly suppress other people’s ideas, but if someone were to ask me, remember that famous story that Ray Bradbury wrote years ago, “Fahrenheit 451,” where the government outlawed all burning of books. That always had a strong impression on me. If I’m burning a book, it is a symbolic act and certainly not something that I would force on someone else, with exceptions. Of course, you have to ask yourself, “Would you burn a book on how to abuse children or how to commit a crime?” and obviously, you’d have to think harder about that. So for me, books like this, Ellen White, who had some very bad ideas about God, I think probably the one that comes first to mind for me is Great Controversy, the idea that there is a controversy between God and Satan, as if they were somehow equal, so that God would have to answer to Satan. That’s an extremely bad idea. To me, that is criminal, and that’s a book that deserves to be burned. But like I say, I wouldn’t force that on someone else.
Female Guest #8: Burning these books is relieving, knowing that Christ has died for all my sins. [Crying] For years, reading Ellen White’s books made me think that I had to strive, that I had to do more and more to gain his favor, but Jesus paid it all, and that makes me love him even more. I see how amazing and mighty He is, to wash all my sins, not just partial, not just some of them, but all.
Colleen: Wow. That last testimony, little comment by Trini as she burned her books, was really moving to me.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: She and her husband and two teenage daughters have just left Adventism this year, and they had just been cleaning out their garage. And I was overwhelmed with her sense of grief, and as her husband said, there was a little bit of anger at having been deceived, and she was mourning that she had given herself to the works of a false prophet. This is an act of repentance.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: This is not an act of defiance –
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: – to burn these books.
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: And I think that’s really important for people who’ve never done this or understood why we do it.
Nikki: Right. I agree.
Colleen: This is saying, “Lord Jesus, your Word is all I need, and I am giving up these books that I spent so much time and so much money to collect, and my life is now yours, and I’m giving these books to the flames.”
Nikki: Um-hmm. It connects us to the people in Acts 19, doesn’t it?
Colleen: I feel it.
Nikki: You can almost imagine what that was like for them.
Colleen: They were willing to give up their treasures, their family treasures –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – for the sake of the gospel. And as you’ve said, Nikki, it’s a vertical act, not just a horizontal act.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: This isn’t just, “Oh, I’m going to clean my house and we’ll have a little bonfire and have a little fun and do something risky, like burning books.”
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: No. This is saying, “I’m giving this to you, Lord, because you’ve given me yourself.”
Nikki: And it was almost surprising to me the first time we did it, and I think I went in thinking like, “Yeah, this is appropriate,” like one of the ladies there at the end said, it’s fitting. It’s fitting that these should end up burned. This is error, and it will ultimately be burned; right?
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: But that was kind of the attitude I came in with, it was good that I was doing this, and I was surprised, the first time I sat and looked into the fire, by the emotion –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – that was involved and all that it brought up, and especially in light of the Reformation, with having a mind to what Martin Luther did and the people who were set free from the bondage of really false religion –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – that claimed authority over Scripture –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – that claimed to have the right to tell other people what was truth –
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: – and they were freed from that. And so yeah, so I was surprised by how emotional and worshipful it felt, in active repentance, and –
Colleen: It is repentance.
Nikki: – and like Trini said, as she was watching that happen, the gospel was in her mind.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: It made her recall the gospel and that what Christ did was enough.
Colleen: Yes. It was very moving to watch and to remember what it felt like to burn those books and to cleanse our house from the works of the false prophet. Now, don’t get me wrong. We have a research library. We’re kind of sitting next to it here, as a matter of fact.
Nikki: We are.
Colleen: But it’s a different thing from having those books that we collected and put in prominent display in our front room.
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: We do not live in subjection to these books anymore.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s also worth mentioning that we are well aware of the stigma of book burning.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We don’t approve of that.
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: Hey, we’re writers. I used to be an English teacher.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: We don’t believe in burning people’s intellectual property, but this is different. These are intended to deceive.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: These are intended to pull people into something dark.
Nikki: I like what Martin said when he suggested: “What would you do with a book that teaches you how to abuse children or –
Colleen: Oh, yes.
Nikki: – you know, to commit a crime.”
Colleen: To abuse children or to kill somebody.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: Do we respect that author?
Colleen: No.
Nikki: No.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: These are doctrines of demons. These are meant to capture people’s souls.
Colleen: Exactly. And we burn them where – and if we come across them in a public place – Richard used to find Adventist literature in the post office with the return address torn off and the magazine left out where somebody would take it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: He would take them –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – and burn them.
Nikki: I’ve taken The Great Controversy off of the top of a gas station pump that was left there for someone to find.
Colleen: There you go. Exactly. Another place we find Adventist books – I know this is a little odd, perhaps, but on the book table at Costco. There are Adventists in our area who go and sneak Adventist books into the book tables at Costco.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: They’re not for sale, and when they come to the checkout, of course the checker says, “These are not books here for sale,” and then the person is left with them and takes them, but when Richard goes and finds them, he’ll take them out, he’ll tell the clerk, you know, as we check out, what he did, and they’re fine. We remove them from circulation.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Nikki, you have a rather interesting story about your husband’s grandfather.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: I’d like you to share that.
Nikki: Sure. Well, I do want to say that this concept of burning Ellen G. White books is not unique to us here. It’s something that comes up quite often in some of the Facebook groups, you know, someone new out will write and say, “What do I do with all these books?”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: “I don’t want to have them, but I don’t want to throw them away, and I certainly don’t want to give them to charity. What do I do?” And a lot of times they’ll be advised by other people online, “I burned my books,” you know?
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: So this is not uncommon among those who leave a cult. And I wish my husband was here to tell the story, because he’s so much better with details, but his family is actually from South Africa, and when we left Adventism, his mother shared with us that years ago she had received a letter from her mother in which she wrote that she was very concerned about her father. She thought he’d lost his mind, because he was in the backyard, and he was having a bonfire –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: – burning all of Ellen White’s books.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: And when we heard that, we actually rejoiced, because we thought, “Wow, we might get to meet this guy one day.”
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah, so that’s a story that we really enjoyed, and he was very, very Adventist. I mean, he – I hear stories of him standing up in church, in the middle of a sermon, and saying, “Pastor, do you eat meat? Do you eat dairy?” And if the pastor would, you know, hem and haw and, “Yeah, well…”, he would take his kids and he would march them right down the center aisle out of church.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: So he knew what he believed, and he believed it well, until he found out it was error, and then he, on his own, burned them all in a bonfire. [Laughter.]
Colleen: That’s amazing. [Laughter.] I love that story. And by the way, if you don’t have a means of burning your books or if you just have too many, there are other ways to destroy them so people can’t read them. For example, last night we couldn’t burn all the books that were brought –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – so we had a couple boxes left, and we had some room left in our recycling bins, so what we did was literally to de-cover the books, to tear the covers off, and then tore pages out so that they were just unconnected chunks. There are ways to dispose of these books so other people can’t dumpster dive and find them.
Nikki: Um-hmm. And I think it’s worth saying too that this is a matter of conscience.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: We’ve had people say, “Oh, you know, you don’t have to do this. This is legalistic,” or, “How are you going to get all the books? You can’t get all the books.”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: No. But there are those of us who encounter the books and are burdened – our conscience is burdened over how to get rid of them, and this is just a way to do that.
Colleen: Yes. And again, we are not about a bonfire, watching the books go up. That’s something we do once a year on Reformation Day, and this is really about the Reformation, the discovery, the reintroduction of the gospel of justification by faith through grace in Christ alone by the use of Scripture alone for the glory of God alone.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That is our rallying cry. That is why we are here. Now that we have shared our experience burning books by heretical writers, we, ironically enough, have a book offer for you. For the first 30 people who write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com and ask for the book, we will send you free the book “The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day,” by H.M. Riggle. Now, the interesting thing about Riggle is that he’s not alive today. He wrote this book first in 1922, and he gives a very clear outline and description of how the New Covenant works, and he specifically addresses Adventists and their observance of the seventh day. So we would just like to offer this to you, but we also want to say, books like this, even though they are extremely good exegesis of Scripture, are not Scripture themselves.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And as you read, we want to also say, go back to the Bible and read it as well.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And go to Galatians. If you haven’t done this, read that little book every day for a month and ask God to teach you what He already knows He has for you there. In closing, we would just like to say rate our podcast when you listen to it, please, and write a review if you want, but thank you for sharing our memories of another Reformation Day. Thanks for taking part in another one, Nikki.
Nikki: Thanks for having us.
Colleen: It’s so much fun. And we’ll see you all next week. †
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