KASPARS OZOLINS
Last month, an eye-catching Christianity Today headline was shared on social media by a number of Adventists and formers familiar to me: “Many Adventists in Asia and Africa Believe You Must Be Vegan to Be Saved.” The brief research note was based on recent survey data published by Andrews University professor Duane McBride. Over 63,700 Seventh-day Adventists worldwide were surveyed, from 2017 to 2018. Based on this large sample size, the Christianity Today article reported that, in particular, “many members in South Asia believe salvation is ensured two ways: through Jesus Christ (92%), and through giving up meat, animal products, alcohol, and tobacco (80%).” The article’s lede states: “As the church’s global growth continues, leaders must disentangle its ‘health message’ from views on salvation.” This bit of advocacy from the non-Adventist author is a hint as to how much apologizing on behalf of Seventh-day Adventism takes place in the article.
Adventist responses
In truth, the apologizing was evident in both Adventist and non-Adventist circles. An Adventist university professor shared the piece and gave the following opinion: “Interesting article. It doesn’t reflect how I view Adventism but highlights some recent research from a professor at Andrews about a penchant toward legalism.” Note the cold detachment here. This Adventist is openly distancing himself from such information, and with a curious excuse (“It doesn’t reflect how I view Adventism”). Note further the implicit detachment of Adventism from Christianity in this comment. Whether or not Adventists admit it, their religion is evidently set apart in a way that, say, Baptists would never comprehend.
Various responses from Adventists were given to this post. One individual reflected, “I am deeply saddened by this. I wish the gospel was accurately preached more consistently in our churches and at our evangelistic series.”
On the other hand, most of the commentary was rather condemnatory of the article and its author, accusing it of bias against Adventism: “This article gives the impression of a black-and-white, either/or, health reform vs Jesus idea of salvation.” Amazingly, however, the same author undermined this very criticism with this follow-up comment: “In reality, it is entirely possible and correct to say that we are saved by Jesus Christ alone, and to say at the same time that health reform plays a critical role in the aspect of salvation that Jesus accomplishes in us.” I’ve added the emphasis because Adventists and non-Adventists often fail to pause and parse through the many damning statements they make.
One commentator declared, “I already sent a note of protest to the editor. You may want to do the same thing.” Still others were ready to dismiss the research entirely (research, remember, that was conducted and published by an Andrews University professor): “I’ve never had a conversation with a single person who believes this. I am deeply, deeply, deeply skeptical of the study.”
In fact, it is difficult for Adventists to be faced with such realities when the Great Controversy worldview proclaims Adventists as God’s remnant church and His “peculiar” people.
Softening the truth
One or more complaints must have reached the editor of Christianity Today, since I noticed an editor’s note at the end of the article: “This research blog has been updated to clarify how Adventist researchers discovered and examined why many survey respondents both agreed to ‘salvation through Christ alone’ and agreed that the health message ‘ensures salvation.’ ” My curiosity piqued, I decided to use the Wayback Machine to look at an earlier version of the article. Sure enough, there were significant changes. To begin with, the very title of the piece had been changed from “Many Adventists Believe You Must Be Vegan to Be Saved” to “Many Adventists in Asia and Africa Believe You Must Be Vegan to Be Saved.” This very change is flatly contradicted by the following admission (which was retained even in the updated version): “Globally, 47 percent of Adventists agreed that the health message ‘ensures salvation.’” I don’t know about you, but to me 47% sure seems like “many Adventists.”
“Globally, 47 percent of Adventists agreed that the health message ‘ensures salvation.’”
One important paragraph was added as a “clarification” on official Adventist teaching: “Today’s church doctrine calls for healthy living to glorify God but does not view dietary practice as a requirement for salvation: ‘…because our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, we are to care for them intelligently. Along with adequate exercise and rest, we are to adopt the most healthful diet possible and abstain from the unclean foods identified in the Scriptures.’ ” That final quotation was taken directly from Fundamental Belief #22 (“Christian Behavior”).
The author, while clearly apologizing on behalf of the church, is highly unlikely to understand the actual doctrinal foundations of the Adventist “health message.” A casual reading of this fundamental belief will cause the reader to miss important hints. For example, the following statement: “For the Spirit to recreate in us the character of our Lord we involve ourselves only in those things that will produce Christlike purity, health, and joy in our lives.” Such language brings to mind a rather infamous statement by Ellen G. White: “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.”
It is unreasonable to expect such familiarity with Ellen White’s statements among staff writers of Christianity Today. At the same time, for non-Adventists to ignore or downplay such glaring red flags as have been raised by this Adventist research is simply inexcusable.
An impossible disentangling
Let me now restate the article’s lede and consider it: “As the church’s global growth continues, leaders must disentangle its ‘health message’ from views on salvation.” Knowing what we know about the foundations of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine and the historical development of the church, such a “disentangling” is simply impossible. The Adventist health message––the “right arm of the gospel”––is vitally linked to the Adventist gospel, a false gospel that cannot save. In fact, the very existence of this health message is proof positive that the Adventist gospel is no gospel at all.
The apostle Paul warned his protégé Timothy in no uncertain terms: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Tim 4:1–3). One might well ask, why such a stern warning over an issue that isn’t even doctrinal? After all, Paul makes no mention here of anything like the denial of Christ’s divinity, for example.
The answer is found in Paul’s own words. These people have departed from the faith––the very gospel itself. How? They have devoted themselves to alternative teachings, really, to an alternative worldview. Every preoccupation of mankind that is not fixed upon the gospel of Jesus Christ is ultimately a doctrine of demons. That is a shocking thing to ponder.
The alternative Adventist gospel, with a physicalist anthropology that cannot perceive spiritual matters, is on full display in this 2011 statement from Seventh-day Adventist president Ted Wilson (from a Ministry Magazine interview): “The health message must be a vital part of the presentation of the gospel since obeying God’s physical laws help allow a person to better be influenced by the tender impressions of the Holy Spirit on the brain, which is part of the body.” There is perhaps no greater deception in religion than that of the cults, for it allows a different Jesus and a different gospel to masquerade as the truth––while in reality their adherents have actually rejected Christ and his atoning death.
The gospel is of first importance
As the Christian world celebrates the death and resurrection of our Lord this weekend, may we cling all the more to the faith once delivered to all the saints (Jude 1:3)––which is the gospel. May we devote ourselves and our lives to studying and proclaiming this gospel. May we never cease to look with wonder at the One who willingly bled on our behalf, suffering the ultimate punishment that we might be delivered from vain and worldly preoccupations. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 14:17)
Amen. Come, O righteous King of peace! †
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