Nikki and Colleen talk about leaving and the challenges former Adventists face. They also take questions from the live audience. This episode was recorded on the second day of the Former Adventist Conference held in Loma Linda, California, February 14–16, 2020. Podcast was published February 19, 2020. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Colleen: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And can you believe it? We’re here at the 2020 Conference!
Nikki: Live!
Colleen: I know!
[Applause.]
Colleen: You know what? The books on my right don’t usually clap.
Nikki: No, they don’t. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] And I don’t hear you through my headphones today.
Nikki: No. This is different.
Colleen: [Laughter.] Well, you know, before we go further into this podcast, there are a couple of people we want to thank publicly. The first is Nathaniel Tinker for our bumper music. When Richard and I were trying to figure out what to do for bumper music for this podcast, we listened to a lot of production music, and I said to him, “You know what? The perfect music is that piece Nathaniel composed and put on iTunes 10 years ago called ‘Falling Awake.'”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And it was perfect. He agreed to let us use it, and the name is perfect.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: So thank you, Nathaniel, for our bumper music.
[Applause.]
Nikki: The other person we have to thank is our amazing editor, Richard Tinker. The shirt that you see – well, that you will see –
Colleen: There it is!
Nikki: – behind us is something that we decided we had to get him for Christmas, especially that #wayunderpaid. [Laughter.]
[General laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] And just so you know, this is his special underwear, which, you know, he’s wearing today. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] Oh, it’s his undershirt.
[General laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah, so we may spend an hour, hour and a half recording –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – but I would say, what? He spends at least –
Colleen: Twice that long, at least twice that long –
Nikki: At least.
Colleen: – making us sound like we know what we’re talking about.
Nikki: Which means today we are putting on display the amazing talents of Richard Tinker because you get the uncut version.
Colleen: Yes. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: When we were thinking about doing a live podcast, Nikki – and what happens more than anything else at a conference? It’s reflecting on what we’re experiencing, what we’ve lost, how we navigate.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So when you left Adventism, Nikki, what were you afraid of?
Nikki: Oh. Well, there were a lot of fears related to leaving, and I left pretty quickly, I would say. Telling my church –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – was scary, because both Carel and I were elders at the church. We were on the ministry council and participated in the youth – I almost said Sunday school. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] That’s a cool mistake.
Nikki: – the youth Sabbath school program, and so we had to tell them that we wouldn’t be coming back, and then telling family and the fear of the loss of relationships. That was big.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And then getting it wrong again.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: I was afraid, you know –
Colleen: That was a fear for me.
Nikki: – if this was wrong and I did this my whole life – I was 30 at the time – what if I get it wrong again.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And then trusting again, trusting people, trusting spiritual leaders –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – you know, those were kind of the heavy things. Can I tell kind of a funny story?
Colleen: Oh, please.
Nikki: So we hadn’t been going to our new Christian church for very long, and it was a big church. I don’t know how many people they sat a week, but we were kind of in the overflow, and my daughter was just a baby, and it was communion week, and this was my first time ever seeing communion in a church. And I sat back there, and they stood way up front and said, “We will be doing communion today,” and I started like – it was flu season – “Am I going to share a cup with all these people?”
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: Like, I did not know to expect. So those kinds of hurdles were scary too.
Colleen: Right. Yeah. I remember attending a Lutheran church once with Rick and Sheryl Barker, whom some of you know from Proclamation!, and the communion – well, first of all, we had to be approved to take communion in the Missouri Synod Church, so Rick had talked to them, to the pastor, and we were approved for communion, and then the tray came, and there were two colors of juice/wine in the tray, so we had to – it was interesting. There was alcohol and there was juice.
Nikki: Did you know which was which?
Colleen: I think Rick told us.
Nikki: Okay.
Colleen: Uh-huh. So there are lots of things you don’t know what to expect. But in the long run, how do you feel about having left?
Nikki: Oh, I’m so glad we did. I thank God.
Colleen: Absolutely. I thank God too.
Nikki: It was probably one of the hardest things we’ve ever done, but I thank God every day.
Colleen: I do too. So what makes this transition navigatable? How do we manage? How did you manage?
Nikki: Well, I had to work out the fact that I could trust the Bible.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And once I did that – I mean, that was my source of truth and reality, no matter what I felt –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – I had to submit to Scripture, and so that’s really how I navigated my way out, with your help –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: – and Richard’s and this ministries’.
Colleen: Well, you know, it was Scripture for us too.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: But there were still hurdles to how to know what to say about it or think about it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And like we just mentioned in our last breakout session, there was a moment before we had fully left, but we knew we were on our way out, and I don’t remember who I heard say this, but it was an Adventist, and it was in a conversation or something, and they said, “Well, you know, you’re worried about Ellen White plagiarizing, well, Matthew and Luke plagiarized from all over the Bible! They plagiarized everybody!” And I didn’t know how to answer.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And I remember calling Dale Ratzlaff, just on the spur of the moment, and I said, “Dale, how do you answer this question?” Because I knew something was wrong with the question. And he didn’t even pause, and he said, “Well, the Bible writers were inspired by God, and they wrote what He told them, and the Scriptures were their Scriptures. You can quote from Scriptures.” He said, “The Bible writers were inspired,” as opposed to Ellen.
Nikki: Yeah. We needed a new view of Scripture.
Colleen: Yeah, we did.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: And I had been taught Scripture was not inerrant. I had been taught it had errors, and we had to edit it like we edited Ellen White.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That was a new thing. So how did you learn to trust it?
Nikki: By being under really solid Bible teachers.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: That was really big. We had the blessing of being able to come out of Adventism in this area and at the church where Life Assurance Ministries – well, Former Adventist Fellowship was –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – was doing their work, and so we were able to come under that and learn. You know exactly how we thought about the Bible.
Colleen: Of course.
Nikki: And you were able to help us know what we thought about the Bible. That was big.
Colleen: Yeah. Well, it was sitting under Gary Inrig’s teaching and then being in women’s Bible study for several years with Elizabeth Inrig that helped me unpack. I remember the day we were taking a class on Sundays from Elizabeth. This was very early, probably within the first year of our leaving. And – this table is smaller than usual.
Nikki: Yeah. [Laughter.]
Colleen: And she was teaching “A Walk Through the Old Testament,” and you know, Richard and I stupidly thought, “We’ll get this one. We’ve got the Old Testament down!” [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: And so we went to this class, and it was like, “Whoa! Whoa, really?” And I remember the day she stood up in this class, and she did this with her Bible, and she said, “Everything you need to know is in this book.” I thought, “No. It will not tell me what to do for a job or which house to buy.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And you know, since that day, I’ve come to realize that she’s right because those personal questions are resolved as we submit ourselves to Scripture and learn to trust the Holy Spirit’s teaching us Scripture. And I think the biggest shift for me has been understanding that reality is not based in my perception. Reality is based in something invisible to me, and this is where God reveals that, and I have to learn to bring my life into submission to this. And that makes everything make better sense.
Nikki: Yeah. Isn’t it interesting – sorry to interject, but –
Colleen: No, please.
Nikki: I didn’t think Christians knew how to read the Bible. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] I didn’t either.
Nikki: I mean, if they could, they’d read the fourth commandment.
Colleen: Hello! Yeah.
Nikki: Yeah. So it was kind of wild to become a Christian, a Sunday-keeper –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – and be taught how to read the Bible.
Colleen: So what have you learned about how to read the Bible?
Nikki: Oh, well, so much. Probably summed up best by saying your hermeneutic is key.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: That is so, so important. You have to have a proper hermeneutic.
Colleen: Right. And what have you learned about the hermeneutic? How would you summarize this? I mean, it’s not a one-sentence summary, I know, but –
Nikki: No, it’s not. And I’m not scholarly, so I can just kind of summarize it to the best of my ability –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – but I love the phrase that I learned going to women’s Bible study when we were over at Trinity, and Elizabeth would always say, “Words matter, and context is everything.”
Colleen: Yes. Remember that, everybody. I’m pointing to the books now. Remember that everybody. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah. Words matter, context is everything, and some of the ones that were really helpful to me, it was learning that there are descriptive and prescriptive passages. That was brand new to me.
Colleen: That was new to me.
Nikki: So even after I left Adventism and believed the gospel, I would sit in my yard while my kids were napping, and I would read through the Gospels, and suddenly Jesus is in a synagogue, and I’m like, “Oh, no! Sabbath, and Jesus is in the synagogue.”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And I had a friend at the time who said, “Text me with any questions. You’re going to have them.” And so I texted her, and she said, “Okay. But is it telling you as a believer that you have to be? Is it describing something that happened or is it prescribing something for the church?”
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: And so that would settle some of my panic –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – every time the word “Sabbath” would come up or –
Colleen: Yes! Yeah. Like the word “obedience” in church. I can’t tell you how many weeks we went home and had to process that “obedience” in a Christian context is obedience to Christ and to the Word of God as the Holy Spirit impresses us, not obedience automatically to the law. It’s obedience to Christ.
Nikki: Um-hmm. Yeah. And then also I learned quite a lot from you about grammar.
Colleen: The gospel according to grammar.
Nikki: Yes. Yes, grammar, tenses –
Colleen: Grammar matters.
Nikki: – all of it, yes. And it mattered to Jesus.
Colleen: Absolutely. Yes. You know, one thing I’ve discovered, did not know this as an Adventist. I always kind of figured that the words in here – in my Adventist days, I always figured the words in the Bible were helpful, really wise, truthful in general, would fulfill their purpose, but I did not know that they should be read as they’re written. So, you know, when I started realizing that tenses – that Jesus spoke specifically, and things were either past tense or present tense or future tense – for example, that wonderful golden chain in Romans, where those God foreknew, He chose, elected, He predestined, He justified and glorified, and do you know what tense “glorified” is in?
Nikki: Past tense.
Colleen: Past tense. It’s a done deal for those who are in Christ. Even though we don’t see it yet. So tense matters; prepositions, really important; punctuation, really important.
Nikki: And the Holy Spirit is not trying to trick us.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: So when we read that we can know we’re saved, there’s not this caveat of The Great Controversy –
Colleen: Right. Absolutely.
Nikki: – you know, that then overlays that and says, “Yeah, but it really means this.”
Colleen: Exactly. Another thing that I learned about hermeneutic is you have to consider the first audience. Now, as an Adventist I can remember well basically going to the Bible to read and thinking, “Okay, what is it telling me? What is it telling me I need to do?” Or, “What does this mean to me?” That is not the first thing we ask when we go to Scripture. The first thing we have to ask when we go to Scripture is: Who’s writing, who’s he writing to, what did it mean to them? And I remember learning that the very first thing that we do when we look at a passage of Scripture – and it seems so simple, it seems like an elementary project, and yet it makes all the difference – is to look at a passage and say, “What does it actually say?” So, I didn’t have this pre-picked, I’m just going to read a verse. “But He answered and said to them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it.” So I want to say, “Okay, who’s speaking?”
Nikki: Jesus.
Colleen: Okay, Jesus. And who’s He speaking to?
Nikki: His disciples.
Colleen: Well, yes, He’s speaking to His disciples and to the people around Him in the crowd. “But He answered and said to them” suggests what? That word “answered,” somebody came and spoke to Him.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: So He’s giving somebody an answer. You know, I never thought to ask myself those kinds of questions. I’d just see a verse and go, “General idea. Here’s what it means.” No, He’s telling somebody who asked Him a question. Well, I then have to back up and find out who asked Him what question. And then His answer, “My mother” – He had a mother; right?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And we know her, Mary. – “and my brothers” – well, they’re named in the book of John – “are those who hear the Word of God and do it.” Ah, who’s He describing?
Nikki: He’s describing His disciples.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: He’s describing those who obey God.
Colleen: Those who obey God. So I mean, you actually have to sit and say, “What’s it telling me? What do I see? What’s the setting? Who’s He talking to?” It’s amazing how Scripture began to open up when I started doing that with the verses.
Nikki: It seems so simple –
Colleen: I know.
Nikki: – but when you get to those spots like, “What happens when you die?”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: You know, stopping and picking – not picking apart, but really –
Colleen: Well, yeah, you do.
Nikki: – studying every word and –
Colleen: Like “What does it say? What tense is that?”
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: You know, “We do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed. We long for our heavenly dwelling. Our mortal tent is decaying.” Well, that’s not a metaphor. It kind of is decaying. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: Just saying. [Laughter.] And the knee surgery didn’t help at all. I mean, it helped a lot –
Nikki: A little.
Colleen: – but it didn’t help everything. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: So, hermeneutic was one of the biggies. Then –
Nikki: Central doctrine.
Colleen: – central doctrine.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Okay. Talk about that a little bit, Nikki.
Nikki: When you grow up in an apocalyptic cult, the central thing –
Colleen: Which, frankly, we did.
Nikki: Yeah. – the central thing is the apocalypse. It’s “How is this going to end?”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And it’s working – I mean, the gospel is, “Jesus is coming back. Hurry! Get ready!”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And so in Adventism they made these – well, it’s a lot of false teaching, but they made the central issue what Christendom would say is a peripheral issue. Lots of true believers understand last day events differently.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: But they’re not the primary doctrines that unite us.
Colleen: Right. And Adventism is centrally about eschatology.
Nikki: Yeah. Revelation, the three angels messages.
Colleen: Revelation. Think of the name: Seventh-day Adventist.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Okay? So that’s referring to the coming of Christ, and the seventh day applies to how we get ready for the coming of Christ. It’s all about the end. It’s all about the end. That’s the central thing. But in Christianity, that’s peripheral.
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: It’s secondary. It may not be peripheral, but it’s secondary. What’s the core of Christianity?
Nikki: The gospel.
Colleen: The gospel. Let’s, just for the sake of clarity, repeat that.
Nikki: The gospel is that Jesus was born of a virgin, He came, He lived, He died for our sins according to Scripture, He was buried, and on the third day He was raised according to Scripture.
Colleen: 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 4.
Nikki: And you just always have to say that. “According to Scripture” is hugely important.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Because as you say, which Jesus are we talking about? Which coming? Which sins? Did He really die?
Nikki: What does it mean that He died for our sins?
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: What’s the result of that? The Bible answers all those questions.
Colleen: Exactly. So that’s the core. And I did not understand as an Adventist that I didn’t have the core doctrine of Christianity. I thought I was a Christian. But I didn’t even know to articulate the gospel as an Adventist. I’m not sure how I would have answered. How would you have answered? Now, Nikki, you were closer than some people in your answer, but you had some caveats about how you understood it.
Nikki: Yeah, and I have to say, close doesn’t count.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: There’s only one gospel that saves.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: I would have said that Jesus came, and He died for my sins, and I would have left it at that, and if someone hadn’t thought to probe that, I would have felt like –
Colleen: – that was it.
Nikki: – I had it. But for me that meant that He made a way for me to rely on the Holy Spirit to vindicate His character –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – to keep His commandments, and if I was faithful enough and was able to confess every sin –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – He would apply His blood to each sin up in the Holy of Holies – I mean, I could go on.
Colleen: Right. Right.
Nikki: It wasn’t the gospel of Scripture.
Colleen: No. No. Uh-uh. And what was it? A couple of weeks ago we had an Adventist visit our home for Sunday lunch when our lunch crowd was there –
Nikki: Uh-hmm.
Colleen: – and we asked her what the gospel was, and she said, “Um, Jesus is coming back? Three angels messages?” She didn’t know.
Nikki: She didn’t know. And it’s worth saying she grew up in academy all the way through –
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: – graduated from Loma Linda University.
Colleen: So it’s clear to me Adventism does not teach the biblical gospel, so Adventists don’t have the gospel as their core doctrine.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: We have eschatology as a core doctrine. So when we come out, once we discover the gospel, it’s still on our minds that we have to find a church that teaches what we understand. I remember years ago having a call from a man in Texas who said, “Oh, you know, I’ve come out of Adventism, I know the gospel, but I can’t go to these churches that teach the rapture and that teach hell and that teach –” And it’s like, “Calm down, calm down,” you know. We have to submit ourselves to Scripture, and if we have the core doctrine right and trust that the Holy Spirit will teach us this Word – but we have to immerse ourselves in the Word – these things will sort out.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And as Gary Inrig said in one of our first, very first – it wasn’t the first, but one of our very early FAF conferences, he did a breakout on how to find a church, and he said the three things that you have to know are there, the three things that really make for the seed of a healthy church is the gospel has to be central, the cross of Christ; the Bible has to be upheld as the only sufficient, inerrant course of authority; and they have to embrace the biblical trinity. He said there are other things that are secondary, which may be important enough to you that you can’t fellowship there, and I would say for myself I would probably include, you know, infant baptism and some things like that in that category, but he said, the fact is, if you have people who believe in the cross of Christ, who believe in Jesus, who believe in the Scriptures, and who believe in the Trinity, and they know Jesus, you can have Christian fellowship if the secondary things are different.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And that’s the key, are you born again through trusting Jesus? You can have fellowship with somebody else who’s born again and trusting Jesus, but it has to be scriptural teaching.
Nikki: And that’s really the key, the born again part. You know, I remember thinking – my first FAF conference I thought it was kind of harsh to say Adventists weren’t Christians.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: So I want to say, wanting to be a Christian does not a Christian make.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: It is a very different thing to want to be a Christian, to want to understand the God of the Bible. You know, if you’re raised in Adventism, you were raised there. That’s where God put you, and it’s not your fault.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: If you want to know the God of the Bible, open the Bible, read the Bible –
Colleen: – and pray to know.
Nikki: Pray to know. Pray for faith.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And you’ll know, you’ll know when you believe and when you’re born again, and then you’re a Christian.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: So when we say, you know, they’re not Christians, it’s not a “You’re not in the club.”
Colleen: No.
Nikki: It’s we want you to know Jesus.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: And so we can’t tell you – if you’re believing the Adventist gospel, we can’t tell you, “Oh, yes, you’re one of us.”
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: Because we don’t want to cut you off from the gospel.
Colleen: Uh-uh. That’s right. Yeah. Very true. Another thing that I’ve heard people say is, “Oh, they’re Christians. They follow the teachings of Jesus.” No. No. That does not make a Christian. A Christian is one who has trusted the finished work of Jesus and placed their entire faith in Him, in His shed blood and in His resurrection breaking the curse of sin. That’s what makes a Christian. Anybody, anybody can follow the good advice of moral teaching, but what I didn’t understand as an Adventist is how much of Jesus’ teaching wasn’t just like giving good advice and moral teaching and here’s how you live a nice life. He was revealing Himself. He was systematically fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies, and the Jews knew the prophecies. So as He moved through His life and did His teaching, as Kaspars talked about last night in his address, He was revealing His identity and revealing that the Messiah had come. Following the teachings of Jesus is not what makes a Christian. Jesus is God. Jesus is the Savior, and trusting Him as our Lord and Savior is what makes a Christian. What are some other things that you face when you leave?
Nikki: Hmm.
Colleen: Do you like my notebook?
Nikki: You’ve got to show them.
Colleen: It was given to me by my friend Amy. “Of course I talk to myself. Sometimes I need expert advice.” [Laughter.]
[General laughter.]
Nikki: And it’s empty inside. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
[General laughter.]
Colleen: Okay. So.
Nikki: Well, you asked what else you deal with when you leave –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – and I think that you have to deal with your preconceived ideas about Christians.
Colleen: Yes. One of mine was that Christians were kind of stupid. I mean, intellectually. Which is so embarrassing for me to admit, but I really did think that Adventists were better educated and more critical thinking.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: I’d actually kind of been taught that. It wasn’t necessarily overt, but I definitely picked that up in the Adventist milieu. And I’ve said this before, but the first time we went to Trinity Church and heard Gary Inrig preach – you’ve all heard him now; right? – he was preaching from Ephesians 2:1-4 that day. We came in after he had started. That was our first exposure to him, and I remember thinking, “Oh, my goodness. This man is brilliant. This man knows the Bible, and he has authority I had never heard from an Adventist.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So I had to get over my thought that Christians were intellectually simplistic. What an arrogant position. I had no idea I was even arrogant about that. What about you?
Nikki: I think I didn’t believe that they lived their convictions. I thought they were Easter and Christmas people –
Colleen: Oh, interesting.
Nikki: – and, I mean, who goes to church and then goes to Home Depot afterwards?
Colleen: [Laughter.]
[General laughter.]
Nikki: Apparently a lot of people here! [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
[General laughter.]
Colleen: You know how many people now say, “I’ve got to run to Costco before lunch”? [Laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah. Actually – and we bump into each other, don’t we? [Laughter.]
Colleen: Yeah. [Laughter.] So funny! Oh, my. Another thing, though, that I see among former Adventists – and this is actually a growing grief to me – is that many of them leave Adventism, but they are not leaving for Christ.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: And they might initially think, you know, they’ve heard the New Covenant, they’ve heard the explanation of the gospel, and they’ve heard the explanation why Sabbath isn’t binding on them, and it’s like, “Yes! I have an excuse to leave,” and they become – many become self-styled agnostics or self-styled quasi-charismatic, quasi-oh whatever feels good, or people that say, “I just don’t need church. I can just worship out, you know, at the beach.” And that is not biblical. We have to meet together; we have to be in the body of Christ. As Gary Inrig has often said over the years, “God did not make lone ranger Christians. He made a body, a body of Christ.” And think about this weekend and what it means to be together, the encouragement we receive from each other. That is what we’re created for in the body of Christ: Fellowship.
Nikki: And I know for me part of that was learning to trust, you know –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: I remember – I don’t know if you remember this, but I remember talking to you about just feeling like I didn’t know how to engage and have relationships with people, was very timid.
Colleen: I know.
Nikki: And I remember you said to me, “Nikki, trust God with who He’s putting in your life. You don’t have to trust the people; trust God.”
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And that allowed me to take baby steps.
Colleen: That’s really true. You know, I remember reading John, I think it’s John 2, the end of the chapter, where it says, “Jesus entrusted Himself to no man because He knew what was in the heart of men.” And that doesn’t mean He lived isolated or held Himself away from vulnerability. He was very vulnerable with His disciples and with a lot of people.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: What it means is we don’t, in our humanness, just automatically trust people. We always are trusting God. And you know what? Just saying, this is something I had to learn as a wife. I did not learn this as an Adventist wife, but as a Christian wife, I had to start grappling with some of those things in the New Testament about husbands and wives, and there is the Ephesians 5 thing; right?
Nikki: You can’t get away from that.
Colleen: Where husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and the woman is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. Well, coming from Adventism I had no clue how to navigate that one.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Because I think most of us know that in Adventism there is a sort of feminism that is very strong. I mean, how can it not be? We had a female prophet.
Nikki: Yeah, and I have to say, it’s a kind of feminism that re-defines reality.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Because it is not anti-woman –
Colleen: No.
Nikki: – to live out your biblical role in your relationship with your husband.
Colleen: Exactly! And what I’ve had to learn is I answer to God. He saved me, and Jesus is the head of the church, and He is my Lord. So when the Bible says to submit to my husband, that means if I’m feeling some kind of anxiety about that, my job is to submit to the Lord and say, “Lord, help me honor you in this interaction.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: “Help me honor you.” So that in some cases literally where – you know, and I don’t do this perfectly. Don’t ask my husband; he’ll tell you.
[General laughter.]
Colleen: I don’t. But I mean, there are times when I literally pray that I can look at him and honor Jesus in how I’m talking or acting. And that is how we have to live. We have to live that way as Christians. In every interaction we have, we honor the Lord, and He’s who we look to, and He shows us how. He shows us how to love the other for Him. And even coming into a Christian church from an Adventist background, it’s that same thing. He brings His people into our lives, and we can trust Him to show us how to interact.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: And He teaches us to trust, and He teaches us to know when it’s safe to trust, but it’s Him that’s defining. And that can only happen if a person is born again.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That’s living by the Spirit, I think.
Nikki: So what are some pitfalls that you see? I mean, you mentioned the people who say, “I don’t need to go to church. I can just go worship at the beach.”
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: What are some other pitfalls you see formers falling into when they leave?
Colleen: One other one related to what we’ve been talking about is some go so far from tradition, Christian tradition, that they actually leave sola scriptura, and that is a big concern to me too. They start looking – I mean, hello, we had a prophet. Isn’t there something that we learned? But you know, you can leave tradition so far that you start feeling like you can have special revelations yourself, or God is going to somehow bypass this [the Bible] and go to you, straight to your head. You know, “God is speaking to me.” If you pick up a book or anything that says, “God gave this,” be suspicious. Because God gave this [the Bible], and this is the only thing He has ever said He gave us. He will guide us, He will teach us, He will use this, He will impress this into our lives, but that’s just something that I see is a big pitfall.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But another one, and this is kind of a shift of subject, but it is an ongoing one, and it is very difficult, is the fear of losing family.
Nikki: Oh, yes. Family loyalty. Yes.
Colleen: You know, when we left, my parents, fortunately, had – independently of Richard and me, completely independently, on their own, had studied themselves out of Adventism, and when they moved to California, I mean, it was a gift from God. They started going to church with us. I remember the day – they were well into their 70s, and my mother looked at me in church one day and just kind of said, like, you know, “Nice day out; right?” But she said to me, “Your father and I have decided to start giving our offerings to Trinity Church.” I’m going, “Whoa! Okay!” So they never went back to the Adventist church. And they were Christians. But Richard’s parents were not like that, and Richard’s parents lived near us. It was months before we told them, and like Richard reminded me in a breakout sessions yesterday, it was Sabbath dinner. It was not happy. We had them over. We weren’t at church, but you know, they came over because that was their day. And yes, we told them. And it was not a happy occasion. Oh, my goodness. And they never got over it. I’m just saying, they never got over it. Richard’s parents both died within the last year. They were angry to the end, shall I say. He didn’t break contact with them, but they moved away from us and did not want to be in the same town. After the millennium turned, they moved to a state where nobody in the family ever lived and didn’t want to be close to us. They feared we would turn on them and kill them if the end came. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding.
Nikki: Well, that’s what we’re taught.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And that’s why you can have Adventists who don’t keep the Sabbath, but they will never leave it.
Colleen: Right. And then what do you do if your family is Adventist and doesn’t understand your leaving? You’ve experienced some of that, Nikki.
Nikki: Yeah. And I’m pretty sure that most of them still don’t. It’s not something that we discuss.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: I wrote this verse down. It’s Matthew 10:34-39. “A person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I could tell you my family is not proud of me for being here right now at this conference or doing this ministry –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: But I have to think – I spent so much time – you know I spent so much time poring over Scripture –
Colleen: I do know.
Nikki: I knew God was calling me to participate in and do a work that would never gain my family’s approval, ever.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And I thought a lot about that: Anyone who loves father or mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, whatever, more than me isn’t worthy of me. What does that mean, to love them more than God? Does loving them the way theywant me to love them – because love is defined differently outside of Christianity –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – does that require me to disobey God? Does that require me to say, “Okay, God, I know you want me in church this Sunday, but my family, they’re Sabbatarians, and so the birthday party is this morning, and I have to go to that.” And don’t hear me saying that you have to choose church over a birthday party in order to be a good Christian –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – but there was a consistent – Look! Sabbath-keeping separates you from the rest of Christianity, and so there was a consistent separation, and it was always expected that I would not be a part of my faith community if there is a family event.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: Can I be a part of a ministry like this and still cause them to feel loved. So who do I love more? Who do I seek to obey? Well, I love something you said at one of our last podcasts. I think it might have been on the new birth. You said that when we’re born again we’re adopted, and we have a new parentage.
Colleen: We do.
Nikki: And I answer – according to Hebrews, I answer to the Father of spirits, and obedience to Him trumps everything else.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: It does not mean it’s easy.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: It doesn’t mean it doesn’t break your heart or hurt your relationships.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And then the other thing was, does being what my family wants me to be cause me to sin?
Colleen: That’s a really big question.
Nikki: And so being willing to really look at that and really think about that, and as I would read through the epistles and read through the commands of Christ for the church, am I being hindered in my obedience? And I have to choose God. And that doesn’t mean that I am – I’m really not advocating for people to just reject their family, but some families just will not allow you to participate in the family –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – unless you toe the line.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And so sometimes honoring God means falling out of favor.
Colleen: Um-hmm. Right. Totally so. Yeah.
Nikki: But there’s a promise.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: There’s a promise attached. I think it’s even in that passage, in Matthew 10. He says, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left” – and can I point out again it says “left.” It doesn’t say “lost.”
Colleen: Right. Right.
Nikki: “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Colleen: It kind of makes me emotional.
Nikki: It makes me emotional, it does, and I mean, you guys out there, if you’re born again, you’re my inheritance, you’re my family.
Colleen: Absolutely.
Nikki: This is a part of the eternal life inheritance that we get to enjoy now on this side, on this side of life.
Colleen: And forever. We will know each other forever.
Nikki: It’s real.
Colleen: It’s real.
Nikki: Not just a metaphor.
Colleen: It’s not a metaphor.
Nikki: We’re family.
Colleen: That’s right. You know, we have this idea that if God is going to fix things, He’s going to fix things according to the plan He gave, you know, father, mother, children. Yes. But we live in a broken world, and sometimes I think about what it means that poor Mary, blessed Mary, lucky Mary, whatever – but Mary was a teenage girl to whom the Lord sent an angel, and the Holy Spirit made her pregnant with the Son of God, and she lived her whole life under the shadow of scandal. It was not scandal. It was a miracle, a singularity, but who believed that? And Joseph lived his life under that same shadow. And Jesus grew up under that same shadow. So God doesn’t always fix things so the world sees, “Oh, this is” – you know, “If you trust Jesus, everything will be fine.” He gives us what He knows we need. And you know, sometimes I think about the losses. I think about the loss of closeness. We didn’t lose relationship totally with Richard’s parents, but there was a closeness that was not there, that was a grief. And I know, I can tell you, how much it grieved Richard. It was a terrible – it has been a long grief.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And it was not fixed. But the Lord has given us family, and I understand how strange this would sound to somebody who’s not born again. They would think it sounds arrogant and replacement and above that, but no. He has given us people who love us, whom we love, who we are part of, whom we worship with, whom we live life with, and it doesn’t look like the prescription. It doesn’t look like what we think it’s supposed to look like, but it’s what He has given us, and it is sufficient.
Nikki: And I think it’s important to point out too that it’s not necessarily something that even the body of Christ, who has had the blessing –
Colleen: I agree.
Nikki: – of not coming out of a cult, it’s not always understood.
Colleen: I agree. No, it’s not.
Nikki: Yeah, it’s not. And so sometimes, you know, people will know that you’re not connected to your family for one reason or another, and you hear, “But what about ‘honor your mother and father?'”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And it can really – it can start to hurt.
Colleen: It can hurt all the places in your heart that might have hurt anyway. You know, it’s like really deep.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Yeah. And yet, we have to love the Lord. And along with that – and I say this because of the 20 years we’ve spent doing ministry with people leaving Adventism, the fact is that I don’t know anybody who has left Adventism who hasn’t suffered some level of serious trauma, at the very least spiritual trauma.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And there is a lot of interpersonal trauma. It’s the nature of a cult to have a false view of reality that’s not centered in the biblical truth, and nothing is as it should be because there is no bottom line reality. It’s invented. When the Lord reveals Himself, then He can start to reveal our lives to us. And there’s a lot of sorrow and grief that comes through that. But He’s faithful, and He walks us through it, and He shows it to us so we will trust Him more and deeper. And we don’t walk through life bleeding.
Nikki: And we know Him more through it.
Colleen: And we know Him more. Right. And I just want to say, if anybody out there has a question at this point, you can raise your hand, and Richard will come around with a mic. We’ll just kind of keep chattering. And if you have a question, just go for it. Overall, Nikki, what would you say has made it worth it? I mean, I’m not saying there’s one thing. Can you name some things that have made it worth it to you to leave? To actually leave, not just to say, “I believe” and stay where you are to make a difference, which we were very tempted to do at first.
Nikki: Top of the list is knowing God, that I can know Him. He’s knowable. He reveals Himself in Scripture, and there’s reality, ultimate reality, not just something I choose to believe in and hope for –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – but something as real as gravity.
Colleen: Absolutely.
Male attendee 1: I think this is more of a piggybacking on what you were saying, Colleen, about how leaving SDA could be difficult in the family sense. It could be extra difficult in the family and the friend sense, especially if you have family members or even friends who are Adventist pastors, and one of the biggest things that you get challenged with is, “Well, you know, are you saying that that family member is purposefully deceiving people? Are you saying that that friend is purposefully deceiving people?” I mean, “Did you ever speak to them about what you believe?” You know, so I guess it’s a question of how do you answer that?
Colleen: My first answer to that would be – and Nikki might have a different take, but I would say, “I am not accusing anybody of purposefully deceiving. I am only saying I know what I believe, and I can see in Scripture how this is wrong. You know, the Lord will have to convict you.” But I do come back in my head to that statement that I heard Dale Ratzlaff make years ago. He is so right. There are two kinds of Adventists: The deceived and the dishonest. And I would add to that there’s a point where the dishonest become dishonest. There’s a transition. The deceived make compromises and ultimately end up completely dishonest.
Nikki: Yeah, because they know there’s a lot to lose.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: I think what I would say to someone who said that to me is, “I’m not accusing any individual of deceiving people. I’m just telling you that I don’t believe those doctrines.” I mean, I would really approach it from the doctrines.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: “It’s the doctrines that are deceptive. Their history is cultic. The leaders of Adventism have never come out and repented. There are real issues in the bigger picture, and that’s what I’m standing against. And I’ve found truth in Scripture alone, and if you ever want to look at it with me, bring your Bible” –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – “and let’s sit down and look at it because I care about you, and I care about these people you think I’m accusing of deceiving. I actually care about you guys. Otherwise, I would have walked away and said nothing.”
Colleen: Speaking of the walking away, I have to say this again. We really did think we could stay and make a difference. We had come to see the gospel, but we were heavily embedded in Adventism at the Loma Linda University Church, and our work, our publishing business, had Adventist clients, and we were doing Adventist Today, editing and designing, and – I mean, how do you leave? And we thought, “We’ll stay, and we’ll just make a difference.” One day Richard and I were standing in the kitchen, and I don’t remember how we even came to this, but we said, “If we stay and pretend to be Adventists, even though we’re trying to make a difference, we’re still endorsing something we have come to believe is wrong. People looking at us will see us endorsing it; our money will go to it.” Well, even if we chose not to pay the money, you know, secretly. But people would still see us endorsing it. And we said, “How can we do that? We have to make our behavior match our convictions or how can we ever expect our sons to tell us the truth? They’ll watch us living our entire life like a lie. We can’t do that.”
Nikki: Can I just say, and I think on behalf of a lot of the people here, thank you Richard and Colleen for leaving Adventism.
[Applause.]
Colleen: Well, thank God.
Nikki: We have a question.
Colleen: Okay.
Male attendee 2: I sometimes get asked by present-day Adventists, “Why don’t you keep the Sabbath?” And I’m told or they often go to the first part of Genesis, the creation story, and they say that Sabbath was created on the seventh day for all men for eternity. How do you answer that?
Nikki: It doesn’t say that.
Colleen: No. And another thing I didn’t actually realize until we came out is that the Bible says creation was in six days. Nothing was created on the seventh day. Just saying. God rested because He was done. That was not a creation of Sabbath. It wasn’t called Sabbath. Adam and Eve were not commanded to keep it, and Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day. Sabbath was their –
Nikki: First day.
Colleen: – first day or second, whichever.
Nikki: Not that that –
Colleen: Not that that is the argument.
Nikki: – is the point, but still. And there’s nothing in the text that commands Adam or Eve to keep the Sabbath. It was just set aside to mark the fact that His creative work was ended at that point.
Colleen: And it says in Genesis that all the other days had an evening and a morning that outlined their beginning and ending, and the Sabbath has no evening and morning. The seventh day was different in the way the language was dealt with.
Nikki: And then also, in Deuteronomy 5 the reason for keeping Sabbath is because of the redemption of God. It’s because He took Israel out of Egypt.
Colleen: It does – yeah.
Nikki: So He mentions – at first you hear about creation, and then we have the redemption, and it’s all pointing to what Christ is going to do in His redemptive work.
Colleen: When an Adventist asks that question – and you know, I get that question once in a while – generally they’re not open to hearing. It doesn’t do any good to argue.
Nikki: You might offer to do a Bible study of Hebrews 3 and 4 with them and read it the way that Colleen was talking about earlier, where you pick apart what is this saying, who is this to, if they really are seriously asking, but –
Colleen: If they’re serious.
Nikki: – that’s rare.
Male attendee 3: I’ve encountered a problem where I find that I totally agree that you don’t have to have a perfect kind of church to where it has everything lined up exact, but I find the concept of soul sleep and the impact on no accountability, and I’ve seen it, and this is in a former Adventist kind of pastor, where I go to church at, that it’s pervasive, with a kind of liberalistic aspect of where they’ve done a theme on being understanding with the homosexual community kind of aspect, and the whole idea that only God makes decisions, per se.
Colleen: Have you thought of looking for another church?
Male attendee 3: So you see soul sleep as a critical element?
Colleen: I’m saying I see a liberal view of Scripture as a real problem.
Nikki: And I think we also have to point out this is a former Adventist pastor, so when he says soul sleep, that’s unique to Adventism, that’s not something that the Christian church anywhere believes, not the way the Adventists do. So he’s holding onto Adventist doctrines, and I want to say, being progressive or being liberal in your theology, that might be a desire to move toward understanding things differently, but what makes you a Christian is being submitted to Scripture. And so if you’re teaching soul sleep, leftover doctrines that you’re kind of tagging along, dragging with you, that impacts your view of man and your view of salvation. I mean, just – there are so many things that that will impact. I just would recommend a different church.
Colleen: I would. I would look for a church where the Bible is opened, and it’s taught. As Phil Johnson said, “Look for a church where the preacher opens the Bible and preaches right from the text and you can see that he’s doing it, and you’ll know” –
Nikki: You’ll know. You’ll know when it’s true.
Colleen: – when he’s doing it right.” Right? I mean, like when Gary opens the book or even when we heard Kaspars, you know, he’s preaching right from here; he’s showing us what’s here. And you can see it.
Nikki: Yeah. It’s not confusing.
Colleen: Yeah.
Female attendee 1: As far as what Adventists are open to hearing, when I was still an Adventist, what got me to really thinking was I watched an ex-Mormon testimony, which was great because I would never have listened to an ex-Adventist testimony. That would have felt very disloyal. It would have made me angry to listen to somebody saying that Adventists were a cult. I could not have heard that or accepted it, but I knew the Mormons were wrong, and so as a piece of advice to anybody out here, literally it’s called on YouTube “Ex-Mormon Testimony.” It’s 17 minutes long, and by the end of that I was sobbing because I could so relate to this man, which then opened my mind to be able to consider the similarities between our two churches and to realize that, “Oh, my gosh! I’m like that,” and speak from there. But anyway, just saying.
Nikki: Isn’t it funny how we understood the Mormons were wrong. They had a prophet. When I left Adventism, I was like, “Oh, wait. The Mormons had a prophet, and we had a prophet.”
[General laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] I don’t know about you, I was taught in junior high Adventist school that the Mormons, yes they did have a prophet, but he was wrong.
[General laughter.]
Nikki: Yeah, we had the right one!
Colleen: We had the right one because she agreed with the Bible. [Laughter.]
Nikki: You know, I actually follow a Former Mormons for Christian Facebook group, and it’s incredible to see – they’re just like us, guys.
Colleen: It’s like family.
Nikki: It’s incredible to see, yeah. You know, and I would also recommend another way to talk to Adventist family outside of the context of Adventism, Nabeel Qureshi wrote a book called, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.”
Colleen: Oh, yeah.
Nikki: And his story mirrors a lot of the –
Colleen: It’s surprising.
Nikki: Yeah. – the obstacles we had to overcome.
Colleen: Yeah.
Female attendee 2: Going back to the Sabbath issue, which we talked earlier, that was one of the toughest things for me to wrap my head around, but I had found more and more when Adventists come and talk to me about the Sabbath, I say, “Well, how do you keep the Sabbath? Tell me what the Bible says about keeping the Sabbath,” and they have not a clue. The common answer is, “I believe in the Sabbath.” And they do the same thing I do on Saturdays. If they feel like going to church, they will, but if they don’t, they won’t. And it’s very interesting. There is any number of reasons, but it’s mostly belief, not keeping.
Colleen: Yeah, I agree. In fact, I remember as an Adventist realizing that behaviors varied. You know, what people were willing to do on the Sabbath varied. What seemed to matter was that internal commitment to the idea that the seventh day was eternally significant.
Nikki: I think I spent a lot more time trying to understand the Sabbath and how to keep the Sabbath than I tried understanding Jesus.
Male Attendee 4: My question is, for those of us who have never been Adventists, how should we approach Adventists? How can we reach them? How can we steer the conversation to help them and to share with them what we’re doing here?
Colleen: That is a question that’s always hard to answer.
Nikki: I think you ask them questions.
Colleen: That’s what I say.
Nikki: I think you say, “Oh, you’re Adventist. So that means you go to church on Saturday; right? And who’s Ellen White? You have a prophet?” Start asking them the questions that they’re kind of keeping behind their back.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And try to get them to talk about that. And as they struggle to answer some of that – because for us, I can’t tell you how many times I would go to an Adventist and say, “Hey, what do we believe about this, that, or the other?” Because I didn’t know.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And so as they are confronted with how much they don’t know about their own faith, that’s going to push them in some direction.
Colleen: And one thing we’ve found too is that Adventists have now learned to say, “I don’t have to keep the Sabbath to be saved.”
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: It’s better to say to them, “Would you risk losing salvation if you gave up the Sabbath?” That’s harder for them to answer. One more question.
Male attendee 5: There’s a text in Paul’s writing that says, “One day is better than the other. Somebody sees every day is the same, and everybody must be convicted in themselves,” you know, “which day you do.”
Colleen: Right.
Male attendee 5: But my question is: Does this refer to the Sabbath day or something else? If something else, what is that?
Colleen: I think – that’s in Romans 14:5-6, and I believe that that is referring, at least in part, to Sabbath. But here’s what I would say, and I just – I feel really strongly about this. Many people will say, “Well, you know, I understand I have rest in Christ, I have freedom in Christ, the gospel, I’m saved by Jesus, not by works. I go to church on Sabbath just, you know, because it’s my preference, and it’s not for salvation.” Here’s what I believe. For us as former Adventists, Sabbath was an idol. And I would have argued with that. I wouldn’t have thought that was true as an Adventist. But it was. And I realized one day that when Jeroboam built his golden calves in Israel and called it Yahweh worship, he didn’t build a god on top of the calf because Yahweh was invisible. The pagan nations used the golden calves not as the deity but as the seat of the deity. They would picture their gods on top of the calf, and the calf was the symbol of the god’s strength and power and authority, and the god that would win in the wars was the best god. So that’s the formula that Jeroboam used. He used the golden calves but without a god on top because Yahweh was invisible, and when I realized that, I saw that Sabbath had been the golden calf. For me, when I was Adventist, if I really was worshipping God right, it had to be carried on the Sabbath. So I would say because Sabbath was an idol, because it was part of our salvation package and that’s false, I think we have to give it up because otherwise we’re hanging onto an idol and keeping it in the corner. A person who’s never had that might be able to go to church on Sabbath and it mean nothing. But for us, it was an idol, and we can’t retain the idol. If you have questions or comments or want to contact us, please do so at formeradventist@gmail.com or you can go to proclamationmagazine.com and sign up for the magazine, for our weekly email, or you can listen to us on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to like us. Write a review on iTunes if you care to, and thank you for being part of this podcast.
Nikki: We’ll see you next time.
[Applause.]
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