KASPARS OZOLINS
Scripture calls life a “vapor” and repeatedly stresses how short the time that we have on this earth is. That is why I have always appreciated each new year and tried to take stock of my life at each major transition. What do I want to do with the remaining time that God has granted me, and why? Setting resolutions is often dismissed as being a counter-productive exercise, chiefly because we so often fail at our own resolutions. But even if we fail, the idea of stopping and thinking about why we do what we do in life is eminently reasonable and rational.
So I want to take time to consider a question at the outset of the new year that I and other former Adventists have often received from family and friends ever since leaving Seventh-day Adventism. Actually, the mere fact that we have left Adventism, while traumatizing enough to people our circles, is still not the main issue. After all, most people eventually make some sort of peace over the fact that we are gone. Rather, it is the fact that there are some former Adventists who also positively fight against Adventism that is startling, perplexing, and simply unacceptable. People have asked me, tongue-in-cheek, why there are no “former Baptist” organizations, or why no “ex-Presbyterian” conferences ever take place, for example.
People have asked me, tongue-in-cheek, why there are no “former Baptist” organizations, or why no “ex-Presbyterian” conferences ever take place, for example.
Our annual Former Adventist Fellowship conference is just around the corner, and my regular participation in this event usually elicits reactions from Adventists ranging from perplexity, to anger, even to mockery and belittling. Why on earth would one spend time participating in an event gathering together to rally against Adventism? Merely having in common the goal of fighting against another church seems utterly baffling, and something that ought to be quite beneath any decent person. My involvement is not limited only to this annual conference. I take time to write against Adventism––like this blog article, or a Facebook post. There are many like me who participate in conversations with Adventists and Christians (online and in-person), making the case against Adventism. The question deserves an answer: “Why fight against Adventism?” I’ll consider several common objections and respond to them in turn.
“Your fighting seems petty and vindictive”
The very idea of a religious conflict, let alone a war, is positively anathema in our post-modern culture. To assert that another person’s religious ideas are misguided or wrong or dangerous is something that is truly taboo to most people. To modern sensibilities, the idea of people being each on their own “religious journey” is wonderful. (Left unstated, but clearly implied, is our culture’s strong distaste for anyone claiming to have finally “arrived” at the truth.) The individual’s own life story and path is viewed as sacrosanct, and not subject to dispute. Such thinking often pervades modern Christendom, and Seventh-day Adventism certainly is no exception. I would respond with the words of a much-beloved Getty hymn: “Our call to war, to love captive soul; but to rage against the captor.” Make no mistake about it––this is a war. But it is a war waged on behalf of souls, people made in the image of God, who are captured by false doctrine. Christianity is a truth religion, one that makes very explicit doctrinal claims.
The gospel message itself is absolutist in its claims: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). “Every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart [is] only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist…Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 7, 9).
Given these black-and-white, life-and-death categories, the question Seventh-day Adventists ought to be asking is not whether our fighting is petty and vindictive…, but whether our claims are valid.
Given these black-and-white, life-and-death categories, the question Seventh-day Adventists ought to be asking is not whether our fighting is petty and vindictive (for that is not our aim), but whether our claims are valid. Adventists down the line going back to the organization’s very beginnings have insisted that their “three angels’ messages” is the Adventist gospel. According to Ellen White, “The third angel’s message must be presented as the only hope for the salvation of a perishing world” (Evangelism, p. 196). Just at the very start of this very year, the Adventist organization is calling for 10 days of prayer worldwide (www.tendaysofprayer.org) devoted to the theme of the three angels’ messages. Yet the apostle Paul gave a most severe warning to the Galatians: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you have received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:9). Does it matter to Adventists that their “gospel” message places them under a curse? And should former Adventists (or any Christian, for that matter) be concerned about this?
“It never works, anyway”
Another common objection from Adventists is that our activities are basically pointless, at the end of the day. After all, what Adventist would want to be convinced by such a polemical attitude? This, too, is part of a wider bias against proselytism in our culture. (Conspicuously left unmentioned is the proselytism of the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is almost entirely aimed at evangelical Christians, whom they term “spiritual Babylon.”) For a biblical Christian, however, the first question to ask is never, “Will it work?” Jeremiah famously lived a life of suffering and endured such opposition and hostility from others that his ministry would have almost certainly been judged a complete failure by our times. Yet Jeremiah was successful in God’s eyes because he was faithful to his calling. If no Adventist ever responded to the true gospel and came out, our cause would still be right, since Christians have been charged with the task of destroying arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).
And even with all that, there are Adventists who have responded to the gospel call from Former Adventist Fellowship and related ministries (as well as from individual concerned Christians). FAF was instrumental in my leaving Adventism, and I personally know other friends who have had their lives transformed by attending a conference or other meetings, or by listening to the Former Adventist podcast, or by reading online articles. We may be insignificant in comparison to the carefully cultivated image projected by the Adventist organization, but God’s people have always seemed to be at a huge disadvantage in comparison to their opponents from a worldly perspective. Our insignificance should humble us and induce us to rely on God, who “is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matt. 3:9).
“Adventism has changed; there are so many more important issues in the world”
Relatedly, a common complaint is that our activities are a waste of time, and that we ought to spend our time on things that are more “productive.” Dividing over doctrines is not the most important thing, especially when so many non-Adventist evangelicals seem to have embraced the Adventist church as basically orthodox. For example, at a 50th anniversary conference on Questions on Doctrine hosted at Andrews University, Kenneth Samples, a well-known evangelical apologist, said the following:
From the standpoint of historic Christian or creedal orthodoxy, the primitive Adventist movement was a theologically cultic movement or a heretical sect in its basic theology…And yet, the next century saw Adventism’s doctrinal views undergo analysis and change. Ellen G. White apparently played an important, if not critical, role in helping the Adventist church move toward theological orthodoxy. It has ultimately embraced a fully Trinitarian theology with an orthodox understanding of the person and nature of Christ and a belief that Christ’s righteousness in the atonement is granted to the believer through faith alone.
Armed with such supporters, many Adventists assert that polemical activities against Adventism that are doctrinal in nature are no longer justifiable. Yet this is demonstrably false, in two ways: 1) “traditional” Adventism is alive and well in the church today, 2) progressive Adventism, despite its conflicts with the conservatives, is still attached to the same poisoned roots of the 19th century non-Trinitarian Advent movement. Part of the mission of FAF has been to demonstrate that Seventh-day Adventism––though it has certainly morphed since its founding––is nevertheless still a fundamentally heretical organization, even though it poses as an evangelical church. Those who dismiss this view tend to criticize our work as being inherently illegitimate, instead of examining the official statements of the Seventh-day Adventist church, and comparing the views of both traditional and progressive Adventists with that of Scripture and historic Christianity.
What is our end goal?
A few years ago I expressed a wish in an online post that Seventh-day Adventism would one day cease to exist and that those who were genuinely believers within her would seek to become part of an evangelical church. I recall that this sentiment evoked much shock and horror among some of my Adventist (and even non-Adventist) friends. How could one ever wish for such a thing to be true? To anyone who has this reaction, I only ask, “Has the Seventh-day Adventist church ever in its history proclaimed the one gospel given to us from the New Testament? Indeed, has it not blatantly, and consistently––added to, subtracted from, or otherwise distorted the good news of Jesus Christ? And if so, should that matter?”
I am only a proverbial beggar who has found bread and wants to give it to others.
I do not view myself as being somehow superior in intellect or insight than other Adventists. The gospel did not dawn upon me because of some special intellectual power that I possess. I am only a proverbial beggar who has found bread and wants to give it to others. But I do feel called to fight Adventism, not only because it proclaims another gospel, but also because it does so deceptively. It poses as being Christian, even as it does violence to souls and dishonors God. And though we fight, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). Intercessory prayer. The study of God’s Word. The courage to speak up. Being ready at all times to give an answer for the hope that is in us.
Although this life is presently filled with trials and dangers, I look forward to the soon day when “every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). †
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