KASPARS OZOLINS | Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
I learned this week that the popular term gaslighting is actually derived from a 1944 film called Gaslight, in which a woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, seems to be going mad. The actual reality is totally different. Her husband, who is engaged in criminal activities, tries to convince his wife that she is mad so that she won’t try to follow up on her suspicions regarding his questionable behavior. The husband goes to great lengths in manipulating his wife so that she ends up almost believing his lies and deceptions. The title of the movie itself comes from the dimming of the gaslights in the wife’s attic for no apparent reason (which the husband gives as evidence of his wife’s apparent insanity).
I say all this because I don’t think I have ever felt more gaslit in my life than when watching a recent question and answer episode hosted by the Adventist organization Light Bearers (YouTube link). The two hosts, Ty Gibson and David Asscherick, were asked to give their response to the claim that Seventh-day Adventism is a cult. As I listened, I was shocked at how forceful the responses were, and how easily the arguments fell under typical gaslighting behavior.
As I listened, I was shocked at how forceful the responses were, and how easily the arguments fell under typical gaslighting behavior.
Before I examine those arguments, I want to say something at the outset. We former Adventists are not crazy to call Adventism a cult. We are not on a vindictive vendetta. We are not trying to tear people down or use mean labels. We care about the truth; we care about the gospel of Jesus Christ; we care about the souls of human beings. We aim to speak the truth in love. Though we do not have the apostolic authority of Paul, Scripture is the weapon of our warfare, and it has “divine power to destroy strongholds.” As Paul worked in his ministry, so ordinary Christians also work to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4).
As a preface, let’s be clear that the term cult is intended to convey the claim that Adventism is a heretical movement founded on doctrines that blatantly contradict the central message of the Bible. Here are just a few of the ways that Ty Gibson and David Asscherick attempt to gaslight those who claim that Seventh-day Adventism is a cult.
Trivialization
David Asscherick and Ty Gibson attempt to trivialize Adventist doctrines, making others second-guess themselves and wonder whether they are being too nit-picky.
Asscherick: “It’s funny that, oh, you believe that Jesus is the head of the angels and that Michael is the name for Jesus as the leader of the angelic host. Yes. Yeah, I believe that’s true. I believe that possesses fantastic explanatory power for both the Old and New Testaments. It’s not the most important thing to me; it’s not even in the top 10 or 20—the identification of Michael—but you think that makes what I believe cultic? Ok, have a great day.”
Response: Adventists vehemently assert that they are not denying the divinity of Christ (like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do) when they claim that Jesus is Michael the archangel. Nevertheless, under the Great Controversy worldview, such a claim does undermine the divinity of Christ. Describing Jesus as Michael the archangel is in fact a remnant of the deadly Arian legacy of the Adventist pioneers, which lives on in its present-day tritheism. Instead of nuancing and distancing the Adventist view from that of Jehovah’s Witnesses, an actual biblical denomination would have dropped the blasphemous notion that Jesus, as Michael the archangel, was only one of the chief princes (Daniel 10:13), along with Satan (as claimed by Ellen White).
Asscherick: “People, they want to go on about the scapegoat. You know, Leviticus 16. We’re really going to get into the obscure which, by the way, I love Leviticus 16—but if you’re going to try to pretend like orthodox Christianity has some well-defined perspective on Azazel, I’ll bet you not one in a thousand evangelical Christians even know what Azazel is or who he is, so if you want to have a conversation about Leviticus 16 and how that informs the mediatorial ministry of Jesus and the sacrificial priestly and expiatory ministry of Jesus, let’s have that conversation; but to pretend like this is somehow cultic or that there’s a well-defined orthodox position on the scapegoat in Azazel and Adventists find themselves outside—no, come on, what are are we doing here?”
Response: Here, again, Asscherick dismisses and trivializes the unique Adventist perspective on Leviticus 16, as though it were a minor, obscure point from one of the most obscure books of the Old Testament. In my opinion, this is a rather disingenuous hand wave that is intended to distract potentially concerned Christians from the very dark implications Adventist doctrine leads to when claiming that Satan is the scapegoat of Leviticus 16. As Asscherick knows, Leviticus 16 is absolutely central to the Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment, which involves questions that go to the very heart of the Christian faith itself: What is atonement? Who provides for it? How was sin dealt with? To answer any of these questions outside of the cross of Jesus Christ is to commit the greatest blasphemy. What’s at stake is not merely the interpretation of an obscure chapter of Scripture, but rather the very nature of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Deflection
David Asscherick and Ty Gibson deflect concerns about Adventist doctrines, confusing categories and obscuring the real issues.
Gibson: “The Seventh-day Adventist church is not a cult, and there’s no evidence for that. Thank you. So I’ve been a part of the Seventh-day Adventist church for a long time, I’ve never, ever encountered any cultic activity; nobody’s ever tried to control me. I mean, what do we mean when we say it’s a cult? To accuse a Protestant denomination, a worldwide evangelistic Protestant denomination that emerged out of Protestantism—to call that thing a cult is a manifest intellectual laziness that allows you to escape from having to actually have a discussion with us about what we actually believe. And to say that the Seventh-day Adventist church is a cult—you know that’s inflammatory! When people think of a cult they think, ok, Jim Jones and drinking Kool-Aid and everybody committing suicide together, and Charles Manson and his cult of murder. The Seventh-day Adventist church is a Protestant denomination that believes all the basic doctrines of apostolic Protestant Christianity.”
Response: Ty Gibson is deflecting the concerns of non-Adventists by redefining what we mean when we call Seventh-day Adventism a cult. Notice that his response to the label “cult” is to claim that Adventism is a “Protestant denomination that believes all the basic doctrines of apostolic Protestant Christianity.” That shows that he is aware of what our concerns actually are, since he is responding with his own claims claims that are plainly doctrinal in nature. He does not try to present evidence that Seventh-day Adventist president Ted Wilson is not a cult leader like Jim Jones (although he could easily have done so). Instead, he demonstrates awareness of our true concerns, while simultaneously deflecting those concerns by charging us with using inflammatory rhetoric.
Lies and Falsehoods
David Asscherick and Ty Gibson spread falsehoods and half-truths about SDA doctrines (whether knowingly or not), and deceive both Adventists and evangelicals.
Gibson: “We confess the triune godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess the deity of Christ. We confess the atoning sacrifice of Christ. We do not believe that Jesus is a created being. You don’t even have to do a lot of research. In fact, if you just Google "What do Adventists believe", you will find, I think the second document that comes up…the stated belief system that’s voted by the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist denomination on what we believe. Belief number one—the first section is about our doctrine of God. We do not believe that Jesus is a created being; we do not believe that Satan makes atonement for sin. These claims are preposterous; they have no grounding in reality.”
Response: One kind of falsehood is the failure to willingly provide the whole truth. The only reason that this allegation (regarding the denial of the divinity of Christ) exists is because the Seventh-day Adventist organization was founded as a blatantly Arian movement (something Gibson hides from his Adventist viewers and evangelicals), which continues to have serious consequences for all Adventist doctrine. Indeed, one of the reasons this allegation continues to be raised is because of the way that the Adventist Jesus is described, both by Ellen White and in current mainstream Adventist literature. Titles like “Michael the archangel,” the Great Controversy struggle between Satan and Christ, descriptions of the Adventist Jesus’ human nature (at the expense of his divine nature), the church’s ongoing tritheistic understanding of their “Trinity”—all these things make our concerns fully valid.
Adventist official doctrine teaches that the antitypical “Day of Atonement” did not take place at the cross on the day of Christ’s death.
But I would like to focus on Gibson’s very strong claim about Satan and atonement. I did exactly what Ty Gibson said I should do. I went to the Adventist website and read their summary of their own beliefs. Belief #24 mentions Christ’s “atoning sacrifice offered once for all on the cross.” However, it then goes on to state that the antitypical “Day of Atonement” began in 1844 and is described as a work of investigative judgment which is part of the ultimate disposition of all sin.” Adventist official doctrine teaches that the antitypical “Day of Atonement” did not take place at the cross on the day of Christ’s death. In other words, the “day” of Christ’s death was not the “day of atonement”.
Let that sink in.
The website’s explanation of this doctrine states very clearly: “In the ultimate cleansing of sin from the universe, there will be a final scapegoat. Satan, the arch-deceiver, will bear all the sins which he has caused God’s people to commit, not in connection with their salvation but to suffer retribution for his role as the author of sin. When the sanctuary in Heaven is cleansed and the pre-advent phase of judgment is finished, those sins will be transferred to Satan as part of his condemnation and final punishment.”
Just ponder for a moment the weighty implications of this Adventist doctrine. The universe cannot be cleansed of sins until Satan bears those sins. The antitypical Adventist “Day of Atonement” will not end before the sins of God’s people will have been transferred to Satan (i.e., atonement cannot be made without Satan’s central role). The ultimate cleansing of the universe is contingent on Satan being the sin-bearer. God might “save” people from sin, but only through Satan can sin be truly “atoned” for.
Appeal to Authority
David Asscherick and Ty Gibson appeal to the current widespread acceptance of Seventh-day Adventism in much of evangelicalism as cover for their organization, causing critics to doubt their own judgment.
Asscherick: “I do want to make one final point here. I literally have books on my shelf—I’ve got one right here on my desk right now—this is a new book called Why We Pray written by an Adventist scholar and friend of ours named John Peckham, published by Baker Academic, ok? I mean, an academic evangelical Protestant [publisher]. It gets even better. Let me show you one more. I’ve got this one here, a textbook called The Doctrine of God: Introducing the Big Questions, written in this case by the same scholar, Dr. Peckham… It has endorsements by people from Liberty University, Houston Baptist University, Southwestern Seminary, Biola University. I mean, if Adventism is some nefarious cult because somebody on some podcast said so, then why are mainstream academic publishers publishing [Adventist] textbooks on the nature of God, among other things?”
Response: This last category is perhaps the most concerning and upsetting to those of us who have left Adventism for the gospel. It is true that much of current evangelicalism either doesn’t know (or doesn’t care) about the cultic nature of mainstream Adventist doctrine. But this is by no means a universal evangelical assessment. Furthermore, and more importantly, it is not the historic evangelical position. Evangelicals prior to Walter Martin’s work The Kingdom of the Cults (1965) almost universally recognized Seventh-day Adventism for what it truly was: a non-apostolic 19th century new religion that belonged in the same category as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism. Adventism did not magically transform from a cult into an evangelical denomination after the 1950s, when Walter Martin met with Adventist scholars. The real reason for the current state of affairs is primarily two-fold: (1) Of all the 19th century new religions, Seventh-day Adventism, by far, has been the most successful at masking the true reality of its own doctrines, (2) far too many evangelicals today care little for sound biblical doctrine (and may not even be able to recognize it).
Standing Upon the Reality of God’s Word
The only solution to religious gaslighting is for believers to stand firm upon the reality of God’s Word. We as Christians need to love the truth and to speak the truth in love. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us truth and points us to the Truth—the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe what he says:
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). †
- Adventism and Recent Developments in Evangelical Scholarship - December 12, 2024
- Gaslighting—By Adventists - October 17, 2024
- My Only Comfort in Life and Death - August 22, 2024