A “Never-Been” Discovers the Truth About Adventism

DEBORAH PRATT | Life Assurance Ministries’ Moderator

It’s been 11, going on 12 years now, since I first found this group called the Former Adventist Fellowship (FAF). From finding articles online by Dale Ratzlaff and getting connected in the old FAF forum, to watching all of the past recordings of the FAF conferences, to studying the Bible with Former Adventists, it’s been the faith-growing journey of a lifetime. I was asked recently what has led to my involvement with FAF folks, especially since I’ve never been Seventh-day Adventist (SDA). 

Because I have lived just a short distance away from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, for most of my life, from my childhood I knew about Seventh-day Adventists, if only vaguely. When I was only five or six, an outspoken family member called people from Berrien Springs “peanut eaters.” Over time, I had more interactions with the Adventist community around Andrews University. I shopped at Apple Valley, learned I had a distant cousin who worked at the Adventist Book Center, took a class in textiles at the University, met many Seventh-day Adventists through my work at a local community college, and became good friends with several (still, there is a subliminal sense of being an outsider). 

EGW Is Not an Adventist Martin Luther

I had learned about Ellen White and her reformed dress from my textiles class and had the opportunity to spend some time in the documents room in the library, but my studying was mostly related to the special clothing and the ostensible reasons for it. I didn’t really understand that Adventists believe Ellen White was a prophetess; I kind of thought she was like Lutherans’ Martin Luther, only the Adventist version. But even then, somewhere in my spirit, I felt a need to guard my heart from their theology, even though I didn’t yet know much about it. 

After losing a close family member, I was invited to go with my Adventist friend to their very “non-traditional” church on Saturdays. My friend said it was a very healing place to go, and I certainly needed to heal, but…. I knew also that I knew very little about actual Adventist doctrines, and I wanted to be acutely alert to what I might hear so as to be able to spiritually defend against them. I had been through New Age deception, which took me off the rails for several years, and I didn’t want a repeat performance with Adventism. Some of the church members were aligned with the pastor, who was (and still is) unconventional, and some were still very conventional. I didn’t know what I would hear.

But who was I going to ask about Adventist doctrine? I knew no one from my family, nor my childhood church, nor my non-Adventist friends, who knew anything more than I did, and if they did, they never discussed it. It was almost as if living in the region around Andrews inoculated those who considered themselves to be Christians from understanding what beliefs Adventists really held, or even from wanting to understand. They acted as though it was just another Christian denomination, and there didn’t seem to be any particular interest in finding out differently. Even the little booklet I had had acquired many years earlier, “Our Church and Others”, published by a Lutheran publishing house, pointed out problems and differences, but it was not much to go on, and it had been out of publication for years. 

Saturday Church Posing as Bible Church

As I began to attend the Saturday church, I also became more involved with the Former Adventist Fellowship and began to understand just how different the doctrines were from the traditional Christian doctrines with which I grew up. I needed the comparison to see clearly. While my new Adventist friends and the church didn’t generally overtly discuss Ellen White, and she was rarely brought up during church services, the Sabbath practices were there. The pastor, however, seemed very focused on the Bible and application directly to life without bringing Ellen White into it. Sometimes it seemed as though he was on the very edge of acceptable Adventist pastoring by what he was teaching the church. I have prayed for them since I met them, that the Lord would lead them into His saving truth.

Somewhere along the line I learned about Ellen White and her plagiarism, but I never saw this fact make much difference among those who professed to be committed Adventists. They would call it beautiful writing and inspiring, but I still didn’t understand what that meant in terms of how it influenced their doctrines.

Somewhere along the line I learned about Ellen White and her plagiarism, but I never saw this fact make much difference among those who professed to be committed Adventists. They would call it beautiful writing and inspiring, but I still didn’t understand what that meant in terms of how it influenced their doctrines. At the same time I was becoming involved with FAF, there were some internet events that took place that made a lot of Adventist materials available to the general public. I began to hear of ex-Adventist pastors who left and built thriving churches away from the Adventist doctrine. It was a puzzle to me in the context of this Saturday church I was attending. 

This Saturday church, which was very similar in practice to a basic, non-denominational Bible church, also encouraged weekly group gatherings where I met (for the second time I later realized) a group of people my friend had known for years. They usually went through a book together; sometimes they went through something more directly related to the Bible, and often their studies were more life-application related with Bible thrown in. Sometimes, some books they studied had disturbingly tantalizing false theology on the topics of emotional healing and healing breath, “new-agey” stuff. I found myself telling them I would love to be with them if they were studying from the Bible (because that other stuff was suspect), but I didn’t share directly why. 

Recently, they have been studying some material written by Rebecca Manley Pippert for people who don’t know much about Jesus, and I thought this would be interesting because of the mix of those attending – some long-time Adventists, some young people who didn’t want any of the rules from their upbringing, and some in-the-middle folks. I wanted to hear what they understood about Jesus when presented with just the words from the gospels. I wondered how they could “share Jesus” if they weren’t all on the same page about who He is. I am still wondering that; it’s hard to know what doctrinal bits are still attached to what they now understand.

Discovering the Doctrinal Dichotomy

Early on in the little group meetings, there were some uncomfortable moments, such as when I had not yet understood their doctrine of “soul sleep” and talked about knowing that my beloved family member was in the presence of Jesus even now, and feeling those in the room stiffen tangibly. No one attempted to try to correct me, but it was clear that was not what they were thinking!  I was not going to dissemble my beliefs, but I had also decided when I first started visiting with them that I was not there to preach at or correct them; I really did want to understand what they believed and how they practiced it, while at the same time studying with those who had left Adventism and better understanding their reasons. 

I didn’t feel like I was really in a place to ask them questions about what they believed, so I really spent most of my time observing and joining with them for after-church meals, social time, and the weekly small group, where I could see what they believed from being welcomed into their circle. 

Parallel to my time with them, I worked in different places where I met up with Adventists who, to my amazement, were affiliated with this same little group throughout the years, even while they were in distant places like Indiana, California, Washington State, or missionaries in the Philippines. I even was temporarily involved with some folks at a retreat center near Berrien Springs who, I discovered, were involved in the beginning of the decision to have a small, less-formalized church setting than that which existed at Pioneer Memorial on the campus of Andrews University. Subsequently, their “project”  became this Saturday church I was invited to attend. I have recognized that Adventists are a network of communities, but it has always seemed uncoincidental that I met up with people from this same original set of Adventist folks in so many different places through the years.  

As I began to ingest the Former Adventist Fellowship discussions, conference videos and teachings, I began to be aware of a fierce dichotomy between basic biblical, born-again, Christian understanding, and Adventist doctrines.

As I began to ingest the Former Adventist Fellowship discussions, conference videos and teachings, I began to be aware of a fierce dichotomy between basic biblical, born-again, Christian understanding, and Adventist doctrines. I felt sad that these people I had come to love seemed often to understand the Scriptures, and then, as if out of left field, some strange Michael-the-archangel thing would pop up; in fact, I overheard one of them teaching this strange doctrine in the children/teen class they held on Wednesday evenings in partnership with the local Presbyterian church (!) one time (albeit several years ago, and true faith can grow…), reminding me that the deception could go deep and broad and long and unquestioned. 

There is still a resistance among those I know to believing the living spirit of a believer who has died goes to be with Jesus. There is still resistance to recognizing that God has wrath; in fact, talking about God’s wrath right out in the open generates discomfort (e.g. Romans 1). There is still what seems like a lack of awareness of the elements of Adventist doctrine that so clearly conflict with the truths of the Bible (e.g. Jesus’ identity cannot and does not include Michael the archangel).  

As I learned more about the great differences across Adventist groups from conservative to very liberal, it made more sense when I met people through the course of my work who were firmly Seventh-day Adventist but engaged in some of the things that were supposedly forbidden. Some of them shared very personal and scarring experiences, and I have learned that these kinds of encounters are often common within the Adventist culture.

The Bible Exposes Adventism

Through the FAF conferences, I also learned about Redeemer Fellowship in Loma Linda, their weekly Word Search Bible studies, and the challenges they had gone through in order to even be permitted to be a church in that area due to the Adventist influences there. I came to understand that Redeemer was an outreach to speak truth into that community. I also learned there was an FAF Bible study I could join, and, wonder of wonders, we had Zoom when I discovered the FAF Bible study, a providential technology which allows me to join with others to study the Bible with those in California and around the world! And to the great delight of my spirit, this  Zoom community has continued even after the pandemic eased off. At the same time, Redeemer offered Bible studies in person and on Zoom, so I was able to participate in those as well and still can, to my great joy. 

It seems clear to me that God has had plans for this journey of mine alongside both Adventists and Formers for many years. He has definitely helped me understand the depths of the dark doctrines in which Adventists have been steeped and deceived, and He has helped me know how to pray for my Adventist friends and their families. I see now that what they believe is a different gospel, and I have sorrow knowing that some of them are lured back into the cultic doctrines of the Adventist machine by family or friends as part of a spiritual battle for their souls. 

At the same time, I feel like I have been in an intensive, deep dive into the biblical faith alongside Formers; as Jude 3 states: 

“Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (NASB 1995, emphasis mine). 

I have learned SO much with Formers as they have contended earnestly for the faith and who have to keep peeling away the layers of false beliefs to be renewed in their minds by the Holy Spirit and the Word; praise God, He has been renewing mine as well. †

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Deborah Pratt lives in Michigan near Berrien Springs. She is a Lutheran who has learned about Adventism through studying with them in interdenominational Bible studies and through interacting with Adventists online. She has become one of Life Assurance Ministries’ online moderators for FAF Bible studies and YouTube premiers and streaming events.