RICK AND SHERYL BARKER | From Adventism to Jesus
Rick: The story of how we left the Seventh-day Adventist church together is really two very different but intertwined stories. For instance, I married into Adventism, while Sheryl was born into it.
Sheryl: I grew up in a very conservative Adventist family. At our daily family worship, Ellen White’s writings were read almost as regularly as the Bible; it seemed we had every book she’d ever written in our library. I was extremely proud of being born into the correct church. I also have to say at this point that one thing I am most grateful for in my strict Adventist upbringing is a desire for truth and integrity.
As I read the Bible for myself, I saw a major disconnect between the tone of Ellen White’s writings and the Jesus the Bible portrayed. This was the beginning of things not adding up, and I shelved it to be figured out later.
During my senior year at the Adventist day academy, I met Rick through work orientation at the Adventist hospital. About a year later, when Rick asked me to marry him, I told him I would if he would promise me that he would at least take a serious look at what I believed. I was confident that if he just studied Adventism with an open mind, he would see how obvious the truth was and would become an Adventist.
Rick: We started with a prepared Bible study that was recommended for just this purpose. I insisted on looking up every verse cited and was quickly pointing out every instance that the study misquoted or misapplied a Bible text. Sheryl was getting very frustrated at this challenge but didn’t have many answers. After this, we started studying with a couple of leaders from the local church. They were well-prepared for all of my questions, and with my limited knowledge of Scripture, I was no match.
I determined that if I couldn’t prove Adventism wrong, then it must be correct, and I dove in enthusiastically. I was determined at that time to become a pastor.
Weeks after we were married, I was enrolled as a theology major at Andrews University and remained in that capacity for a little over two years. I filled my schedule with every religion course I could take, putting off my general classes until later. Towards the end of those two years, I started uncovering a number of concerns about Ellen White, the idea of justification by faith, and the investigative judgment. I tried to explain all of these new things I was finding to Sheryl, but she wasn’t really interested in hearing about it.
Sheryl: I was not ready to face these issues and refused to listen to them. Since I automatically “knew” the Adventist church was the correct church, I believed it had to be doctrinally correct even if I didn’t understand every question raised about it. Therefore, since I figured the original Adventist teachings had to be correct, I imagined they reflected how legalistic and demanding God was. I decided I wanted nothing to do with Him.
Rick: This topic became taboo in our house around this time. I changed majors, since I could no longer consider becoming an Adventist pastor. I was confused, angry, and felt completely alone. I decided that all of my conclusions must be wrong; if I were just a holier and better person, I might understand better. But I also knew it was hopeless for me to be a better and holier person. I reached a point where I didn’t want anything to do with God. I was in that condition for about seven years.
Sheryl: During my second pregnancy, my interest in God was rekindled. Shortly after our second daughter was born, I started going to the Adventist church and decided I’d concentrate on being a normal, mainstream Adventist; I’d read my Bible and completely ignore anything from church that didn’t set right with me.
Rick: At first I only came back to set a good example for the kids. But fortunately God had placed a pastor at that church who spoke about a powerful, graceful, and personal God. My interest grew a little.
Through study and a series of events, we both came to understand grace better. I became more involved in our local church. The new pastor had been a college classmate and coerced me into teaching the youth and eventually into preaching again. I quietly ignored anything that came up that I didn’t agree with, and I focused my own teaching, preaching and studying on grace. I was asked several times about becoming an elder. I refused without telling people that the real reason was that I couldn’t accept so many of the Adventist doctrines.
Sheryl: I felt blessed that we finally were worshiping together. At the same time, I felt like we were one giant step from complete spiritual unity. Rick and I disagreed on many doctrines. For nearly three years, I prayed earnestly for spiritual unity between us. I truly thought that God would somehow help Rick figure out how Adventism totally fit together and explain everything to me, so that we would both be fully committed to Adventism without any doubts.
Rick: At this point I had settled into a comfortable routine at church. The members were very grace oriented, and we rarely heard anything about Ellen White. We had plenty of friends at church, and I was able to teach Sabbath School and preach fairly regularly. I had mentally set aside my doctrinal differences and just focused on worshiping with this group of people, knowing that my membership was in Jesus, not in an earthly congregation. But now it was Sheryl’s turn to rock my world.
It all started when our youngest daughter, 8 years old at the time, begged to do the offering appeal at church.
Sheryl: That left me to figure out what she should say up there. I asked her if she knew what the tithe was for, and she said it was for missions. I told her that actually it gave the pastor a paycheck. She was absolutely shocked, and said “What!?!?! You mean we give a special speech, march down the aisle with offering plates, say a prayer over it, just to give the pastor a paycheck?? I thought the tithe was for God! What if he spends the whole thing on rubber duckies?”
I didn’t know what to say! Integrity meant I had to find a real answer; I decided the best thing to do was look in the Bible to show her what tithe was for. When that wasn’t so easy (because the tithe in the Bible is nothing like the Adventist system), I looked on the internet for some help and came across Pastor Greg Taylor’s “Letter to Friends and Family.”
The first thing I did was write Greg Taylor an e-mail and I asked him, “Don’t you think that’s just a little too convenient to say that only 9 of the 10 commandments apply, just so you can get rid of the Sabbath?” He wrote back with a very nice e-mail and told me I needed to read Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists and Sabbath in Christ by Dale Ratzlaff. I immediately ordered those books and read everything I could find on the internet about why committed Christians left the Adventist church.
When the books arrived, I read them straight through, and they made perfect sense. When I re-read the quotes where Ellen White said the churches who rejected William Miller’s message by saying, “No man knows the day or hour,” didn’t love Jesus and were lost, I knew that I would never have become a Seventh-day Adventist back in that time! It was so obvious that God would never specifically lead His church through error to arrive at truth.
As we started reading and talking together it really made both of us come face-to-face with the question of whether Ellen White was a false prophet. For so long I had simply buried my head in the sand regarding her works, and now the issue stared me in the face.
Rick: We started realizing that Jesus established a New Covenant that replaced the Old Covenant. The only thing we’re told to “remember” in the New Covenant is the sacrifice of Jesus, by participating in Communion.
At this point neither of us were Adventists any longer, and Sheryl’s prayers about us having unity in our beliefs had taken an unexpected twist. The only question now was when and how we were going to announce that we were leaving. It took nearly a year before we had the courage to write a resignation letter.
Leaving the Adventist church has been a refreshingly honest experience. It was all about digging in the Bible to find out what it really says, earnestly praying for understanding, and following the leading of the Holy Spirit. I could freely discuss exactly what I believed. We could know assurance of salvation. And, for the first time in years, we could feel good about inviting someone to church with us.
Sheryl: I want to add that the inner turmoil that I’ve experienced most of my life over spiritual issues has completely disappeared and is replaced by the peace of Jesus. It’s all just so incredibly awesome to me that Jesus truly is enough! Jesus is the end of the law, Jesus is the rest for our souls, and Jesus is Who God has spoken through in these last days. If you know the truth, you are free indeed! †
Rick Barker was baptized into the Adventist church, married, and began studying undergraduate theology all within a six-month period in 1983. He graduated from Andrews University and obtained a Masters from University of Dayton. He currently teaches a weekly small group Bible study on Romans attended by Christians from a variety of backgrounds including current and former Adventists. Sheryl Barker was a multigenerational Adventist. She graduated from Spring Valley Academy (Dayton, Ohio) in 1982 and attended both Kettering College of Medical Arts and Andrews University. She left the Adventist church for Jesus in July, 2004.
—Republished from Proclamation!, May/June, 2006.
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