Confessions of a Former Adventist

RODNEY D. NELSON | Faith Story

I fondly recall my experience in that small Adventist church in the Yakima Valley of Washington State.  It was a church full of loving Christian men and women.  In the late seventies and early eighties I attended that church as a newly baptized member of the Adventist church.  I accepted Jesus as a result of the witness of those wonderful people.  I was fifteen years old.  For the next five years I faithfully attended church while finishing high school and my freshman year at Walla Walla College.  I will never forget the love, acceptance, patience and leadership those people had on my impressionable young life as a new-born Christian.

In particular, I was most influenced by two couples.  One was a family in their early thirties with four children while the second was an elderly couple approaching eighty years old.  Both were life-long Adventists.  I remember frequently going to either home for Sabbath lunch and fellowship while being treated as part of their respective families.  My gratitude will never diminish for these acts of kindness and love toward me.  The impression of Christ-like lives given me by them were so important to my early understanding of Christian life and practice.  Without that witness I do not know what my Christian life would have been like, then or now.

I was initiated into the Adventist belief system through the Revelation Seminars given frequently in rural SDA churches back then.  I still remember how I soaked in the information.  Being raised in essentially a non-Christian home, I was searching for something to give me meaning in life.  Not simply Jesus, but a belief system which answered any question I could pose.  Adventism gave me this system and advantage.  Everything was so iron-clad and simple.  As a teenager searching for answers I felt convicted I had found them in Adventism.  This conviction was slow to change.

As a teenager searching for answers I felt convicted I had found them in Adventism.  This conviction was slow to change.

Having graduated high school I now was off to Walla Walla College.  I was so excited to be in an environment where I could indulge my interests in theology.  I decided to pursue a history major.  However, I crowded in several religion courses.

Ringing in my head through all this was a comment made by the wife of the elderly couple back at my home church.  She was greatly concerned about me going off to college at Walla Walla.  She stated over and over that I was “her boy” in her grandmotherly way.  To this day I get sentimental when I recall it.  Her concern was the possibility that I would be led astray straight out of the church.  She feared that I would be exposed to wrong ideas that would influence me to leave.  I remember how her fears came true.

I remember how my history professor astonished me with the comment that so much in life is relative.  What heresy I thought to myself.  I remember how my black-and-white world began to get punctured.  I remember my dismay when other students my age felt the same way he did.  I remember going back home to the elderly couple looking for consolation for my troubled soul. I told them this astonishing news verifying her fears about college education.  I remember assuring them of my continued fidelity to SDA orthodoxy.  I was being tested and swayed and did not fully realize it.

Gradually through the course of my freshman year of 1980-81 I became exposed to challenges to my SDA faith and belief structure.  First was exposure to Robert Brinsmead’s writings.  Next was a Spectrum article that challenged the clean-unclean distinction.  Third was learning about Glacier View and the Desmond Ford controversy over 1844.  I was being challenged in the classroom as well.  I began writing position papers challenging traditional SDA beliefs on the nature of the Church and Adventist prophetic interpretation—and getting positive feedback from my professors.  I began to understand that Adventism was not the black-and-white monolithic structure pictured in that small Yakima Valley church.

The toll all this took on my psyche and nervous system was at times almost more than I could take.  It was one thing to be raised to believe those cardinal doctrines.  It was quite another to be converted to them from nothing, accept them as blanket fact, and then to be challenged directly regarding their legitimacy from within the bosom of an Adventist college.  I was going through a double conversion. 

I decided to run from the controversy.  I reasoned that if I detached myself from proximity to the issues I could then get back to equilibrium.  I transferred to a State university in Washington.  Such was not the case.  The turning point came in the Winter of 1982.  The then pastor of my home church and I met to discuss the issues of the time.  He challenged me to study more and that he was sure I would arrive at the correct conclusion.  Not being one to turn down a challenge I did exactly that.  During my first year at the State university I began to sacrifice my studies for in depth, inductive studies of Adventist issues, notably the Sanctuary teaching.  I found I could not support it.  What was I to do?

During my first year at the State university I began to sacrifice my studies for in depth, inductive studies of Adventist issues, notably the Sanctuary teaching.  I found I could not support it.

It may seem odd that I would be in such turmoil.  However, I remembered all along the statement made to me by several Adventists that should one teaching be wrong in the church then Adventism would not be the remnant church.  Adventism’s claim that all doctrines within it conformed to scripture would be destroyed.  The hole I found proved to be the Investigative Judgement.  This hole proved to be a pathway out of the Adventist church.  My belief structure had been shattered.  The only thing that could keep me in the church was the relationships with the people in my home church.  It went from a theological struggle to a relational one.  How could I leave those people?  In 1984 I left permanently.

Truly I was a product of the Adventist controversies of the early 1980’s.  From this tumultuous time I found several things about myself and Adventism.  I would like to share those with the reader.  I don’t pretend that my experience was every Adventist’s experience at the time, but I am sure that many can identify with the turmoil I felt then.  I will not pretend to be a voice for those who left the church back then.  I speak only from my experience.

First, I was given a picture of Adventism that was not true.  The Adventism I was converted into was not the Adventism of the academic world.  The rift between the local church and Adventist academia is represented in my experience.  It seems to me that this gulf continues today, though perhaps over differing issues.

Second, Adventism was bigger than my small church.  My small church was conservative and traditional with slight cracks appearing.  I recall the controversy in the late seventies over righteousness by faith in the Sabbath School lessons.  I remember the conversations representing the Reformation view and the traditional view.  I recall hearing about 1888 and Jones and Waggoner.  I remember the perfectionist debates.  My small church did feel the heat of the debates.  I was simply not aware of how diverse and widely the controversy extended.

Third, Adventism had room for diversity.  This became very apparent to me in two classes I took at Walla Walla College.  The first was on basic Adventist doctrines.  The other was on recent trends in Adventist beliefs.  The professor of the first class demonstrated that Adventism had room for diverse views, though given with caution.  The second class taught me how Adventism had a rich history of theological reflection and diversity.  

Fourth, I learned that my belief in Adventism was based upon false and mistaken premises.  I was given a monolithic picture of Adventism—a structure which allowed only one view.  I was given a straw-man which was destroyed when only one of the underpinnings was challenged and found wanting.  I realized I could not exist in an Adventism where the definition of a good Adventist was itself based upon a skewed picture.

Fifth, I learned that people believed in the Adventism they wanted to believe in.  When confronted with legitimate concerns and biblical evidence challenging their beliefs, many Adventists look for a fundamental element that defines their Adventist identity or they refuse to challenge their beliefs in Adventism.  I found this to be the case when I confronted fellow members with my concerns.

Sixth, I recognized that I had not been completely converted to the total package of Adventism.  I had in fact been converted to many distinctives of Adventism but had not swallowed every proposition hook, line, and sinker.  This fact made me realize that one could be an Adventist without believing in everything taught within Adventism.  Conversely, one can believe in certain Adventist distinctives without being a Adventist.  

Seventh, my original notion of Adventism prevented me from reconciling it with the new Adventism confronting me.  Because of my original picture of Adventism I was unable to truly be an Adventist once I found things wrong within Adventism.  An Adventism with theological flaws was not the Adventism I originally accepted as a young man.  I was set up to fail because of this mistaken picture.

Eighth, one’s definition of Adventism will determine their place within or outside of Adventism.  Mine was defined by it’s claims.  Once those claims were harmed it was only a matter of time before the exit occurred.

Ninth, the Adventism of my local church was much more secure than the Adventism in the big world.  It is at this point that my convictions revealed its superficiality as well as its strength.  I was converted to the Adventism presented to me, yet not fully comfortable with what that meant.  In retrospect, I was never a true Adventist by traditional definition, but one who found purpose and meaning for their life at that time within it.  However, when challenged, the image became defaced because it was based upon faulty concepts and perceptions. 

Finally, I found Jesus through Adventism without fully understanding the gospel.  I accepted Jesus without fully grasping the essence of the gospel.  That would come later through Brinsmead and Ford and confirmed by Evangelical doctrine.  That beloved Adventist lady who was so concerned for me eighteen years ago is now gone.  She represents what is good about Adventism.  She also represents for me what Adventism claims for itself that I can no longer hold to.  I miss her.  I miss her hugs and calling me her boy.  I recall the pain felt within me when I left the church because I knew I fulfilled her worst fears about what could go wrong within Adventism.  However, I now understand that hers was a perception based upon a faulty premise.  My premise for becoming an Adventist was originally based upon a particular understanding of Adventism.  I no longer hold to that premise.  

The cross-section of troubled and former Adventists cannot be limited to one description and profile.  Their reasons are as diverse as the nature of the Adventist church itself.

Over the years I have been in contact with many disenchanted and former Adventists.  Much of the rationale for their discontent or estrangement centers on either personal grievances or doctrinal disagreements.  I have found that many have been starved for the gospel of God’s grace through justification by faith alone.  I can empathize with many of those I have talked to these many years.  They range from elderly to young people.  The cross-section of troubled and former Adventists cannot be limited to one description and profile.  Their reasons are as diverse as the nature of the Adventist church itself.

The Adventism I left years ago was much different than what exists today.  There are definite divisions and descriptions within the umbrella of Adventism.  However, certain things do not change.  The controversies that are uniquely Adventist continue.  As Adventism develops into a world-wide religion rather than a North American sect it will undergo changes which will force many to leave for reasons far different from my own.  Can Adventism deter this trend?  Perhaps the answer lies in Adventism’s identity in the future.  Will it be recognizable fifty years from now?  Some believe it will not. 

Why can I no longer be a Seventh-day Adventist?  The simplest answer lies in the result of my own search for the truth.  If something is claimed it must be backed up with proof.  Adventism makes claims for itself which cannot be upheld in scripture.  My search led me to this conclusion.  What conclusion will you come to?  Is it based on perception?  

What is your Adventist confession? †

—Republished from Proclamation! (printed edition), Vol. 4, Is. 5,6