Why Should I Care? (And Why I Do)

DEBORAH PRATT | Life Assurance Ministries’ Online Moderator |

Having never been an Adventist, when I first began exploring Adventism to avoid being deceived by the doctrines held by my group of friends at the time, I was just looking for how theirs deviated from mine, since I had been born again years earlier but had gotten deceived by New Age philosophies and practices. These New Age concepts crept into my life and practices through friends and acquaintances in the forms of dreamwork groups, contemplative prayer, and, maybe not so oddly, the retreat facility near Berrien Springs and Andrews University that I frequented at the time. It took a profound loss in my life for God to drive me into His word and begin confronting the diametrically opposed nature of those subliminally-held beliefs and overt practices. 

I wanted to guard myself against any others that held themselves up in opposition to Christ. Significantly, I didn’t pause to consider the source of false doctrines —all of it!

While it didn’t make much difference to me when I was a patron of the retreat center, I later realized that the owner of the retreat facility, whom I knew pretty well, was Adventist who had earned an MDiv at nearby Andrews University, and had no qualms about introducing lodgers to a whole breadth of “spiritual” ideas and practices. 

The disciplines and exercises she taught were not outside the realm of normal, acceptable practice for her—but I had thought her spiritual uniqueness was just about Saturday worship and food. 

At the time I didn’t understand (because I spent a lot of time in almost any book but the Bible) that what was being promoted at those retreats was eerily consistent with the director’s belief origins—and those beliefs were contradictory to mine. The disciplines and exercises she taught were not outside the realm of normal, acceptable practice for her—but I had thought her spiritual uniqueness was just about Saturday worship and food. 

Only much later I recognized in the retreat owner’s life and family history some common elements of the Adventist culture and practice that hinted at other, darker, possibilities—especially when I became aware of the odd reactions of another patron who had evidently had some problematic involvement with the center and its owners. I knew no facts, but the undercurrent was noticeable. 

Another (staunch to this day) Adventist I knew had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of a teacher who had been fired but who continued to live in the community doing different work. I later realized that my parents had hired this fired offender (without knowing his background) for several years to do some seasonal work at our house. 

Finding Puzzle Pieces

Finding a common thread throughout these experiences was much like trying to solve a puzzle I didn’t even know I was solving—without the box lid to guide the reconstruction. I didn’t know what was forming in my understanding. I only began to grasp the disturbing similarity of seemingly unrelated details as I spent time and study with those who had left Adventism for true faith. Identifying and uprooting the doctrinal heresies of Adventism which had embedded themselves in my mind almost without my noticing became a task as difficult as getting all the bits of poison ivy root out of the ground (a herculean task and not without risk). The former Adventists with whom I was studying the Bible found the obvious and not-so-obvious Adventist contradictions at every encounter with the living Word. Hebrews 4:12 (NASB) was unfolding before my eyes: 

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

As I learned what former Adventists had to unlearn and how the living and active word of God healed their hearts and minds, bits and pieces of conversations, information, and experiences from my past years interacting with Adventists began to coalesce for me into something ugly and surprisingly sinister. The Adventist beliefs and practices I had absorbed almost without conscious thought began to connect with my memories of uncomfortable interactions I had experienced with Adventists over the years. I began to see the disturbing reality of darkness masquerading as an angel of light—and it was  all packaged neatly just south of me in a beautiful campus and a brand-new conference building on prime land overlooking the river valley below. 

The Walter Martin Deception

Around this same time, I heard about the Walter Martin interview fiasco. In 1955, Martin interviewed a hand-selected group of Adventist leaders to determine whether or not Seventh-day Adventism was a cult. These elder statesmen of Adventism met with Martin, who was 26 years old at the time, and craftily deceived him: praying with him, altering their languages as they talked about doctrines, feeding him home-cooked vegetarian meals, and systematically misrepresenting Adventism’s beliefs in an incomplete atonement, the nature of Christ, and other core Adventist beliefs. Because of those meetings, Martin concluded that Adventism was NOT a cult, and he described the organization as “heterodox” instead of “heretical” and placed it in the appendix of his book Kingdom of the Cults instead of in the main body. 

As I learned about Walter Martin’s deception and his published conclusions, I began to see how they inoculated believers for decades against recognizing the depth and breadth of the Adventist false doctrine. Another piece to the puzzle. Didn’t anyone else see the elephant in the room?

Why Won’t They See?

I learned that, for a few years, a local Christian church had hosted some fall Former Adventist Conferences, but those events ceased with the transition in leadership to a new senior pastor and staff. No longer does this large church appear to consider our neighbors to the south much of a mission field. 

When I spoke with my own pastor about being aware of the Adventist twisted doctrines, he admitted he had a copy of Seventh-day Adventists Believe, but he hadn’t read it. When I talked with my physician about problems with the health message, she shot back, “I know many Adventist believers”, and she now employs a nurse practitioner trained at Andrews University who recommended to me a vegan diet promoted by  a “physician” who’d had his medical license revoked for promoting bogus diet practices and sketchy research reports. 

When I brought up the problems of the Adventist Jesus at a Bible study at the church in which I was raised, they seemed to not understand my intensity about it, and they responded to me as if  I were just denomination-bashing. Even Paul Carden of The Centers For Apologetics Research, who loves ministering in Africa and around the world to those who are wooed by cults, had been unfamiliar with the real beliefs of the cult of Adventism until the late 2000’s. (Today, though, he sees clearly and equips his staff to minister to those evangelized by Adventists.)

Truly the fight for the souls of Adventists and for the protection of unwary Christians is a heavily-waged spiritual battle! 

Truly the fight for the souls of Adventists and for the protection of unwary Christians is a heavily-waged spiritual battle! 

No wonder former Adventists find it so daunting to discuss their journey out with others who supposedly are believers but who are uninformed, disbelieving, and often stubbornly uninterested, much less with the ones who stay inside Adventism and shun them. 

What I discovered, and what has kept me wanting to continue to study and fellowship with formers, was finding the sold-out-to-the-Lord, embedded-in-the-Bible formers, with whom I found out just how ignorant I was about the Bible—a discovery which has inspired me to correct my ignorance! Studying with these Bible-immersed former Adventists has also shown me how false systems like Adventism twist Scripture, seducing the unsuspecting like a hypnotist dangles his pendulum to dull any desire to learn the truth. I find myself wanting to take people by the arms and shake them out of their ambivalence, to see how rotten at the core the Adventist machine really is.

Soldiering On In the Spiritual Battle

I still pray for my friends in Berrien Springs—that the Lord will keep after them to open their eyes, yet it is very slow, and their desire to bring more people into their small, very-nearly-not-Adventist study group (except for that Sabbath thing) often draws conventional Adventists—an outcome which seems like three steps forward and two back. Nevertheless, the other day, when one of the conservative members of this study group posted the the Adventist News Network’s article announcing the new General Conference president, the group leader gently drew her away from the Adventist news and back to focusing on the Scripture of the day, reminding us to keep our eyes on Jesus and to live for him. That gave me great hope. 

The group leader doesn’t want to investigate the darker side of Adventism (I directed her to the 28 Fundamental Beliefs Former Adventist Podcasts, a recommendation she did not pursue—I’m still an “outsider”!), but she does encourage reading the Bible and reading what is there for the most part. She sends out a section every day to the group with a reflection of her own that is really focused on the truth of being a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness and guidance and gratitude for Jesus’ propitiatory act on our behalf.  I think she knows that what she had been taught is off, but she hasn’t wanted to dig deeper to find out—a decision which leaves much unrecognized.  

I pray that someday these women will actually read a whole book in its context, because as yet, they are still reading bits and pieces. There is still the challenge, in studying with them, of reading and understanding—and even a minor application of cross-references is a mystery, although it would help their understanding if they used basic Bible study tools like dictionaries and cross-references. I think our group leader is reluctant to have our group time together look like a study rather than a devotional. This aversion to actually studying the Bible instead of superficially reading and applying it both puzzles me—and doesn’t. It’s part of the war.

I am grateful for the explosion of Adventism-challenging information available on the internet, and I am beyond thankful that the Lord has led many others who have never been Adventists to seek out former Adventists for help understanding and praying about the evil that has trapped their friends or family. As for what I can do personally to make an impact in my back yard, perhaps there will be some past issues of Proclamation! magazines showing up soon in various places near me, and maybe something in my general vicinity about Why Adventists are a Mission Field and why born-again believers should care! †