Seventh-day Adventism
The purpose of this series is not to copy what so many others have done. Whether that is to regurgitate the same talking points and criticisms regarding the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, or to capitalize on today’s social media and create a new podcast, or vlog. No, this is strictly personal. I’ve grown up in a generational Seventh-Day Adventist family. One that was not conservative Adventist and yet not on the side of cultural or ‘liberal’ Adventist either. I was born at a Seventh-Day Adventist hospital, attended Adventist schools through my undergraduate degree, a Bachelors in Arts in Religion with a minor in History. My parents have worked in Adventist Education and administration. I’ve served, along with my wife, as a missionary, pastor, and educator, all within the Seventh-Day Adventist context.
Yet, as of five years ago….no more. In complete candor, I completely understand how most leave and never look back, the church is toxic, the culture is noxious. Why? It wasn’t because of church hurt, it wasn’t to unshackle the constraints of Christianity only to pursue some hedonistic life. Truth be told, it has been in the pursuit of Truth. Plain and simple, Truth.
What readers, if there are any, need to understand is that ultimately what I lay out is acknowledged and affirmed by many theologians and administrators in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. There is nothing new I am stating, writing, challenging or laying out. This is not a ‘new’ discovery by only me. The questions and material I lay forward in the proceeding articles are in fact based on evidence the church provides. This is what has lead me here…
What is the purpose and point of being Seventh-Day Adventist?
You will get some common answers when asking that question to congregants, and yet the answer will be widely different depending on the region, culture, or country you are in when you ask. Also, the influence and practices will vary, depending on the region you are in, even within a country. Which, is contradictory and invalidates the belief system.
For me, through surgical analysis and methodical research, I’ve been taken to a point of grieving over the denomination. Many protestant beliefs have been adopted by the church, ones that were once the foundation of protestantism, and yet when you dive into Adventism, you realize, everything is not as it seems, it has all been skewed. The rules of sound exegesis, hermeneutics, and more are applied differently at various points in interpreting scripture, only to support current and foundational positions. Ironically, this practice is the very thing that Adventist accuse other Christian’s of doing.
So, for my conscience, and sharing what I’ve come to find, I lay it out for you. A fluid work that I am continually searching and finding. Always hoping to prove myself wrong, and prove Adventism right…and yet, as of now, only the opposite. I welcome discussion, the desire to see something I am not seeing, to engage, to be shown where and how I am wrong. Because the claims of Seventh-day Adventism are such, that if right, they damn nearly everyone outside the denomination, and even within.
It is either a church that desperately needs to change, or a cult that is deceptively moving throughout our lives.
