An Adventist Church leader "gets" the young adults

I generally do not like to discuss a specific church or denomination in my blog, because I am not one to endorse any institutionalized way for practicing Christianity. However, I was impressed by a recent editorial and article by the Canadian Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Editor, Halsey Peat in the newsletter Ontario Highlights. In the Autumn/Winter 2014 edition of the Ontario Highlights, Peat pens two articles, which I will briefly summarize in this post and give a few comments on.

In the first article, entitled "Multi-Generational Churches or Seniors' Centres?" Peat expresses concern about the departure of the youth and the young adults from the church. In part of his editorial, Peat also points out what he feels is the problem with the church that is contributing to this:

We [SDAs] have sought to remain unchanged in a world that is constantly changing. We look to the past as if they were the glorious days, failing to recognise the struggles that our pioneers and those after them had to go through...we have stubbornly, and maybe even arrogantly, considered that our pioneers resolved every issue and question, so we default to regurgitating their answers. There seems to be a reticence to examine our beliefs and practices in light of twenty-first century North America. Meanwhile, our youths and young adults are scrutinizing what they see and hear in the church. Some will pick and choose what makes sense to them, ignoring what does not, but remain in the church. Others, what seems to be the majority, simply leave, discarding everything. (p. 2)

I believe Peat has hit the nail on the head. As a young adult myself, I have chosen to remain in the church community despite objecting to the way church is done. I see them putting out evangelistic meetings that have no relevance to my peers and the questions that my peers ask. Time and time in this blog, I have had to highlight some of these problems which are not just specific to the SDA church, but to Christian denominations that I am aware of. I feel that most Christian churches today are out of touch with the young adults and the youth and the spiritual challenges to faith in a secular world and a world increasingly hostile to Christian culture.

Peat goes on in another brilliant article to address young adults like me about why stay in the SDA church and how to go about reforming it. In his article, "For Young Adults Only", Peat begins with a lengthy introduction that indicates that he is in touch with the young adults in the church:

I f you are a young adult reading this, you’re doing so because you are still attending the church in which you were most probably raised. I’m glad that you are still there because you know of friends who no longer attend. For one reason or another, they ceased attending church, but you remained. 

I’m glad you remained, but will you stay? I sincerely hope so. I hope that you have recognised the truth that even though your church is imperfect, God still works through it for the good of His people. Yes, on occasion, it is even frustrating in how it addresses your concerns, and how it relates to contemporary society, but it is still a place where there is potential for you to grow, flourish and be happy to call home. 

Part of the frustration, I know, is with the word potential. Everything always seem to be in the future. Meanwhile, you feel side-lined, unimportant, unappreciated, and undervalued. Like your teen brothers and sisters, it can sometimes seem as if you are only appreciated when you fit the cultural stereotype of an Adventist in appearance, accepted behaviour pattern, and you use the clichés and jargon of Adventism. 

Over the years, while conversing with young adults, I arrived at a conclusion, shared by many of my generation, that you love the Lord. I learned that you are in this church because you believe, and you want to participate in its mission. You seek spirituality, but you do not necessarily believe that spirituality is determined by traditional views and practices. You want your church to be relevant to your community. You want it to be such a welcoming and relevant place that you will gladly invite your friends to attend with you. However, you’re often reluctant to invite them because of how embarrassed you’d feel by what sometimes happens on a Sabbath morning. So, you wait for change. 

Waiting for change is never easy. It can be very frustrating because just when it looks like it’s about to happen, something seems to derail it. Some of your former friends gave up waiting and left, but you do not want to leave truth for error. You’re very aware that when people separate themselves from fellowship, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain spiritual disciplines and practice. Over time, there is a distancing, not only from the practices of a Christian but from its principles, and ultimately from God. Yet, you wait for the church to change. (p.10-11)

 Once again, Peat is on target. No need for me to add to his words, as he said exactly how I feel about church and Christianity on a whole. Yet, make no mistake. I do appreciate my seniors and the work they have done even teach me the elementary stuff and preserve faith so that I could learn about it today. And I am happy that they have kept track of the history and preserved it for me so that I can know the evolution of faith and where we are coming from.

In fact, for as much as I have protested and critiqued Roman (if not Western) Christianity, I still respect it. In fact, I greatly appreciate that Roman Christianity took on Paul's revolutionary theology of becoming relevant to the culture in order to conquer the culture. According to the letter to Corinth, the multi-cultural Paul argues his theological method:

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 New International Version [NIV])

I feel that Roman Christianity, by adopting this theological position made Christianity malleable, and therefore appropriated whatever it could from national or popular cultures in order to evangelize and win converts to the religion. And so far, this approach to spreading Christianity has been the most successful to date.Whereas Judeo-Christianity (or Jewish Christianity) failed to convert Jewish rabbinic schools and perished for a while after the destruction of Jerusalem, Roman Christianity converted the entire Roman empire, from Britain to Northern Africa.

Today, I recognize the same Roman Christianity principles in the present day Pope. Assimilate some of what the modern day culture and secular world see as good or reasonable in order to win them. While I may disagree on some of the things that the Roman Catholic Church accepts as not contradicting with the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, I do realize that the church is merely pursuing a theology of adapting to its world in order to remain relevant.

So I welcome Peat's message and will try to be optimistic that at least a few adults in the church do understand the young adults and will listen to them. Nonetheless, I feel pessimistic that SDA church traditions will change anytime soon. Especially when I think of my experiences in rural Jamaican Adventism, where laymen cling to reading only the King James Version of the Bible and indoctrinate the youth into conspiracy theories about how Jesuits are trying to infiltrate the Adventist church and seminaries.

References:

Peat, H. (2014). Multi-generational churches or seniors' centres?  Ontario Highlights Autumn/Winter 2014, 2.

Peat, H. (2014). For young adults only. Ontario Highlights Autumn/Winter 2014, 10-11.

'Pentecostal' experiences in Seventh-day Adventism?

While I generally embrace a largely Christian identity, I label myself as Judeo-Christian, in recognition that the roots of Christianity is Jewish. Further, as a Protestant, I find that if I am to be consistent with an identity that challenges the worldwide influence and domination of Roman Christianity, then I must start to uncover what the Christian faith looked like before the domination of Roman Christians.

This journey has lead me to become more tolerant of Christian diversity as I realise that all of us have got it wrong, and no one group has the full 'truth' or authentic 'Christian' traditions. I appreciate from my reading of Jenkins (2010) that Roman and Western Christians' violent domination and subjugation of Eastern Christians also contributed to the rise of Islam. In this regard, I recognise that Islam's rise was partially a reaction against Western Christians violently imposing their own theology on Eastern Christians with different theologies and practices.


In the task of trying to understand more about my spiritual roots I have been reading a number of books, especially those about groups that I am personally acquainted with. I am currently reading a book written about Seventh-day Adventists by some sociologists, which to me is an objective look at the denomination's development. For me, this reading is important because of my path and spiritual journey with God, which found me becoming a member of the church back in my early university days. I feel obligated as a result to thoroughly understand objectively how Seventh-day Adventism developed separate and apart from what the denomination's gate keepers wants the congregants to know. I also want to get the information from a source that is not biased like the ex-Seventh-day Adventists that spew venom in their analysis and research or even other denominational researchers with an agenda.

That said, I find Bull and Lockhart's (2007) an excellent scholarly resource from which to view the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) denomination objectively, without the indoctrination. Bull and Lockhart's (2007) book is indeed a good read objectively covering how outsiders viewed the church (including the popular media) as well examine the insiders' experiences, literature and views.

In this post in particular, I want to highlight in particular the 'Pentecostal' experiences in the SDA denomination as presented by Bull and Lockhart's (2007) research.



Those today who visit a Seventh-day Adventist Church will know it as a quiet church. There is no shouting, people falling on the floor or expressing themselves emotionally in worship. Well, I have news for you. In Adventist early history, the church people were more noisy than they are today. In Chapter four in particular of Bull and Lockhart, it is mentioned that the Adventists were once confused with the Shakers and spiritualists. In addition, both Ellen and James White report experiences of praying and falling to the floor or feeling the Holy Spirit come over them. Adventist believers engaged in house prayer sometimes found themselves 'slain in the spirit' according to several accounts documented by Bull and Lockhart (2007). According to Bull and Lockhart (2007), James White in a letter to his wife relates

how, when visiting some believers, "I fell upon my face, and cried and groaned under the power of God. Brethren Sanborn and Ingraham felt about the same. We all lay on the floor under the power of God." (p.77)

 This was not just a one off situation either. Bull and Lockhart (2007) also reports Ellen White describing another situation:

While the larger family of Brother P. were engaged in prayer at their own house, the Spirit of God swept through the room and prostrated the kneeling suppliants. My father came in soon after and found them all both parents and children, helpless under the power of the Lord

I also find a similar typical occurrence in White's (2000) documentation of her experience in Early Writings (p. 12):

That said, it is interesting given this history that in my experience, Jamaican Adventism draws almost hostile lines of distinctions and demarcations from Pentecostals and that Jamaican Pentecostals do the same with Adventists. For me, the evidence points out that we are all coming from the same tree. In fact, Adventism is likely to have 'quenched' the spirit, which is why Pentecostals seem more advanced in the manifestations of Bible miracles and signs.


References:

Bull, M., & Lockhart, K. (2007). Seeking a sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American dream. 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Jenkins, P. (2010). Jesus wars: How four patriarchs, three queens, and two emperors decided what Christians would believe for the next 1,500 years. NY: HarperCollins.

White, E. G. H. (2000). Early writings. Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Pub Assoc.

What Ellen G. White missed?

One Sabbath I was reasoning with a brother from United Church of G-d about Seventh Day Adventism. He pointed out to me that Seventh Day Founders arrived at errors in their prophetic interpretation due to the fact that in the time that the Church was started, Israel did not exist.

For those of you who are familiar with SDA history and also are aware of Israel's history, you can see some truth to that. The SDA Church was established in the 1800's, (1844 was not the actual date in which the church was "nominated"). The state of Israel on the other hand was once again established in 1948, after World War II.

Interestingly, Israel that now exists is not the full Israel that the Bible speaks about. In fact, what we call the state of Israel today is actually the kingdom of Judah - consisting of two tribes of Israel, Judah (from which we get the Jews) and Benjamin, with Levites interspersed., as Levites in the Bible do not have any land.

This is how many arrive at the phrase the "Ten lost tribes of Israel"! For more information, I point you to two encyclopaedia articles for reference "Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipedia and "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.


However, Seventh Day Adventist founders, mistakenly adopt a theology that the Church has replaced physical Israel as the Spiritual Israel.

Consequently, all theology about the coming of Christ in 1844 and prophesies concerning Revelation are falsified on that premise.

The woman in Revelation 12 is not the Church, for why would the church give birth to Christ (Rev. 12:5)?

The current leaders of the Church will need to re-examine doctrines based on Miller's claims and prophetic interpretations regarding Revelation in light of what their founders did not see - the physical return of the original kingdom of Israel to the land of Palestine. I will write more on this in a future blog entry.

Works Cited

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists http://www.adventist.org/world_church/facts_and_figures/history/index.html.en

"History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church." Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church

"Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipeda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ten_lost_tribes.

"Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Feb. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/587080/Ten-Lost-Tribes-of-Israel>.