Knowing As We Are Known

DEBORAH PRATT | Life Assurance Ministries’ Online Moderator |

Though I have never been Adventist, I have lived near a foundational Adventist community (Andrews University) most of my life. I have had Adventist friends since college, but none locally have been Formers. They have been anything from staunch Adventists to Adventist-flavored agnostics to approaching Bible-only understandings (although not having left and not having examined the deeper identity they retain). 

It is going on fourteen years since God prompted me to actively study Adventism to understand its deceptions, and in that process I’ve found a community of former Adventists who help me understand, better than I ever could on my own, Adventism’s true depravity (and my own before being born again!). Many times, I have heard Formers talking about how challenging it is to leave Adventism and find a church fellowship, or even individual Christians, who grasp anything about what it was to be Adventist, what it is to have left, and how much it means that someone else understands that (or at least makes the effort to understand). 

The Heart of Darkness

In talking with various people in my area and in some past conversations with still-Adventists, I’ve been both surprised and not surprised at the array of reactions/responses I get when I express concerns about the true dark nature of Adventism. Most of the reactions have fallen into the category of dismissive/avoidant for various reasons.

This heart of darkness in the center of my county does not seem to even be on anyone’s radar as missions go. Through Formers, I’ve become aware of one church in my area (one) which used to actively recognize the darkness of the Adventist system and participated with Life Assurance Ministries in sponsoring a fall conference, similar to the one held in Loma Linda in February, but they have new leadership which has let go of their desire to see the Adventist community as a mission ground. They have many ministries, but there is nothing that recognizes the hub of lostness just down the road. Maybe they know about it, but they act as though there are  territorial boundaries that dictate “do not trespass.”

So far as I know, the pastor of the church I grew up in has not done any investigation into what Adventists believe…

So far as I know, the pastor of the church I grew up in has not done any investigation into what Adventists believe (even though I gave him my copy of Seventh-day Adventists Believe). It was hard to even have a conversation with him about why he should care because there just seemed to be no place for it in his thinking or his already Too Busy schedule. He has his ministry in an African country teaching seminary students (does he know that Africa is one of the hardest-hit locations by Adventist proselytizers? Does he know how to rebuke those who would detour them into false beliefs?) There are two new pastors with him now, in preparation for his eventual retirement. Perhaps it is time to order a couple more Adventists Believe books to share!

Persistent Avoidance

I sometimes facilitate a Bible study on Zoom for the church I grew up in on Sunday mornings. In the past, I’ve shared my concerns about Adventism’s massive misinterpretation of Scripture with my fellow students when the topic was related. These were some well-studied Bible students, but they seemed quite uncomfortable with the idea that Adventists have it wrong, or that we should be aware of it. Only one gentleman recognized that there were some pointed similarities among Adventism, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The rest just didn’t want to “go there.” Part of that, in my opinion, is a comfortable isolation the denomination of my childhood tends to favor. It reminds me uncomfortably of an article I once read about the Lutheran churches in Germany that were within hearing distance of the railroad tracks that took people to the concentration camps; it was said that, when they heard the train whistles, the organist just played louder to drown out the sound. It’s not difficult to find ways to avoid the evil right in your own back yard….

In talking with my primary care doctor, who is a Christian and who has been practicing in this area for at least 15 years, I would sometimes express concern over the “health message” and the doctrinal problems with Adventism. At one point, she just said, “I know plenty of Adventists who are Christian.” It was clear that she was done hearing about my concerns. I know what gaslighting feels like, and that was a good example of someone’s response when they think they have too much authority to listen, and they use it to stop the conversation.  Sometime later, she brought an Adventist nurse practitioner on staff who was handing out meal plan advice from one of the most deceptive vegan promoters out there who lost his medical license due to rampantly spreading dangerous medical misinformation (do they even vet this stuff??). Her lack of looking into what she was promoting took me aback. 

I’ve been pondering what else might account for the seeming absence of interest or willingness to say the truth out loud among people I know to be people of faith. Maybe they are all Too Busy—Adventism isn’t on their radar because they already have too many concerns or are super-busy with Church Work.  Maybe they don’t perceive that Adventism poses “that much” of a threat (because they don’t know anything about it). Maybe they just don’t like recognizing evil is real and active, and it doesn’t have anything to do with being “nice” (or not).  Maybe it is because the Adventist edifices with wrought iron fences down the road are big, old, imposing, and intimidating. The Lake Union Conference, after all, did build its new building on the highest spot available overlooking the Andrews University valley.

The more unsettling probability from what I know now is that, due to Adventism’s sly and deceptive nature combined with the corruption of so many formerly conservative denominations now turned liberal, the Christians and the Adventists are actually making friends.

The more unsettling probability from what I know now is that, due to Adventism’s sly and deceptive nature combined with the corruption of so many formerly conservative denominations now turned liberal, the Christians and the Adventists are actually making friends. They have joint prayer meetings; they worship together, forming service alliances.  While this cooperation would not be true of my childhood church because of the nature of confessional Lutheran non-fellowship principles, this compromise is what I suspect among the more liberal denominations in the area. 

Even seven or eight years ago, the Presbyterian church south of Andrews collaborated in their teen outreach with the little Adventist church group I know. The problem was that the same old Adventist doctrines were being taught, such as Michael being Jesus. Considering the recent disturbing promotion of the two-phased atonement of Christ by those who aren’t Adventist, this feels like Adventism investing in premeditated, covert, spiritual murder, right inside their target camps. [See “Adventism and Recent Developments in Evangelical Scholarship” by Kaspars Ozolins and “Tetelestai (‘It Is Finished’) the Key Word of the Gospel of John” by Seven Pitcher.] If they can get the distinctions to blur or even disappear, they have made themselves no threat.

Knowing and Being Known

These experiences have served to help me better grasp the alienation former Adventists can feel when they try to integrate into a body of born-again believers, or the discouragement they can feel when trying to just find a body of born-again believers. I am grateful to be one of the growing number of people who, while not having been Adventist, very much want to comprehend what it was like for Formers, the false belief system they endured, and what they are now learning about the realities believers have in Christ. The truth is that, when I am privileged to hear each Former’s story and witness their growth in faith, especially as we study God’s Word together, I am strengthened in my own. I can also then speak truth to those still remaining in Adventism’s dark and broken system, as much as they will receive.

When Formers talk about their pastor or a loved one not understanding the what and why of leaving Adventism, the upheaval brought about by doing so, and the challenges of integrating into the body of Christ, they remind me that one of the human being’s most valued needs is knowing others and being known by them—not a superficial knowledge, but knowing that brings trust and Godly affection. In the early stages of the church, it was clear that the apostles knew where their born-again believers came from. So much of what they preached was about not going backward into what they had left. They were new creatures in the truth of Christ! 

In Jeremiah 1:5, God declared to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you….” David reminds God in Psalm 139:13, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Later in Psalm 139:23-24, David asks, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.”  In 1 Corinthians 8:3, Paul notes, “If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.”  In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul reminds us, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” 

All of these verses (and more) tell us of the God Who knows us better than we can know ourselves—Who,  while we were yet sinners—lost in false teaching or dead in our alienation to God—died and rose for us to redeem us and pledged His salvation with His Holy Spirit. When we feel the alienation that comes from not being understood, from our experience not being recognized, from not feeling at home (yet), remember that our Father does know all of us. We are fully known, and someday, we will know in the same way. To God be the glory! †