A few years ago I attended a baptism in one of our churches. As with many of our baptisms, the candidates are encouraged to give a testimony after they have come up out of the font (dried and re-dressed of course). At one point this particular lady said, " . . . and my late grandmother is now looking down on me from heaven.”
Quite obviously she was being baptized without having been given careful studies so far as basic Seventh-day Adventist beliefs are concerned.
But wait, there’s more!!! This particular lady was born into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and this was her re-baptism. Which means she had spent maybe 20-something years in the denomination without learning the Bible truth about the state of the dead.
Fast forward a few years, and I read an article in the Adventist Record (South Pacific Division) an article about exactly the same problem. Here are a few quotes from the article:
Seventh-day Adventists in the South Pacific Division (SPD) are grappling with theological uncertainties around the state of the dead and other key beliefs, according to data from the latest Global Church Member Survey [1].
Dr David Trim, director of the Office of Archives, Statistics and Research at the General Conference, presented some of the survey findings for the South Pacific region to the Division Executive Committee at the year-end meetings last week. Of the 146,821 church members globally who completed the survey, 1415 were from the SPD [2].
A notable concern revolves around beliefs regarding the state of the dead. In response to the statement “The soul is a separate spiritual part of a person and lives on after death,” 55 per cent of SPD respondents either strongly agreed or agreed [3].
One may think this is a sign of problems in the South Pacific Division resulting from the late Desmond Ford's having taught so many of our pastors and administrators between 1960 and 1980. But the article, further on, states:
Dr Trim highlighted that globally, one in three Adventists holds a dualist perspective, believing that the soul lives on after death. However, the SPD stands out with the highest number of church members agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement [4].
So while the problem shows up worse in this particular Division, it appears to be a global church problem.
In other words, if this survey is to be believed, one third of Seventh-day Adventists throughout the world do not know the truth about death, and in the South Pacific Division nearly two-thirds of our people lack awareness of this cardinal teaching of Holy Scripture. It should be noted that the state of the dead was only one of the issues raised by this survey. However, I have decided to focus in this article on the state of the dead as it is one of the doctrines that most defines the unique teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
How has this come about?
“Give Us Love, Not Doctrine”
Again, as in my previous article on Des Ford [5], I need to rely on anecdotal evidence as there seems to be little academic research on this topic, or at least little that is available to me. However, many people my age in the church have over the years made such statements as the following: "We had the doctrines hammered into us as children. We know the doctrines; we don't need to hear them anymore. We need to hear more about love and grace.
Thus large numbers of my generation (those in their 70s now) appear not to have passed our Biblical message on to their children (i.e. those showing up in this survey as ignorant of the state of the dead). Since so many of my generation distained the doctrines and saw no need to teach them to their children, we have to ask how the church as a whole failed to take up the slack in the public instruction given our people.
Laxness All Round
Too many in many generation distained the church’s distinctive doctrines, not necessarily because they disagreed with them but because they were "sick of hearing about them.” Thus, as these persons acquired influence, less and less focus was placed in sermons and written materials on our key doctrines, with which more stress placed on what was thought to be love and grace. I can’t say I’m entirely critical of them because of this, as I remember the comments of a very beloved (now deceased) head elder who said there was a lack of sermons and teachings on love and grace during the period between 1940 and 1960. But it seems the pendulum has swung very much in the opposite direction.
I find myself asking the question, where did I learn about the state of the dead? Where would any church member learn this or similar denominational teachings? Of the 172 Sabbath School lessons published between 1980 and 2023, it seems only one quarter's lesson specifically covered the state of the dead, while one other quarter had a week's study devoted to this topic [6]. An additional fact to consider is that in most churches I have attended, only half or even less of the congregation ever attend Sabbath School.
Myself, I cannot recall ever hearing a sermon on this subject from the pulpit. Yes, our evangelists cover it in their public meetings, and I have seen a pastor run a few such campaigns. However, very few (from my estimate, less than a quarter) of the church tends to show up for these meetings. In my 43 years in the church I have never seen a pastor's class held for the youth, so they’re not going to get such teachings as the state of the dead from that source.
In sum, what with only small amounts of public church proclamation containing doctrine, and very few Seventh-day Adventists engaging with the few events where such doctrine might be taught (e.g. Sabbath School and public evangelistic campaigns), we come to the situation discovered in the above survey. A large volume of our members seem to only learn from what is given in sermons from the pulpit. They do not engage in any study of their own or participate in any church events where doctrinal instruction might be presented.
Hence our current dilemma.
What Can the Church Do?
Previous generations, having been allegedly saturated in doctrine, spurned its importance and thus, as they assumed positions of influence in the church, have facilitated the present situation. What is badly needed is a re-thinking of the premise that Seventh-day Adventists “know all the doctrines.” The survey noted earlier shows clearly that this is not true. If we are to address and correct this problem, perhaps we need to treat our congregations as if they are virtually unchurched.
A recent article on this site noted the popularity of spiritualism and its false teachings about death in our present time, and the simultaneous disbelief of certain contemporary Adventists as to the supernatural origin of these delusions [7]. The enemy of all righteousness is clearly set up large numbers of Seventh-day Adventists to be fooled by his last-day deceptions. We need to approach this crisis of doctrinal ignorance in the church with the gravest seriousness.
We truly need to evangelize from within. What is needed is for the entire body of classic Adventist doctrine—Bible-based and Christ-focused—to be presented on a regular basis to our people. This needs to happen from the Sabbath pulpit, at camp meetings, in our schools, and in every other church-directed setting. The counsel of our prophet regarding preparation for the coming crisis must become paramount:
None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict [##8|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 593.##].
Only those who have been diligent students of the Scriptures, and who have received the love of the truth, will be shielded from the powerful delusion that takes the world captive [##9|——The Great Controversy, p. 625.##].
REFERENCES
1. https://record.adventistchurch.com/2023/11/14/church-member-survey-uncovers-uncertainties-around-key-theological-beliefs/
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. https://www.adventistarchives.org/sabbathschoollessons
6. https://advindicate.com/articles/draft2-jhlaf-6jegm
7. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 593.
8. Ibid, p. 625.
Tony Rigden, a former atheist/deist, came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980 as the result of a miraculous conversion and the reading of the book The Great Controversy by Ellen G White. He has since been a regular Sabbath School teacher, very part-time lay preacher, elder and briefly head elder. Formerly an electronics technician and computer programmer, Tony is currently still part-time programming but mostly retired. Former hobbies included diving and private flying. Currently he is a volunteer guard (train conductor) for one of New Zealand's leading vintage railways.