Due to my involvement since young adulthood in the continuing controversies in modern and contemporary Adventism over inspiration, the gospel, the sanctuary, and numerous related issues, I have grown familiar with the thinking of those who question the premises of classic Adventist theology. I have personally known many who have traveled this particular spiritual road, some of whom come from my own family.
The often-complicated personal factors that frequently surround such stories can be followed in many different directions. But one such factor that I believe can play a prominent role in such spiritual journeys is the initial problem of conformity without conviction. Some might justifiably call this legalism, but due to the malleable and often misshapen character of this label, I have chosen in the present context to use different wording.
One Man’s Journey
In the wake of Desmond Ford’s public challenge in the fall of 1979 to the Seventh-day Adventist sanctuary doctrine, the prophetic significance of 1844, and the investigative judgment, an impassioned letter was written by an Adventist physician to a lifelong friend who happened at the time to be a leading General Conference official, outlining the physician’s theological pilgrimage and eventual acceptance of the evangelical gospel of justification-alone salvation and no perfection for the earthly believer this side of heaven, together with the resulting rejection of our classic sanctuary message. I myself received a copy of this letter soon after it was written.
Following are portions of the letter in question, which I consider germane to the theme of this article:
The East Pennsylvania Conference Bible worker gave my mother, my sister, and me Bible studies for about a full year and covered nearly every subject on which a new Adventist is supposed to be catechized, including health reform, wedding rings, other “Christian standards,” etc.
The first time I was ever in an Adventist church was the Sabbath in December of 1940 when I was baptized in the Harrisburg Church with your sister by B.P. Gernet. I really did not want to be baptized. I went through the rite primarily because I was afraid not to. I knew of the coming investigative judgment, the seven last plagues, the final outpouring of God’s wrath on those who did not keep all the commandments of God and believe in the “Spirit of Prophecy” (the writings of E.G. White) and I wanted to escape the fires of hell that would destroy the wicked.
Upon returning home to Carlisle that December evening I went to the home of one of my high school classmates where I played table tennis with my three best friends. I stopped the game after a while to tell them of my baptism. Knowing nothing of my religious studies, they asked me what this step meant. My answer is still vivid to me—to my shame! I told them that the significance of my becoming an Adventist was that I could no longer play pinochle, 500, and other forbidden card games, nor could I attend the movies with them, nor could I go to the dance at the Junior Prom, nor could I ever again shoot pool with them at the local pool hall! I didn’t mention vegetarianism, abstinence from tea, coffee, and cola drinks, the avoidance of fictitious reading, etc, but it was enough to persuade them that I had lost my mind! As a new Seventh-day Adventist, this was my testimony, my witness, my gospel presentation! You might say that it is unfair to equate my presentation with the gospel, but where did I get these ideas? Looking back I remember no Bible study on justification by faith in the atoning death and faultless merits of Jesus Christ that could give me the assurance of salvation apart from the works of the law. I was simply ignorant of the gospel [1].
A testimony like the above naturally evokes a cluster of reactions on the part of devout Seventh-day Adventists (not to mention any perceptive student of human behavior), any number of which could lead in a variety of directions. But the following are some reactions of my own, which I believe hold relevance for Seventh-day Adventists even four decades removed from this man’s travails. For indeed, the issues that convulsed the denomination in those days continue to vex the Advent movement today.
First, what too many so-called “gospel-oriented,” “anti-legalist” Adventists and ex-Adventists seem to forget is that most sensible folks in the street aren’t going to much care if someone’s religion gives them certainty of a home in faraway bliss, unless they see evidence that this religion has positively changed that person’s life, their practical habits, and their treatment of others. To speak of “assurance of salvation” that makes little impact on one’s daily choices isn’t going to impress many thoughtful minds.
Second, the above comments about high school friends thinking the man in question had “lost his mind” on account of his new, in many ways peculiarly Adventist lifestyle, recalls for me conversations I had during my college years with fellow, mostly non-Christian workers at a box factory in my home town in central California. What seemed to convince them of the weirdness of my religious faith was not that I was a vegetarian, that I didn’t share beers with them at break time, or that I didn’t come to work on Saturdays, but rather, because I believed sex should be reserved for marriage! They could handle the peculiar Adventist stuff—Sabbath observance, no beer, no meat—but no sex till marriage? That had to mean I was totally bonkers from their point of view!
The more I’ve reflected on those conversations through the years, my recurrent fascination has been with the fact that what made me seem so strange to these young men of my age was a moral precept we as Adventists hold in common with nearly all the Protestant evangelicals with whom the physician quoted above would eventually throw in his lot. Yet the odd-man-out experience this man described with his high school classmates on account of his newly-embraced Adventist lifestyle would likely have been his experience on account of the general conservative Christian consensus on sexuality issues, had he been my age and a co-worker at the box factory, going to a mainstream evangelical church instead of the Adventist Church.
But perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the above testimony, one which offers perhaps the most relevant warnings to today’s Adventism, is the general impression the testimony conveys of conformity without conviction, and how this rootless conformity likely led to the doctrinal errors and departure from the Adventist fold on his part and that of his family.
Conformity Without Conviction
Elder H.M.S. Richards Sr. once asked many years ago, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” If, by contrast, one’s religious faith—Adventist or otherwise—exerts no impact on one’s daily life, interactions with others, and practical decision-making, what value can it truly possess?
One is genuinely led to wonder how a young man could have attended a year’s worth of Bible studies with his mother and sister and yet not find himself in an Adventist church till the very day of his baptism! More importantly, what can be said of the impact of those Bible studies on his personal life and practical choices if his high school buddies knew nothing about them? One is faced with the painful likelihood that his becoming an Adventist was mostly a surface affair, like the experience of the stony-ground hearers in Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt. 13:5,20-21). Whether through family pressure, personal guilt, or other factors, it is hard to escape the conclusion that this man’s journey into the Seventh-day Adventist Church was a simple case of conformity without conviction.
Little wonder that he didn’t seem to impress his high school friends with the news of his baptism. No one is likely to convince others of something of which he or she isn’t personally convinced already.
Conclusion: Taking a Firm Hold
Years ago I read the story of a missionary and a group of natives in southeast Asia, who were climbing up a local mountainside. Tall lallang grass bordered both sides of the narrow trail. When the climb became steep, the hikers reached out to grab the grass and pull themselves up. Natives in the group shouted out, “Grasp it firmly! Grasp it firmly!” The hikers did as they were told.
The missionary later asked the natives why some of them had urged their companions to take a firm hold on the lallang grass as they ascended the trail. The missionary was told that if lallang grass is grasped hesitantly, it can inflict deep and painful wounds. Only if one grasps it firmly will this not happen.
Much the same is true with the Christian life, in particular its expression in the faith of Seventh-day Adventism. If this faith is not embraced in its totality, with a firm and fully surrendered heart, it will not make sense to the one professing it, much less to the professing one’s friends and loved ones. The in-depth reach of Bible-based Adventism into the intellectual and behavioral lives of its adherents will only come across as abject foolishness to those who don’t recognize the total claim of this faith on the thinking and living of those who hold it, much as my belief in premarital chastity came across as foolishness to my workplace friends long ago. Unless one’s faith is grasped firmly, like the lallang grass of Sumatra, it will cause more hurt than help.
REFERENCES
1. Letter of Herschel C. Lamp to a Seventh-day Adventist friend, Feb. 20, 1980, quoted by Robert D. Brinsmead, Judged by the Gospel: A Review of Adventism (Fallbrook, CA: Verdict Publications, 1980), pp. 17-18.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan