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FEATURE
Rather than feel
defensive or
judgmental, we should
welcome respectful
dialogue about
Scripture with others.
Asking Questions
Pastor Arnold, who helped initiate the
study, said the data aligns with what he’s
seeing up close and personally. “I have had
conversations with many young adults who
do not embrace every teaching of the Adventist
Church,” Arnold said. “Some have
perspectives that are not reflective of the
official teaching of the Adventist Church.
Some understand the official teaching and
disagree with it on some points.”
Arnold said the two subjects that he
gets asked about most are the doctrine of
Christ’s ministry in the heavenly sanctuary
and the proper use of Ellen White’s writings.
“People still leave the church over their
feelings being hurt,” Arnold said. “But
one of the main underlying factors is the
mistreatment they got because they were
questioning. If we can keep a positive relationship
with them while they are processing
things, it communicates that they are
welcome and wanted in our fellowship.”
DeFoor, who left the Adventist Church
and later returned, said he represents a
boomer generation that had difficulty
separating salvation in Christ from personal
behavior such as Sabbath-keeping. “I know
we say that the church doesn’t teach this,”
DeFoor said, “but certain people give the
strong impression that it does teach this.”
Based on his outreach to other former
Adventists, DeFoor said that the Adventist
Church needs more emphasis on the teaching
and preaching of the Gospels. “We need
to understand that it must be Jesus first,”
DeFoor said. “That will lead us to a better
understanding of our heavenly Father.”
Goolsby said the Adventist Church isn’t
the only faith community seeing a transient
membership. She cites a 2008 Boston Globe
article, stating that “44 percent of Americans
have left the religion traditions in
which they grew up.” 2
“Social media has connected our lives,”
Goolsby said. “We are now more aware of
what our friends, family, and contemporaries
are doing, thinking, and feeling. If
those friends have issues or questions about
their church or their belief system, they are
generally speaking out through social media.
This causes people who might not otherwise
have questions or issues to suddenly
start asking some of the hard questions.”
Goolsby said a fundamental question to
consider is whether the Adventist Church
is a “one-size-fits-all” religion. “Does the
member,” she asked, “have to take it all or
take nothing? And how does that fit with
the plan of salvation?”
Sahlin, who wrote the 1998 report, said
that his current research also reflects changing
perspectives among former Adventists.
“The relational issues are not as acute as
they were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s,” Sahlin
said. “They are still there, but there is this
newer issue of how people experience
Christian faith.”
Sahlin said that newer faith issues among
Adventists are “largely driven by the
evangelical critique of Adventism — that
it’s based on salvation by works because of
its insistence on the Jewish Sabbath and
because of an extrabiblical prophet from
which they get their doctrines.”
Many Adventists today, Sahlin said,
aren’t prepared to handle this critique. “The
fallout of our own theological debates of
the 1980s and 1990s,” he said, “was a new
generation that is uncertain about its faith
and not well-equipped to respond to the
evangelical critique.”
Sahlin said that Adventists have quit
making their own biblical critique of the
evangelical faith, such as that found in
The Great Controversy, Ellen White’s 1911
work. “We have tried not to be different,”
said Sahlin, noting that in the more recent
church-published Great Hope, critiques of
other denominations are largely absent.
June 2013 • GLEANER
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