After Adventism

In the early 1980s, a group of students at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary started a magazine, Evangelica, calling themselves “Evangelical Adventists.” Within a couple years they saw there was no future. I was a student at Atlantic Union College, and I remember when the issue of the magazine came with the title, “After Adventism: Going Forth to Jesus.” I was looking to see if I could find it on-line and came across an issue of Spectrum talking about it. There was a book review of Robert Brinsmead’s book, Judged by the Gospel: A Review of Adventism, written by Richard Rice. There was also a short article about the broader circle of “Evangelical Adventists,” entitled, “Where are Evangelical Adventists Headed?” It quoted Brinsmead, “If a person cannot be an authentic Adventist, he should not be a phony one. Evangelical Adventists must decide whether to submit to that system or obey the gospel, for the gospel has broken through the Adventist system and has left it shattered beyond repair.” The Spectrum writer continued:

The editors of Evangelica appear to agree. The same month Brinsmead’s attack appeared, they published an issue entitled “After Adventism: Going Forth to Jesus.” The editors were students at the SDA Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, when they founded the journal that did much to popularize the term “Evangelical Adventism”; the editors now rejected it. To the question of his article “Whither Evangelical Adventism?” Editor Alan Crandall. answered, “probably nowhere. It has almost run its course. The time has come for us to frankly admit that, notwithstanding the good Seventh-day Adventists have accomplished over the years, the entire Adventist system is bankrupt. As embarrassing as this may be, we must confess that even evangelical Adventism is only a partial solution. Instead of attempting to keep one foot in “the gospel and one foot in Adventism, we may as well make a clean break with a system which we have come to see as inimical to the apostolic faith.” He ticks off five doctrines that “the gospel has exposed as faulty: Time prophecies relating to the Advent movement; a final work of atonement and an investigative judgement beginning in 1844; Adventism as the ‘remnant’; Ellen White as a latter-day prophet; the Sabbath as a moral test. “

The rest of the issue includes a story detailing the experiences of several former Adventist ministers leaving the denomination. The editors also provide a handy guide for Adventist looking for another denomination. The first step suggested is to look in the Yellow Pages. Crandall’s own choices of denominations to which “you can safely narrow the field,” receive asterisks: Evangelical Covenant Church, Evangelical Free Church and Presbyterian and Reformed (various denominations).

I remember the issue, and I remember feeling I would come to that point, too. But I couldn’t understand that narrow list. It was a particular kind of Evangelicalism they were drawn to–weighted towards the Reformed churches. I couldn’t understand why former Adventists, in the name of Gospel liberty, would go to a tradition that includes a belief in Calvin’s teachings of unconditional election and limited atonement. Those teachings seem contrary to the Gospel to me.

I’ve looked at some “ex-Adventist” sites, and there still is no agreement on what to replace it with. Some still hold out for “Evangelical Adventism.” Some want to stay within the system and reform it. Some go Reformed. A few become Catholic, or Orthodox, or Episcopalian. Some gave up on all religion. My brother goes to an Evangelical Friends church. I tried several different things. So all agree that certain teachings of Adventism are un-Biblical (1844, Ellen White, clean/unclean, Sabbath as a test), but disagree on why these things are wrong and what to replace them with.

I think that’s to be expected. There is a degree of grief leaving a fundamentalist group with tight boundaries of fellowship and doctrine. There can be trauma involved in the experience within and the act of leaving. So one can be thrown off balance as you look for some place new–and as the saying goes, “Once burned, twice shy.” But there is something comfortable about a place that has Answers, that claims to be The Church. It isn’t surprising that some veer that way, wanting boundaries still. That’s my thought, anyway.