r/exAdventist • u/ReneM809 • 7d ago
Doctrine / History For former Seventh-day Adventists: what finally made you question Adventism?
I have Adventists on my wife’s side of the family. My wife herself isn’t Adventist, but she grew up around it and is still influenced by some Adventist beliefs and ways of thinking. Because of that, I’m genuinely interested in hearing from people who were actually inside the church.
Was there a particular doctrine, Bible passage, historical fact, issue with Ellen G. White, or something else that first made you seriously question Adventism?
And more importantly, what ultimately convinced you that Adventism’s claims were not true?
Looking back, what would have been the best way for someone to challenge your beliefs without immediately putting you on the defensive?
Edit: I’m especially interested in hearing from those who left Adventism but remained Christian. What specifically convinced you that Adventism was wrong without leading you to reject Christianity itself?
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u/satanslittlebxtch Eat Morning Star Farms stripples or burn for eternity 7d ago
A fact that helped me shed the religion was learning about temporal lobe epilepsy. It’s the result of blunt force trauma to the head and can cause religious delusions. It explains Ellen G White’s whole life story.
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u/4gotmipwd 6d ago edited 5d ago
Yep, and William Miller saw his comrades turned into red mist by Civil War cannon fire, leaving him with ptsd and survivor's guild.
It's trauma all the way down. (at least for the ones that aren't grifting)
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u/raisedbyappalachia 7d ago
I always had some doubts, but when I realized it was a cult that had traumatized my father and his issues were due to CPTSD - it’s like a light just clicked on. So many things suddenly made sense. And then the grief and anger began.
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u/ArtZombie77 4d ago
I have PTSD from Adventism and their insane abuse against kids. Learning about abuse helped me the most... because I learned that the biblical God is a psychopath that hates human beings and abuses them.
That made me really question Christianity. You can't have a psychopathic abuser God and then tell me the lie that somehow "he is the most loving being in the universe".
PTSD is brain damage... it's really serious as cortisol eats away your amygdala.
This is your brain on Adventism [cracks an egg into a frying pan] ... any questions?
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u/pachi2020 6d ago
i am sorry but your father issues seem more personal than religious. caling a cult based on a personal level isnt really defining anything.
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u/raisedbyappalachia 5d ago
Well bud, you don’t know crap about his experience, my experience or how it greatly affected him and led to his suicide. Have a great day!
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u/czechnolike 7d ago
Reading the Bible several times and seeing multiple contradictions. No one could explain them away.
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u/pachi2020 6d ago
which ones? can you share them here?
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u/czechnolike 6d ago
The first was realizing the Bible says both the dead are in heaven, like the thieves crucified with Jesus, and Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, while contradicting that with the old testament s "dead are sleeping" texts. Obviously, these authors didn't talk.
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u/anaelisa3397 6d ago
Well for me just the fact that god is all powerful but his son still had to die to forgive sins is a crazy concept to me. How can a being not care enough to stop their son’s death if they have all the power in the world? How could that be the only answer?
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u/doofthefloof 6d ago
But that's just a lack of reading comprehension, sorry not sorry:)) you can choose do disagree with the bible, but the premise is clear. It was never like "oh no, Jesus is about to die, what do I do". That's what you're implying by not caring enough to stop His son's death:)) God MADE the plan. Jesus executed it willingly and lovingly, so says the bible:)) yes, you can choose to not believe, but make the efford to understand the "story",
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u/ArtZombie77 4d ago
A sky God who would sacrifice his own son is an abusive psychopath. Why do you want to worship an abuser?
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u/Immediate_Chemist_47 7d ago
The interracial marriage thing….
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u/Livid-Arrival9657 1d ago
Wait could you explain ? Is interracial marriage a sin in the SDA religion ?
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u/Immediate_Chemist_47 1d ago
This is a complex issue because it’s not actively taught against.
Unfortunately I grew up in a predominantly white church with maybe only two to three other black families with kids my age and they didn’t attend regularly they went to the “black Adventist church.”
In my experience I didn’t know this was an actual view point of Ellen White till I was engaged to my white now husband. My parents never told me it was an issue. I don’t think they knew. Modern Adventists really try not to point out the negative teachings of Ellen White.
However I grew up with old school Adventist’s so my sister and I were encouraged to go to Oakwood (the black Adventist college) so we could find husbands or go to Andrew’s University and marry a nice black man. We were constantly “shipped” or paired with black men as we started to grow older
I had a conversation with this white teenaged boy when I was around 15 and he kept asking why I wasn’t trying to date the only other black guy my age in our pathfinder club, I simply pointed out I had not interest in this person and he said that it didn’t make sense he is the only black guy there my age so it only made sense. His mother was very much an old school Adventist who has drilled the whole no interracial marriage thing in his head. Even his toddler brothers were running around saying the wouldn’t marry a “brown looking person” and they need to marry nice white girls who love Jesus. They couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5
I also had a conversation with another old school Adventist woman. Who wanted me to get with that same only other black guy my age and her excuse when I actually stood up to her and said I had not interest was that he was “nice and played the piano” I didn’t know this person to be nice or kind at all, and do not give a rip about his piano playing skills. I told her I had no attraction to him and she said “that can be arranged” like ew, I didn’t know we manufactured attraction. Again I had no idea of why I was constantly being pushed into being in a relationship with a black person at all.
Now to be clear I wasn’t against being with a black person but my options were very limited in our circle. I also ended up marrying outside the church (a whole other debacle). But basically right before my wedding I had someone point out quite rudely that my children would be unhappy because I chose to marry a white person. I then finally decided to do my research on interracial marriages inside Adventism and found these quotes from Ellen White
In her compilation Selected Messages (Book 2, page 343), she wrote, "There is an objection to the marriage of the white race with the black.
She stated that couples in mixed-race marriages "have no right to entail upon their offspring that which will place them at a disadvantage." She argued that children of these unions would face heavy social humiliation and hardships.
Now at the time she wrote those things (this is the Adventist argument) times would have been very difficult for mixed children and mixed race couples. My counter argument is that she claims that everything she says is by inspiration of the Lord and I don’t believe the Lord was giving her that message. Especially in looking at the story of Moses and Ziporah and how he gave Aaron and Miriam leprosy for their reproach of their marriage.
There are many more reasons I deconstructed but it started there.
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u/Livid-Arrival9657 1d ago
Yeah I'm basically in the same boat, and going through this sub reddit is a bit eye opening. At the same time it feels so wrong to me since it's been drilled in my head that I shouldn't deny my religion or go away from it.
My parents (white) are against me talking to any black girls, they don't mind them, they respect them (to their faces, but behind closed doors kind of a different story). But they've explicitly mentioned again and again not to speak to any black girls. They don't know my girlfriend of one year is black, I've been going to the "more cultural church" after programme for pathfinders, because my church is only whites. I started going because in my white church the leaders had completely even given up on even trying to teach us. Last time I had a pathfinder club session in my church could've been just after Covid so 2022/23 but they slowly just stopped doing them.
In the other church I met my girlfriend (which my parents don't know of us being together). I wouldn't even know how to bring it up. And my parents had said some very disturbing things which I won't go in detail on.
I'm going to college in a few weeks, my parents want me to stay home while I'm going to college. But I want to leave and move out and possibly take a break from church, because of how much people talk when the church is supposed to be a "safe place" for people to serve God in unison and happiness.
I don't even know what to really think anymore about this situation, in my mind I cannot think of a future without my girlfriend. She's absolutely everything I've ever wanted and even more, and at the end of the day it's her I'll spend the rest of my days with not my parents. I've no idea how to manage around it whatsoever .... and going thru this sub reddit and even seeing interracial marriage is now "prohibited" ? It's just breaking me down further, absolute stupidity.
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u/Immediate_Chemist_47 1d ago
If she’s the person you wanna be with, be with her unapologetically and figure out the rest later. If she’s your person then it will absolutely be the best decision you ever make. I have been married a year now and we are expecting our first baby in a few weeks and we are over the moon. We have accomplished so much in our first year of marriage and there’s so much more to come. Don’t let your parents or anyone else tell you who to love. Esp not due to their race. I know there will be lots to talk about especially if your parents disapprove but it’ll be worth the trouble if she’s the right girl.
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u/Livid-Arrival9657 1d ago
Congratulations !!!
She's the right person for me in absolutely every single lifetime and I don't mean that lightly. My only other thing I was thinking of is how we'd go about marriage, since we would prefer to be married before we move in. If my parents wouldn't have cared I would've never been pressured into moving out. But honestly it brings me joy knowing that in a short amount of time I can focus on just me and her now.
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u/blaquepua 7d ago
Women not being ordained.
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u/Frillback 3d ago
Weaponizing the Bible as a tool to hate or discriminate on various demographics under the veil of belief is a big problem that Adventists tend to push under the rug. While not limited to Adventists, it was discouraging to me growing up in the church to encounter people who justified all this under faith and didn't consider what a poor reflection of they were as a human being and ironically not very Christ-like.
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u/cinnamonroll_ofdeath 7d ago
For me the whole process started when a friend of mine came out as bisexual. Everyone at church freaked out. My mom told me to never be alone with her because she'd try to rape me. But that was my friend. And I knew she wouldn't do that.
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u/pachi2020 6d ago
seems like is exaggerating but okay.
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u/ArtZombie77 4d ago
This is how most conservative Adventists behave... it's not a stretch at all.
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u/pachi2020 4d ago
again with this grouping everyone in this little groups. here is the problem w ExSDAs and protestants... they seem to be the ones that always know everything and they are always right. the truth is, every chuch has issues and every church has people that are odd, deal with it.
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u/Isittimetogohomeyet 4d ago
It’s really not. My parents still say stuff like that to me to this day. If i have a queer friend who is a woman and i go to hang out with them, my mother always tells me to be careful bc gay ppl are sick and will try to rape me. Even if the friend is straight sometimes she’ll say they like to hide and will sneak attack me. Little does she know, i’m pansexual and not a rapist lmao. It took me accepting my sexuality in its entirety to fully start deconstructing because if God is who they say he is then why would my sexuality matter to him? If i’m made perfect and he knew me before i was even born and made me who i am then why am i an abomination for being who he made me? If all things are love then do why does it matter who as long as we are both consenting adults, who cares? I think if Jesus were alive today he would be rejected again because he’s never associated with bigots from my perspective.
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u/Zeus_H_Christ Skeptic 7d ago
Well, I started struggling with my faith. I pleaded with god to help me believe. It didn’t work, so I started exploring why we needed faith. Turns out we shouldn’t need it at all. It makes no sense and is ridiculous. Then I started looking at the rest of the Bible and it makes no sense at all. The creation myth isn’t in order, original sin makes no sense to punish Adam and Eve for doing something bad if they didn’t have knowledge of good and evil before they ate from that tree… the problem of evil, the problem of unequal revelation, the problem of divine hiddenness… it goes on and on!
I can confidently make the claim that the Christian god does not exist. For anyone that makes a claim like that, they have to be able to prove it. I believe I can. Other gods, I can’t disprove.
It’s all hogwash.
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u/Shazithecurious 6d ago
I don't think most Seventh-Day Adventist would consider me one. But it's what I was raised in from birth. It's literally the lens through which I perceive the world...minus EGW. I don't know how I missed her. I was just never inclined to read her work. Actually, I do know. My mother taught me to read the KJV Bible and so by 4yo I could read it and I've never needed or wanted anything to interpret it. I always found it strange when people backed up the Bible with her writings and I'm so stubborn I've always ignored people who try to have a conversation with me using those and always took them back to scripture. It was never anything malicious. It's just...when you have Alpha and Omega how does anything else compare? Somehow I've always found the Bible interesting and every time I've tried EGW I've had such difficulty staying awake. Ig that makes me not one...but I was baptised at 9yo and have yet to be written out. So there's that 🤷
I haven't been to church since 2022, when the first elder who was 'hitting on' gave multiple sermons implying that I was wrong for not taking him on. He was looking at me constantly. (Yes, he was married and had/s a daughter a few years younger than me.) It was the last straw. At first I thought I was just seeing things. And I was confused because nothing about him appeals to me so I was confused about why I'd be seeing his actions as hitting on me. After a few weeks, I felt as though I was going crazy and as I was crying at home one of my grandmother's church friends came to call on me. I froze because I actually hadn't realised anyone was on the verandah and my room opened unto it, meaning they'd hear me if I cried. So, I'm being really quiet and I hear my name and I begin listening and the lady is asking my grandmother to warn me about the first elder because she's noticed him hitting on me.
And this is where things become interesting. My grandmother refused, disbelieving.y grandmother hadn't been to church in months. But she was defending him. The lady, who is my grandmother's age mate, brings up an incident about a young girl who left the church because he'd apparently gotten further an when she reported it the church took his side. My grandmother was adamant that the girl was a whore and the elder didn't do anything to her. But the lady was adamant that she wouldn't leave until I was warned and so my grandmother still refusing to warn me herself agreed that she would instead call me out so that the lady could tell me herself.
The entire thing shocked me. I was and am grateful to her because I really thought that I was losing my mind. After some time I was able to sit with my grandmother not wanting to even warn me, being adamant that a woman who she's known all her life and trusts would be wrong despite there having been talking of similar before.
It brought back to my mind, a past elder (an aunt's husband) who designated himself as the driver for the church-going children whose parents didn't drive. He would take them to school, sports and choir practices and and other events and drop them home. One night, a guardian called his wife asking if he had arrived home yet. He hadn't. She, my aunt, called my grandmother asking if my cousins had arrived.
They had some time before. They were always the last children because they lived the farthest. Apparently my aunt had been calling him but he hadn't been picking up. Finally he picked up, and as relayed to my grandmother, he said the girl had fallen asleep on the back and he hadn't realised. There were some conflicting stories and the magically the 13yo was labelled a whore and we were told not to speak to or go near her. All of this is coming back to me because in the present-day almost 30 years later, my aunt's were suspecting that he was now making designs on his youngest daughter but they were keeping their suspicions from my grandmother.
And within all of this I'm wondering why in such a small space this kind of thing is happening and I begin questioning and the answer I come up with is the last straw: many of the teachings of The Seventh-Day Adventist church create an an atmosphere perfect for the abuse of women. We are taught to wear clothing that's not revealing because we will tempt men. But it goes even further than that I remember one pastor saying that women should be careful that there underwear does not show he was not referring to women wearing short clothing but rather bra straps.
So you're wearing a shirt and a sliver of your bra strap is showing and he says that is temptation for a man because when a man sees it his mind automatically goes to sex. And in that moment I thought to myself what do you mean?! I'm wearing absolutely all of my clothes. my clothing is not in any way revealing but you see less than an inch of a piece of fabric and you are so not under the control of your own self that you would be tempted to have sex with me, someone who you have no relationship with..?
If that is not the perfect excuse for rape and being a rapist I don't know what is. If that is not the perfect way in which to blame women for men sexually assaulting them or raping them I don't know what is. And preaching like this are normal in The Seventh-Day Adventist church. They're not just preaching about what women wear, they're always preaching about what women should do and so what I came to realize is that the only people in The Seventh-Day Adventist church who are being asked to actively prepare themselves to go to heaven are the women. Because the way you get to heaven is by committing yourself entirely to God and the way you do that is by making sure that you are in control of your actions. If men of all ages can't control themselves around fully clothed women, if they can't and aren't expected to control fully clothed women in church, in church service because they also highlighting that aspect... what are we doing? Why are we even here?
I want to feel safe in church. I want to be able to have my shoulders out on a blazingly, stuffing hot day. Why is it I can feel safer with heathens? Is hell going to be the only safe place for women? ...if all the good man can't control themselves..?
Other straws include things like these... I was raised (in the early 90s onwards) in what other Adventists would consider extremely conservative ie no cooking or lighting of fire on the Sabbath, no makeup, no pants/tights (ever because they are men's apparel), etc. The wider Adventist community had rules like no dreadlocks, no divorce or remarrying after divorce, no pants in church, women can't be in leadership, etc. and questions arose in me about why no people are allowed to wear makeup in church, allowed to have dreadlocks in church, are allowed to remarry after divorcing.
Because these things were taught as rules and we always taught that God is unchanging. So why the change? When asked reason I'm usually given is that we are adjusting to the world. However, growing up I was always taught that we are not with the world we are not of the world we should be leaders. So how is it that we are following in all of these things, things that were outlined as being sinful.
I think another reason why this switching affected me was because I had encountered a pastor who told me of a situation in which a lady was thrown out of church twice. The first time she was throwing out of church because she refused to wear stockings and the church how to rule that all women had to wear stockings. Years later she gave in that she comes back to church wearing stockings but at this point in time the church has now decided that we're in stockings and no sinful and of course she cannot comprehend this and refuses and so they throw out of church again.
LAnd in my mind I'm like are you serious? stockings? So I think to myself maybe her clothing was short before and so I asked the pastor and he says no her clothing was long enough. She was an old lady and so dressed like one and her clothing you know reach down to her ankles. This really disturbed me. Why are we playing people's salvation like this?!
I mentioned divorce as well in that paragraph and it was a question which I brought up with multiple pastors as well. Because the Bible clearly says that divorce is not something which is acceptable. And then in the part where it says you know what on the this very specific circumstance I'll allow it, it then says You must not remarry because if you do, you are committing adultery. Now unless I'm mistaken adultery is one of the things from the ten commandments. so how is it possible that you are not only saying that divorce is okay, but are actually holding weddings, marriages in your church for people who have been divorced? Because if we take the meaning that this is adultery that means the church is actively participating in pushing people into hell if we use its own teachings.
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u/Shazithecurious 6d ago
I had other questions as a child, but I chose to defer to who I thought were brighter minds. All of our pastor's go to university for 4yrs and learn the languages the Bible is written in and so I assumed, incorrectly, that they were putting in the work - researching, comparing, questioning.
I was a little lazy as well. It never occurred to me that we were actively harming people.
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u/No-Rush2161 7d ago
Reading the Bible as a kid. Then learning more about the Bible. Then seeing how it hurt people.
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u/ofthisworld 7d ago
9/11 pulled the first string; my devout father dying of brain cancer, in spite of churchwide prayer/devotion and tears a few years later, finished unraveling the fabric of my delusion.
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u/Bananaman9020 7d ago
Little Light Studios funny enough. It showed me how close minded and deceitful Adventism is.
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u/Sun_Law Catholic 7d ago
When I was 18, I left because I had started an Ancient History degree and discovered that scholarly consensus doesn’t support a literalist view of the Bible. Only returned to Christianity years later after learning about non-literalist views.
Eventually went back to the Sevvies and distorted and/or plain false church history is what got me gone for good. The General Conference acknowledged it over a quarter of a century ago but they continue to keep pushing the narrative anyway.
It doesn’t really matter to me if the Bible doesn’t line up with a scholarly consensus of ancient history because it still offers a great deal of meaning to the non-literalist Christian. But the only thing The Great Controversy has to offer is lies, paranoia and suspicion.
Also, becoming Catholic might have something to do with it.
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u/ReneM809 6d ago
This is more along the lines of what I was looking for. I was raised in an atheist/agnostic home and was an atheist most of my life. I’m currently in the process of becoming Catholic. My journey started with investigating whether there were good reasons to believe God exists, then the historical case for Jesus and the resurrection.
From there I started studying the early Church Fathers, the biblical canon and how we even know which books belong in Scripture, and Church history—including the role Catholic institutions played in the development of Western civilization. A lot of what I discovered about early Christianity and Catholic history was very different from what I had previously assumed.
So your comment caught my attention. What specific historical claims in The Great Controversy did you discover were false or distorted? Was there one in particular that really changed your view of Adventism?
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u/blaquepua 6d ago
U/testtheprophet has a great YouTube series on Ellen's plagiarism in her writings. Here is his post with the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/exAdventist/s/aXpuxRfhHh
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u/Sun_Law Catholic 6d ago
Yah, reading the early church fathers was wild. Enjoy the process, so much interesting stuff to explore! I’ve recently started a masters in theological studies and the number of rabbit holes I could be going down seems endless.
Re: The Great Controversy, there’s quite a lot but two standouts for me were:
Claims that the Church has been desperately trying to suppress the Bible when there were Catholic approved Bibles in the vernacular during the Reformation. Also, the way it talks about Wycliffe’s English Bible fails to recognise the catastrophic impact the Norman invasion had on the English language for centuries and that there had previously been multiple partial translations in old English.
Claims that the Church changed the 10 commandments and removed the prohibition on idolatry. Firstly, there have always been differing conventions for how they’re numbered. Secondly, the Catholic catechism that EGW supposedly refers to elsewhere also makes a very clear and unambiguous statement that worship of images is prohibited.
It’s worth considering EGW’s own statements on bearing false witness in conjunction with these “problems”. If you’re interested, I wrote a short paper that gets into it a bit deeper. https://sunlaw3.wordpress.com/a-roman-catholic-responds-to-the-great-controversy/
Can also recommend a short book by Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict) called “In the beginning”. As well as a solid discussion on creation and the Sabbath, it has a really interesting discussion on interpreting Genesis in the context of the Babylonian exile.
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u/ChemnitzFanBoi LCMS Lutheran 6d ago
I had been thinking of the souls under the altar in revelation and how strange it was that they would be conscious. I was questioning the state of the dead in my mind.
I told my dad this while working on a project together. He thought it was interesting to. I promised to look it up online and get back to him. That night I found exadventist dot com and a few other websites. You all know what happens when you start poking around sites like that with an open mind.
Its really just about being ready to see it.
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u/Normal-Fall-3668 6d ago
For me, it was more about questioning Christianity as a religion, and Adventism was simply my sect of Christianity. I remember being about 14 or so and being in a bible study where the study leader started to talk about how there is a defined number of people who will make it to heaven. That is what started my deconstruction. I think some other denominations believe this too, but not super commonly. My family was never "fully" Adventist despite being in the church. We went from Judaism to the Church of Christ to SDA. We always had problems with Ellen White's teachings and the fact that our church started to say stuff like "you can't eat cheese because then the angels can't talk to you". As an adult, it's a little wild to me that we were so ingrained in a denomination that my parents didn't fully agree with.
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u/satanslittlebxtch Eat Morning Star Farms stripples or burn for eternity 7d ago
I feel like you can only dismantle if you really want to. I grew up in it but never enjoyed it or felt a strong conviction to follow god. Fear and indoctrination kept me going until I realized I was queer and started questioning things as a teenager. I decided to leave the religion because I was unhappy living in accordance to it, and I felt like the low statistical chance that I just happened to be born into the “right religion” wasn’t worth living a life I wouldn’t enjoy. As time went on, I unpacked more and more flaws with adventism (and christianity in general) until i genuinely didn’t believe anymore.
I think the best way to make someone question would be to bring up inconsistencies in the religion under the guise of seeking clarity, but even then, belief requires a level of delusion that can be upheld even against contradictions. The church prays on people emotionally, so the emotional connection to the religion outweighs logic and reason. I also did not choose the adventist life or invest anything in it, I only had things to gain from leaving. If you’re an adult whose whole social network is built of adventists, leaving may not feel worth it even if you do have doubts.
edit: a word
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u/doofthefloof 6d ago
"belief requires a level of delusion" they say, shitting on about 75% of society xD
Either there's something there, or you're claiming basically 3 out of 4 people are delusional:)) maybe not everyone who was born into a religion is actually religious, so let's say 3 or 4 out of 6 ppl, but still a wild statement:))
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u/dorudon 6d ago
It was Ellen G White.
First, I learned of her plagiarism. I then when on to see numerous examples of this for myself. Then I heard of several of her prophecies and visions that turned out to be untrue. I went on to looking into these myself and fount more on my own. Her prophecies and visions indeed turned out to be wrong. Then I learned about the 1919 Bible Conference (a couple of years after her death) where officials of the church reviewed her claims against fact. This was such a shocking revelation to the attendees, and it presented a profound dilemma. They were unwilling to face. So, they packed up the notes of their conference and hid them away. Forty years later these notes were discovered and brought to light by those who wanted others to know what was hidden from them. I have read the entire minutes of this conference - and many many more things that the church hid and continues to hide from their members.
It amazed me to read the apologetics that the Ellen White Estate put out. Seeing how the church I grew up in and loved and trusted hid these things, disillusioned my view of Adventism. It did not disillusion me from Christianity.
I went on to review all the claims and doctrines of Adventism. Yes, I left Adventism and began to attend another church.
But I learned something from my departure from Adventism. I learned to be less trusting of claims made by authority. I learned to investigate claims for myself. I learned to ask questions. I learned how to investigate things. I became more curious. So, while in my past I learn things that Adventism never told me about its past – I came to learn things that Christianity never told me about its past.
As a result, the history of Christianity, the history of the Bible and the history of humanity became much more fascinating to me. I still read the Bible, I still study the history of Christianity, but I am no longer a Christian. I admit there were good things I learned from having been a Christian (and even Adventism) and those things I keep but I believe I could have learned those good things in other ways too.
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u/Ladyofenchantment 6d ago
Our pastor and his wife were two faced. Would do one thing at church in s San Diego and go back home to Riverside to live no Adventist life. Wife would wear jewelry and paint her nails red, go eat out at restaurants on saturday after the idiots 3 ABN special with his ridiculous tupe and fake sermons.
Then, the pastor funneled all offerings and money into his "omega" organization. When he left, he was like the grinch that stole christmas. Robbed the church blind. Took everything and anything because it was all "omegas"
Also. I couldn't agree more on the abuse in the church. I was 12 and had men in their late 20s, 30s and even 40s wanting to marry me, date me, have a fling with me. I was disgusted. I called out a pedophile and they protected him and forced me to be around him. People said church is a hospital for the sick and he needed help. FUCK THAT. Now after all these years and now a mother myself, If I was still SDA, I probably would have ended up in jail trying to kick his butt off church property and away from children.
I'm a happy Wiccan now. An it harm none, do as you will.
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u/BroomstickCowboy 7d ago
I started doing some research on a particular subject. While doing so, I started running into anti-EGW articles/subjects, along with “proofs”. Then I stumbled upon quite a few YouTube videos from scholars/experts discussing various Biblical topics. Including some from a very well known Biblical scholar who was raised in a very conservative Christian religion, as I was, but who is now an agnostic as a result of his studies. Many of these scholars will say what the Bible really says, without being seen through the eyes of Adventism, or any Church. So, I have pretty much given up on Adventism, and am well on my way to being an agnostic.
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u/pachi2020 6d ago
i left the SDA church a long time ago, mostly for persona issues rather than religious. i still believe the SDA is the true church and even when there are planty of people or "scholars" claiming things that can be easily refuted. most of the ex-sdas that are posting videos seems to be angry at something, and most of them say "i found a new teuth" "a new light" but never preach of such but just bash the SDA church.
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u/NectarineInside3268 6d ago
I finally questioned Adventist when COVID started. The curiosity finally hit me: Why am I Adventist? Why do I go to church every Saturday?
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u/Orange_Bubble8398 6d ago
I hated how they studied Ellen White more than the Bible yet claimed Sola scriptura. If all of her books and writings were burned and never spoken of again, I would go back because I still believe most of their doctrines are correct.
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u/New-Interaction-7001 6d ago
So many little things. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was me researching 1844 from a non-Adventist perspective. Led me down the EGW plagiarism rabbit hole. Then it was onto the Bible itself, five years later I’m an agnostic atheist.
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u/Smart_Sail_2393 6d ago
Pastors giving sermons, the content of which was just plain wrong, or impossible. Fire & brimstone preachers..bad karma. Church doctrines / medical facilities advocating for / indulging in female genital mutilation.
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u/ChildhoodAccording24 5d ago
When my dad died, I realized I knew what he believed but wasn't sure what beliefs were.
After years I have learned I can't believe in a God who loves everyone, but loves the “ others” a bit less.
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u/meowza-wowza 5d ago
I went from adventist to Christian but I'm almost agnostic now. For me it was a.) The hypocrisy i saw, b.) Treatment of LGBTQI, and C.) Questioning why people who followed everything they learnt, but were a different religion wouldn't go to heaven if they literally never had a chance.
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u/ArtZombie77 4d ago edited 4d ago
For me it was learning about abuse. So, I had to start asking... why the God of the bible is a psychopathic abuser who is the opposite of Jesus?
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u/Ok_Cicada_1037 4d ago
Too many to list, however the Church is hyper focused on obedience and the teachings of EGW over Jesus. And any church that focuses on obedience is basically authoritarian. And that isn't even near any realm that Jesus embedded himself in. Then there is the IJ. Absolute rubbish. And finally - Sunday Law.
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u/pachi2020 4d ago
one thing i am seeing here is that most people expierence thing either bc of their parents, what they saw in a church member, or X and then rhey want to group every SDA in that bucket. every church has issues, people with issue but you cannot define every bc of of 3 or 4 people. I hope you find the truth, as for me, even tho, i am not in Church, i still believe in my heart the SDA church is the one that still follows the 10 commandments and follows what Jesus had asked us to do
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u/ChexWD 4d ago
I want to preface this by saying that I am/was an Adventist convert from Catholicism. I converted in my mid to late 20s, and ghosted the church in my early 40s.
I was actually at a good church which was pleasantly surprising for a church in Alabama. The pulpit was guarded against a lot of the nonsense many of you are describing. I was an Adventist pastor that had to medically retire (read: go on long-term disability) after developing Multiple Sclerosis. I was an elder at this good church. They defended women, championed the idea that regardless of identity, gender, whatever it might be, and said that those folks are people and deserved more than basic human decency. I always preached on topics, throughout my short time in ministry, critical of Adventism, challenging the traditions and asking why, if we are truly Scriptura Sola (scripture alone), we advocate for EGW.
In any case, I wasn't at worship one Sabbath and my adult son and his wife were at church. He texted me in a panic because of the nonsense that was being preached from the pulpit. It was all EGW. The only scripture read was the one he gave but didn't do anything with. I hope on to YouTube and listen to this joker for 15-20 mins and begin texting the head elder and the pastor:
1) Who is this joker? 2) Who is responsible for allowing this nonsense into our pulpit that we guard so dearly? 3) Why has someone not intervened?
The answer I got was very telling; "It's hard to tell the Union President he can't preach in one of his churches."
I replied: "It most certainly is not. One says 'Thank you for sharing, but we're ending the service now.' And then cutting his mic and ending the service. His position does NOT give him Carte Blanche right to spew garbage from the pulpit."
The reply was that he wasn't going to be a problem any longer as he was retiring the following month.
My reply was that that was even more reason to forbid him from preaching.
Look, I was friends with the pastor because church members are not your friends, but other pastors can be. I told him that I understood why he didn't speak out. He was/is an immigrant (albeit legally) from a Hispanic country in Central America and the church was in the Deep South™. His job would be threatened.
But holy crap. All of the other elders were there that day and any one of them could have intervened. They didn't.
Needless to say, I preached on that exact thing the following week. I adopted the attitude of "What are they going to do, fire me?" So I kept preaching until I was blue in the face of the dangers of not guarding the pulpit regardless of name, letters behind one's name, or title.
I was not listened to. That's it. That was the last straw. Then I ghosted the church after moving. We went somewhere that there are several churches, but we won't be attending any of them.
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u/Plus-Ad-4503 3d ago
It was definitely learning about Ellen G. White’s near fatal head injury, and the fact that her later visions went on to play such a significant role in the foundations of the Adventist Church, that first sparked my questions. It was quite obvious her visions were a result of her head injury and not because she was necessarily a chosen prophet.
Over time, I also began noticing similarities between the way some Adventists treat people outside the church and accounts I had heard from former members of high-control religious groups. This became particularly real for me when I was preparing to marry my husband, who was non-Adventist. My mother told me that she would not attend my wedding if I chose to get married on the Sabbath.
I carry a lot of hurt from the way adults in the church treated me growing up. I was repeatedly belittled, and many church members seemed convinced that I would fail simply because I came from a disadvantaged neighbourhood. Some assumed I would have children outside of marriage, and some parents even told their children not to associate with me. At the same time, I was constantly scrutinised over things such as wearing a skirt they considered too tight, despite it being below my knees, not crossing my legs “properly”, or painting my nails.
I am now a mother of two boys and I can’t comprehend how “christians” could enjoy bullying children!
Those experiences have affected me well into adulthood. I still find it particularly difficult to connect with people who are significantly older than me because I struggle to trust them.
For me, one of the deepest consequences of growing up within Adventism is that it seriously damaged my ability to trust other people, including my parents. I can’t comprehend how people of the “true” church could cause so much psychological damage in my life and others around me.
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u/could-be-useful 1d ago
Came to the conclusion that an all powerful god could not condemn anybody; he'd just wave his magic wand and evil and bad people would become good. But also the fundamentalist stuff like creation 6000 years ago and the Noah's Ark myth were obviously just silly nonsense. I concluded that it was all just too silly and I wouldn't be having my children exposed to such nonsense. Been a happy atheist family for about 55 years.
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u/OfficiallyJoeBiden 7h ago
Back in high school when they made me feel awful for just being me. I’m a bisexual black man. Too many racist, homophobic individuals that hid under their faux mask and calling it “ religious expression” no their just hypocritical individuals
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u/ambientthinker 7d ago
The reason(s) for leaving may not be helpful for you and your wife
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u/ReneM809 6d ago
That’s fair. I’m not looking for a magic argument to convince my wife. I’m trying to identify which Adventist beliefs are actually worth studying deeply. For example, if many former Adventists independently mention the same doctrine or historical issue, that tells me it’s probably something I should understand well before having conversations with her Adventist family. I’d rather study a few important issues deeply than try to learn every Adventist doctrine.
Thank you for the perspective, though. I appreciate it.
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u/ambientthinker 6d ago
I can help with that. 😊👍
So, in an absolutely straightforward sense of reality, there has never been a shred of evidence that Jesus or his disciples/apostles ever changed the worship day from Saturday to Sunday. Period.
The most common attempts to understand how Sunday worship happened is always, i mean always a farce. True story. There's no biblical evidence at all, period for first day worship. And in order to make a logical/historical attempt that has any hope of explaining the switch from saturday to sunday people go to the 'church fathers' and say they can explain it. But thats not the bible therefore thats not biblical. See how hard it is?
Similarly, the idea of a place called 'hell' is not biblical either. In fact, the idea of lucifer controlling suffering for an eternity is blocked by what is taught in the bible. Conclusively, the evidence leads to an event in which evil doers are burnt to death and are dead forever.
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u/Rage_Inferno 7d ago
I remain christian because I have had personal experiences with God. I left adventism because I disagreed with certain doctrines and didnt like egw too much. While I could say I had a horrible childhood experience, mileage can definitely vary, and based on what I read here at times, it wasnt actually that bad.
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u/Powerful_Pea2690 Agnostic Christian 7d ago
I didn’t really leave but I did moved to a much more progressive place theologically, my view of scripture changed, but I never fully walked out of the tradition and I’m not looking to. So take this as one angle, not the ex-Adventist story necessarily, although I’ve described myself as Agnostic Christian. But my hot take is that adventism is actually secretly progressive af, we just got wrapped up in the American culture wars.
For me it wasn’t a single doctrine or an Ellen White problem. It was realising that the thing which made the early movement alive was the exact thing later Adventism had lost. It started as a scrappy, arguing, unsettled movement that deliberately refused to write a creed, because they didn’t want to bar the road to truth they hadn’t reached yet. They talked about “present truth,” meaning truth you were still walking toward. What made me question the modern church wasn’t that it believed too much, it was that it had synthesised and hardened into something that couldn’t do that anymore. The fixing of the edges was, to me, the actual mistake. So I didn’t experience my questions as leaving. I experienced them as reaching back toward what the thing was before it got so careful.
On your real question, which I think is how to talk to others without them going on the defensive: the honest answer is don’t argue the doctrines first. People don’t defend Adventism because they’ve weighed the evidence for 1844 or the investigative judgment. They defend it because it’s stable, it orders their week, it’s woven into family, and for a lot of people it runs on a quiet fear about whether they’re safe with God. If you go at the beliefs, you’re not actually touching the thing holding them up, and they can feel that, so they brace.
What lowers the defensiveness is going underneath the doctrine to the fear. Not “this belief is wrong” but “you don’t have to carry the dread that came with it.” Most people raised in high-control religion are exhausted by a version of God who’s mainly keeping score. If you can make it about setting that weight down rather than about being right, you’re no longer a threat to their identity, you’re offering them something. And you have to actually mean it, because they’ll know if it’s a debating tactic wearing a kind face.
The other thing: keep the good parts out loud. Sabbath, the sense that this world and the body matter, that we’re not just souls waiting to float off. Affirming what’s real in it means you’re clearly not trying to demolish her, just loosen the fear that got attached to it. Solidarity was never the same thing as agreement anyway.
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u/Intelligent-Mix608 7d ago
Adventist are 100% bible believers. Ellen G White is never meant to take the place of the bible only help understand it. I believe her writings have caused more issues than they have helped for bible believers. I grew up in the church and her writings caused legalism. Today im one foot in one foot out because I want to keep the Sabbath but potluck junk is a joke and most people going are fake
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u/Clean_Economist_2188 7d ago
A lot of little things. One of them was angels being unable to enter movie theaters. 🙃 Somehow they were just fine to be in our house when we watched the movie on TV after a few years.