SDA Church - Cult or True Religion? page 2
Asking Questions
As I entered my teens, I began more and more to question the rigid rules and regulations of the Adventist church. For example, it was wrong to play cards "the Devil is always in attendance, where ever card games are played". It was wrong to dance, to wear makeup [try telling that to a young teenage girl!], to wear jewellery, and wrong to listen to 'worldly' music. Going to a movie was wrong - although some movies were shown in church halls, and that was acceptable, for some reason. Non-SDA books were frowned upon. Oh, non-fiction might be alright, in some cases, but anything that took the mind away from Jesus was WRONG.I couldn't grasp just how a person was supposed to always think of Jesus! Surely there was more to life than that??! Was it a sin to think that way? Probably. But something just didn't seem right, about all that Ellen G. White had written....
And how were we supposed to 'save' others, if we weren't allowed to associate with them??!
The Pastor who Meant Well
It was important for my mother that I join the church, and be baptized. I didn't feel that I was ready for that step. As I turned about 15, my mother became very difficult to get along with. [3 years later, she had surgery for a thyroid problem, and it's most likely that caused her mood swings at this time]. She called in the pastor of the church, to talk with me. Well, he automatically assumed that I was some sort of scum, and berated me for not respecting my parent, who had worked so hard to raise me....blah blah blah. Needless to say, I was very bitter towards him, since he didn't doubt what my mother was saying was true.I was accused of being wicked and ungrateful. I actually allowed the minister to finish his spiel, and outwardly remained quiet and calm. Inside, I was fuming at this man, and I became determined to never join a church that would harbor someone like him as a pastor of the faith. He told me that he'd searched many religions over the years, before settling on the Seventh-day Adventist faith as the true religion. He said that I must make a decision. I didn't feel I had to, just because he told me so.
He asked if I smoked [another rule of the church - no smoking, no alcohol] and I said "no". My friend smoked, and since I was around her, I often came home smelling of cigarette smoke, that was all. But my mother harbored suspicions that I was lying.
The Real World
When I was seventeen, I met my first husband. We later divorced, and I remarried. Neither of these men were SDA's. My first husband had a major chore on his hands, 'un-brainwashing" me from many misconceptions I had. For example, people weren't generally evil, but were good, and well-intentioned.At the age of 19 -20, I started to smoke, and drink socially. My second husband even taught me how to play cards. I loved music, and liked to go to movies. I decided the Seventh-day Adventist church teachiings were wrong about all non-believers being wicked, and being lost. The people I met were kind, considerate, and nice, not evil. And they weren't hypocrites, preaching one thing, and living another.
I began to suspect that maybe I had been told a lot of things that weren't true.
Today
Over the years, I have slowly moved farther and farther away from the SDA church. I used to keep up with events by reading my mother's church publications. She no longer received church news once she entered a nursing home. Of course, she stopped paying her 10 percent tithe every month, plus offerings at that time. She passed away in 2003.In the 1980's, I sent some money in to the church offices for a while, feeling that it was a way of thanking God for his goodness to me, at that time. Amazingly, the church secretary contacted me, and demanded to know why I was donating money when I was not a registered, baptized Adventist! Needless to say, I immediately stopped sending them money they apparently did not want! I found a charity that welcomed my donation instead.
Ellen G. White, the prophetess, and one of the founder's of the church as well as the spokesperson for church policy in the early years of the faith, has been found by researchers to have plagiarized other writers of her day, so that it seems that much of what was credited to her and to God is a sham.
Ellen G. White's teachings that Jesus entered the Sanctuary in 1844, to intercede with God for His people has been an important tenet of faith in the SDA church. Now I learn that this, in effect, serves to cancel out the importance of the cross and God's sacrifice of His Son. How true! What was taught to me as a child is no longer something that I can believe.