We are winding down our study on faith with a look at faith communities. Why do they exist? Why are we drawn to them? And what should we expect from our community of faith? Last week, we talked about stages of community building, referencing the experience of the early Christian Church in Acts 2 and 15 and the contrast between pseudo community and true community. We also noted that research shows that belonging to a faith community—something that was essential to life 100 years ago as part of the culture—is rapidly vanishing.
Why do people join a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a temple? Why do others shun joining such a faith community? What is the expectation? What is the need to be part of a faith community? I propose that the primary reason for joining a faith community is the feeling that in doing so one is embracing the “truth” and is thus setting out on a sure road to salvation. A faith group that doesn’t claim the truth and doesn’t at least imply that it embodies the narrow road to salvation isn’t a very attractive faith group.
Fellowship together is nice. Warm study groups are very attractive. So is a rousing worship service. That’s all great. But the real reason to join a faith group is because at the very bottom, it is the most certain route to salvation. All faith groups explicitly or implicitly proclaim an exclusive understanding of the way to God. I’m not aware of any faith group that says its understanding of God is incomplete or lacks substance in some way. Every faith community promises truth and the right and the correct way to God. Many are even strident in their belief that unless you belong to their faith group you will not be saved.
Wikipedia defines religious exclusivism as the doctrine or belief that only one particular religion or belief system is true. This is in contrast to religious pluralism, which believes that all religions provide valid responses to the essence of God. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses more than any other faith community believe that you must be part of their community in order to be saved.
In a Pew survey on what Americans think about eternal life, 30% said “My religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.” In addition to that, 30% say it is one’s belief that determines eternal life and 30% say it is one’s action that determines eternal life.
A Mormon friend and classmate of mine in medical school once told me he felt badly that I was going to go to hell because I was not a Mormon. He said I should study Mormonism and take up that faith community. It was a shocking experience to think of myself as being not in the right faith community because I had been raised since childhood to think that it was Adventists who would always end up in heaven. Even today, this week, a Muslim friend in Mecca sent me a complete PDF download of the Qur’an. I have several very good Muslim friends who are agonizing over the fact that I’m not Muslim and therefore may be lost.
There was a time when belonging to a faith community was an assurance of salvation. Conversely, excommunication was a prescription for eternal hellfire. People lived in fear of hell, particularly if they were being expelled from the church. No one fears the church anymore. And only in the more cultic communities is there fear of expulsion, shunning or excommunication.
What does it mean to belong to a faith group anyway? Is belonging linked to practice of rituals and customs? Or is it linked to beliefs, to doctrines, or to creed? Or to both? What are we to do with the changing times, changing practices of faith community, and even changing beliefs? Vatican 2 changed the Catholic Church forever. It allowed mass to be said in the vernacular language rather than Latin. It opened the church windows to the modern world. It gave a larger role to the laity. It allowed meat-eating on Friday and started dialogues with other churches.
What do you do with the fact that all those people who ate meat on Friday before Vatican 2 are in burning in hell? A few years ago Pope Benedict decreed that no longer may Catholics claim that only they are going to heaven. Catholics may no longer believe that all Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and so on, are going to hell. Remove the threat of hell, however, from people who are honestly mistaken, and you have a problem. If you don’t have to be a Catholic to be saved, if you don’t even have to be a Christian to be saved, what is the point?
Students of religion and history know that such beliefs and practices change over time. Some practices of ritual and culture within the church and many beliefs have changed, even in the Christian church, with time. With some apologies to the friends in our little faith group here who are not Seventh Day Adventists I’d like to use the Seventh Day Adventist Church faith community as a case study to show you something about the topic of changing practices and beliefs.
In 1993, George Knight, a church historian who taught at the Andrews University seminary, wrote an important paper in Ministry magazine entitled “Adventists and change: The dynamic nature of present truth.” He begins with this provocative statement:
Most of the founders of Seventh-day Adventism would not be able to join the church today if they had to subscribe to the denomination’s Fundamental Beliefs.
He goes on then to support that by looking at the statements of faith that have to do with the nature of the Trinity and the Godhead. He points out that in the 1890s there was a positive shift in Adventist theological focus related to the Godhead. That shift found its roots in the Minneapolis General Conference session of 1888, which re-emphasized Jesus and his saving righteousness and areas of theological thought that Adventists had tended to downplay in the late 1800s.
The renewed emphasis on Jesus and his saving righteousness, however, called for the views of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit and the divine nature of Christ to be altered significantly. It was Ellen White whose writings led the way in the theological shift. Unlike her experience in the post-1844 period, when she followed the lead of Joseph Bates and her husband James (people well known to Adventists as part of the history of the church). They were leading in the formulation of a distinctly Adventist doctrine in the 1890s and she was in the forefront of the action related to theological reformation through her writings on Christ and his teaching.
Not only was Ellen White out of step with Adventist thinking and theology, but her newly crystallized ideas shook up some of the brethren. One of these later recalled how astonished we were when the Desire of Ages—one of Ellen White’s most famous books—was first published, for it contained some things that we considered truly unbelievable, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which was not generally accepted by Adventists at that time.
Knight goes on to talk about Ellen White and change, and what kind of changes she experienced over the course of her time. Beyond her willingness to grow in theological truths, Ellen White several times admits that she made definite mistakes in giving counsel at various times. These generally seem to be occasions when she, so to speak, ran ahead of the angels. At the very least, this information indicates not only that Ellen White was open to change, but also that her day-to-day advice to people that she had made mistakes and had to revise her counsel as God revealed these mistakes to her.
But did Ellen White change any of her ideas related to doctrine and to lifestyle? The answer is Yes. But then Knight goes on to qualify the change. He points out three kinds of change: (1) clarification of an idea or a thought, not a major adjustment in it, but just some clarification; (2) “change of progressive development” in which something is built upon something that was previously understood; and (3) an actual reversal or contradiction of something that was previously understood or accepted as common belief.
One of the ones which she talks about as progressive development concerns the eating of swine flesh. From at least as early as 1850 some of the Sabbatarian Adventists had been raising the question as to whether it was appropriate to eat pork. James White hope to settle the issue once and for all in November 1850 by publishing a powerful article based on Acts 10 (where various animals are let down and Peter sees a vision telling him to kill and eat them all).
In spite of James’s forceful argument, the idea refused to die a peaceful death. S.N. Haskell agitated the issue among the Sabbatarians. Ellen White urged him not to press the issue. She said that his views were providing injury to the church and that his judgment and opinion should not be made a test of fellowship. It should be noted that the Whites, along with most other Adventists in the late 1850s, still ate pork. As proof of the fact, James scribbled a note on the back of a letter from Ellen in which she was advising a sister to cook swine flesh for her husband if he desired it. James note read: “That you may know how we stand on this question. I would tell you that we have just put down a 200 pound porker ourselves.” Less than a few short years after her vision of health reform, Ellen White moved from a tolerance of pork to counseling against it on the basis of health. She held that position for the rest of her life.
Thus, changing times led to changing emphasis. Early Adventist Sabbatarians were quite divided on the issue of when the Sabbath should begin. Some said sunset while others said 6pm, sunrise, or midnight. James Andrews was commissioned to study the issue. He read his paper at a conference in Battle Creek in November of 1855. His arguments on the sunset position convinced all but a few. But Ellen White was given a vision that confirmed the Bible truth and brought unity amongst the believers.
In some cases, the enemies of Adventism and of Ellen White particularly were tempted to suggest that people were just manipulating Ellen White’s vision. But Uriah Smith was careful to point out that the vision sunset conclusion was contrary to her own sentiment at the time the vision was given. In other words, she changed from the 6pm position to that of sunset because of the vision.
Joseph Bates, James and Ellen White, and the other founders of Seventh Day Adventism each had a dynamic concept of what they called “present truth.” Bates used the phrase as early as 1846 in relationship to the Sabbath. “Present truth,” he wrote, “was in Peter’s time present truth and is applicable as present truth in our time as well. The church has always had present truth. And the present truth now is that which shows present duty and right position for those of us who are about to witness the time of trouble.” He was in definite agreement with Bates on the subject of present truth, arguing that in 1857, some believers were of a disposition to draw from the great truths connected with the third message of the angel. White remonstrated that “it has been impossible to make some see that present truth is present truth, and not future truth, and that the Word as a lamp shines brightly where we stand, and not so plainly on the path in the distance.” Thus White left the way open for further development of Adventist doctrine.” Ellen White was in harmony with her husband’s flexible position.
Therefore, while she could categorically claim in 1850 that “we have the truth, we know it; praise the Lord,” she could also claim 53 years later that “there will be a development of the understanding, for the truth is capable of constant expansion…. Our exploration of truth is yet incomplete. We have gathered up only a few rays of light.” She had earlier noted that what is present truth for one generation might not be present truth, or a “test,” for other generations.
It is because of this that the Adventist Church adopted the position of not accepting anything that would be called a creed. In 1861 at the meeting at which the Sabbatarians organized their first state conference, John Loughborough highlighted the problem that early Adventists saw in creeds. According to Loughborough, “the first step of apostasy is to get up a creed, telling us what we shall believe. The second is to make that creed a test of fellowship. The third is to try members by that creed. The fourth to denounce as heretics those who do not believe that creed. And, fifth, to commence persecution against such. James White then spoke, noting that “making a creed is setting the stakes, and barring up the way to all future advancement.” He complained of some people who through their creed had “marked out a course for the Almighty. They say virtually that the Lord must not do any thing further than what has been marked out in the creed. . . . The Bible,” he concluded, “is our creed. We reject everything in the form of a human creed.”
He then goes on to point out that there are many in today’s church who are pushing a strong move toward a more certain creed. But the dynamic of the early Adventist Church in the concept of present truth has allowed the preamble to the present fundamental beliefs statement to say this: The revisions to the statements of the fundamental beliefs may be expected at a General Conference session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to accept God’s Holy Word.
So here we have a case study of change within a faith community. It is not unique but it is our study. How can the salvation promised by a faith community be founded on something that is continuously undergoing change? How could Ellen White affirm in 1906 that for the past 60 years she had been constantly learning new things in reference to divine issues? If a faith community can’t be trusted with truth, or if the truth is changing, how can it be entrusted with salvation?
As time passes, we gather more data and we develop more understanding of our world and about God. What is it that we will know about God in our world in 10 years? What will we know in 100 years or even in 1000 years? The data keeps changing. Should beliefs and practices of our faith groups change as well? I’ve long maintained that when it comes to faith there are more questions than there are answers and that the Bible itself is primarily a book of questions, not a book of answers. The data changes, the answers vary. But the questions remain the same: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? And the questions that God raises to the agents of the Scriptures he raises to us as well.
He asked Adam: “Who told you you are naked?” Cain: “Where is your brother?” Abraham: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Moses: “What is that in your hand?” Jacob: “What is your name? Elijah: “What are you doing here? And to Job, he asked 77 thundering questions about the universe and about the power of God. And on and on—changing data, changing answers, but similar questions.
If a faith community is changing, what good is it? How can salvation be predicated on shifting sands, changing practices, ever-evolving beliefs, and dynamic culture? Where does that leave a community of faith? If a faith group is the only one, all is well. To go to heaven you have to be in that group. If you’re not, you’re not going to heaven. But once you start to let strangers in—people not of this fold—then you need reasons for belonging. What is the community of faith about if it’s not about saving me?
What are your thoughts about a flexible, dynamic faith community? What about the evolving and changing beliefs and practices of a faith community? Can a faith community of such a changing nature be trusted? And what are your thoughts about how the faith community should be viewed in terms of your beliefs, your practices, and above all your salvation?
Donald: I would prefer to have my faith be as a child and to be open and in awe of what spirituality is. However, I was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, so I think I know what it means to say that I belong to a highly structured world organization. The number one reason a student leaves or stays at a university is belonging. We need to belong, either through shared, common beliefs or through joining, through membership. We “join in” every Sabbath together as this group. We’re not signed up to a set of doctrines. C-J says that a spiritual community is a little bit different than a church. Can we honestly believe that we all thought at one time that Adventists were the only people that were going to Heaven? We didn’t really believe that. We’d say it, but then we’d joke about it and say, “Well, they think they’re the only ones there.”
We’ve become a spiritual community, our little group that meets on Sabbath morning. We “join” just by showing up. Nobody has told me I cannot belong to this community. We probably do have some unwritten guidelines. I think a spiritual community is a very wonderful place to be, but a hard and fast understanding of what it means to be spiritual is a totally different thing.
C-J: I’m reading a book called How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims: the Islamic Jesus. In the early to mid 600s Islam was spreading in Arabia, and the Jews and the Christians—the Judaeo-Christians, not the Christians we think of as Gentiles—are in a little bit of trouble, so they’ve come together to find refuge with this faith and a person by the name of Medran (sp?) says he has the protection of God and the pledges of Muhammad, the prophet, to protect their lives. He’s referring to a contract he’s going to make with the Judaeo-Christians to protect their lives, their faith, their land, their property, those who are absent, and those who are present, and their clan and their allies. They may not change anything about their past customs. No right of theirs, or their religion, shall be altered. No bishop, monk, or cleric shall be removed from his position.
I almost jumped up out of my bed. “Yes, yes!” When I think about how we’ve just taken a narrative and run with it in America, particularly after 9/11, and said, “Those people!” Yet the more I’ve spent time with people who embrace this tradition, they have the same spectrum you described earlier: “We start here, we get there.” And it’s not just historically, so as we become more enlightened, as more information whether it comes through science or divine revelation, then we evolve, we evolve spiritually, just as we do as a species.
But when I read that they were so open to other, they were more concerned about spiritual community and the whole idea of hospitality—not in terms of “I’ll invite you into my house and break bread with you if I like you. But the rest of you…? I’ll take some money out of my pocket and donate it to a cause if I’m feeling generous.” Hospitality in the tribal culture is very, very different. It’s almost a commandment. You never turn anybody away. You don’t ask them any questions. You make provision for as long as they need or want. I mentioned that because we get in our box. We want to feel safe, where we’re all saying the same thing.
I think it really stifles us when we do that. “It must be done this way. It must be done in this order. We can only worship in a temple, not one made with cloth and animal skins, but one made out of huge rocks.” We have to have this whole government organization, priests and all the things that go with them, in order to say that we have validity. We have a whole list of questions here. Are we about having a relationship with God? Or are we about making a big footprint? Personally, I believe I have no right to tell anybody else about their spiritual walk.
Two years ago I joined the Unitarian Universalist Church. It was very hard because I had so much cognitive dissonance and finally I said: “I can’t do this anymore because I self-identify as Christian. I can’t do it. But I’ve learned a lot. Thank you so much. You’re wonderful people. I’ll keep in touch.” And I have kept in touch, but now I’m in a whole different place. Now, I get what they were about.
Jay: It’s very difficult to see a highly organized faith community like the Seventh Day Adventist Church (and I assume other churches) as having value if the thing that faith community holds dear or as “truth” in the end doesn’t result in something such as the inside track over other people. It just becomes a very difficult thing for individuals to wrap their minds around. As an organized church, I think we try to stay away from the topic because it seems to be a slippery slope. If being a Seventh Day Adventist doesn’t get you to heaven, then what’s the point of being a Seventh Day Adventist? Or what’s the point of keeping the Sabbath? What’s the point of Seventh Day Adventist identifying characteristics that make us seem pretty weird in the world?
It’s not easy to live in this world and hold on to some of these characteristics. As a lifelong Adventist I don’t think I could ever understand the sacrifices or the trials that someone who converts into this religion must go through in order to abide by truths we’ve always held dear. We see the convert’s friend group fall apart. They even struggle sometimes to maintain their family interactions, as they try to reconcile holding new truths.
The only way to reconcile this seems to be to get beyond where you are right now. You have to appreciate or understand or acknowledge that this is a very finite time that we find ourselves in right now. The Adventist church has existed really for such a small time in comparison to age of the earth or even more the universe. To make something this finite and this small so important in the grand scheme of things is a real leap. Maybe you can appreciate that the finiteness of your lifespan and of our church as a whole suggests that how God works through people must be grander or more encompassing than this.
But you still end up with the very hard question: ”What’s the point?” What is the point (to speak specifically to Seventh Day Adventism) if it’s so time bound and finite and not universal? There are many ways to get to God, to connect to God. For me, the way is Adventism. Through this construct, because of my place in time, because of who I was born to, because of benefits I’ve seen produced in my own life along the way, I believe the truths of Adventism allow me to deepen my connection to God and accomplish two things: To love the Lord my God with all my heart and to love my neighbor as myself.
I believe God has had his hand in the development of the construct, but I also have to acknowledge that he very likely had his hands in lots of constructs, not just one for people like me, born in the 1970s in North America to white parents who were lifelong Adventists. It’s very possible that numerous other constructs exist. The real dissonance comes not from the plurality of constructs but from believing that my construct is better than yours.
So what’s the point in propagating, in sharing, my construct with other individuals if God has lots of them? Should I just leave that to God? Or is there a point in trying to expand my faith community to other people? Jesus gave us the Great Commission to spread his construct to other people, but you could say his construct is not highly specific, not designed in detail, unlike some of our constructs. Is there a point in our sharing this faith community, growing this faith community, branching out? What is the point of that?
Kiran: It’s a really tough question. If you take all the churches—Christian denominations—I think the fundamental truth goes in a cycle of self-examination, repentance, acceptance of grace, new life, and back to self examination. This cycle is pretty common, and the journey through it is very lonely. Self-examination and repentance are much easier if someone who has been on that journey is there to comfort you. When we accept the grace and experience the joy, it’s nice to share it with somebody else. Community is essential for that reason. I don’t mean highly organized community, but a community of people who understand the journey and can accompany you (or you them) through the ups and downs of the journey. It is very comforting.Otherwise it’s very lonely.
Jeff: I remember distinctly, as a child growing up in a third-generation Adventist family, my mom multiple times telling me: “You know, it’s not just Adventists who will be in heaven.” That definitely induced cognitive dissonance in me, set against my general indoctrination in the community. Because while we’re happy to give lip service to the concept, I don’t see that our education promotes it. I don’t see that than any other part of our culture promotes that.
Even outside the spiritual realm, does any highly organized structure exist because of its benefits, whether in the corporate or any other world? Maybe this organizational structure is what’s at fault. We’re fighting between the concept of letting God be in control of everything versus needing to organize things for our own human function. Organization, by definition, is the antithesis of chaos, of disorganization.
In my own business, I have a practice, and it’s organized. We do things a certain way because they’re better, in our minds, than other ways of doing them. But are they really? I may still pay lip service to the possibility of better ways but as soon as I go to work I’m going to follow the path and the structure that we’ve developed. So, even taking spirituality out of it, I think the concept of organization may be the crux of the issue.
Jay: Organizations come into being because they’re trying to accomplish a specific goal. I would propose that spiritual organizations have the goal of salvation. They say they want you to get to heaven, to live eternal life, and so on. Maybe that’s not a very good goal, because they don’t have much control over that anyway. Maybe that’s where the faith community starts to lose its way. If the goal was instead to connect you to God, to help you achieve a deeper, more meaningful connection, would that change them? Does it change the value? Does it change the belief that our way is the only way?
If a church were to say: “We’re not worried about salvation. All we’re worried about is that your connection with God grows deeper and your ability to serve your fellow man grows accordingly.” There’s lots of ways to do that. I doubt that any church is going to say that’s a bad way to serve your fellow man.
Jeff: The problem is it’s enormously difficult to organize. It’s so broad, so nebulous, it’s very hard to develop a structure around it. Okay, let’s do what’s good for our fellow man. Theoretically, that’s what governments around the world should be doing, and we see how that works out in multiple ways. I think that’s why we tend to pull back to much more narrow concepts. In spiritual organizations the highest thing you can hold up is the ticket to heaven. I would just try to envision some sort of community organized around the principles you just laid out. I think it’s basically what the Bible lays out, but to try to develop that as an organization I think is problematic.
Jay: I would propose that the Seventh Day Adventist Church could be organized the exact same way it is right now but the goal could be changed. I don’t want to minimize that I’m a Seventh Day Adventist. It is culturally ingrained in me. But I believe also that through its structure the Adventist church has the ability to draw me closer to God and the ability to help me serve my fellow man. I believe that even in its narrowly defined space, it can do those things if that becomes the goal. Then all of these things can still exist in their narrow way. I’m not looking to be broad in meeting the goal of salvation. People need—crave—specificity and I believe that God had his hand in creating very specific ways for specific people to be able to do these things.
Donald: But we’ve got a challenge. We all want to be organized. How do you bring comfort in chaos? We’re trying to do that in the world we seem to be living in today. It’s hard to do. My point is, when you’re talking about spirituality, be careful about organizing it, because church structure is totally different than spirituality, I believe. We don’t have to restrict this to Adventism. You may be able to be spiritual without becoming a member of a church but if you’re going to prevent me from being spiritual and being a member of a church, that’s scary.
Before we got baptized, I remember we stood up in church and raised our hand to accept the church doctrine. I guess there was some blending of spirituality in there but it was more about the church structure, it seems to me, as I recall. So I think organization is very important for getting things done but if it limits anyone’s way to God or claims to be the only way to God then it’s a problem. If so, then proselytizing to achieve conversion is a big, big issue.
Don: I didn’t want to make this about Adventism. I was using that just as a case study. We could say the same for a variety of different faith groups,
David: I must confess to feeling somewhat distressed for the angst evident in my brothers and sisters in spirit here. It has been asserted that we all need organization and structure, but is that true? Or do we just think we need them? We know there are individuals who fight the very notion of structure and want out of the organized world. They climb on lonely towers, like Simon Stylites, or brick themselves in as anchorites, or disappear into mountain caves as hermits. So we know that not everyone needs structure and organization. Philosophical Daoism has no structure, no organization. Its chief Scripture, the Dao De Jing, runs to about 20 pages in length and it has the virtue of being totally vague, which I think I heard some of you wishing for.
China has been down this path. Daoism arose at a time when Confucianism was strong. Confucianism too is more of a philosophy than a religion, but it does allow for gods. But the point is, Confucianism is highly organized, down to exactly how you must address each one of your relatives. Along comes Daoism, saying that none of that really matters. What matters is that there’s an indefinable Way which you cannot know but it exists. So get with the program—go along with the Way!
The key question Don raised in his preamble is where do we go from here? I think we participate in this group and are having this conversation because we all recognize that things are indeed changing but what we still haven’t really addressed is how much more they’re going to change—what’s coming down the road.
Robin: How do we know what “truth” is? And does “truth” change? I don’t know, but I don’t think truth changes. Jesus said he is the way, the truth, and the life. And God the Father does not change. What changes is this mortal, deficient brain. Hopefully, through study, prayer, and the influence of Holy Spirit, we begin to understand what capital T truth really is.
People may find that Truth within the confines of a certain denomination. For me, Scripture provides examples of what to do and what not to do and why. That seems not enough for me to completely understand everything. Maybe subscribers to philosophies or religions such as Daoism have more faith than me. I don’t know. But I take comfort, direction, and correction from Scripture; from Genesis through Revelation.
I joined this denomination when I was 18. I never believed that this was the only people that would go to heaven. I think that idea was starting to be held up as the foolishness that it is by the time I came into the church, so it’s never been a problem for me to think of people of other religions or denomination being in heaven. Scripture says that every tribe, every people, every nation, every language is going to be there. It doesn’t say they all have to be Seventh Day Adventists.
Bryan: As another born and raised Adventist, this discussion has opened up a can of worms. It is a very loaded topic but it needs to be discussed. I agree it’s human nature to want to belong to communities of shared beliefs. In my profession there’s a lot of different ways to put people to sleep and wake them up. But when you choose to do it a certain way, the natural human reaction is to think: “My way is the best way.” I think that translates to communities of faith and explains why religions are at odds with one another. They’ve lost sight of the common denomination, which is getting to heaven. And so they fight each other over things that don’t really matter.
The older I get the more problems I have with what we are calling organized religion. Its influence over time has been as detrimental as it has been positive, and as time winds down, when the focus changes from organized religion to what the real, the true meaning of religion should be, which is belief in God, and how do we get to heaven, its influence is going to become less and less.
I have a problem with evangelism. I have no right to tell anybody how to believe and I don’t want anybody telling me how to believe That’s what freedom is to me. And so this whole thing of community is swirling in my head. How do we utilize it for the benefit that it is? What can we take from each denomination to help us in our walk? All these things are swirling around and I’m not sure what to do with them, because human nature is faulty and all of these things are utilizing human nature to try to make good out of it and I think we’re going at it from a completely wrong direction.
Reinhard: I came from another Christian denomination, so I can see the difference. I feel more confident as a Seventh Day Adventist, more adherent to Christ’s word, and closer to God than I was in my previous denomination, I think it’s God’s design for all of us to be where we are at any given time. Every Christian domination shares a core belief in Jesus—about his birth, his death, his resurrection, and the truth he taught us for our salvation.
With any highly organized body such as our church, some tuning in our beliefs is inevitable over time. I think God allows the organization to set the tone, the rule, the rules. When God created Adam he did not dictate all the rules for Mankind, not until giving the Commandments to Moses, whose father-in-law had to teach him how to organize and manage the people. I know organization is needed and we all want to be part of it. God wants us to be in a community of believers. We cannot just go on our own to worship. Whenever two or more people get together, the Holy Spirit works with us.
So as time goes by—I don’t know how long we will continue to live on this earth, or how long the earth will exist—I believe new truths might come to the organization and they might change the rule. The founding fathers of the church had different views than what we have. But I think the evolution of the church has to go to in God’s direction no matter what we want. The Word of God is our guide, as it is for any other Christian denomination, though to me, Adventists are closest to the truth. That’s what I believe. If I didn’t believe it, would not have become an Adventist.