Why I'm a Seventh-day Adventist

Or, does love really awaken love?

(A ten-minute read.)

Since 2016, when my theological world, and my understanding of church, got turned upside down, I’ve found myself coming back to the same question with great frequency:

Why am I a Seventh-day Adventist?

You could say, in many ways, this has been part of a “deconstruction” process—of finally, in my late-30s (and now, shockingly, in my early-40s), deeply wrestling with my faith in an attempt to make it fully my own.

But it’s really been prompted by one significant transition in my life that has manifested in two different realities ever since that fateful crossroads in 2016: I started spending a lot of time with people who aren’t Seventh-day Adventists.

Prior to that, I lived mostly in a “bubble,” having meaningful relationships only with those who came from my religious tribe.

Now? Not so much.

What this has meant is, firstly, spending a lot of time with people who don’t share my religious outlook has naturally caused me to wonder why I believe what I believe and not what they believe. If I was born a Baptist, a Muslim, an atheist, a Jew—would I be a Seventh-day Adventist today?

Secondly, spending a lot of time with people outside my faith has also led me to try to figure out how to better articulate my beliefs and values to those who don’t share my assumptions—which has led me to reexamine what it is about Adventist faith that is truly Scripture-based and what is simply cultural inheritance.

The upshot of this latter exercise has led me to discard many things that I thought were Scripture-based but were, I’ve come to believe, simply extra-biblical traditions.

The reason this is so challenging, however, is because as I look at my faith community, I hear many, many people emphasizing the extra-biblical traditions as though those were core markers of Adventist belief and identity.

One quick example of this is a conversation I had a few years ago with a well-meaning church member who expressed his deep concern about our church “restart,” wondering if we were an Adventist church anymore because of the way we rhythmically played the guitar and how we were serving refreshments during the worship gathering (which was a problem since, according to him, “Adventists don’t eat in between meals”).

I’ll return to this later, but the important point here is that when you’ve thought for so long that your faith was defined by one thing, and then you come to think it’s actually about another thing, but many—perhaps even most—of the voices you hear say it’s about that old thing you once thought, you begin to ask yourself, “Why am I a part of this group?”

And now, at last, with all that out of the way, let me come to the answer I’ve come up with:

I am, and continue to be, a Seventh-day Adventist because I believe that God is love.

That is, honestly, the only thing—or at least the only conscious thing—that keeps me a Seventh-day Adventist.

This requires great explanation, of course, because I’m willing to bet that most people reading this—both within and without Adventism—don’t understand how those two things go together.

After all, what does God’s love have to do with Adventism?

Let me explain.

“Only by love . . . ”

As I’ve written in the past, I’m a Christian because I believe in love. And the same goes for my commitment to Adventism.

I believe Adventist theology, properly understood and articulated, presents the most coherent and beautiful explanation of God’s love.

But there’s a critically important qualifier in that statement: properly understood and articulated.

In my experience, it has not been properly understood and articulated very often. But, again, more on that later.

When I talk about it being properly understood and articulated, I mean that Adventist theology, at its best, has given the world access to an incredible story about a God who is defined wholly and completely by self-emptying, self-sacrificing, other-centered love.

Indeed, this God is defined by love to such a degree that he has even allowed himself to be put on trial, so to speak, in an attempt to ultimately, fully, and eternally demonstrate his trustworthiness.

This is what Seventh-day Adventists frequently refer to as the “great controversy” narrative.

God was, and continues to be, maligned by satanic forces—accused of being proud, self-centered, and controlling. But instead of squelching dissent, and silencing his accusers through divine fiat, God, in an act of incredible humility, has allowed himself to be the recipient of such accusations, believing that his humility will demonstrate and vindicate his character of love, ultimately persuading all creatures on the basis of attraction rather than force.

There is perhaps no greater explanation of this than in these words by Ellen White:

The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan’s deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened.

That’s it right there: “Only by love is love awakened.”

What an absolutely staggering—and beautiful—thought. And I’d propose that nothing could be more Adventist than those six words, serving as the foundation to a whole theology.

God ultimately wants a safe, secure, and stable universe—where rebellion, sin, corruption, and abuse will never happen again. But the only way he can accomplish this eternally is if his creatures become fully persuaded of his trustworthiness, through the patient demonstration of his self-emptying character, and align themselves with the principles of his other-centered love.

Recognizing this story—this narrative, this paradigm—makes so much sense to me rationally, emotionally, and socially. In fact, it makes more sense to me than any other theological or philosophical explanation I’ve ever encountered or come across.

It also gives context and power to a whole host of corollary teachings: because God is wholly defined by other-centered love, he relates to us as friends rather than servants (as Jesus affirms in John 15:15). Thus, God is not a controlling, micro-managing, predestinating God who is chiefly concerned with his own glory, for his own sake.

Also, precisely because God is not micro-managing and controlling, and he considers us friends and not servants, he gives us the gift of Sabbath—a day to rest and have our spirits re-created by plugging into him and to others.

Because he is love he also cares about our health—physically, emotionally, and socially—blessing us with the principles by which we can live our “best life” (to use a common expression).

Because he is love he also cares about relational boundaries—which serve as protections against abuse and oppression. This is why he gives us his law, which is not an exhaustive explanation of how to behave in every situation, and which is to be legalistically followed as if our wellbeing depends on it, but serves as broad principles that outline how to experience optimal relational health.

Because he is love he will someday fully rectify wrongs, and bring about final justice. And, yes, though he wishes that everyone would ultimately choose him, he recognizes that there are some people who wouldn’t embrace his love even if they were literally given eternity to do so.

And so, in his mercy, because of his love, he will someday “pull the plug” on them—not torturing them eternally, but not forcing them to live forever in an existence that would be miserable.

And, perhaps more than anything else, because of his love, he has committed himself to our wellbeing, healing, and redemption—in a bond of love that can never be broken, even to the point of becoming one of us himself.

Such a commitment is to all creatures and was eternally sealed with the blood of Jesus, when he decided to save us at any cost to himself, even if it meant that he himself would experience eternal non-existence.

And so Christ experienced the full weight of our rejection of God, going through the psychological agony of what it means to be at odds with the God of all-consuming, other-centered love.

I could go on, but I trust you get the point (also, I’ve written a whole book that expands upon this theme—and it’s really cheap right now for some reason). I could also provide a whole bunch of Bible verses that give Scriptural support for these convictions, but for the sake of brevity, I will forgo that.

But this, to me, is Adventism—properly understood and articulated. And it’s what keeps me going.

Indeed, it’s the only thing that keeps me going and gives me hope.

Putting lipstick on a pig?

But some people might read my explanation above and wonder what planet I’m on.

After all, I’ve had people outside of Adventism tell me with incredible certainty that I’m not at all honestly presenting Adventist belief with such an explanation. They can’t believe Adventism could be so love-centered—mostly because, to them, the only Adventism they’ve ever encountered, if they’ve ever even encountered it at all, is a closed-minded, separatist group who lives out and insists upon a strict, fundamentalist faith—not eating meat, not drinking coffee, rigidly and legalistically keeping the Sabbath, believing all other Christians are apostate, and so forth.

Similarly, there are many Adventists who wonder what planet I’m on as well, because it’s not been the Adventism they’ve experienced either. Indeed, when I hinted at these ideas on Twitter the other day, someone responded by literally saying, “what version of adventism is that? Haven’t experienced it yet in my life.”

That’s because, as I mentioned above, for far too many people, Adventism is about maintaining a strict and dogmatic commitment to matters of little consequence and legalistic regulation. It’s about rigidly policing the religious boundaries—and declaring who’s in and who’s out on the basis of our cultural traditions and biblical interpretation. It’s about using measures other than love as the means by which we try to instill behaviors and change.

It is, in short, a complete denial of that foundational thought: “Only by love is love awakened.”

So, yes, I get it. What I’ve briefly outlined above is very foreign for far too many people—both within and without the Adventist community. And it’s not something I myself have experienced a ton of in my own Adventist journey.

And it does leave me wondering if I correctly understand Adventism.

Perhaps I’m just trying to put lipstick on a pig?

Perhaps I suffer from “Stockholm syndrome”?

Perhaps I’ve figured out a way to (incorrectly) reframe a theological system in such a way that is personally satisfying because I’m most comfortable in this denomination that I’ve always been a part of?

These are all very real possibilities—and such questions especially hit home for me when I’m knee-deep in historical research of Adventism’s pioneers, and they are not framing our theology in this way at all (and usually quite the opposite).

And when I hear some of the most vocal and influential voices in Adventism today not going anywhere near such a paradigm (and usually quite the opposite).

And when I personally encounter other Adventists who seem to be so enamored with and caught up in promoting and living out a faith that is not saturated with love—but instead a faith that is characterized by coercion, shame, control, and legalistic rigidity.

And thus, maybe I’ve misunderstood Adventism—and I’m not a “good” Adventist (and an even worse Adventist pastor).

But it’s the Adventism I’m committed to, and it’s the Adventism that my local congregation has committed itself to, as we’ve sought to pursue and promote a beautiful and inclusive embodiment of God’s love-awakening love—not despite Adventist theology, but precisely because of this understanding of the radical, non-coercive, and love-awakening nature of Adventist theology.

Again, I may be way off on this—and seriously misread Adventist history and theology.

But, if so, I at least take comfort in recognizing that Ellen White, by far the most influential voice in the history of Adventism, both began and ended her great exposition on the scope of universal history with these three momentous words:

“God is love.”

If nothing else, I guess if that’s my understanding of Adventism, and the reason I remain an Adventist, then I’m in pretty good (Adventist) company.

---

Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.