Definition of a cult and fulfilled by Ellen G. White and the SDA Church.
1. A leader or group of leaders, prophet, prophetess, that claims to speak for God.
Fulfillment: Ellen G. White, the Seventh-day Adventist’s prophetess makes the claim that what she writes is not her ideas, but "that which God has opened before her in vision."
"In my books, the truth is stated, barricaded by a ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ The Holy Spirit traced these truths upon my heart and mind as indelibly as the law was traced by the finger of God upon the tables of stone." Letter 90, 1906.
"In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision--the precious rays of light shining from the throne." Testimonies 5 p. 67.
2. What they write and teach their followers, contradicts Bible.
Fulfillment: Read, "Ellen G. White Contradicts the Bible Over 50 time" EGW holds strict authority over its members in respect to, finances, wills, diet, dress, amusement, associations, etc. as taught in her books such as Testimonies to the Church.
3. Many members taking issue with the authority of the leader are excommunicated, (disfellowshipped), shunned, or not allowed to hold office in the church, etc.
Fulfillment: EGW: "When the judgment of the General Conference, which is the highest authority that God has on earth, is exercised private independence and private judgment MUST NOT be maintained, but must be surrendered." Testimonies 3 p. 492.
Look at the SDA pastors that were fired for not believing in some of Ellen G. White’s teachings. Also members who have been put out of office and disfellowshipped for not accepting Ellen G. White as a prophet or her teachings.
4. Cult leaders teach infallibility in their teachings or the writings of their cult leader, in this case Ellen G. White.
Fulfillment: "It is from the standpoint of the light that has come through the Spirit of Prophecy (Mrs. White’s writings) that the question will be considered, believing as we do that the Spirit of Prophecy is the only infallible interpreter of Bible principles, since it is the Christ, through this agency, giving real meaning of his own words." G.A. Irwin, General Conference President, from the tract The Mark of the Beast, p. 1.
On February 7, 1887, the General Conference passed the following resolution -- "That we re-affirm our binding confidence in the Testimonies of Sister White to the Church, as the teaching of the Spirit of God." SDA Year Book for 1914, p. 253
"Our position on the Testimonies is like the key-stone to the arch. Take that out and there is no logical stopping-place till all the special truths of the Message are gone...Nothing is surer than this, that the Message and visions (of Mrs. White) belong together, and stand or fall together." Review and Herald Supplement, August 14, 1883.
5. The cult members believes that they are superior to others because of their unique teachings as they have knowledge of God’s will that other Christians do not have. Because of the false teachings of their prophet or leaders, they consider themselves especially chosen by God, and look at themselves as the "Remnant Church," or "The True Church".
Fulfilled: Ellen G. White and the Seventh-day Adventist Church view themselves as "the Remnant Church" alone especially called by God in 1844, over all other churches, which they called Babylon. The Adventist still considers themselves the Remnant Church. Read, "Seventh-day Adventist Believe 27," Chapter 12, The Remnant and Its Mission, p.153.
Seventh-day Adventist Believe: "One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy, This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White." "Seventh-day Adventist Believe 27," p.216.
Without Ellen G. White and her Bible Contradictions, the Seventh-day Adventist Church could not call itself the Remnant Church.
6. Adventist leaders and their members use the writings of Ellen G. White to interpret the Scriptures. EGW's writings are the final arbitrator of doctrines.
Fulfilled: The Adventist’s claim to hold the Bible above all teachings, but in fact they interpret the Bible by the writings of Ellen G. White. This is demonstrated in their Sabbath school Quarterlies, sermons, and articles in their church paper, "Adventist Review." Her counsel is to be followed as Scripture.
7. They publish their own Bible and insert their own doctrines in the text.
Fulfilled: The Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes The Clear Word Bible. It is a cultic Bible that does not separate the Bible text from the author’s personal commentary, opinions, which slants the text to agree with the writings of Ellen G. White and whatever else to make the text say what he wants it to say. This corrupt piece of work, makes the Word of God unclear to the reader.
Adventist scholar Dr. Sakae Kubo say’s, "I am concerned about how our membership regard and use Blanco’s Clear Word. Behind my remarks is a history of Bibles of this sort that have a terrible bias. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation is an obvious example—the divinity of Christ is removed and His createdness is brought out along with other tendential characteristics. The very obvious and serious danger is that our own people will be confused as to what the Bible really says. Interpretation has been so mixed in with the text that our people will think that the interpretation is part of the Word of God." Adventist Review, April 1995, p.15.
The Clear Word Bible, 1994 by Jack J. Blanco. Printed and distributed by Review and Herald Publishing Association
8. Religious cults look at individuals that leave their group as being lost, and without salvation.
Fulfilled: It is difficult for Seventh-day Adventists to fathom that a person leaving their church can remain a Christian and still be saved. After I left the Adventist Church I had letters telling me I was being led by Satan, I was making war on God's church, I would burn in Hell, and that I should come back to the church, etc.
Christians that do not belong to the Seventh-day Adventist Church are often called "outsiders." When a Christian from another Church joins the Seventh-day Adventist Church, they are said, "to have come into the truth."9.
What is a cult?
A religious cult is an organization that has departed from mainstream Christianity to follow doctrines that are not Biblical. They hold their leader's Bible contradictions over the Word of God. The Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches many non-Biblical doctrines.
Webster’s Dictionary by Random House: cult n. 1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies. 2. a. a group that devotes itself to or venerates a person, ideal, fad, etc. 3. a. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist. b. the members of such a religion or sect. -adj. 4. of or pertaining to a cult. 5. of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees: a cult movie. cultic, adj. cultish, adj. cultism, n. cultist, n.
Are there different kinds of cults?
Most definitely. There are religious cults, Satanic cults, secular cults. Some cults are purely secular such as; sport idols, UFO cults, movie stars, and some are dedicated for good of society. A cult in itself is not necessarily evil.
Christians need to be alert as to what is being taught as truth and refuse to accept Biblical Contradictions especially if a church has a prophet. People find comfort and security in belonging to religious cults, as it agrees with their beliefs that they were brain-washed into believing as truth.
The Sabbath was a command given specifically to Israel.
There is no biblical record whatsoever of anybody keeping the Sabbath prior to Exodus 16 (Neh. 9:13-14). Even after they received the full-blown Sabbath command (Ex. 20:8-11), Israel who often condemned the sins of her pagan neighbors, never criticized their violation of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was part of God’s ceremonial law and not grounded in His unchanging character.
The Sabbath was a ceremonial law given specifically to Israel, not grounded in God’s unchanging nature. Similar to the entire old covenant, it has been fulfilled and brought to completion in Christ (Mt. 5:17). If David had a right to make an exception in the ceremonial law, Jesus had more (Mt. 12:1-8; c.f 5:21-4. Even Jesus said," The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mk. 2:27). Moreover, He called Himself the "Lord of the Sabbath" (Lk. 6:5).
The Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant
(Ex. 31:16-17; Neh. 9:14; Eze. 20:12). Because we are now under the New Covenant we are no longer under obligation to keep the Old Covenant, particularly the sign of the Old Covenant. The writer to the Hebrews remarked, "When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear" (Heb. 8:13).
The New Testament nowhere commands Christians to observe the Sabbath.
The church is warned of many sins in the New Testament, but breaking (or observing) the Sabbath is never mentioned. The book of Acts mentions the Sabbath nine times, never once as a day of worship for Christians. If anything, the Apostle Paul rebuked the Galatians for attempting to add the observance of days to the sufficiency of Christ’s work for salvation (Gal. 4:9-11). The church even changed their day of worship from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday (the Lord’s Day) (Ac. 20; 1 Cor. 16:2) to show that a new order had been erected with the resurrection of Christ (Jn. 20:1, 19).
Jesus Christ through His redemptive work regained the Sabbath that Adam lost.
Jesus Christ came to complete a redemptive work (Jn. 4:34; 5:36) by restoring the rest that was forfeited in the Garden. In following the same pattern for the first creation, Jesus Christ began the work spoken of in Genesis 3:15 (c.f. Gen. 1:3). He completed the work on the cross (Jn. 17:4; 19:30; c.f. Gen. 1:5). The work was met with God’s satisfaction by the resurrection and ascension of Christ (Rom. 1:3-4; Gen. 1:4) leading again to divine rest (Heb. 10:11-12; c.f. Gen. 2:1-3).
The Sabbath was a sign that pointed to something greater.
Like much of the Old Testament, the Sabbath pointed to Jesus Christ. The Old Testament Sabbath preached the gospel when it called for faith and a cessation of work (Rom. 4:4-5). We dishonor our Savior when the signs still receive the preeminence that He alone deserves. Now that Jesus is here, the signs have become obsolete (Heb. 8:13). The Apostle Paul said, "Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ" (Col. 2:16-17). Jesus is the new Joshua that leads God’s children to a greater Promised Land of rest (Mt. 1:21). Jesus is the new Sabbatical Jubilee (Lev. 25:8-10) that provides a greater cancellation of debts (Lk. 4:18-19).
Jesus Christ has now become the Sabbath rest for Christians under the New Covenant.
God has completed His work of the new creation. Christians are the first fruits of that creation (2 Cor.. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). Our rest, as it was enjoyed by Adam everyday, has again been restored. During this life we still deal with some remnants of the curse, but we recognize our rest in Christ (from meritorious works) through faith and daily worship (Col. 3:17). Due to His redemptive work, He has become our Sabbath rest. Jesus said, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Mt. 11:28-30; c.f. Heb. 4:1-11).
The Christian’s ultimate Sabbath rest will be enjoyed in heaven
(Rev. 14:13; c.f. 14:11). Though we currently rest in Jesus Christ under the New Covenant, our supreme Sabbatical rest will be realized in heaven where we will enjoy the ultimate rest in the culmination of God’s new creation (Rev. 21:4; 22:1-2) away from the curse in the direct presence of the Lamb (Rev. 22:3).
PLEASE NOTE: While some conservative Christians may object to what I have written, in this and other pages on this site it is not my intention to attack the Seventh-day Adventist Church or any other religious organization. I am not trying to start an argument with anyone who is satisfied with her or his religious belief and practice. Rather, I am writing for those who, for whatever reason, have found their former beliefs lacking. My own experience of shattered faith would have been much less difficult had I known that others had gone through something similar. It is my hope that sharing what I have learned will make it a little easier for those who have also discovered themselves unable to believe as they once did.
I was born a fourth generation Seventh-day Adventist on both sides of my family. My maternal great-grandparents sold their farm to help start a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school (now Mt. Pisgah Academy) and sanitarium in North Carolina. My mother's parents spent their lives "in the work," as Adventists of their generation referred to spreading the Adventist gospel. On my father's side, my great-grandfather served time on a chain gang in Tennessee for plowing his field on Sunday in defiance of blue laws that Adventists believed were the first step towards establishment of a "national Sunday law” and legal persecution for worshipping on the seventh day Sabbath . From infancy onward, I was immersed in Adventism and "the Conflict of the Ages," the cosmic war between the forces of good and evil around which traditional Adventist theology revolves. While Adventists are known for their adherence to dietary and lifestyle restrictions, my family was stricter than most other Adventists of my acquaintance. We never ate meat (I am still a vegetarian) or went to movies. Our TV viewing was strictly controlled. Card games being suspect, I still don't know the makeup of a standard deck, let alone how to play anything with it. I cherished Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories, which provided examples of how good children should think and act. I was thrilled when my parents, stretching their very limited budget, at my urging bought the multi-volume Bible Story, a children's version of the Adventist interpretation of Biblical stories. I particularly liked the stories of Joseph and King David. I did, however, have some difficulty fitting David's dancing "before the Lord with all his might . . . uncovered in the eyes of the handmaids" (2 Samuel 6:14, 20) with what I had been taught about proper church behavior! Books written by the Adventist prophetess, Ellen G. White, filled our bookshelves, and I had read most of them by the time I was twelve.
I mastered the Adventist jargon based on rote phrases from the Bible or Mrs. White that referred to our particular beliefs as "a peculiar people."1
Questions tended to be answered with "We have been told" followed by a reference to the Bible or, more often, Ellen White. If there was no readily available response from those inspired sources, I was told that the answer would be forthcoming when "we get to heaven," an event that was "soon coming." It seemed that we had been given all the knowledge that was necessary for navigation through "this world." As "God's chosen people," the spiritual successors to the Jews who had supposedly rejected Jesus, we were promised a special place in "the world to come" provided that we were faithful to "the Third Angel's Message." I was suspicious of "worldly" neighbors, most of whom I avoided. I remember feeling disappointed when my attempts to read White's The Great Controversy, a book outlining in much detail the cosmic "conflict between Christ and Satan" along with an extensive description of "latter day events," to a couple of neighbor kids failed to produce interest let alone any converts.
I attended Adventist schools from 1st grade through my junior year in college. Looking back, it is hard to remember much that was positive about my SDA educational experience. Being supported by a relatively poor local church organization, the Missouri junior academy (elementary through tenth grade) and boarding academy (grades 11 and 12) that I attended were apparently unable to recruit capable teachers.
With very few exceptions, my teachers did a poor job of instructing, and some were in no shape to be doing anything, much less teaching school. One, much to her students mixed horror and fascination, regularly had grand mal seizures in the classroom. My eighth grade teacher had to leave midyear due to a psychiatric crisis, and was replaced by a woman who seemed to be in the midst of a psychotic break. For morning devotions, she read stories she had composed that revolved around the husband who had deserted her for another woman, describing in painful detail how he would regret his sin of unfaithfulness to her when last day events began to unfold. While at that point in my life I was more than naive when it came to sexual matters, I recognized that her relationship with her adolescent son, who for some reason did not attend school at all, was full of blatantly incestuous overtones.
As is true of most people who went through the Adventist educational system in those days (I believe things have improved somewhat over the years since), I learned next to nothing from my schooling about literature, art, non-SDA religions, philosophy, or modern thought. Everything, including the Bible, was carefully filtered through Adventist preconceptions. We even had special Adventist editions of the Dick and Jane readers (I'm still curious as to what it was in the regular edition that we had to be protected from). I took it all very seriously, never questioning "THE TRUTH" that had been given to us alone of all the people on the earth.
I was also utterly miserable, especially as an adolescent tortured by "impure thoughts" that no amount of prayer would take away. For a period of several years I was terrified by the idea that Satan or one of "his angels" would appear to me, as I knew from stories I had read in Adventist literature and heard in church youth groups often happened to people who were not "right with the Lord."
At times, much to my utter terror, I seemed to catch glimpses of demons out of the corner of my eye. I had repeated nightmares in which I encountered demonic figures or discovered that I had been left behind on judgment day. Looking back, I realize that I was seriously depressed and more than a little disturbed, but no one, including myself, seemed to recognize that anything was wrong.
In early adolescence, following a suggested daily reading plan, I read the Bible through from cover to cover, and was surprised to find things that had not been included in the Bible Story volumes, and which didn't seem to fit into what I had been taught about God and his Word. I was troubled to come across stories, like the soap opera account of the sexual misadventures of Judah and his offspring (Genesis 3 or the raped and murdered concubine of the Levite (Judges 19), that seemed completely amoral. While in Adventist boarding academy, I came across some of Mark Twain's anti-Christian writings that had somehow found their way into the Sunnydale Academy (a place that was far from "sunny" in my experience of it!) library.
I was at first shocked, then set to wondering by the questions Twain raised about the justice of a God who, during the Israelite conquest of Canaan, ordered the slaughter of people whose primary sin seemed to consist of not worshipping him. I also came across a book by the well known Biblical archaeologist, William Foxwell Albright, that seemed to indicate that there were other ways of thinking about the Bible than the one I had been taught.
Other than that, I can recall no conscious doubts about what I had been taught to regard as ultimate truth until I got to college. I continued regularly reading the Bible, although I tended to skim through books like Leviticus and Numbers after the first time through. But, looking back now, I am sure that there were many doubts taking shape that I simply could not yet admit into my awareness. Questioning "the Truth we have been given" simply would have been too much of a threat to my already shaky sense of self, something that was almost entirely based on my inherited identity as one of God’s favored people, his "chosen remnant." When my doubts finally became conscious, the experience was devastating.
I began Southern Missionary College (now Southern Adventist University) as a premed chemistry major in the fall of 1967. As my parents, who had for years struggled to keep four children in church school and academy, were unable to help me with tuition, I went to work making Little Debbies (now there's a fine product for people with a "health message" to be sending out into the world!) at the McKee Baking Co. which was, and still is, by virtue of the wealth generated by the junk food business, closely affiliated with the college. At the bakery, for the first time in my life, I came into regular contact with a lot of non-Adventists. I was more than a little taken aback to discover that, contrary to my lifelong belief, they were not actively evil!
At Southern I was exposed to a somewhat more sophisticated view of the world than I had encountered in academy, and had some teachers who actually knew something about the subjects they taught. One day my world history professor made a passing remark in his lecture about Mrs. White's writings on history having been based on a nineteenth century understanding of history that was no longer accepted as valid. Having always been told that her writings were divinely inspired, this threw me for a loop. My "Daniel and Revelation" teacher, an ordained minister who managed to get in trouble with the college administration by coming back from summer vacation wearing a beard, began the class by saying that no one knew for certain just what the various symbols in those books meant.
Having read through Uriah Smith's extensive commentaries on Daniel and Revelation several times, attended I don't know how many revival meetings featuring projected colorful depictions of the prophetic beasts each of which had been assigned a specific meaning (I still have the Bible that I highlighted during one revival series), read the Great Controversy from cover to cover more than once, and memorized the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8 (a key text in Adventism) with all its various ramifications, I had no idea what to do with this bit of information. By the end of my sophomore year, my faith had been seriously shaken, but not knowing what else to do, I continued going through the motions of being an Adventist.
In the summer before my junior year, I took a class in "The Spirit of Prophecy" (as Adventists designate the work of Ellen G. White) from a man who was reputed to be a great theologian, and a very tough professor. I almost immediately realized that his reputation was based upon extremely shaky ground. He seemed to me to be almost desperately trying to hold his own doubts at bay with a convoluted pseudo-intellectual apologetic that had little relation to the questions that it supposedly answered. Most of his students were apparently so dumbfounded by his posturing as to mistake it for profound truth beyond human understanding while they struggled to get a passing grade. Having figured out his formula, I made the highest grade in the class almost without trying. At the same time I was painfully aware that I no longer believed most of what I was expounding upon in my A+ papers.
That fall, the college Week of Prayer featured a speaker whose mission it was to point out the failings of modern philosophy. It was the first time I had heard of existentialism, situational ethics, and other such topics which were at the time being hotly debated in liberal theological circles.
The speaker's descriptions of these new (to me) ways of thinking aroused my interest while his attempts to invalidate them seemed less than persuasive. I also took a parasitology class in which we studied the strange life cycles of parasites, many of which are extremely specialized and live on only one particular species of host animal. Which seemed to me to be very hard to reconcile with the Genesis creation account. There was no one to whom I could turn with my increasing confusion about what was and was not true. Even those people I knew who, unlike me, were cheerfully engaging in every form of prohibited behavior they could think of, seemed to have no interest in questioning basic Adventist beliefs. Or at least they were not discussing any doubts that they may have had. Perhaps, like me, they simply didn't know how to go about a critical examination of the only paradigm they had for understanding themselves and the world.
I changed majors two or three times during my junior year. My grades took a nosedive, and it became apparent that Loma Linda University (the Adventist medical school) was not a viable option for me. I made a few feeble attempts to talk with faculty and administration members about my fading academic career, but no one expressed much concern or even seemed to recognize that I was in trouble.
Perhaps the fault lay in my inability to find adequate words to express how lost I was coupled with a reluctance to reveal doubts that I wasn't supposed to have. At the end of the year I dropped out, sure of nothing beyond the fact that I no longer believed in what had been the very foundation of my life.
I continued going to church off and on, mostly out of habit but perhaps also in hopes of finding some way out of my confusion. But it only got worse. I felt increasingly ill at ease and isolated in the Adventist community. My last Adventist church experience was during Christmas season. True to the Adventist tradition at the time (a stance many SDA's have now relaxed) of distancing themselves from supposedly "pagan" religious holidays, the sermon made no reference to the birth of Jesus, but expounded at length on the evils of women wearing pants in public! I don't remember if I stayed to the end of the service, but I do know that I left determined never to go back. Which I never have.
At the time, it never occurred to me to try other churches. Having been conditioned to regard Adventism as the only true expression of Christianity, I quickly came to the conclusion that Christian belief in general was at best misguided. Looking in what I took to be the opposite direction, I began to avidly read everything I could find on Eastern religion, and decided that I was a Buddhist. I suppose this was fairly safe, actual Buddhists being few and far between in Collegedale, Tennessee! Since there was no one around who knew anything about Buddhist belief and practice, it also enabled me to totally confound any Adventist who might try to argue me back into the fold. I actually found myself feeling sorry for the poor Collegedale assistant pastor who came to visit in response to my letter of resignation from the church. He apparently had never before encountered anyone who had made a conscious decision not to be a Christian, let alone someone who viewed Buddhism as an alternative.
But, in contrast to my certainty about what I did not believe, I had very little in the way of positive beliefs. The decade of my twenties was spent in a more or less wandering quest for something that I could once again regard as true. Being as it was the 1970's, it was an interesting time for such a quest. It definitely had its ups and downs. I actually lived for a while in a self described "Zen Macrobiotic Commune" in Brooklyn. One summer I spent six weeks in a state hospital obsessed with suicide. While I can't say that the treatment I received was very helpful, the experience was definitely an interesting one, and indirectly set me on the course that led to a career working with the sort of terribly afflicted and marginalized people I first encountered there.
Shortly after my hospital stay I met a (non-Adventist) woman whom I married a few months later. We were both pretty lost at the time. Looking back at the apparently disastrous course of events in each of our lives that led to our meeting, it seems like a miracle. I have been blessed in having had her at my side through all the various twists, turns, and occasional dead ends my life has taken in the more than thirty years we have been together.
Shortly after my marriage, I signed up for a yoga class at the extension branch of a state university. It was taught by a minister. Having known nothing but Adventist ministers, I could not imagine what connection a minister might have with something as non-Christian as yoga. I learned that he was the pastor of the local Unitarian-Universalist Church, and talked my then Episcopalian wife into visiting to find out what this strange religion was all about. Much to my amazement, at the end of the service, the congregation sat back down to discuss the sermon topic, and actually challenge the minister on some of the points he had made. In Unitarian-Universalism I discovered an open form of spirituality that actively encouraged dialogue about controversial issues, something I could not have imagined as an Adventist. I very quickly became an active member of the Chattanooga Unitarian-Universalist church.
After moving (fleeing?) to California from Tennessee, and another very dark period, I went into psychotherapy with a therapist who recognized the spiritual dimension of my dis-ease. Through him I became acquainted with the work of the Swiss psychiatrist, C. G. Jung. In Jung's voluminous, very deep writings I found a connection between psychology and spirituality, as well for the first time a coherent way of understanding my experience as a spiritual journey. Jung's many references to esoteric spiritual traditions opened new doors for me. Jungian psychology became the foundation upon which I began building a new perspective of the world and my place in it.
In my late twenties, after a few aborted attempts to do something "practical," I entered the University of California, Santa Barbara to finally finish college with a degree in religious studies. For the first time in my life, after years of education in small Adventist schools, on a campus of over fifteen thousand students, I encountered teachers who seemed to be my allies. Having dismissed Christianity along with Adventism, I initially planned to focus my studies on Eastern religions. But then I took a course in western mysticism in which we read several medieval Catholic mystics. I was astonished to discover a vital facet of Christianity totally unlike the tradition in which I had grown up.
I also took several classes on early Christianity to discover that the historical origins of Christianity differed greatly from what I had been taught in my many years of Adventist indoctrination. (As an Adventist, I had the idea that, except for the robes and beards, Jesus and the disciples were very much like the Adventist elders who led weekly church services!) For the first time since my disillusionment with Adventism, I began to see in Christianity a valid expression of spirituality and ended up taking more classes on Christianity than Eastern traditions.
After finishing my BA, I went to graduate school to become a psychotherapist with a special interest in the interplay of spiritual and psychological issues. One of my areas of specialization is doing psychotherapy with former members of fundamentalist-type religions (which by my broad definition includes SDA), and have published a few professional papers on the psychological issues such a background tends to produce.2
My continuing spiritual journey has taken me to many different places, most of which I would not have regarded as having any valid connection to spirituality back when I was an Adventist. There have been memorable visits to native Hawaiian sacred sites as well as a number of the ancient Native American sites in the Southwest. I've participated in Native American sweat lodge rituals and Eastern meditation practices.
In 2001, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in an organized retreat at the Cathedral of Notre Dame ("Our Lady") in Chartres, France. Chartres Cathedral was a major center of the cult of the Virgin which flourished during the High Middle Ages. It is one of the most outstanding examples of medieval sacred art. Stepping inside its massive doors is like stepping back through the centuries to a world vastly different from ours. The cathedral is filled with wonderful sculpture and stained glass depicting figures and stories from Christian tradition, an intricate sacred text in stone and glass. Spending so much time in such a place was a long way from anything I could have imagined back when I was an Adventist.
As I was reminded one afternoon when, during one of the many free periods we had for reflection and meditation, I was sitting in the cathedral gardens surrounded by blooming tulips. The next scheduled activity was a descent into the cathedral crypt, the underground area within the cathedral foundation, from which we were to process up to the cathedral nave to ritually walk around the labyrinth design inlaid in the floor. As I was reflecting on my Chartres experience so far and thinking of what was coming next, the words, "There be dragons there," suddenly occurred to me. I recognized the phrase as one that marked unexplored territory in medieval maps.
I also recognized it as a reference to the Dragon of Revelation 13, which as an Adventist I had been taught represented the Catholic Church. So there I was about to descend into the very lair of the Dragon! But what I found there was very far removed from the demonic forces I had once believed to be the basis of Roman Catholicism.
As deeply moved as I was by my experience at Chartres and other European cathedrals I have visited, I am very far from being in any danger of converting to Catholicism or any other particular religion, Eastern or Western. My Adventist experience has made me wary of organized religion. This perhaps has been to my advantage in some ways. I insist on my right to think and feel for myself. I doubt that I would ever be taken in by some cult-like group or charismatic guru. But it also holds me back from deep involvement with any group. Even when moved to tears by what I feel in a place like Chartres or Canterbury Cathedral, my doubts hold me back. I feel an affinity for the liberal Christianity expressed by the Episcopal Church. But I cannot bring myself to say the Creed, even when I tell myself that I understand it in symbolic rather than literal terms. I am very moved by the Eastern Orthodox liturgy and the sense of the sacred embodied by their icons. A Russian Orthodox midnight Easter service I once attended in an candle lit, icon filled cathedral remains a spiritual high point for me. But I very much doubt that I could ever fit into that community or wholeheartedly agree with their beliefs. Over the years I have been involved off and on with Unitarian-Universalist churches. The radical insistence on individual freedom of belief that is the core of Unitarian-Universalism greatly appeals to me. But even there I find it hard to make a lasting commitment.
I don't consider myself a Christian in the sense of accepting Christ as my personal savior or elevating the Bible to a position higher than the scriptures of other traditions. The notion of a personal deity watching over the world from some place on high and actively intervening in human affairs is for me far too limited, a vestige from simpler times and less sophisticated world views. Many years of studying the history of the Bible have convinced me that it is a product of human imagination, not divine revelation. As a depth psychotherapist, I certainly do not denigrate imagination or the wondrous things that emerge from it to enrich human life. But neither do I elevate it, or anything else, to a position of infallible authority.
Yet, despite all my doubts and misgivings, Christianity continues to be an undeniably strong force within my psyche. While I am fascinated by Hindu mythology and iconography, and find Buddhist ideas about the nature of existence match my experience very well, Eastern religious symbols don't evoke the deep emotional response I have to the particular set of symbols that are mine by virtue of having been born a Christian. Encountering for the first time the great cathedrals of England and France, with their vivid symbolic representation of the Christian story in glass and stone, was an overwhelming experience of Something so much greater than myself that I am still at a loss for words adequate to it. But I also catch glimpses of that same Something wherever I might be, whether at the seashore, playing with my cat, making love with my wife, walking on a beach, being witness to creation and destruction all around me, and those fleeting moments when I am simply aware that I am. The concretely literal God I once believed dwelt in a region somewhere beyond the sky is far too small to encompass all this. Rather than "God," I prefer to call it "Mystery," "the Ultimate," or, borrowing from the great medieval Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, the "Godhead Beyond God."3 These days my primary spiritual exercise as well as involvement in organized religion consists of the monthly labyrinth walk at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. (It was with a group from the Grace Cathedral Veriditas labyrinth project that I made my 2001 pilgrimage to Chartres Cathedral.)
In my better moments, when I am open to it, life in all its beauty intermingled with moments of undeniable horror is an ongoing revelation of the Divine. The best representation of this that I know is the Hindu image of Shiva as Lord of the Dance, simultaneously creating the cosmos, maintaining it, and destroying it. In one of his four hands Shiva holds a drum that represents the primordial sound that brings creation into being. In another he points to the demon he tramples underfoot, a representative of the ignorance that leads us to mistake the changing moment for ultimate reality. His third hand is extended in the gesture of reassurance. In his fourth hand is the fire that returns everything to primal oneness from which the universe once more arises in the never ending dance of eternity.
I also find a lot of psychological truth in the Gnostic interpretation of the Fall. According to these early opponents of what became orthodox Christianity, Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil really did bring an awareness they had previously lacked. Far from being the disaster represented in the standard reading of the story, for the Gnostics eating from the Tree was the beginning of insight into the true nature of things. The gaining of knowledge is often disorienting in its challenge to previous assumptions about what is true and what false. I certainly fell deep into despair with the realization that things were not as I had thought them to be. But I don't think it would be going too far to say that it was also the beginning of a degree of enlightenment for me. While I was much less than certain of it at the time, I'm more than glad that I followed, and still continue along the labyrinthine path to which my so very painful doubts led me.
I don't entirely regret my Adventist upbringing. Without it, I doubt that I would have the deep appreciation for things spiritual that I do. Through early and constant exposure to the Bible, I acquired a wonderful source of age old wisdom and archetypal stories that I am repeatedly startled to find many people know little or nothing about. I do regret that my indoctrination made it so difficult to find a way that was my own, and that it continues to come between members of my family, who have no understanding of the path I have chosen (or perhaps it has chosen me?), and myself.
I am not interested in trying to expose the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a "false religion." In my opinion, all religions are imperfect attempts to express the ineffable. To argue about which are "true" and which "false" seems to me pointless. But some spiritual traditions acknowledge the relative nature of the truths they convey more than do others. It is here that Adventists, along with those who profess a multitude of faiths that claim special access to truth, fall short. Paradoxically, the more strident the claim to ownership of "the Truth," the farther the distance to real truth seems to be.
While it has been a very long time since I have been inside an Adventist church, for a while I was revisiting my Adventist heritage now and then via the internet. And was often distressed by what I found. Although I suppose I might have taken joy in seeing my decision to leave the church confirmed by developments in the decades following my "deconversion," it was still upsetting. Even after my realization that I no longer believed in the divine inspiration of her writings, I continued to regard Ellen White as a well intentioned figure who was at worst self-deluded. The public revelation in the early 1980's of the extent of her plagiarism, which I first read about in a "worldly" national news weekly, came as a shock to me. While David Koresh's theology and lifestyle clearly deviated from mainstream Adventism, the Branch Davidians' self-fulfilling expectation of persecution by the enemies of "truth" hardly differed in substance from what I had grown up believing I would one day experience at first hand. As I tuned more closely into developments within the Adventist community, it was disturbing to see the names of men I once knew and respected linked to serious financial scandals in the church. Then there were the endless debates between "traditional" Adventists and those with more liberal ideas who want to move Adventism closer to the mainstream of American evangelical thought. As an institution, the "remnant church" seemed to have become a multinational corporation more concerned with self perpetuation than with spreading the gospel, all the while splintering into a multitude of quarreling factions. Of course this is nothing new in the history of religion, Christianity, or Adventism. And I am no longer a member of the church and perhaps not entitled to comment on its present state. Nevertheless, I still find it distressing. But these days my interest in what might be going on within the Seventh-day Adventist Church is diminished. I no longer surf web sites for the latest SDA news or get into arguments on the Adventist of Tomorrow forum. Over three decades since I left the church, Adventism seems like a mostly alien culture existing someplace far removed from what my life and beliefs are now.
"Sectarianism (claims to be) always right and displays no tolerance, picking and fomenting quarrels for the holist of reasons in order to set itself up in the place of religion and brand anyone who thinks differently as a lost sheep, if nothing worse. But have human beings the right to totalitarian claims? This claim, certainly, is so morally dangerous that we would do better to leave its fulfillment to Almighty God rather than presume to be little gods ourselves at the expense of our fellow-men." C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, paragraph 448.
A Note to Believers: In this and other pages on this site it is not my intention to attack any religious organization or the beliefs of anyone who is satisfied with her or his current religious experience. My aim is rather to reach people who, like myself, have for whatever reason found their former beliefs inadequate. My own experience of shattered faith would have been much less difficult had I known that others had gone through something similar. It is my hope that sharing what I have learned will help make things a little easier for others who have also left a "fold" that could no longer contain them.
Religion is fraught with controversy. One religion's absolute truth is utter falsehood to another. Innovators and reformers are viewed with suspicion by the guardians of orthodoxy while those who claim to have received new light or recovered forgotten truth view the religious establishment as overly dogmatic, oppressive, and corrupt. Of such are schisms and religious wars made.
From a historical standpoint it is apparent that many, if not all, orthodox religions were once themselves heterodox. Christianity, for instance began as a Jewish cult that, over the course of a few hundred years, grew far beyond its origins to become the established religion of the late Roman Empire. We tend to forget this amidst ominous warnings about "cults," an imprecise term that popularly serves to denote any religiously based group that deviates from orthodox norms.
However, as anyone who has paid much attention to the news over the last few decades knows, there are groups that abuse, and too often destroy people in the name of religious and spiritual truth. There is good reason to be cautious when dealing with any movement, religious or not, that revolves around the personality of an idealized leader, claims a special "truth," and especially one that cuts itself off from the outside world. It has been repeatedly, sometimes tragically demonstrated that isolation from the cross-fertilizing and moderating effects of the larger society tends to result in derangement of some degree in groups as well as individuals.
But is there really a clear, objectively definable line between groups that misuse the human impulse towards transcendence and socially acceptable religious practice? Early Christianity, which was viewed with alarm by the orthodoxy of the time, was centered around the personality of its founder, claimed to be the only true religion, and urged believers to radically separate themselves from the world in which they lived. These traits can also be found to varying degrees in contemporary established conservative religions of all types. While I have reservations about the concept of "mind control" used by many anti-cult activists, any teaching that urges the suspension of individual judgment and critical thought makes me uneasy. Still, it is difficult to deny the fact that most conservative religions do this to some degree.
People are very deeply affected, in positive as well as negative ways, by intense involvement in any tightly constructed belief system. Some find membership in such groups to be very meaningful and personally rewarding. There is a great deal of comfort in "knowing" that one has access to sure truth. Where a skeptic might see denial, the believer is apt to experience a deeply felt faith which, I believe, should be respected as such. I have no interest in trying to undermine anyone's faith, no mater how much it may deviate from mine.
But there are other people who, like myself in my experience as a former Seventh-day Adventist, at some point find it impossible to continue an involvement with a restrictive group or church which had previously seemed to be the epitome of spiritual truth. Some seemingly simply walk away with never a backwards glance. Others appear to be forever marked by the failure of a set of beliefs that once represented absolute truth. The shattering of their faith continues to painfully haunt them long after the time of its collapse.
One of the most effective ways of dealing with a difficult loss is to share the experience with others who have gone through something similar. But people who leave a restrictive religious group are often very isolated by the nature of their experience. Family members and friends still involved with the group are not likely to be supportive, and ex-members may have few social contacts who are not members of the group. Even if new friends are made, people with no comparable experience generally have little understanding of the difficulties involved in leaving a restrictive group or the degree to which group membership continues to have an impact long past the time of leaving. Even professional helpers, like psychotherapists and clergy, may not grasp the significance of group membership and the process of leaving. It can be a very lonely experience.
But the internet now makes it possible to connect with people all over the world who share a similar experience. The links below are only a small sampling, reflective of my particular interests, of the many resources and information available on restrictive religious groups. Many sites have a place for discussion and sharing experiences along with links to similar sites.
The anti-cult sites in particular have a wealth of information on all sorts of groups. If the group in which you are interested is not listed, try the more general sites and use a search engine to locate other sites. Sites on other groups may well be helpful as the similarity of experience with a restrictive group regardless of outward differences is often quite startling, especially if you have had the notion that your group was unique. You are not alone after all!
While this article was originally written for psychotherapists working with ex-fundamentalists, it should be helpful for anyone who has been involved with a restrictive religious group.
Restrictive religious groups, characterized by rigid beliefs, authoritarian structure, rejection of mainstream culture, and isolation from outside influences that might lead to questions about the group's teachings, come in many forms, from fringe cults to well established churches. While the experience of individuals involved with so-called cults that clearly deviate from orthodox religious practice has been extensively discussed in both popular and professional literature, there has been relatively little recognition of the fact that similar issues are often associated with conservative forms of mainstream religion. While much of what follows is based on the experience of former members of Christian fundamentalist groups, there are parallels with restrictive groups from all traditions.
Shattered Faith
There are many people who find membership in restrictive groups to be a positive experience. I am not here so much concerned with them as I am with those who, often after a great deal of inner turmoil, leave such groups. Many, especially those who had been intensely involved with their religion, experience what has been called the "shattered faith syndrome" (Yao, 1987). Having lost faith in what was once a primary source of meaning and guidance, the former believer feels lost and overwhelmed. While not all groups go so far as to prohibit contact with those who leave, the former member is unlikely to be well regarded by the faithful. Estrangement from the community of believers - the focus of social life within many such groups- can compound the former member's isolation and despair.
The psychological effects of membership in a restrictive religious group often persist long after the outward severing of ties. Many ex-members experience a chronic sense of dissatisfaction coupled with difficulties in finding new sources of meaning and direction. Authoritarian groups encourage the distrust of one’s own judgment. Many former members despair in being unable to recapture the certainty that came with unquestioning acceptance of the group's teachings. Fundamentalist doctrines often emphasize human imperfection, maintaining that there is no possibility for doing good without the assistance of divine grace which alone renders an individual acceptable to God. Belief that pride in oneself is sinful may be internalized as a persistently negative self image. Sexual inhibitions, compulsions, frustration, and guilt tend to linger long after negative beliefs about sex have been consciously rejected. Having been taught to regard every impulse as potentially evil, the former group member may have little capacity for spontaneity and lack the means for genuine self-expression. Conditioned distrust of the world outside the community of believers coupled with the experience of disillusionment with teachings that once seemed infallible can present serious obstacles to joining any group or making lasting commitments.
Psychological Issues Of Former Members
Former members of restrictive religious groups are of course subject to the same psychopathogenic factors as everyone else; such a background is not an all-inclusive explanation for every psychological problem someone who once belonged to such a group may experience. But, the past being prologue to the present, current problems may well have some connection with membership in the now repudiated group.
Religious conflicts should always be approached from a carefully neutral position. There is a fine line between bias against religion as inherently pathological and naivete about the potential in some religious systems for undermining a healthy sense of self. Even though a former member may claim to have rejected her or his former beliefs, it is important that a wouldbe helper remain neutral. Emphasizing negative aspects of a once strongly held way of being in the world may trigger a defense of something with which the ex-believer is still unconsciously identified. Criticism of past beliefs may be misconstrued as criticism of the individual for having believed them. There is often a lingering sense of shame in having once accepted as truth something that now seems untenable.
A former member should be encouraged to look at the positive as well as negative aspects of having belonged to a restrictive religious group. It may be helpful to think of the involvement as a developmental stage that was important, in ways both good and bad, in shaping one's life. As with any other developmental stage, the former belief system was eventually outgrown. But unlike most other life stages, there is rarely an obvious next stage for the former believer. This is especially true with groups that actively discourage awareness of other systems of thought and lifestyle. Fundamentalists typically have little acquaintance with other religions, the humanities, or modern critical thought. Education in schools operated by many such groups, where all ideas are filtered through a closed-in belief system, further increases social and cultural isolation. Thus the former member may be totally unaware of alternative approaches to spiritual and existential questions. Support for spiritual and philosophical explorations, in contrast to the limits set by the former belief system, can help validate the capacity for independent thought.
Without the unequivocal pronouncements that once guided them, former members of authoritarian groups are apt to feel lost and confused. In any transition, there is a naturally occurring period of time between the collapse of old beliefs and their replacement by a new set of guiding principles. Kuhn's (1970) account of the disorientation that occurs when a scientific viewpoint once thought to be definitive fails to fit emergent facts can usefully be applied to the similar confusion that comes with a shift in religious belief. Bridge's (1980) concept of an "empty" middle phase that occurs in the process of moving from an old way of being to something new that is not yet fully developed can also be helpful in normalizing the ex-believer's sense of confusion and inner emptiness as a natural part of the process of moving beyond outmoded views about self and the world.
The tenets of a restrictive religious group typically serve as the primary source of meaning and self definition for members. In departing from them, the former believer loses what may have been the central organizing principle of her or his life. As with any loss, there is an associated grief process which, however, often goes unrecognized. Acknowledging the losses as well as the gains that occurred in leaving the group can go a long way towards helping someone move through the necessary grief process. The depression the ex-member may feel can be normalized as a normal and understandable response to a very real loss.
Ex-believers often feel doubly misunderstood and isolated. Family and friends who remain in the group, even when not outright rejecting, will probably have limited tolerance for the views of someone who has repudiated what they believe. People who do not share the same background may have difficulty understand the intense and long lasting effects of having been a member of a restrictive religion. Often the connection between current life difficulties and past religious experience is not apparent even to the former member.
Along with the shattering of idealized images about the group and its leaders, the disillusioned believer has also lost something that was once regarded as the only hope of salvation. Self esteem based upon association with the group and its "sure truths," is seriously impacted when one no longer belongs to the group. I have found Jung's (1965) concept of the self as an inner transcendent source of healing and wholeness that is often projected onto institutions and their leaders useful in helping people reclaim aspects of themselves that may have given away to a religious group. In addition, Jung's psychological awareness of spirituality and autobiographical account of his own struggle with religious beliefs can be very helpful for individuals seeking a new way to understand religious experience.
In psychotherapy as well as other relationships, the projections formerly carried by the group and its leaders are likely to reappear in the form of idealization and/or devaluation. Ex-believers may test a relationship to see if they are at risk for another painful betrayal. Therapeutic process often revolves around reclamation of the personal authority once given over to the group, and now perhaps projected onto significant others as well as the therapist. The former believer may be very adept at unconsciously meeting the perceived expectations of others. Denial, repression, splitting, and a false self presentation are often well developed defense mechanisms. The black and white thinking expressed in such conflicting pairs of opposites as God vs. devil, group of believers vs. the rest of the world, sin vs. righteousness, etc. results in repression of anything that might possibly be construed as unacceptable. Constant self monitoring and rigid self control, along with confession of every sin in prayer are regarded by many fundamentalists as the only means of avoiding divine condemnation. In the literalism characteristic of fundamentalist thought, an "evil" thought or feeling is considered to be just as sinful as an evil act. Impulses and feelings of any kind may be regarded as demonic in origin. This also occurs in some Eastern traditions in which an emphasis is placed on transcending the material realm with its beguiling desires and sensations. The former believer is likely to need frequent reminders that there is nothing inherently evil about negative feelings, and the mere fact of their existence does not mean that they will be acted out.
Strongly held beliefs greatly complicate family dynamics when not all family members share those beliefs. Unlike former members of "cults" whose families likely opposed their religious involvement, individuals who leave church based groups often leave family members behind, and may need support in coping with the anger, pain, and grief of being misunderstood and judged by family and friends. They will also need assistance in maintaining a personal philosophy that clashes with deeply held beliefs of family members. Family interactions sometimes become dominated by well meant attempts of the "faithful" to persuade their "lost loved one" to return to "the Fold." Conversely, the former believer's desire to win family and friends over to his or her condemnation of the group is often as strong as the desire of those who still belong to bring her or him back into the fold.
Dysfunctional family patterns may be hidden behind the idealized image of the religiously affiliated family, an image that is apt to fail when faith in the church is lost. The discovery of serious pathology in one's family presents yet another challenge to previously held beliefs. Adolescents from families belonging to restrictive religious groups often rebel through gross violations of the strict moral codes that have been prescribed for them. Sexual acting out, running away, and substance abuse may represent inept attempts to establish autonomy in the face of overbearing parental and religious authority. Divorce and bitter child custody disputes, based in black and white conflicts over transcendent values, can occur when one spouse leaves a restrictive religious group while the other remains.
Conclusion
Psychological issues of former members of restrictive religious are unique in the degree to which they involve past religious belief and experience. It is important to remember that what may seem to be eccentric ideas and practices are likely to have been very important in shaping the former believer's life. In addition to the usual goals of psychotherapy, former members may need assistance in exploring lingering religious conflicts, as well as support in seeking sources of meaning and guidance more congruent with current beliefs and lifestyle.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Bruegel the Elder d.1569
PLEASE NOTE: While some conservative Christians may object to what follows, in this and other pages on this site it is not my intention to attack the Seventh-day Adventist Church or any other religious organization. I have no interest in arguing with those individuals who are happy in their beliefs and made uncomfortable by anything that seems to threaten what they believe to be true. As a former Adventist with academic training in religious studies, I am fascinated by the history of apocalyptic religious movements. This article is an attempt to share, with anyone who may be interested, what I have learned about the historical development of the end time beliefs that are such an important part of Adventist teachings.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is first and foremost an apocalyptic movement. Most of the teachings that set it apart from the rest of Christianity are derived from the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation. The word "apocalyptic" comes from a Greek word meaning "to uncover or reveal."2 Originally it referred to a type of Judeo-Christian literature, most of which was written between 200 BC and 100 AD. In symbolic and enigmatic language, apocalyptic texts describe history in terms of an unfolding divine plan that is about to culminate via a supernatural intervention into the course of worldly affairs. God's people will soon be vindicated, and evil forever eradicated from the cosmos. Many apocalyptic writings were attributed to famous legendary or historic figures to whom the hidden meaning of current and historical earthly events was said to have been revealed via visionary experience.
Jewish apocalyptic tradition, well established by the time of Jesus, had a strong influence on early Christianity3 which in turn produced an apocalyptic literature of its own. While many (one first century AD source mentions seventy Jewish apocalypses, most of which have been lost) apocalyptic books are known to have been extant in the early Christian era, only two, the Old Testament book of Daniel and the New Testament book of Revelation (or The Apocalypse), are included in the Protestant canon of the Bible. There are, however, some other apocalyptic texts that have been regarded as scripture by other Christians. The Apocrypha, which consists of books included in the Greek Septuagint but not the Hebrew version of Jewish scriptures, includes the apocalyptic book of Second Esdras. I Enoch (also known as First Enoch and Ethiopic Enoch) and the Book of Jubilees are included in the scriptures used by some Eastern churches.
Ancient Persian Origins of Apocalyptic Thought
Many historians of religion trace the roots of apocalyptic thinking to ancient Iran and the Zoroastrian religion founded by the Persian prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra in Greek) some time between 1200 and 600 BC (the date is disputed). Most ancient traditions, including earliest Judaism, regarded time as essentially static, with little or no significant change occurring beyond that of the continually repeated cycles of nature. Tension between creation and the chaos from which it had, according to creation myths, emerged was represented as an ongoing conflict between the two realms. Chaos in the form of a universal flood, consuming fire, or terrible monster (such as Leviathan mentioned in Job) periodically threatened to destroy the created realm. Some traditions, most notably in India, extended the naturally occurring cycles of light and dark, birth and death to make the cosmos in its entirety subject to eternally repeated cycles of destruction and recreation. Mythic heroes and gods of various sorts defended the ordered world by holding the agents of chaos at bay. Traces of such combat myths, as scholars have labeled them, can be found throughout apocalyptic writings, as in the war between Michael and the dragon depicted in Revelation 12 and 13.4 But most ancient traditions of primal conflict between chaos and order contained little suggestion of a final resolution of the conflict.
Zoroaster was apparently the first religious figure to describe time as linear, with a singular beginning and an equally singular end. Some scholars believe that he was also the first monotheist. In teachings based on his visionary experience, Zoroaster elevated Ahura Mazda, one of many deities in the ancient Iranian pantheon, to supreme status as the one and only preexistent god, the creator of all that is good in the universe. Opposing Ahura Mazda, actively seeking to destroy good, is Angra Mainyu. History is the manifest struggle between the primal forces of evil and good as personified by these two beings. Time in the Zoroastrian schema is neither static nor circular, but a dynamic process moving continually towards a final end. The struggle between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu takes place within "limited time." The predestined triumph of good will mark the end of limited time, and the beginning of a blissful eternity in a universe forever free of even the possibility of evil. The culminating events of history, according to Zoroaster, will include the appearance of a savior born of a virgin, resurrection of the dead, and divine judgment.5
By the sixth century BC, Zoroastrianism, which was initially persecuted as a threat to established polytheistic religion, had become the state religion of the Persian empire that ruled most of the peoples of the ancient Mideast, including the Jews. Many religious studies scholars see Zoroastrian influence in many aspects of Judaism as it coalesced in the post-exilic period. It is no coincidence that the ancient Zoroastrian account of a "great controversy" between the forces of good and evil has parallels with Seventh-day Adventist teachings.
Prophecy in Judaism
The oldest Hebrew prophetic tradition was not apocalyptic. Prophets like Elijah, Samuel, Nathan and the mysterious "sons of the prophets" are depicted as "men of God" who, through ecstatic trance states, gained special access to the divine. They served as messengers conveying instruction and warning to individuals as well as to the nation of Israel. Sometimes they acted as social reformers in opposition to wicked rulers. These early prophets, who appear throughout the historical narratives of Samuel, Kings, and, Chronicles, left no writings that have survived. The earliest extant prophetic writings date from after the division of ancient Israel into two kingdoms, and are primarily concerned with punishments visited on a wayward Israel in a time when God's supposedly chosen people repeatedly found themselves at the mercy of more powerful nations.6
After the death of Solomon about 926 BC, internal strife split Israel into northern and southern factions. By the end of the eighth century the northern kingdom of Israel had been overrun by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the Israelite ruling class deported to various parts of the Empire to be absorbed into the local population.7 A few decades later the southern kingdom, Judea, suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Neo-Babylonian king , Nebuchadnezzar.
In 587 BC Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple built by Solomon. The Judean social and intellectual elite along with their families were deported to Babylon to serve their new rulers. Israel's existence as an independent nation blessed by God had apparently come to an end. The first Hebrew apocalypse, contained in Ezekiel, dates from this time. In richly symbolic visions the prophet is shown that the national disaster was a divine chastisement for a people who had turned away from the one true God. But their troubles would soon come to an end, with a repentant Israel, "in the latter days," resurrected and a terrible vengeance visited upon its heathen enemies.8
The writer of Isaiah chapters 40-559 depicts the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, as God's "shepherd," "his anointed" (messiah)10 foreordained to deliver the exiles from their Babylonian captivity. The Northern Israelites who had been carried away by the Assyrians would return to join their southern kin in a reunited nation. A gloriously restored Israel and its God would thereby be vindicated in the eyes of all other nations.
This prophecy was based on what seemed to be promising developments. In 538 BC Cyrus, in the course of establishing an empire greater than all its predecessors , overthrew the Neo-Babylonians. Following the Persian imperial policy of allowing subject nations a high degree of autonomy, the Israelite exiles were allowed to return home with imperial funds allocated for rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. Many scholars believe this second exodus, as it is represented by Isaiah, marks the beginning of Judaism as a firmly monotheistic religion with no tolerance for the previously extensive polytheistic practices evidenced in biblical as well as archaeological data.
It seemed for a while as if God's chosen people would finally receive the reward that had long been promised them. But while the temple was rebuilt amid strife with polytheistic peasants who had not been deported by Nebuchadnezzar, the ten northern tribes failed to reappear as foretold, no other nation acknowledged the supremacy of Israel and its God, and the majority of the exiles chose to remain in Babylon which, contrary to prophetic predictions, was not laid waste by Cyrus. In addition, a number of other Jewish colonies were established outside of Palestine. Many Jews, in and out of the Holy Land, made compromises with the dominate culture. Far from becoming the prophesied center of the cosmos, Judea remained a tiny impoverished and powerless province in a vast empire ruled by idolaters. Yet its prophets continued to foretell a glorious future when God would rule from Jerusalem over an earth "full of the knowledge of the Lord" where "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid."11
About two hundred years after the fall of Babylon to the Persians, Alexander the Great defeated the Persians. Greek culture and colonization followed in the wake of Alexander's armies, with the boundaries of the Hellenistic world extended eastward all the way to India. After the early death of Alexander, his empire was divided between four continually quarreling dynasties of Greek descent. While Greek rulers, like the Persians before them, were for the most part tolerant of local customs, the inevitable intrusion of foreign rule and culture was widely resented by native peoples. This resentment found expression in many subjugated cultures via pseudonymous writings that claimed to have been written in ancient times to foretell future events which always featured overthrow of the alien oppressor. Egyptian prophecies of political emancipation were back dated to the reigns of pharaohs long since dead. A Persian prophecy foretelling the downfall of the foreign ruler was supposedly authored by a contemporary of Zoroaster. Jewish prophetic writings went beyond political liberation, depicting history as an ongoing manifestation of conflict between God's plan for his chosen people and evil opposing forces.. The present world would soon come to an end in a cosmic upheaval ushering in the eternal unopposed reign of God. The long suffering people of Israel at last be vindicated.12
Persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes
Meanwhile Judea struggled along as a vassal kingdom caught between rival Hellenistic dynasties, making and unmaking alliances in a desperate attempt to survive as a semi autonomous state. With the division of Alexander's empire, Judea initially came under the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty based in Egypt. Then in 198 BC, Antiochus the Great of the Syrian Seleucid dynasty wrestled control of Judea away from the Ptolemaics. Taxes were increased and temple treasures seized to pay for the cost of Antiochus' war. In 174 BC Antiochus IV Epiphanes gained the Seleucid throne through murderous intrigue, and created an even worse nightmare for the Jews.
Antiochus, nicknamed "Epimanes" or "the madman" by the Jews, broke with the usual Greek practice of noninterference with traditional religions by taking advantage of factions within the Jewish power structure that were friendly to Hellenistic culture. He deposed the hereditary high priest who presided over the temple in Jerusalem, replacing him with a Hellenized Jew who had bought the office. The new high priest built a Greek gymnasium where men, following a Greek custom that was an abomination to traditional Jews, exercised in the nude. Some Jews identified with the dominant culture, going so far as to attempt to reverse their circumcisions to blend in with Gentiles at the gymnasium. Others were outraged and rejoiced when false reports of Antiochus' death while campaigning in Egypt were circulated. Emboldened by the rumor, the deposed high priest attempted to regain power. Antiochus, who was issuing coins stamped with his image and the inscription Antiochus Theos Epiphanes - "Antiochus God made manifest," responded by pillaging Jerusalem Forty thousand Jews were said to have been slaughtered, and many more sold into slavery. The temple was plundered for its remaining treasures.
In 167 Antiochus was humiliated when Roman intervention forced him to give up his designs on Egypt, and seemingly took out his anger on the Jews. The Jewish religion was outlawed, the temple profaned, and the sacred scrolls destroyed. Jerusalem was burned with its city walls demolished. Many Jews managed to flee to the desert. Those who remained and refused to forsake their religion were killed or sold into slavery. Worst of all, the image of a pagan god was installed in the temple, and swine were sacrificed to it. This was the gravest crisis for Judaism since the Babylonian captivity and would not be matched until the Roman destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
While many Jews did give up their beliefs and unique identity, others chose to fight back. A revolt was led by a father and his five sons, members of a priestly family who fled Jerusalem after killing a Hellenized Jew who was performing a sacrifice on the pagan altar. One of the sons, Judas, nicknamed Maccabaeus - "The Hammer", proved to be an outstanding battlefield commander, and the revolt is remembered in history as the Maccabaean rising. Seemingly blessed by God, the Jews won one victory after another against the far stronger Seleucid state. In 164, three and a half years after its desecration, the temple was liberated and Jewish sacrifice restored. About the same time Antiochus died, apparently insane, in far off Persia. Descendants of the Maccabees, the Hasmonaeans, ruled Judea amid internal as well as external strife, with constantly shifting political alliances and compromises with Hellenism, until Pompey made it a Roman province in 63 BC.13
Daniel
Most Biblical scholars not bound to a literalist interpretation of the Bible, agree that the book of Daniel, which is of huge importance in Adventist eschatology, was written in its present form sometime around 167 BC as a response to Antiochus' persecution. By combining traditional, likely already extent, stories of faithfulness to Jewish practices during earlier persecution by the Babylonians with prophecies of better times to come, the writer of Daniel provided reassurance that the present time of trouble would soon come to an end. The faithful would receive their due reward, and their enemies would be destroyed.
This view of Daniel will come as news to most Seventh-day Adventists who, like many conservative Christians, have been taught that it was written by a man of that name who was, as depicted in the narratives of the book, a Jewish exile active in the Babylonian, Median, and Persian courts prior to the return to Jerusalem. In Adventist teaching, the visions of Daniel symbolically depict historical events from the time of the Babylonian captivity to the Second Coming of Christ, with an emphasis on those that will immediately preceed the culmination of history. This reading, however, does not hold up very well under scrutiny.
There are a number of compelling reasons for assigning a second century BC date to Daniel. The court narratives included in the book make many mistakes in recounting historical events, mistakes that someone active in the royal court, as the author of Daniel is said to have been, would have been unlikely to make. Daniel's accounts of the dynasties and empires with which the prophet is supposed to be officially associated differ from what is known from other sources, including other books of the Bible. The Medes, who Daniel has succeeding the Babylonians as a world empire, were actually contemporaneous with the Neo-Babylonian empire and were conquered by the Persians a decade before the fall of Babylon to the Persians. Darius the Mede, who Daniel represents as the conqueror of Babylon but is otherwise unknown to history, seems to be confused with Cyrus the Persian who actually overthrew both the Median and Neo-Babylonian empires. Daniel's apparent invention of Darius may represent an attempt to bring the account into harmony with Isaiah 13:17-19, 21:2 and Jeremiah 51:11 which predict that the Medes will destroy Babylon.
In Hebrew scriptures Daniel is put in the Hagiographa or "Writings" rather than with the Prophets. This seems to indicate a late date for Daniel, as Jewish tradition considers that the prophetic books closed in the fifth century BC with the composition of Malachi. The apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, written about 180 BC, contains a long section (chapters 44-50) in praise of "famous men" from Jewish history that does not include Daniel. However I Maccabees, composed about 100 BC, repeats much of that list with the addition of Daniel and the three youths in the fiery furnace, leading to the conclusion that these stories were likely added to Hebrew literature sometime after 180 BC.14
Other Jewish Apocalyptic Writings
While parts of I Enoch also seem to reflect the Antiochan persecution, the book is represented as the composition of Enoch, the antediluvian who, according to Genesis 5:21-24 "having walked with God, . . . was seen no more, because God had taken him away." I Enoch was well known in the centuries before and after Christ, and seems to have been regarded as scriptural by many in the early church. Although not included in the official canon of Hebrew scriptures as established towards the end of the first century AD, I Enoch was widely quoted by early Christian writers, including the author of Jude. Only in the fourth century, largely due to the influence of the Catholic fathers Jerome and Augustine, was it excluded from the canon of the Western Church. The Eastern Church, however, continued to hold it in high esteem for several more centuries. Before the discovery of eleven fragmentary manuscripts of I Enoch among the the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran, the oldest and still most complete manuscript was an Ethiopic translation made sometime between the fourth and sixth century AD for the Ethiopian Christian Church.
The mystical figure of Enoch also appears in the Book of Jubilees as a prophet to whom events preceding the Last Judgment were revealed. Jubilees claims to be a secret revelation given to Moses by angels on Mount Sinai. While the narrative is primarily a midrash or amplification of events from Creation through the Exodus, prophecies of an impending end are interwoven with accounts of the past. Events such as the Flood are represented as foreshadowing the destruction soon to come. Unlike I Enoch, which appears to be a compilation of works composed between the fourth century BC and the first century AD, Jubilees is regarded by many scholars as the work of a single author writing sometime between 175 and 140 BC. Jubilees was also revered by the Ethiopian Church, in whose Bible it still appears, and is known primarily through an Ethiopic translation. It too was included in the Qumran library, and is cited as authoritative in the Qumran sect's own writings.
I Enoch and Jubilees, more than any parts of the canonical Hebrew Scriptures, present a clear picture of a Last Judgment as the culminating event of world history. God's Law is represented as a universal, all embracing order by which the actions of angels as well as humans, Jew and Gentile alike, will be judged. This is something that goes well beyond the concept of the Law as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, but closely resembles ideas that would appear in Christian tradition.15 The Messiah, clearly a human being in earlier Hebrew writings, is depicted in 1 Enoch as a transcendent supernatural being who acts as the primary agent in the destruction of the wicked and subsequent purification of the earth. But as the "Son of Man" he is also in some mysterious way human.16
It is no accident that apocalyptic literature was included in the library of the Qumran group. The discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the collection found in caves near the ancient ruins of Qumran is popularly called, gave scholars a new window into Judaism as it existed in the inter testament period. While there continues to be debate over the nature of the community that collected and in some cases apparently authored the scrolls, most scholars see parallels with the Essenes, an ascetic group known to have been active in Judea at the time. The Qumran sect claimed to be the "remnant" of Israel. Their strict adherence to the Law led to separation from the Jerusalem religious establishment which in their eyes had compromised the purity of Judaism by making alliances with "the ungodly." The group was clearly apocalyptic in its expectation of a fast approaching end time when the "rule of righteousness" in the temple would be restored through the final triumph of "the sons of light "over "the sons of darkness." But, in a pattern that would be tragically repeated by many other apocalyptic groups from ancient to modern times, they came to a unexpected and disastrous end in 68 AD at the hands of the Roman army on its way to Jerusalem to begin the siege that would end in the destruction of the Temple.17
Jesus and Early Christian Apocalypticism
While they were contemporaries of the Qumran sect, there is no real evidence that either Jesus or his predecessor John the Baptist had any direct connection with the group. The exact nature of Jesus and the Jesus movement, as scholars have titled earliest Christianity, continues to be extensively debated by historians of religion. As seems to have been true from the very beginnings of recorded response to the enigmatic figure of Jesus,18 people tend to project their own preconceptions onto an image that historical documentation has left distressingly vague. Until recently the scholarly establishment viewed apocalyptic tradition with some disdain as a very minor, fringe element in Judeo-Christian tradition.
But the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, among other things, has brought about a shift in perception to the point that it is now widely recognized that "the apocalyptic communities of the last centuries B. C. were a major force in the complex matrix in which both Christianity and rabbinic Judaism were born. . . In (an) interval of more than five hundred years, Jewish apocalypticism was a mainstream of religious life as well as speculation. . . There can be no doubt that the apocalyptic movement was one of the ancestors of both Pharisaic Judaism and Jewish Christianity, as well as of the Gnostic syncretism that characterized both movements in the first century of the Common Era."19
As represented in the gospel accounts, Jesus' and John the Baptist's proclamation of a soon coming Kingdom is plainly apocalyptic in nature. The earliest extant Christian literature, the epistles of Paul, intermingle apocalyptic expectancies with concerns for the earthly well being of a rapidly expanding Christian community. The earliest written gospel of Mark, in the "little apocalypse" of the thirteenth chapter, describes a time of "distress such as never has been until now since the beginning of the world" when false messiahs will appear and "celestial powers will be shaken," all of which will lead up to the coming of the "Son of Man in clouds with great power and glory (to) gather his chosen from the four winds." This was all to happen while the first generation of Christians was still alive to be taken directly to heaven without tasting death.
But time went by with neither Jesus' return nor the end of the world occurring. Eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus began to age and die, perhaps giving impetus to the long delayed writing of the gospel narratives. The gulf between Christianity and its Jewish origins grew. After the destruction of the temple in AD 70, many Jewish sects, like the Essenes, disappeared as Judaism consolidated into a distinctly orthodox form. Other forms of Judaism, including those Christians who continued to identify themselves as Jewish, were denounced as heretics.
The Revelation of John
As Christianity, or "The Way" as its followers apparently referred to it,20 spread beyond Palestine, it began to attract official notice, and opposition. While the Jewish rebellions of the first and second century brought down the wrath of Rome on Jerusalem, Jews had long been officially recognized as monotheists exempt from the nominal acknowledgment of the Roman pantheon required of the Empire's subjects. As Jews, the earliest Christians could safely avoid making token sacrifices to pagan gods and the cult of the emperor. But as the gulf between Christianity and Judaism grew, Christians, with no official recognition of their monotheistic beliefs, lost this protection. While the date of the first organized persecution of Christians by the Romans is disputed by historians, 21 there was a well developed antagonism in place by the end of the first century.
Some scholars believe that parts of Revelation were written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, with the rest of the book completed by the end of the first century. Some think that it may originally have been a Jewish work that was revised by a Christian. Certainly many passages of Revelation are clearly lifted from Hebrew scripture and reworked to fit a Christian world view. In any case, Revelation as we have it depicts Rome as the enemy of God's people, the new spiritual remnant of Israel formed by the believers in Christ. God's cosmic order is repeatedly contrasted with the worldly and satanic rule of Rome which will shortly undertake a terrible persecution of the saints. As in the second century BC, when Daniel's Babylonian oppressors stood in for Antiochus, so in Revelation Rome as the antagonist of Christianity is represented by Babylon. Oppressed peoples often resort to coded language. Perhaps it was safer for the authors of Daniel and Revelation to substitute an enemy from the past for the all too present current foe. Romans would be unlikely to see any harm in obscure references to a long vanished nation. But Christians, still closely connected with their Jewish roots, would have immediately recognized what was really meant.22
Revelation describes the final struggle between God and Satan, with Satan and his earthly agent, Rome, doing their best to destroy those who resist the hegemony of evil. Fantastic beasts like those from the visions of Daniel represent the demonic foes, and the temporal course of events is described using enigmatic numbers again similar to those found in Daniel. In the end, of course, God prevails. The kingdom of Satan, "Babylon the Great," is finally and completely destroyed with "Death and Hades thrown into the lake of fire." In one of the most stirring passages to be found in scripture, the New Jerusalem is described as descending from heaven to an earth restored to Edenic splendor in which the righteous will dwell with God "foreve
. Even Jesus said," The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mk. 2:27). Moreover, He called Himself the "Lord of the Sabbath" (Lk. 6:5).
; 1 Cor. 16:2) to show that a new order had been erected with the resurrection of Christ (Jn. 20:1, 19).