Seventh-day Adventist belief breakdown: belief 12 of 28

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has 28 fundamental beliefs. I list the underlying unspoken beliefs whilst snarking as possible. Belief 12 is "The Church".

Intro info: All beliefs are from the official Seventh-day Adventist Church website, Adventist.org. https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/

Per their website, Adventists reserve the right to change or update beliefs.

Therefore, this page is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240127045827/https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/

Seventh-day Adventists refer to themselves as “SDA” or “Adventist” for short. My writings do too.

Links to all prior snarked beliefs are available at the bottom of this post.

Exhaustive source to debunk Adventist doctrine of pseudoscience Young Earth Creationism, and scholarly source showing Adventist prophetess Ellen White’s plagiarized “visions from god” sources, are also at bottom of this post.

On to Adventist belief 12 underlying assumptions and snark!

12. The Church

The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Translation: A nonSDA Christian may read this as Adventists believe in the “Universal Catholic Church”, a phrase in the ancient circa 400 CE Apostles’ Creed, used as creed by many different Christian churches. Folks wanting to go down that rabbit hole can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed

A typical Adventist has never encountered the Apostles’ Creed. By this belief, Adventists mean “the church is the humans who follow their conscience the best they know how, and if they follow their conscience 100% they will become Adventist”. By “humans who follow their conscience the best they know how”, Adventists mean “people who meet my definition of what a True Christian is, generally a decent human doing good and willing to talk to me politely about religion”.

This, of course, means The No True Scotsman fallacy is in play every damn time, except it's a “No True Christian” fallacy.

“No true Scotsman or appeal to purity is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a [prior] claim from a falsifying counterclaim by covertly modifying the initial claim. … The modification is signalled by the use of non-substantive rhetoric such as "true", "pure", "genuine", "authentic", "real", etc.”

Example of fallacy:

“Person A: ‘No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.’
Person B: ‘But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge.’
Person A: ‘But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.’”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

This is a big deal because Adventists therefore rule out every Christian they dislike as “Not A True Christian”, instead of accepting that a person who claims they're a Christian is a Christian.

Note this is a standard Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christian tactic. Also note that there really is no measure to totes prove someone is a Christian besides someone says they are a Christian.

Next, the unspoken underlying mythology: So there's a Thing that lives forever, made everything, knows everything, can do anything, loves humanity. Humans call this being “god”. Of all the gods believed in on planet earth, only the Protestant Christian god is the real god. God lives forever in a perfect utopia called “heaven”, along with his angels who help god’s purposes here on planet earth.

Per Adventist plagiarizing prophetess Ellen White, heaven is in Constellation Orion’s Belt: “…we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The Holy City will come down through that open space.” Source: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/28.326

This god has rules for how humans must live. Disobeying these rules is called “sin”.

God, for unspoken reasons, made an immortal being called Satan who rebelled against god. God knew Satan would rebel from the beginning and still made Satan, for unstated reasons. Satan claims god’s rules for how to live are wrong and unfair.

God kicked Satan out of heaven, and one third of the angels joined Satan in the rebellion. They are called demons.

About six thousand literal years ago, in exactly one actual week, god made a perfect deathless planet earth and two perfect immortal humans. The humans were vegetarian. All evidence of an old earth is from Satan.

(Read: Are your kids in Adventist education? They won't be taught the old earth evidence sciences. Not evolution, not astronomy, not paleontology, perhaps even taught, as I was, that dinosaurs are fakes from Satan to trick humans into not believing Young Earth Creationism.)

Satan tricked them the two humans to disobey god, so god made the “effects of sin” happen. That's all death, suffering, disease, and things like thistles too. Adventists teach their immortal, loving, all powerful god had zero other options. He had to put death and thistles onto planet earth because unspoken reasons.

Together god and Satan fight over where humans will go after god brings heaven to planet earth. Humans will either go to heaven, or they will go to Adventist hell (raised from the dead by god, then burned to death).

Satan and his demons hang out on planet earth and work to trick humans into doubting god and disobeying god’s rules.

Now god comes in thirds, called the Trinity, but is still one. Adventists decided to believe in the Trinity between 1910 and 1950. Before that they argued about it. The SDA plagiarizing prophetess Ellen White’s husband didn't believe in the Trinity. https://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/Trinity-in-SDA-History.pdf

Now, for unstated reasons, someone could die as punishment for all the sins of everyone in the world if they lived a perfect sinless life on planet earth. So 1/3 of god sacrificed himself to the other 2/3rds of god. This 1/3 of god was a human-god hybrid called Jesus who lived on planet earth circa 0-33CE. He rose from the dead and now lives in heaven in Orion’s Belt.

Oh, and there's a bunch of sinless immortal aliens, not angels, watching planet earth to see if Satan was correct to rebel.

“The worlds unfallen and the heavenly angels had watched with intense interest…” https://www.ellenwhite.info/books/ellen-g-white-book-desire-of-ages-da-74.htm

Even though Jesus sacrificed himself, and was killed by Romans, Satan actually killed Jesus and so now all the angels and the aliens know Satan is a murderer and Satan knows he will eventually be killed by god.

Humans can go to heaven by feeling sorry for sins they have committed, and mentally or verbally saying they accept Jesus’s death as punishment for their sins. This is called being “born again” and is a Protestant Christian requirement, not a Catholic Christian one.

Then those humans must change their ways, do their best to stop sinning, constantly tell god they're sorry for each new sin. Any time they are tempted and do not sin, it’s god working through them and not their efforts. In a similar way, deflecting compliments by saying “Praise god!” is condoned in Adventist circles. This undermines self-recognition of fucking hard work put into getting skills and busting addiction.

Besides the rules on how to live, present in only correct holy book on planet earth, the Protestant 66-book version of the Bible, God tells humans how to obey him by sending the 1/3 of god called the Holy Spirit to planet earth. Holy Spirit works as a conscience in all humans. So if a human feels guilt or shame for doing a thing, then it's a sin for them and they must stop doing it. This leads to religious scrupulosity, one of many mental issues Adventism does not address with “What to do if Jesusing and veganing does not cure the thing?” advice.

In continuity with the people of God in Old Testament times,

Translation: We mean the Jews, but we are not naming the Jews because unstated reasons. We Adventists are the new Jews.

Utterly-absolutely-definitely-wholly-unrelated to Adventists not naming Jews in their belief here, the Adventists collaborated with the Nazis in Germany and silenced published criticisms of Nazis in the USA. https://holocaust.projects.history.ucsb.edu/Research/Proseminar/corrieschroder.htm

we are called out from the world;

Translation: We new Jews are equally called by god and instead of having the sacrifices, the rituals, the feasts, and all that, we go to church on Saturday, spread the pseudoscience Young Earth Creationism, and tell the whole world that we are god’s last True End Times Church(TM).

Also remember that list of things that invite Satan from Belief 11? Things like syncopated music, dancing, Dungeons and Dragons, yoga? We Adventists are “called out from the world”, so don't do worldly shit like that.

and we join together for worship,

Translation: We go to church on Saturday, but no worries you can go to church Bible study on Friday night, Sabbath afternoon, and Wednesday nights with us too!

for fellowship,

Translation: Sometimes we go on hikes, picnics, or read Ellen White our plagiariarizing prophetess’s writings together too.

for instruction in the Word,

Translation: We will use cherry-picked Bible verses to tell you how to live.

for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper,

Translation: Every three months, we adults put the young unbaptized members of the church in Sabbath School class for longer and we adults and baptized kids wash each other’s feet. We pretend this is not awkward.

Then we read the story of Jesus’s last supper as we serve Welch’s grape juice in little bitty cups along with whole wheat pie crust crackers made following something like this recipe. It is nearly identical to the one I was taught shortly after my baptism:

Note: The crackers are tasty and I always wanted more than only one. I was very good and only ever sneaked two at most. That said, the crackers are not tasty enough for me to be bothered to make some.

for service to humanity,

Translation: So here’s one way Adventists attract and keep very good, very caring, very loving humans. By service to humanity. And this also attracts a great deal of business-minded humans and outright lying grifters (read: Young Earth Creationism schills, unqualified folks larping as other things like nurse anesthetist Ron Wyatt who larped as an archeologist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyatt) who know a good money-making tax-free deal with a huge damn set of credulous humans when they see it. Adventists have many, many outreach ministries.

Most famous is Adventist Development and Relief Agency, or ADRA. Per the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, ADRA is “a humanitarian agency operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the purpose of providing individual and community development and disaster relief.”

Adventists run billion-dollar hospital organizations. In local areas, Adventists volunteer with charities, organize their own clothing pantries, create food pantries, feed the homeless, all sorts of things.

These are good people doing real tangible good in the world. These are also money hungry medical businesses happy to send you to debt collectors over outrageous medical bills.

and for the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. 

Translation: For a true believing Adventist, this is why they do the good things. Adventists are taught that they have God’s Last True Truth, and everyone in the world must hear it. They translate Jesus Great Commission in Matthew 24:14 this way:

“And this gospel of the kingdom” = “The Seventh-day Adventist message”

“shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations;” = “shall be preached by Adventists to every living human”

“and then shall the end come.” = “And then End Times, and the Sunday Law, and The Time of Trouble shall come, and then god will bring heaven down to earth from Orion’s Belt, and then everyone will be bodily resurrected, and then the born again humans will go to heaven immortal, and the rest will be burned to death by god”.

The deepest unspoken belief here: Adventists are taught they themselves, personally, can make god come back to earth sooner if they go tell more people about Adventism. This teaching is used to coerce humans into doing witnessing they don't want to do, to push humans who are burned out from volunteering in SDA service roles to push themselves even harder, to break boundaries, to distribute tracts, etc.

The church derives its authority from Christ, who is the incarnate Word revealed in the Scriptures.

Translation: We Adventists are authoritarian and we claim that we get this authority to be authoritarian from the 1/3 of god called Christ. He’s called “the Word” in the beginning of the book of John so we put those words here to remind the biblically knowledgeable about that.

Also our claiming authority from Jesus is nothing at all like the Catholic Church claiming its authority from Jesus giving Peter authority. Nope.

Also because we are definitely god’s Last Truth and we have authoritarian authority from Jesus, if you leave Adventism you are rejecting god’s Truth. So if you don't go back to Adventism, you'll go to Adventist hell (resurrected, then burned to death).

The church is God’s family; adopted by Him as children, its members live on the basis of the new covenant. 

Unspoken underlying beliefs: Here Adventists are using broad vague pretty language to appeal to folks who believe in a universal Christian Church. The themes of “adoption” and “new covenant” are biblical. The New Testament speaks how born again Christians are adopted into the family of god.

Adventists are picky choosy about the new covenant thing though. They teach some Old Testament laws like “don't eat pork” still apply.

Hymns like “I’m So Glad I’m A Part of the Family of God” celebrate the family part of church.

And just like it is a massive red flag that you'll be taken for granted and overworked when any job tells you it “treats you like family”, this statement is a red flag too. Adventism uses its “We are a family!” to silence humans rightfully calling out its institutional injustice, cruelty, scapegoating, protecting predators.

The church is the body of Christ, a community of faith of which Christ Himself is the Head. The church is the bride for whom Christ died that He might sanctify and cleanse her. 

Translation: This is literally just more paraphrasing Bible themes. Good humans may see this as beautiful imagery. Authoritarian humans, mainly Adventist men in leadership roles, will use these words to justify telling other humans how to live.

Humans, like me, who were sexually assaulted and therefore “not pure” might find the “sanctify and cleanse her” phrase reminiscent of Purity Culture teachings of how any sexual contact makes someone “impure”.

At His return in triumph, He will present her to Himself a glorious church, the faithful of all the ages, the purchase of His blood, not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish. 

Unspoken underlying beliefs: After all humans on planet earth have heard about Adventism, then the Catholic Church will team up with Sunday-keeping Protestant Americans to make a law that all humans must go to church on Sunday. That is the Sunday Law. Then they'll make a law that all folks going to church on Saturday must be killed. Also Adventists will be medieval tortured during this time, too. It's the Time of Trouble. Soon after that, God will bring heaven from Orion’s Belt to planet earth, resurrect all humans, take make the born again ones immortal and bring them to heaven. Then in his great mercy he will burn the not-born-again ones to death.

There will be a time during the Time of Trouble when the 1/3 of god called the Holy Spirit will leave planet earth, leaving humans here unable to be born again and unable to tell god they're sorry for sin. So Adventists have to be perfectly sinless during that time, which means “not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish” which is also a Bible verse phrase.

(Gen. 12:1-3; Exod. 19:3-7; Matt. 16:13-20; 18:18; 28:19, 20; Acts 2:38-42; 7:38; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:22, 23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11; 5:23-27; Col. 1:17, 18; 1 Peter 2:9.)

This is the virtue signaling list of Bible verses that can be mishmashed together to possibly prove these ideas. Sinless aliens on other worlds not included, that was plagiarizing prophetess Ellen White’s probably plagiarized idea.

End belief 12 snark.

Why The Gentle Author calls Ellen Gould White “the Adventist plagiarizing prophetess”: Test The Prophet first defines “plagiarism” using sources from the American Victorian Era. He shows original books published in the Victorian Era that Ellen White plagiarized from. Then he shows the these writings in Ellen White’s books, where she claims they were her visions from god. https://www.youtube.com/@TesttheProphet

Why The Gentle Author says Young Earth Creationism is pseudoscience: One can find an exhaustive list of Young Earth Creationism claims debunked here. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

I was taught about 80% of these claims as fact by the Adventist church. It continues to spread this pseudoscience as “real science” to thousands of SDA students. This hamstrings a students’ knowledge of reliable sources, critical thinking, value of peer-reviewed studies, and primes one to view anecdotes and conspiracy theories as valid “factual evidence”. This contributes to one falling for other pseudoscience, multi-level marketing scams, and actively harming themselves and their children by anti-vaccine and anti-science actions.

All prior Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, snarked:

Belief 1, “Holy Scriptures”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief

Belief 2, “The Trinity”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-91e

Belief 3, “God the Father”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-961

Belief 4, “God the Son”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-0d8

Belief 5, “God the Holy Spirit”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown

Belief 6, “Creation”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-21d

Belief 7, “Nature of Humanity”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-e2c

Belief 8, “The Great Controversy”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-6db

Belief 9, “The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-2d7

Belief 10, “The Experience of Salvation”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-562

Belief 11, “Growing In Christ”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown-e4d