Ex-Seventh-day Adventist Research
Duane McClearn

The beginning of a literature review
The research team investigating those who have already disaffiliated from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, are in the process of doing so, or are considering doing so, has several goals. Among other things, we want to understand what factors lead to a desire to disaffiliate, how the process takes place, what stresses (emotional, relationship, financial) the process incurs, and what the psychological consequences of having been a member and then becoming disaffiliated are. As part of our review of relevant literature, we have gathered together a substantial list of references that hit on these themes. Research on the topic of ex-affiliation has been relatively far-ranging, although most has confined itself to the Christian experience. Certain fundamentalist Christian groups have been highlighted to a degree, such as the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. A glaring omission has been research on the Seventh-day Adventists. Our own research aims to fill this gap, at least, in some small way.

Below is a listing of some of the literature we are reading. Please contact us via email if you have suggestions for additional readings, especially from academic sources looking at the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Altemeyer, B. & Hunsberger, B. (1997). Amazing Conversions: Why Some Turn to Faith an Others Abandon Religion. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Avance, R. (2013). Seeing the light: Mormon conversion and deconversion narratives in off- and online worlds. Journal of Media and Religion, 12 (1), 16-24.

Bahr, H. M.& Albrecht, S. L. (1989). Strangers once more: Patterns of disaffiliation from Mormonism. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28 (2), 180-200.

Brooks, E. M. (2020). The disenchanted self: Anthropological notes on existential distress and ontological insecurity among ex-Mormons in Utah. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 44, 193-213.

Bruce, S. (2011). Secularization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bullivant, S. (2022). Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Burge, R. P. (2021). The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Cheong, P. H. & Fisk, M. (2013). Leaving church: Resisting authority and community in online-offline dimensions. Selected Papers in Internet Research, 14, 1-4.

Cottee, S. (2015). The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam. London: Hurst & Co.

Davidman, L. (2015). Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Downie, A. (2022). Christian shame and religious trauma. Religions, 13 (10) 925

Fazzino, L. L. (2014). Leaving the church behind: Applying a deconversion perspective to Evangelical exit narratives. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 29 (2) 249-266.

Hadaway, C. K. (1989). Identifying American apostates. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: 28 (2) 201-215.

Hall, E. D. (2017). The process of family member marginalization: Turning points experienced by “black sheep.” Personal Relationships, 24, 491-512.

Hinderaker, A., & O’Connor. (2015). The long road out: Exit stories from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Communication Studies, 66 (5), 509-527.

Inglehart, R. F. (2020). Giving up on God: The global decline of religion. Foreign Affairs, 99 (5) 110-118.

Inglehart, R. F. (2021). Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing It, and What Comes Next? New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Levin, J., Bradshaw, M. Johnson, B. R., & Stark, R. (2022). Are religious “nones” really not religious?: Revisiting Glenn, three decades later. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, 18, 1-29.

Lim, C., MacGregor, C. A., & Putnam, R. D. (2010). Secular and liminal: Discovering heterogeneity among religious nones. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 49 (4) 596-619.

Nica, A. A. (2020). Leaving my religion: How ex-fundamentalists reconstruct identity related to well-being. Journal of Religion and Health, 59, 2120-2134.

Ormsbee, J. T. (2020). ‘Like a cord snapping’: Toward a grounded theory of how devout Mormons leave the LDS church. Critical Research on Religion, 8 (3) 297-317.

Ransom, H. J., Monk, R. L., Qureshi., A, & Helm, D. (2021). Life after death: Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, identity transition and recovery. Pastoral Psychology, 70, 53-69.

Ransom, H. J. Monk, R. L., & Helm, D. (2022). Grieving the living: The social death of former Jehovah’s Witness. Journal of Religion and Health, 61, 2458-2480.

Scheitle, C. P., & Adamczyk. (2010). High-cost religion, religious switching, and health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51 (3) 325-342.

Suh, D. & Russell, R. (2015). Non-affiliation, non-denominationalism, religious switching, and denominational switching: Longitudinal analysis of the effects on religiosity. Review of Religious Research, 57, 25-41.

Turpin, H. (2022). Unholy Catholic Ireland. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Wilkins-Laflamme, S. (2015). How unreligious are the religious “nones”? Religious dynamics of the unaffiliated in Canada. The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 40 (4) 477-500

Worwood, J., Scharp, K. M., & Phillips, K. E. (2020). “I don’t want to have a weird relationship with you, so I’m trying”: Relational turning points and trajectories of ex-member children and their member parents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Journal of Family Communications, 20 (4), 327-344.

Zuckerman, P. (ed.) (2010). Atheism and Secularity: Volume 1. Issues, Concepts, and Definitions. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Zuckerman, P. (ed.) (2010). Atheism and Secularity: Volume 2. Global Expressions. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Zuckerman, P.  (2012). Faith No More. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Zuckerman, P. (2014). Living the Secular Life. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Zuckerman, P., Galen, Luke, W., & Pasquale, F. L. (2016). The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Zuckerman, P. (2019). What It Means to Be Moral. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.

Zuckerman, P. (2020). Society Without God. New York: NYU Press.

The Survey: Some Questions and Answers

Our research team made an internet survey available to interested former Seventh-day Adventists and current members strongly considering leaving the denomination. Well over a thousand respondents from around the world filled out the survey. Below is a quick glance at our methods and results.

Q: What was the major reason for our survey?

A: Actually, the survey had two major purposes. One was to give the respondents an opportunity to voice their experiences within, and concerns about, the Adventist Church. In this sense, we hoped it would act as a service to the many former Adventists who feel burdened, emotionally or otherwise, by their time associated with the church.

A second purpose was the research one. Among other things, we wanted to gain insight into the reasons that members leave a fundamentalist Christian denomination (the Seventh-day Adventists, in specific), the characteristics of those who leave compared to those who do not, the psychological harms that they feel that experience in the church may have caused them, ramifications of leaving (including relief, regret, nostalgia). We chose the Seventh-day Adventist Church because so little research has so far been done on its former members, as opposed to similar fundamentalist churches, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Our goals include a peer reviewed research article in a major national academic journal and at least one public scholarship article.

Q: What are the major takeaways from the research?

Although yet still in the preliminary stages of analysis, we have gleaned several findings from our data. Those respondents who left the Adventists, not surprisingly, were very critical of the church. Large proportions felt that it did psychological harm to them as they were in the organization and feel that they still suffer after having gotten out. Many are currently (at the time of filling out the survey) undergoing psychological therapy or are members of ex-Seventh-day Adventist support groups. A majority feels that the church fosters a stunting of cognitive development. Similarly, a majority indicates that the Adventist church is a cult and has a negative impact on the world. As well, a majority feels that the Adventist church, with its stress on the incipient Second Coming of Christ, promotes apathy among its members on such issues as environmental degradation and social justice.

Large percentages of our respondents became more politically liberal after leaving the Adventist church. Large numbers became atheists or agnostics. Many expressed gratitude (sometimes at great length and in very heartfelt ways) at being able to have their voice heard about their experiences in the church.

Psychological and sexual abuse is endemic in the church with females more likely to be victimized. There is frustration that little of substance is being done within the church to address abuse.

Q: What are some political implications of our findings?

A major finding was the liberal political tilt in the respondents. The current flight from the Seventh-day Adventists would seem to be a part of a larger trend in the USA away from organized religion in general. Polls have shown that the proportion of Americans who are atheists, agnostics, and “of no particular religion” are growing dramatically. Those subscribing to Christianity are falling as a percentage of Americans. To the extent that the former Adventists of our survey represent this secularizing trend, then we might predict a more politically liberal electorate as time goes on. This, of course, could have major ramifications in elections.

Q:  Why did we ask the particular questions that we included in our survey?

Our questions were a combination of the quantitative and qualitative format. The quantitative items asked a question that could be answered on a one-to-five scale. These questions are easily subjected to statistical analysis. The qualitative items were open-ended questions. These allowed the respondents to answer as much as they felt comfortable in doing.

The particular questions we asked were designed, among other things, to determine the reasons for members’ dissatisfaction with the Seventh-day Adventists, possible abuses within the system, the intellectual and emotional environment of the organization, the impact of getting one’s education within the SDA structure, and the consequences of leaving.

Q:  Can our results be generalized to other fundamentalist denominations, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Basically, yes. We feel that the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Seventh-day Adventists are alike in many ways; most importantly, they are fundamentalist denominations. Many “mainstream” American denominations consider them extreme or even fringe groups.

The sorts of experiences that our respondents relate and the psychological distress that they suffer are very consistent with those shown by research into ex-Mormons and ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

Morality and Religion?

 

A moral life
Many is the time that I have read or heard it said by religious people that a belief in God is necessary to lead a moral life. If they are Christians, they may very well add that adherence to Christianity per se is necessary to be moral, or at least to enter heaven when the time comes. Without belief in God and religious rules as a guide, what would prevent a non-believer from giving in to every base and disgusting urge? Wouldn’t every atheist be a murderer and rapist? Without God, why not? Or so the thinking goes. Noted evangelist Benny Hinn said, “Do you know that every unbeliever is filled with a demon spirit?” Conservative Christian commentator and author Bill O’Reilly noted that when a society ceases living a religious life, “under God,” it will degenerate into anarchy and crime. Jewish author Dennis Prager has opined, “No God, no moral society.”  Many other spokespeople for religion echo this view, as do a large percentage of Americans (according to a recent poll), with 53% agreeing with the notion that a person must believe in God to be moral.

Let’s turn to Seventh-day Adventism and the notion of end-times. One of this denomination’s foundational beliefs is the imminent Second Coming (advent) of Jesus Christ. William Miller, a lay Baptist preacher predicted in the 1830s and early 1840s that Jesus would return to Earth in 1844. The failure of that prediction caused much bewilderment and dismay among Miller’s followers, so much so that they referred to this (non)event as “The Great Disappointment.” Over the years several denominations arose from the Millerites, including Seventh-day Adventists.

One might well ask, “If a person believes that the world will end any day now, and the Final Judgment will be upon us, what is the point of attending to long-term worldly problems?” It takes a lot of planning to come up with solutions to endemic disease, poverty, environmental degradation, racial discrimination, crime, and so on. Is it worth spending time working on long-range solutions if we are living in the end-times?

And to circle back to the issue of morality, isn’t taking care of these problems—racial discrimination, poverty, crime, etc.—what being moral is all about? That, presumably, is at least partially what the Christian pundits listed above are thinking about when they consider a society lacking in morality. So, while those pundits are worried about wayward atheists, maybe Christians who concern themselves with the end-times being nigh are the ones neglecting their fellow humans, i.e., acting in an immoral manner.

Relevant survey results
There are two questions on our Seventh-day Adventist survey that specifically address the issue of how the teachings of end-times affects members’ opinions of current worldly concerns.

Question 35 poses, “How do you think Adventist teachings about end-times impact most believers’ opinions related to the climate crisis and other environmental concerns?”

Responses¹ were:

End-times teachings perpetuate an indifference regarding the climate crisis and other environmental concerns.             77.5%

End-times teachings have a neutral impact regarding the climate crisis and other environmental concerns.             13.7%

End-times teachings generate greater concern regarding the climate crisis and other environmental concerns.               8.8%

 

 

Here are just a few comments offered by our respondents supporting these data:

“SDAs have always had the attitude that the Lord is coming soon so spend your time evangelizing rather than worrying about the climate or environment.”

“If you put all your belief eggs in the “Jesus coming soon” basket, you don’t think you’re going to be around to grapple with the effects of climate change. To believe otherwise would seem to be a denial of Adventism.” 

“I have never in my life met an Adventist who believed climate change was real. They believe this is some government ploy to eventually enact the ‘Sunday law'”.

Question 36 asks, “How do you think Adventist teaching about end-times impact most believers’ opinions related to social justice issues like racism and women’s rights?”

Responses were:

End-times teachings perpetuate an indifference related to social justice issues like racism and women’s rights.            64.2%

End-times teachings have a neutral impact related to social justice issues like racism and women’s rights.                           26.6%

End-times teachings generate greater concern related to social justice issues like racism and women’s rights.                                9.2%

Again, here are comments illustrating this perspective, the first one particularly passionate:

“‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.’ Sentiments/lines like this perpetuate this indifference. Why would we take care of the planet, fight for rights- we are going to go live in heaven and the earth will be made new. ‘It’s supposed to ‘fall apart’ and ‘blow-up’ these are signs of the last days, this is good news that Jesus is coming again.’ Bullshit like this!”

“Most believers ignore issues and focus on “present truth” rather than social, political, and racial issues.”

“I disagree with the choice I chose. I do not thing end-times teachings perpetuate indifference toward racism and women’s rights. I think it UNDERGIRDS and FUELS abuse and mistreatment toward people in general, especially those who are culturally vulnerable such as POC claiming mistreatment, women — all women, and queer people — all queer people.”

This last statement is particularly damning and indicates immoral behavior is ‘fueled’ by the Adventist church. The majority of respondents indicate that Adventist teachings foster an indifference to environmental and social justice issues— current-day concerns requiring long-term solutions. If we look at caring about social injustice and environmental problems as issues of morality, which it is hard to imagine they are not, then these ex-SDA members are essentially saying (I my opinion) that their former church was encouraging them to take an immoral stance. They were being taught not to bother about these worldly matters.

The Second Coming
So, the Second Coming is imminent. But Christians have been saying it’s ‘imminent’ for 2,000 years. William Miller said it would occur in 1844. Jehovah’s Witnesses stated with certainty that it would occur in 1975. What’s to say that insofar as Jesus has put things off for so long already, he won’t wait another thousand years or more? (This is assuming that Christianity is true in the first place.) In the meantime, people are suffering, the planet is degrading. And we should do nothing because Jesus will return any day now, like religious leaders promise he is going to do for the last many hundred years? How can this be moral?

As I have noted in an earlier post, more and more Americans over the past decades have been turning away from religion or not being raised in religion to begin with. The category called “nones,” which includes those who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (yet who may still be religious or spiritual in some way), as well as agnostics and atheists, has been rising dramatically in numbers in recent decades. The percentage of such Americans was trivial until the early 1990s. Then, about 1992, things really started to change. A combination of data from the General Social Survey and the Pew Research Center for the next many years (until the present, essentially), shows a huge uptick in those turning away from the dominant religion of the USA, i.e., Christianity. And they were not turning to other religions, the data shows.

Do the data bear out the ‘you must have religion to be moral’ argument?
If all the doom-and-gloom prognosticators behind the pulpits were correct about the consequences of turning away from God (generally) or Christianity (specifically)—the murder, rape, and general running amok– then surely we would expect the decline in adherence to Christianity in this country to be reflected in rising crime numbers. That is, the much ballyhooed relationship between atheism and crime should be clearly visible in statistics on crime.

So let’s take a look. In 1991, the murder rate per 100,000 people in the USA was 9.8. That is, 9.8, or almost 10 of every 100,000 Americans, were murdered. Or, if you prefer to think on the millions level, that’s about 100 per million. In absolute numbers, it was about 25,000 Americans.

The following year, 1992, was the start of something big that nobody predicted. The murder rate decreased to 9.3 per 100,000. The decreases continued year by year (with one exception) throughout the 1990s, so that by the year 2000, the murder rate in the USA stood at 5.5 per 100,000. This represented 16,000 Americans. Thus, throughout the 1990s the murder rate in this country was cut almost in half. This was indeed a spectacularly positive turn of events.

And it wasn’t just the crime of murder. The same pattern held true for attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape, and other violent crimes. Incidentally, the numbers for these trends all come from the Uniform Crime Report produced annually by the FBI. Another source, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), has generated its own annual reports, which concur with the FBI results, with the exception that the NCVS doesn’t collect information about murder. This huge decrease in the rate of crime during the 1990s in America is referred to by criminologists and others who study crime patterns as the Great American Crime Decline. Its causes are debated, but the fact that it occurred is agreed upon.

Beyond 2000, murder and other crime rates fluctuated somewhat, but by 2014 the murder rate stood at 4.5 per 100,000. This was a 51-year low, not seen since the 1963 rate of 4.6 per 100,000.

So what can we say about religiosity, in particular adherence to Christianity, and crime, especially in this country? Well, it would seem very difficult to argue that religiosity is a necessary bulwark against murder, rape, and the like. Just as Americans began to turn away from religion in large numbers (starting about 1992), serious crime started taking a big plunge. If anything, what the religious leaders spoke about the consequences of turning away from Christianity have been the exact opposite of what they were predicting.

Incidentally, the Great American Crime Decline coincided with the presidency of Bill Clinton, whom Christian conservatives derided as soft on crime and weak on Christian morals. The year 2014, the 51-year low in the murder rate, was during the administration of Barack Obama, whom Christian conservatives castigated for being morally weak, non-Christian, Muslim, and so on.

More on crime and religion
A quick look at the religiosity of states is also instructive. The Bible Belt is rightfully known for its high percentage of citizens who worship God, attend church, and manifest other signs of religiosity. The states that are considered to be within the Bible Belt may be disputed, but I provide here a list that almost everyone would agree on, along with homicide rates for the year 2021 (according to the Centers for Disease Control).

 

Homicide Rate

Alabama                       15.9

Arkansas                       11.7

Georgia                        11.4

Kentucky                      9.6

Louisiana                      21.3

Mississippi                    23.7

Missouri                       12.4

North Carolina                9.7

Oklahoma                       8.9

South Carolina              13.4

Tennessee                    12.2

 

By comparison, let’s take a look at the states that scored the highest in irreligiosity (being defined much as nones  described above), according to a Pew Research poll, along with their homicide rates.

Homicide Rate

Massachusetts              2.3

New Hampshire              0

Vermont                         0

Washington                  4.5

 

Perhaps you have noticed something remarkable. Every state in the Bible Belt has a homicide rate that is higher (often much higher) than that of every one of the most irreligious states. The Bible Belt states tend, in fact, to have the highest murder rates in the US. Of course, there is much that goes into the reasons for a state’s murder rate, but it nonetheless should give a thinking Christian pause that Bible Belt states are so flush with murder compared to irreligious states.

What is to be said of all this? I think a point could be made that the Christian pundits and preachers are ignorant of the facts—that non-religious people actually are not, on average, committing crimes at high levels, that being steeped in Christian doctrine doesn’t preclude people from committing felonies. According to the Christian religionists, the results should be strikingly obvious: the non-believers should be committing crimes in a grossly disproportionate manner compared to the religious, and as the nation becomes more secular, it should be having hugely more amounts of crime. But, actually, the opposite is true. It would seem that atheists are not running wild in the streets as pessimistic preachers would have us believe. And in some cases, such as the teaching of end-times, religion may lead to immoral behavior.

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¹These are the responses from the English version of the survey only. Our final report will aggregate the data from all versions.

Critical Thinking, the Intellect, and Religion

 

A personal story
I have a friend, an atheist, who was raised by fundamentalist Christian parents. Over the past several years she has regaled me with many stories of her upbringing. She told me that her parents believed that everything written in the Bible was true exactly as written, that, of course, being one of the defining characteristics of Christian fundamentalism. She said her parents told her that a specific passage of the Bible implies that the value for pi is 3. Exactly 3. She argued that that is obviously false, that all math textbooks give it as something like 3.1416 (the digits actually extend many hundreds of places beyond 3.14159, so books tend to round up). Her parents claimed that all the math textbooks were wrong. She said that she could demonstrate right in front of them that pi was not exactly 3 with a round plate and a piece of string. They declined the offer. If the Bible told them 3, then it was 3.

When she announced that she was enrolling in college, they worried what effect all that education would have on her, that it might cause her to question her faith. When after a few years, she announced that she decided to go to graduate school (in psychology), they worried all the more. By that point she had already made the switch to atheism, but had not made the decision explicit to them.

This personal story demonstrates the very real conflict in the minds of many—between reason (along with logic, knowledge, and science), on the one hand, and faith, which is essentially holding a belief in the absence (or in spite) of logic, knowledge, and science, on the other.

Martin Luther, the early-16th century German priest and theologian whose beliefs formed the foundation for Lutheranism, put the issue bluntly:

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

 

Our data
That brings us to ex-Seventh-day Adventists and the survey. Question 37 asks: “To what extent do you feel that your critical thinking skills (e.g., awareness of scientific knowledge) were diminished while a member of the SDA?”

A whopping 44% of respondents answered, “A great deal,” the most extreme choice. A further 17% answered, “A lot,” the second most extreme, while 14% indicated, “A moderate amount.” Only 11% said “A little” and 14% said, “None.”

Thus, 75% of the respondents (or, three quarters of the total, which was more than 950 individuals at the time that the percentages were extracted) indicated that being in the SDA diminished their critical thinking abilities at least to a moderate extent.

Some context
A research study is instructive here. A team of psychologists was interested in determining the effect that religious (Christian) instruction had on the critical thinking abilities of children. In this particular study, the subjects were 5- and 6-year-olds and the task set before them was to see how well they could determine fact from fiction in a series of stories. The most relevant point for our purposes is that children who attended church or who went to parochial school, or both, were significantly more likely than those children who did not (the secular kids) to consider stories with elements of magic to be realistic. The researchers posited that exposure to accounts of supernatural beings (God, angels, etc.) and supernatural activities (miracles, etc.), as one would normally encounter in religious settings, dampen children’s critical thinking abilities and make them more prone to errors of reality testing in the real world.

In fact, many studies have been conducted on the relationship between cognitive abilities and religiosity. The general finding is a negative correlation: that is, more intelligent people are less likely to be religious. People with higher cognitive ability, better grades in school, and higher educational attainment are all less likely to endorse God-beliefs. The most prominent scientists in America are very high in atheism. States in the US with high educational attainment, on average, tend to be less religious.

There is, of course, a cause-and-effect question to be answered. Does low cognitive ability lead to a predisposition to believe in religious teachings, or does immersion in a religion lead to poorer than normal cognitive development? Many researchers would argue that individuals who are lacking in critical thinking skills by nature are more prone to illogical, supernatural religious messages. So people low in intelligence would be ready-made customers for religions. On the other hand, many researchers argue that a steady indoctrination in a religion makes an individual less able to think critically in general. This view is supported by the study on the children asked about stories containing magic, as well as the ex-SDA members responding to Question 37 on the survey. Of course, these two options need not be mutually exclusive. Personally, I believe both are true. That is, people of naturally lower intelligence and critical thinking ability are more susceptible to religious indoctrination and people who are subjected to religious teaching will tend to suffer a decline in critical thinking skills.

More questions
Where do some of the lapses in critical thinking in combination with a literal interpretation of the Bible lead? One venue is Flat Earth belief. The Flat Earth Society was founded in the early 1800s in England, by Samuel Birley Rowbotham. He contended that by a literal interpretation of the Bible he could deduce that the Earth was a flat disk. Further, the sun, moon, planets, and stars were only a few hundred miles from Earth.

Of course, scientists would argue otherwise. The Earth is a somewhat misshapen sphere, the sun is 93,000,000 miles away, and so on. But the Flat Earth Society was not deterred. It maintained its set of beliefs in the face of all evidence and reason. Various flat Earth societies came and went. There is still at least one today, making the same claims, against all science and reason, still based on a literal reading of the Bible.

In the 1800s clergyman James Ussher calculated that the Earth was created exactly in the year 4004 B.C. His source was the Bible. He made a careful reading of names and ages lived and so on to come to his conclusion. The idea of the Earth being a very new planet survives in the minds of Young Earth Creationists, who estimate the Earth’s age at 6,000 to 10,000 years. They say that the Earth and all its lifeforms were created by the acts of the Abrahamic God in the first few days of this period. Of course, scientists who study such things disagree. Modern estimate put the Earth age at about 4.5 billion years. This is about 500,000 times older than what the New Earth Creationists would have it. Still, the Young Earth Creationists, and other Fundamentalist Christians, start with a literal reading of the Bible and go from there.

Of course, besides the shape of the Earth, the distance of the stars and the planets from the Earth, and the age of the Earth (and the value of pi), there are numerous other nonsensical things that a literal reading of the Bible or religious instruction would have one believe. Prominent atheist Seth Andrews, himself a former devout Christian for decades, writes about trying for years to explain his religious beliefs—the inconsistencies, the illogic, the multiple weird leaps of faith. The title is instructive: “Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot.” Other ex-Christians have come forward with the same sort of confession.

Our respondents
Incidentally, Question 55 on the survey asked, “What is your highest level of formal education?” The responses were:

High school                                          14.0%

Bachelor’s degree                                 45.8%

Master’s degree                                    23.3%

PhD or other post-graduate degree        17.0%

According to the US Census Bureau, for the year 2018 the percentage of Americans over the age of 25 with a PhD or other post-graduate degree was 7.7. The number for our survey sample was 17%, disproportionately higher than the national average. I don’t know what the average educational attainment for SDA members is (that is, those who stay affiliated), but I would dare to say that the ex-SDA members who answered our survey are better educated (and more intelligent) than those who remain. So I am led to wonder if those who decide to leave have the cognitive skills to see through what they perceive as the illogical and anti-scientific messages of the SDA church and leave behind those of, on average, lesser cognitive ability.

 

References
Andrews, Seth. (2022). Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot. Outskirts Press

Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2015). Psychological Perspectives on Religion and Religiosity. New York: Routledge Press.

Zmigrod, L. et al. (2019). Cognitive flexibility and religious disbelief. Psychological Research. 83: 1749-1759.

 

 

Leaving the Church: An Individual Story

 

Many leave their faith home
Many people, for whatever set of reasons, leave their church. A substantial subset of those also leave their faith, that is, they become atheists or, at least, agnostics. Many who have abandoned their church no doubt wonder about the experiences of others who have quit. Such an individual may ask, Did they suffer the same feelings of oppression, doubt, and skepticism that I felt? And what of those who remain? Do they experience these feelings and suppress them? Or do they not experience them at all? How many who remain in the church are on the verge of leaving? How many are just paying lip service when they go through all the rituals and so forth? How many remain for fear of being stigmatized if they show signs of non-conformity to the group? What are the church leaders thinking and doing behind closed doors? Answers to these questions are difficult to come by.

Fortunately, a leading Christian evangelist has given insight into one church, or more properly movement, the evangelical movement in the United States. For those who don’t know, evangelical Christianity embraces, among other things, the ideas of biblical inerrancy, the centrality of being “born again,” and the importance spreading the Christian message. Evangelicals are found in nearly every Protestant denomination. Wheaton College’s Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals estimates that their number in the U.S. is approximately 90 to 100 million people. So what we’re talking about is a massive movement with massive influence embracing massive numbers.

A leading evangelical pastor
Francis Schaeffer was a leading evangelical theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor on the American religious and political scene, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s. He hobnobbed with prominent Christian leaders of the time, discussing religious issues and plotting strategy for advancing evangelical causes. Frank Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer, grew up immersed in a religious environment, attending religious functions, listening to religious discussions, and meeting important religious figures of the day. He became his father’s protégé and strategist, and was considered an up-and-coming evangelical leader in his own right.

Then he changed his mind. He looked around and decided he didn’t like what he saw in the evangelical movement. Turning his back on his background and his life’s work, he quit. In several works, he has written about his experiences. He tells of his growing dissatisfaction with the behavior of the leading evangelists of the day, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. One book in particular is relevant here– Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. I have pulled quotes from this book that give a telling portrait of the evangelical Christian movement, particularly of the 1970s and early 1980s. (I must add that although the book highlights events from decades ago, I doubt that much has changed in the 2020s.)

In his own words
One would think that American religious leaders, especially conservative ones (as the leading evangelists tended to be), would be hoping (and praying) for America’s success. After all, they are Americans, and Americans, especially conservatives, are conventionally thought to stand by their country. Well, in the case of evangelical Christian leaders, perhaps not. Frank Schaeffer writes:

“The leaders of the new religious right were different from the old secular right… They were gleefully betting on America’s failure. If secular, democratic, diverse, and pluralistic America survived, then wouldn’t that prove that we evangelicals were wrong about God only wanting to bless a “Christian America”? [p. 298-299]”

What about the horrible terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001? The World Trade Center was brought down. Thousands of American lives were lost. An attack was also made on the Pentagon, killing more. A failed terrorist attack resulted in a jet crash in Pennsylvania, killing all on board, including the terrorists. Surely the major evangelical leaders would try to console the nation in this time of grief. Again, no.

“And after 9/11, the public got a glimpse of anti-American self-righteous venom that was always just under the surface of the evangelical right. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others declared that the attacks on America was punishment from God. [p. 299]”

What about the war with Iraq? Shouldn’t we honor our young people killed in combat? Perhaps not.

“And after the war in Iraq began, some loony group of fundamentalists started picketing the funerals of killed soldiers and screaming at bereaved fathers and mothers that God was punishing “faggot America.” What they shouted openly was what the leaders of the religious right were usually too smart to state bluntly, but it is what they had often said in private. [p. 299]”

The public, or at least the believing public, places great trust in the leaders of the evangelical movement now, as it did in the 1970s and 1980s. They are thought to be wise, honorable, decent, God-fearing, God-loving, Bible-abiding men. What is the opinion of the ultimate insider, Frank Schaeffer?

“The public image of the leaders of the religious right I met with so many times also contrasted with who they really were. In public, they maintained an image that was usually quite smooth. In private, they ranged from unreconstructed bigot reactionaries like Jerry Falwell, to Dr. [James] Dobson, the most power-hungry and ambitious person I have ever met, to Billy Graham, a very weird man indeed who lived an oddly sheltered life in a celebrity/ministry cocoon, to Pat Robertson, who would have a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement. [p. 315]”

But perhaps these very public figures were exceptional in their quirkiness or badness. What did Frank Schaeffer think of the leaders more generally?

“There were three kinds of evangelical leaders. The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart one who still believed—sort of—but knew that the evangelical world was shit, but who couldn’t figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else. I was turning into one of those, having started out in the idealistic category. [p. 329]”

As his father aged and sickened, this icon of the evangelical movement became jaded. Frank reflects upon his father’s thoughts.

“Dad seemed lost in a depressed daze. He had recently been saying privately that the evangelical world was more or less being led by lunatics, psychopaths, and extremists, and agreeing with me that if ‘our side’ ever won, America would be in deep trouble. But by then Dad was dying and knew he had very little time left. There was no time to change his life or his new “friends.” [p. 335]”

Frank Schaeffer describes in his book his personal odyssey of disillusionment as the scales dropped from his eyes, as well as that of his father. Therein may lie lessons for others. He also describes the multiple moral failings of evangelical Christianity’s leaders. Surely those accounts should sound alarm bells for people of good conscience and clear thinking.

So there you have it. According to the ultimate insider of the movement and his father, a leader of the movement, evangelical Christianity, encompassing tens of millions of Americans and representing one of the most powerful voting blocs in the nation, during the 1970s and into the 1980s was being run to a large extent by psychologically damaged misfits or charlatans, with an agenda that would ultimately be destructive to America. And millions upon millions of Americans continue to believe.

Ex-SDA connection?
How does all this relate to ex-SDA’s and our survey? In many cases respondent comments have echoed Frank  Schaeffer’s sentiments. This post is part of our larger effort to put the survey data into a larger context and to make it even more meaningful to both of those who took the survey and are anxious to hear the full results and to the larger population interested in learning more about why some leave the church.