Eighth-Day Freedom / About Eighth-day Freedom

Welcome to Eighth-day Freedom, a research project into the lives of former Seventh-day Adventists.

Our goal is to learn and document what led those who call themselves “ex-Adventists” to leave the Adventist movement. We hope to learn what that experience of leaving was like, and what life has been like for ex-Adventists since leaving. We are also very interested in capturing the views and perspectives of those who no longer believe, but who remain part of the Adventist system, whether inside the formal structure, or simply part of the community of lay Adventist believers. All of this, then, with the hope of identifying common themes in the collective experience of ex-Adventists and common issues in the lives of those who have left.

We should clarify that our goal is not to study or comment on the Seventh-day Adventist Church, SDA doctrines, beliefs, or theology. Eighth-day Freedom is focused on the views and lived experiences of those who once believed but no longer do.

The backbone of this project is an open, online survey (here is the link). This survey as well as the overall concept of this project have been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB #23-150) of Elon University. As of this writing, we intend to keep the survey open until 1 June, 2023. Once the survey closes, we’ll focus on quantitative and qualitative analysis, selective focus groups and key-informant interviews. Ultimately we plan to make the results available through a combination of media, including published and presented academic papers, and books. We have also considered (but not quite committed to yet) other forms such as podcasts and public speaking.

Throughout the duration, we plan to post preliminary observations, host additional “mini-polls”, and other (we hope) interesting commentary and fun stuff here on this site on the “Blog” page. Our long term plan is to publish the results in both peer reviewed academic journals and as public scholarship in various online publications.

Thank you for your interest in the Eighth-day Freedom project. We encourage you to keep checking this site for updates.

For information about the research team, click here.

Contact us: ExSDA@proton.me