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Coming to terms with Anger

There is anger and resentment
Question 28 reads, “To what extent do you hold anger or resentment toward the Seventh-day Adventist Church?” The response options are “Very,” “Moderately,” “Somewhat,” Not at all,” and “I just don’t think about this.”

One of the reasons for including this question in the survey was to test what I recall (and still do perceive) as a general sentiment among still-Adventists that ex-Adventists are angry. Angry at God, angry at The Church, angry in general.

And, well, the data so far indicate that the still-Adventists might be right. The two highest rates of response are for “Somewhat angry and resentful” (33.9%), and “Moderately angry and resentful” (21.76%). If we include the 15.17% of respondents who selected “Very angry…”, 70% of respondents to the survey so far say they harbored some anger or resentment toward the SDA structure at the time they took the survey.

Females are more angry
When we overlay responses to Q28 by gender (Q54) it seems that females are angrier than male respondents. Having grown up Adventist, I feel like this makes sense. Adventism is essentially a patriarchal system, and quite a number of (presumably) female respondents commented that they were angry at Adventist “purity culture” or “the way women are treated” inside the system. The analysis gets more complicated when we also overlay those who report being “non-binary” to Q54. In any case, a whopping 76% of females reported being angry to some extent, compared to males at 61%. All these data cry out for deeper analysis and exploration, and that will come in future posts.

These are interesting sets of numbers. There is much to ponder and make about the fact that of our sample of ex-Adventists so far, around 70% are angry and/or resentful at the Adventist system. However, the really interesting part (at least for me) comes in the comments. Many respondents have commented to the effect that they were once angry, but no longer are:

“I’m less angry these days, however it comes in waves. I mostly feel sad for the wasted years and the people who still remain.”

 

“It’s been years and I’m a rational person. I’ve moved past most of my direct anger.”

 

“A LOT less angry than I used to be.”

 

However, the most commonly expressed emotion in the comments was sadness, sometimes as grief or mourning:

“I don’t think I feel angry but more sadness for them and the burden they are placed under.”

 

“I had to let go of anger, resentment but mostly heartbreak over the loss of involvement in an institution that had really been my whole life.”

 

“I don’t consider myself angry. I am very sad.”

 

“I have a lot of grief.”

 

Anger shifts to sadness
It feels telling that even in the context of 70% of respondents reporting anger, many of the comments equivocate on anger and shift to sadness. My memories of adolescence and young adulthood inside the Adventist system are that emotions were generally muted. There was a lot of talk of being “happy,” and happiness and joy were tolerated up to a point, so long as those expressions were not too extreme. Sadness, grief, disappointment were similarly acceptable emotions, provided the expressions of those emotions were not too dramatic.

“I mourn the wasted years of complete indoctrination. Negative emotions are destructive so I try to focus on the intellectual and spiritual freedom of the present.”

The white, North American Adventism that I grew up in seemed endlessly focused on the appearance of “happiness.” Catchy sayings, a lot of verbal affirmation for people who always acted “happy,” innumerable songs about being cheerful were all de rigueur.  But anger always seemed like an off-limits emotion. Angry people got shut down, shushed, eventually excluded, “cancelled,” in today’s parlance.

It took me years to be able to name the anger in my own emotional repertoire. To this day I instinctively want to downplay, or hide anger in almost any setting. Perhaps, like so many aspects of being Adventist, anger is one of those things that some of us who have left the movement take some time to make peace with. Like bacon or alcohol* or jewelry, disallowed emotions are acquired tastes.

“I have a hard time with anger partly because of how I was raised- anger feels unsafe now & so many feelings were repressed. I’m still working on that now.”

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Email us: exsda@proton.me, arcaro@elon.edu

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*Specifically bacon and alcohol come up constantly in the comments to many of the questions in the ex-Adventist survey.

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The cult question

“The SDA cult needs to be comprehensively exposed to as wide an audience of SDAs and non-SDAs as possible, and then be roundly and formally denounced by as many people and institutions as possible. E.G. White was likely a psychopathic con artist who may someday be viewed as one of the most impacting con artists in recorded history.”

-male Millennial survey respondent

The cult question

Strong words of accusation
Reading through the comments has been difficult and fascinating. As a sociologist I find most of the comments inherently interesting, of course, but reading some offerings has been difficult knowing that a real person spent time thinking about and writing those words. This comment from a Millennial male from the United States was particularly striking in its passion and deep conviction.

In response to Q27 “In as few or as many words as you like, please tell us about your process and experience of leaving Adventism.” he wrote,

“The SDA cult had a strong and lasting negative impact on me for many years after I internally denounced the faith. It has taken me decades to develop a deepened awareness of just how systematically diabolical this cult system is, how damaging it has been to me throughout my entire childhood and adult life, and how dangerous it is to the survival of the human race for Adventism to be allowed to continue to freely prey upon on its victims in the manner that it does. Adventism and the SDA educational system is, by design, a methodical, strategic brainwashing camp that actively employs shame-based cognitive, behavioral, and emotional mind-control techniques within its milieu in order to deeply indoctrinate its followers and their current and future offspring. This is particularly damaging to Adventist children and should meet the minimum legal threshold necessary to define some SDA practices as inherently abusive towards children, and yet it is somehow not defined or viewed that way socially or legally. The SDA cult needs to be comprehensively exposed to as wide an audience of SDAs and non-SDAs as possible, and then be roundly and formally denounced by as many people and institutions as possible. E.G. White was likely a psychopathic con artist who may someday be viewed as one of the most impacting con artists in recorded history. The harm that Adventism has caused and continues to cause globally is being vastly underrepresented and undervalued, and warrants significant further research and social, political, legal, ethical, psychological, and theological scrutiny.”

A cult?
This respondent is not alone in referring to Adventism as a cult. As you can see from the the data below most- more than two thirds- of our respondents agree with this assessment.

“Cult-ish”
The binary of is or is not a cult is clearly not nuanced enough for many. One respondent viewed the word ‘cult’ as a smear.

“Every time I’ve heard the word cult used to describe a group, it’s been a smear attempt, so I don’t know how helpful the term is. The SDA church certainly can be a high control group, but the experience of such is so depended on where/when you interacted with it and who you were that it’s hard to give a global label like ‘cult.'”

But how do you define a cult? These next three comments dance around the term.

“The SDA church may be far reaching, but its insistence on absolute dedication, it’s thorough indoctrination of members from birth to college, shows it’s ability to keep members under control. The SDA church employs guilt, ridicule, harrassment, gaslighting…etc. to get members to stay. They use the “bait and switch” method to get new members. It sounds good when you’re studying with them, and then once you’re baptized, they start letting you know how you’re not ‘meeting standard’.”

“Not a cult in that you are technically free to leave whenever you’d like, but the mindset and community can feel extremely cult-like.”

“This depends on your definition of a cult. In some ways, it is. I don’t think it is officially considered one. It is a fun insult to hurl at Adventism anyway. Or at least to call it ‘cult-ish.'”

A misused term?
From a sociological perspective, the term ‘cult’ is problematic. In a 1993 Review of Religious Research article entitled “Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative” Richardson provides deep historical background behind the usage of the term and ultimately advises that its use should be avoided by academics. The term ‘cult’ in popular culture is clearly intended to be pejorative and accusatory, typically inferring excessive control and blind devotion.

In the context of our survey where our intent is to hear and report what the respondents tell us, I think it is inappropriate for me to weigh in as to my sociological viewpoint at least as far as labeling the Adventist church a cult. That debate aside, the impact of this church on children can be an issue.  The Millennial respondent quoted above does, however, make a point that deserves greater attention. He said,

“This is particularly damaging to Adventist children and should meet the minimum legal threshold necessary to define some SDA practices as inherently abusive towards children, and yet it is somehow not defined or viewed that way socially or legally.” 

Many have argued that religious indoctrination is child abuse and that “Children have been terrorized with the threat of living an eternity in a lake of fire. That’s unequivocally been the source of nightmares and PTSD for millions of kids.” I am not going to disagree.

Your thoughts? Contact us: exsda@proton.me and/or arcaro@elon.edu.

 

 

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One size does not fit all

One size does not fit all

[Updated 4-21-23]

Group positionality statement
As an elaboration on how we describe ourselves on The Research Team page, here is our collective positionality statement. All three researchers are middle class, straight, cis, white, and able males from and living in the United States. One of us is middle aged and the other two are older. Hence we all experience many privileges based on these ascribed statuses and even more due to our individual achieved statuses. All three of us are professionals, working in fields that thankfully hold a respected place in our culture. We are demonstratively not perfect in any way, but especially in terms of being fully aware of the many biases we hold. With grace, we strive both in our personal and professional lives to embrace the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. That said, our current work, this survey, is also not perfect. We will accept your feedback with grace and hope to be given the same.

To this point, one respondent wrote

“Some of the questions in this survey didn’t have adequate options. Some of the questions seemed to be based on presuppositions about Adventism. Perhaps the folk who wrote the questions did not realize that Adventism is practiced very differently in different parts of the world. It felt like this survey was more relevant to people who grew up in North America and never experienced Adventism in other parts of the world.”

The Seventh-Day Adventist church has a demonstratively global reach “…with a membership of over 21 million in 13 regions of the world.” Yet this survey was written from the perspective of US citizens who grew up in North America and may indeed have that bias, excluding accurately capturing the nuances of the experiences of ex-SDA people from other parts of the globe. Perhaps most obviously, this survey (as of now) is only available in English and thus excludes the voices of ex-SDA folks who cannot read English. It is also available only online via the Internet, and so only those who have access to appropriate technology can easily respond. As straight, cis males, our questions may be biased or skewed from the perspectives of non-straight, non-cis, and/or females.

The question about race
That the three researchers are white also adds a critical layer of potential bias. In North America, for example, we are aware  there is a Regional Conference system: essentially a separation of white Adventist churches and Black Adventist churches within the same General Conference system. Beyond the US, we know that Adventism can be experienced in a very different way than in the US, especially by those in the (so-called) Global South, in sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, for example.

Near the very end of the survey we ask, “Which below best describes you?” and offer only two options, ‘white’ and ‘non-white’. The next question (which provides a comment box) asks, “Please use the space below to (1) react to the inappropriateness of the choices in the question above and (2) describe how you identify yourself based on common cultural-linguistic, ethnic, racial, tribal, national or other categories.”

The concept of race is clearly problematic, especially so on a survey intended to reach across the globe. One respondent noted that,

“White isn’t a useful term as it forces so many cultural identities into one term that was used by the british [sic] to colonize and remove the cultural identities of immigrant groups (especially in Australia) that they oppressed but pitched against the first nations people to help oppress them and create division.”

Indeed, quite bluntly, ‘race’ is a fairly modern concept which is classist and colonialist, created by those in power to justify slavery and other forms of social and economic marginalization. Now ossified into most of Western -and most certainly US- cultures- the ‘race’ concept has various context-dependent meanings and connotations.1 Which box, for example, would a Bangladeshi ex-Adventist tick off in a standard Western-based survey using what are arguably very culture-bound categories? Our intent with our two questions on race is to poke at the artificiality of the concept and then encourage respondents to self-identify “based on common cultural-linguistic, ethnic, racial, tribal, national or other categories.”

To illustrate this complexity, here is a comment made by one respondent from Brazil,

“In Brazil, I am considered white due to my appearance and the way society treats me. When I was in the United States, I was considered Latino. My paternal grandmother is indigenous and my uncles have indigenous phenotypic traits. Also, like most Brazilians, my paternal and maternal families are mixed. Thus, I find it difficult to answer when the options are merely White/Non-White. I also considered that this research is being done in the US, where I am clearly not considered white.”

One size does not fit all
Our survey -and subsequent analysis of the data- does not pretend to be void of biases nor to be seen as a ‘one size fits all.’ The survey and this blog are intended to be our most honest effort to hear and report on the voices of ex-SDA souls who choose to take the survey. Our hope is our efforts will begin a conversation among many, even well beyond just communities of former Seventh-day Adventists, about the process of rejecting church membership.

To those of you who think this project (the survey, our analyses) could be better, we welcome your suggestions! Please do give your feedback in the comments, here in the blog; send us email (exsda@proton.me and/or arcaro@elon.edu); or respond in the space provided within the survey itself. We do not promise to implement every suggestion, but we do promise to take each one seriously. Your feedback is welcome and encouraged.

We thank you for your feedback and hope you will join us in the journey of discovery, growth, and new perspectives on faith, reason, and what ‘Eighth-day Freedom’ entails.

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1. In a 2019 article titled “A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep Malleable Whiteness“ sociologist Michelle Christian expands on the idea that “...the processes of deep and malleable global whiteness that has sustained global white supremacy.” She argues for a Global Critical Race and Racism (GCRR) framework which helps us understand how race and racism have emerged from and been sustained and deepened by colonialism and post-colonial entanglements.  She writes,

“…racism is always “transforming” (Goldberg 2009) and “on the move” (Wade 2015), embedded in historical moments, geographies, and other markers of difference while still being entrenched in a continuum of white dominance and racial subordination (Weiner 2012).

In essence, Christian’s GCRR framework provides support for the ‘white’ ‘non-white’ choice survey respondents were offered in our survey.

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