Dana Kendall's Story: For the Gospel

Director of Research and Assistant Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Seattle Pacific University

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In the following narrative, my objective is to provide evidence that Seventh-Day Adventism is not a typical, Christian denomination. If it were, a person would not be hassled if they chose to transfer to another Christian denomination. The person would not be told they were leaving salvation and the only way to heaven. The person would not be told that belief in Christ is insufficient to save them.

This is my story of leaving the SDA denomination…

I will not attempt to go into the doctrinal differences between SDA and historical, orthodox Christianity. For your reference, the following books explain SDA history and doctrine in detail:

·         The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism by Anthony Heokema

·         Cultic Doctrine, The Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-Day Adventists: An Evangelical Resource and an Appeal to Adventists by Dale Ratzlaff

·         It’s Ok Not to be a Seventh Day Adventist by Teresa Beem.

When I choose to leave SDA, I had a fairly realistic idea of what would occur. First of all, I was a psychology professor at Andrews University, an SDA institution. I knew that publicly criticizing SDA doctrine would likely result in the loss of my job because they would consider me a threat to the students’ spiritual well-being.

Secondly, I was raised as an SDA pastor’s daughter; therefore, I was certain that my folks would take the news extremely hard. To illustrate, it would be like a father hearing that his daughter was homosexual, that she had died suddenly in a car crash, or that she had terminal cancer. That’s the kind of impact I knew I would be having on my parents because of my decision. For months, I prayed and planned how I could tell them in a way that would inflict as little damage as possible. I knew I had to follow Christ and trust Him with the consequences.

When my husband and I spoke to my parents about our decision to leave SDA, we broke the news as gently as we could. We apologized for the pain that we were causing them and we hoped that they could work through the shock. We assured them we still loved them and were not leaving Christ!  On the contrary, we were holding fast to Him and trusting Him alone for salvation. As we were talking, we observed the shock and anger rising as reflected in my father’s expressions. I was shaking inside, but on the outside, I was able to remain calm and unshaken. Then, my father started. His voice became louder and angrier. He spoke for a total of about 3 hrs, and my husband and I didn’t say much in response. He told us we were on the road to not being saved anymore and that we were making a hasty decision, not considering all the evidence. All I did was keep returning to John 5:24 where it clearly says, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life (NIV). I asked my parents to take note of the past tenses. I told them that I was not worried about my salvation and I hoped that they would not be concerned about it either. My father didn’t even seem to hear me; but continued on, blaming those who had influenced me to make this choice, saying there’d be a special place in hell for those people. A few unmentionable words were said. Both of them told me that I was too smart to make such an erroneous decision—as if an intelligent person could never think of leaving God’s one-and-only church.

Their comments stung, but I didn’t cry. On the contrary, I felt an inner peace--almost like I was observing myself from the outside. The thought crossed my mind over and over that their attacks were not from God. They were from two very frightened individuals who felt cornered and trapped with seemingly no option but to lash out.

A year and a half has passed since that day, and we’re still attempting to repair the damage. My folks and I never discuss my spiritual life or the new church I attend. They tell my sisters how disappointed they are in my husband and me and that we are deceived by the Devil—on our way to hell. They constantly relay to my sisters that Jesus is not sufficient to save us since we have stopped observing the Sabbath (The one commandment in the 10 that all Christians have forgotten except SDAs!)  Finally, they are sad that I wear jewelry, believing this to be a sign that I have succumbed to the secular ways of “the world”.

After telling my parents, I informed my department chair at Andrews University privately before sending an open letter by e-mail announcing our decision to our friends, colleagues, and extended family members. The administration of Andrews University gave me four stipulations to stay employed:

1.       I had to say that I supported the mission of Andrews University.

2.       I had to refrain from criticizing SDA doctrine in front of students.

3.       I had to promise not to officially remove my membership from the SDA church.

4.       I had to promise to meet with a theologian at the seminary once per week, so they could try to change my mind. Again, the assumption was that I did not make an informed decision.

I told them I could not agree item # 3-4, and I resigned before they had the chance to fire me. I have no doubt they would have done so because my friend who worked in Human Resources was outright fired for writing a poem about God in Proclamation Magazine—an outreach publication to former SDAs.

At that point, one final battle still lay ahead of us—dropping our membership formally from Pioneer Memorial Church (PMC) in Berrien Springs, MI. My husband and I wrote separate letters to the church board, articulating our personal reasons for leaving and citing Biblical and historical evidence that bolstered our claims. My letter was approximately 8 pages, single-spaced; and Scott’s was approximately 5 pages. (For access to these letters, feel free to e-mail me at kendalld@spu.edu or visit: http://8thday4life.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/why-sdas-hide-their-identity-in-their-own-words/). We asked not to be visited by a church pastor or elder. After the experience with my parents and similar ones with other well-meaning SDAs, we had endured enough of the guilt and shame. Additionally, not one concerned SDA had presented a sufficiently-convincing argument for us to remain; on the contrary, they further solidified our decision to break away.

A few weeks later, we received a registered envelope from PMC, containing a letter from Dwight Nelson, head pastor of PMC (http://www.pmchurch.tv/) and Skip MacCarty, an associate pastor. The letters told us that they were not going to honor our request to drop our membership; instead, they asked us to respond in detail to 15 long, single-spaced pages of reasons why we were wrong for leaving. See their letters posted at the end of my friend’s personal blog here: http://8thday4life.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/why-sdas-hide-their-identity-in-their-own-words/). We felt disrespected and very disappointed. We wondered why they were making it so difficult for us to leave. After much prayer and counseling with our current pastor, we wrote them a second letter, repeating our request remove our names from their records.

We waited for a few weeks with no response from PMC.

Then, one Saturday afternoon, a few weeks later, we had just returned from grocery shopping. As we were unloading in the garage, a car drove up. Dwight Nelson, head pastor of PMC and Skip MacCarty, an associate pastor stepped out to greet us. I was in shock and my heart felt like it stopped. All energy drained from me, and in that instant, I felt absolutely hollow. First, we were shopping on the holy Sabbath, and it felt like I had been caught red-handed. Even though I intellectually understood that it was now okay to buy things on Saturday, my old SDA fears took over without my permission. Second, Dwight Nelson is like the SDA version of Billy Graham. He’s like a celebrity who never makes house calls or associates with ordinary members of the congregation. For a few seconds I was speechless; however, they never stopped talking. The first sentence Dwight spoke was a contradiction. He said something like, “We want to respect your request to have no visitors, but we just thought we’d come and dialogue with you this afternoon.” 

I was still speechless.

Then, they began following us into our home.

Despite my brain shouting at me not to let them in, but I heard myself say, “Come in.”  At that point, I started praying that the interaction would be pleasant and that they would leave quickly. After some small talk, they asked us if we could please respond to their letters. I told them that we did not wish to discuss it, but we’d so appreciate it if they would drop our membership. Dwight said that he was sorry we were leaving “the family”. God gave me courage to look him directly in the eye and politely that was a very exclusive statement.(SDAs believe all Christians are deceived and will ultimately be lost if they fail to keep the Sabbath). Additionally, I informed Dwight that Scott and I were not leaving Jesus’ family, and we still totally confess the name of Jesus as the only Way of our salvation. (God kept my voice steady and strong, and no one was more surprised than I!)  Dwight stuttered that by “family” he meant the PMC congregation that he considers his family. I told him that we appreciated their concern, but we were indeed very weary of painful interactions with well-meaning SDAs who were very worried about us. I emphasized we were simply attempting to pick up the pieces and move on with our lives. He asked, “Who are these folks that are so worried about you?” Again, God gave me courage to look him in the eyes and say, “You are”. He did not respond.

After a bit more uncomfortable small talk that seemed to last forever, they finally said that they would have the board vote to drop our membership (Having the church board make the decision to “let someone go” is standard procedure in the SDA Church. They officially label these individuals “apostate” in the church records). We thanked them for honoring our request. They had a benign prayer with us and told us that we’d always be welcome back if we changed our minds. When they left, I sat down on the couch, shaking.  I could not help but wonder if a person switching from Baptist to Presbyterian would ever have to endure this type of treatment.

Dear reader, I share these experiences in order to provide information about the SDA Church and the process of leaving it. Perhaps when God puts SDAs in the pathway of your life, you can minister to them in a more informed way, realizing that they are not just another denomination of people who worship on Saturday instead of Sunday. In reality, most are afraid to leave the church and frightened of death because they do not know how to fully rely on the grace of Christ for their eternal destiny.

Thank you for taking time to listen to this story. Please feel free to contact me if you have any general questions about SDA. Also, I’ll be happy to speak with you about easy steps you can take to keep members of your church congregation Biblically grounded, so they will not be susceptible to the SDA’s deceptive evangelistic efforts.

May our Father richly bless you as He works through your life for His glory.

Update:  After resigning my position at Andrews University in the summer of 2009, God has graciously granted me the privilege to teach psychology at Seattle Pacific University, starting in the autumn of 2010. To find out more about me, visit my faculty page (http://www.spu.edu/depts/spfc/aboutus/facultydir/danakendall.asp). 

God truly redeems anything and everything we lay down for His sake. He has returned infinite blessings back to Scott and me. We now attend Alderwood Community Church here in the Seattle area (http://www.amcc.org/), enjoying freedom in Christ and fellowship with believers that we had never known as SDAs. Bible study is now a joy and much less confusing than before. Each day just gets better, and His mercies are fresh and new every morning.

~~ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. Phillippians 3:8 (ESV) ~~