I. Blessed are the Sabbath Observers –SDAs put the Fun in Fundamentalist Christian Cult
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Exodus 20:4
The End Time. The Last Days. The Time of Trouble. Since I was a little lass in Sabbath School, I’ve heard endless sermons about the perilous time when we will be persecuted for our beliefs. I was taught that there would come a time when the authorities would find out we were Seventh-Day Adventists and they would storm into our church one Sabbath Morn and snatch our Bibles from our prayer clasped hands. Or, they could come into our homes at night and drag us out of our beds and throw us into jail. There, we would gather together and sing hymns of praise, thanking God for giving us the opportunity to suffer for His name’s sake, just like Paul and Silas did in the Bible. We would also repeat Bible verses that we, of course knew by heart, and chant these promises over and over until the guards would drag us into the courthouse to be cross examined by atheist attorneys asking us why we continue to worship on the Sabbath disobeying the Sunday Blue Law. DISCLAIMER: The following boring yet accurate technical stuff is straight from Wikipedia, but it is exactly the stuff I was taught as a kid, so why re-invent the wheel, eh? You'll be able to tell where the necessary expositional stuff ends and my stuff begins: The Sunday Blue Law is a type of law designed to enforce moral standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest. Most have been repealed or are simply not enforced, although prohibitions on the sale of alcoholic beverages, and occasionally almost all commerce, on Sundays are still enforced in many areas. Blue laws often prohibit an activity only during certain hours and there are usually exceptions to the prohibition of commerce, like grocery and drug stores. In some places blue laws may be enforced due to religious principles, but others are retained as a matter of tradition or out of convenience.
In Texas, for example, blue laws prohibited selling housewares such as pots, pans, and washing machines on Sunday until 1985. In Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, car dealerships continue to operate under blue-law prohibitions in which an automobile may not be purchased or traded on a Sunday. In some cases these laws were created or retained with the support of those whom they affected, to allow them a day off each week without fear of their competitors still being open.
Many states still prohibit selling alcohol on Sunday, or at least before noon on Sunday, under the rationale that people should be in church on Sunday morning, or at least not drinking. At least one unusual feature of American culture — the ability to buy groceries, office supplies, and housewares from a drug store — can be traced to blue laws (under blue laws, drug stores are generally allowed to remain open on Sunday to accommodate emergency medical needs).
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has always taken a stance against blue laws. Church members keep the Sabbath on Saturday, thus conflicting with Sunday laws. In the early days of the church in the mid 1800s, a number of Adventists in America were imprisoned for a short time for working in their fields on Sunday. Consequently, in traditional Adventist eschatology (belief about, or the study of the end-times), it is held that there will be an international Sunday law, with persecution enacted against Saturday-Sabbath keepers such as Adventists. This view is found in the writings of Ellen White (co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination and “Prophetess”) and others. This view is still the mainstream Adventist church view worldwide. A substantial number of Adventists agree with this prediction.
I fell out of love with Ellen G. White’s writings years ago when I come across some pretty bizarre quotes that the SDA church now tries to hide due to society’s current climate of political correctness:
“Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men." Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, p.75
"God cannot take the slave to heaven, who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God, or the Bible, fearing nothing but his master's lash, and not holding so elevated a position as his master' brute beasts. But He does the best thing for him that a compassionate God can do. He lets him be as though he had not been."
Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, p. 193.
The amalgamation theory of beast and men as seen in certain races of men, I don’t even know where to begin on that one. But the “no slaves in heaven” part really pissed me off. With all the Negro Spirituals, preaching, praise and prayers that have sustained slaves, and their descendants like me, I couldn’t stomach this heifer fixing her lips to say that slaves are not going to have “a home up in a dat Kingdom”. Ain’t a dat supposed to be the “Good News?” The only thing keeping more slaves from killing their masters and committing suicide was the hope of “Going up Yonder”. The only reason the slave woman didn’t poison her master’s food was the hope of feasting on milk and honey at the “Welcome Table one uh dese days.” I don’t even think the word slave and master in the Bible holds the same connotation we assign to it today. I believe that things got lost in translation when King James and his merry men created their version of the bible. The word master can refer to employer, not necessarily owner and slave was a person who had to work off a debt if he or she could not pay it back. Like some of us who are still working jobs we hate to get out of debt. So why would God keep innocent people who love and praise Him from going to Heaven when their only sin was being born dark and poor? And why would God ask us to willingly join a religion that tells us we will have to suffer and be persecuted further for worshipping on the Sabbath? Something about it all just sounds too cruel to me. Life is tough enough without me knowingly and willingly joining an organization that sanctions my being thrown into jail as there are enough people who look me who are falsely accused and imprisoned already.
When I was a kid we were told constantly that the only way to postpone this inevitable persecution of Sabbatarians was to run to the hills. We were taught that we shouldn’t get too attached to the material things of this life like houses, cars, or lucrative careers because all those things will pass away. We were taught that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew sumpthin’:verse sumpthin’). We were taught to make plans to get out of the busy cities and learn about nature so we can survive on nuts and berries when we have to live in farmhouses or barns or in caves to escape our persecutors. We were taught to live each day as if it were our last. Seriously, I’m not making this up. Did I mention I was a little girl being force fed all this information week after week? I used to feel sorry for kids who were Jehovah’s Witnesses because they weren’t allowed to celebrate birthdays or holidays. Then I thought about the stuff they told us as kids. They would send mixed messages about Christmas. We were allowed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but we were constantly reminded that it wasn’t really Jesus’ birthday and that we should only have Nativity scenes, not Christmas trees as that was pagan and we should only sing religious Christmas songs, no Rudolf, no Jingle Bells, and no Frosty with his carrot nose and stick arms. We were told not to expect presents, but most lenient parents gave gifts anyway to the disdain of the strict parents and dismay of the children of said strict parents. We were told that the Christmas tree was symbolic of the tree Nimrod used to hang severed heads of his victims. That’s where we get the idea of hanging ornament “balls” on the tree. Santa Claus was nicknamed “Satan’s Claws” by many preachers and the commercialism of Christmas was deemed dangerous. Now I totally agree that the commercialism of Christmas has gotten out of hand, but they really needed to lighten up. Though I wanted to, I always had a weird feeling when I sneaked around to watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas Specials. I guess it was because that rascal Shulz was an admitted atheist and his specials were usually on Friday nights. Friday nights. I was never allowed to watch television or play any games or do anything secular from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Which meant no Friday nights with Erkel, no Saturday morning cartoons, no Conjunction Junction - what’s your Function?
So being conditioned by this eschatology, I was scared to death of everything when I was a kid. I’d read stories of how Jews were persecuted years ago and in my childish mind I reasoned that Jewish people must have been persecuted for being Sabbath Observers too. I wondered if the Orthodox and traditional Jewish people would be persecuted AGAIN and locked up in the jail cell to sing with us and would they know the words to the hymn “Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go…”
Brainwashing impressionable young children into believing that the world could come to an end at any time was a great way of tricking them into being “good boys and girls” so Jesus would take them Heaven. That trick works for most kids right up until puberty sets in, then it’s like Jesus Who? The other result is most dangerous. Many of these Advent believers take the “Jesus is Coming Soon” jazz to the extreme. So much so that they don’t bother with savings accounts, 401K’s, stocks or bonds that need to mature because when the time of trouble comes, money won’t matter, worldly possessions will be irrelevant. These people rarely bother with going to college unless they plan to be doctors, nurses, teachers or preachers. Those were the only professions held in high esteem within in the church when I was a kid. Nowadays, they push their kids to be lawyers justifying it by saying we need Adventist representation during the time of trouble. There is this constant emphasis on rejecting worldly pleasures and striving for humility, yet the church is always begging for money and praising those who have it. Adventist Doctors and Nurses are the only ones allowed to work on the Sabbath because Jesus healed on the Sabbath so it’s okay. Prestigious medical facilities like Loma Linda University Hospital in California and Florida Hospital in the Winter Park/Orlando area were founded and operated by Seventh-day Adventists. If anyone else works a job where they ask you to work on Saturdays, you are supposed to fight for your rights as a Sabbath Observer by contacting the Religious Liberty department leader and get a letter from the pastor and the S.D.A. Conference office to give to your employer. If all of that doesn’t work, you are supposed to quit your job and “the Lord will make a way somehow” for you and your family. What angers me about this in retrospect is the fact that most of my church “family” was Black (whether African, American or Caribbean) and as hard as it was for Black people to get jobs, I resent the fact that this religion was teaching us to throw jobs away. I took things literally when I was a kid and it bothers me to know that not everyone did. I would look at wealthy Seventh-day Adventists and see that they lived in beautiful homes and drove beautiful cars and I would wonder not only how they were able to pull that off, but why?
If Jesus is coming soon and the only professions we as SDAs should participate in are that of healers, teachers and preachers and if everyone is supposed to be tithing and giving liberal offerings to further the Lord’s work, then where are these people getting all this money? Clearly some of us have been duped as I’ve come from a culture where people who look like me have been taught to take very literally the sermon where Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow, what we will eat, drink or wear for “His Eye is on the Sparrow” (Matthew 6: 25-34). We’ve been taught that having wealth on this earth is unimportant because if you do God’s will you’ll have wealth in the earth made new. Whereas people whose faces differ from mine come from ancestors who have been taught to attain as much wealth on this earth as possible to provide for your families and to invest in stocks and bonds and secure savings for a rainy day or for emergencies because after all, God helps those who help themselves (which is not in the Bible, by the way). So some of us, descendants of religious people of many races, have been taught that being rich causes one to lose his soul salvation. At the same time, we are asked weekly to submit the little funds we do have to help others who are less fortunate. We see televangelists and entertainers who go to Africa and Asia and New Orleans spreading good will and dollars with their private planes and limousines and their vacation homes and we wonder? How fair is it for someone to have a mansion on earth and get a mansion in Heaven? Are George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Bono just wasting their time? Yes, they have helped to bring awareness and millions of dollars to the needy so surely they deserve a place inside the pearly gates. But is it fair for them to literally have the best of both worlds? Or will those who are the poorest on this earth get the biggest mansion with a sea of glass view? Something about it all gives me cause to pause and reexamine what I’ve been told.
As a child, I was also reminded, incessantly, that every time I committed any sin or behaved badly (i.e. behaved like a normal kid), I was crucifying Jesus all over again. Now in all fairness, I was probably a little more sensitive and emotional than most kids my age. I remember crying through many a sermon when the preachers would map out, in vivid detail, how painful it must have been for Jesus being stripped and whipped and how a crown of thorns was cruelly thrust upon His head. Yes, I said “upon” ‘cause even the most country-fied preachers use biblical lingo when they want to make a point. Then the preachers and bible teachers (I went to parochial schools most of my life) would recount how each time we even think of sinning, even think an evil thought, we are hammering the nails in His hands and feet and piercing His side causing the blood and water to gush out all over again. I would be devastated knowing that any mistake I made caused Jesus to revisit that agony. So I tried to be perfect.
My mother, who has a wonderful personality, was well spoken, attractive and very professional. She worked as a Mail Handler in the Post Office for over 30 years. She had many opportunities to become a Supervisor where she would’ve made more money and would get to wear suits to work and not have to pick up heavy mail anymore. She turned the opportunities down every time because she didn’t want to run the risk of having to work on the Sabbath. She had seen her fellow Adventist supervisor friends compromise and she just didn’t want to go through the trouble. She always said the Lord would provide. She never encouraged me to be a lawyer or doctor or anything except a postal worker, a Managerial postal worker (because I had a degree), but a postal worker none the less. Not that there is anything wrong with postal employees, most postal employees. But it’s the reasoning behind it that bothers me. My mother did as she was taught just as my grandmother (Nana) did as she was taught when she joined the Seventh-day Adventist church in 1950’s. Ma and Nana were attracted to the idea of worshiping on the Sabbath because my grandmother’s grandfather was Jewish, White and Jewish, as Nana was quick to tell anyone who would listen. Nana was one of those Black women who was brought up during a time when assimilation with any and all things White, was right. For this reason the conservative, Eurocentric nature of the Seventh-day Adventist church was very appealing to her. The bumping and jumping of the average Black Baptist or Pentecostal church was too common, too base for Nana. She was more appreciative of an operatic rendition of Ave Maria than a soulful rendition of Amazing Grace. The vegetarian aspect of the “health message” was also appealing because Nana felt most Black women were too fat from eating pork chops and fried chicken and Nana looked down on fat people. She thought they were sloppy and lazy and undisciplined. When the Seventh-day Adventist message was introduced to my grandmother, my mother was in her teens and since Nana was in her teens when she had my mother (pre-Adventism with some older married guy who possibly molested her but she never confirmed or denied), she left mom in Texas to be raised by older “family” members. Nana went on to finish college and later sent for my mom and the two moved to New York. Hence the two were not very close. Nana subconsciously used the strictness of Adventism to cover up the fact that she was unable to show real affection to my mother. Mom went along with the whole Adventist thing for two reasons: A) she had no choice and B) because mom liked the hymns sung by the choir as she, too, loved to sing and she was taught, by Nana, to appreciate opera, not gospel. Nana, Ma and I were the only Adventist in our family because none of the members of my family were interested in giving up booze, boobs or bacon.
My question was and still is: Why does church stuff have to be a burden? Why can’t church stuff be fun? Where’s the fun, People? Really, life is short, so if it’s not fun, why bother? Orlando is the land of theme parks for everyone. Even the Christians have a theme park – The Holy Land Experience, which I thought would be awesome, but it is basically, actors and singers in a glorified museum. The “Jesus” character walks around the park like he’s Mickey Mouse and takes pictures with tourists until it is time for him to wear the thorny crown and re-enact walking down the Via Dolorosa towards the cross to be crucified while children watch chomping on their popcorn. The same “Jesus” actor is a frequent guest on the Christian channel TBN and is interviewed in his ”Jesus” costume as if he is, well, Jesus. As amusing as all this is to me, I still wanna know where the rides are, where is the amusement for the park? When I become a billionaire, I’m gonna open up a Bible based theme park with The Rock Of Ages Rollercoasters, Walk-on-Water rides, Parting of the Red Sea World, King David’s Dance Your Pants Off, Water into Wine tasting, etc. It will be a blast and a blessing. I don’t understand why religion has to be so solemn, so somber. Yes, there is a time to be reverent, reflective and meditative-it’s called YOGA! The Bible says Rejoice in the Lord Always. The Bible says, Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give thee the desires of thine heart. Delight means Have Fun. Desires are wants, not needs. We know that the Lord will supply all of our needs, but He also promises that if you enjoy being with Him, He will hook you up. And that is what a loving parent does. I compare God’s love to my mom’s love. Of course she is disappointed by some of my choices. She and I argue from time to time, but we always make up and she will always allow me into her home, she would never lock me out-literally or figuratively. So if my mom, a finite being, can show me that kind of unconditional love, how much more love can an infinite Creator show His created beings? I just don’t buy this fire and brimstone doctrine for anyone who doesn’t live the perfect tidy life the church forces us to live. I’m sure God is shaking His head and saying, “I never meant to frighten my children into loving Me”. When the Bible says “fear” the Lord, that means respect the Lord, be in awe of the earth, the solar system, the universe, all that He has created. If God wanted us to really be afraid of Him and do exactly what He says without question, He would have just made us robots. Why bother giving us a choice? Why bother sending His Only Begotten Son to die for us (which is a concept I still don’t completely understand-more on that later) and force us to kill ourselves, both literally and figuratively, when we can’t live up to religious rules and regulations. My mom created me, and her blood runs through my veins. I am created in her image, I look just like her, she couldn’t disown me if she tried and yet she would never sentence me to an eternity of burning in Hell. Why would I worship, serve, love, let alone die for Anyone who would?
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“April, you have to let this thing go! Let go of this anger. God will take care of it!!”
“Ma, you’re getting too worked up--God bless you”
Ma sneezes again.
“God Bless You”
“Vengence is mine sayeth the Lord”
“I’m not saying I’m definitely gonna sue, but look at the survivors of those Catholic Priests. They got millions of dollars.”
“And their friends and families probably turn their backs on them for exposing them to that shame.”
“It is a shame, but not the shame of the survivors, it’s the shame of the church.”
“SURVIVORS? You’re so dramatic. You sound as if they were tortured in some concentration camp. Leave it in the Lord’s hands. Pray about it. You don’t want to get money this way. I wish to God I had the money to pay off your bills”
“Please, the reason you don’t have any money because you spent it all on the church and Seventh-day Adventist private schools when I was a kid. Can you imagine how much that money would be had you put in a savings account for me instead.”
“That’s all you think about. Money.”
“Well, when you have no insurance and can barely pay your rent…”
“Who’s fault is that? I could’ve gotten you into the post office...”
“My wages are being garnished because of school loans. Had I gone to public schools I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“You went to the School of the Prophets. I would have been devastated if you would have come home talking about Evolution.”
“Denise, Dana and Everett went to public schools and they don’t believe in evolution.”
“Don’t compare yourself to other people”
“How can I not when you’re always running over there and sending me pictures of their beautiful babies and their beautiful homes and their beautiful life!”
“Ok, So, I won’t mention them anymore.”
“Oh, please, it’s not about them. They’re not the problem.”
“So I guess I’m the problem.”
“No, Ma, you are not the problem. Being brainwashed by the church is the problem.”
“I’m so scared for you, April. We need to pray.”
“Go ahead, Ma, pray.”
“Heavenly Father. Lord, we come before you humbly asking for forgiveness of our sins and thanking you for your blessings. Lord, please help us to forgive others and take responsibility for our own actions. Help us to make wise choices and help us to remember that you are in control. Please give my child, my special gift, my jewel- the peace that passes all understanding. In your name we pray, Amen. I love you, April.”
“Love you too, Ma.”
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