October 13, 2014

As I See It

I’m a retired Adventist pastor. Every morning I join my Methodist neighbor and hike through the neighborhood. He’s done a lot of study about the Adventist faith. Recently he was talking with one of his Baptist friends, and the conversation came around to his Adventist walking buddy. The Baptist said he recalled that Seventh-day Adventists were careful about their health and what they ate. Other than that, he didn’t know much.

After telling me this, my walking buddy turned to me and said, “See, your denomination isn’t entirely invisible; he knew that much about you.”

Being thought to be invisible is not news to me. During my 40-year walk as a Seventh-day Adventist, many times I’ve seen that blank look come over people’s face indicating they didn’t have a clue about what an Adventist was. And if they thought they knew what I believed, they most often misidentified me as a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness.

Reality Check

Researchers at Harvard and Notre Dame cooperated on a study called American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell.1 The book’s flyleaf states that American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America.

Basically, the study is a combination of two surveys known as the Faith Matters surveys. The first was a nationally representative sample of 3,108 Americans in 2006. This was followed up with a second, separate survey with as many of the same people as they could find (1,909, to be precise) in 2007. The follow-up survey asked more specific questions about religion. The study sorted the survey respondents into these groups: evangelical Protestants2 (30 percent); Catholics (24 percent); nones (17 percent, not necessarily antagonistic to organized religion); mainline Protestants (14 percent); Black Protestants (8 percent); other faiths (4 percent); Jews (2 percent); Mormons (2 percent).

Certain elements of the survey are of specific interest to Adventists for purposes of evangelism. One finding is how respondents felt about groups other than their own. While the answers were entirely subjective, for purposes of evangelism perception is considered reality. Called the warm feeling thermometer, the rankings from warmest to coldest were:

Jewish
Roman Catholic
mainline Protestant
evangelical Protestant
nonreligious
Mormon
Buddhist
Muslim

Jews ranked highest, with Roman Catholics following a close second. Mormons ranked dead last among Christian religious groups. Although Adventists are included theologically with evangelical Protestants, I think they should probably be ranked with Mormons, simply because of a mistaken identity factor. After all, what Adventist has not told someone he or she is a Seventh-day Adventist only to hear, “Oh, you’re a Mormon.” Or “Oh, you’re a Jehovah’s Witness.” Or “I’ve never heard of that.”

Building Bridges

Using the findings of this study, this misidentification factor can be addressed in part using a technique the study terms “bridging.” The Faith Matters survey explains how bridging works using the Aunt Susan principle. The book states, “We all have an Aunt Susan in our lives, the sort of person who epitomizes what it means to be a saint, but whose religious background is different from our own. Maybe you are Jewish and she is a Methodist. Or perhaps you are Catholic and Aunt Susan is not religious at all. But whatever her religious background (or lack thereof), you know that Aunt Susan is destined for heaven. And if she is going to heaven, what does that say about other people who share her religion or lack of religion? Maybe they can go to heaven too.”3

In a second example the book introduces the my pal Al principle, “a corollary of the Aunt Susan principle. You become friends with Al for, say, your shared affinity for beekeeping. As you get to know Al, you learn that in addition to his regard for apiculture, he is also an evangelical Christian. Prior to learning that, you may have been suspicious of evangelicals. But if your pal Al is an avid beekeeper—just like you—and is also an evangelical, then perhaps evangelicals are not so bad after all.”4

The study suggests why there is lack of warm feelings toward those on the bottom of the list. They state, “Thus, groups viewed coldly [i.e., Mormons and perhaps by misassociation Seventh-day Adventists] are those in relation to which most Americans have little or no personal exposure. Given the small size of their respective populations [Adventists are less than . 5 percent of the population in North America], this would help to explain why Muslims and Buddhists are viewed in relatively negative terms. And when we remember that Mormons have a high degree of religious homogeneity within their own familial and social networks, it also helps to explain why they are perceived negatively as well.”5

Searching for Something

However, there is positive information that can be gleaned from this and other studies that should encourage Seventh-day Adventists in sharing the three angels’ messages. For instance, an earlier study done by the University of New York found that somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the American public switch denominations in their lifetime. The reasons for change are: marriage, shift in belief, and moving to a new community.

Furthermore, when asked why they chose their current congregation, a full 60 percent stated it was because of theology or religious beliefs. This was followed by style of worship (45 percent), marriage (42 percent), family (39 percent), clergy (39 percent), location (33 percent), childhood congregation (27 percent), friends (21 percent), and political or social views (18 percent).6

People are willing to change faith groups, and, perhaps most important, the main reason for switching is theology. While Aunt Sue and my pal Al are not about theology, they are about providing pathways for the introduction of Bible truth.

On further reflection, the authors of American Grace make two points of interest to Adventists about the Mormons, i.e., they are a small minority and often keep to themselves in ways that do not produce many Aunt Sues and my pal Als.

What the authors failed to mention is the role of Mormon theology in the minds of the public. In the political climate of the last presidential election much attention has come up against the Mormon beliefs from fellow Protestants. Because of their belief that Jesus is not God in the flesh, the Mormon faith has received much negative press and has been labeled as a cult. By implication, the Seventh-day Adventist Church could also be subject to this negativism because of the misidentification of Adventists and Mormons.

It All Comes Down to Jesus

Returning to where we began: My walking buddy calls Adventists an invisible denomination. That’s debatable. But if he thinks it is, it is to him. What to do? I suggest a theme that is all-inclusive for all church members for all time. Whether we witness about salvation, the Sabbath, state of the dead, healthful living, or last-day events, these can all be made crystal clear, bright and bolded, by church members who say: “It is always about Jesus. It is always about Jesus. It is always about Jesus!”


  1. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
  2. I think Adventists should be included in this group. However, when questioned, the surveyors said their randomly generated nationwide survey found less than 20 Seventh-day Adventists. The number was too small to be significant and was excluded.
  3. American Grace, p. 526.
  4. Ibid., p. 531.
  5. Ibid., p. 534.
  6. From the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI), conducted by the Graduate School of the City University of New York in 1990 as found in the book One Nation Under God, by Seymour P. Kosmin and Barry A. Lachman.
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