Which Christian denomination is the fastest-growing in North America? I’ll give you a hint: They don’t go to church on Sundays.
Newly released data show Seventh-day Adventism growing by 2.5% in North America, a rapid clip for this part of the world, where Southern Baptists and mainline denominations, as well as other church groups are declining. Adventists are even growing 75% faster than Mormons (1.4 percent), who prioritize numeric growth.
For observers outside the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the growth rate in North America is perplexing.
“You’ve got a denomination that is basically going back to basics … saying, ‘What did God mean by all these rules and regulations and how can we fit in to be what God wants us to be?’,” said Daniel Shaw, an expert on Christian missionary outreach at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. “That’s just totally contrary to anything that’s happening in American culture. So I’m saying, ‘Whoa! That’s very interesting.’ And I can’t answer it.”
April 7th, 2011 | 10:16 am
[...] Joe Carter Posted by Stuart [...]
April 7th, 2011 | 10:20 am
Oh, and they consider Sunday worship the “mark of the beast.”
April 7th, 2011 | 10:34 am
“That’s just totally contrary to anything that’s happening in American culture. So I’m saying, ‘Whoa! That’s very interesting.’ And I can’t answer it.”
Wow. It must take an expert to be so clueless. You really can’t answer it? Just go back two sentences, pal.
A religion that expect NOTHING “totally contrary to anything that’s happening in American culture” is basically just asking you to spend some of your time hanging out with them, when you could just as well be hanging out somewhere else (or staying in bed).
But the ones that DO offer something different–well, maybe they actually believe in something, maybe they actually are worth checking out.
Seriously, is this really some sort of mystery?
PS. It should be mentioned of course, that fractional growth of a very, very small number doesn’t necessarily signify much of anything at all, of course.
April 7th, 2011 | 10:39 am
I would be interesting to know how much of the Seventh Day Adventists growth is among Hispanics (former Roman Catholics). Advent-ism interprets Revelations and Daniel to say that the Catholic church is Babylon and the Pope the Antichrist, etc. If the numbers are heavily Hispanic, it might suggest something more complex that just going “back to basics.”
April 7th, 2011 | 10:58 am
T.B.Root said:
Oh, and they consider Sunday worship the “mark of the beast.”
Is that for real, do they really believe that?
April 7th, 2011 | 11:31 am
They also don’t believe in hell; it’s “soul annihilation” instead. Are they a cult? Orthodox Christian apologists have wrestled with this for some time.
April 7th, 2011 | 11:42 am
For a short while, in my teens, I was part of a “Bible study” led by an Adventist using materials from his church. This is what we were taught from the materials. It was basic to their self-understanding–that by maintaining the true Sabbath they did not participate in a perversion of the Ten Commandments (and the day of rest God built into creation) and thus avoided “the mark of the beast.” Christians who worship on Sundays, like me, are false-Christians who can be read about in Revelations.
April 7th, 2011 | 11:44 am
Stuart — yes.
Also, I once heard (and am open to correction on this) that the Hispanic thing might have its roots in a kind of Hispano-Israelism — some feature of their eschatology motivates them to discover lost connections to ethnic Jews. Because of the Spanish Inquisition and the effects of the Reconquista, there are allegedly scads of people with Spanish blood who are the descendants of “secret Jews,” and the Adventists make much of the connection and therefore have a certain attraction for people who buy into that, and can be persuaded that they are among that favored group.
Anyone know more about that?
April 7th, 2011 | 11:52 am
Ah, the blessing of small numbers. In any case, the Roman Catholic Church is well positioned to compete with the SDA, given the prevalence and popularity of Saturday evening Mass.
April 7th, 2011 | 11:53 am
By the way, aren’t the SDA arians? And if so, doesn’t that disqualify them from being considered a “Christian” denomination?
April 7th, 2011 | 11:58 am
No, I don’t believe they’re Arians. Jehovah’s Witnesses are Arians.
April 7th, 2011 | 12:12 pm
The few SDAs I met were sincere people attempting to lead holy lives. It seemed to me that their religion was based on a conspiracy theory, but I hope I have been fair in representing it. My point in bringing it up was to question the “back to basics” point from the guy at Fuller.
April 7th, 2011 | 12:38 pm
I used to watch their satellite channel, 3ABN, occasionally. The SDA is the major denomination that formed out of the Millerites and the Great Disappointment of 1844.
Their founder Ellen White was a leading follower of Miller and much of it’s distinctness comes from her.
It is very focused on Eschatology and is very very anti-Catholic. In fact they largely disdain all other churches.They have had a strong influence on the importance of Evangelical Endtime scenarios and teachings.
April 7th, 2011 | 12:40 pm
So far are they from being Arians that their thological critics have accused them of Tritheism
April 7th, 2011 | 1:24 pm
T.B.Root said:
Oh, and they consider Sunday worship the “mark of the beast.”
Is that for real, do they really believe that
The mark of the beast it’s much more than worshiping on Sunday. It mean giving the enemy of God our minds and to live in rebellion against God and the Bible doctrines. Obedience with the power and Grace of God shows our compromise as Christians. Obedience because we are saved by Grace !!! That is what we believe.
April 7th, 2011 | 1:45 pm
When I was a kid, my parents had friends who were a married couple; the wife was a Seventh-Day Adventist and the husband was not. She was a vegetarian, as many Seventh-Day Adventists are, but she cooked non-vegetarian meals for her family. She made one of the best fried-chicken dinners I ever had. It stuck in my mind all these years because I found it so strange she had made something so good without being able to enjoy it herself. It appears that the emphasis on healthy living is one of the appeals of the religion. If I were pope, I might try to start a Catholic, Bible-based healthy living movement. It would be totally consistent with Catholic teaching, and I bet it would draw people to the Church.
April 7th, 2011 | 2:17 pm
@T.B.Root + @pentamom – Thanks. Very strange indeed.
April 7th, 2011 | 3:07 pm
Yup. They will tell you — at least I have heard them say — that Christians adopted Sunday for weekly worship because it was a pagan practice.
Nevermind that the pagans didn’t practice weekly worship in any way, shape, or form. At all. Indeed some Christians received a martyr’s crown after pagan authorities noticed people congregating on a Sunday at a place where it could not be for work — therefore, it must be for worship, and since it was Sunday, obviously they were Christians.
April 7th, 2011 | 4:20 pm
Heartfelt apologies to T.B.Root and others who received instruction about Adventist beliefs from our ultra-conservative factions or from members who were just confused about their own church’s teaching. Seventh-day Adventists believe in salvation only by God’s grace as a result of Christ’s love and sacrifice on our behalf. We do believe and teach the need to obey what God says, and being Protestant we believe that God’s written word is the basis for our belief and the authority to test every doctrine.
To clarify about Sabbath vs Sunday worship — Adventists do teach, as an understanding of Bible prophecy, that someday this will become a highly public and global issue and that Sunday worship will eventually be enforced by civil laws with severe penalties. Only then does worship on Sunday become the “mark of the beast”. We believe that Christians today who worship on Sunday are honest and sincere in their worship. That goes for Catholic Christians, too, including the Pope.
The Adventist church developed in a time when nearly all Americans were strongly anti-Catholic. Our early literature, especially about Bible prophecy, reflected that culture. It’s not the way the church teaches today, despite contrary messages from some members.
I’m just a lay elder in my local, rural Adventist church. Our home page (www.graftonsda.com) includes official statements about Adventist beliefs, in case you want to know details.
April 7th, 2011 | 4:36 pm
Re Didymus46′s comment that “They also don’t believe in hell…”
Yes, we do believe in hell, but not the same way as most Christians do. We believe it is the unstoppable, fiery, total destruction of the sinners and fallen angels that God does before He makes the earth new again. We believe it is finite, not eternal. That can actually be an advantage in some considerations about God’s mercy and justice and etc. We’re a minority, but certainly not the only Christians who believe that way.
April 7th, 2011 | 4:39 pm
“If I were pope, I might try to start a Catholic, Bible-based healthy living movement. It would be totally consistent with Catholic teaching, and I bet it would draw people to the Church.”
Well, you could start by reviving the concept of fasting. As a Melkite, I observe about 180 fast days per year.
April 7th, 2011 | 5:47 pm
Thank you, Dennis Murphy. I like what you have to say.
April 7th, 2011 | 6:56 pm
Amusing.
All of it.
April 7th, 2011 | 8:22 pm
My husband and I were life-long SDAs until a couple of years ago when we studied our way out of Adventism (and as a consequence, my husband forfeited his job as an Adventist academy teacher). About 15 months ago, we started a website ministry for SDAs, and secondarily to educate Evangelicals about the teachings of Adventism. If any of you would like to check it out, please visit http://www.sabbatismos.com (BTW, we now understand Jesus to be our Sabbath rest, per Heb. 4, rather than a day of the week).
In Christ,
Jennifer
April 7th, 2011 | 9:30 pm
Here’s the link to an article from the SDA published “Adventist Review,” which partly explains why SDAs are showing up in the media more lately. http://www.adventistreview.org/issue.php?issue=2011-1508&page=18
April 8th, 2011 | 6:01 am
[...] HT:Joe Carter [...]
April 8th, 2011 | 8:53 am
Pentamon-
It’s very true. They tell Hispanics silly things like that to make them feel part of some “select” group and to justify leaving the Catholic faith. This is also done by Muslims seeking Hispanic converts. Hispanic Evangelical groups have a real obsession with Jewish rites and traditions. It is sad that they do not see that the Catholic church is the New Israel and is rich in traditions and rites inherited from the Hebrews. To those who believe that Hispanics are the “future” of Catholicism in America I say, WAKE UP, Hispanics are among the least practicing and most vulnerable Catholics in our Church. They are the future of American Evangelicalism. The American episcopacy in its zeal for immigration is swelling the ranks of Pentecostal churches at the expence of the Catholic Church….
April 8th, 2011 | 9:59 am
Re Pentamom’s and Alejandro’s comments about the Hispanic attitudes…
Not doubting what you’ve said, but it’s totally new to me, and I’ve been a member of rural and metropolitan Adventist churches for all my adult life (nearly 40 years). I’ve heard plenty of other strange things from groups within our church, but not that one. Perhaps those ideas about a secret or ancestral Jewish connection circulate only within the Hispanic subculture? I’ll definitely try to learn more about it.
April 8th, 2011 | 10:15 am
Dennis,
There was a huge falling-out among SDA leadership, what, twenty years ago? It had to do with exactly how Christ entered the heavenly sanctuary, is that right? Which side did your group come down on?
April 8th, 2011 | 10:34 am
Dennis — I’m sorry that I can’t back up what I’ve said. I only recall something I’ve read a long time ago. I wasn’t so much about “Hispanic attitudes” — I think it was a magazine article about the movement within Adventism to recruit Americans of Hispanic background, particularly in the West and Southwest, on the basis of some connection to the “secret Jews” of the 15th century. And for some reason, having a Jewish background is of particular eschatological significance to the Adventists (as it is to Dispensationalists) but I don’t remember the exact tie-in.
April 8th, 2011 | 12:27 pm
Pentamom — I didn’t mean to challenge what you wrote. I had just never heard of it. The link between Hispanics of the Southwest to ancient Jews in Spain seems plausible. I found an article about them in Smithsonian magazine (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/san-luis-valley.html), to name one source.
I suppose some Adventists could have used the idea as part of local evangelistic appeals to people in that culture, but I’d be surprised to find it in any of our mainstream publications.
There is a special sensitivity Adventists feel toward Jews, since we share the 7th day Sabbath, some diet principles, and a reverence for God’s law in general. There is a sub-culture of Adventist Jews, similar to Jews for Jesus in the wider Christian community, and most Adventists probably expect Jews’ acceptance of Jesus to increase as part of end-time events, but I don’t think many see special eschatological significance in whether or not an individual has Jewish ancestry.
April 8th, 2011 | 12:47 pm
Dennis, I know you weren’t challenging. It’s just that I was uncomfortable with posting something and then not being able to back it up with any details or a link. At the same time, I wanted to affirm that what I wrote came from a credible source, it’s just that I can’t recall it. And I won’t quibble of what significance was attached to their purported Jewishess, I just recall that there was *some.*
April 8th, 2011 | 12:51 pm
G.K. Chesterton — (are you related to THE Chesterton?) ;-)
I couldn’t estimate how large the “falling out” was, but I remember the controversies about the Heavenly Sanctuary and etc. I think they started in the early 80s and lasted several years. Factions still persist, of course.
I probably can’t speak accurately about it without a lot of research and text space. I think a key part of the controversy was Christ’s continuing ministry in the sanctuary in heaven, especially the change of ministry that we associate with Daniel’s 2300-day prophecy, versus the popular Christian concept that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was the total, complete offering for our salvation and nothing more should be needed. I think the church’s settled position is that His sacrifice was the complete, one-time offering for all sinners, but the *application* of that sacrifice to our own lives remains and is what Jesus does for us in the Father’s presence in heaven. There was also the issue of just how closely the two-compartment sanctuary ministry of the Old Testament compared to Jesus’ work in heaven, and whether Jesus did or didn’t enter into God’s presence before the end of the 2300 days. I think that has settled with church members not being so strictly literal in matching details of the earthly sanctuary with operations in heaven.
I’m not sure if I answered your question, but I hope this is helpful.
April 8th, 2011 | 3:58 pm
@ Dennis Murphy,
I am a second generation Hispanic SDA member. I have never heard of anything as absurd as using Jewish ancestry or bloodlines, if you will, to recruit Latinos/Hispanics. What I have witnessed however in my 40 years of Adventism is that Catholics are disillusioned with not having a personal relationship with God. Some have sought a definitive way of being with God, loving God, and witnessing for God that is absent of the ritualistic foundations of Cat holism.
Furthermore, liberation theology that you espoused is the bases for the influx of Hispanics into the SDA church has its inception with the Jesuit order; and certainly not part of the SDA church. If you want to speak of eschatology, than frankly speaking, in the “last days” which I certainly agree that we are in, holy writ states that there will be a remnant who keeps the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ (Rev 12:17).
People of all persuasions are coming out of churches and finding the SDA church and not just Latinos. Yes, it is indeed interesting!!
There are only two major religious movements in the world, where its churches can be considered global and thriving – the Catholic Church and the SDA. Both can not be right as one is a total antithesis of the other; the dicothomy could not be more astounding! This begs the question, which movement is God helping?
April 8th, 2011 | 4:12 pm
[...] Joe Carter links to a piece in USA today that identifies the fastest growing Christian denomination in the country as Seventh Day Adventists, another sign of the growing popularity of legalist faith in our culture. [...]
April 8th, 2011 | 11:18 pm
Dennis and Bill: SDA came from the Millerites, right? I do not mean to insult you personally by my opinion, but I find it hard to take a church that developed out of the Millerites seriously, just as I cannot take seriously a church whose founder supposedly got its scripture from a golden book that an angel showed him and then took away again. What do you think of the Millerites and how does your church account for them? Or is the case, as is typical in so many Protestant churches, that what the founders did and said don’t matter to the current adherents?
April 9th, 2011 | 6:21 pm
I believe SDA rejects some basic orthodox christian doctrines (election, limited atonement for those who believe in ‘perseverance of believers’), and purport that a christian may lose their salvation if they are unrepentantly ‘naughty’ and disregard the law in general, of which it seems there are plenty of warnings about in scripture. Other than that, their views regarding soul sleep, annihalation in lake of fire (hell itself is finally discharged to the lake of fire,['smoke goes up forever in my understanding refers only to a judgment which can't be reversed, not eternal time, and the soul that sinneth it will die]) and the emphasis on practicing a day of rest on the old sabbath (seventh day) seem to be very scriptural, although refuted by orthodox sunday christians, in twists of scripture and added punctuations. Although I am orthodox and ‘calvinist’, I know extremely few sunday christians who practice any form of a day of rest, and never on sunday, since it is a busy ‘church day’. I thank God he is sovereign and he alone will judge us all and our doctrinal nuances, that we all seem to pull from the same scriptures, as we have been taught.
April 10th, 2011 | 9:11 am
Brianwood — Adventists hold some beliefs that most Christians disagree with, but not the ‘basic’ beliefs of orthodox Christianity, which I think are those about salvation by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. We would disagree that the Calvinist beliefs you identified (election, limited atonement, etc) constitute essential Christian belief.
Gail F — no insult taken, at least not yet. William Miller and his followers were serious Christians, not fanatics. They were mistaken in an aspect of Bible prophecy that they took seriously, i.e. that Jesus was returning on a specific date in 1844. When that prediction failed, those believers went all kinds of directions, but some of them were convicted that God was involved in the movement in spite of their mistake about prophecy. They continued studying their Bibles and eventually came together to form the Adventist church about 20 years later. Mr Miller was not a founder in any way, and in fact never joined them and didn’t accept their Sabbath belief. We still view William Miller as an honest servant of God who went as far as he could in following God’s word.
April 24th, 2011 | 12:21 pm
If all of you christians would study the ten commandments and follow them you would end up an adventist. The truth is most of you don’t even know why you go to church on sunday. I will tell you it is because of a roman ruler in 321 A.D. named Constantine that wanted to create revenue for the church and reach out to the pagan “SUN” worshipers, so he compromised the day and changed it for money. So not honoring Sabbath is breaking the fourth commandment. Jesus wants a remnant read Rev 12:17. God bless.
April 24th, 2011 | 6:42 pm
if anybody is still looking at this blog…
Growing up in SDA school system, I was never taught anything about jews in Spain being conected to hispanics in America. There is a belief amongst LDS or mormans that some native americans were decendents of a lost jewish tribe, perhaps that is where that rumor came from.
The SDA growth in amongst hispanics in N. America is probably more about increasing population than anything else. SDA is a larger movement outside the US than in the US if measured by member numbers.
Sabbath or Saturday keeping is the 4th commandment if you’re someone who is concerned with keeping God’s law keep it all, why pick and choose.
I also believe from my past studies that there is historical evidence of Constatine the Byzentine Emperor making Sunday the official day of worship for Christians.
As far as nit picking at flaws and misguided movements, every religion has some embarrassing moments in its history.
The most important thing is getting to know Christ, dieing to self, having a change of character, asking for the power of the holy spirit to enable us to be Christ like.
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