Comment on A big reason why so many people are leaving the church by A Servant.
I am a 25 year old medical student at Loma Linda currently, and would like to share my personal experience regarding Sean’s thesis–that the failure of many Adventist institutions to provide intellectually compelling reasons for faith in the Bible and in our Bible-based Adventist doctrines has made a major contribution to attrition of “young people” from the Adventist Church.
Having attended Adventist Christian undergraduate and graduate schools for the past 8 years (where I have earned two degrees and am pursing a third), I have noticed a number of my friends who have either left or stayed in the church, based upon their perception of demonstrable evidence for faith in God and in the Bible, including a literal six-day creation and Noah’s flood.
Personally, the only reason I did not leave the church long ago is that I find that the preponderance of evidence, mostly drawn from science and history, favors the Bible as the direct Word of God. I base these conclusions on evidence from the following scientific disciplines:
Genetics
Enzymology
Biochemistry
Geology
History–via confirmation of the accuracy of Biblical predictive prophecies (yes, I have considered the historical-critical arguments against this position, but found them inadequate)
Archaelogical findings in support of early dates for the writing of the Scriptures (e.g., the regulations on war in Deuteronomy and the city-state geopolitical environment described in Genesis are more characteristic of a second millennium BC date for the Pentateuch than a first millennium date, as claimed by historical-critical scholars)
Medical evidence–the health principles of the Bible (and Ellen White) work. There’s a reason why the only Blue Zone in North America is in Loma Linda.
Biology
Paleobiology
Cosmology (in a class I took from Stanford)
Paleontology
Other fields that I don’t have time to share
I have written much more on these subjects, but will save those details for another time. However, I am not the only one who has been weighing the evidence. During my undergraduate experience, a number of my friends also had similar experiences:
BK came to me and asked my advice after we both had graduated. He had a lot of questions because he couldn’t reconcile what he read about origins and the Bible on Wikipedia with what the Bible and the Adventist church taught. He is not a church member any more. Now, I know that there were relational issues that caused these questions to arise. Generally, I have observed that both my friends and I have tended to ask questions about the rational basis for faith more frequently when we see open hypocrisy in the church–especially in our families or among church leaders. This was BK’s situation. However, if young people can see that there is good experimental, repeatable evidence for faith in God and the Biblical account of creation, the flood, and the rest of human history, it means that we can dismiss our hypocritical families or church leaders WITHOUT dismissing faith in God and His Word.
EHM has a similar experience, but had more questions about the historical basis for Adventist teachings. In this case also, relational problems were an underlying issue.
NPN was raised in a country that promotes atheism. When we first met, NPN was an agnostic. She is a bright girl, who went to the best school in her country. She was attending an Adventist school, and expressed interest in our religion. We studied the Bible with her for more than a year, and she politely expressed her appreciation for sharing about our faith, but I didn’t see any special signs that she was seriously interested. (Incidentally, she also had numerous bad experiences with Adventists during her time at our school, that could have discouraged her. Money was stolen from her, and her boyfriend was framed and almost expelled.) However, when a religion professor (not even a science professor!) shared some basic scientific evidence in support of a short, recent Creation, she suddenly began to express more interest in our faith. Why? Because now she realizes that what she has been hearing could be for real. It could be more than just an American Christian tradition. It could be more than priestcraft. It could be a reality.
