Friendly Former Adventist

Author as a teenager in front of Collegedale Academy.The second part of Church School Blues is set at C.A.

Sooner or later it's going to come out.  The writer of Precious Jewels, A Seventh-Day Adventist Family Saga and Church School Blues is a former SDA.  It might be later.  My short stories and articles were published for years in Adventist publications with no one the wiser (as far as I know.)  I was even approached as an editor candidate for one of their leading magazines, and they were still none the wiser.  Once, I did get unmasked by a student intern at Insight Magazine who asked me the innocent question on the phone, "Where is your home church?"

I told her the truth, expecting that would be the end of my career as a writer in Adventist publications, but she either didn't tell the management or they didn't care.  Why should they?  At that time, there was a dearth of good writers for Adventist publications, and my stories were exactly what they were after.  My material pushed the boundaries -- they published my stories on racism and child abuse and bullying.  They allowed me to give voice to the fact that these things happen in Christian circles, which to me was a huge and long overdue progression from what I had seen in their magazines while growing up Adventist. 

But there was only so far and so long that I could remain with them and write true to myself and still write true to the requirements of the Adventist publishing industry.  So I published independently when I wrote my books, but I'm still in the very odd position of a former SDA writing for and about Adventists. 

I have always been different -- being different got me bullied in Adventist schools, and now being different gets me criticized by other former Adventists who think I should be on a crusade to unravel Adventism.  I have no desire to unravel Adventism.  My roots are Adventist, it is my history, and in many ways I am still Adventist, my diet being the most noticeable thing about me that is Forever Adventist.  I'm no longer a believer for several reasons -- one big one, I suppose is that I lost a sense of belonging at a critical time in my development.  The other reasons have to do with intellectual/spiritual disagreement which I won't go into  (See above: no desire to unravel Adventism.)

Some of the most colorful, fascinating, heroic people I've ever known were Adventists.  My great-grandmother's story is classic Adventist -- A plantation owner's daughter, who converted to the ministry of Ellen G. White's son Edson White when he came down the Yazoo River with his Morning Star riverboat ministry.  Pearl Holt, my great-grandmother gave up everything -- husband, comfortable life -- and went on an amazing religious odyssey with her two small daughters.  The daughters, Ruby and Grace, grew into fascinating people as well, and it was Grace who had such an impact on my own character.  Such a family legacy, dovetailing with the history of Adventism in the American South, just had to be written -  so last year PRECIOUS JEWELS, A SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST FAMILY SAGA was published.  I wrote it as they lived it and wrote it as they would have wanted me to tell it.  I wrote it like an Adventist.

My most recent book is also about Adventists.  It is my story, about a kid who was bullied for six years in Adventist schools.  Some people are disappointed that CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES isn't an exposé of Adventism.  They wanted to see me blow the lid off some conspiracy about Adventist education -- well, there isn't a conspiracy as far as I know.  I honestly believe that I had the bad luck to have been placed with some uncommonly horrid folks that weren't typical of the Adventist school experience.  And yet, I have heard the experiences of enough other people who were bullied and abused in SDA schools to know that this is an issue that the faculty and the families need to be prepared to confront. 

If you are an Adventist, CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES could make you uncomfortable because it is clear that being bullied does something to a person's religious experience as well as to their social experience.   My transition from being the grandchild of one of the most amazing Adventists who ever lived to an adult who no longer believes began in the BLUES years. 

For that reason if for none other, CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES should be read by Adventists.  If Adventists want to keep their young people (and their adults who used to be young people) they need to be alert to circumstances of neglect and abuse which alienate their members.  This is not a uniquely Adventist problem (see above: no exposé.)  It is a human problem, and the challenge for Adventists is to acknowledge  that they are still in The World and that the World's problems come through their doors and dwell among their members, just as they do in that other church down the road.