I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist. My father was employed by the church as a preacher and as a theologian until I was 14.
At age 18, I left Christianity. I wandered for a few years until embracing Judaism at age 23.
I am not unmoved when I move in Adventist circles. I come from that womb. I can not be indifferent. I have my moral and rational critiques of the church but they are like trying to make moral and rational critiques of your parents. How can you pronounce on your mom and dad who gave you life and loved you and watched over you when you helpless and nursed you through illness and despair and fed and clothed you and educated you and gently sent you out into the world to make your way? I feel like I can no more critique Adventism than I can critique my own parents.
When I converted to Judaism, I was born again according to the Jewish perspective. Who I used to be and who I used to feel allegiance to, those ties have been broken. That’s true in many ways but it is not true emotionally. I can not set foot in Adventist territories without wanting to cry. I have no desire to be an Adventist again, but the saddest day of my life was not the day my mom died (I was not yet four years old, too young to understand what was happening) but the day I found out (in August 1980) that we would not be going back to the church, to Pacific Union College, but that we were on our own.
And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.
