Author: Sam Oliveira

By Sam Oliveira

Valuegenesis is a research project that documented the faith and values of young people who are attending Seventh-day Adventist high schools in North America. It focused on three areas: family, school and church. The first survey was conducted in 1990, the second survey in 2000 and the third in 2010. 

When the project first began, only 10 questions were about doctrine. For the most recent survey that was conducted, another 15 questions were added so that all doctrines could be explored. 

According to the book, Valuegenesis: Ten Years Later, it is crucial to track what kind of commitment young people have regarding their own theological system. 

In summarizing the additional 15 questions on doctrine, the average “definitely believe” score in the 2010 survey was 71%. The range of score was between 39% and 91% in most doctrines. 

Valuegenesis indicates strong adherence to the core of Adventist beliefs. It seemed clear that as students aged, the more they were able to understand some of the more complex doctrinal statements of the church. For example, the question that explores the Millennium, which is when Satan and his angels will occupy the desolate earth and a time when the wicked will be judged, moves from 40% “definitely believe” among sixth-graders to 64% among twelfth-grade students. 

From the study, it’s clear that youth develop their ideology and theology as they grow. As their identity becomes more stable and their lives reflect their goals and vision, Adventist young people tend to have a clearer view of what they believe. Since building a Christian ideology is an important identity issue for growing teens, you can easily see the church’s role in that development. 

The importance of the Valuegenesis research project is very significant for being able to see how young people are understanding, not only the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church but other aspects of their faith as well.  

*All information was taken from the book Valuegenesis: Ten Years Later on pages 66-71.

By Sam Oliveira

From the New Pictorial Aid for Bible Study, I was able to select some beautiful prophecy images that illustrate how we may interpret some of the prophecy imagery mentioned in Daniel and Revelation. The caption for each image is below:

Picture 1: Map of European Kingdoms.

Picture 2: The Glorious Second Advent of Christ.

Picture 3: The Lion and Bear of Daniel 7.

Picture 4: The Leopard and Fourth Beast of Daniel 7.

Picture 5: Identification of the Little Horn.

Picture 6: The 1,260 Days Prophecy.

Picture 7: The Seventy Week Diagram.

Picture 8: The 2,300 Days Diagram.

Picture 9: The Abiding Gift of Prophecy

Picture 10: The Sea-beast and Land-beast of Revelation 13.

Picture 11: The Woman and the Scarlet Beast of Revelation 17.

Citation: 

Breaden, Frank. New Pictorial Aid for Bible Study. Signs Publishing Company, 1995. 

Illustrators: Tom Bishop, Rowley Greenhalgh, Zelman Lew, and Frank Breaden.

Publisher and Printer: Signs Publishing Company, Warburton, Victoria, Australia.

Copyright 1995.

By Sam Oliveira

This week I had the privilege of talking with Professor Jud Lake from the Religion Department at Southern Adventist University. Lake said he has been teaching at Southern for 23 years and each time he teaches – especially a class called “Adventist Heritage” – he learns something new. 

“I still feel excited and passionate about these truths as I did when I first encountered them,” he said in a recent interview. “Now, I just have a [deeper] understanding and appreciation [than] before.”

Throughout our conversation, I asked him if he thought the way the early pioneers approached prophecy was wrong. Could there have been a difference if we had approached prophecy differently early on? 

“I think our pioneers [made an approach] that was appropriate for their time,” he said. “But then you have the second generation Adventism, the famous [righteousness by faith] 1888 crisis,” he said. “… [For] the early pioneers, everything was fresh [and] it was exciting. They were developing this church [and] new doctrines and [Jesus’] teachings, but as time went on, the second generation, the children of those pioneers lost something.”

Lake said church leaders slowly shifted their focus until legalism started to be the main issue with the “Mark of the Beast,”  Christ’s soon return, and God’s law thrown in – … “They lost the centrality of Christ… and that brought on the crisis of the 1888 [in the] General Conference, and the debates on righteousness by faith, but that experience changed the denomination.” 

This legalistic spiral shows up even today with the older and younger generation perceived to be at odds. 

“If you go about it in the wrong way, and you lose sight of Christ, the freshness, the beauty of it, the assurance is gone,” Lake explained. “And it becomes scary [for] Adventists that are my age, in the late 20th century. Even as far back as when I was a teenager in the 1970s, that generation of adults [was] struggling with legalism. They had lost sight of Christ, and the prophecies were all the beast and the plagues. And it was fear. Then we went through some theological crisis, and a lot of people left, but Christ became central again. Today, the challenge is there are so many distractions. Can people [think] about what really matters?”

Yet, Lake believes the Biblical account of end-time events has the potential to captivate a new generation of believers.

“The idea of the supernatural invading this planet [and] Jesus coming back and invading this world and radically turning it over, and in a matter of moments, is something that can be very appealing, “ Lake concluded, “because it’s radically different from what the world teaches today.”

By Sam Oliveira

This week, I had the opportunity to document Kathy Goddard’s journey through prophecy. Goddard is an associate professor in the English Department at Southern Adventist University. Her insights from childhood until today show growth in her understanding and acceptance of prophecy. She encourages students to seek to understand and engage with prophecy. Only by doing so, she said, will we understand God’s love and ultimate plan for redemption. 

By Sam Oliveira

When it comes to prophesy, some might think of the mysterious beastly creatures mentioned in Revelations with many eyes. We might also envision the in-depth end times depictions we have been taught since childhood. 

This week, I had the privilege of interviewing my boyfriend Jonathan Shephard on how he grew up in the Adventist church and what prophecy meant to him then and now. 

 “My situation is a bit unique because my dad, who doesn’t like having silence in the house, would have the late C.D. Brooks pastor [playing] in the background…and that’s really where I started listening to some sermons because he did a lot of [them] about end-time events,” stated Jonathan. 

Throughout his childhood, he was surrounded by this constant end time knowledge that he had no idea what it meant. 

“I started actually listening when I was about 5 or 6 years old, but I started interpreting, and finally getting it in my head around [when] I was 14 years old,” he continued.

Having to constantly listen to end-time sermons from such a young age instilled immediate fear into him. He felt that he wasn’t doing enough, and if it wasn’t doing enough, was he really going to be saved?

It’s interesting how when I think about the end times, my childhood also had fear instilled into the way I dealt with prophecy. I felt that if I didn’t do exactly what my parents said about Jesus or anything else regarding religion. And then I’d automatically be persecuted and not go to Heaven. I find it quite intriguing how Jonathan’s childhood experience and mine are not very far off from each other. 

“After you start gaining a relationship with Christ, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m just a pilgrim here. I’m just passing. The fear factor gets removed when you realize that the hardest part has already been done for you,” Jonathan stated. “And I think it’s always been interesting to me [how] we’re in a rush to teach people the end times, but we’re not in a rush to teach them about God? How are you going to enjoy heaven if you don’t even know who is in heaven?”

By Sam Oliveira

Let’s take a leap back to the 1800s. It was around that time that the Seventh-day Adventist church came into existence. Shortly after the Great Disappointment of Oct. 22, 1844, the denomination formed, and today it has over 20 million members.

Upon reading Seeking a Sanctuary, a book written by Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart, I realized how prophecy helped galvanize the early Adventist pioneers. They focused on what would happen in the last days, preaching and teaching about how people should give their lives to Jesus and how many would suffer persecution before Christ’s faithful return. 

However, that wasn’t all. Early Adventists were fixed on finding out exactly when Jesus was coming. They would vigorously study scripture trying to decipher everything they could. 

“Adventists nonetheless became obsessive watchers of the ‘Signs of the Times,’ producing a succession of individuals who provided an almost continuous apocalyptic commentary on national and international events,” Bull and Lockhart wrote.

The focus on the end times became a massive phenomenon in the church and is still talked about today. 

The problem with today? Many have been pushing prophecy for so long that any occurrence around the world causes “the church’s eschatology [to thrive] whenever there is political disorder or natural disaster,” according to the authors.

I honestly can’t remember the last time a tsunami or decision made by the Pope wasn’t preached about in relation to the end times. 

It’s easy for the older generation to pinpoint those occurrences as an apocalyptic event, but as Bull and Lockhart state, that’s not always the case. While many of the disasters around the globe may be related to the end times, “Adventist apocalyptic does not always flourish in crisis situations.”

Must we continue to be vigilant? Of course. Prophecy is just as important today as it was in the early days of the denomination and, perhaps, even more so. However, the major obsession that the early pioneers initiated may or may not have hindered how the Millennial generation has responded to an imminent event that has existed for 177 years.

Do younger Adventists have a different perspective on this issue? Let’s continue to dive deeper and learn how prophetical views have continued to evolve and adapt over the generations.