We often lament when young people leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church. But apparently, at least one time in our history it was a good thing—according to Ellen White, that is.
In 1892 Ellen White wrote a letter to S. N. Haskell in which she bemoaned the state of the Adventist Church. It was full of “sleepy, half-paralyzed souls,” who “simply have the name of Christians but are not fitted for the work of God.” The denomination was “indolent” and characterized by “formality,” she further reflected.
But there was “a little hope in one direction,” she explained. “Take the young men and women, and place them where they will come as little in contact with our churches as possible, that the low grade of piety which is current in this day shall not leaven their ideas of what it means to be a Christian.”1
The first time a friend introduced me to this quote about 15 years ago, I was blown away by it. Ellen White understood the excitement, zeal, and fervor that “young men and women” often possess. And she understood that quite often our congregations don’t affirm that zeal and excitement but undermine them. She understood that instead of building young people up, we far too often bring—and sometimes tear—them down.
And for that reason, she encouraged young people—at least in this instance—to remove themselves from the influence of their dead, lifeless, and loveless congregations.
How well are we doing at proclaiming and embodying the love of God?
Among other things, this tells me that sometimes when young people leave the church, it’s not because they are moving away from God but toward Him. In order to preserve their faith, they sometimes feel compelled to leave.
We often like to blame “the world,” or blame young people’s attachment to the world, for any backsliding that takes place. And sometimes that’s true. But according to Ellen White, perhaps that doesn’t tell the whole tale.
Perhaps it’s just as often an indication that we’re the problem, not the world. Or perhaps it simply means, as Preston Sprinkle has argued, that “people will gravitate to where they are loved the most. And if the world out-loves the church, then we have implicitly nudged our children away from the loving arms of Christ.”2
In that regard, the so-called youth exodus can serve as a barometer that indicates how well we, as a denomination, are doing at proclaiming and embodying the love of God. It can encourage sober reflection as we recognize that large defections possibly point to the ways in which we continue to be the church of Laodicea.
This isn’t to imply, of course, that we should celebrate young people leaving. Neither should we flippantly encourage them to do so. I’ve never utilized this counsel to that end. Nor is it a call to cast aside principle in order to sell out to the whims or desires of any demographic.
It’s simply to recognize that there’s a place for empathy rather than blame, and to take stock of our own deficits as we seek to align more effectively with the love of Christ.
1 Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases (Silver Spring, Md.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1993), vol. 12, pp. 332, 333.
2 Preston Sprinkle, People to Be Loved (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), p. 140.