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Seventh-day Adventists have been mistakenly associated with cults. Locally, a recent newspaper advertisement caused confusion.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 21, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- There was no shrill talk of hellfire and damnation or even prophesies of the world's imminent demise. Rather, a recent Sabbath message at All Nations Seventh-day Adventist Church exhorted the congregation to feed the poor, tend the sick and assist the disabled.
"Can the church shut its eyes to the world and pull our self-righteous cloaks around us?" asked Elder G. Ralph Thompson, who was visiting from Silver Spring, Md.
"A person who is hungry needs to be fed. He's in no condition to listen to your preaching. Feed him first. . . . Christianity is you and me in working clothes," said Thompson, a top Seventh-day Adventist official.
Those outraged by a recent full-page advertisement in the St. Petersburg Times, at first glance seemingly purchased by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, might have been surprised by Thompson's message or even the tone and format of the Saturday morning gathering. In truth, it differed little from that of a typical Protestant service.
Thompson and All Nations' pastor, the Rev. Michael Reid, say they are accustomed to misconceptions about their faith.
The denomination has been associated with David Koresh, whose Branch Davidian cult was born when dissidents split from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the mid 1930s. More recently. local Adventists were embarrassed when a full-page anti-Catholic advertisement was run by the Sweetwater Seventh-day Adventist Association. Some readers missed or didn't understand the tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the newspaper advertisement in which the Sweetwater group indicated it is unaffiliated with the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist Church.
"Many people mix us up (with) the many offshoot groups," said Thompson, a field representative for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
"Many of them have extreme views on some of our teachings. That is something that I guess we have to live with, because we cannot control what people who say they are Adventists say or do."
During his visit to St. Petersburg, Thompson urged members of All Nations Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2611 First Ave. N, to be true ambassadors of their faith. The test of their Christianity, he told the congregation, is their behavior from Sabbath to Sabbath.
Reid, the congregation's Jamaica-born pastor, said All Nations' missionary groups regularly perform community service, distributing food baskets to the poor and paying visits to shut-ins.
Reid says he has been at All Nations for three years and has spearheaded an extensive renovation of the property the congregation purchased in 1994.
"I saw that there was work to be done as far as the physical structure was concerned, so we got the leaders together and presented a plan to refurbish the church," he said.
"The happy thing is we got the full support of the congregation and everyone was more than willing to make their contribution."
Founded in 1986 by five Caribbean families, All Nations now has 258 members.
Franseco Mitchell, who is from Jamaica, was one of the original members. He said the small group began meeting at what used to be a Unity church at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street S. Later, they rented Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church at 40th Street and Fifth Avenue S.
"From there we moved to our own church," Mitchell said, adding that by then, the congregation had grown to about 150 members.
On a recent Saturday, the church reverberated with the enthusiastic singing and prayer of members dressed in their Sabbath best. Many women wore hats. One young man sported dreadlocks. The choir, wearing lime green robes, covered their heads with black berets.
Early in the service, there was story time with puppets for the children. As they were led in prayer, many church members went forward to kneel around the stage, while others knelt in the pews. When Thompson preached, he urged them to follow Jesus' example of caring for others.
"This is Christianity in action," he said.
Later, the congregation gathered for lunch. In keeping with the teachings of their denomination, the menu was vegetarian. This particular Sabbath, the fare included curried gluten, macaroni and cheese and corn bread.
Besides espousing a vegetarian diet, the denomination, which formally organized in 1863, also prohibits smoking and alcohol. The Sabbath is observed from sundown Friday through sundown Saturday, a time when members are supposed to refrain from activities such as work and sports.
Seventh-day Adventists hold no special services for Christmas or Easter.
"We certainly do not believe that Christ was born on Dec. 25," Thompson said during an interview.
"We are into the fact of Christmas rather than the actual day. We don't go overboard on the celebration."
The Easter holiday is treated with similar ambivalence.
"We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but we believe that the true memorial of Christ's resurrection is shown by the symbols in the Bible, that is, his death, burial and resurrection as symbolized by baptism. And when we say baptism, we mean baptism by immersion," Thompson said.
After church teachings, members of All Nations recently gathered for a quarterly celebration of the Lord's Supper or communion. It was preceded by members washing one another's feet.
"It is an act of humility," Reid, a second-generation Seventh-day Adventist, said of the ritual, during which men and women are separated.
Despite their distinct beliefs, Thompson said, Seventh-day Adventists do not believe that they are better than other Christians.
The church believes, for instance, that those who die do not go straight to heaven or hell. Rather, Thompson said, Christians will remain in their graves until the second coming of Christ, and at that time will be taken to heaven. Sinners, on the other hand, are doomed to stay in their graves until the second resurrection, which Seventh-day Adventists believe will occur 1,000 years after the second coming. And the fate of all wicked people is eventual destruction.
As for the second coming, Thompson, who was born in Barbados and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church when he was 17, said his church has set no date. The end, however, is imminent, he said.
Such was the warning made by the Sweetwater Seventh-day Adventist Association in its Times advertisement several weeks ago.
"Earth's Final Warning," the headline blared. A subhead asked, "What is the mark of the beast?"
Carl Person, head of the association, which consists of his 25-member Sweetwater Seventh-day Adventist Church and a mailing list of about 500, said he has placed similar advertisements in papers around the country.
"The antichrist is the Roman Catholic Church," he said during a telephone interview from his headquarters in Athens, Tenn.
His declaration adheres to the true teaching of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, he said.
"We are not an offshoot," Person said of the group he founded about four years ago. "We are holding to the doctrine we are supposed to. They've gone the other way."
Regardless, mainstream Seventh-day Adventists now claim close to 12-million members worldwide.
In Pinellas County, All Nations Seventh-day Adventist Church has its own plan for increasing the denomination's adherents.
"Our goal is to plant three other Seventh-day Adventist churches, in three other strategic areas, all over Pinellas County," said Reid, the pastor.
"We have a plan for (a) future evangelistic meeting in Pinellas County to bring an awareness, in light of the second coming."