We Adventists love few things more than fighting addiction. We want everyone to quit smoking, drinking and (depending on how strict we are) coffee. But here are a few things we ourselves are hooked on:
Haystacks
Haystacks are Adventist crack. We can’t ever get enough. Whether they are the Friday night staple or your go-to for a youth social, haystacks save the day and extend the waistline in Adventworld.
Judgement
It’s good to have high standards and stand for reform but this often leads to judging everyone else you come across as too worldly, too late to church or too clueless to be speaking up in Sabbath School. That kind of judginess abounds in just about any Adventist church lobby.
Comparison
It’s human nature to compare and sadly this gets carried right into church. Who drove the nicer car to church today? Whose kids were better behaved in the pew? Whose testimony was most compelling? These comparisons are toxic and far too present.
Baptismal Numbers
Need to get re-elected as a church bureaucrat? Posting some impressive baptismal rallies and much of your work is done. The obsession with numbers is something everyone complains about but our culture almost always perpetuates. Nobody is knocking the beauty of baptism but surely it isn’t supposed to be a competitive sport…
Rolexes
We love to joke about how Adventists often shun traditional jewelry but are absolutely hooked on equally expensive status games like luxury watches that signal the fatness of your bank account. Throw in the social media documentation of ever-more exotic “mission trip” destinations and weird virtue signaling and you’re in a game nobody wins.
Us/Them thinking
Adventist Heaven is a lonely place. We want to do things our way and only play ball on our terms. Some of us think we are the only ones that will make the shiny hereafter. That’s very limited, unbiblical thinking and yet it thrives within the Adventist bubble.
Veggie Meat
The BA team will readily admit that this is an Adventist addiction that is particularly hard to kick. When you’ve grown up on Big Franks (or whatever your Loma Linda / Worthington fake meat of choice), you crave it no matter how many people tell you it is packed with salt and sometimes worse for you than the real deal…
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