Freedom of association????

I was 12 when I first spoke in front of a congregation at the East London Coastal Camp meeting, one would think 12 is relatively young, but not when you’re raised in an Adventist home bombarded with daily quotes from The Story of Redemption and the all too famous Ellen G. White. I still remember I had read a verse from the book of Jeremiah 51v 50 ‘You who have escaped from the sword leave and do not linger, remember the lord in a distant land and call to mind Jerusalem’. I’d like to say that after that sermon I was a stand up child and did as I was told by my parents, but I wasn’t, I still fall of the wagon every now and again or rather I climb on once every Saturday.

 At this point in my life I thought there was no life outside of church, as a result I’ve never really had non-Adventist friends, I just found it draining having to explain why I was unable to go to their birthday parties on Saturday or why I wasn’t allowed to go to Friday night valentines discos, even in my adult life I have only a handful of friends outside the Adventist faith. My life was all Camporees and pathfinder practices, these where the highlights of my childhood years. In high school this mentality began to fade, Sabbath school lessons were soon replaced with derby days, and church camps were nothing but socials, basically parents paid for us to fraternize away from home.

Realize also that Adventism is more than just a set of beliefs; it is an entire culture, Adventist basically live in a world of their own. It becomes your identity, so it isn’t unusual for Adventist youth to be only acquainted with other Adventist, and to have Adventist-is-best sentiment, ultimately looking down upon people of different faiths.

Being part of the Adventist youth community means that some issues are but a taboo to us, take homosexuality for instance, quite a large number of our youth are either fully fledged homosexuals, have experimented or have in some form or other been in close proximity with homosexuals, our church seems to be sweeping things that matter under the carpet and are expecting the youth to just blindly conform, forgetting that the government funded institutions they send us to have instilled other teachings and have engaged us in these topics they seem to be so afraid of.

Being born in an Adventist home I had felt deprived of some experiences as a young person, but now I have come to realize that not being able to be at every gathering has saved me from a lot of unnecessary worry the current youth faces, also Adventist parents need to also realize that there is life outside of church which we are a part of, and they need to trust to have raised us well enough to be vigilant in which parts of this life we part take in.