[Apologetics] Why David, Why?

[Stephen Korsman]

Why David, Why?
via Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic by Hugo on 4/11/08

Never in recent memory has an Adventist converted to Catholicism, with a profile high enough to attract wide-reaching attention within the Adventist community. Within days, Adventist Today (a leading progressive Adventist publication) ran the story of David Pendleton's embrace of Catholic faith on its front page, without comment. Probable thousands were exposed to a thoughtful and sympathetic article tracing Pendleton's journey. I was surprised to see a local Adventist church website link to the AToday article as a "Feature," also without comment. Other Adventist blogs have picked up the story as well.

This level of exposure for Adventist converts to Catholicism is unheard of, and entirely welcome. Hopefully, it attract more curiosity to the faith, and plant seeds in the hearts of many Adventists. It may also attract attention to fledgling communities of former Adventists, now Catholics, such as this one.

I have been most interested in the reaction of individual Adventists to this news, most of it flowing from online forums, such as Club Adventist and BlackSDA. No doubt, I have heard the full spectrum of reactions, having converted quite publicly while attending Southern Adventist University. With a smirk, I present excerpts of my favorites, in caricatured categories for the sake of humor. I learned, the stress of conversion is successfully combated with a bucket of laughs. :-)


  1. David Is Rejecting Truth; Could Be Insane.


    "WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    An SDA minister worshiping Mary, and all the Catholic saints whom he knows are all dead? Repudiating the Sabbath for a bogus day? WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Embracing eternal torment & limbo?
    WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I am dumbfounded!!!!!!!!!!!"

  2. The Devil Made Him Do It.


    "Don't be fooled, the devil is behind all of these high profile conversions to Roman Catholicism. Why in God's name would Jesus inspire a person to join up with the Antichrist and Babylon?"

  3. David was Never Truly Adventist.


    "Could it be that somewhere along the way, David Pendleton either never understood the Bible or he lost his faith in it as God's word and put more faith in the publications of the Catholic Church? One has to ask how he could become a Catholic unless he first disbelieved the Bible as the standard of faith and doctrine and had serious doubts about Ellen White as God's prophet. He certainly did not believe in the Third Angels Messages or that the identity of the first beast in Rev. 13 is the papal system.

    Of course David Pendleton is not the first SDA member or SDA pastor to convert to Roman Catholicism, and I have no doubt that we will see many in the near future do the same."

  (I hope so. +)


  4. David Just Doesn't Love Jesus.


    "Oh no. I don't believe those who love Jesus will NT leave the SDA church."

    "I would add that it's also apparent that he did not LOVE the truth. He may have seen it but he did not fully grasp it and love it so that it became a part of his life."

  5. All the Cool Kids Are Doin' It


    ". . .Since he lives and works in Hawaii, is that his "change" is mostly culturally motivated. He may be only going through the motions of Catholic worship, without consciously realizing what he's saying or doing. It may just be more comfortable to do what everybody around him is doing -- to "go with the flow" in order to "fit in."

    I can't believe he really fully grasps the dogma of the Catholic church.

    But maybe I'm just dreaming...."

  6. We Failed David, for Not Making Him Take More College Credits.


    "Just because someone has grown up in an Adventist home and studied to be a minister does not mean that they really understand Adventism. Some of our colleges have a strong Biblical studies program, but the current trend is to focus on the job of pastoring a church. The M.Div. degree requires only 3 Bible classes (at least one from each testament) and a couple of spoon fed theology classes. . . .

    So for our brother, let's not be too upset that he may be rejecting truth. He could have very well have not seen the truth to reject it."

  7. We Failed David, for Awarding Him College Credits.


    "I don't know if anyone read the recent letter to the editor of Adventist Review that David wrote, it dealt with the issue of church tradition and its role in the determination of biblical doctrines, namely, the nature of Christ. My feeling is that the root problem is that professional, highly educated multi-generational SDAs do not generally possess the strength of character to withstand the influences that they confronted with in the secular world because they have had to many advantages that propelled to the "top" too fast, thereby, bypassing the long "trial by fire" of being an obscure humble missionary like a Colporteur for a few decades, before being exalted to a high position. In a nutshell, Moses spent 40 years as a sheep herder before being called to leadership. I fault our SDA higher educational system for this problem."


  8. We Failed Him for Being too Anti-Catholic.


    "While we have some very just criticisms and concerns about the Papacy, we tend to go to the extreme of making the Catholics the boogy man."

  9. We Failed David for Not Being Anti-Catholic Enough


    "Now, individual SDA members may not agree, but check out the basic beliefs on Catholic doctrines...not the 28... Catholics are in the 'wrong' church no matter how devout. It is the counterfeit of Christianity...It is Satan's answer to the 'truth' and the antithesis of 'Sabbath-keeping' therefore greatly involved in marking the beast. Bible rearrangers, commandment breakers... but of course, not on an individual basis (this is always reiterated during the sessions). No? Am I alone in having heard this? One of the reasons there are independent SDA churches, says one of their members, is that the SDA church does not preach against the Catholic church as it should...a loud cry!"

    "What a lot of SDAs don't realize is that once we throw over certain fundamental teachings of the church, there is no real reason not to become Catholic."

  10. As Long As He Keeps Going Forwards... After Going Backwards...


    "I'd be hesitent about dismissing him as a brother in Christ. We have yet to see how he responds to the trends in Catholicism to back peddle from Vatican 2. We can pray that he (and other Catholics) will not only be faithful to Vatican 2, but grow beyond Vatican 2, and pray that he does not regress from Vatican 2 as the Vatican trys [sic] to back peddle."


  11. Ellen White is a Pope Anyways. . . Might As Well


    "Truth be told, a whole lot of Adventists are already set up for this kind of conversion; all that stands in the way is getting them past the traditional SDA stance on catholicism and getting them to trade their dead pope for one that is living."


  12. It Can't Be Doctrine. [Honestly, Does He Just Not Notice He Prays the Rosary Now?]


    "David Pendleton was also the former Religious Liberty Director, Communications Director and Pastor in the Hawaii Conference of SDA, who turned in his ministerial license recently to join the Roman Catholic Church. He is also a current law employment judge and former city councilman.

    I knew him to be a solid SDA pastor when I served as Pastor in Hawaii from 2003-2007. I don't think he had doctrinal issues but rather relational. Some people leave the SDA church not because of doctrine but because of treatment. Not that I condone David Pendleton's actions but I have known him to very concerned about issues of justice and fairness within the church. He wrote the cover story the Liberty Magazine article that featured Martin Luther King Jr. on the cover about a year or two ago.

    Don't be two quick to cast judgement on this case. There is a background that precipitated the actions."


  12. Ok, I Give Up... You Tell Me


    "1. How convinced was he that SDAism was the church for him?
    2. Did being in politcs have a negative affect on his spiritual life?
    3. Does he really believe the Catholic doctrines or is just looking for people to fill in the text...love one another?
    4. Is there really a personality type that does not carry on to the next generation? Second/third generation SDAs not REALLY SDAs?"

One Poster was unto something though:


  Why is it, when we see something like this, that the *person* is immediately assumed to be at fault/wrong/misled/deluded/unspiritual/unrighteous/etc?

  Ockham's razor suggests something more credible... that the church's flaws caught up to her where this believer is concerned... but wait... if we have "the truth" is the church allowed to have flaws?
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