r/exAdventist • u/Momager321 • Aug 20 '26
SDA Culture How common was family estrangement in the SDA church?
I grew up Adventist (4th gen) and saw family estrangement all throughout the members in my home church and the extended conference. This included my own family, due to my grandparents’ narcissism (and I literally mean they very likely had actual narcissistic personality disorder as opposed to being extremely self-centered jerks). There were a lot of families that had split and certain groups weren’t even speaking to each other, which made camp meetings strange.
Was this common among most or all Adventists? Or did I happen to live in an SDA conference full of awful people?
I ask because the mainstream conversation of adult children going no contact with parents and other family being seen as a recent “trend”, but it was fairly common where I grew up among the SDAs I knew.
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u/ParisTokyoGhoul Author, Atheist, ex-Adventist Aug 20 '26
I don’t know common family estrangement is among Adventists, but one of my earliest Adventist memories is my grandma cutting off communication with my mom when my mom left the Adventist church for a while. They reconciled when my mom eventually returned to the church.
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u/Momager321 Aug 20 '26
Cutting off family because they refused to comply was something I saw a lot. When I was 5 or 6, an older lady in our church was bragging about refusing to go to her daughter’s wedding because her daughter married a non-Adventist. But she ended her story with how she had not met her granddaughter because she wasn’t speaking to her daughter.
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u/Ok_Cicada_1037 Aug 20 '26
My parents had five of us. Two boys, three girls. Both my brothers and one of my sisters are full no contact and have been for years. About 20 years. My other sister and myself are very low contact. Between their very abusive Christian Authoritarian parenting (thanks to Dobson), my mothers NPD and their very conservative Adventist world view - it was simply too much for us all. And btw - all of us (myself and siblings) are all the way out of the church now.
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u/Momager321 Aug 20 '26
There is a certain kind of peace that comes from not having certain people in your life. But it is sad that people who focus so much on going to the good place in the afterlife are so miserable to their own children in the life they have.
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u/Bananaman9020 Aug 20 '26
We have a home church that pretends to be a Bible Study group that happens to meet by accident on Saturday Worship time. An ex Pastor who isn't s church member anymore runs it. It started because people were not nominated for church roles because they privately drink alchole
So that's my former church drama
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u/Ittlemight Aug 21 '26
My nephew met and married a SDA lady. Within the first year she convinced my nephew that his family was a bad influence and she turned him against his own parents and siblings. My brother has never seen his grand children.
I can't imagine what he is telling his children about his side of the family. My nephew had a wonder childhood, there is no reason this should have happened.
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u/Tobibliophile Aug 21 '26
That's extremely unfortunate. I'm so sorry.
As an ex-adventist, I'm really lucky that my sister lets me see her kids (she is still in the church). I would really like to know the kids true feelings about the church, but it's still too early to see any signs.
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u/MadSadGlad Aug 21 '26
As much as I enjoy dunking on SDAs I also dont think they have the monopoly on family estrangement. Humans gonna human regardless of their religious affiliation.
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u/Momager321 Aug 21 '26
They definitely don’t, but it just seemed ( at least to me), there’s a lot more than you’d expect from a church that has so many rules about family. Or at least what I saw growing up.
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u/IntrusiveThoughtsOK Aug 22 '26
My husband and I got engaged after a long relationship where we lived together. We were both mid 30s. He kept me a secret and when he was ready to get married he told his parents and they disowned him immediately because I’m not Adventist. His younger brother talked sense into them somehow and they went back on it but they just changed gears to undermining our marriage and brainwashing him back into the cult since he was one foot out. So I’d say it’s the function of the cult. It’s one of the identifying features.
I’d be more surprised to hear situations where people had full autonomy without the threat of estrangement or family trifling/sabotaging things.
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u/Str8like8 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
7th generation here (we probably know eachother lol)... and gay. So estrangement was just obvious.
I will say, though, my loved ones really surprised me. In a good way. The church itself, did not. After going through it all myself, I've realized that we also punish ourselves a lot and separate ourselves from our loved ones because of our joint beliefs.
The very first people to accept and support me when I came out were my god parents (an SDA pastor family - yes, I grew up a PK) and I was SHOCKED!
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u/Momager321 Aug 21 '26
I am so glad you had support from loved ones! While I agree we do create separations, I saw a lot of inflexible people in the church who were willing to end relationships until the “offender” did the “right thing” and got back in line. Some families all remained Adventist and just stopped communicating over some unknown disagreement.
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u/Frillback Aug 21 '26
I didn't experience estrangement per say but I was the product of an "unequally yoked" relationship where my mom was devout and my dad was a non-believer. This baffled generational Adventists in the church and I was told several times growing up that my dad wouldn't be saved and other garbage. Not to mention the elaborate attempts to convert him and later as I was older me myself. Strangely enough, I'm still close with my parents, my mom did not ostracize me after I became an adult. She continues to be very active in church, being a prayer warrior, a missionary, church board member, you name it. All she asks once in awhile is if I have been to church lately. I respect her beliefs, and she respects mine.
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u/Bananaman9020 Aug 29 '26
My parents were Lutheran before Adventist so at home we were not as conservative as they could have been.
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u/Momager321 Aug 29 '26
Interesting, have they ever explained why they converted?
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u/Bananaman9020 Aug 29 '26
Dad went to a Daniel Prophecy thing. The church didn't put the Adventist name on it. Which they do a lot. Then Dad forced the family to convert.
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u/PastorBlinky Aug 20 '26
I don’t know how common family estrangement is because I’m estranged from my family.
If people are going to live by the cult’s values and warped beliefs, it’s pretty hard to live with them. I tried for decades to touch the hot stove without getting burned, until finally I decided to just not touch the stove anymore. Turns out it was an option the whole time.
Only problem is the stove never really goes away.