I touched on my Aunts funeral a tad at Seventh Day Adventist Love Food!!! .
A few other observations that might be of interest.
As I have noted before I have some Adventist influence in my family. My Great Grandmother was a devout Adventist and so were a good many of her children to this day. My grandmother was raised in that but sort of became a Baptist because of my grandfather. In the last decades of my grandfather's life though they became Adventist. I think my Grandmother had something to do with this Though I am not sure how Adventist my Grandfather really was. I asked him if he was Adventist why we are eating all this bacon and why he is grilling steaks. He informed he was Baptist that went to a Adventist Church. So in his mind he sort of accommodated the two in some odd combination of a Steak Eating Baptist that believed in Soul sleep. Anyway one does not get into theological debates with the grandparents so I left it that. Though my gosh they quit drinking coffee which could be highly annoying when you woke up at their house in the morning.
Despite her being "Baptist" for most of her life there was the Adventist theme around. Signs magazine being sent to everyone and all the family getting copies of the Great Controversy. My mother in fact was sent to a Adventist college for a period of time. Still the family remained Baptist except for my Aunt and Uncle who in their later years turned Adventist.
Now a few observations.
First my Aunt was the type that loved life to the fullest. She never over the past 6 years let her cancer get her down. My Aunt and Uncle were always in love with each other. I mean they started dating as Freshmen in High School. I will miss her.
It seems large areas of this country have no hardly no Adventist and with out warning poof there are a ton. There seems to be a good many in Northwest Arkansas. My mother was explaining to me that among some Adventists they think in the "last days" they need to go the mountains. Now the Ozarks are not exactly the Rocky Mountains but I suppose they qualify. Also Little Debbie's snacks has a plant there, where my Uncle works, and that is a Seventh Day Adventist owned company. So that might explain it as to North West Arkansas.
I am here to report Adventist anti Catholic theology has not abated one bit. I spent some time at the Church where the memorial service was held looking at the free Church literature. Now I was not shocked at this. It is so ingrained in Church theology to change it would be problematic. It would be sort of like the Pope announcing that the Jesus is not present in the Sacrament.
Note to the Diocese of Little Rock. Better bone up on educating Hispanic Catholics about Adventist arguments. They seem to a prime group they go after.
Despite their wacky anti Catholic views, the Church is the Beast and this is because Revelations and Daniel all foretold that Napoleon would imprison the Pope but it survived this mortal wound etc etc, I really like Adventist.
They are very friendly people. In fact one gets a sense that an Adventist Church is sort of like how the old Catholic Parish of the 50's and 60's used to operate and in fact should operate today. Now part of this might be because like Catholics of old Adventist are sort of viewed as the "other". They go to Church on Saturday, rant about why business are closed on Sunday, have different dietary laws, believe pretty much that the protestant Churches are bastard children of the Catholic Church that changed the Sabbath, and well have a persecution complex. A quite literal one. I mean in the last days they will all be getting their heads chopped off. So that might explain part of it. But still there is a lesson to learn there. They all truly love each other and help each other out. It makes you sort of long for the days where Catholics were not so "assimilated".
That being said I noticed something odd. The Pastor was out of town so a young elder, that was doing his first funeral, handled the whole thing. They were very close to my Aunt and Uncle. But after years of knowing and visiting them he announced "Something I did not know about Janet was she was in the insurance business". How do you know people for years and not know what they do? My Baptist aunt said this might be because Adventist just discuss Church things. Maybe. Or it could be just a quirk of being resident of Northwest Arkansas.
Adventist seem to be ok with the inter racial Church worshiping thing. This is a big plus. Now Northwest Arkansas does not have a ton of black folks. In fact for guy like me from the deep south this can be kind of weird. I can't recall seeing many black people at all in Fayetteville. I am sure they are there because of the University but still. However in Mississippi where there seems to be some Adventist presence I noticed the same thing. Maybe there is no such thing as a Black Adventist spirituality like we see in a Black Catholic spirituality, or a Black Baptist spirituality. It might exist but I guess in many areas there are not enough Adventist around to have that. So they are sort of hang together. The Elder that gave the service was a young African American.
I really liked the service. Unlike my grandfather's service the largely Baptist family was not hit over the head with Adventist Theology and lectures on soul sleep. This all can create some tension by the way. My Evangelical Aunt went out of her way to explain to my Momma that her daddy was not just lying in a grave and he was with Jesus at this very moment.
Not that there is anything wrong about that. I want my funeral to have tons of talk about how I hope they are praying for me. It was this Elder's first funeral and he did a fine job. He was very friendly and you could tell he was Christ filled. The only objection I had was when he sort of called out my Aunt's boys. That is my Aunt dying wish was for them to get right with the Lord. I think that could have been handled in a more private manner. My Family largely thought this was fine I guess. At least I heard no objections. But as I pointed out for kids raised Baptist I think it is likely the rapid switch to Adventist was a sort of a shock. That is it might have soured them on religion on a whole. That is not to be critical of Adventist but that would a shock to the system to anyone. It is a whole different mindset.
Anyway keep my Aunt in your Prayers. I will miss her a lot.
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