HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2015 / SUMMER / SIDEBAR 1
NEARLY FORTY PERCENT OF
ADVENTISTS LEAVE ORGANIZATION
Statistics released by David Trim, director of the office of archives, statistics, and research for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, on July 3, 2015, at the 60th General Conference Session, show that attrition from Adventist membership during the past 50 years is higher than previously thought. In his report he stated,
[Membership] audits of the last four years revealed major losses. It is not just that deaths have been underreported. So, too, have the numbers of those who have left the church. We currently describe them in official statistical reports in two ways: first, there are the “dropped,” a term that has replaced the older term “apostasies”. Second is the category of “missing”: that is, people who simply can’t be found when an audit is carried out. The result of the widespread audits over the last five years was that a total of 3,068,141 members were dropped or registered as missing, and 261,888 deaths were recorded, while a total of 5,563,377 were added by baptism or profession of faith. The number of reported deaths increased slightly but remained relatively stable, whereas the totals of the missing and those dropped from membership increased steeply.
These recent figures reflect those who have died or have left the Adventist organization over the past several years without being previously reported.
Trim states that recent memberships audits have shown “the actual scale of losses…[in] the last fifty years. In those five decades, a grand total of 33,202,016 people have been members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church—but 13,026,925 of them left the Church. Our net loss rate is 39.25%: in effect, four of every ten church members have slipped away over the last half-century.”
The fact that essentially 40% of Adventists have left the organization over the past 50 years reveals the lack of certainty with which many Adventists live. In 2011 the General Conference Nurture and Retention Committee oversaw the development and implementation of two surveys. One was administered to former members, and the other was given to members who had left for a while but returned. The surveys showed that 58% of those who have left “still believe in the gift of prophesy manifested in Ellen White,” while 81% of those who returned still believe in her.
These statistics confirm that Adventists are taught to interpret reality through a grid of Ellen White’s commentary. Without a biblical worldview and a belief in Jesus as their Substitute and the sufficient Sacrifice for their sin, they lack conviction and have no anchor for their souls. —Colleen Tinker
Note: David Trim’s reports are available at AdventistArchives.org.
Copyright 2015 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Camp Verde, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised July 20, 2015. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
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VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2