We Create Our Adventist Reality

The reason the concept of the remnant is so effective is that only a few will ever be able or want to live the sometimes austere lifestyle of Adventism.

Traditional Adventists focus on wholesome music, art and entertainment. They eat wholesome foods, drink healthy beverages, and live a healthy lifestyle that traditionally has been both a comfort to dyed-in the wool Adventists, and a source of restlessness for the more adventurous among us.

Even though it would probably never come to pass, since you could no longer speak of a remnant, imagine what a primarily Adventist society would be like. Well, such societies actually do exist in the enclaves near Adventist institutions. The only difference is that you can always find a gas station within driving distance if you needed gas on the Sabbath.

Imagine, if you will, a world of mostly Adventists where gas stations never opened on Sabbath because everyone walked to church. That sounds like what Jewish believers do by having temples near their communities. Realistically, a society where everything stood still on the Sabbath sounds a lot like heaven on Earth.

Who would there be to evangelize in a mostly Adventist society? Again, I've experienced that when I lived in an Adventist enclave and wanted to walk to my evangelism exercise walk on Sabbath afternoon, only to find that--surprise surprise--everyone within walking distance was already Adventist. Of course, some of the Adventists I found were listening to secular music on Sabbath and not bothered by the fact that I was knocking on their door to speak to them about Christ and was subsequently informed, "everyone is Adventist in this building except the man below us who is battling cancer. If you want you could knock on his door." That was my first and last attempt to go door-to-door in a mostly Adventist community.

What if Christ, out of kindness to the Adventist worldview, actually comes back and takes the Remnant to an Adventist afterlife of their own creation? To do otherwise would seem less than kind. In a universe where anything is possible, might there also be an alternate universe where Catholics enjoyed a proper Catholic-tinged afterlife, replete with the virgin Mary having more of a salvific role than she does in protestant churches.

Might this be the reason why God tolerates so many different religions and varieties of Christianity and Judaism, because there are enough alternate universes to accommodate all his children and their particular vision of the afterlife?

Who knows, maybe the good folk in the recently conceived (8th-day) Adventist Futurism movement might also one day live and enjoy the future reality they so passionately hope comes to light.

In the future perhaps everyone will have their "million year picnic"* in a heaven of their own imagining.

* The Million Year Picnic is a 4000-word short story by Ray Bradbury, about a family from Earth that emigrates to Mars.