In Defense of the Faith

Men Who Have Left the Seventh-day Adventists

On pages 61-64 of his book Mr. Canright tries to make out a case against Seventh-day Adventists because some have left their ranks. He counts up forty-seven who were once connected with the denominational work of the Seventh-day Adventists, and who, at the time of writing his book, were no longer with that denomination. The clear inference is that a movement could not be of God and at the same time lose so many men. DOF 373.2

Now let us ‘notice this point: The first company of Sabbath keeping Adventists came into existence in 1844-45. Mr. Canright left the church in 1887. This was forty three years after the work began. At that time he managed to count up forty-seven persons who had had some connection with the work of the church, but who, he claims, had renounced the faith and severed themselves from the church. Think of it! Forty-seven leave the church work in forty-three years!! About one a year, on the average. Still, Mr. Canright tells us on page 26 of his book that at the time he left the church the Seventh-day Adventists still had 26,112 members and 400 ministers, even after the forty-seven workers had gone away. DOF 374.1

Does the fact that a few persons, who have been more or less prominent in the church, leave that communion and make other connections, prove that church to be untrue? We think not. If so, the work and teachings of our Lord would be discounted, for there were a number of apostasies from the ranks of His followers. Of one such experience it is stated that “from that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.” John 6:66. It was a question as to what even the twelve apostles would decide to do, for Jesus turned and said unto them, “Will you also go away?” Verse 67. If every disciple of Jesus had gone away from Him, that fact would in no way have affected the truthfulness of His teaching. DOF 374.2

Truth is not dependent upon the following-it may have, nor the ability of those who may once have accepted it. The fact that Judas had a devil and still remained among the disciples, did not in any way affect the truthfulness of Christ’s doctrines, any more than did the departure from Him of others who also were not in harmony with His work. Of those who left the faith in Christ’s day, John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 1 John 2:19. DOF 374.3

So we say of those of whom Mr. Canright speaks as having left the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The fact is that a number of them did not go out willingly, but were disfellowshiped because their lives were not in harmony with the high standards of the church. It might be of interest to the reader to know Mr. Canright’s own evaluation of these persons, as lie stated it in writing just a short while before he left the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Concerning one of them lie wrote: DOF 375.1

“The next thing I heard was that the church [which he joined after he left the Seventh-day Adventist Church] had expelled him for bad conduct. He was turned out of the church and silenced as a preacher.”—The Review and Herald, May 24, 1877. DOF 375.2

Of others among his list of forty-seven he had written while he himself was still a Seventh-day Adventist: DOF 375.3

“I know many of the persons who have left us, and I know them to be hard cases. That party [the organization to which some of them had gone] may whitewash them and defend them as long as they choose, but these are the facts.”—Ibid. DOF 375.4

He then proceeds to tell of the misconduct of some who for this reason were disfellowshiped, and then later, when he writes a book against Seventh-day Adventists, he holds up the fact that these persons had left the Seventh-day Adventists as evidence that the work of this church was crumbling and that their leading men were all leaving the sinking ship. Mr. Canright says that forty seven had left us. But let it be clearly understood that these forty seven were not the pillars of the church. Since that time many thousands of others have come into the church to fill up the ranks, and instead of 400 preachers, as at the time of Mr. Canright’s leaving, there are now 10,850 evangelical laborers and as many other workers giving their full time to various other lines of the work of the church, in practically every land of earth. DOF 375.5