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What is there about the appellation “Ex Adventist” or “Ex SDA” that troubles me? I can’t quite put a finger on it. Perhaps it is the “Ex” part. Perhaps it is just a bit too close to I am and Adventist.” Perhaps there is still a bit of an identification with the denomination. There is just something uncomfortable in the expression to me.

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It’s kind of like being an “ex” anything; ex addict, ex-spouse, ex hippy, ex-soldier. It’s like being known for my shadow, not for the body and person casting the shadow. It’s a negative, not a positive.

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Yesterday, speaking to an online friend, giving a bit of my history, I used the expression. He knew what I meant, but it said nothing about what I now am. My whole present life in Christ, so much larger and grander and blessed was blotted out by that “ex.”

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It would be better, probably, to say something like, “I used to be but now I am.” Or, “I left the denomination for something so much better. “There is always a past for us humans. We cannot escape it. I can honestly say that I do not regret my sixty years in the SDA denomination. Nothing and nobody offended me. The denomination treated me well in employment. I would just like to find some way of saying what is past in a more positive way.

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I’d like to know what you think. Is this a problem for you? How do you deal with your “ex Adventism?”

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Blessings,

Winslow

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