Hand-me-down Religion

[Dr. Shane]

I have been listening to Dr. Scott Peck's classic, The Road Less Traveled.  He has a lot of good insights and hits home runs one after another.  He rails against what he calls "hand-me-down" religion and states that every man's religion must be individual to that person.  He states that we must worship truth by seeking out truth and accepting what we find.  He states that it is laziness that simply accepts the religion of one's parents.  He is not anti-religious at all.  He also attacks atheism.  He attacks those that worship science.  His logic is very sound.  He does make one mistake that is easy for an Adventist to pick up on.  He states that no religion teaches its members to question the religion.  Well, obviously he hasn't studied much with Seventh-day Adventists.  We teach our members to believe only what the Bible says.  Each of us are taught to study the Bible and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.  I have heard many preachers over the years say they do not believe the Adventist church as all truth but that it has the most truth.  Then go on to say they have no allegiance to the church but only to the Bible.

I consider my own case.  I was raised as a 4th generation Adventist but my faith is not of the hand-me-down variety.  My mother attended church and my father abandoned the family.  That gave me about a 3% chance of attending church regularly as an adult.  I became a teenage drug addict and got clean when I was 16.  I began a spiritual quest when I was 21 with no expectation of returning to the Adventist church.  I am here because I believe it has the most truth not because I grew up in the church.

It is also said that the best Adventists are the converts.  Those born in the church tend to be the most lukewarm Christians sitting in the pews.  Could that be because Dr. Scott Peck is right?  Perhaps many (not all) of those born in the church have accepted a hand-me-down religion.  They have not searched out the truth with great effort and remained because of deep conviction.  They are simply lazy - following the easiest path.  Accepting their parents religion without great consideration of what else is out there.