I am Adventist—a fifth-generation member on both sides of my family—and the culture saturates me. I have little time for those who suggest that Adventism is more logical than other religions, or that is makes the best people. A recent visit to a small-group Bible study that tackled Hebrews emphasized that the sanctuary doctrine applies more to the disorienting experience of farming Adventists than to most educated believers today. Some suggest that my belief system transcends everything out there. Intellectually, I’m not so sure; but despite the doubt, I confess that this is what I’ll always be.

I am an Adventist because it is my story. My religion is not rooted in the Bible or in General Conference Sessions—although both contribute to my identity. I remain an Adventist because no person is an island. I am made up of my family, friends, education, hopes, values, traditions—and they are predominately Adventist. This is how most latter-generational members of a religion are. What keeps us committed is not necessarily pure belief, but a deeper pragmatic connection to the culture. Consequently, for me, my faith imparts an existential significance that reaches beyond proof texts and the attraction of other sects.

The philosopher George Berkeley summarized his idealism by stating that "being is to be perceived." In a sense our very existence is a social construct—who I am is made up of those around me. No Adventist is entirely alone. To the communion table each brings private irony and exchanges it for the hope provided by solidarity.

Some object, sadly shaking their heads at the thought of an admitted cultural Adventism. But I suggest that everyone’s religion is primarily cultural, even the neophyte devotee depending on quotes and verses for each belief. Read more and find that not just the canon and the chosen texts, but also the hermeneutic are all historically contingent. This does not mean that there is nothing transcendent—the sense of the divine by definition transcends. To point out the social influence is just to emphasize the obvious: who we are and the questions we ask arise from our experience. That is what religion does: it consolidates the story of the culture and then provides significance through solidarity. Therefore, the more we share, the greater our hope for the future.

Recently graduated from college, I realize again how much of my identity is created by those with whom I’ve associated. Pedants, partiers, and the potluck faithful have all contributed their theses and antitheses and who I am is a synthesis of all these. Perhaps that is one reason it is difficult to leave a place. I depart a structure that has given much meaning; in doing so, I lose some of my being.

Exploring this idea of solidarity, John Donne writes: "any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." The Rwandan Adventist father-son genocidal duo clearly never got that last point. Helping to kill hundreds of fellow believers, they demonstrated that sometimes behind shared beliefs lurks no common care. But having that concern requires a soul.

I believe that this solidarity, this confessing culture imparts the transcendent hope that we can escape soulless evil. I saw that while writing grants for the Adventist Disaster Relief Agency in Bangladesh. The starving, pregnant women didn’t have any questions about the meaning of 1844; they needed safe water, food, literacy, and health education. And members from Australia, Canada, and Sweden gave money to employ Hindus, Muslims, Mennonites, and Adventists to make several thousands lives better. That, to me, demonstrates the soul of a confessing culture.

I once heard biographer David McCullough say that without story we have no soul. Certainly religious stories are one of the most powerful motivators and equalizers of humans, even transcending, at times, nationalism and materialism. How we choose to perceive the world, the narrative that we share, will determine our being. And so, in an epistemologically messy world what can I really confess? Only what gives me hope: that the shared story of my culture will create in me a better soul.

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