When my younger sister became serious with a young farmer who was not a member of the Adventist church, I started receiving weekly reports from my nervous folks on how things were progressing between them. Collectively we began worrying about all the things that could go wrong. We imagined a household with dissension in it. Instead of little grandkids with scrubbed faces all dressed up for church on Sabbath morning, we saw little unbathed brats watching cartoons and chewing beef jerky in their pajamas. A dark cloud of depression enshrouded our family as we held our breath and planned for the worst. Then they split up over personality differences and we knew it was divine intervention. They surely would have been miserable anyway.

This experience, for the first time, underscored the differences between Adventists and nonadventists in my mind. Some of these differences are big and significant, especially in the case of nonchristians, while others are just specific to Seventh-day Adventists. When I stop and think about all the little traditions I grew up with and now share with other Adventists, I am amazed. Sometimes it’s uncanny how many childhood experiences I have in common with others who grew up clear across the country. The warm feeling of Friday night soup and corn bread after preparing for sundown, or waking up to the happy music of Donna Klein and The King’s Heralds on Sabbath morning, were memories of “family” that gave me security and identity.

While these experiences may vary in detail, there was and still is a theme in many Adventists’ homes that share a common subculture. And to expect another person to understand it, much less support it, is sometimes just too much to ask.

I can still hear the words of my father, advising me that I should wait until I met a “nice Adventist girl” to get married. I was 13 years old at the time and wasn’t even dating anyone seriously. I remember thinking, “Dad, give me something I can use.” But as I grew older I understood what he was trying to say.

Since then the issue of marrying a nonadventist has become very important to me, not for my own sake however. I knew right away that I needed someone who liked Nuteena on toast and Ruskets with lukewarm soy milk as much as I did. It’s important because I have friends and loved ones who are now really struggling with this issue. Some of them are married and taking their kids to two different church services on weekends, or in an effort to avoid conflict, none at all. It’s also common among disillusioned Adventist youth to discount the influence of the church all together.

I’m not sure if the over-worked cliche “unequally yoked” applies here or not, but the complications of living with someone who hasn’t gone through the classical Adventist conditioning can sometimes prove too much, so why ask for the extra burden? I’ve even wondered if a “backslidden” Adventist would be a safer bet to marry than a nonadventist, because of the shared subculture. (You probably have to be an Adventist to even know what the phrase “back-slider” means.) Have you ever heard a member of the Adventist church qualify their recent divorce by admitting that their spouse wasn’t an Adventist? Again, only an Adventist knows what this means. Most folks can’t understand why it would matter, and perhaps it doesn’t when you look at each little thing, but I will venture to say that in concert they make for a real challenge for any marriage arrangement.

I try to imagine a spouse that has no exposure to my background and subculture:

She likes meat, and I like a bean curd by-product, a meat substitute that she says smells like dog food … which I can’t deny.

She’s used to going out on Friday night celebrate the end of a week. I like to prepare for sundown and eat soup at home.

She sleeps in till 12:00 and goes shopping on Saturday, I get up early, eat granola and go to church.

She likes cooking out of the Betty Crocker cookbook and I like cooking out of An Apple a Day, even though I never have enough cheese.

When she does go to church, she dresses up with heavy make up, expensive clothing and lots of jewelry. Hmm, maybe she doesn’t stand out that much here.

I embrace the history and doctrines of the Adventist church. She belittles it as a harmless, but time consuming exercise in group think.

I believe in the Spirit of Prophesy and she can’t believe I’m so