from Colleen Tinker, former editor of A Today

You are quite right. Adventism has a very real structure of power and prestige. It is, of course, "unofficial", but a person's social standing in the Adventist community is very important.

If one is a physician, he has status almost automatically. With that profession comes money, education, and the blessing of EGW who authorized the establishment of the "medical missionary work" as the "right arm of the message". Next to physicians, anyone with a well-paying, highly educated profession has status: i.e. dentists, lawyers, etc.

Also anyone in the church structure has status—conference officers and professors have quite high status, followed by pastors and teachers of lower rank.

The professions which earn big dollars or which establish a person in a position of denominational power are the most "high profile".

A person who does not have a medical degree or conference employment can work hard and earn him/herself some status by contributing respectable, creative work in areas such as journalism, science, engineering, etc. But unless they earn quite a bit of money, they really do have to "earn" their position, and the truth is that in Adventist schools, their children, regardless of native talent or intelligence, will not usually be in the highest level of the "in crowd" unless they really distinguish themselves socially in some way.

Also, if a child in an Adventist school comes from a non-SDA or a half-SDA home, s/he will automatically not be welcomed into the inner circle. Any status they earn will indeed be the result of hard work.

Some of these non-SDA distinctions are less clear in large urban SDA schools. But the reality is still there on the bottom line, and the status that comes with money and priveledge is even more noticeable in the large urban schools than in the smaller, outlying ones.

It's all unspoken but very powerful. It's hard to explain it—it seems normal (if frustrating) when you're in it, and from the outside it seems unlikely. It's just another of those subtle but powerful realities that is part of the SDA lifestyle.