So, the first time I'd become aware of his Seventh-Day Adventist affiliation was through letters-to-the-editor of SF Bay Times in response to one of its "journalist's" piece on Prince's 2006 SNL performance, in which he mistakenly stated Prince was a Seventh-Day Adventist, and went on a rant about how they will ruin his career by preventing him from getting a hip replacement (it's the JWs who forbid surgery, vaccination, etc. - not SDAs).

I thought Prince married in a Methodist church in Minneapolis - but maybe that was the church of his friend and pastor who married them? I did read later somewhere that his grandmother and an aunt with whom he lived for a while were SDAs. And he's listed, along with Magic Johnson and Little Richard, as raised SDA on wikipedia.

I'm just wondering if there are any SDA Prince fans out there (highly unlikely, eh?) and what you think of his vegetarianism, his whole thing on urban gardens and growing your own food, his knowledge of Revelations ("7") ... and whether SDAs would be as "happy" to claim him as their own as JWs are?

The letters-to-the-editor (I bolded the parts where it says he used to be SDA as a child), I like how the SDA PR director calls him "Mr. Prince":

Seventh-day Witness
Although I did not see Prince’s appearance on a recent installment of SNL, I believe that Don Baird inaccurately portrayed the artist’s religious affiliation as Seventh-day Adventist. Apparently raised as an Adventist in his childhood, Prince has for a number of years been a devoted member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization.

Baird is not the first to confuse these two groups even though they are very different in history, beliefs, practices, and modes of outreach. It would be most helpful for him to publish a clarification.

With the exception of advocacy for a healthy, plant-based diet, the beliefs and practices attributed to Seventh-day Adventists in Baird’s article rightly belong to Jehovah’s Witnesses and not Adventists.

As an Adventist, I respectfully acknowledge the significant differences between my tradition and the “Witnesses.” At the same time, I am reminded, by Baird’s inaccuracies and the absence of restraint in his article, how important tolerance is when describing the differences of others. Of all the publications that should exemplify respect for differences and avoid pejorative language in an attempt to understand people who march to drummers outside the mainstream beat, yours certainly should be at the forefront. In both content and tone, Baird’s article fell well short of reflecting your publication’s core values and those of your primary constituency. My hunch is that he is capable of much better journalism than is evident in this piece about Prince’s faith.
Persons interested in accurate information about Seventh-day Adventists may increase their understanding by visiting the church’s official website: www.adventist.org
John C. Cress

Google This!
I caught Don Baird’s article “The Religion of Prince” on the web and just wanted to point out a few facts that would have eased his passionate concern for the musician’s performance future.

First of all, a quick Google of the web will show that Prince is not a Seventh-day Adventist but became a Jehovah’s Witness five years ago. This is something Prince has made public numerous times and has not changed recently, to our knowledge.

Also, if he were a Seventh-day Adventist, you would be relieved to know it might be a bonus to the prospect of a healthy future for him, for Adventists are not only shown to have above average health and life-expectancies (see National Geographic magazine, November 2005) but are also at the forefront of modern medicine and have been for more than 100 years. That medicine includes pioneering heart and transplant surgery and all other types of medical, surgical and preventive treatments that are part of today’s healthcare. Loma Linda University in Southern California (a Seventh-day Adventist school) is one of the leading medical training institutions in the world and Adventist hospitals are all over the globe, conducting surgeries (including hip replacements) every day.

A bit of “googling” will disclose those and other facts as well. They say (in some circles) that any publicity is good publicity. As PR representative for the Adventist Church I’m not so sure, especially if, as case in point, Mr. Baird formed his opinions based on faulty publicity. I think that Mr. Baird could help turn that around if he would be so kind as to print an additional article that would reflect his new-found knowledge about Seventh-day Adventists.
And I do hope the future of Mr. Prince is not as bleak as Baird has surmised in his article. My thanks to you and your publication.

Reger Smith Jr,
Public Relations
Associate Director,
Communication
Seventh-day Adventist
World Church
Silver Spring, MD

By the way, that first letter says, "Of all the publications that should exemplify respect for differences and avoid pejorative language in an attempt to understand people who march to drummers outside the mainstream beat, yours certainly should be at the forefront." That alludes to the fact that the SF Bay Times is an LGBT paper. That several SDAs even read this paper (there were even more letters, I just don't include them b/c they don't mention Prince being an SDA as a child) indicates to me a difference between them and JWs, but perhaps I am wrong - I don't know that much about either religion, though I know more about SDAs than JWs.