2 Chapters Report #2.docx

Chapter 1 – The Dynamic Nature of “Present Truth” Both Joseph Bates and the White family had a dynamic concept of what we call "the present truth." For each of these, the light of the devil had different nuances, but in the end, we can say that there were some themes that made up this concept: the Sabbath in the context of the three angels of Revelation 14, sanitary reform and righteousness by faith. As to the creation of a possible church creed, they all considered that the rigidity of such a belief in favor of the revelation of God in the course of time would eliminate the possibility for the church to have a living word that would bring them closer to the truth. Ellen White says that including our doctrines may undergo some changes over time if it is proven that the truth is different. Not long-standing certain agreements give it authenticity, but our walk and our closeness to God.

Chapter 2 – Adventism Wasn’t Born in a Vacuum The Adventism movement had a past and the roots of it we can see in North American Protestantism, nineteenth century as a child of the sixtheenth century Reformation (Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli). The salvation by grace come from this root, but other aspects, like baptism at maturity or separation between religion and state, come from Anabaptism movement. Another group from that period with Anabaptism was Restorationism (they put accent on the New Testament teachings – Sola Scriptura – James White and Joseph Bates came from a branch of this movement called Christian Connexion). Christian Connexion brought at least two ideas later in Adventist church: Sabbath and anti-trinitarianism. The third influence in Adventism movement was Methodism (Ellen White grew up in that church). Main ideas of Methodist that we toked later was: free will, rather predestinated will, prevenient grace by God’s

Spirit or sanctification. The fourth influence for Adventism was Deism (William Miller), in sense of using reasons. A fifth influence for Adventism was Puritans in sense of the importance of the law, specially to the Sabbath. The Millennial vision influenced a group of people to gather for a better understanding of the final events. The Lisabona earthquake was a good push to start studying. They believe in a millennium that could start three years from 1930s. Miller believe that the millennium is after. Chapter 3 – The Millerite Theological Fundation William Miller believed differently from the millennium point, but most of the message was the same with those premillennialists. The biggest difference was that he thought Jesus will come at 1843. This idea wasn’t known. Several other believed and even tried to predict a certain year. Miller was well known as a Deist, but somehow, he became Christian and now he prepared for The Second Coming. His advantage was knowing the history and compare it with the aspects from the Bible. By comparing scripture with scripture, a person could unlock the meaning of the Bible. In year 1818 he concluded that in about 25 years (1843) kingdom of the Messiah will come. In this way, Miller interpreted correctly the 1260 day-year prophecy and also the 2300 days from Daniel 8:14. Other passages that help understanding the prophecy was Mat. 24 and 25, Revelation 14:6-7. The parable of ten virgins was saw a reference to the mankind in general and the „midnight cry” (Matt. 25:6) was also a very important aspect for Miller. Another man that promoted with great voce this movement it was Charles Fitch who identify the antichrist both the Roman Catholics and Protestants who refuse to leave Babylon. The great disappointment made Adventists spread people from initial movement or attack each other.

Chapter 4 – What is Adventist in Adventism? (1844-1885) The understanding of the parable of ten virgins brings in discussion the expressions “open and shut down doors labels”, and first who came with this was the Millerite movement over the passage in Matt. 25:10. Joshua V. Himes was the promotor for the idea of “open door” in Adventists because he understood that nothing happened in 1844. Others understood that the calculated of 2300-day prophecy was correct, but the nature of the event was wrong. The last group come with the understanding that this event must be linked with the cleansing of Sanctuary and this event is not the Second Coming. People gather to understand what is the role of the Bible and the role of others sources that could make them knew the truth and most of them concluded that only scripture has the authority to lead them. They called the people of the Book and rejected many other influences: tradition, authority of the book or other aspects. The understanding of the Sanctuary doctrine was understood better when Crosier wrote an article and Joseph Bates empowered that idea. After this episode Ellen White had a vision that that harmonize with Crosier development of Sanctuary. The relation of heavenly place with earth was important. The Sabbath and the Third Angel’s Message was another understanding that Adventists saw crucial for any believer. Joseph Bates developed this idea more. Another doctrine that Adventists understood was conditional immortality and with the passing of the time they refining the First and Second Angel’s Message. They also updated some other teachings, but the essence was the same. In 1847 we can say that the founders of the Second-day Adventist Church had the pillars of their beliefs: Second Advent, Sabbath, Sanctuary and the state of the dead.

Chapter 5 – What is Christian in Adventism? (1886-1919) The Seven-day Adventist Church was formed from two categories: 1) those who believe in faith by righteousness and put accent only on this, and 2) those who had this understanding and the four pillars. Because of this understanding that Adventists promote, other Christian churches lost the connection with them. Because of the 4 pillars that our church made us different for other people understandings and in the same time hard to work together. In 1888, at Minneapolis, Alonso T. Jones and Ellet J. Wagoner came with a new understanding of the law in Galatians, but Gorge I. Butler and Uriah Smith oppose them. Because of these new ideas a protest cam out and the problem of authority was rise because the leaders of the General Conference tried to punish those rebels. Ellen White’s position for these conflicts was to turn back to the Bible and no method or man position should be accepted until is proved with the Scripture. Her conclusion was that God gave a special blessing through Waggoner and Jones, but she didn’t agree with all the details that these two men promoted. The idea that these two preachers said about the sanctification by faith in Christ wasn’t something new, “but a step further to what Reformers said”. The sanctification was understood differently and some of Adventist (Smith or Butler) build the ideas on text like Rom. 3:25, but with the wrong translation (KJV). So, Smith was legalist and didn’t wanted to give up to the idea that Jesus was the end of the law. The key word for first tam was “obedience” and for Waggoner and Jones was “faith”. Chapter 6 – What is Fundamentalism in Adventism? (1919-1950) In Seven-day Adventist Church we can see two pronounced problem until 1919: 1) Great Disapointment, and 2) 1888 Minneapolis meating and the approach to other churches.

Other category we can split Protestant churches was conservative and liberal. The first category sustains the verbal inspiration of the Book, but the liberal way of view thing rises the scientific or critical study of the Bible. For Adventist church of that time, the liber position wasn’t a tempted approach and the direction was more and more fundamentalism. But Ellen White didn’t understand that Bible was inspired verbally, but rather in thoughts. This position was embraced by Daniells and Prescott. A issue hat we can see after 1920 was that many people put equal sign between Bible and Ellen White’s writings. Some said that her writing should be the only filter to understand the Bible. Often president Daniells tried to convince others that Bible interpreted itself, but most Adventists didn’t fallow this truth. After Ellen White death Daniells was responsible to make compilation from her books on certain topic, and in that period righteousness by faith knew a revival. In this sense, others like Loughborough mentioned the 1888 Conference but didn’t explained the episode of John and Waggoner. Ideas of M. L. Andreasen on the topic “Last Generation”, that can be resume as fallowing: 1) the necessity of a cleansing (Day of Atonement); 2) a last generation of saint without Mediator; 3) God will come when people reproduce his character; 4) Jesus was with sinful tendencies; 5) Jesus will be proud of the achievements of the last generation. The weakness of Andreasen arguments can be seen better in the fifth argument, that God must produce a man like him, otherwise He lose. There are many others weaknesses in his theology. In contrast with this way of thinking, there were others ideas that wanted to make Adventism more softly. Some tried to go back to anti-Trinitarianism or Jesus tendencies to sin. All of these explanations have lack of proving other text that combat them.

Chapter 7 – Adventism in Theological Tension (1950 -

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Seven-day Adventist Church had to pass three challenges from it starts until 1950: 1) Great Disappointment; 2) late of 1880s, and 3) fundamentalism in 1920. The years that follow after this concentrated on humanity of Christ. Andreasen was on the same position with Jones, Waggoner or Prescot, but not with Ellen White. On the other side, against Andreasen we find Edward Happenstall. Edward believe that sinful nature dominates human, but not Jesus who was affected only by his body necessities. During years, an old problem was questioned, and that was righteousness by faith and justification. This idea was debated by Ford, Palmdale and Robert Brinsmead in different forms. Some old topics came in debate again and the year 1888 was reinterpreted in 1950s. We can enumerate here L. H. Christian, A. L. Hudson, Jack Sequeira or Wieland and Short. The last two believed that the concept of righteousness that Jones and Waggoner brought was bigger than the Reformers, but even Waggoner and Ellen said that this was not true. Other problem discussed after 1970 was the authority of Ellen White and the claims of plagiarism. The last problem that people tried to explain was a new theory of inspiration that starts after 1980. Chapter 8 – What Does All This Mean? As a conclusion to the book, this chapter was written to be a lesson for what history presented from Adventist Church. First lesson is that we should never do theology to fight our neighbors. George Knight present a strong argument when he recommends this: fear pushed

many times others to fight each other, instead of operating whit love. The author reuses the first chapter idea of “present truth” that is a development, not something unmovable. Another idea that may be dangerous is that every generation tried to bring something new and the part where is dangerous is that many of those who came with new ideas tried to force those on others. We must put accent on themes also that are common with other people beliefs: Godhead, the divine inspiration of the Bible, the problem of sin, substitutionary death or resurrection of Jesus. We can reinforce the teachings of advent because this doctrine was the reason that we are here as Seven Day Adventists.