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Introduction
and the
Adventist Dilemma
There are many good things about the Seventh-day Adventist church that deserve mention. Adventists are known around the world for their excellent hospitals and educational institutions. They serve as an example in giving, mission work and a close-knit community. Many Christians perceive Adventists to be Evangelicals with the only difference being that Adventists meet for worship on Saturday. However, there is more to Adventist “truth” than meets the eye. This little pamphlet is specifically designed to give Christian leaders insight into the real teachings of the Adventist church.
We, as former Adventist pastors and Bible teachers, are often asked why we write material which appears to be attacking the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is a valid question that deserves a thorough answer. Many current Adventist leaders have been in communication with our ministry and have encouraged us to keep doing what we are doing. These leaders include Adventist pastors, conference presidents, Adventist evangelists, Adventist theologians, General Conference personnel, and other Adventist organizations including people in well-known mass-media organizations and self-supporting Adventist groups. Most of the people who have contacted us state that they remain in the SDA church for one or more of the following reasons. (1) To help Adventists understand the gospel. (2) To try to change the church from the inside. (3) They want to stay for job security and retirement. (4) The want to stay for family and reputation. Most of these people wish to remain anonymous, and we will grant their request.
We desire to focus on the simple gospel of faith in Christ and by God’s grace help the Adventist church make the transition from its cultic past into a Bible-only1based church and jettison its unbiblical doctrines.
Thousands of former Seventh-day Adventists who have made the transition to the simple gospel of Christ have expressed to us the joy of the freedom they experience in Christ. They have a deep desire to help free others from the bondage of Adventism. At a recent Former Adventist Pastor’s Conference in Texas, many of the speakers stated they did not know the extent of Adventist bondage they were under until they had transitioned out of Adventism. Many felt they had been brain washed and in looking back they could not understand how they could have believed what they did.
There is a large and ever growing number of Adventist scholars, pastors, administrators and laity who know that many of the historic teachings of Adventism are unbiblical, anti-gospel and should be rejected. Many more, however, tenaciously hold to the traditional teachings of Adventism as the truth. Today the Seventh-day Adventist church faces a dilemma. To renounce it’s cultic past and jettison its unbiblical teachings would split the church, erode its financial support and could damage the many good things that Seventh-day Adventists do. However, to cling to and try to defend the historical teachings, which many know to be unbiblical, is to continue to give reasons for informed members to exit Adventism. The horns of this dilemma are sharp indeed! Let us pray that the SDA leaders will follow the will of God in this complex matter.
As former Seventh-day Adventists who have many, many friends within the Adventist church, it is our prayer and purpose to help those who are seeking to change the church from the inside. Those of us who have transitioned out of Adventism know from personal experience the trauma involved in changing one’s theological paradigm. We also know from the recent history of the Worldwide Church of God that doctrinal change would bring a period of uncertainty and chaos to the whole organizational structure of Adventism. The good news, however, is that after the transition is made, there is a deeper relationship with Christ, a new appreciation for Biblical truth and a new kindred spirit with other brothers and sisters in the Christian church at large.
In seeking to promote change we want to be kind to our “mother church”, yet we must be open and honest in facing the errors that are embedded in Historic Adventism.2 From our perspective it appears that the Adventist church is chameleonic. In its public relations it seeks to appear to be a mainstream Christian church. Yet in the latter stages of most Adventist evangelism or doctrinal teaching, it teaches that the Seventh-day Adventist church is “the remnant church of Bible prophecy” and that the seventh-day Sabbath is the seal of God that all true believers must have in order to escape the seven last plagues. It teaches that the Catholic Church is the harlot in the book of Revelation and that Protestant Sunday-keeping churches are the “daughters of Babylon” and all true Christians in the last days are to be called out of churches which worship on Sunday so they will not receive the mark of the beast.
It is our hope and sincere prayer that the wide distribution of this little book to the church at large will in some small way encourage the Adventist church to face these issues openly instead of trying to cover them up with good public relations. If the Adventist church continues to hold its historic teachings, then our efforts in exposing their teachings to the church at large will be beneficial to Christian pastors and arm them with information to keep their members from being caught in the legalistic yet enticing evangelistic net of Adventism. Most Evangelical and other Christian pastors, to say nothing of the laity; have no idea of the cultic nature of some of the doctrines of Adventism. With this introduction we now turn to what we believe are the main errors of Adventism.
1 Taking the Bible as the only source of authority without adding the authority of the writings of a modern-day prophet.
2 use the term, “Historic Adventist” to apply to those who believe the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism.