The Reform Movement holds the same fundamental beliefs as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including beliefs about the state of the dead, the investigative judgment, the inspired nature of Ellen G. White's writings, baptism by immersion, the importance of evangelism before the second coming, and the seventh-day Sabbath. Our two churches both have General Conference sessions this year.
Just curious, did the same issues come up during the previous Wilson’s tenure (Neil Wilson’s) with regard to the SDA church in the Soviet Union? It’s my understanding there was same sorts of concessions made between the church in D.C. and the Soviets with regard to a printing press.
A couple of other questions - What is your retention rate? What is your relationship to the SDA church based in Silver Springs - is it a mission field or a lost cause?
This group nearly wrecked my church in Ghana in 2007. But ceaseless efforts and prayer wrecked their movement within my territory. I drew back all the members who left and the movement collapsed. It was such a scary experience.
the stated differences between the reform mvt and mainstream adventism appear to be less than the differences between different camps within mainstream adventism…i get the feeling a certain determination is needed to stay separate…
when both sides are built upon my way or the highway, there isn’t much chance for reconciliation. At least William Miller was man enough to admit he was in error. A very rare breed in theology. Tom z
Seems to me they are a EGW church–focused on conservative, literal and almost infallible EGW teachings. To me, a creed-doctrine driven faith cannot long be vibrant, for what one believes is most important of all.
If a miracle happens in SA and WO gets a YES vote, at least those extreme conservatives and also the fanatics who discriminate women have a safe haven waiting for them.
I had some friends in Brazil that belonged to the Reform Movement, but years ago (in the 1970s) ended up coming to the SDA regular Church because of the extremism in the reform movement. But I can see some people around here who would feel just at home with the reformers…
There are no “original” Adventists (those who first initiated it) today. All has changed and more drastically than most know. Growth means change and it is true that “you can’t go home again” although there seems to be a few who are challenging that maxim.
Unfortunately, those are not the accepted definitions. When you create your own definitions, you can claim anything. Here are the accepted definitions of these terms.
Orthodoxy: beliefs accepted by the majority as correct
Orthopraxy: Actions accepted by the majority as correct
The self-supporting movement within Adventism seems ideologically very much aligned with the Reformist movement. You use words such as “extreme” and “fanatics” and I agree that the words are justified. It’s hard enough to justify that the SDA church is the only organization on earth that is endorsed by God. To believe that God eventually tired of his 19th century darlings and chose to go with a sackcloth and ashes movement with even less general appeal, takes a real stretch of the mind. In a sense, the Reform movement has gone back to the early 1850s, when the organized, Babylon vaccinated church of God on earth consisted of a small group of smoking hot sectarians in New England. I think the SdA church might do well to wish the Reformist movement godspeed and let them burn their light in their own lonely night.
Perhaps they, since it was not they which reformed but the SDAC that abandoned their originating principles, ought to have chosen the more honest Anachronistic Seventh-day Adventist Bungle.
This is far more complicated that it seems to be. To begin with, yes, this is the SDA Denomination as it was before 1914—some of us remember families who practiced Adventism well into the 1960s and 70s on that basis, and it provided a secure, consistent life. We could all do worse. This is not a “movement” that could have developed in the warm-weather Christian countries, either—this is dig-in-your-heels-European Protestantism without the frequent hints of deep tribal or Catholic traditions that so often masquerade as Adventist conservatism. On the other hand: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I wish the current Denomination were more concerned about killing, generally.
Let’s modify it small by removing the: “majority”
Orthodoxy: right beliefs
Orthopraxy: right practice
It’s like “concept” and “practice”. In summary: “If anyone, then, knows the good [concept] they ought to do and doesn’t do it [practice], it is sin for them” (James 4: 17).