10 Questions about Adventism

By Nathan Busenitz - Posted at The Cripplegate:

Last week, I posted an article (with an embedded video) about Seventh-day Adventism. I expected some reaction, but perhaps I wasn’t quite prepared for the verbal lashings I received, especially from passionate defenders of SDA doctrine.

In the comments on Facebook, I was called a “half misunderstanding man,” a “counterfeit preacher,” a “Jesuit infiltrator,” an “antichrist,” “one of Satan’s forerunners,” and a “liar and the truth of God is not in him.”

While unfounded name-calling doesn’t bother me, especially on Facebook, a few of the critics complained that I had misrepresented Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. Some even accused me of violating the ninth commandment, and intentionally bearing false witness about what Seventh-day Adventists believe.

Since my desire is not to bear false witness, I decided to write one more article regarding SDA doctrine. While I doubt it will appease my critics, I hope it will bring additional greater clarity to my previous post.

With that in mind, I would like to revisit ten miscellaneous points I made in my previous article. I will do so in the form of ten questions.

1. Did Seventh-day Adventism arise out of Millerism?

Yes. According to the Adventist author Francis D. Nichol: “We admit freely, and without the slightest embarrassment, that we grew out of the soil of Millerism” (Answers to Objections[reprint, 2014], 266–67).

2. Did early twentieth-century evangelical theologians view Seventh-day Adventism as a cult?

Yes. For example, evangelical scholars like Louis Talbot, J. K. van Baalen, Harold Lindsell, and Anthony Hoekema viewed the SDA movement as either a cult or a heretical sect. The first prominent evangelical to argue that the SDA movement was not a cult was Walter Martin (though he was highly critical of certain SDA doctrinal distinctives).

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