The churches born of the nineteenth-century expectation of Christ's near return, keeping the seventh-day Sabbath and a message of judgment and hope.
Adventism rose from the Millerite movement of the 1840s, which expected Christ's return in 1844 and endured the Great Disappointment when he did not come. From that crisis the Seventh-day Adventist Church took shape, keeping Saturday as the Sabbath, teaching a heavenly sanctuary and an investigative judgment, and building a worldwide work of schools, hospitals, and publishing. Smaller Adventist bodies stand beside it.
Sources
Primary
- Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (1888).
Secondary
- Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (1989).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
This assessment has not yet been reviewed. Every verdict below stands at Not yet reviewed until the named theological reviewers supply it.
- Does it consider itself Christian?
- Not yet reviewed
- Did it arise from the Christian tradition?
- Not yet reviewed
- Does it affirm the ecumenical creeds?
- Not yet reviewed
- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
- the Catholic Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Eastern Orthodox Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Oriental Orthodox churches: Not yet reviewed
- conciliar Protestant bodies: Not yet reviewed
- the WCC / National Council of Churches: Not yet reviewed
- This site's assessment
- Not yet reviewed
- Reviewer
- Not yet reviewed. The theological reviewers are named on the criteria page when they are appointed.
The comparative record for this entity, its points of convergence and divergence across the ten loci, has not yet been populated. It stands in the assessment queue on the criteria page.
What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.