Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher William Miller first publicly shared his belief that the Second Coming would occur at some point between 1843 and 1844. His followers became known as Millerites. After Miller's prophecies failed, the Millerite movement split up and was continued by a number of groups that held different doctrines from one another. These groups, stemming from a common Millerite ancestor, collectively became known as the Adventist movement.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, its emphasis on the imminent Second Coming (advent) of Jesus Christ, and its annihilationist soteriology. The denomination grew out of the Millerite movement in the United States during the mid-19th century, and it was formally established in 1863. Among its co-founders was Ellen G. White, whose extensive writings are still held in high regard by the church.
The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is a Protestant Christian denomination in the Sabbatarian Adventist movement that formed from a schism in the European Seventh-day Adventist Church during World War I over the position its European church leaders took on Sabbath observance and on committing Adventists to the bearing of arms in military service for Imperial Germany in World War I.
James Springer White, also known as Elder White, was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the husband of Ellen G. White. In 1849, he started the first Sabbatarian Adventist periodical entitled The Present Truth, in 1855 he relocated the fledgling center of the movement to Battle Creek, Michigan, and in 1863 played a pivotal role in the formal organization of the denomination. He later played a major role in the development of the Adventist educational structure beginning in 1874 with the formation of Battle Creek College.
The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is the governing organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Its headquarters is located in Silver Spring, Maryland and oversees the church in directing its various divisions and leadership, as well as doctrinal matters.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church had its roots in the Millerite movement of the 1830s to the 1840s, during the period of the Second Great Awakening, and was officially founded in 1863. Prominent figures in the early church included Hiram Edson, Ellen G. White, her husband James Springer White, Joseph Bates, and J. N. Andrews. Over the ensuing decades the church expanded from its original base in New England to become an international organization. Significant developments such the reviews initiated by evangelicals Donald Barnhouse and Walter Martin, in the 20th century led to its recognition as a Christian denomination.
The Shepherd's Rod or Davidian Seventh-day Adventists is a movement within Seventh-day Adventism. It was founded in 1929 by Victor Houteff. He joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1919 and was later excommunicated from the church in 1930 for promoting "heretical" doctrines that he claimed were new revelations from God to further Adventist theology.
In Seventh-day Adventist theology, there will be an end time remnant of believers who are faithful to God. The remnant church is a visible, historical, organized body characterized by obedience to the commandments of God and the possession of a unique end-time gospel proclamation. Adventists have traditionally equated this "remnant church" with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.
The theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church resembles early Protestant Christianity, combining elements from Lutheran, Wesleyan-Arminian, and Anabaptist branches of Protestantism. Adventists believe in the infallibility of the Scripture's teaching regarding salvation, which comes from grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The 28 fundamental beliefs constitute the church's current doctrinal positions, but they are revisable under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and are not a creed.
The 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session was a meeting of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in October 1888. It is regarded as a landmark event in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Key participants were Alonzo T. Jones and Ellet J. Waggoner, who presented a message on justification supported by Ellen G. White, but resisted by leaders such as G. I. Butler, Uriah Smith and others. The session discussed crucial theological issues such as the meaning of "righteousness by faith", the nature of the Godhead, the relationship between law and grace, and Justification and its relationship to Sanctification.
John Byington (1798–1887) was a Seventh-day Adventist minister and the first president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Ole Andres Olsen was a Seventh-day Adventist minister and administrator. He was General Conference president of the Seventh-day Adventist church organization globally from 1888 to 1897.
William Ambrose Spicer was a Seventh-day Adventist minister and president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He was born December 19, 1865, in Freeborn, Minnesota, in the United States in a Seventh Day Baptist home. Spicer worked for the church in the United States, England and India, where Spicer College is named after him. He served as Secretary of the General Conference during the presidency of A. G. Daniells and Daniells served as the Secretary during Spicer's years as president. The two men led the Adventist Church for the first 30 years of the 20th century.
The "three angels' messages" is an interpretation of the messages given by three angels in Revelation 14:6–12. The Seventh-day Adventist church teaches that these messages are given to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ, and sees them as a central part of its own mission.
Robert Daniel "Bob" Brinsmead is a formerly controversial figure within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1960s and 1970s who is known for his diverse theological journey.
Davi Paes Silva was the President of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement (SDARM), a post to which he was elected in September 2011. He also holds the position of Editorial Committee Director. As a minister, Davi Paes Silva helps as pastor for the Roanoke SDARM Church in Virginia, USA.
This article describes the relationship between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and other Christian denominations and movements, and other religions. Adventists resist the movement that advocates their full ecumenical integration into other churches because they believe such a transition would force them to renounce their foundational beliefs and endanger the distinctiveness of their religious message. According to one church document,
The International Missionary Societyof Seventh-Day Adventist Church Reform Movement (IMSSDARM) is an independent Protestant Christian
The True and Free Seventh-day Adventists (TFSDA) are a splinter group formed as the result of a schism within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Europe during World War I over the position its European church leaders took, whose most well known leader was Vladimir Shelkov. TFSDA members are part of the Sabbatarian adventist movement, and believe that as a result of the decisions the European church leaders took, the Seventh-day Adventist Church had strayed from her Pillars of Adventism or foundational pillars of belief.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church pioneers were members of Seventh-day Adventist Church, part of the group of Millerites who came together after the Great Disappointment across the United States and formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1860, the pioneers of the fledgling movement settled on the name, Seventh-day Adventist, representative of the church's distinguishing beliefs. Three years later, on May 21, 1863, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was formed and the movement became an official organization.
