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.
Southern Adventist University is a private Seventh-day Adventist university in Collegedale, Tennessee. It is owned and operated by the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. It was founded in 1892 in Graysville, Tennessee, as Graysville Academy and was the first Adventist school in the southern U.S. Due to the need for additional space for expansion the school relocated in 1916 and was renamed Southern Junior College. In 1944, Southern began awarding baccalaureate degrees and was renamed Southern Missionary College. In 1996 the institution started conferring master's degrees and adopted its current name.
The Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID) of Seventh-day Adventists is a sub-entity of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which coordinates the Church's activities in the southern portion of Africa, which include the nations of Angola, Ascension Island, Botswana, Comoro Islands, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Réunion, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe; as well as St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha, territories of the United Kingdom, and the Kerguelen Islands, territory of France. Its headquarters is in Centurion, South Africa. The Division membership as of June 30, 2021 is 4,281,416.
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 Pacific Press Publishing Association, or Pacific Press for short, is the only remaining Seventh-day Adventist publishing house in North America, following its absorption of Review & Herald in 2014. It was founded in 1874 by James White in Oakland, California, and is now located in Nampa, Idaho. Its titles include theological works as well as books on topics such as vegetarianism and home schooling and owns its own printing operation. It is owned by the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventists.
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 Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia is formally organised as the Australian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, a subentity of the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists. As of 30 June 2021, baptised church membership stands at 63,401. Despite its small size, the Australian church has made a significant impact on the worldwide Adventist church.
Protestants in Ukraine number about 600,000 to 700,000 (2007), about 2% of the total population. Nearly all traditional Protestant denominations are represented in the country. According to Christianity Today magazine, Ukraine has become not just the "Bible Belt" of Eastern Europe, but a "hub of evangelical church life, education, and missions". At present, the country is a key supplier of missionaries and a center of evangelical training and press printing for all the countries of the former Soviet Union, where the legal environment is not so favourable.
Colin D. Standish and Russell Roland Standish were identical twin brothers and "historic" Seventh-day Adventists. They were often referred to collectively as the Standish brothers. They co-authored many books together, which have been published by their Hartland Institute.
Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International is a support organization that provides a spiritual and social community to current and former Seventh-day Adventists who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, asexual and/or intersex (LGBTI), and have felt hurt or rejected because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. SDA Kinship offers them the compassion and support perceived to not be available within the organized Adventist Church.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tonga, is one of the smaller religious groups in the South Pacific island state of Tonga, with a reported 3,853 members as of June 30, 2020. The church was started by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries from the United States who visited in 1891 and settled in 1895. They set up schools but made very little progress in conversion, handicapped by dietary rules that prohibited popular local foods such as pork and shellfish, and that also banned tobacco, alcohol and kava.
Rusangu University, formerly known as Zambia Adventist University, is a private coeducational Christian university based in Rusangu Mission near Monze in Zambia. It is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is considered one of the best universities in Zambia and in Africa region. This is known for its academic standards and research contributions.
San Yu Adventist School (SYAS) is a private Christian school in Singapore which caters to students from ages 7 to 16/17. It follows the local education system and is fully owned and operated by the Singapore Adventist Conference. The current school was a result of the merger of two Adventist schools: the English-medium Seventh-day Adventist School previously located in Upper Serangoon Road and the Chinese-medium San Yu High School.
Taipei Adventist American School (TAAS) is a private foreign-registered elementary school with an American-based curriculum located on Yangming Shan (陽明山) in the Shihlin District of Taipei City, Taiwan. It is administered under the Northern Asia-Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Arthur Asa Grandville Carscallen (1879–1964), was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, missionary, administrator, linguist, and publisher.
Harry Willis Miller was an American physician, thyroid surgeon and Seventh-day Adventist missionary. Miller was a vegetarian and pioneer in the development of soy milk.
The history of Adventism in Sichuan began in 1914 when American and Chinese missionaries arrived in Chongqing. Adventist missionaries in Sichuan were organized under the Szechwan Mission, later split into the East Szechwan, West Szechwan, and Tibetan Missions. Missionary activity in China generated controversy among many native Chinese and faced opposition from popular riots and the later Communist movement in China. Numerous mission properties and native Church leaders in Sichuan were respectively destroyed and killed by communists in the mid-1930s. Missionary activity ceased after the communist take over of China in 1949. Under government oppression in the 1950s, Adventist congregations and other Protestant Churches across China severed their ties with overseas Churches, and their congregations subsequently merged into the Three-Self Patriotic Church. Since 1980, their services have been provided by the China Christian Council.
