Is the Seventh Day Adventist Church orthodox

[Albion]

They say the Sabbath commandment is changed to this --

Q. What does the Third Commandment command?
A. The Third Commandment commands us to sanctify Sunday as the Lord's Day.

I'm not seeing the word Sabbath there. Or changed or moved to or anything like that.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

When I was in high school (60s) Monterey Bay Academy we were told not to associate or debate other denominations. When I left the SDA church I lost half of my friends and family, don't tell me they don't reject those who leaven their church.

First time someone said so to me, it's not to the degree of the JWs but that's still bad.

 

[BobRyan]

Is Ellen G White not one of the founders of your Church? If not, who was the first SDA teacher?

Ellen White was alive at the time the church was being established and was one of the leaders - but in her late teens and 20's at the time was not "creating doctrine" or "defining doctrine" for the church to then adopt.

The first century Christians were SDA in doctrine.

 

[BobRyan]

Dies Domini pt 13 -
"the Sabbath ...is therefore rooted in the depths of God's plan. This is why unlike many other laws - it is not within the context of strictly cultic (Jewish) stipulations but within the Decalogue the "ten words" which represent the very pillars of moral life inscribed on the human heart!! In setting this commandment within the context of the basic structure of ethics, Israel and then the church declare that they consider it not just a matter of community religious discipline but a defining and indelible expression of our relationship to God, announced and expounded by biblical revelations.

===================


CCC -- Catholic Catechism

2056 The word "Decalogue" means literally "ten words."11 God revealed these "ten words" to his people on the holy mountain. They were written "with the finger of God,"12 unlike the other commandments written by Moses.13 They are pre-eminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of Exodus 14 and Deuteronomy.15 Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the "ten words,"16 but it is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed.


2072 Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations.They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. the Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart.

...
2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of The Sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ:107

Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping The Sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.108

2176 The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship "as a sign of his universal beneficence to all."109 Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.

2190 The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.

Changed from this:

• Q. What is the Third Commandment?
• A. The Third Commandment is: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

Changed to this

• Q. What does the Third Commandment command?
• A. The Third Commandment commands us to sanctify Sunday as the Lord's Day.

indicate that something changed in your POV with regard to the Sabbath commandment?

If not -- can you see how others would see that as a "change" to the third commandment?

I'm not seeing the word Sabbath there. Or changed or moved to or anything like that.

still??

2190 The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.

 

[BobRyan]

The problem then being that the only person to really understand the bible in 1900 years was Ellen G White.

Not by reason of anything any SDA has said here. You are spinning your own view of how others should think.

No SDA has said that Ellen White gave even one doctrine to SDAs.

Which of our doctrines did she introduce? I know of none.
How about you?

I think you're considering this conversation from a polemical point of view instead of actually addressing my concerns.

I was pretty direct in pointing out the fact that this is not some "understanding of the Bible" given to SDAs by Ellen White - not sure how much more "direct" I can be in pointing out the flaw in your premise.

You are assuming an SDA history that never existed while not noting the details in my responses.

Ellen White was a United Methodist (in doctrine) as Ellen Harmon (a teen) and in 1844 at the age of 17 stood with the Millerites as they experienced the failure of their prediction for Oct 22,1844 as the second coming event. She was not "SDA" and neither were the Millerites. And in October of 1844 was also not considered by any Millerite (or herself) to be a prophet of any kind.

When the Sabbath topic was presented to her by fellow Millerites she was not inclined to accept it.

SDA doctrine was not something that any of the Millerites including Ellen White believed in though as Christians from many different backgrounds they held various beliefs that still exist in the SDA denomination today. It was not until 1848 that the Millerites that had not left the movement started to work out a set of doctrinal beliefs to hold in common other than the ones Miller already had which were:
1. the Protestant Day-for-year method,
2. Historicism,
3. the 2300 years of Dan 8 ended in Oct 22, 1844.

(And they were not asking recently married Ellen White - for a standard set of common beliefs either. Though her husband and she were both considered leaders or at least of significant influence for the group)

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Ellen White was alive at the time the church was being established and was one of the leaders - but in her late teens and 20's at the time was not "creating doctrine" or "defining doctrine" for the church to then adopt.

The first century Christians were SDA in doctrine.

Would you characterize what happened between the year 100 and 1800 a great apostasy?

 

[BobRyan]

No, that's not my claim. My claim is there needs to be some baseline by which we regard each other. I do not consider Catholics non-Christians because we agree on so much.

I also do not consider Catholics to be non-Christians for the same reason.

I likewise do not consider many Protestants non-Christians

Nor do I but it has nothing to do with "who-is and who-is-not creedal" - but rather because they hold to doctrines on which I agree no matter our difference.

So no, I'm not insisting everyone agree with Eastern Orthodox doctrine. I allow a wide berth for what I consider Christendom generally.

So then we agree on that as well. I don't insist that everyone be SDA or that anyone be Eastern Orthodox - everyone is already Christian as they are.

It is rather yourself who wants to willfully be kept apart from historic Christendom.

I like anyone who belongs to a given denomination accept the beliefs of the denomination I belong to -- not because of some creed ... but because of what the Bible teaches.

For I can see no connection between the SDA and the Church that has existed for the last two thousand years.

Well for starters the first century A.D. church was SDA in doctrine.

 

[BobRyan]

Would you characterize what happened between the year 100 and 1800 a great apostasy?

Many things happened there including the Protestant Reformation.

 

[BobRyan]

That's part of the problem. Historical Christianity is creedal.

Christianity has some groups that are creedal and some that are not. It is a fact and always has been.

 

[BobRyan]

That's part of the problem. Historical Christianity is creedal. Even Luther affirmed the Nicene Creed and regarded it as an inheritance to be treasured. If you do not even have the creed in common with the rest of Christendom, how are you part of her and not willfully separate?

The fact that we are not "creedal" means we hold absolutely no doctrine at all "just because someone put it in a creed". The only criteria for accepting doctrine is "sola scriptura" testing. A key Protestant theme and also in the practice of first century Christians holding to SDA doctrine as we see in Acts 17:11 with their "sola scriptura" testing.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Many things happened there including the Protestant Reformation.

Not an answer to my question. True teaching or understanding of the bible all but ceased in this period right? Leaving behind only the teachings of man made traditions correct?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

The fact that we are not "creedal" means we hold absolutely no doctrine at all "just because someone put it in a creed". The only criteria for accepting doctrine is "sola scriptura" testing. A key Protestant theme and also in the practice of first century Christians holding to SDA doctrine as we see in Acts 17:11 with their "sola scriptura" testing.

I never said you don't hold doctrine. Only that you separate yourself from the rest of Christianity by not upholding the same credo.

However you view the New Testament and what it says is irrelevant to my point.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

The Ethiopian Orthodox are still in communion with the Oriental Orthodox across the world. They do not repudiate their Egyptian brothers/sisters who keep the standard Christian practices, such as foregoing circumcision and foregoing dietary restrictions. SDA seem to do this with regards to other Christians, judging them for not keeping Sabbath or dietary laws.

The Ethiopian Church is a strange exception to a general rule. It perhaps has something to do with Ethiopia's historical claims to the Queen of Sheba or Beta Israel.

Understand but my point still stands...

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Christianity has some groups that are creedal and some that are not. It is a fact and always has been.

Those who have rejected the creeds have always been considered heretical by Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant standards. Even if Protestants regard the creeds differently they at least respect them and many Protestant Churches recite them in their services.

But you see my point right? By placing yourself outside of the boundaries of Nicene Christianity, which you call a tradition of men, it becomes more difficult for you to claim any sort of communion and or connection with Christianity more broadly.

 

[rturner76]

The Catholic Church's official position on that matter is that the Sabbath was not changed from Saturday to Sunday.

Isn't that why we have a 5 day work week? The Sabbath and THe Lord's Day.

 

[CosmicOsmo]

Adventism is clearly a cult of a sorts, much like Mormonism, but more benign. Many of the adventists that I know, are almost unaware of the teachings of EW, but hold to the simple traditions like sabbath and preference for vegetarian food.
In fact, most adventists I've talked to are shocked to hear what EW has said.

On the other hand, I'm surprised we haven't gotten rid of the Catholic practice of having the first day of the week (Sunday) be honored as sabbath. Clearly sabbath is on the sixth day (Saturday) and the early church met on the first day of the week as we do (Sunday). Of course to say that this is some kind of salvation issue is yet another hyperbolic stretch that cults tend to do to keep their members separated from the rest of the world.

 

[Albion]

Isn't that why we have a 5 day work week? The Sabbath and THe Lord's Day.

Apparently so, Saturday having been added as a concession to Jewish employees.

 

[BobRyan]

2190 The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.

Isn't that why we have a 5 day work week? The Sabbath and THe Lord's Day.

No. In fact at one time the Catholic church demanded that people work on the Bible Sabbath.

 

[BobRyan]

Adventism is clearly a cult of a sorts, much like Mormonism, but more benign. Many of the adventists that I know, are almost unaware of the teachings of EW, but hold to the simple traditions like sabbath and preference for vegetarian food.
In fact, most adventists I've talked to are shocked to hear what EW has said.
.

I have never met those Adventists - I have to admit. Are you sure you remember accurately??

 

[Albion]

No. In fact at one time the Catholic church demanded that people work on the Bible Sabbath.

The question was about why Saturday was made to be a day off from work, in addition to Sunday. I doubt that any reader imagines that it always was that way.