Are there different "sects" of Seventh Day Adventists?

Babymine · Aug 10, 2005

Ive seen so many different beliefs, and yet the persons will say yes I am SDA, but Im thinking how can that be if you have almost opposite beliefs? So are there different sects? I was just curious.

PaleHorse · Aug 10, 2005

Babymine said:
Ive seen so many different beliefs, and yet the persons will say yes I am SDA, but Im thinking how can that be if you have almost opposite beliefs? So are there different sects? I was just curious.

Yes, there are some different "sects" (if you will) of the SDA church; however not all of these should call themselves SDA in my humble opinion. I'm NOT an expert or authority on this topic but I'll try to give a breakdown of the groups I know of:

Seventh-day Adventists: the regular General Conference-guided body of believers. This is the group I'm a part of.
Historic Seventh-day Adventists: follow the Bible and the writings of EGW just as "regular" SDAs do; however many do not recognise the General Conference as being any kind of authority or governing body. Additionally, many of them see corruption taking hold in the SDA church as a whole and tend to seperate themselves from that perceived corruption. Many Historic SDAs do not own televisions or computers, but this is not meant to be a blanket statement for many do. Historic SDAs overall tend to be more conservative in their views of music, dance, & entertainment and tend to be more fundamental in their strict adherence to SDA doctrine. I have the highest respect for this group of SDAs and on many issues I tend to lean towards their views and be more conservative.
Branch Davidians: Again, I'm not an expert on the history of the church so I will provide a link that explains the history of Branch Davidians, here. (I'm not certain of the accuracy of the information contained in that link but I've found the website to be pretty accurate on other things I've looked up.) Branch Davidians claim they have a new message, what they call the Shepard's Rod. This "new message" is not shared by any of the other groups of SDA churches; as such, in my opinion (and I am only expressing an opinion here, not a statement of fact), they should not indentify themselves as Seventh-day Adventists. I am not passing any kind of judgment on them or their message; I have great respect for them and love them as my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am merely saying, for the sake of being distinct due to their distinct message, they should identify themselves as such.
Feast-Keeping Adventists: There are a fairly new and small group of SDAs (whose numbers seem to be on the increase) that believe the feasts defined in Leviticus (or at least some of them) are still to be kept. From what I've seen on other forum websites and in various chat rooms, this is a heavily debated topic and the discussion gets quite heated on both sides of the argument. I won't get into the details of the argument but let it suffice to say that it has caused great division between the "feast keepers" and "non-feast keepers".

Are there any other SDAs who can help me out on this topic? As I said, I am not an expert or authority on this topic.

catlover · Aug 10, 2005

What exactly are they talking about with the feast days in Lev?

PaleHorse · Aug 10, 2005

I think most of their points come from Leviticus 23 and some include the Passover spoken of in Exodus 12. Many of them look to the spiritual significance of those feasts and see them (though not all of them) as being essencial to salvation. Other feast-keepers (if I may coin that phrase) say that keeping the feasts does not bring salvation but it shows Christ that we appreciate & love Him. They have traced the scriptural observances of these various feasts, along with the spiritual nature of them, and have concluded they should be kept, the Feast of Tabernacles is one they all seem to agree still stands and was not fulfilled by Christ.

Now, I may not be giving the best or full description of their stance so if a feast-keeping SDA wants to step in and give us a more detailed explanation of the argument then I'd like to hear it.

It is my contention however, that the feasts were in place "until the seed should come" (Gal 3:19) for they were sabbaths placed beside the Sabbath of the Lord (Lev. 23:38). You see, there were two kinds of sabbaths established in the OT; there was the seventh-day Sabbath of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) and there were the feasts that were later added in Lev. 23 as part of Moses' ceremonial law. This is an important distinction that needs to be made. When one looks to Christ's ministry we find that He often avoided the feasts (for they were shadows of His coming anyway) but He never failed to observe the seventh-day Sabbath of the Commandments. There is a truth to be learned from His example in this.

Cliff2 · Aug 10, 2005

Babymine said:
Ive seen so many different beliefs, and yet the persons will say yes I am SDA, but Im thinking how can that be if you have almost opposite beliefs? So are there different sects? I was just curious.

In any large group there will often be sub groups within the main body.

That is so in the SDA Church.

You could probably define them into two main groups of people and then I suppose they would at times divide down even further.

They are conservative and liberal.

In amongst them there are streams of difference.

Much of it comes down to what one believes about the SOP and the role that EGW plays and has contributed to the Chruch.

For myself I would be leaning towards the conservative group. I do not go along with the ordaining of woman to the ministry but I am not against them preaching and having roles oif ministry within the Church.

Eve4000 · Aug 10, 2005

PaleHorse said:
Branch Davidians: Again, I'm not an expert on the history of the church so I will provide a link that explains the history of Branch Davidians, here. (I'm not certain of the accuracy of the information contained in that link but I've found the website to be pretty accurate on other things I've looked up.) Branch Davidians claim they have a new message, what they call the Shepard's Rod. This "new message" is not shared by any of the other groups of SDA churches; as such, in my opinion (and I am only expressing an opinion here, not a statement of fact), they should not indentify themselves as Seventh-day Adventists. I am not passing any kind of judgment on them or their message; I have great respect for them and love them as my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am merely saying, for the sake of being distinct due to their distinct message, they should identify themselves as such.

well, the Shepard's Rod people are technically not SDAs or considered so. Especially since their views differ from us on Revelation and the Last days. Even at the General Confrence session, they did not come in, but stayed outside [giving out booklets and such].

Cliff2 · Aug 12, 2005

Eve4000 said:
well, the Shepard's Rod people are technically not SDAs or considered so. Especially since their views differ from us on Revelation and the Last days. Even at the General Confrence session, they did not come in, but stayed outside [giving out booklets and such].

I can remember when I was only a kid back in the early 50's that the Shepard's Rod would always come to Camp meetings and hang around the front gate giving out their papers. That was in NNSW, Australia.

Starr SDA Living Word · Aug 20, 2005

God Bless and Happy Sabbath.

Windmill · Aug 20, 2005

Well I mean, we're all one common body of christians, but have several differet beliefs, some very conflicting. There are plenty of sects from what I can tell. I know theres one that supports homosexual couples, and some are CB's. Though, dunno if you'd call them sects...

smooze · Aug 20, 2005

David koresh of the branch dividian was an adventist growing up. There was another man last name ARMstrong. He started his own brand of church. I think people will say yah they are sects of SDA's and are protestants ( the word protestants comes from the early christians protesting the Catholic hierachy) Ask any catholic with wisdom and he/she will tell you. your either Catholic or protesting Catholicism. So making light of these sects that sprang have nothing to do with any doctrine it is a person psycotic thing going in these people twisted view of doctrine. Some may even use it to furthur their sick obsessions. David koresh was known to have multiple wifes some as young as 16.

honorthesabbath · Aug 21, 2005

Just testing to see my character!

honorthesabbath · Aug 21, 2005

honorthesabbath said:
Just testing to see my character!

YIKES!!!!!!! Where is it?? I bought everything and where it is?????

honorthesabbath · Aug 21, 2005

WHoops--lol--nevermind! I just realized that my character would have been "nakey" if posted as she was!!!! lol--I'm still learning!!!

smooze · Aug 21, 2005

did you buy all the clothes you need? if someone blesses you with armour browse through equip armour to the right section where the armour category it comes from and do the EUIP thing GOD bless.

Adventist Dissident · Nov 10, 2006

PaleHorse said:
Yes, there are some different "sects" (if you will) of the SDA church; however not all of these should call themselves SDA in my humble opinion. I'm NOT an expert or authority on this topic but I'll try to give a breakdown of the groups I know of:

Seventh-day Adventists: the regular General Conference-guided body of believers. This is the group I'm a part of.
Historic Seventh-day Adventists: follow the Bible and the writings of EGW just as "regular" SDAs do; however many do not recognise the General Conference as being any kind of authority or governing body. Additionally, many of them see corruption taking hold in the SDA church as a whole and tend to seperate themselves from that perceived corruption. Many Historic SDAs do not own televisions or computers, but this is not meant to be a blanket statement for many do. Historic SDAs overall tend to be more conservative in their views of music, dance, & entertainment and tend to be more fundamental in their strict adherence to SDA doctrine. I have the highest respect for this group of SDAs and on many issues I tend to lean towards their views and be more conservative.
Branch Davidians: Again, I'm not an expert on the history of the church so I will provide a link that explains the history of Branch Davidians, here. (I'm not certain of the accuracy of the information contained in that link but I've found the website to be pretty accurate on other things I've looked up.) Branch Davidians claim they have a new message, what they call the Shepard's Rod. This "new message" is not shared by any of the other groups of SDA churches; as such, in my opinion (and I am only expressing an opinion here, not a statement of fact), they should not indentify themselves as Seventh-day Adventists. I am not passing any kind of judgment on them or their message; I have great respect for them and love them as my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am merely saying, for the sake of being distinct due to their distinct message, they should identify themselves as such.
Feast-Keeping Adventists: There are a fairly new and small group of SDAs (whose numbers seem to be on the increase) that believe the feasts defined in Leviticus (or at least some of them) are still to be kept. From what I've seen on other forum websites and in various chat rooms, this is a heavily debated topic and the discussion gets quite heated on both sides of the argument. I won't get into the details of the argument but let it suffice to say that it has caused great division between the "feast keepers" and "non-feast keepers".

Are there any other SDAs who can help me out on this topic? As I said, I am not an expert or authority on this topic.

I would add to this Evanglical Adventist and Liberal(progressive as they call them selves.), Curatual Adventist.

Evanglical Adventist - emphisze being born again, a personal relationship with Christ, discipleship. They emphisize the Completeness of the SDA picture of Christ not the uniqueness as the Historics do. They emphize the spiritual gifts that God gives to people. God decides who gets what gifts, but the gifts are to be common place. one of the gifts is prophecy, and possibley in the ministry of EGW, but EA's are not dogmatic aoubt this because prophecy is the mean to an end, christ , not the end in it's self, as long as it leads to Christ it is ok. EA's aslo see the Sabbath as a mean to an end not the end it's self. |Sabbath is for an encounter with God. Holiness is that encounter. keeping the sabbath holy is very important for holiness is the encounter with God. Sabbath is also a a memoral to the Creator and his thoguhts feeling, and intentions towards this planet. It was At creation that God got his way (his will) complety. Creation is the standard of What God want, When you want to know what God want look at what he wanted in the garden it still is what God wants. historics emphsize the Day as important in and of it's self, EA's say the Day is a means to an end and that end is a revelation and encounter with Christ.

cultrual adventist- come int 2 stripes conservative and liberal
conservative are often confusted with historics Advetists because they emphaisize much of the same things, Historic doctrine, Historic forms of worship, they don't like change it must stay they same. They are not converted. and there religion has no purpose other then to remind them of their upbringing,stat quo is the name of the game.

Liberal Adventist - react to this they questntion every thing and challage every thing, just for its own sake, sabbath keeping, young earth creation, authority of the word of God. challengeing the status quo is every thing. Chruch is a club and they think that if they are in the club then they are ok, they can change the club to what ever they want.

mystery4 · Nov 12, 2006

icedragon101 said:
I would add to this Evanglical Adventist and Liberal(progressive as they call them selves.), Curatual Adventist.

Liberals and progressives are different. The definition you gave was that of a liberal, a progressive is someone who is between conservative and liberal. They are willing to accept change as God leads but still hold onto the basics that characterise us as Adventists. Generally they are conservative in their beliefs of the 28 fundamentals.

Cliff2 · Nov 12, 2006

icedragon101

Can you give us a run down on who you see as being the correct SDA's.

Cliff2 · Nov 12, 2006

I did not know we had so many different groups.

Dathen · Nov 12, 2006

There are quite afew minor differences. I would say the two main sects are commited and laid back.

Commited dosn't wear jewellry, dosn't watch things like Harry Potter etc:

Laid back:does the opposite of that. Does wear jewellry etc:

The commited one generally follows the Bible closer then laid back, but some people do go over the top...

Sophia7 · Nov 13, 2006

mystery4 said:
Liberals and progressives are different. The definition you gave was that of a liberal, a progressive is someone who is between conservative and liberal. They are willing to accept change as God leads but still hold onto the basics that characterise us as Adventists. Generally they are conservative in their beliefs of the 28 fundamentals.

Not according to the progressives who post in the Progressive Adventist subforum. They are not very conservative in their views of some of the 28 fundamentals. I would agree, though, that liberals and progressives should be different categories. There really are very few truly liberal Adventists (that is, liberal on theological issues).

Are there different "sects" of Seventh Day Adventists?

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