If a Seventh-day Adventist church were "Baptist" - what would it look like?

BobRyan

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Given that William Miller was a Baptist preacher that was influential in starting the Adventist movement - I am starting this thread here about "what kind of Baptist" an Adventist church would be some sort of combination of:

1. Free Will Baptist
2. Seventh-day Baptist
3. Charismatic Southern Baptist - Charismatic Southern Baptists
(very "light" on the Charismatic part in our case - just to get "continuation" of spiritual gifts doctrine)
4. It would be organized in a structure like UMC - United Methodist
===============

Where a combination of that group into one Adventist Baptist denomination would simply add some changes in eschatology. For example - we believe the Rapture happens in Rev 19 - but it is still the basic Rapture of resurrected saints and living-saints translated with immortal bodies and taken to Heaven with Christ for 1000 years.

(And of course: Such a church would have a "very" literal interpretation of 1 Thess 4:13-18 as compared to other Baptist groups when it comes to: "those WHO have fallen asleep")

And of course a health message so that we could still have created one of the 5 so-called "Blue Zones" on Earth
 
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BobRyan

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So then - no wonder I keep quoting "the Baptist Confession of Faith" Sectn 19 - as edited by C.H. Spurgeon --

As I did here -

Baptist Confession of Faith -- as formatted by C.H.Spurgeon


The Law of God - Baptist Confession of Faith: Section 19


1. God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience which was written in his heart, and He gave him very specific instruction about not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. By this Adam and all his descendants were bound to personal, total, exact, and perpetual obedience, being promised life upon the fulfilling of the law, and threatened with death upon the breach of it. At the same time Adam was endued with power and ability to keep it.

2. The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the Fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments, and written in two tables, the first four containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man.

3. Besides this law, commonly called the moral law, God was pleased do give the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances. These ordinances were partly about their worship, and in them Christ was prefigured along with His attributes and qualities, His actions, His sufferings and His benefits. These ordinances also gave instructions about different moral duties. All of these ceremonial laws were appointed only until the time of reformation, when Jesus Christ the true Messiah and the only lawgiver, Who was furnished with power from the Father for this end, cancelled them and took them away.

4. To the people of Israel He also gave sundry judicial laws which expired when they ceased to be a nation. These are not binding on anyone now by virtue of their being part of the laws of that nation, but their general equity continue to be applicable in modern times.

5. The moral law ever binds to obedience everyone, justified people as well as others, and not only out of regard for the matter contained in it, but also out of respect for the authority of God the Creator, Who gave the law. Nor does Christ in the Gospel dissolve this law in any way, but He considerably strengthens our obligation to obey it.

6. Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, to be justified or condemned by it, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others, because as a rule of life it informs them of the will of God and their duty and directs and binds them to walk accordingly. It also reveals and exposes the sinful pollutions of their natures, hearts and lives, and using it for self-examination they may come to greater conviction of sin, greater humility and greater hatred of their sin. They will also gain a clearer sight of their need of Christ and the perfection of His own obedience. It is of further use to regenerate people to restrain their corruptions, because of the way in which it forbids sin. The threatenings of the law serve to show what their sins actually deserve, and what troubles may be expected in this life because of these sins even by regenerate people who are freed from the curse and undiminished rigours of the law. The promises connected with the law also show believers God's approval of obedience, and what blessings they may expect when the law is kept and obeyed, though blessing will not come to them because they have satisfied the law as a covenant of works. If a man does good and refrains from evil simply because the law encourages to the good and deters him from the evil, that is no evidence that he is under the law rather than under grace.

7. The aforementioned uses of the law are not contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but they sweetly comply with it, as the Spirit of Christ subdues and enables the will of man to do freely and cheerfully those things which the will of God, which is revealed in the law, requires to be done.

so then these 10 statements would be accepted by such a church.

1. It is "still a sin" to take God's name in vain (Ex 20:7) even in the NT
2. "what matters is KEEPING the Commandments of God" 1 Cor 7:19 - even in the NT
3. The "first commandment with a promise" Eph 6:1-2 in that "still valid unit of Ten" is still "Honor your father and mother" -- even in the NT
4. For all eternity after the cross - in the new Earth "From Sabbath to Sabbath shall all mankind come before Me to worship" Is 66:23
5. The saints "KEEP the commandments of God AND their faith in Jesus" Rev 14:12
6. Gospel sermons for both gentiles and Jews "Every Sabbath" Acts 18:4
7. The "NEW Covenant" is in the old Testament Jer 31:31-34 and is "unchanged" in the New Testament Heb 8:6-12
8. There is only "one" Gospel Gal 1:6-9 and that Gospel was "preached to Abraham" Gal 3:8
9. The LAW of God still has "do not covet" Rom 7 - in it.
10. Before the cross Jesus said "keep the Commandments" Matt 19 and after the cross - Paul gives the same list of commandments in Rom 13.

The same moral law of the old Covenant "condemns every mouth" in fact "all the world" Rom 3:19-20 - to this very day - for those who have not accepted the Gospel - for "all have sinned" Rom 3:23
 
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Freth

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To borrow a term from another thread—the Seventh-day Adventist church is an amalgamation of multiple denominations that existed at the time anyway.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I keep thinking that Southern Baptist, for instance, is way off the mark of what we would be like if we came from a primarily Baptist denominational group.

I don't think we would notice much difference, to be honest. It was the light given that made us who we are and we would've turned out the same regardless. Slight differences? Maybe, but nothing to write home about.

I simply don't know much about any of the denominations, aside from personal experience in their churches, so I'm just speaking from the periphery here.
 
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The Liturgist

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You do realize the United Methodist Church, unlike the SDA and every baptist church, has an episcopal polity with Bishops, District Superintendents, Elders and Deacons, with the district and conference, and the Bishop and District Superintendent, having the power to close parishes, transfer clergy or do other things which are anathema to the Baptists, who like my own tradition believe each local church should be completely autonomous, self-governing, and in fact, to use an Orthodox term that seems applicable, autocephalous?
 
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The Liturgist

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I should add I have nothing against the episcopal polity. As I see it the early church appears to have been Congregationalist, like Jewish synagogues have always been, until multiple parishes opened up in the same geographic area or metropolis, in which case it became logical to use the presbyters as subordinates of the bishops to run those churches. And I think certain mega churches which have “satellite campuses” should just own up to what they have become and implement an episcopal or presbyterian polity, bearing in mind that if the founder of the megachurch is particularly skilled as a leader and loved by the congregation and more control for him is warranted, he should be a bishop.
 
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tall73

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You do realize the United Methodist Church, unlike the SDA and every baptist church, has an episcopal polity with Bishops, District Superintendents, Elders and Deacons, with the district and conference, and the Bishop and District Superintendent, having the power to close parishes, transfer clergy or do other things which are anathema to the Baptists, who like my own tradition believe each local church should be completely autonomous, self-governing, and in fact, to use an Orthodox term that seems applicable, autocephalous?

Adventists are not congregational. Pastors are moved by the conferences when they want to. Larger churches may have more say in who their pastor is than smaller churches, but the conference does call pastors. And conferences can close churches for apostasy. The local church buildings are owned by the conference, not the local membership.

Conferences are organized into unions, unions into Divisions, and then you have the General Conference over the world church.

Tithe money goes to the top and is divided down among the different levels, so that pastors, other than cost of living, etc. are paid the same. This supports mission work.

Tithes are used to pay ministers, etc. and the churches run their local budget off of offerings above tithe.

Hence their doctrine is much more uniform across the whole world church, though there are still some liberal Adventist churches.
 
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tall73

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This is a quote from Ellen White:

I have been shown that no man's judgment should be surrendered to the judgment of any one man. But when the judgment of the General Conference, which is the highest authority that God has upon the earth, is exercised, private independence and private judgment must not be maintained, but be surrendered. Your error was in persistently maintaining your private judgment of your duty against the voice of the highest authority the Lord has upon the earth. After you had taken your own time, and after the work had been much hindered by your delay, you came to Battle Creek in answer to the repeated and urgent calls of the General Conference. You firmly maintained that you had done right in following your own convictions of duty. You considered it a virtue in you to persistently maintain your position of independence. You did not seem to have a true sense of the power that God has given to His church in the voice of the General Conference. You thought that in responding to the call made to you by the General Conference you were submitting to the judgment and mind of one man. You accordingly manifested an independence, a set, willful spirit, which was all wrong.


Testimonies for the Church Volume 3, chapter 44
 
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tall73

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The name and logo of the Seventh-day Adventist church are trademarked, as are a number of other names under that. You can see the details here:

Trademark and Logo Usage | Adventist.org

They usually try to resolve the issue without going to court, sending a desist letter, etc. Often it is web sites that wind up being impacted, but churches have as well.

Here is a discussion of how that plays out in regards to ministries, churches, businesses, web sites, etc. that use the name without permission:

Just a Name--Or a Registered Trademark?

This article discusses the arrest of two individuals who continued to use the name despite a court order:

Second Man Arrested in Trademark Battle over the Name “Seventh-day Adventist” | Adventist Today

Details from the imprisoned ministers:

Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church Leaders Freed

This article discusses a trademark action against SDA Kinship, a homosexual group of Adventists.

March, 1991: When the General Conference Sued SDA Kinship | Adventist Today
 
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The Liturgist

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Adventists are not congregational. Pastors are moved by the conferences when they want to. Larger churches may have more say in who their pastor is than smaller churches, but the conference does call pastors. And conferences can close churches for apostasy. The local church buildings are owned by the conference, not the local membership.

Conferences are organized into unions, unions into Divisions, and then you have the General Conference over the world church.

Tithe money goes to the top and is divided down among the different levels, so that pastors, other than cost of living, etc. are paid the same. This supports mission work.

Tithes are used to pay ministers, etc. and the churches run their local budget off of offerings above tithe.

Hence their doctrine is much more uniform across the whole world church, though there are still some liberal Adventist churches.

Well, that’s still not the polity of the Baptists or the UMC. And someone needs to edit your wikipedia article.
 
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The Liturgist

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The name and logo of the Seventh-day Adventist church are trademarked, as are a number of other names under that. You can see the details here:

Trademark and Logo Usage | Adventist.org

They usually try to resolve the issue without going to court, sending a desist letter, etc. Often it is web sites that wind up being impacted, but churches have as well.

Here is a discussion of how that plays out in regards to ministries, churches, businesses, web sites, etc. that use the name without permission:

Just a Name--Or a Registered Trademark?

This article discusses the arrest of two individuals who continued to use the name despite a court order:

Second Man Arrested in Trademark Battle over the Name “Seventh-day Adventist” | Adventist Today

Details from the imprisoned ministers:

Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church Leaders Freed

This article discusses a trademark action against SDA Kinship, a homosexual group of Adventists.

March, 1991: When the General Conference Sued SDA Kinship | Adventist Today

That’s truly shocking. I am not aware of any other major Christian denomination to enforce a trademark so aggressively. Indeed, even the Mormons are less aggressive. I am aggrieved by the $45 million wasted by the Episcopal Church USA on law suits to control their real estate, but they haven’t filed a single lawsuit against any of the Continuing Anglican Churches that have the word “Episcopal” in their name, nor against the Episcopal Lutheran Diocese of North America. Also no one has gone to jail as a result of any of these issues.
 
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This is a quote from Ellen White:

I have been shown that no man's judgment should be surrendered to the judgment of any one man. But when the judgment of the General Conference, which is the highest authority that God has upon the earth, is exercised, private independence and private judgment must not be maintained, but be surrendered. Your error was in persistently maintaining your private judgment of your duty against the voice of the highest authority the Lord has upon the earth. After you had taken your own time, and after the work had been much hindered by your delay, you came to Battle Creek in answer to the repeated and urgent calls of the General Conference. You firmly maintained that you had done right in following your own convictions of duty. You considered it a virtue in you to persistently maintain your position of independence. You did not seem to have a true sense of the power that God has given to His church in the voice of the General Conference. You thought that in responding to the call made to you by the General Conference you were submitting to the judgment and mind of one man. You accordingly manifested an independence, a set, willful spirit, which was all wrong.


Testimonies for the Church Volume 3, chapter 44

So how does the General Conference differ in terms of authority from, for example, the Roman pontiff? In terms of its authority, it sounds like a continuous ecumenical council.
 
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tall73

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Well, that’s still not the polity of the Baptists or the UMC. And someone needs to edit your wikipedia article.

The Adventist church wikipedia? Will have to check it out. Wikipedia has been getting less and less reliable.

In any case, I left the Seventh-day Adventist church over a decade ago due to doctrinal disagreement.
 
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tall73

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So how does the General Conference differ in terms of authority from, for example, the Roman pontiff? In terms of its authority, it sounds like a continuous ecumenical council.

You could consider it similar to a recurring council. Representatives from the world church meet and decide.

I would say though that most members don't view it the same as the pope for instance, in fact a lot of members would not know the quote I posted. They would tend to look to Scripture and Ellen White before the GC in authority.

But on issues such as women's ordination there have been some questions of authority raised. Some churches in North America were informally ordaining women, even though the GC did not agree to it.

In theory the GC holds all the cards on such matters, but they try not to be too quick to cause splits over such things. And because of the world-wide nature of the church many of the representatives are quite conservative on such issues, so issues that have caused splits in other denominations have not done so with the GC so far.
 
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That’s truly shocking. I am not aware of any other major Christian denomination to enforce a trademark so aggressively.

It was surprising to me at the time as well. They began as a movement, and there was reluctance to even form a denomination in the first place. But eventually to own property, support mission, and handle ordination, etc. they wound up forming, as often happens.

In the early days Adventist believers were often spread out across the country. In the same way that the Millerite movement used publications to spread doctrine the group that eventually formed the Seventh-day Adventist church also used such publications. The denomination actually has presses today that they use to keep members informed and to produce outreach material.

They are in theory anti-creedal as well. However, over time they began to formulate doctrinal statements. And the current statement can in some ways function like a creed.


Ellen White explains:

“As our numbers increased, it was evident that without some form of organization there would be great confusion, and the work would not be carried forward successfully. To provide for the support of the ministry, for carrying the work in new fields, for protecting both the churches and the ministry from unworthy members, for holding church property, for the publication of the truth through the press, and for many other objects, organization was indispensable.”

Yet there was strong feeling against it among our people. The first-day Adventists were opposed to organization, and most of the Seventh-day Adventists entertained the same ideas. We sought the Lord with earnest prayer that we might understand His will, and light was given by His Spirit that there must be order and thorough discipline in the church—that organization was essential. System and order are manifest in all the works of God throughout the universe. Order is the law of heaven, and it should be the law of God's people on the earth. —TM 26.
 
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who like my own tradition believe each local church should be completely autonomous, self-governing, and in fact, to use an Orthodox term that seems applicable, autocephalous?


To illustrate the difference between a Baptist type congregational polity and the Adventist system, note that a congregation cannot eve form a church without Conference permission. They operate as a company prior to that.

From the Manual:

Organizing, Uniting, and Dissolving Churches and Companies Organizing a Church

A church is organized by an ordained pastor on the recommendation of the conference executive committee. (For the procedure for organizing a company, see pp. 37, 38.) Since so much is involved in the organization of a church, the local conference president should be invited to be present.When a company of baptized believers is prepared to assume the responsibilities of an organized church, it must consult with the conference president and obtain approval from the conference executive committee prior to seeking a date for the organization to take place

A company must also be approved:


Company status is approved by vote of the conference committee, which, should it become necessary, may subsequently dissolve the company. The division and/or conference should have written guidelines for organizing companies within its territory.
 
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https://www.adventist.org/wp-conten...-day-adventist-church-manual_2015_updated.pdf

On dissolution or expulsion of a church for loss of members or for disciplinary reasons, all offerings, financial accounts, and all property real or personal, whether held in the name of the local church or the conference or other denominational legal association, are held in trust for the conference. The conference therefore has the right, the authority, and the duty to administer, protect, or dispose of such property and funds. All records of the church are to be held in the custody of the conference secretary and/or treasurer.In cases where discipline is not involved, an alternative to dissolving or expelling a church is to return it to company status. Such a decision will be made by a majority vote of the conference committee, following consultation with the district pastor and members, and conveyed to the church by the pastor or conference representative.

 
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BobRyan

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You do realize the United Methodist Church, unlike the SDA and every baptist church, has an episcopal polity with Bishops, District Superintendents, Elders and Deacons, with the district and conference, and the Bishop and District Superintendent, having the power to close parishes, transfer clergy or do other things which are anathema to the Baptists,

The reference was to organizational structure.

Adventist churches also have
1. Deacons, Elders, Pastor
2. Local conferences that have authority to transfer pastor
3. Unions have ownership of universities and colleges and provide some direction to Conferences.
4. Divisions with Division president and some staff
5. World wide headquarters with administrative staff.

So I am being careful to note that organizational structure difference from the Baptist model.
 
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BobRyan

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So how does the General Conference differ in terms of authority from, for example, the Roman pontiff? In terms of its authority, it sounds like a continuous ecumenical council.

The only doctrinal authority in the Adventist church - for voting on and determining what our current understanding of doctrine is as a denomination and Quiquinium vote of representatives from all Adventist Divisions world wide coming together voting every 5 years when it comes to proposed changes to the church manual etc.

So then no "Pope" rather it is whatever 1500 or 2000 representatives are sent in from the world Divisions each 5 years.

the intent of this thread was not to focus as much on administration - as on the doctrinal similarities when it comes to the various Baptist groups vs the Adventist denomination.
 
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