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Esdra

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Hi

excuse me if this question is provocative, but are SDAs considered orthodox in this forum?
I'm asking because I've been in various Baptist and Pentecostal Churches and they've always told me that you are borderline to a cult.
And I also realized that all the Churches I've visited did work together, except the Adventists.
I've been in a student's group when I was still a student of Charismatics and Baptists, but there were no Adventists; they had a student's group of their own.
Is this also in other areas the case, that the other protestant denominations don't want to have anything to do with you?

From the other side, I've been in Email contact with an Adventist pastor for some time, and he has accepted me at once as a brother in Christ (reborn Christian) and even has invited me to Adventist assemblies or feasts. (I didn't go there though, because I was insecure about the Adventists.)

Esdra
 

JojotheBeloved

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Esdra - thank you for bringing this question up. I appreciate your honesty and your graceousness in giving us the opportunity to clarify who we believe we are and what we believe that may be different from other denominations. It shows great respect to allow a person or a group to define themselves, rather than make assumptions about how the outside should define them. I greatly appreciate the respectful attitude you have shown.

orthodox - of, pertaining to, or conforming to the approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology, etc. (dictionary.com).
According to this definition of orthodoxy, we would consider ourselves orthodox as a church denomination. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has established a set of agreed upon doctrines, which have remained generally consistent and which every local Adventist church worldwide typically holds to and functions from. In this way, we are orthodox, because we agree upon an orthodox theology, philosophy, ideology etc. within our community. Now, if by orthodox you mean conforming to every point of theology, philosophy, ideology, etc. which other Protestant Christian denominations hold, than no we are not orthodox. However, although we do differ in a few points of theology which does change our overall worldview, we also are a lot closer in theology with other Christians than some would like to acknowledge. Truthfully, there is only one doctrine unique to the Seventh-day Adventist theology. All our other docrtines we share with other Christians. We may interpret the doctrines slightly differently, but at the core, they are the same. If you'd like a comprehensive explanation with textual support for each doctrine, you can find it on the official website of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The web address is www . adventist . org / beliefs (btw, there are no spaces in that address, I just don't have clearance to post links yet and the computer automatically makes it a link).

As far as how other groups see Adventists, that happens for a combination of reasons. Some have simply never heard of Adventists, others have had bad experiences with individuals that claim to be Adventists, and still others have only seen the few times former Adventist individuals caused trouble in the media. There have been a few cult groups that departed from the Adventist Church, but they were not claimed by the church, nor did they want to be. The attitudes of those individuals were hostile toward Adventists because of their own issues. The Adventist Church as a whole is considered a denomination of protestant Christians for all legal purposes. Some churches take issue with us because of our history too. The Advent Movement happened in the 1800s and included individuals from many different denominational groups. The group that became the Seventh-day Adventists were primarily from Methodist roots, but they did not organize themselves until the 1860s (approximately 20 or so years after the movement began), because it was the organized churches that they felt had become stagnant in doctrine and oppressive of people who desired to study Scripture for themselves. So in an effort to stay open-minded and motivated to study the Bible and derive theology directly from Scripture, they resisted organization or a creed. To this day, although the Adventist Church has become organized and has put forth an official statement of beliefs, it has continued to encourage personal Bible study and involvement within the faith community, in an effort to remain open to God's leading. This philosophy of resisting becoming too established in theology and practice has made some others question our orthodoxy. And when Adventists have come in contact with hostile individuals who question our faith, it is only human to desire to retreat from such sources of conflict. In my opinion, this retreat from the rest of the Christian world to protect ourselves has been a downfall for our church which some are very enthusiastically trying to correct now. But the retreating is not because of cult-like beliefs or behaviors, but rather because of fear of conflict.

If you would like to see more information, there are resources to research the history of our church at the same website I referenced for our beliefs. I would also strongly encourage you, if you're interested, to go ahead and visit an Adventist Church or even a couple different Adventist Churches and make your own judgements.

The characterization of cults usually is a dangerous one in which you're stuck once you get into it and it requires you to behave in extreme ways that would endanger you and isolate you from others. Although our philosophy and a few doctrines may be slightly different, we are Christians who love Jesus and want to treat people well, so we won't ask you to endanger yourself or others by associating with us and you are free to choose what you believe and when you will come and go. Adventists function as anyone else within our modern world and we're not intending to harm anyone.
 
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JojotheBeloved

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Hi
I also realized that all the Churches I've visited did work together, except the Adventists.
I've been in a student's group when I was still a student of Charismatics and Baptists, but there were no Adventists; they had a student's group of their own.
Esdra

I'm sorry that I forgot to address this part. The reason, on our side of things, that Adventists sometimes don't want to participate in multi-church projects is that those projects are often scheduled on Saturdays. Adventist hold to the belief that the Jewish Sabbath is still important in modern life (although maybe not for salvation purposes, for practical purposes) and was not overriden by Jesus nor abandoned by the apostles or early Christian churches described in the Bible. In an effort to follow the advice of Scripture and connect with God and with loved ones, we typically try not to work on projects on Saturdays that could be worked on during a different day of the week. For example, our church work-bees tend to be on Sundays rather than Saturdays, and youth who participate in school sports or other extra-curricular activities may wish to be absent from Friday night or Saturday practices/performances/games. Since it's difficult to schedule a project that would be respectful of all the churches needs (us not on Saturdays, other churches not on Sundays) individuals or local congregations may choose not to participate at all so as to allow the others to go ahead with the project. That being said, there is variation of interpretation between individual Adventists, and some may have no problem working on a multi-church community service project on a Saturday afternoon. It just depends on the local congregation. The structure of the Adventist Church puts the most power in the hands of each local congregation to make their own decisions as to what they will and will not participate in, and sometimes even if the church as a whole can't obligate itself the pastor will sometimes encourage certain individuals who have no problems with the endeavor to go ahead and represent the church.

I don't know why the Adventist students wouldn't particpate in your group. I personally probably would have at least visited and would've liked to get to know the people there. But every person makes their own choices and I don't know why those people made the choice they did. It could be for similar reasons I've already explained, but I can't be sure. I can tell you that sometimes people who have similar views feel more comfortable being honest within their own clique and that can happen very easily if you're not aware of it and purposeful in overcoming it.

I personally, sometimes wish there were other Adventist young people in my area to get together with, because there are times that my other Christian friends do not treat my beliefs with respect. This is not often the case, but when it happens it really hurts my feelings. That could also be a possible explanation for the students' behavior. This is not intended to be an excuse btw, because I truly do think Adventists shouldn't be afraid to interact with other Christians and should partner with worthwhile community endeavors, but I hope it's a little bit helpful in helping you understand.
 
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Esdra

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Thank you for your detailled answers.

No, the christian student group didn't meet on Saturday (nor on Sunday), since they are students and many from them go home for the Weekend, they mostly meet on Monday evening and Thurday morning.
I think that the Adventists have their own student's groups is more because of doctrinal differences, and maybe also because the other christian denominations (charismatics, pentecostals and baptists) don't want to have to do anything with the Adventists, as they're seen borderline to a cult as I have written above (at least it was told me so.)

Do you know of Christian groups in college or at university where Adventists are together with Baptists and/or Charismatics?
 
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JojotheBeloved

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You're welcome. Sorry my explanations are so long. I have a difficult time being consice.
If you're speaking directly of the opinions of Baptists and Charismatics towards Adventists, that's a little different than asking if Adventists are part of the overall Christian community or a cult. In my opinion, having studied the differences in theology, we have more in common than we have different. But the differences are in areas both groups are passionate about, so they tend to be unable to understand one another. From my personal experience - Baptists tend to be afraid of Adventists while Adventists tend to be afraid of Charismatics.
I'm not sure why Baptists are afraid of us, but Adventists tend to be afraid of Charismatics because of differences in perspective on speaking in tongues.
 
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