Adventist Conflicts Te conflict that shook Dutch Adventism is more than a century in the past, but we have good reason to try to understand it. In many ways, it is a model of how controversies develop in Adventism. When conflicts erupt, a particular event may be the drop that
makes the bucket overflow. Teological issues could be mingled with misunderstandings, leadership challenges, or ethnic/cultural biases. But a few doctrinal topics keep coming up. Te members of the Dutch Adventist Church of 1902 were not
the first or the last to question the traditional understanding of the heavenly sanctuary and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as our high priest in its most holy apartment. Teir questions also touched on the specific Adventist teaching of the investigative judgment that, they were told, had been in process since 1844. Many well-known dissenters who have leſt the Adventist
community have done so, at least partially, because they concluded that the sanctuary doctrine is faulty and that Adventist theology needs a new focus on Jesus Christ and his saving grace. Albion Fox Ballenger (1861-1921), who was dismissed from the Adventist ministry for his sanctuary views, is a well-known example. Others who came to doubt, and then to reject, the Adventist version of the sanctuary doctrine were prominent men such as D. M. Canright (1840-1919) and, more recently, Robert Brinsmead (1933-) and Desmond Ford (1929-2019). It is no secret that some of the church’s ministers, including professional theologians and administrators as well as many theologically astute members, share these doubts but have chosen not to express them.
Another reason people decide to leave their church is that
legalism remains an ineradicated plague in many segments of Adventism. Tis was one of the things that severely affected the spiritual experience of Johannes de Heer. In his book about the Sabbath, de Heer told how he had kept
his business closed on the Sabbath so that he did not have to work during its sacred hours. Te commandment specifies that “neither your manservant nor your maidservant” should work for you, either. In an attempt to avoid causing others to work for him, de Heer had asked his customers and suppliers to carefully choose the time for sending mail to him so that it would not arrive on the Sabbath. Merchandise could not be delivered to him on Saturdays, but how could he be sure that boxes had not been packaged for him on the seventh day, or that his music had not been printed on that day? Te role of Ellen G. White has been a source of friction from
the days of the pioneers until the present. Once these Dutch church members no longer accepted the sanctuary doctrine, it was almost inescapable that they also would no longer trust the prophet who was its key champion. Much of the polarization in current Adventism is due to controversies around the prophet. At the end of the 1920s, some church leaders defended a
moderate view of White’s inspiration and attempted to bring her down to earth—where she should have stayed. But in the era when fundamentalism gained a strong foothold in many parts of American Protestantism, the Adventist Church also became infected by this theological virus. Adventists became fundamentalist even about Ellen White. She was placed on a high pedestal, and some claimed an almost verbal inspiration for her.
WWW .A T OD A Y . OR G 25
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
