Adventist Theological Society

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The Adventist Theological Society (ATS) is an international nonprofit organization which serves the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a theological resource.

The society holds its annual meeting in connection with the Evangelical Theological Society.

According to Adventist scholar Alden Thompson, "The society is right-of-center but claims to be centrist."^[1] This may be observed by noticing that the "core values" of the constitution are more specific than the 28 fundamental beliefs of the church, presenting clear statements on controverted points. Similarly, Raymond Cottrell wrote, "Its name ambiguously implies that it is either an official instrument of the church or that it represents the consensus of Adventist Bible scholars, neither of which is true."^[2]

1 History
2 Periodicals
3 Constitution
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

[edit] History

The society was formed in the 1980s when a group of scholars broke off from the Andrews Society for Religious Studies, which is now the Adventist Society for Religious Studies (ASRS).

[edit] Periodicals

The organization publishes the Journal of the Adventist Theological Society (JATS), a referred scholarly journal issued twice a year from Collegedale, TN. It was first published in 1990.

It also publishes the Perspective Digest, which contains popular level articles.

[edit] Constitution

The Constitution has six components describing the society's name, mission statement, core values, goals, categories of membership, describes the society's Mission Statement, core values, goals and other items. Acceptance of the constitution, particularly the core values, is required to become a member of ATS.^[3] The core values are acceptance of the Bible, Christ as only savior of the world, and the fundamental beliefs, as well as the following doctrinal points (summarised):

a. Christ's death on the cross was both an act of love and a substitutionary atonement.

b. The Bible is the inspired, unerring, infallible Word of God.

c. The historical-grammatical method of interpreting the Bible, as opposed to critical methods

d. A literal reading of Genesis 1-11: six day creation, Flood geology, and a young earth.

e. The investigative judgment, historicist view of prophecy, and the year-day principle

f. Ellen White's writings possess more than pastoral authority

g. The Seventh-day Adventist church is the remnant called to preach the three angels' messages of Revelation 14:6-13

h. The society will support the church financially and through personal effort.