Talk:Seventh-day Adventist theology

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I've created this page with 3 main sections:

  • mainstream doctrine - for outlining where SDA teaching is similar to the core teachings of mainstream Christianity
  • distinctive doctrines - for outlining unique SDA teachings
  • other doctrinal issues - a section to discuss SDA positions on other issues of a secondary or controverted nature, for example baptism, original sin and sinless perfection

Tonicthebrown 13:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Sabbath section

I really think the section about the sabbath needs to be cleaned up. It's currently too lengthy , verbose and disorganised. For example, is it really necessary to have this sentence:

"Seventh-day Adventists will often spend much of Friday preparing meals and tidying their homes for the Sabbath."

I'd suggest cutting the section to about half its current size, and making it more focused. Perhaps a separate article can be created for a more lengthy description of the Sabbath as SDAs understand it? Tonicthebrown 03:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it needs cleaning up. Perhaps a section "Adventist Culture and the Sabbath" or similar would be helpful. This could include practices such as potluck meals at church, going for a walk to enjoy nature, etc. Actually come to think of it, this could be quite interesting and informative if cultural differences were explained. For example, I have heard that many American Adventists are quite comfortable eating at a restaurant on Sabbath, whereas in Australia this is less accepted. But please keep this section short and not too controverted, or we might look like legalists! (Which would not be NPOV because legalism is not the church's official position... phew; dug myself out of that one!)
I agree that a spinoff article would help. However, we need to be very careful not to "reinvent the wheel" as the existing articles Sabbath and Sabbatarianism are already very comprehensive. The "creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject" is against Wikipedia policy (see Wikipedia:Content forking). How about creating a new article "Sabbath in Adventism" which deals with areas unique to Adventism? This would include history of the Sabbath in Adventism, unique areas of Sabbath theology such as its place in end-time events, Sabbath cultural practices of Adventists, official statements by the Adventist church such as the related fundamental belief, and briefly Ellen White's position would be suitable. However debates over the biblical basis of the Sabbath, and history of the Sabbath in Christendom do not belong here as they are covered in Sabbath. Instead, these could be briefly mentioned with a main article link to the general Sabbath article. --Colin MacLaurin 17:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

I suggest that this page be renamed to Seventh-day Adventist theology. "Doctrine" has a slight negative connotation for some people. Also, this article corresponds to Category:Seventh-day Adventist theology. WP:NCC states categories should be "of the same or similar name" to the corresponding article, if it exists - so it's not compulsory, but I think it would be nice to use the same title. Finally, the category was created first, and also categories are harder to rename. --Colin MacLaurin 08:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a better name. I am not a theologian, however, I think that doctrine and theology can be both worked into the same page. Ansell 08:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

Just want to explain my recent changes to the introduction:

  • Replaced "also considered evangelical by most Christians". I think this statement expresses a somewhat subjective POV (especially the "most"). We'd need to be able to support it with some kind of hard evidence -- for example, statements by numerous non-Adventist church leaders that they regard the SDA church as evangelical. I am doubtful whether we'd be able to find such statements.
  • "some of these beliefs are becoming more common in other churches". This statement also would need substantiation. I think "some of these beliefs are also held in other churches" is safer.

Thanks. Tonicthebrown 07:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the tone of the introduction is very good now; or I could say, "very NPOV, according to my POV"! I'm content with it as it stands. But let me comment that there are already several statements in Adventist-related articles saying that most Christians regard the church as evangelical. The best reference to use is Walter Martin. I'm confident it would be easy to find other references too, if needed.
In regards to the second point; again I'm satisfied with the current wording. I was uncomfortable when it said that we hold a lot of "unique" doctrines - it could have been interpreted that the Adventist church is the only one which believes them, whereas (individually) most are held by other denominations and/or reputable theologians. In regards to annihilationism/conditional immortality, this is definitely growing in evangelicalism, now making up a significant portion of evangelicals (this would be easy to reference), including Clark Pinnock, who is highly respected albeit controversial. IMO it's no longer seen as heretical or out of the mainstream. In regards to the law, I find N. T. Wright's position quite similar to the church's, albeit with differences in details. He is one of the most respected evangelicals, the most significant to join the movement of rethinking Paul the apostle's theology. I would guess that Sabbath is still a minority position, although Samuele Bacchiocchi's book From Sabbath to Sunday did create a stir. Regarding the 1844 investigative judgment and remnant, we're certainly the only group that believes these! I think we're almost the only group to take a historicist approach to prophecy, although possibly the Jehovah's Witnesses and some smaller groups. Other churches may not think so highly of Ellen White either! :-). Yet creationism is very big in America. So I guess it's a mixed bag. (Hope this helps other readers too as a future reference). -Colin MacLaurin 11:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I found a good reference regarding the nature of hell. The Evangelical Alliance ACUTE report states "We recognise that the interpretation of hell in terms of conditional immortality is a significant minority evangelical view."[1] This reference (unrelated to Seventh-day Adventism specifically) refutes many older works by various authors which include this belief as heretical in their criticism of the Adventist church. Colin MacLaurin 12:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's another statement from the same report, "We appreciate the concerns of some that the influence of conditionalist theology has grown within evangelicalism in recent years,..." Colin MacLaurin 12:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship between Adventism and Mainstream Evangelicalism

Colin, I've noticed your efforts to portray Adventism as being more closely aligned with mainstream evangelicalism. Whilst I applaud this ideal, I am concerned about drawing a negative reaction from more conservative Adventists, whose views we must also respect in the interests of NPOV. For example, your comment:

"Most Adventist scholars today (most notably the Ellen G. White Estate), believe White was fallible in her writings; that is, she made mistakes."

I think many Adventists would regard this is quite inflammatory. I'd suggest you at least qualify the statement a little. We have to try not to bias things too much in the progressive direction! Tonicthebrown 07:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps that statement was a little presumptuous. I have replaced it. Feel free to modify it again. Thank-you for your politeness and assuming good faith. I think the Adventist articles are approaching a healthy balance.
By the way, I was surprised myself when I discovered statements by Clifford Goldstein (hardly a liberal) and the White Estate that Ellen White was fallible. Try putting this into a Google search: "site:whiteestate.org fallible". It searches the White Estate website for the word 'fallible'. The results are interesting! On a separate note, may I request that the phrase "in order to understand more fully God's purpose for His remnant people" be moved to the remnant section? -Colin MacLaurin 19:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human nature of Jesus

It would be really good if someone could find out what proportion of employed ministers believe Jesus had a fallen nature, vs. the proportion that believe he had an unfallen nature. Has a survey about this ever been done? Is there any way that we can prove that all denomination scholars take the unfallen position? Tonicthebrown 12:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edit

Tonic, regarding your recent edit "...against the majority of Adventists of the time.[1]", I assume this is the annotated edition? I think we should add "(annotated edition)" or something to every occurrence in the citations, esp. since the original version is online but the annotated one is not. I could not see this statement on p. 650 of the original. Colin MacLaurin 12:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oops, that was a mistake. Yes, the reference is to the annotated edition, page 519: "The teaching that Christ had sinful flesh ... became the belief of the majority of Seventh-day Adventists in the first half of the twentieth century. That teaching was so widely accepted that it no longer needed to be argued in Adventist literature. It was accepted as a fact. It was upon that teaching that M. L. Andreasen would build his final generation theology." Thanks for picking that up, Colin. Tonicthebrown 14:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tongues

Here is the Biblical Research Institute article on tongues [2]. Need to add its POV. Colin MacLaurin 01:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructure

I felt that the section called "theological basis" was becoming too broad to have that title. I have merged it with the section previously called "major current views" (a somewhat clumsy title, IMHO) into a new section called "Overview".

I still feel that "Overview" needs to be streamlined, and perhaps culled a bit. As it stands, the reader has to wade through quite a lot of rather tedious stuff before getting to the actual beliefs -- which is probably what people are really interested in. Some thoughts:

  • Noncredalism -- perhaps can be ditched entirely. It's really just of historic interest. Perhaps it can be moved to the SDA history article.
  • Theological spectrum (formerly "other sources") -- do we really need an analysis of scholars vs. administrators vs. laymen? Is it encyclopedic? Is it of any interest to outsiders? Perhaps it can all be a little more succinct?
  • Perhaps the "theological spectrum" discussion could be merged into "change and development", with a description of how the spectrum actually emerged over time? Eg. Historics emerged in the 1950s, and Progressives in the 1970s?
  • Relation to other groups -- I wonder if this is really necessary either; perhaps some of the content can be merged into other parts of the article. If the article as a whole contains an adequate statement of Adventist theology, the reader can draw their own conclusions about how it relates to other Christian groups. The thing about fundamentalists Christians seems esoteric -- I personally would question whether "fundamentalism" can even be considered as a uniform entity.
  • Theological climate -- Perhaps this has some potential, but at the moment it is just some stuff about Cottrell, which should just go in the Cottrell article.

I realise I might sound like a bit of a Nazi here, but as I said I am concerned that the reader has to wade through what seems to be a lot of esoteric/academic stuff before getting to the actual doctrines. Tonicthebrown 11:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I have ditched the noncredalism section -- everything said there is already said in 28 Fundamentals, where the discussion is more relevant. I've cut the bit about books published on denominational presses, because clearly this is not a source of official beliefs (the sentence itself said that). I've moved the stuff from Theological Climate to Raymond Cottrell. I don't think it is NPOV to describe the theological climate using just one man's views, and a dead man at that! All assessments of the theological climate of the church are going to be inevitably subjective and POV, and so I really don't think this is an encyclopedic matter. Let me know if you disagree Tonicthebrown 01:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I broadly agree with your changes, Tonic. In response to your 4th point "Relation to other groups", I think that it is very pertinent to mention how the church sees itself in regards to fundamentalism, evangelicalism, liberalism etc. More detail might go in the new Seventh-day Adventist interfaith relations article. "Theological climate" mainly belongs in the history article, I guess. The page does need some trimming (and also expanding on some points). I look forward to expert assistance at some stage. Colin MacLaurin 07:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:SDAs believe.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)