14 December 2000 Editorial:
Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church a Mainstream Protestant Church? No

Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick

Perhaps you have seen or wondered about the suggestion that the Seventh-day Adventist church is a mainstream Protestant Church. Having been a member and a pastor employed by the SDA church for many years, I thought to write a few lines regarding the validity of this claim.

Most recently this assertion is being made on the website of the North American Division (NAD) of SDA (one of thirteen divisions of a worldwide body). Actually, the membership of the NAD is less than one tenth of the overall membership (approximating some 13 millions worldwide). It is unlikely that many Adventists worldwide would consider their church to be a "mainstream" body. When someone makes a claim we might immediately ask, why are they making this claim? Has the SDA church laid claim historically to being a mainstream Protestant body? Absolutely not. Yes, Adventists have correctly claimed that their movement is a continuation of the Protestant Reformation. But a claim to be "mainstream" is new. You may rest assured that the Seventh-day Adventist movement is not a mainstream church nor ever will be.

The Adventist Church is rightly identified as Protestant. Seventh-day Adventists have carried forward the principles of the Reformation. Its spirit of separation from the world and reform, its method of Scriptural interpretation, letting Scripture interpret Scripture, its authority, not based upon tradition but based upon the Bible, its doctrines founded upon its prophetic heritage rather than social convenience, and its structure, linked historically with the original SDA structure at the time of its origin in the mid 19^th century, clearly place the movement in the Protestant lineage.

Yet the SDA church is not rightly defined as mainstream. Its doctrines and practice perhaps, would not strike you as being mainstream. For example, observance of the seventh day Sabbath from Sundown Friday to sundown Saturday evening is decidedly not mainstream. The foot-washing service conducted on a quarterly basis in conjunction with the communion service has never been identified as mainstream Christian practice. The Seventh-day Adventist biblical teaching of an investigative judgment presently underway in a heavenly sanctuary is certainly unique, and its acceptance of Mrs. Ellen G. White and her writings as bearer of the prophetic gift is not mainstream. The practice of a large proportion of the churches membership of a vegetarian diet and healthful lifestyle is not mainstream.

Adventists' view on the nature of man (conditional mortality with no naturally immortal soul) is unconventional to say the least, and our understanding that Jesus took a fallen human nature for His body in the incarnation is out of the ordinary, some even say heretical. Teachings of victory over sin, a literal six day creation, and others are no longer common in Protestantism. Again, the identification by Adventists of the Roman Catholic Church as the beast of Revelation 13:1-10 is uncommon. There was a time when that would have been mainstream for Protestantism, but such is long past. No, Seventh-day Adventism is most assuredly NOT mainstream.

Don't misunderstand me. The basis for all of the doctrines and practices above mentioned is readily located in the Bible. The teachings are right and true. I am only suggesting that there is a problem with calling ourselves participants in "mainstream Protestantism." We are not.

However, the fact that we are not has led some misguided among us to wish that we were. Some are sure that our legitimacy as a movement is somehow predicated upon our buddy-status with the fallen religious communities of Protestantism. Little remains of the once proud movement that we could call Protestantism. Students of history know that Protestantism at present bears a strikingly reduced resemblance to what it was in its prime. Indeed, with regret yet honesty, Seventh-day Adventists teach that the second beast of Revelation thirteen (Revelation 13:11 and following) is a compromised, apostatized Protestantism which will join with the Papacy in the end-time to enforce Sunday worship upon a coerced population in violation of their conscience and in contravention of the Constitutional freedoms of the United States. Church and state will unite in America and the result of that union will be national ruin and the culmination of several lines of prophecy extending to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

To verify the truth of the above remarks we recommend that you read books presently published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including Ellen G. White's The Great Controversy, Uriah Smith's Daniel and Revelation, C. Mervyn Maxwell's God Cares, vols. 1 and 2. Additional recent materials biblically sustaining many of the above views may also be located online at the Collision With Prophecy website. The fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are online in two forms, official, or in a nutshell.

Which leads us to the conclusion of the whole matter. Many of us are concerned with these innovative portrayals of our faith. We do not find them helpful, either for ourselves or for non-Seventh-day Adventists. To make such claims is troubling, showing from some Adventists at least, insecurity bizarre embarrassment. There is no reason today to try to put a spin on what we are. This is, many of us are fully convinced by the testimony of Scripture, God's end-time movement. We invite you to consider our views on a biblical basis. We are not ashamed of the gospel or of the wonderful way God has worked through His people of the last days.

Adventists, Let's not call ourselves "mainstream." If we come to the place where others are calling us "mainstream," then we'll know surely that we've departed from our heritage. Let's be entirely open about who and what we are, for this is the way of Jesus. If others wish to scorn us or label us, so be it. But pray let us not embarrass ourselves by claiming to be just like other churches and movements. God help us to be true to His calling, and to repudiate with candor and kindness the misguided attempts to market this church like any other product. We are not here to sell spaghetti, but to live and share the truth of God as we best understand it.

This message cannot be legitimately repackaged as mainstream without becoming mainstream. To become mainstream Protestant in the year 2000 would be to join with an apostate Protestantism. This we can never do, should never do, and will never do. Yet let us always measure what we are with care. Change comes subtly over time. If the watchmen on the wall cease to watch, we will surely fall and a remnant of the valiant will take our place. The message is going through. But when it comes to joining-up with mainstream Protestantism let us bar the gates and bolt the doors. Such we can never be unless we renounce what we are and let the banner of Jesus sink into the mire.