Seventh-day Adventists Believe

[Gregory Matthews]

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a relatively young Protestant denomination that was first formally organized in 1863. It has five major areas of ministry: education, publishing, media, healthcare, and foreign missions. Today (2025) it has some 23- million baptized members.

Fundamental to its understanding of the purpose of congregations is the thought that people are on a spiritual journey that implies growth over time. In other words, individual members will typically be at different stages of spiritual understanding and growth. From this perspective, individual SDA members exhibit a wider range of belief and practice than is commonly understood by the public. SDA congregations are both united in belief and also may have some differences in how spiritual belief is practiced in daily life.

Officially SDA beliefs fall into two categories. Baptismal Vows are a subset of beliefs that are expected to be held by those who are baptized, and join the denomination. Fundamental Beliefs are officially the teachings that each pastor is expected to teach and individual congregations to hold. Yet, from a practical manner, the spectra of understanding those and how they are practiced in daily life is wider than most people understand.

[Gregory Matthews]

Throughout SDA history people being baptized and becoming SDA members have been asked to agree to a minimal set of Adventist beliefs.  While there have been some minor differences among such versions, the following website provides you with a generally accepted set of such requirements.

https://seca7.adventistchurch.org.uk/uploaded_assets/273016-OFFICIAL_SDA_BAPTISMAL_VOWS.pdf?thumbnail=original&1587578683

NOTE:  The above website also contains an "Affirmation of Faith" which seems to be used in the United Kingdom, but I have not seen used in the United States exactly as presented by the above link.

 

[Gregory Matthews]

A larger statement of SDA beliefs, which is listed in 28 statements may be found at:

https://szu.adventist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/28_Beliefs.pdf