SDA Future

[Gregory Matthews]

What should be the future of Adventism?  The following article briefly examines that issue.

https://atoday.org/adventism-for-today-and-tomorrow/

 

[Asia Joe]

Quote

For 50 years, progressive Adventism has been most notable for its investigation, research, critique, and deconstruction. But making note of the problems isn’t enough. We at Adventist Today believe it is time for progressive Adventism to move on, which means envisioning a positive potential future for our beloved church—a vision of Adventism for today and tomorrow.

Well, I don't think the future is progressive Adventism. 

Every year it becomes smaller. 

[pierrepaul]

Adventism, along with all text-based religions claiming the inerrancy of allegedly "revealed" manuscripts face the same issues.

1. Traditional Adventism insists on adhering to tradition in an attempt to preserve the identity and "raison d'être" of the organisation, and to avoid having to admit past errors which challenge this raison d'être. This is one attempt at institutional preservation, but it requires one to sacrifice intellectual honesty. This has been the approach of the GC, doubling down on such obvious falsehoods such as biblical inerrancy, young earth creationism, EGW inerrancy, etc. It's as if they're saying "We built this movement on the premise that up is down and in is out; we know we're wrong, but if we admit we're wrong, we have no reason to exist, so we're going to proclaim that we still believe up is down and in is out and anyone who doesn't line up behind this manifesto should just leave!"

2. Progressive Adventism necessarily takes the position that "we know up is up, and out is out, and reality conflicts with the 'fundamental beliefs' of the church, but we want to preserve the social, benevolent and charitable club that the institutional church provides, so we're just sort of going to pretend that these erroneous 'fundamental beliefs' aren't important. This is an alternative path to institutional preservation. The challenge here is that many folk attracted to progressive adventism will encounter the resistance, reaction and attacks of the traditionalists, and will one day wake up and ask the question "why am I fighting to reform and belong to an organisation whose fundamental manifesto contradicts reality and reason, rather than leaving and finding an alternative organisation more closely aligned with my views?" 

[Hanseng]

People who want or need to belong to a denomination should consider 7th Day Baptists. Their beliefs are summarized in a 13 point statement  with which most SDA could agree. Sabbath keeping and baptism by immersion are among those 13 points. Adventism has become a papacy of sorts. Its primary beneficiaries are its employees. 

[Asia Joe]

On 3/26/2026 at 1:22 AM, pierrepaul said:

2. Progressive Adventism necessarily takes the position that "we know up is up, and out is out, and reality conflicts with the 'fundamental beliefs' of the church, but we want to preserve the social, benevolent and charitable club that the institutional church provides, so we're just sort of going to pretend that these erroneous 'fundamental beliefs' aren't important. This is an alternative path to institutional preservation.

There is another way. Expand the church throughout the world, and ignore the people who believe we have erroneous 'fundamental beliefs'.