Evangelical Adventism—Questions on Doctrine's Legacy Larry Christoffel
Evangelical Adventism—Questions on Doctrine’s Legacy Larry Christoffel David VanDenburgh, senior pastor of the Seventh-day Adventists Campus Hill Church in Loma Linda, California, and I, an associate pastor of the same church, visited Walter Martin in 1987. At the same time we met him, we were introduced to Kenneth R. Samples, on the staff of Martin’s organization, The Christian Research Institute. We learned that they were planning to do an article on Seventh-day Adventism, and we were happy to talk with them. Samples’ article, “From Controversy to Crisis, An Updated Assessment of Seventh-day Adventism,” appeared in the Summer, 1988 Christian Research Journal .1 According to Samples, the “controversy” which the Evangelical/SDA Dialogues (1955,1956) and the publication of Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine2 (hereafter, QOD ) stirred up continued through the 1960s and 70s. Samples questioned whether the church would continue in the same direction as QOD or return to a “more traditional understanding of the faith” 3 He identified two groups within Adventism aligning themselves with the polarization mentioned above. The one, continuing in basic agreement with QOD , he labeled, “Evangelical Adventism,” and the other, opposing QOD , he called, “Traditional Adventism”. Differences of opinion on Righteousness by Faith (Was Righteousness Justification only or both Justification and Sanctification?), the human nature of Jesus Christ (Did Jesus inherit Adam’s sinless pre-fall or his sinful post-fall nature), the sanctuary (Was the Atonement complete at Calvary, or not?), assurance of salvation (Could a Christian have it our not?) and the authority of Ellen White (Was Scripture its own interpreter or were Mrs.
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