On Adventism: “Questions on Doctrines” republished

The Adventist church published a very controversial book in the 50′s entitled Questions on Doctrines. It was, back then, the result of their conversation with the late great cult expert, Dr. Walter Martin. Martin later concluded that the Adventist church was not a cult basing on the published book. On the other hand, the book received resistance from several Adventist theologians. They stopped distributing it because of that. Recently, it was re-published with annotations from one of their present time theologian, George Knight.

I have long maintained in my past conversation with my friends at the Bereans Apologetics and Research Ministry that technically and yes, theologically, the Adventist church cannot be considered a cult as commented by Dr. Walter Martin. (That’s why I advised them to take the organization out of the cult list or face a future problem of defending itself from outside inquiries). On the other hand, the implication of their theology and its practices are cultic.

For instance, see how they explained their claim of being a remnant church. According to them, being “remnant” does not mean “we are the only ones who will be saved”. They only mean that God raised up a movement (The Seventh-day Adventist movement) to proclaim obedience to the commandments of God at the end times.

“Holding, as we do, that God raised up this movement and gave to it its message, we believe that before the final hour of crisis and testing all God’s true children — now so widely scattered — will join with us in giving obedience to this message, of which the seventh-day Sabbath is a basic part” (p. 195)

Notice the underlined words. Here’s the logic. What they are really saying is that, God’s true children “at this present time” are all scattered throughout different denominations. But, later in the history of mankind, you will have to give obedience to this message (the Adventist message) and be a sabbatarian, in effect, joining the Adventist movement. So what will happen now to the present time “God’s children” scattered throughout denominations if they chose to reject the Sabbath doctrine? The book did not give an explicit explanation to that one. But as a typical Arminian as they are, I believe the answer is that they will eventually be lost. They are lost for not being a sabbatarian (read, being an Adventist). Ask an Adventist pastor and he will tell you that. I was taught that way myself. So what happened now to a believer’s “assurance of salvation”? To “salvation by grace alone thru faith alone”? What if present day great Christians like Max Lucado or Rick Warren chose to reject the Sabbath and yet believed and served Jesus all their life? I guess they will end up somewhere but heaven too?

This is just one of the examples on how their theology can look like “evangelical” but the implications and most especially, its practices are cultic. I personally believe that an evangelical cannot sincerely fellowship with Adventists, and vice versa, while they continue to hold these kind of distinctive doctrines.