Historic Adventism - Criticism

Criticism

Mainstream and progressive Adventists have criticised the use of the term "historic". It is observed that numerous doctrinal positions that were common among the Adventist pioneers are generally not held by those who profess to be "historic Adventists", such as semi-Arianism, which time of day the Sabbath should begin, certain understandings of Systematic Benevolence, the "shut door", and the personhood of the Holy Spirit. It is argued that the over-valuing of "historic" beliefs leads to an unhelpful neglect of "new light" and "present truth", which Adventists have always held as defining beliefs.

Walter Martin labeled most of the historic Adventists he encountered as "legalists," "worshippers of Ellen White" and the "lunatic fringe." The term was earlier used by LeRoy Edwin Froom when Adventist leaders met with Martin.

Adventist historian Milton Hook describes it as "Adventist fundamentalism". He cites the aggressive preaching style of George Burnside who attacked Roman Catholics and "apostate" Protestants. Hook claims this turned many away, and some of the remaining merely "loved a religious dogfight", and converts "often generated dust storms of intolerance and became clones of militant dogmatism among their peers." He states this style of evangelism was once the norm amongst Adventist preachers, and had roots in 19th century Methodism in the United States.

Andy Nash wrote that while working at the Adventist Review, he was "often perplexed about how our ability to function at the magazine was disrupted by some folk on the conservative extreme". In response to articles on worship, they would get many critical letters which were based more on tradition than on the Bible. They would airbrush jewelry out of photos to placate some readers.

Historic Adventists look favourably on a past era of the church. Phil Dunham, a fairly conservative author himself, critiqued "nostalgia about the good old days of 'historic Adventism.' In some people's minds it seems to be a time of the most unblemished and unassailable doctrinal positions, the highest possible moral standards, the deepest spiritual maturity, the best snowlike purity, the utmost in readiness to be translated. But the way we often use the expression 'historic Seventh-day Adventism' is built on an idealized and unrealistic notion of what our early church was really like."

"These days a lot of well-meaning people yearn for the supposedly purer days of the past. They feel that if they could just retrieve historic Seventh-day Adventism and bathe in its supposedly clearer waters, they'd be better able to resist last-day influences.

'Back then,' they assert, 'people had a higher level of spirituality—and a lower rate of problems. Back then apostasy was somehow banned, or at least kept at bay.'

Not true. Not true for historic Seventh-day Adventism. Not true for the historic church of Christ—the New Testament church. Not true for the seventh-day church in the wilderness—historic Judaism. Not true even for the First Church of Eden, because its entire two-member congregation ran and hid in naked apostasy.

No, you can't just change your group's name, or meet in a Grange Hall someplace, to escape apostasy. The seeds of apostasy grow not in a name or a place or a time—but in the hearts of every person on this planet since Adam and Eve."