Religion: Peace with the Adventists

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One of the peculiar theological conflicts among U.S. Protestants, who have done lots of internecine fighting in their day, has been between the Fundamentalists and the Seventh-day Adventists. Fundamentalism—the powerful, conservative wing of U.S. Protestantism, which is solid in the Bible Belt and has grown increasingly influential elsewhere in recent years—has long regarded the Adventists as un-Christian cultists, riddled with strange heresies and fringe fantasies that make them dangerous company for the soul. But last week one of the leading organs of Fundamentalist opinion in the U.S. reversed that position. The monthly Eternity, which has an influence among Fundamentalists far beyond its 40,000 circulation, told its readers: "It is definitely possible, we believe, to have fellowship with Seventh-day Adventists."

To expose Adventist anomalies, Eternity Editor Donald Grey Barnhouse, one of the top leaders of U.S. Fundamentalism, two years ago assigned Staff Writer Walter R. Martin to study the sect. Martin, a "research polemicist," who has already excoriated the Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists from a Funda mentalist point of view, set to work and found to his astonishment that he brought not a sword but peace.

As a result of his researches, Fundamentalists have stretched out a hand, and the Seventh-day Adventists have accepted it gladly.

"Investigative Judgment." It has taken a long time to bury the enmities. For the sect labeled Seventh-day Adventist was born in bitter disappointment and with the contemptuous laughter of Protestantism ringing in its ears.

Christ will return and the world will end some time between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844, said William Miller. So did many another European and American Bible scholar. They based their calculations mainly on Daniel 8:14 ("And he said unto me. Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed"), taking the "days" as years and the cleansing of the sanctuary as the end of the world. William Miller, a Baptist minister of Low Hampton, N.Y., was not an educated man, but he was sincere and persuasive; when the dread year came, Millerites from Vermont to Virginia settled their affairs and waited. Scoffers made fun of them by donning white robes and climbing trees and hilltops to look for the Lord's coming, and when the appointed time had passed and the earth was still the same, they jeered.

One day after the "Great Disappointment," a Millerite named Hiram Edson of western New York was seized by a conviction that explained the whole sad mistake. What was meant by Daniel 8:14, he decided, was Christ's entrance into the second chamber of his sanctuary (in 1843-44) to examine the lives of all mortals living and dead, and to dispense the atonement he had paid for with his blood. This "investigative judgment," said Edson, was going on now; when it was completed, the great day of the Second Coming would dawn.

"Soul Sleep." William Miller never subscribed to this face-saving concept, but many onetime Millerites from many Protestant groups drew together around it.