"From Controversy to Crisis: An Updated Assessment of Seventh-day Adventism"

FROM CONTROVERSY TO CRISIS

As the above doctrinal comparison showed, the differences between these two factions were indeed significant. The differences could essentially be reduced to: 1) the question of authority (sola scriptura vs. Scripture plus Ellen White), and 2) the question of salvation (imputed righteousness vs. imparted righteousness). Adventism, in fact, was debating the same basic issues that provoked the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

As the 1970s came to a close, this doctrinal controversy gave way to a real crisis within SDA. First, two books were released which challenged traditional Adventist positions on justification by faith and the events of 1844. The Shaking of Adventism, written by an Anglican scholar, Geoffrey Paxton, traced the struggle in SDA over the doctrine of justification by faith. He asserted that if Adventists were, as they claimed, the special heirs of the Reformation, then they must accept the Reformational understanding of righteousness by faith. Arriving at a proper understanding of this critical doctrine had plagued Adventism throughout its history. The second book, Robert Brinsmead's 1844 Reexamined, repudiated the traditional Adventist understanding of 1844 and the investigative judgment. These two books focused on two of the critical issues of Adventism's crisis of identity.