Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement
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The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is a Protestant
Christian denomination A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worsh ...
in the Sabbatarian
Adventist Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher Wil ...
movement that formed from a schism in the European
Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
during World War I over the position its European church leaders took on
Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
observance and on committing Adventists to the bearing of arms in military service for Imperial Germany in World War I. The movement was formerly organised on an international level in 1925 at Gotha, Germany and adopted the name "Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement". It was first registered as a General Conference association in 1929 in
Burgwedel Burgwedel is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 15 km northeast of Hanover. It has a population of around 20,200. Politics and Administration Burgwedel consists of the following borough ...
, near Hanover, Germany. Following the General Conference association's dissolution by the Gestapo in 1936 it was re-registered in Sacramento, California, United States in 1949. Its present world headquarters are in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is governed by a General Conference, a worldwide association of constituent territorial Units consisting of Union Conferences, State/Field Conferences, Mission Fields and Missions not attached to any other unit. Through its local church congregations and groups of adherents, affiliated publishing houses, schools, health clinics and hospitals, the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is active in over 132 countries of the world. The movement's beliefs largely reflect its distinctive Seventh-day Adventist Church heritage and foundational pillars, with some small divergences. See on "Beliefs" below.


History


1914-1918 Seventh-day Adventist Church Schism (Europe)

The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement came about as a result of the actions of
L. R. Conradi Ludwig R. Conradi (or Louis R. Conradi; 20 March 1856 – 16 September 1939) was one of the leaders of European Adventism known for the controversy causing schism in the church, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist and missionary, and in his last y ...
and certain European church leaders during the war, who decided that it was acceptable for Adventists to take part in war, which was in clear opposition to the historical position of the church that had always upheld the non-combative position. Since the American Civil War, Adventists were known as non-combatants, and had done work in hospitals or given medical care rather than combat roles. The Seventh-day Adventist leaders in Europe when the war began, determined on their own that it was permissible for Adventists to bear arms and serve in the military and other changes which went against traditional Adventist beliefs. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists sent Seventh-day Adventist minister and General Conference Secretary
William Ambrose Spicer William Ambrose Spicer (December 19, 1865 – October 17, 1952) was a Seventh-day Adventist minister and president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He was born December 19, 1865 in Freeborn, Minnesota in the United States in ...
to investigate the changes these leaders had instituted, but was unable to undo what L. R. Conradi and the others had done during the war. After the war, the Seventh-day Adventist church sent a delegation of four brethren from the General Conference ( Arthur G. Daniells who was president of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, L. H. Christian, F. M. Wilcox, M. E. Kern) in July 1920, who came to a Ministerial Meeting in Friedensau with the hope of a reconciliation. Before the 200 Pastors and the Brethren from the General Conference present at this meeting, its European church leaders, G. Dail, L. R. Conradi, H. F. Schuberth, and P. Drinhaus withdrew their statement about military service and apologized for what they had done. The Reformers were informed of this and the next day saw a meeting by the Adventist brethren with the Reform-Adventists. A. G. Daniells urged them to return to the Seventh-day Adventist church, but the Reform-Adventists maintained that the European church leaders had forsaken the truth during the war and the reconciliation failed. Soon after they began to form a separate group from the official Adventist church. A related group which also came about for the same reasons was the
True and Free Seventh-day Adventists The True and Free Seventh-day Adventists (TFSDA) are a splinter group formed as the result of a schism within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Europe during World War I over the position its European church leaders took, whose most well known l ...
(TFSDA) which formed in the Soviet Union at this time, whose most well known leader was
Vladimir Shelkov Vladimir Shelkov (December 20, 1895 – January 27, 1980) was a Christian preacher and Seventh-day Adventist leader in the former Soviet Union. He headed the Church of True and Free Seventh-day Adventists, which rejected any government interfer ...
.


The 1951 Schism - SDARM General Conference Session Zeist, Netherlands and its Aftermath

A major division then took place within the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement itself at its General Conference session held at Zeist, Utrecht (province), Netherlands in 1951. The cause for the division involved tensions that had arisen over unresolved issues of the preceding years. Charges of arbitrariness and authoritarianism by the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement leader and on the part of the General Conference administration towards member Units, failures by the General Conference committee to adequately resolve moral failings among leaders, issues concerning mal-administration of Church finances, and procedural and organisational irregularities prior to and during the Session itself are cited by the present organisation as significant contributing factors. After two weeks of deliberations within the Session trying to resolve some of these tensions, a move was made by a number of delegates to read a declaration enumerating the main problems involved and requesting that a committee to address the entire situation be established. The motion carried on the first vote but was overturned by the chairman. To signify their protest at what was held to be an arbitrary decision of the chair, 45% of delegates present, led by the then Secretary of the General Conference, left the Session room. The Session's proceedings faltered at this point. Efforts to reconcile the situation while all delegates were still present in Netherlands failed. Another factor affecting the administration of the Session at the time was the international situation behind the
iron curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
. Many of the units attached to the General Conference were unable to send delegates to the Zeist session due to restrictions on religious bodies in communist lands. Proxy letters from a number of Union Conferences were held by the General Conference Secretary enabling the session to convene legally (a provision enabled in the 1949 corporate registration), though the proxy holder still only had one vote regardless of the number of proxies held. Those Units not represented directly accounted for approximately 60% of the organization's membership. Consequently, neither of the two factions that became evident at the Zeist session were in a position to make any unilateral decisions. Over the course of the next year, steps were taken by both parties to explain the situation to their respective member bodies (Union Conferences) that were affiliated up until this time to the one worldwide church administration. Both factions re-organised themselves as General Conference committees independently of each other and proceeded to take the oversight of the
SDARM General Conference SDARM General Conference is the governing authority for the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement denomination. Officers of the General Conference are elected at a delegation session composed of delegates from the various international units and s ...
affairs.


SDARM General Conference Headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia, USA

The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement had been first registered as a general conference association in
Burgwedel Burgwedel is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 15 km northeast of Hanover. It has a population of around 20,200. Politics and Administration Burgwedel consists of the following borough ...
, near Hanover, Germany in 1929. Though never approved by the inaugural 1925 Gotha
SDARM General Conference SDARM General Conference is the governing authority for the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement denomination. Officers of the General Conference are elected at a delegation session composed of delegates from the various international units and s ...
Session, the designation "International Missionary Society" was added to the beginning of the name. The full registered name at that time took the form "International Missionary Society, Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, General Conference". The reasons for adding the designation to the beginning of the name were purely pragmatic, and done in the interests of securing General Conference finances on loan to one of its member Units, namely the German Union Conference. The SDARM General Conference operated under this German registration until 1936 when the association was dissolved by the Gestapo. From 1936 until the conclusion of the second World War, there was no legally registered SDARM General Conference entity anywhere in the world, and would not be until 1949. The international situation during those years prevented the convening of a General Conference Session. It was not until 1948, when the first post-war General Conference session was held, that the delegates agreed to re-register the worldwide interests of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement by incorporating the SDARM General Conference as an association in the USA. They also agreed to do this "under the name that was adopted by the General Conference delegation in session in 1925". This decision was carried out in 1949. The registered name was now correctly, "Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement General Conference." It was under the By-Laws of this newly incorporated body that the 1951 Zeist General Conference Session was convened. By 1951 the SDARM General Conference affairs and financial interests were formally associated with the USA registered entity. Consequently, in the aftermath of the Zeist session, legal proceedings to establish the recognized administrators of the registered General Conference corporate entity commenced. These proceedings were finalised in May 1952 in an out-of-court agreement between the two factions. Representatives of the faction that had engaged in the protest walk-out in 1951 were left in control of the registered SDARM General Conference association. By 1955, when the next Session of Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement General Conference convened under the auspices the USA registered association, delegates present represented "9000 members (1000 less than in 1951)". This was a representation of 90% of the worldwide church membership recorded prior to the 1951 division.


International Missionary Society (IMS)

Following the 1952 legal proceedings, in June of that year, representatives of the faction that had been the subject of the protest at Zeist conducted a second re-organisation. To distinguish themselves from their opposing faction, they adopted the name " International Missionary Society, Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, General Conference" with headquarters in
Mosbach Mosbach (; South Franconian: ''Mossbach'') is a town in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the seat of the Neckar-Odenwald district and has a population of approximately 25,000 distributed in six boroughs: Mosbach Town, Lohrbach, N ...
, Baden in Germany. As mentioned previously, the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, as a general conference association, had been registered under this name in Germany in 1929 and operated under that name until 1936 when the association was dissolved by the Gestapo. "International Missionary Society" was a name that had been associated with the German Union Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Reform Movement from its inception in 1919?. As the inaugural 1925 SDARM General Conference session did not agree to use this designation in its official name, the 1949 registered entity did not use it. With the opposing faction now adopting this designation and adding it to the 1925 agreed name, the designation "International Missionary Society" thereafter became associated exclusively with those affiliated with the interests of that faction.


Post 1952 Re-Unification Attempts - IMS and SDARM General Conference

With both factions formally organized, affiliations of Union and Field Conferences associated under one or the other of the two corporate administrations. Though they remained separate both in administration and worship, the theological beliefs espoused by each entity's adherents were common to both. Despite this common platform of belief, tensions from the 1951 schism continued to remain high. Consequently, official efforts in 1967 and again in 1993 to reconcile both administrations at a General Conference level were unsuccessful.


Post War World II relations with Seventh-day Adventist Church

In 2005, the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist church tried to make amends and apologized for its failures during World War II, as the issue from the actions of L. R. Conradi continued during that war also. Some members see it as the first attempts to reconcile the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement with the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist church. However, the actions of the SDA Church towards those who took a conscientious stand against all military service during World War I, were not acknowledged in the apology. The position of the SDA Church towards those engaged in military service, particularly combatants, remains an unresolved issue today.


Name of Church Congregations

While local church congregations use the name Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, those affiliated with the International Missionary Society General Conference also combine the designation "International Missionary Society" into their name to distinguish themselves from SDARM General Conference Units.


Beliefs

The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement (SDARM General Conference) identifies itself with a conservative Seventh-day Adventist theological and eschatological heritage. While it holds to the basic tenets of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, commonly referred to as the pillars or landmarks of the faith for these landmark teachings, there is a divergence in degree on some post-1914 doctrinal positions taken by L. R. Conradi and some of the European church leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in both interpretation and application. The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement's official position as
conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
s in relation to war and military service reflects the
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the 1861-1865 American Civil War. This is in direct response to what L. R. Conradi and others presented to the members and distinct from the official Seventh-day Adventist Church position which is one of non-combatancy, though in practice Seventh-day Adventist members have served in
combatant Combatant is the legal status of an individual who has the right to engage in hostilities during an armed conflict. The legal definition of "combatant" is found at article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I (AP1) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It ...
roles in the military services. Other divergences include the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement's positions on divorce and remarriage, closed communion, the sealing work of Revelation 7 (the SDARM holding to a pre-1914 view of its literal and number-limited nature), and the remnant church of Revelation 12:17. The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, as does the official
Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
, maintains the belief that
Ellen G. White Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American woman author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she wa ...
, a co-founder of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
, manifested the New Testament "
Gift A gift or a present is an item given to someone without the expectation of payment or anything in return. An item is not a gift if that item is already owned by the one to whom it is given. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation ...
of Prophecy". Though she had died before the formation of the SDA Reform Movement, her inspired writings, commonly referred to as testimonies, are held in the highest regard by the movement as a whole. Consistent with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the SDA Reform Movement believes her inspired works do not take the place of the Bible. Rather they are considered a help to the believing church in bringing men and women back to the neglected truths of the Bible, with an emphasis on the need for professed believers to be faithful in the practice of its principles. Whereas the Seventh-day Adventist church emphasises the message of the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12, the Reform Movement places a distinct emphasis on a fourth angelic message based on Revelation 18:1-4. The movement claims that the message of this other angel was first given at
1888 Minneapolis General Conference The 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session was a meeting of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in October 1888. It is regarded as a landmark event in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist C ...
of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This claim is maintained by the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement as the unique purpose for its existence as a distinct organisation separate to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The message is captured in the expression "Christ our Righteousness", the foundation for " Justification by Faith". Aside from the divergences, an examination of the SDA Reform Movement's published beliefs, indicate many similarities in theology with the traditional Seventh-day Adventist beliefs and also the more conservative Historic Adventism and
Last Generation Theology Last Generation Theology (LGT) or "final generation" theology is a religious belief regarding moral perfection achieved by sanctified people in the last generation before the Second Coming of Jesus. Although no longer a part of official Seventh-da ...
wings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.http://www.sdarm.org/beliefs.php . Compare SDARM Beliefs with Seventh-day Adventist theology on Eschatological, Christological and Soteriological views (see hyperlinked "Expanded edition" of these doctrines "The Investigative Judgment", "The Present Truth", "The Son of God", "The Gift of Prophecy" on the referenced SDARM web page.) A list of beliefs, along with an expanded explanation, may b
viewed online


Officers


General Conference Sessions


See also

*
SDARM General Conference SDARM General Conference is the governing authority for the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement denomination. Officers of the General Conference are elected at a delegation session composed of delegates from the various international units and s ...
* International Missionary Society *
SDARM Units This is a list of units of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, sorted by region. African Region * Angolan Union ** Central Angolan Field ** North Angolan Field ** South Angolan Field * Bandundu Mission * Botswana Mission * Burundi Mission * ...
*
Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
* History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church * List of religions and religious denominations#Adventist and related churches * List of Christian denominations#Millerites and comparable groups * Seventh-day Adventist interfaith relations – for relations with other Protestants and Catholics * Sabbath in Seventh-day Adventism * Seventh-day Adventist eschatology * Seventh-day Adventist theology *
Seventh-day Adventist worship The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
*
Ellen G. White Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American woman author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she wa ...
* Teachings of Ellen White#End times *
Inspiration of Ellen White Most Seventh-day Adventists believe church co-founder Ellen G. White (1827–1915) was inspired by God as a prophet, today understood as a manifestation of the New Testament "gift of prophecy," as described in the official beliefs of the church. ...
* Prophecy in the Seventh-day Adventist Church


References


Sources

*''The Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia'', Review & Herald Publishing Association *''History of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement'', Alfons Balbach, Reformation Herald Publishing Association, 1999. *


External links


International Missionary Society Seventh-day Adventist Church Reform Movement General Conference
SDARM sites
SDARMSDARM General ConferenceColombian Union - Spanish language
** C Medical Department
White Creek Wellness Center (Tennessee, USA)

Mission Projects International – USA

SDA Reform Movement in Japan – JAPAN
Sites criticizing
Biblical Research Institute of the SDA ChurchSevy Taliban
{{Authority control History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Christian terminology Premillennialism Trinitarianism