Question about seventh day adventists?

Question

I once attended a non-denominational church and they referred to seventh day adventist as a 'cult'. Is that true and why is that? I know a lot of wonderful people who are SDA and I was shocked to hear that. Please only believers answer - thanks.

Answer 1

Fundamentalist narrow minded paranoia.... they call every congrgation that is different from them a cult. Let it go. SDA is AOK!

Answer 2

It's a difficult issue for some. From an orthodox standpoint, I believe Seventh-day Adventists subscribe to the ecumenical creeds of Christianity. There are issues regarding their acceptance of Ellen G. White as a prophetess, but don't know if that would set them outside of the pale of orthodoxy.

Interesting question though.

Answer 3

The Seventh-day Adventists bear the complete message of God to humanity. The Seventh-day reminds us of the greatness of our creature who created everything and His was culminated on the Seventh-day Sabbath. Adventist points to the coming of Jesus Christ. You read the Bible and you'll find the truth in Seventh-day Adventists.

Answer 4

Actually they are a denominaton with in the christian faith. They are not a cult. They are sabath observers that seem to not have understood any part of the new testiment in requards to the holy spirit and observence to God desire for us not to judge. Yeat not with standing i know some of them and some are very nice and some are not. Like all christian you walk is the real proof of your relationship with christ. Most of the 7day types are trying to put on a good show outwardly but are not to close to God inwardly. I had one that worked for me once and talked about God alot but one night i needed to known wee something was at in the office and went to his house to ask him and his whole family was there smoking dope. He was let go just a few days latter. So you can really speak alot about God and going to church on saturday but like all things the proof is in the walk. The 7th day adventist do have medical and dental mission and that is good. But they have yeat to overcoming the juding mantality of people in otherwords they are judgement and not operating in forgiveness. Making them powerless in the kingdom like so many others. They have missed the love part of a christians walk.

Answer 5

No we are not a cult, people try to link david koresh to us but he is twice removed from us. From a biblical standpoint there are 10 qualifications that define a cult, we dont fit any of them. Cults usually want you to believe in the leader of the organization and not talk to anyone outside of it, even if its your own family. We encourage everyone to study their Bibles, to see who is more doctrinally correct. We are an all inclusive church, anyone may come and go as they please.

Answer 6

I don't think it is helpful to call a religious group a "cult", as used in the media, it has connotations of brain washed people committing mass suicide.

When used amongst Christians it is used to label those they consider heretics, sort of fake Christians who have false teachings.

Christianity is a very broad religious grouping, covering a wide spectrum of beliefs, and i think SDAs quite obviously fall within the range of what is considered Christian. More specifically, i would classify them as Protestant Evangelical Christians. Their theological roots lie with the nineteenth century non-conformist sects like the Baptists, Methodists, Mennonites, and before them the Puritans and European Protestants.

Because they came out of the same Millerite religious revival of the 1840's, Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses have some things in common, like their ideas about death and hell, and the idea that the Archangel Michael is actually another title for Jesus, but they should not be confused as JWs and SDAs differ over Christology and other important issues.

There is very little in SDA doctrines which is not found in other Christian groups. They got the idea of keeping the Sabbath on Saturday from a Seventh-day Baptist (and it is also now found amongst certain other Christian groups), their expectation of the soon personal return of Christ is common to most Evangelicals (to be more specific, Adventists believe that Christ will return before the millennium, but they do not subscribe to the secret rapture idea and are not dispensationalists). Adventists tend to be more Arminian than Calvinistic in their views on pre-destination, but in this they are not unique in Christianity. Even their teaching that there is no eternal burning in hell is not unique
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism

They do believe that Ellen G. White, a woman who was influential in their early history as a denomination, was a prophet, but again modern Charismatic denominations have even more prophets. Adventists belief that God still gives spiritual gifts, but they are wary of speaking in tongues as practiced amongst Charismatics, and i would not classify them as a charismatic denomination.

It should be said that as with all denominations that grow to a large size, Adventism has become diverse in its teachings. It has its own fundamentalists, conservatives, and liberals, and even ultra-conservative breakaway factions that believe that they alone preserve the pure faith and the other Adventists have apostatised, these remind of the Qumran sect in first century Judaism.

Adventist theology also changes over time. They say that they have no creed but the Bible, and expect that God will lead them to greater and greater light, and therefore a creed set in theological concrete doesn't work for them.

They have however, produced a list of their fundamental beliefs which currently stands at 28 in number, you can see it in the link below.
http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/index.htm

A book explaining the systematic theology of their previous set of 27 fundamental beliefs:
http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/27/index.htm

The only really unique thing in Adventist theology is their doctrine of the heavenly sanctuary (belief no.24 in their list of 28 beliefs, or chapter 23 in the above book).

There was a book called Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin which listed SDAs together with Mormons and JWs as cults, but i think in more recent editions he has upgraded them to the status Christians and replaced their place in his book with Scientology and Christian Science. His earlier book is probably the main source of the idea amongst some Christians that SDAs are a cult.

Incidentally, David Koresh was once an Adventist but he left the SDA church and became the leader of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, which recruited many of its members from amongst SDAs, but they should not be confused with SDAs as they are a very different religion. They added "Seventh-day Adventist" to their name in order to facilitate their members claiming conscientious objector status. The SDA church has since copyrighted it's name to avoid other groups from copying it like the Branch Davidians did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidian

Answer 7

It is not surprising to me. Even Jesus was not only called leader of a cult, but the Prince of Darkness or Baalzebul. Seventh-day Adventists are people who believed and practise the teachings of the Bible. They have been misunderstood in the past. But as more and more facts are revealed today, thousands of people from all nations around the world are joining them proclaiming the messages to the world as described in Revelation 14:6,7.
Even Muslims now realized that not all Christians are kafir or mushrik. The Quran mentioned that there are Ahli Alkitab (People of the Book) who are humble, and upright, and who do not sell the sriptures with at a cheap price, meaning they follow strictly whatever is commanded by Christ, and as He give the examples while He was on earth.

Like keeping the Ten Commandments. John 14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments."
1 John 2:3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
2:4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Revelation 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints; here [are] those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

They keep all the Ten Commandments including the 4th which says: 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
20:10 but the seventh day [is] the Sabbath of the LORD your God. [In it] you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who [is] within your gates.
20:11 For [in] six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that [is] in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8-11).
They follow Jesus footsteps whose custom was to worship on the Seventh-day Sabbath.
Luke 4:16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
They followed His examples in including washing each other's feet during the Communion Service or the Lord's Supper just as Jesus did and commanded His disciples to do.
John 13:12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?
13:13 "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for [so] I am.
13:14 "If I then, [your] Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
13:15 "For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
13:16 "Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
13:17 "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

They are among the healthiest people in the USA, and averaged 10 years longer in their life expectancy according to latest survey by the National Geographic Magazine.

ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) are always among the first to help in Disasters around the world from Pearl Harbor to Aceh, from Africa to Afghanistan, you name it, they are always there. For over one hundred years they have operated above 200 A1 Class Hospitals around the world including USA, and over 5000 schools from Kindergarten to Universities in 200 nations.

People who call them cults, do not know what they are talking about.

Oh, yes, there are misunderstanding of people who thinks that the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, are the same group of people. They are mistakenly identified as such. Here is the real fact.

The Branch Davidians are a religious group originating from a schism in the 1950s from the Shepherd's Rod, themselves former members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who were excommunicated during the 1930s.

The Branch Davidians have nothing to do with the Worldwide organization called The Seventh-day Adventist Church operating in 200 countries around the world.

Answer 8

Nicholas H is full of crap, and they are not a cult. Every religion has someone that shames them...EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! They believe in God, they just believe that the sabbath is on Saturday.Every religion also has a little difference,that does not make them a cult, PLEASSSSEEEE!

Answer 9

they believe that at any given time, there is someone in the world who communicates with god and it is their responsibility to find and follow that person. David Koresh was one of these people.

-Although I do not think this qualifies them as a "cult", it does qualify them as COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.