Before I begin a more systematic presentation, I want to briefly address some common prejudices against Adventism in Evangelical circles. To do this, I recommend first The Mosaic of Christian Beliefs by Roger E. Olson. Olson develops an approach to the unity and diversity of beliefs within the Christian world by organizing these beliefs into three categories: orthodox, acceptable variation, and heresy. He argues that significant variation can be allowed in Christian doctrine without damaging the fundamental essence of the Christian worldview, as long as clear boundaries are still drawn delineating when beliefs no longer qualify as ‘Christian.’ For critics of my project, I highly recommend reading this book first for an external point of reference.
For those who have read the book, two types of objections are still possible. First, someone might argue that Olson’s schema is too broad, allowing into Christian theology beliefs that should be categorized as heresy. For this reason, I would first ask: which alternative belief categorization schema proposed by a reputable scholar or academic body do you suggest instead? Second, have you contacted the top scholars in your own denomination to see what they think of Olson’s book? All in all, chances are high that any schema much narrower than Olson’s will rule out a large number of other Christian groups besides Adventists, meaning that the critics are not really opposed to Adventism, but to anyone who disagrees with their particular narrow sliver of the Christian landscape.
A second type of objection might be that someone accepts Olson’s categorization schema, but does not think Adventist beliefs can fall within either the ‘orthodox’ or the ‘acceptable variation’ categories. For the rest of this lesson and the next, I will address two Adventist doctrines that are commonly brought up in such a context: the Sanctuary Doctrine and Ellen White.
The Ellen White objection concerns the denomination’s claim that she was a prophet. Most other denominations with prophets, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Christian Science, etc., are generally suspect. Under normal circumstances, several points would be made here:
1) The word ‘prophet’ has been used in several ways, so we need to define it here as specifically people who function as divine messengers. In the Bible, some prophets took divine messages directly to their communities; others wrote them down, but their writings did not make it into the Scripture; while still others authored parts of the Bible.
2) While the New Testament speaks about the gift of prophecy, Protestants are divided on whether this gift continues beyond the death of the apostles.