Crises in the apostolic church and in the seventh-day adventist church: comparative analysis and missiological implications

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze comparatively the crises of the Apostolic Church and of the Seventh-day Adventist Church with special emphasis in its missiological implications. Aspects of the Millerite crisis were also addressed, because of its direct connection with the beginnings of Seventh-day Adventism. Related to this purpose, there is an evaluation on how these two movements' atitudes towards their respective crises affected the fulfillment of the evangelical mission. As a result of the crises the Apostolic Church and the Seventh-day Adventist Church experienced throughout their history, fragmentation became a constant threat to their unity of thinking, feeling, and action. Such crises emerged from an erroneous theological perspective, and it became an imperative necessity to overcome them through the acceptance, at a proper time, of accurate theological concepts. In this way, the unity was strengthened and the Church itself was led to an effective fulfillment of its mission. However, when crises were not addressed at the right time, its solutions helped the Church to recover its missiological objective, but did not avoid the missionary losses caused by the delay. When a controversy is overcome without correcting the erroneous concept upon which it is based, such an overcoming obliterates the understanding of truth and, unfortunately, establishes heterodoxy as truth. When an overcoming happens through the misuse of authority, then tension between the antagonistic parts tends to increase, resulting in a growing-fragmentation tendency, and the loss is almost irreparable for the fulfillment of mission.