George R Knight, A Search for Identity, Pacific Press Publishing, Nampa, Idaho, September 2015, 4.5 hrs About the Author: George Raymond Knight was born in 1941. At the age of nineteen years old Knight was baptized into the Seventh Day Adventist church in Eureka, California. In 1965 he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from Pacific Union College in Angwin, California and continued his education at Andrews University where he obtained his Masters of Divinity in 1967. His first job was a pastor in Texas then went into teaching at an Adventist Academy and worked his way up to initially teaching education at Andrews University which shortly thereafter turned into teaching for the Theology department. Knight is also known …show more content…
He refers to the present truth being fluid rather than static. Both Joseph Bates and Ellen White shared in the belief that the present truth is the, “present truth, and not future truth, and that the Word as a lamp shines brightly where we stand, and not so plainly on the path in the distance.” (pg.19) The avoidance of creedal rigidity was a concern in the beginnings of Adventism. They were strongly against any creed because a creed is a document that can’t be altered and that didn’t fit in with the “present truth” idea. George continues to write about the general theological world in which Adventism arose and the contributions of Millerism to our Adventist theology. He points out that Adventism wasn’t started in a vacuum where they were primitive and had no outside pressures or had their own compound in the middle of nowhere where they had their own cult. “Miller’s teachings would eventually form the theological foundation of Seventh-day Adventism.” (pg. 39) Miller had four main topics that helped structure Adventism, his use of the Bible, doctrine of last things, the perspective on the first and second angels’ messages, and the seventh-moth movement which was also known as the great …show more content…
“Those advocating that no prophecy had been fulfilled became known as “open door” Adventists, while those claiming a prophetic fulfillment were viewed as “shut door” Adventists.” (pg.55) October 22nd, 1844 was a big date in the history of the Millerites, also known as the day of the great disappointment. However, before that date there was an interest already in the seventh-day Sabbath. The real push for the seventh-day Sabbath was by the Seventh-day Baptists. The start of the Seventh-day Adventists started to arise a few years after the great disappointment, because a handful of people had already had the seventh-day Sabbath and the Baptists in the back of their minds. Jumping ahead to the early months of 1848 the Adventists had a structure and decided on four basic doctrines by which they would progressively hold as a basis for their religion. “(1) the personal, visible, premillennial return of Jesus, (2) the two-phase ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, (3) the perpetuity of the seventh-day Sabbath and its end-time importance, and (4) the concept that immortality is not inherent, but something that comes only as a gift through Christ.”