Arianism, Adventism and Methodism:

The Healing of Trinitarian Teaching and Soteriology*

by Woodrow Whidden, PhD., Professor of Religion

at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan

A Paper Presented to The Tenth Oxford, MI (USA) Institute of Methodist Theol. Studies
Working Group: History of Wesleyan Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
August 12-22, 1997 Oxford University Somerville College

Introduction
It is only in recent years that the Wesleyan/Methodist rootage of Seventh-day Adventist
soteriology and ecclesiology has been explicitly demonstrated.(1) The Wesleyan aspiration to
achieve a balanced understanding of justification and sanctification, leading to a dynamic
experience of perfection and the positive use of the moral law in the formation of the
sanctification experience have certainly carried over into the Seventh-day Adventist
theological pilgrimage. There is little doubt that the special agent of this Wesleyan influence
was Ellen G. White (1827-1915), the founding prophetess of the Adventist movement.

What, however, has not been adequately explored is the role that developing Trinitarian
impulses played in the movement's gradual emergence out of a rather pervasive Arian, semi-
Arian, and legalistic mindset. This paper will seek to identify what if any causal relationships
existed between emerging Trinitarian impulses and the healing of legalistic soteriological
trends.

Early Adventist Doctrinal Developments

Arising out of the shambles of the Millerite Movement's Second Great Disappointment of
October 22, 1844, it is understandable that the Millerite splinter group that would evolve into
what became known as the Seventh-day Adventist branch of Adventism had a very
eschatological doctrinal preoccupation. Such concerns very much flowed out of their
interpretations of the apocalyptic portions of the Scripture, especially the books Daniel and
Revelation, Jesus' Olivet Discourse, and Second Thessalonians.

The key doctrines which comprised the core of what became known as "Present Truth" were:

1)The imminent, literal, cataclysmic and pre-millennial Second Coming.

2)The Pre-Advent "Investigative Judgment."

3)A millennial reign of the redeemed with Christ in heaven, the earth being desolated during
this millennial night, followed by the establishment of the everlasting kingdom on a recreated
earth at the end of the thousand years.

4)Recovery of the moral authority of the ten commandments and especially the requirement
that the people of God keep the Fourth Commandment of the Ten commandments as a sign of
sanctification and the eschatological "seal" of their loyalty to God in the last great crisis of
earth's history.

5)An emphasis on conditional immortality which grew out of a renewed appreciation of

anthropological monism, with its concomitant doctrines of "soul-sleep" and annihilationism.
6)And finally, the rediscovery of the prophetic gift, especially as it was manifest in the
ministry of Ellen G. White.

What is fascinating about these developments was that there was not much detailed
consideration of either Christology, Pneumatology, or soteriology.

What Christological developments there were largely dealt with widespread Arian impulses
and a denial of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Between 1844 and 1890 there was a
general move away from a rather classic Arian Christology to a more semi-Arian position.
One searches in vain, however, for any really clear cut Athanasian or Nicean developments
before the late 1870s. Furthermore, it was only with the events that more immediately
preceded and followed the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session, that more
orthodox Trinitarian developments got underway with noticeable clarity.

Soteriological developments followed much the same pattern, with a noticeable lack of
detailed consideration given to the doctrine of justification. This was due to two major
reasons:

1)Most Seventh-day Adventist thought leaders felt that the movement did believe in
justification by faith alone and since this was not a strongly controverted issue in 19th
Century American Protestantism, they felt they needed to get onto what appeared to be more
serious errors which needed reforming attention.

2)These errors had to do with what Adventists ministers perceived to be widespread

antinomian attitudes in not only Roman Catholicism, but also in the dominant Protestant
evangelicalism of the day. What appeared to demand the greatest attention was the law and
obedience to its just demands.

It is therefore quite theologically understandable as to why Adventism gave such great

emphasis to the on-going authority of the law of God, especially the ten commandments and
the importance of sanctification and obedience. Without a carefully construed doctrine of
justification by faith and with the strong emphasis on the law and sanctified obedience, it was
inevitable that the denomination would descend into a rather dismal period when legalistic
emphases were quite evident.

By the late 1870s and the early 1880s, both James White (1821-1881) and his wife Ellen
White were becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of Christ-centered preaching and
a pervasive atmosphere of spiritual dryness. In the months just before James White's death in
1881, he had made renewed commitments to seek to lead the denomination back to a much
more Christ-centered proclamation of "present truth."

It is also quite instructive that Ellen White shared this deepening concern. It was during this
period that she too embarked on what became a sustained attempt to revive an interest in
making the evangelistic proclamation of the eschatological "truths" of Adventist much more
Christ-centered. Furthermore, she was the main person who called for a more self-conscious
reflection on such issues as the primacy of objective justification by faith alone and Gospel
assurance.
Such reflection was especially apparent in her presentations at the 1883 General Conference
Session in Battle Creek, MI. Here she spoke directly to the need of the Christian's assurance
of salvation (and the avoidance of the Pharisaism and spiritual despair that seemed to always
accompany an emphasis on sanctification and obedience that is not based on a clear concept
of justification by faith). In fact, it can be quite clearly stated that until 1886, Ellen White was
the only person in Adventism that manifested any noticeable apprehension about the growing
legalistic aridity among both the ministerial leadership and the rank and file of the
burgeoning denomination. All of this, however, was destined to markedly change in the late
1880s and the early 1890s.

1888, Its Background and Subsequent Developments

The date 1888 and the city of Minneapolis, Minn. have become synonymous in Seventh-day
Adventist history with the recovery of a marked emphasis on the primacy of justification by
faith alone in church doctrinal teaching, growth in personal spirituality and a deepening
commitment to Christian service and witness. 1888 and Minneapolis were the date and the
place for the emergence of a remarkable revival of what Seventh-day Adventists refer to as
the beginning of a genuine and sustained interest in the subject of "righteousness by faith."

As she continued to build upon the earlier concerns which had been expressed by her and her
late husband in the 1870s and early 1880s, Ellen White was repeatedly calling for revival and
reformation as the troubled denomination came to the borders of the city of Minneapolis in
October of 1888.

The key players in this remarkable revival of interest in justification, both in leading up to
Minneapolis and in its stirring aftermath, were Ellen G. White and two young Adventist
editors based in California named Ellet J. Waggoner (1855-1916) and A.T. Jones (1850-
1923). Opposed to them was a rather entrenched "Old Guard" of establishment administrators
and editors located at church headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. The major antagonists
of White, Jones and Waggoner were Uriah Smith (1832-1903), the venerable editor of the
official church journal, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald and George I. Butler (1834-
1918), the incumbent President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Space does not permit a detailed review of the events which transpired at Minneapolis and its
aftermath. Suffice it to say that the opposition to the new emphasis on justification by faith
and the righteousness of Christ was very strong--and also very subtle and pernicious. Ellen
White saw the whole development as a terrible crisis and felt that the very soul of the
denomination was at stake. She confessed to loved ones that the opposition at Minneapolis
involved the most severe struggle of her life.

While no official action was taken at Minneapolis to either affirm or deny the new emphases,
the opposition was so severe and subtle that Ellen White felt that she needed to team up with
Jones and Waggoner and mount an intense campaign of revival itinerations across North
America. What ensued was one of the most concerted and remarkable revival efforts in the
history of the denomination and in the long life and ministry of Ellen White.

During the next three years she, along with Jones and Waggoner, toured widely speaking at
camp meetings, institutional weeks of prayer and revivals, local churches (especially major
congregations in important institutional centers such as Battle Creek, MI and South
Lancaster, Mass.) and conducted numerous, lengthy ministerial institutes for the instruction
of the ministers. All of this was undertaken with the obvious intent to impart a clearer
understanding of the dynamics of personal salvation.

While there was no diminishing of emphasis on the importance of obedience to the law and
the Sabbath by White, Jones and Waggoner (what such stout opponents as Uriah Smith and
George Butler had feared), there was a great emphasis on the primacy and importance of
justification by faith alone as the bedrock of any vibrant Christian experience.

One of the most remarkable indicators of such an emphasis is, that during the four years that
followed Minneapolis (in a seventy year public career), roughly forty percent of all that Ellen
White would ever have to say about justification by faith and the imputation of the
righteousness of Christ, she said and wrote during this intense revival period.

It is not just the amount of material that flowed from her lips and pen, but it is the quality and
remarkable clarity of the material that is also arresting.(2) This period was the time when she
produced what is patently the most Pauline/Lutheran expressions on Justification by faith
alone in her entire ministry.

Despite all of the efforts of Ellen White, her two chief associates and their allies, the
reception was somewhat mixed. There was continued opposition from Uriah Smith and his
supporters. Then in the early part of 1890s, for no really obviously compelling reason, Ellen
White was sent for nearly a decade of ministry in Australia while Waggoner spent most of the
rest of the same decade in Europe. Jones was the only major "righteousness by faith"
protagonist left in the states and his ministry became somewhat problematic as the decade of
the 1890s rolled by.

Most certainly Wagoner and White continued to have ready access to the pages of the key
periodicals of Seventh-day Adventism in North America, but there was definitely a recession
of emphasis on justification by faith alone as these years rolled by.

Despite this spparent recession of emphasis, probably the greatest influence that Minneapolis
and its more immediate aftermath have had on subsequent soteriological developments has
been its ability to inspire renewed interest in searching out more clearly the theological and
practical spiritual meaning of the doctrines and experience of salvation. Interest in these
matters has continued unabated in Seventh-day Adventism to this very day.

Corresponding Christological and Trinitarian Developments

As was mentioned earlier, Arian views were quite pervasive in the writings of early Seventh-
day Adventism. In fact, it was possibly almost as widespread as convictions regarding the
imminence of Christ's return. It has been hard for many 20th Century Adventists to grasp this
fact in the light of the complete and official triumph of Trinitarianism in the movement in this
century. Some, such as prominent Adventist historian/apologist Leroy Edwin Froom, have
been so embarrassed that they have even sought to distort the Arian historical record by
making it appear that such views were something like an "encapsulated cancer"--certainly
there, but not very widespread.(3) Furthermore, what has often not been clear in Adventist
historical treatment has been what the factors were which motivated such a fascination with
Arian thought categories. It is only in recent years that Adventist historiography has been
able to get at this. More on this later.
For our purposes, it is important to focus on the Christology of Jones, Waggoner, Ellen
White, and Uriah Smith.

First of all the case of A.T. Jones. By the time of the Minneapolis revivals, Jones was quite
forthrightly Trinitarian, emphasizing the full deity of Jesus Christ.(4)

The thought of E.J. Waggoner is more problematic. Like many in the Adventism of his day,
he had moved from the earlier predominant Arianism to a semi-Arian position. While the
classification of Waggoner's Christolgy is still somewhat controversial among the interpreters
of the "righteousness by faith" developments of the last two decades of the 19th Century, it is
quite apparent to this writer that Waggoner never moved beyond semi-Arianism. He is very
intriguing in that he seemed to come to the very borders of a fully Athanasian Christology,
but just could not bring himself to fully cross over.

It might prove helpful in this context to clarify terms. In the 19th Century Adventist context,
full-blown Arianism taught that Christ was a created "god" and it was clearly said that there
was a time when He did not exist. The semi-Arian position held that while there was a time
when Christ did not exist as a separate person, He shared the same substance as the Father
and was "begotten" by the Father, rather than being created. It is what could be characterized
as the amoebic split of Christ out of the cell of the Father: Christ emerged out of the Father's
person as a separate divine being. Waggoner could speak in terms that would seem to betray
what appeared to be an Athanasian and Trinitarian Christology, but he could also speak in
quite problematic ways that still evidenced semi-Arian patterns of thinking. His most
notorious expression of the deity of Christ (which he never repudiated) goes like this:

The Scriptures declare that Christ is "the only-begotten Son of God." He is begotten, not
created. As to when He was begotten, it is not for us to inquire, nor could our minds grasp it
if we were told . . . . [Micah 5:2 quoted.] There was a time when Christ proceeded forth and
came from God, from the bosom of the Father (John 8:42; 1:18), but that time was so far back
in the days of eternity that to finite comprehension it is practically without beginning.
But the point is that Christ is a begotten Son, and not a created subject. He has by inheritance
a more excellent Name than the angels.(5)

It is not the purpose of this paper to fully assess the Christology of Waggoner, but it is quite
apparent that Waggoner's position was semi-Arian, though straining as it were to move into a
full-blown Trinitarian confession. He could probably be best classified as a "semi-Arian"
with a definite emphasis on the small "s" in the prefix "semi". What is germane to the
purposes of this paper is that while Waggoner did not give a full-blown explication of the
ways his semi-Arian position was informing his developing views on a more objective, less
legalistic soteriology, he was clearly moving away from a crassly Arian position and to a
much stronger emphasis on objective justification. As to how such developments informed
each other, we will seek to assess later.

The Christology of Ellen White is also a bit problematic, but more evidently Trinitarian and
Athanasian than that of either Waggoner or Jones. The mature Ellen White can be declared to
be unequivocally Trinitarian in her convictions regarding the full deity of Christ. But such
mature and unequivocal clarity of expression did not come until after the Minneapolis
General Conference.
While there has been a rather limited debate among Adventist scholarship over developments
in her Christology, it appears that there were three main periods in her Christological
unfolding.

The first is from 1850 to 1870. Eric C. Webster has referred to the emphasis of this period as
visionary and descriptive, presenting Jesus in "graphic, literalistic and anthropomorphic"
modes. Jesus was certainly featured, but "mostly within the framework of her eschatological
visions." The presentation of Christ's pre-existence during this period "appears to present
Jesus Christ as subordinate to the Father."(6)

The period from 1870 to 1890 evidences a definite broadening of her Christology. Jesus was
clearly presented as "equal with the Father and eternal."

The third period was from 1890- 1915 and is clearly the period of Christological dominance .
. . During this last period Christ is presented as of the same substance and essence as the
Father and one in whom is life original, unborrowed, underived . . . It is difficult to
differentiate between the actual Christology of the second and third periods: the content is
very similar but the volume is greater in the third.(7)

This is truly a remarkable development, especially given the strongly Arian and semi-Arian
views that were so dominant in the Adventism of her day. Such views were even held by her
strong-minded, forthright husband, James White, until fairly late in his life. What was
somewhat curious (and in need of some further explanation) is why she never directly
attacked anyone who held to this dominant Arian expression, but then seemed to be willing to
go against such a grain with her own positive testimony to the full deity of Christ. Most
certainly, by the time of the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference, she was clear in her
understanding of the full deity of Christ and her affirmations of the Trinity. Her
understanding included the clear affirmations of the eternity and equality of the Son with the
Father.

It is furthermore instructive that the main opposer of the soteriological initiatives of

Waggoner, Jones and White--Uriah Smith--was forthrightly Arian. He then evolved into a
semi-Arian view which he maintained until his death.(8) Although he later repented of his
pernicious opposition to the emphases of Ellen White and her cohorts, he never fully came
out strongly for a clear doctrine of objective justification by faith alone. For our purposes, it
is instructive that the main opponent of the soteriological healing going on within Adventism
was also clearly semi-Arian (quite similar to Waggoner), but never fully convinced of the
efficacy of the new soteriology.

What is to be made of these developments? What was it that motivated the Arian impulses of
Adventism from the 1840s until the 1890s? Were Jones, Waggoner and White self-
consciously feeding off of their Christological advances to aid and abet their attempts to heal
Adventist soteriology? Or was the whole development merely coincidental? Or maybe the
whole cause effect relationship between Christology and Trinitarian developments is mainly
imperceptible, but influential and unacknowledged.

What is to be made of these developments?

What Caused the Healing of Soteriology?

Whence the Arianism?
Before the question can be answered as to the relationship between developments in
Christology and the healing of a very legalistic Adventist soteriology, we should first seek to
identify what motivated the adoption of Arian concepts in the first place.

Undoubtedly, the main conduit of Arianism and anti-Trinitarianism into early Seventh-day
Adventism was the Restorationist backgrounds of numerous Sabbatarian Adventist founding
fathers (referred to as the "pioneers"). The most prominent were James White and Captain
Joseph Bates (1792-1872). These men had been ministers in the Christian Connection
Church, which was the back country version of Boston Unitarianism, but with a much more
evangelical bent. Developments in New England restorationism in many ways paralleled
what was going on among the Campbellites and Stonites out in the Ohio River Valley. The
key credo of these movements involved a rationalistic, anti-creedal, reductionistic view of
Christian doctrine. The anti-creedal claims were backed up with the slogan that "we have no
creed but the Bible." Such sloganeering betrayed a hearty suspicion of anything that could not
be rationally explained and the key test of doctrine was: did it conform to the most obvious
and literal reading of the Bible?

Many Seventh-day Adventist pioneers drunk deeply at he well-springs of this Restorationist

mind-set.

The proclivity for a very literalistic reading of Scripture, in the setting of such an anti-creedal
bias, requires further comment. This anti-creedal spirit seemed to induce a deep suspicion of
any of the great ecumenical creeds; furthermore, the Restorationist idea that we get back to
the Biblical fountainhead of all Christian doctrine (and thus avoid the contaminating
influences of mystifying, pagan induced "traditions" of men) was what seemed to predispose
them to the most obvious and literalistic readings of the English Bible. Thus such Biblical
expressions as "first born of every creature," "Only begotten Son of God" and so forth were
seen to apply to the deity of Christ, not His humanity.

Furthermore, many felt that the profound unity of the Godhead, inherent in Trinitarian
thought, was not only irrational, but that it did away with the personality of both the Father
and the Son by blurring the distinction between them. They also thought that the Trinity came
to the very edges of teaching pagan tri-theism. The Seventh-day Adventist reserve about the
Trinity, however, had a further motivation which was informed by its theological
anthropology.

Influenced primarily by the Millerite George Storrs, most early Seventh-day Adventists had
been converted to conditionalism (including Ellen White and her family during their Millerite
experience). Such views were fervently held--in clear opposition to the regnant immortal
soulism. This monistic, more unitive understanding of human nature caused a somewhat
complex reaction to Trinitarian emphases, especially as it related to their understanding of the
nature of Christ and the meaning of His atoning death.

Among these early Adventist anti-Trinitarians, J.M. Stephenson was not only typical, but also
quite influential in his views. Mervyn Maxwell has succinctly laid out this anti-Trinitarian,
Arian rationale:

Stephenson dealt with Trinitarianism when he discussed Christ's fitness to offer God an
adequate atonement. Trinitarians, he charged, "claim that the Son of God had three distinct
natures at the same time: viz., a human body, a human soul, united with his Divine nature: the
body being mortal, the soul immortal, the Divinity co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal with
the everlasting Father. Now, none of the advocates of this theory claim that either his soul or
Divinity died, that the body was the only part of this triple being which actually died `the
death of the cross;' Hence, according to this view (which makes the death of Christ the grand
atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world) we only have the sacrifice of the most inferior
part--the human body--of the Son of God.

In place of so inadequate a sacrifice as a mere human body, Stephenson (and other early
Sabbatarian Adventists) taught a Christ who was able to offer God the death of a whole man,
body and soul--yet not of an ordinary man by any means. Christ, in Stephenson's thought,
was created somewhere in eternity in the special sense of being "only begotten." He was
deathless, divine, and son of God before His incarnation. At His incarnation, His divinity did
not take on humanity, as Trinitarians claimed: it was exchanged for humanity while Jesus
nonetheless remained the Son of God. He "did not lose his personal identity in his transition
from God to man." Said Stephenson, commenting on John 1:14, "`The Word was made flesh.'
The natural import of this language is, that the only begotten of the Father, was actually
converted into flesh, . . . that the Divine nature was made human; nay, that the very substance
of which he was originally composed was converted into flesh."(9)

Although the theology of Stephenson and the many who agreed with him appears to us today
to be quite idiosyncratic, even confusing, it does help us to understand some of the anti-
Trinitarian motives of early Adventist thinkers. It could well be that when their thinking
clarified on the Atonement, it is one key factor that cleared the way for the healing of
Trinitarian views. This could also explain some of the lack of forthright Trinitarian testimony
from Ellen White in the early years: she did not want to give the appearance of attacking
either the firmly held doctrine of conditionalism or the truth that Christ as a human soul really
did die an atoning death on the cross; His death was not the expiration of a mere physical
body.

Beyond such concerns with how the person of Christ affects the meaning of His atoning
death, the Adventist pioneers do not reveal a very self-conscious attempt to see the
relationship of the full deity of Christ to such issues as justification by faith alone. I find it
interesting, however, that Arianism, in its classic expression, felt the need to give primacy to
the concept of Jesus as humanity's Example.(10)

This classic development certainly was replicated in and resonates with early Adventism's
understanding that obedience to the law, inspired by Christ's example, is the key issue for
their attempts to reform a soteriology which appeared to them as about to break up on the
rocks of antinomianism. Could it be that Arianism seems to have a natural attraction for
religious movements which concentrate on concerns with obedience--concerns which have
seemed to inevitably downgrade considerations having to do with justification by faith in
Christian experience?

The Factors Leading to Trinitarian Healing

What then is to be made of Adventism's simultaneous emergence out of both unwitting
legalism and a rather strongly held Arian stance? Clear-cut answers are a bit hard to come by
in this area of Adventist history, but it does appear that the following factors were the most
decisive:
1)The obvious spiritual needs of the church: here both James and Ellen White, later supported
by Jones and Waggoner, took the lead. We have no record that they sat up one day and said:
"This Arianism business is simply killing our people with legalistic attitudes that are bringing
on a terrible spiritual condition in the church!" What seems more apparent is that they sensed
the severe dangers inherent in the obviously legalistic trends within the movement, began to
study more carefully the causes of the condition and then began to instinctively sense the
need for a more Trinitarian undergirding of soteriology.

This basic phenomenon is especially evident in Ellen White. I have simply not found any
instances where she self-consciously set out to reflect on the soteriological implications of the
full deity of Christ and the personhood of the Holy Spirit. She, however, seemed to be able to
draw not only on Scripture, but also on the resources of her Methodist matrix. While she
never admitted any direct debt to the Wesleyan/Methodist Tradition for her soteriology, it
was clearly her baseline in her ministry from the very beginning. This is especially true of her
attempts to keep a balance between the primacy of justification by faith, while at the same
time giving great emphasis to sanctification and Holiness of heart and life. It appears that the
same might be said for the Trinitarian consciousness raising power of her
Wesleyan/Methodist background.

2)The church's worship, especially its hymns. It is interesting that as the movement began to
take on the trappings of a denomination, it had to develop the resources for ecclesiastical
order and worship--such as formal organization, a statement of belief, ministerial credentials,
and a hymnal. Even though Arianism was quite widespread, when the early Adventists began
to plan for worship, they included Trinitarian hymns in their early hymnals: the very first
hymnal of 1849, compiled by James White, contains the doxology, "Praise Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost."(11)

3)When early Adventism finally began to get out of its "shut door" phase,(12) the movement
commenced to reach out to other Christians with a renewed sense of mission to a wider
audience. This audience, at first, was mainly defined as Christians in North America. This
new outreach, which began in the early 1850s, resulted in a growing influx of Trinitarians
from other Evangelical bodies into Adventism. These proselytes were attracted to the
prophetic teachings and other strongly Biblical doctrines and practices of Adventism; they,
however, were not prepared to give up their Trinitarian heritage of doctrinal confession.

As has been mentioned earlier, while Arianism was quite widespread in early Adventism, it
also needs to be understood that there was never any formal action taken to officially adopt it.
This lack of formal action can be best understood in the light of the movements anti-creedal
stance. Because of their vivid memories of the ill-treatment given them by the creedal
churches of "Babylon" (in the heated days of last stages of Millerism) there developed a
rather strong "live and let live" attitude on a number of doctrinal issues. In other words, there
was a very strong resistance to creeds of any form and these rugged theological individualists
were not about to be getting up anything like a new creed; after all, "the Bible was their only
Creed". Thus any new convert could be a Seventh-day Adventist and still hold Trinitarian
views. It could very well be that this growing number of Trinitarians were simply making
their presence felt in their desire to worship and sing praises to Jesus who was conceived to
be fully divine.

4)There was also the continuing emphasis by Ellen White on Christ as the believer's
constantly interceding mediator. This developing strain of emphasis in her unfolding
soteriology was accompanied by further, careful reflections on the substitutionary meaning of
Christ's death and its implications for justification by faith alone. The more she reflected on
the meaning of Christ's death as a Sacrificial Atonement and His closely related office of
interceding High Priest, the more she evidenced a sense of the necessity of a sacrifice and
Intercession that was given by One who is fully divine; some sort of semi or demi-god would
not do.(13)

It also became obvious that when their views on Conditionalism were more carefully sorted
out in relationship to a clearer understanding of the Person of Christ, they came to see that
Christ could be both fully human (with not only a body, but a unitive soul) in His real,
sacrificial death and still be seen as fully divine.

This almost instinctual appreciation of Christ's full deity again seems to replicate the classic
Christological developments. It was no mere historical happenstance that Athanasius would
oppose Arius. Carefully ponder the observations of Kelly:

In his anti-Arian treatises, Athanasius was to deploy a triple onslaught based on the Church's
living faith and experience. First, he argued that Arianism undermined the Christian doctrine
of God by presupposing that the divine Triad is not eternal and by virtually reintroducing
polytheism. Secondly, it made nonsense of the established liturgical customs of baptizing in
the Son's name as well as the Father's, and of addressing prayers to the Son. Thirdly, and
perhaps most importantly, it undermined the Christian idea of redemption in Christ, since
only if the Mediator was Himself divine could man hope to re-establish fellowship with
God.(14)

Conclusion
While it is hard to be dogmatic about the cause/effect relationships between the healing of
Adventist Arian and anti-Trinitarian expressions and soteriological imbalance, there are a
number of factors that seem to come into play.

First of all, one does not get the feeling that there was a lot of self-conscious theological
reflection which transpired in any scholastic/systematic way. It appears that these
developments were really quite ad hoc, almost to the point of seeming "providential." What is
clear, is that the Whites took the lead and they mainly seemed to draw their theological cues
from their pastoral concerns regarding the low estate of the perceived spiritual experience of
the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. As they began to perceive that legalistic concerns
had quite obscured the primacy of Christ as atoning sacrifice and justifying Saviour, they
began to reflect practically on how to bring the movement back into a greater emphasis on the
centrality of Christ and His atoning sacrifice. In other words, it was practical/theological
concerns, primarily having to do with an out-of-balance theology, that seemed to draw them
to a more critical reflection having to do with the full deity of Christ. This became especially
evident in the thought of Ellen White as she gave more careful, intentional, and sustained
attention to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and the office of Christ as a constantly
Interceding high Priest. Such an Intercessor not only reckons the faithful as forgiven for the
sins of the past, but ministers moment by moment reckoning that they have a just standing
before a righteous and Holy God. Such a justifying accomplishment could only be made
effectual by One Who was fully divine. Here, she very much paralleled the classic opposition
of Athanasius to Arius. The theology was not only very similar, but the method of arriving
seems also very similar: both were dealing with the practical impact of heresy in the setting
of worship and the personal experience of salvation.
On another level, there is good circumstantial evidence that the evangelistic/proselytizing
success of the movement brought in a harvest of Trinitarians who simply were not persuaded
by the Arian influences that continued to inform Adventist doctrinal development. In an odd
sort of way, the somewhat isolated, anti-ecumenical Adventists, thanks to their proselytizing
success, became ecumenical in the sense that they were able, through these converts, to tap
into the great tradition of the ecumenical creeds of the first four centuries.

Finally, it does appear that the acts of worship, especially in the hymnody, provided an
interesting theological tutorial for a somewhat unwitting company of worshipers.

This feels very much like the unfolding of a very "occasional" theology, hammered out in the
ebb and flow of a burgeoning evangelistic movement that badly needed both its soteriological
and Trinitarian perspectives brought into a more classic and evangelical balance. It is in the
setting of revival, outreach, sustained study of Biblical themes, and worship that the
movement moved towards a Nicean orthodoxy in the theological integration of these great
verities of the faith. Feels quite classically Wesleyan to me!!

* Woodrow Whidden: Andrews University Berrien Springs, MI (USA) A Paper Presented to

The Tenth Oxford Institute of Methodist Theol. Studies Working Group: History of
Wesleyan Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries August 12-22, 1997 Oxford
University Somerville College

1. A. Gregory Schneider, "The Methodist Connection to Adventism," Spectrum 25

(September 1996), pp. 26-37; Woodrow W. Whidden, "Ellen White and John Wesley,"
Idem., pp. 48-54; "Adventist Soteriology: Wesleyan Connection," Wesleyan Theological
Journal 30 (Spring 1995), pp. 173-186; and Ellen White on Salvation: A Chronological Study
(Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1995), pp. 15-22.

2. These somewhat startling (at least to the Adventist ears of that period) and marked
expressions of objective justification can be most readily found in the books Faith and Works
(Nashville: Souther Pub. Assoc, 1979) and Selected Messages, Book One (Washington:
Review and Herald Pub. Assoc., 1958), see especially pp. 300-400. Probably the most
forceful expression of this more Pauline/Lutheran understanding of justification by faith
alone came in her Manuscript 36, 1890 (here cited from Faith and Works, pp. 19, 20): "Let
the subject be made distinct and plain that it is not possible to effect anything in our standing
before God or in the gift of God to us through creature merit. Should faith and works
purchase the gift of salvation for anyone, then the Creator is under obligation to the creature.
Here is an opportunity for falsehood to be accepted as truth. If any man can merit salvation
by anything he may do, then he is in the same position as the Catholic to do penance for his
sins. Salvation, then, is partly of debt, that may be earned as wages. If man cannot, by any of
his good works, merit salvation, then it must be wholly of grace, received by man as a sinner
because he receives and believes in Jesus. It is wholly a free gift. Justification by faith is
placed beyond controversy."

3. C. Mervyn Maxwell, "Sanctuary and Atonement in SDA Theology: An Historical Survey,"

Arnold V. Wallenkampf and Richard W. Lesher, eds. The Sanctuary and the Atonement
(Washington: Review and Herald Pub. Assoc., 1981), p.530.
4. Merlin D. Burt, "Demise of Semi-Arianism and Anti-Trinitarianism in Adventist
Theology, 1888-1957" (A Paper prepared at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Course GHIS 974, Development of Seventh-
day Adventist Doctrines, December 1996), pp. 7,8.

5. Cited in L.E. Froom, Movement of Destiny (Washington: Review and Herald Publishing
Assoc., 1971), p. 291.

6. Eric C. Webster, Crosscurrents in Adventist Christology (New York: Peter Lang, 1984),
pp. 142, 143.

7. Ibid.

8. Burt, pp. 2, 3, 9.

9. Maxwell, p. 531.

10. See Linwood Urban, A Short History of Christian Thought (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), p. 63.

11. Burt, p. 2.

12. It should be noted that the term the "shut door" refers to the convictions of the vast
majority of sabbatarian Adventists during the early years. The "shut door" view held that only
those who maintained faith in the Millerite Movement as a truly providential movement
could be saved. All others in the world had become Babylon because of their rejection of the
truth of the Second coming and had evidenced their rejection by God through the
persecutions they heaped on the faithful "little flock" of Millerites that kept the faith. In other
words, there was not much of a mission to the Babylonian world, since the door of mercy had
been shut on them. It took nearly a decade for the "Shut Door, Sabbatarian" Adventists to be
able to gain a renewed sense of mission to the broader world.

13. One of the most important developments of the era after Minneapolis and 1888 was her
further elaboration of the theme that both humanity and deity were essential to the saving
work of Christ. In a sermon given on June 19, 1889, she proclaimed that "Christ could have
done nothing during His earthly ministry in saving fallen man if the divine had not been
blended with the human." She further declared that "man cannot define this wonderful
mystery--the blending of the two natures." This was a theme that was first introduced in
1872: "There could be no sacrifice acceptable to God for him (fallen man), unless the
offering made should in value be superior to man as he was in his state of perfection and
innocency . . . The divine Son of God was the only sacrifice of sufficient value to fully satisfy
the claims of God's perfect law" (cited in Woodrow W. Whidden, "The Soteriology of Ellen
G. White: The Persistent Path to Perfection" [Ph.D. Dissertation, Drew University, 1989], p.
188; for further statements from Ellen White, see footnote 3, p. 187 of this dissertation).

14. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Revised Edition; New York: HarperCollins,
1978), p. 233.