Seventh Day Adventist Church in Australia

1. Seventh Day Adventist Church in Australia

2. Background • Immediate origins of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were in the Millennial movements which swept the USA in the late 18th and earliest 19th century – similar to Pentecostals and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. • Restorationist movement which challenged the authority of the pope asserting the freedom of believers • Foundation was based in the primacy of the authority of the bible, justification of faith alone, and salvation by grace • Adopted controversial practices such as a seventh day Sabbath, ordinance of footwashing and adult baptism • The faith stresses the importance of labour, self-discipline and the blessings of the rigid Sabbatarianism • Stresses that all people are cerated equal, rational, free and morally responsible • Theologians believed that the creation of the Seventh Day Adventists lies in natural disasters and times of hardship, or social-economic forces • The faith is relatively fundamental

3. Notable beliefs • Seventh day Adventists believe in the imminent Advent, the second coming of Christ • In 1844, after several Seventh Day Adventist theologians, over 100 000 people gathered to meet Jesus, who failed to manifest and resulted in the ‘Great Dissapointment’ • The Church justified the failure on miscalculation, and argued that Jesus had entered the ‘second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, thereby beginning the work of the Last Judgement’ • Since, the Church last lost faith setting dates for the second coming • The church recognises the scripture as the only creed • Affirm the doctrine of the trinity • Humans were created in the image of God, and ‘fell’ into sin with Adam and Steve, resulting in a distortion of the relationship between humans and God, resulting in the pain in birth and death • Church membership is vital in the relationship with God • Each Saturday is the Sabbath, and is spent reaffirming the relationship with God through worship and time with family and friends

4. Australia and the Seventh Day Adventist Church • Spread from America and England to Australia with American immigrants • Movement was fuelled by fear of the coming apocalypse and/or Advent, with followers focusing on the apocalyptic aspects of the bible • Promoted the climax of human history in the second coming of Christ, forcing adherents to focus on reformation as per the New Testament • Started in the 1800s with a rough number of 8000, now has over 50000 adherents • Currently operates the largest private hospital in Australia in the Northern suburbs of Sydney, and operates a large number of schools throughout Australia