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New Beginnings
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August 5 - New Beginnings

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Let us search and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord. Lam. 3:40, NKJV.

The period running from 1885 to 1900 would be one of the great turning points in Adventist history. The denomination would face massive changes in almost every aspect of its identity, so much so that by the beginning of the new century it almost looked like something different from what it had been before.

Heading the list was the massive ground shift in Adventist theology eventually flowing out of the 1888 General Conference session in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It prompted a call for a more Christ-centered preaching, put Christ at the focal point of Adventist preaching as He never had been before, and led to an emphasis on salvation  by grace through faith, what the church came to see as righteousness by faith. The older emphasis on the law did not disappear, but was reoriented to its proper place in the plan of salvation.

The new focus on Christ and His righteousness would also see new personalities rise to the fore in Adventism. Of particular importance were Alonzo T. Jones, Ellet J. Waggoner, and W. W. Prescott. Jones and Waggoner would become the foremost Adventist preachers in the 1890s, dominating, for example, the pulpit at each of decade Jones would be editor of the Review and Herald, one of the most influential positions in the church at that time.

The decade of the 1890s would also witness the beginning of a transformation in Adventist views of the Godhead. After all, whenever you begin to talk about salvation through Christ, you have to have a Savior and a Holy Spirit adequate for the job.

Accompanying the reformation in Adventist theology would be an explosion in the denomination's mission program that would finally send it into "every" nation. By 1900 the Seventh-day Adventist Church would truly be worldwide.

Another area of massive change would be the educational. Theological reformation and mission explosion would lead to a transformation in the denominational educational system in both its orientation and in its relative importance in the church.

Change, some discovered, could be painful. But it was also essential.

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Give us open minds, O God, as we glimpse the transformations of the past and as You move us into the future.
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