everlasting-gospels.gif Refining The Second Angel's Mesage-1
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April 16

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And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality." Rev. 14:8, NASB.

To what extent should Seventh-day Adventists cooperate with other Christian denominations? Should Adventist ministers be active in community ministerial associations? Should the church and its members participate with other denominations in community projects? If so, on what basis?

Those certainly did. And because of that teaching Adventism still experiences tension among its various subgroups over the question of cooperation with other Christians. Fortunately, Adventist history throws a great deal of light on both the topic of the fall of Babylon and the issues related to it.

As we observed earlier, the earliest Adventist interpretations of Babylon were well in place before the birth of Sabbatarian Adventism. Charles Fitch, we noted, set the stage for the Millerite understanding when he began to proclaim the fall of Babylon in the summer of 1843. For Fitch, Babylon consisted of both Roman Catholics and those Protestans who rejected the Bible's teachings about the Second Advent.

James White ratified that basic understanding in 1859, when he wrote that "we unhesitatingly apply the Babylon of the Apocalypse to all corrupt Christianity." Corruption, as he saw it, involved both a moral fall and the intermingling of Christian teachings with non-Christian philosophies, such as the immortality of the soul. The latter left the churches defenseless against such beliefs as spiritualism. Babylon, in short, stood for confused churches.

But as time went on, the Sabbatarian Adventists in the early 1850s began to notice that the Sungdaykeeping denominations had some good things about them. They obviously weren't wrong in many areas of their teaching and practice. The world wasn't nearly so black and white as they had first thought. Such thoughts put them on a course that would lead to further insight on the implications of the second angel's message.

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Help us, Father, to keep our eyes open to the good in others, even those who are somewhat or even massively confused in their belief system. Give us eyes to see the good, and give us the grace to accept the gift.
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