For those interested in the Topic of the Trinity in Adventism, the following announcement was made online:

Volume 3, No. 1

Coming Soon: A Source Book on the Trinity

 

 

Book

With the attention given recently to the doctrine of the trinity, a book being developed by Denis Kaiser, church history professor in the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, promises to raise the profile of the topic further.

With a working title of a trinity source book, the work is composed of three major parts: (1) the author’s personal story of having held antitrinitarian views in the past, weaving in the presuppositions and theological approach that constitute that mindset; (2) a historical overview of the development of thought on the trinity within Adventism, especially in the realm of the divinity of Jesus and the personality of the Holy Spirit, up to the time of Ellen White’s death; and (3) a curated collection of scanned historical sources on the topic published from the 1850s to 1915.

Kaiser said the third portion of the book is the largest. “It allows people to read the documents for themselves, see how the ideas developed, and that trinitarianism was widely spread among Adventists many years before the death of Ellen White.”

The historical overview in the second part of the book, Kaiser said, binds the documents of the third part together, creating a comprehensive overview that exhibits a clear historical trajectory. Readers can verify the assertions of that section for themselves by reading the source documents in the third section.

One of the uses for the book, Kaiser suggests, is seminars in which students can discuss the theological meaning of particular documents on the trinity and continue to do research into those subjects. The book may also be used by those who have to deal with doubters and antitrinitarians in the field.

Kaiser is in conversation with Andrews University Press about publication of the book. No release date has been set.