A group of ATS scholars presented a symposium on the Trinity on the weekend of June 20-24, 2019, organized jointly with Italian Adventist University in Florence, Italy. 

Ten speakers brought their papers to present, while two papers were read for individuals who could not attend. ATS scholars at the event included Jiří Moskala, Teresa Reeve, Matthew Tinkham, Christopher Chadwick, Greg Howell, Denis Kaiser, and ATS president John Reeve. Other speakers were sponsored by Biblical Research Institute, the White Estate, and Andrews University Theological Seminary. 

On Thursday, Moskala presented on the Trinity from the Old Testament perspective and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Reeve brought historical context with a paper on the Trinity in the early Christian church. To fill in the crucial time period of the early Adventist church, Kaiser spoke on the Trinity in Adventist writings from 1850 to 1920, and Howell presented the history of Adventist anti-trinitarianism from 1870 to 1950. Friday brought a range of papers on the biblical and theological studies of the Trinity. 

Reeve’s Sabbath sermon was titled “What Was God Doing for All That Time Before He Started Creating?” “My main point was that God was a Trinity, not a lonely soul,” Reeve said. “He was already a loving community. . . . What kind of a kingdom are we joining as we sign up for eternity with God? We’re signing up for a loving community, not a hierarchical empire ruled by a sole dictator.”

More than 40 individuals attended the symposium. The program included field trips to San Gimingnano, a small, walled medieval hill town that is a UNESCO world heritage site, and Villa La Petraia, one of the Medici villas in Castello, Florence.