The 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have gone through many stages of evolution. During the days of the Millerite Movement there was no need for any statement of beliefs. Millerite preachers at first had no intention of separating from the already existing churches. Closer towards 1843, Adventist Millerites were being disfellowshipped by their respective churches due to their acceptance of William Miller’s views. Some Millerite preachers began to denounce organized churches as “Babylon.” Hence, there was no need to have an organized church. Afterall, to them, Jesus would come in just a few months’ time.
Following the great disappointment, the splintered Millerite groups still avoided a creed. This can be attributed somewhat to the Christian Connexion heritage of some of the leading role players including Joshua Himes, James White and Joseph Bates. In 1847, James White wrote, “The Bible is a perfect, and complete revelation. It is our only rule of faith and practice” (A Word to the Little Flock, p. 13).
When they eventually started to organize under the name “Seventh-day Adventists” in 1860, it became necessary to express their identity. As such, with the organization of the first conference in 1861, the pioneers adopted a church covenant which simply expressed that they were “covenanting to keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus Christ” (George Knight, A Search for Identity, p. 22). The first time any accepted expression of beliefs were published by the church was in an 1872 pamphlet by Uriah Smith which outlined 25 principles believed by Seventh-day Adventists. A noteworthy publication was also F. M. Wilcox’s article which appeared in Review and Herald in 1913 which highlighted 16 principle beliefs and significantly included the doctrine of the Trinity among chief Adventist beliefs.
Since 1931, these beliefs (at the time only 22 beliefs) appeared annually in the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook publications and since 1932, in every successive edition of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual. By 1980, the fundamental beliefs were more elaborately expressed as 27 distinct Bible teachings and were adopted officially at the General Conference Session for the first time. The addition of another fundamental belief, “Growing in Christ,” was made at the 2005 GC Session thereby bringing it to the 28 Fundamental Beliefs as we have it today.
Changes can still be made. Changes were made to the doctrine on Creation at the 2010 GC Session and many changes and editorial corrections were applied at the 2015 GC Session to quite a number of fundamental beliefs. The preamble of the Fundamental Beliefs maintains that revisions “may be expected at a General Conference Session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth and finds better language in which to express the teachings of God’s Holy Word” (Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual, p. 162). History shows us that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has always been open to the progressive nature of truth. Ellen White put it best: “We must not think, ‘Well, we have all the truth, we understand the main pillars of our faith, and we may rest on this knowledge.’ The truth is an advancing truth, and we must walk in the increasing light” (Review and Herald, March 25, 1890).
