They are concerned with the eschatology, or doctrines of the endtimes. William Miller was the originator of this movement and predicted Christ’s Second Coming in 1843. He was wrong but the idea of the Second Coming and the rewarding of the righteous and punishment of the wicked became central to Adventism. They observe Saturday as the Sabbath, follow strict dietary laws as prescribed in the Old Testament, and believe Christ began judging the world in 1844 and will finish when he is done, although they do not profess to know the exact time.
According to this system, all time is divided into units called dispensations during which God reveals himself in a new way and treats people differently, depending on the dispensation currently in. They assert there are seven dispensations in all, five occurring Old Testament time, the sixth we are living in now, and the final one is the Kingdom to come. Since we are in the 6th, the return of Christ is immanent.
Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints was established when Smith discovered the Golden Plates with the help of an angel. He translated the plates and the Book of Mormon, as it was called, was 500 pages in length and divided in much the same way as the Bible. Smith claims to have revived the Church Christ established after the Resurrection, giving it divine authority, a quality no other church can profess. At his death, several groups broke away. Chief among these was the group that followed Brigham Young to Salt Lake City, Utah. In this community, polygamy and marriage were chief, as singlehood was seen as against God’s will. Another group formed and considered themselves as the legitimate successor of Smith’s church and is critical of polygamy and polytheism. By Mormon doctrine, any man may become a god by living through the testing period of morality here on earth. Success gives him his own world to preside over. This is assumed because Mormons feel God did this very thing to gain our world. They accept polygamy since God is the father of human souls, being conceived by his mating with female divinities.
In 1875 Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist. She taught that everyone can be loving and confident instead of hateful and fearful by comprehending the concept that God is a spirit or idea and He is everything. Since humans are a reflection of God they are also spiritual and good. Jesus was sent here so that we may understand this concept. She opened the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1877 to train healers. This was done because of the idea God was all good and so there is no room for sickness. These healers achieved such a high level of success that in 1877 the National Christian Science Association was created. The number of Christian Scientists exceeded 100,000 by 1900.
After the Civil War a movement emerged stressing sanctification, a blessing which changes one’s nature and aids one in living a life of perfect love, is a quick and sudden acquisition by an act of the Holy Spirit. These churches tend to be evangelical and fundamentalist, standing for the Four Square Gospel. This states Jesus is the savior, sanctifier, healer, and the coming Lord.
A Protestant group that regards the supremacy of the Scripture, religious liberty, baptism of believers, and independence of the local church as most important. Baptists organize their local churches into sovereign, all-powerful ecclesiastical units needing no chain of historical events to be a true church. They believe in baptism by immersion only because it is described in the New Testament and it is seen as symbolic of the burial and resurrection of Christ. Infants are not baptized because it must be a voluntary act of the individual and so only persons old enough to make their own decisions are allowed to be baptized. Each individual must confess his sins to God and then demonstrate repentance through good deeds, faith, and living the Christian way of life in order to receive salvation.
These churches show evidence of Catholic leanings through the sacraments, creeds, and orders of the church, but also of Protestantism through the rejection of the authority of the Pope, translating of the services into the vernacular, and an emphasis of the authority of the Bible. They believe Jesus Christ is both God and man united in one person and accept the theory of evolution as an account of man’s origins. For them, salvation is both in the future and the here and now and is a deliverance from arrogance and selfishness given by God.
Place special emphasis on doctrine and see sin as the basic condition of our personality. To sin is to pretend we are God in their doctrine. They believe in no transubstantiation during Communion and see the goal of Christian life to be the perfect existence we will acquire when we become completely obedient to God. Lutherans believe their religion is the only true one but true Christian believers exist in many churches.
They believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God and He has used the personalities of chose men to make His divine revelation. They maintain, as most divisions of Christianity, that Jesus Christ is the son of God who became man so that we may obtain salvation. They believe that salvation is not found in good works but is the gift of God. We receive this gift through complete commitment and surrender to God. They further assert that God predestines who will be saved and who will not.
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