tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post962189800556945608..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: 'Buked and Scorned: Ellen G. White's SuccessPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-72248159147838695132009-10-26T17:27:10.703-06:002009-10-26T17:27:10.703-06:00I'd like to thank to Amanda & Randall for ...I'd like to thank to Amanda & Randall for your participation in last weekend's conference and providing your observations here. <br /><br />I think Amanda is dead on. Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart in "Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream" (http://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Sanctuary-Seventh-day-Adventism-American/dp/0253218683) probably provides the best interpretation of the dynamic of alterity that Amanda points to.<br /><br />Paul McGraw's dissertation, "Born in Zion?: The Margins of Fundamentalism and the Definition of Seventh-day Adventism" (George Washington University, 2004), offers an excellent treatment of the Adventist identity question vis-a-vis Protestantism from 1840s to the 1990s. (Paul is writing the "legacy" chapter for our project.)<br /><br />I've attempted a narrower study of the identity question in my dissertation, "Reactions to the Seventh-day Adventist Evangelical Conferences and Questions on Doctrine, 1955-1971" (Andrews University, 2005), by focusing on Adventist interactions with evangelicals/fundamentalists in the 1950s and 60s when anti-cult polemicist Walter Martin "exonerated" Adventists from the "cult" status.<br /><br />As was commented on last weekend by some, there's much comparison that can be made between the Pentecostal experience of "mainstreaming" and the Adventist experience. You find an enigmatic interplay of (1) natural and self-conscious socio/theological positioning in the margins for differentiation and reinforcement of peculiarity; (2) triumphalist self-understanding as the "remnant church" and holders of "the truth"; and (3) desire for socio/theological acceptance and vindication. The (awkward?) combination of the three continues to place Adventism at this point in time somewhere off-center. Hence, contemporary Adventism has a lot of "both ... and," "yes ... but," and "no ... except" vis-a-vis evangelical and mainline Protestants.Juliushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10569590639577089907noreply@blogger.com