Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement

The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement came about as a result of the actions of L. R. Conradi and certain European church leaders during the war, who decided that it was acceptable for Adventists to take part in war, which was in clear opposition to the historical position of the church that had always upheld the non-combative position. Since the American Civil War, Adventists were known as non-combatants, and had done work in hospitals or given medical care rather than combat roles.[3] The Seventh-day Adventist leaders in Europe when the war began, determined on their own that it was permissible for Adventists to bear arms and serve in the military and other changes which went against traditional Adventist beliefs.

The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists sent Seventh-day Adventist minister and General Conference Secretary William Ambrose Spicer to investigate the changes these leaders had instituted, but was unable to undo what L. R. Conradi and the others had done during the war.[4][5][6] After the war, the Seventh-day Adventist church sent a delegation of four brethren from the General Conference (Arthur G. Daniells who was president of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, L. H. Christian, F. M. Wilcox, M. E. Kern) in July 1920, who came to a Ministerial Meeting in Friedensau with the hope of a reconciliation. Before the 200 Pastors and the Brethren from the General Conference present at this meeting, its European church leaders, G. Dail, L. R. Conradi, H. F. Schuberth, and P. Drinhaus withdrew their statement about military service and apologized for what they had done. The Reformers were informed of this and the next day saw a meeting by the Adventist brethren with the Reform-Adventists. A. G. Daniells urged them to return to the Seventh-day Adventist church, but the Reform-Adventists maintained that the European church leaders had forsaken the truth during the war and the reconciliation failed.[7] Soon after they began to form a separate group from the official Adventist church. A related group which also came about for the same reasons was the True and Free Seventh-day Adventists (TFSDA) which formed in the Soviet Union at this time, whose most well known leader was Vladimir Shelkov.

A major division then took place within the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement itself at its General Conference session held at Zeist, Utrecht (province), Netherlands in 1951. The cause for the division involved tensions that had arisen over unresolved issues of the preceding years. Charges of arbitrariness and authoritarianism by the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement leader and on the part of the General Conference administration towards member Units, failures by the General Conference committee to adequately resolve moral failings among leaders, issues concerning mal-administration of Church finances, and procedural and organisational irregularities prior to and during the Session itself are cited by the present organisation as significant contributing factors.[8][9]

After two weeks of deliberations within the Session trying to resolve some of these tensions, a move was made by a number of delegates to read a declaration enumerating the main problems involved and requesting that a committee to address the entire situation be established. The motion carried on the first vote but was overturned by the chairman. To signify their protest at what was held to be an arbitrary decision of the chair, 45% of delegates present, led by the then Secretary of the General Conference, left the Session room. The Session's proceedings faltered at this point. Efforts to reconcile the situation while all delegates were still present in Netherlands failed.[10][11]

Another factor affecting the administration of the Session at the time was the international situation behind the iron curtain.[12] Many of the units attached to the General Conference were unable to send delegates to the Zeist session due to restrictions on religious bodies in communist lands.[13] Proxy letters from a number of Union Conferences were held by the General Conference Secretary[14] enabling the session to convene legally (a provision enabled in the 1949 corporate registration), though the proxy holder still only had one vote regardless of the number of proxies held. Those Units not represented directly accounted for approximately 60% of the organization's membership. Consequently, neither of the two factions that became evident at the Zeist session were in a position to make any unilateral decisions.[15]

Over the course of the next year, steps were taken by both parties to explain the situation to their respective member bodies (Union Conferences) that were affiliated up until this time to the one worldwide church administration. Both factions re-organised themselves as General Conference committees independently of each other and proceeded to take the oversight of the SDARM General Conference affairs.

The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement had been first registered as a general conference association in Burgwedel, near Hanover, Germany in 1929. Though never approved by the inaugural 1925 Gotha SDARM General Conference Session, the designation "International Missionary Society" was added to the beginning of the name. The full registered name at that time took the form "International Missionary Society, Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, General Conference". The reasons for adding the designation to the beginning of the name were purely pragmatic, and done in the interests of securing General Conference finances on loan to one of its member Units, namely the German Union Conference. The SDARM General Conference operated under this German registration until 1936 when the association was dissolved by the Gestapo.[16]

From 1936 until the conclusion of the second World War, there was no legally registered SDARM General Conference entity anywhere in the world, and would not be until 1949. The international situation during those years prevented the convening of a General Conference Session. It was not until 1948, when the first post-war General Conference session was held, that the delegates agreed to re-register the worldwide interests of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement by incorporating the SDARM General Conference as an association in the USA. They also agreed to do this "under the name that was adopted by the General Conference delegation in session in 1925". This decision was carried out in 1949.[17] The registered name was now correctly, "Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement General Conference." It was under the By-Laws of this newly incorporated body that the 1951 Zeist General Conference Session was convened.[18]

By 1951 the SDARM General Conference affairs and financial interests were formally associated with the USA registered entity. Consequently, in the aftermath of the Zeist session, legal proceedings to establish the recognized administrators of the registered General Conference corporate entity commenced. These proceedings were finalised in May 1952 in an out-of-court agreement between the two factions. Representatives of the faction that had engaged in the protest walk-out in 1951 were left in control of the registered SDARM General Conference association.[19][20]

By 1955, when the next Session of Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement General Conference convened under the auspices the USA registered association, delegates present represented "9000 members (1000 less than in 1951)". This was a representation of 90% of the worldwide church membership recorded prior to the 1951 division.[21]

Following the 1952 legal proceedings, in June of that year, representatives of the faction that had been the subject of the protest at Zeist conducted a second re-organisation. To distinguish themselves from their opposing faction, they adopted the name "International Missionary Society, Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, General Conference" with headquarters in Mosbach, Baden in Germany.[22] As mentioned previously, the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement, as a general conference association, had been registered under this name in Germany in 1929 and operated under that name until 1936 when the association was dissolved by the Gestapo.[23] "International Missionary Society" was a name that had been associated with the German Union Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Reform Movement from its inception in 1919?. As the inaugural 1925 SDARM General Conference session did not agree to use this designation in its official name, the 1949 registered entity did not use it. With the opposing faction now adopting this designation and adding it to the 1925 agreed name, the designation "International Missionary Society" thereafter became associated exclusively with those affiliated with the interests of that faction.

With both factions formally organized, affiliations of Union and Field Conferences associated under one or the other of the two corporate administrations. Though they remained separate both in administration and worship, the theological beliefs espoused by each entity's adherents were common to both.[24] Despite this common platform of belief, tensions from the 1951 schism continued to remain high. Consequently, official efforts in 1967 and again in 1993 to reconcile both administrations at a General Conference level were unsuccessful.[25][26]

In 2005, the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist church tried to make amends and apologized for its failures during World War II, as the issue from the actions of L. R. Conradi continued during that war also.[27] Some members see it as the first attempts to reconcile the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement with the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist church. However, the actions of the SDA Church towards those who took a conscientious stand against all military service during World War I, were not acknowledged in the apology. The position of the SDA Church towards those engaged in military service, particularly combatants, remains an unresolved issue today.[28]