{"id":182,"date":"2021-02-21T22:10:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T22:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/?p=182"},"modified":"2021-03-08T19:39:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T19:39:04","slug":"the-great-age-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/21\/the-great-age-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great ‘Age’ Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Sam Oliveira<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a leap back to the 1800s. It was around that time that the Seventh-day Adventist church came into existence. Shortly after the Great Disappointment of Oct. 22, 1844, the denomination formed, and today it has over 20 million members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon reading Seeking a Sanctuary<\/em>, a book written by Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart, I realized how prophecy helped galvanize the early Adventist pioneers. They focused on what would happen in the last days, preaching and teaching about how people should give their lives to Jesus and how many would suffer persecution before Christ\u2019s faithful return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that wasn\u2019t all. Early Adventists were fixed on finding out exactly when Jesus was coming. They would vigorously study scripture trying to decipher everything they could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdventists nonetheless became obsessive watchers of the \u2018Signs of the Times,\u2019 producing a succession of individuals who provided an almost continuous apocalyptic commentary on national and international events,\u201d Bull and Lockhart wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus on the end times became a massive phenomenon in the church and is still talked about today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with today? Many have been pushing prophecy for so long that any occurrence around the world causes \u201cthe church\u2019s eschatology [to thrive] whenever there is political disorder or natural disaster,\u201d according to the authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I honestly can\u2019t remember the last time a tsunami or decision made by the Pope wasn\u2019t preached about in relation to the end times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy for the older generation to pinpoint those occurrences as an apocalyptic event, but as Bull and Lockhart state, that\u2019s not always<\/em> the case. While many of the disasters around the globe may be related to the end times, \u201cAdventist apocalyptic does not always flourish in crisis situations.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Must we continue to be vigilant? Of course. Prophecy is just as important today as it was in the early days of the denomination and, perhaps, even more so. However, the major obsession that the early pioneers initiated may or may not have hindered how the Millennial generation has responded to an imminent event that has existed for 177 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do younger Adventists have a different perspective on this issue? Let\u2019s continue to dive deeper and learn how prophetical views have continued to evolve and adapt over the generations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sam Oliveira Let\u2019s take a leap back to the 1800s. It was around that time that the Seventh-day Adventist church came into existence. Shortly after the Great Disappointment of Oct. 22, 1844, the denomination formed, and today it has over 20 million members. Upon reading Seeking a Sanctuary, a book written by Malcolm Bull … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Great ‘Age’ Controversy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prophecy","tag-prophecy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}