Newbold College: "1940s Drive to make Adventism look more Christian"

Just about every day I surf the web for historical “stuff” of interest.  Ran across the SDA Newbold (UK) college website and was surprised by one teacher’s summary of SDA history.  Sounds like stuff taken right off a fountarian website.  His name is Jan Barna.  Someone should correspond with him.   His historical overview appears much too candid to not be sympathetic.

1940s Drive to make Adventism look more Christian
 

Protagonists: Leroy E. Froom and Francis D. Nichol
A movement to strengthen and clean up Adventist publications

The first concern was the Trinity: ‘The clean up’ of Anti-Trinitarian statements

• Problem still very alive in 1919 Bible conference: One delegate cried out: “I have not been able to accept the so-called Trinitarian doctrine. I cannot believe that the two persons of the Godhead are equal, the Father and the Son. I cannot accept the so-called Trinitarian belief of three persons always co-existing…”

• In 1931 the yearbook for the first time published a statement of the fundamental beliefs
  Statement was explicitly Trinitarian. But it was still an unofficial statement.

• Problem still alive in 1940s:  J S Washburn still upset in 1940 and attacking Prescott:  “This monstrous doctrine transferred from heathenism entered the Roman papal church has seeking to intrude its evil presence into the teaching of the 3AM. The Trinity is utterly foreign to all the Bible and teachings of Ellen White. Revelation gives not a slightest hint of it. This monstrous heathen conception finds no place in all the free universe of our heavenly blessed Father and his Son.”

A movement to strengthen and clean up Adventist publications in two areas:

1. Anti-Trinitarian Statements

2. Sinful Human Nature of Christ Statements

3. Active publishing of  new apologetic literature:

F. D. Nichol: The Midnight Cry

L. E. Froom: Prophetic Faith of our Fathers

The leadership at the GC level L. E. Froom and Anderson and A. V. Olson combined their energy throughout the 1960s in uplifting the evangelical aspects of Adventism.
A. V. Olson in 1966 will publish a book entitled Through Crisis to Victory.
In 1980s with a new title: 13 Crisis Years
The Movement of Destiny by L. E. Froom (1971)
…is Froom’s worst book
Froom had even burned much of the primary evidence.  (link here).