The Seventh-Day Adventists: A History

This is a good, sometimes compelling look at the fastest growing church. (Mormons often bill their "Mormon Church" as the fastest growing church, but their attitude is lways me-me-me and their missionaries aren't sent out to do good works such as opening clinics, plus their religion attrits very quickly.) I was happy to read about the beginnings of Seventh-day Adventism as an off-shoot of the Millerite movement in some depth, because encyclopedias never do a good job covering the Millerites. Overall my friends who are Seventh-day Adventists are pretty decent, but sometimes quirky. These attributes are fairly represented in this history. I was amazed at the number of schools, colleges, universities, clinics, and hospitals that are run by the SDA. As the author attests, SDA'ers have not lost the Millerite zeal for scaring the pants off potential converts with doomsday interpretations of prophecy. I was recently invited to a weekend seminar held by SDA's in a local banquet hall. The promotional pamphlet came complete with fierce beasty things and thermo-nuclear detonations - pretty sobering stuff. The cost was $25 a the door to defray the cost of lunch served both days by the hotel caterer. Unfortunately, I don't handle money money on the Sabbath, and I don't expect people to be paid to serve me on the Sabbath. As Anne Devereaux Jordan notes, the Adventism comes first, the Seventh-day part came much later.