Seventh-day Adventist Health Reform: A Crucible of Identity Tensions

The Seventh-day Adventist church, formally organized in America in 1863, is today one of the fastest-growing Protestant movements in the world and defines itself as a prophetic remnant, raised up and commissioned by God to teach and preach a final message of warning to the world before the imminent return of Christ. From its beginnings, however, a sense of failure was built into the success of the fledgling movement. In order to preserve the message (the imminent return of Christ), Adventists ha