Our pioneers came from many different churches. Many were kicked out of their churches for believing ideas beyond their narrow creeds. They came together and formed a church that only had a handful of "Landmark" or "Pillars" and as long as they were not fanatical they had the freedom to study and follow the dictates of their conscience.

To clarify some we would from time to time have a list of beliefs, but they differed from creeds by a creed being a definition of what was believed. Our list of beliefs were more of a generalized neighborhood where most of us basically hung around. And traditionally the list of beliefs would be written in fairly vague language to include as many as possible.

As we were approaching 1888 we had a conservative publishing house (The Review and Herald) and a more progressive publishing house (the Pacific Press). This upset many members and many wanted the Review to take over the Pacific Press and to bring it into an orthodox line. Mrs. White stopped this and said that we need both views and listed the landmarks and said that the complaint of the progressives removing the landmarks is not true.

In the late 1800s Fundamentalism became popular in Christian churches. Our church has struggled with this. (See books such as Knight's "The Afterlife of Ellen G. White" the biographies on W. W. Prescott and A. G. Daniels, the two books by Campbell on the 1919 Bible Conference and on the 1922 General Conference.)

Now, much of what was originally called Progressive Adventism was the post 1888 writings of Mrs. White, as well as the approach to Adventism as held by people like Willie, Prescott and Daniels. On the other hand people like Elder Holmes, Washburn and Wilkinson felt that these others have gone too far. When I was at Andrews I read many, many letters between those of the school represented by Holmes and Washburn and Mrs. White and/or Willie. Now, while I did not read this accusation in the letters they wrote to Mrs. White, I did find some handbills from their followers. These handbills accused Mrs. White of apostacy in her saying that her writings were not infallible, in teaching the trinity, and in being critical of these "faithful" pastors. They recommended only reading her through those pastors, especially her post 1888 writings, since these pastors knew what she wrote that came from God and what came from her apostasy. Some suggested that a Jesuit had worked his way into her inner circle and was controlling her. One even suggested that she had become a Jesuit and her assignment was to destroy the church where she used to be a true prophet of God to lead the church into following her apostasy.

Elder Andresen developed a way of taking the views of people like Washburn but adding the trinity to it, and his view became popular.

After Mrs. White died, and later with the deaths of Willie, Daniels and Prescott, they somehow changed from being the enemy bringing a progressive view of Adventism to cause apostacy in the church, to making them saints and blaming the ideas they did not like on others.

Now, people such as Holmes and Washburn etc. were faithful Adventists. These were all vialed and useful voices in Adventism, but different threads in the tapestry of Adventism. At the better points in our history our different threads respected each other and learned how to work together. At our lower points we have one subgroup or another decide that they are the ONLY true version of Adventism and that the rest of us are nominal Adventists.

In the 1950s there was a book written. I wish that it wasn't. It is not a very good book, but not a horrible book either. The book was "Questions on Doctrine". But some of our members, especially those of the Washburn and Andresen thread of Adventism, have filtered their beliefs through that book and removed anything that sounds like that book. There was a spirit of "Questions on Doctrine said it, I don't believe it, and that settles it for me."

Justification and Sanctification are two sides of the same coin. Justification is our moment by moment trust in Jesus, and it results in Sanctification. Now, some on the more so called "conservative" side ended up focusing more on Sanctification and this became popular in Adventism in the time between 1922 and the 1940s.

Now, in the 1970s we had the issues of Desmond Ford's who went to the other extreme and had a Justification being the big thing and sanctification only being secondary. Now the one group made things such as the investigative judgment sound very scary, and the needing to do this and that and the other thing. Ford gave peace to those who were struggling with the stress of trying to do just what is right. The truth has pretty much been ripped in about half, but with very, very gagged edges, but between the two schools of Washburn/Andresen on the one side and Ford on the other. They both tend to use their approximately half the truth against the other half. Unfortunately those who are on the Washburn/Andresen side does not respect that there is a strong tapestry of Adventism. They want to picture everything as faithful them (with a Fundamentalist view of their favorite Ellen White quotes, which she and Willie were very unhappy with) and that if you are not fully on their side then the only other option is the Fordites.

It's late and I need to go, but this is a start. You can see more of the history in those books I recommended. Oh, also, there are things that have been discovered in better understanding of the Hebrew, Greek and historical context that show more in the Bible, but which does not always hold on to traditions. Today's decedents of the Washburn/Andresen school (I pick these two names since they are the same idea but Washburn was very anti-trinitarian, while Andresen found a way to include the trinity in this generalized school of thought). want to hold on to church history and not look at what we have learned in the languages and culture, which I do not believe that Washburn or Andresen would pass off so quickly. So there is a mixture of both Adventism and wanting to hold on to all the traditions of conservative Christianity.

A couple of other resources. This may be difficult to find but in the 1980s a couple from Union College Ralph and Betrice Neal (or Neil?) would travel and give a wonderful presentation on how the two sides have divided Bible truth in half and how to unify the truth. Also, the books by A. LeRoy Moore such as "Theology in Crisis" or "The Theology Crisis" and he had two other books, one on "Questions on Doctrine" gives a good history and balance. And if you can get a hold of the original printing of the book "Sanctuary and the Atonement" by the Biblical Resource Committee of the General Conference, sadly not in the reprints (although you can find much of the same information in the book on where Mrs. White's critics are wrong) but the three chapters "The Mighty Opposites: The Atonement in the writings of Ellen G. White" parts 1 and 2, and "We Must All Appear: The Investigative Judgement in the writings of Ellen G. White".

We are trying to be fair to our understanding of what the Bible teaches, and how we understand Mrs. White to wish her writings to be used. Any and all of these views can be considered progressive adventism, and not just be limited to the extremes of Fordism. I'll try to come back to write more.

This debate didn't start due to Washburn/Andresen differences. This debate started in 1888 when the church rejected the righteousness by faith message. The best argument I know of for that pov is that we are still here rather than in heaven as Ellen White told us Jesus could have come in her day not once but twice. I see some movement back to that message, but also see large swaths of the church off in what can only be seen as heresy from the SDA perspective.