The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Appendix 313
Although the doctrine of conditional immortality eventually was
adopted by a majority of the Second Adventists, it was never
accepted by the leadership of the original movement, which
increasingly began to condemn it as a heresy in their periodical, the
Advent Herald. Finally, in 1858, the original Second Adventists, or
the “Evangelical Adventists,” as they now called themselves,
openly broke with the “conditionalist” Adventists and formed a
separate organization, The American Evangelical Advent Conference. The
Evangelical Adventists, however, soon became a minority, as their
members in increasing numbers sided with the “conditionalist”
Adventists. The association finally died out in the early years of the
20th century. 2
After the break with the Evangelical Adventists, the supporters
of the World’s Crisis, too, formed a separate denomination in 1860,
The Advent Christian Association (later “The Advent Christian
Church”), today the most important Adventist denomination aside
from the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. 3
Many “conditionalist” Adventists did not join this association,
however, partly because they were strongly opposed to all forms of
structured church organization and would accept no names of their
church but the “Church of God,” and partly also because of their
distinctive “age to come” views, that is, that the Jews would be
restored to Palestine before the coming of Christ, that his coming
would usher in the millenium, and that the saints would reign with
Christ for a thousand years, during which period his kingdom
2 David Tallmadge Arthur, “Come out of Babylon”: A Study of Millerite Separatism
and Denominationalism, 1840–1865 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Rochester, 1970), pp. 291–306; Isaac C. Wellcome, History of the Second Advent
Message (Yarmouth [Maine], Boston, New York, London, 1874), pp. 597–600, 609,
610. See also the excellent overview by D. A. Dean, op. cit., pp. 122–129. Even
Joshua V. Himes, editor of the Advent Herald and the most influential leader of the
original movement after the death of Miller in 1849, adopted the “conditionalist”
position in 1862 and left the Evangelical Adventists.
3 Numerically, the membership of this church has remained at about 30,000–50,000
throughout its history. The two most influential leaders and writers at the
formation of the association were H. L. Hastings and Miles Grant, the latter being
editor of the World’s Crisis from 1856 to 1876. Hastings left the association in
1865 and remained independent of all associations for the rest of his life, although
he continued to advocate conditionalism and other teachings of the Advent
Christian denomination. (See Dean, op. cit., pp. 133–135, 142, 210–294.)