Adventist Heritage

As Adventists today embrace Pentecost 2025 it is important to remember some cutting-edge innovations for Adventist outreach and evangelism that took place during the 1990s. Some three decades later it may be difficult to fully appreciate just how new (and at times even startling) these efforts were. Such discussions began in 1993 when the North American Division (NAD) leadership participated in a series of satellite broadcasts with the newly formed Adventist Communication Network.

In this Pentecost 2025 year and beyond, Adventist scholars can “witness” by accurately and dispassionately sharing with other scholars who Adventists are and what they believe. Over the past 15 years, a steady uptick of Adventist historians have regularly participated in meetings of the American Society of Church History, one of the premier academic organizations in the world for the study of religious history. This year’s meeting ran from January 3-6, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois. Themed “Legends,” it featured research by eight Adventist scholars, including two panel sessions focused on Ellen White and the Adventist experience.

In 1940, the Review and Herald Publishing Association published a book with a dark blue cover that you have probably never seen — They Also Served — by Ava Covington Wall. Written roughly 80 years after the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it was the first book to detail the many women who contributed to the church's founding and growth. This now-elusive book has been out of print for more than 80 years, and many stories of women in the early Adventist denomination remain largely unknown. Thus, historian Dr. Heidi Olson Campbell created the podcast They Also Served: Stories of Adventist Women, using historical research and expert interviews to reveal how American Christianity and the Seventh-day Adventist Church were shaped by these women's contributions.