Robert J. Mayer - "Please support the 2026 Declaration of Principles"
The moment is now! Please support the 2026 Declaration of Principles.
I write to support the 2026 Declaration of Principles. It is by far the best Advent Christian theological statement written in the 166-year history of the Advent Christian Church. The 2026 Declaration is a clear, concise exposition of the Christian faith through an Advent Christian lens and I hope that when Advent Christians gather this August in Ridgecrest, NC they will affirm it overwhelmingly.
Why do I care about the 2026 Declaration of Principles? I was a neighborhood kid in San Francisco, CA who grew up just down the street from the Advent Christian church in San Francisco. I came to faith in Jesus Christ in May 1965 at the Advent Christian campground in Santa Cruz, CA. The gospel that I heard in both places was the gospel framed by the 2026 Declaration of Principles—a gospel that was orthodox and Trinitarian and shaped by biblical teaching.
Trinitarian Christianity is crucial.
The 1960s, when I grew up was marked by great uncertainty in so many churches. Liberal churches were abandoning the cross of Christ for this-worldly understandings of religious beliefs. Groups like the Mormon Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, and various New Age movements rejected biblical, Trinitarian Christian faith. (The San Francisco Bay Area, where I was raised, was a hotbed for Buddhist, Hare Krishna, and Hindu practitioners; and a religious marketplace of ideas and beliefs). I’m glad that my little church did not reject orthodox Christianity.
Yet when it came to the core of Christian faith, the denomination’s statement of faith seemed quite unclear. The essence of the Christian faith involves the nature and character of God as Triune, the deity and saving work of Christ, the centrality of the Bible, and the vital importance of salvation by faith in Christ alone. Yet the Advent Christian Church has always sounded an uncertain note on these matters.
The Advent Christian distinctives made sense to me (though I see them in a slightly different light these days thanks to scholars like N.T. Wright and Richard Middleton), but they make no sense at all apart from a strong, orthodox affirmation of the core of the Christian faith. My call to ministry led me to Fuller Seminary to study Bible and theology. And a few years later, after serving as an associate pastor, my journey led me to Charlotte where I worked as the editor of the Advent Christian Witness from 1982-1997.
I probably met some of you while I worked at ACGC, and while there I wrote my doctoral dissertation which eventually became the book Adventism Confronts Modernity: An Account of the Advent Christian Controversy over the Bible’s Inspiration (Pickwick, 2017). That research helped me understand why the Advent Christian understanding of God seemed weak and uncertain. It’s why I so strongly support the 2026 Declaration of Principles.
Biblical Christianity is the need of our day.
I’ve been affiliated with the Advent Christian Church in one way or another for over 60 years since 1965, though my involvement is now mostly as an outside observer who values his Advent Christian heritage and appreciates his friends and colleagues whom God has called to serve the Advent Christian Church. During the years when I was involved more closely with the Church first as a convert to Christ, then as an active layperson all the way through college, then as a pastor and as the director of publications at General Conference, I always longed for a time when Advent Christians would make a strong statement that affirmed orthodox Christian faith and the biblical, Trinitarian understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That moment is now through the 2026 Declaration of Principles. Some want to argue that doctrine and theology don’t mean much anymore. But they do. They frame and shape the ministry that God calls us to do. The 2026 declaration just might be the first step toward renewal of the Advent Christian Church—healthier congregations, strong church planting, support for the spread of the gospel both here and around the world.
Please support the 2026 Declaration of Principles. May God bless you and may God bless the Advent Christian Church as we affirm a biblical, orthodox, and Trinitarian understanding of Christian faith.
Robert J. Mayer
Charlotte, North Carolina; May 11, 2026.