Adventist Interchurch Relations: A Study in Ecumenics (Kirche - Konfession - Religion)

This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of Seventhday Adventist interchurch relations - a 20-million member body whose ecumenical stance has so far been underresearched. For the sake of interpreting denominational involvement and reservations in Adventism as well as beyond the study develops a new academic approach to ecumenism based on Relational Models Theory a comprehensive social science paradigm of interpreting human relationships. The resulting typology of ecumenical interactions and the historical case study of Adventism suggest that such a relational interpretation of ec umenical interaction sheds light on many of the unresolved issues in ecumenics - such as divergent concepts of unity difficulties in recognition processes and the permanence of denominationalism.