Up to 1890: Anti-Trinitarian Period
Until near the turn of the twentieth century, Seventh-day Adventist literature was almost unanimous in opposing the eternal deity of Jesus and the personhood of the Holy Spirit. During the earlier years some even held the view that Christ was a created being. Theological tension within Adventism began during the Millerite movement and is illustrated by the two principal leaders, William Miller and Joshua V. Himes.
Miller, being a Baptist, was a Trinitarian. He wrote, “I believe in one living and true God, and that there are three persons in the Godhead. . . . The three persons of the Triune God are connected.”
Himes, a close associate of William Miller, was of the Christian Connection persuasion. The northeastern branch of the Christian church almost unanimously rejected the Trinitarian doctrine as unscriptural. Himes wrote, “There is one living and true God, the Father almighty, who is unoriginated, independent and eternal . . . and that this God is one spiritual intelligence, one infinite mind, ever the same, never varying.”
Millerite Adventists were focused on the soon coming of Jesus, however, and did not consider it important to argue on subjects such as the trinity