From the Seventh-Day Adventist to Roman Catholic blog, I got the following info:

Adventist church membership grew from 10,939,182 at the beginning of 2000 to 13,936,932 at the end of 2004, according to Bert Haloviak, director of Archives and Statistics for the world SDA Church.

And for every 100 people joining, 35 left.  That's up from the 24 leaving for every 100 joining reported in 2000.

Brandon's comment: "I believe that more and more, people are turning away from the negative carcitures of other Christians and the focus on legal requirements rather than the gospel of Christ."

I believe he's spot on.  Enough is being said about the legalism surrounding health and the Sabbath, and about other teachings that are contrary to the Bible.  Adventism does seem to be changing towards a less aggressive attitude to other Christian faiths, and perhaps that is fuelling the exodus.  Adventism changes slowly, members realise their error in this regard faster, and because Adventism remains vocally opposed to other faiths, there is more awareness of the problem with not enough change, and people leave.

This is an important topic, because if October 22 1844 was a meaningless date in the biblical calendar, then it ruins the whole Adventist theological system.  They got it wrong the first time round, predicting the return of Christ, but they never gave up on the date.  They should.


One of the major reasons why they cannot discard this date is that a prophet of their church has stated that this was the date.  Either they have to acknowledge her error, or they have to stick to their non-date.  To do so, they pretended that the Karaite Jews used this date.

Karaite statements from Truth or Fables:


Documentary evidence from the time confirms this.

For more info, see Day of Atonement of the Karaite Jews in 1844 and When Was the Day of Atonement in 1844? on the Truth or Fables website.