Why this movement exists, and what it was raised up to restore. Not to stand apart from others — but to hold together truths that time had let slip.
The word comes up often, and it gets confused with two others. Let's make it clear.
The pillars (or “old landmarks”) are the small core of truths that gave birth to the Adventist movement — what Ellen White called the old landmarks. A limited, identity-defining set.
The 28 Fundamental Beliefs are the complete statement of Adventist faith — a different, far broader thing, which you'll find at the bottom of this page.
And note: elsewhere on this site, “the four pillars” means the pastoral function (prayer · preaching · visitation · teaching). Nothing to do with the doctrinal pillars below.
Before the pillars, a question of authority: where does what we believe come from? The Adventist answer holds in three Latin words — and a fourth it rejects.
Ellen White named a precise core (Counsels to Writers and Editors, pp. 30-31, 1889). These are the four truths that, rediscovered together around 1844, brought Adventism into being:
Christ did not merely die for us: risen, he now carries out a high-priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. In 1844 the final phase of that ministry — the judgment — begins, according to the prophecy of the 2,300 evenings and mornings.
Hebrews 8:1-2 · Daniel 8:14 · Leviticus 16
A final call to the whole world before Christ returns: fear God and worship him as Creator, come out of religious confusion, refuse idolatry — then comes the harvest.
Revelation 14:6-12
Seventh-day rest is not an outdated Jewish custom: it is a memorial of creation, instituted before any nation, written into the Decalogue, honoured by Jesus himself.
Genesis 2:2-3 · Exodus 20:8-11 · Luke 4:16
Death is an unconscious sleep, awaiting the resurrection — not an immediate passage to heaven or hell. Immortality is a gift received at Christ's return, not a property of the soul.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 · John 11:11-14 · 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
In Ellen White's strict sense, the landmarks are the four above. But Adventism constantly ties its identity to two further truths, without which the four would have neither horizon nor voice:
The personal, visible, glorious return of Jesus is the summit of everything. “Adventist” comes from this: we are the people of the advent, of the waiting.
John 14:1-3 · Acts 1:11 · Titus 2:13
The prophetic gift, promised to the faithful remnant of the last days, was manifested in the ministry of Ellen White — a guide who always points back to the Bible, never above it.
Revelation 12:17 · 19:10 · Joel 2:28
The pillars are the heart; the 28 Beliefs are the whole body of Adventist doctrine, adopted by the General Conference. The Church presents them “not as a creed, but as a reflection of what the Bible teaches” — for it holds truth to be progressive. They fall into six families:
The pillars all reappear among the 28 (nos. 24, 20, 18, 25, 26…): they are its historical core. But how to relate that core to the whole is debated — a debate a leader should know (below). (The grouping into six families varies slightly across publications — especially where no. 8, the Great Controversy, falls; here it follows the official leaflet “Who are the Adventists?”.)
Among faithful Adventists one question keeps coming up: must one embrace the 28 Beliefs to be baptised, or only the Christian “core”? Two positions, equally sincere. A leader who teaches must know both — so as not to be caught out when confronted with the other.
Baptism would require embracing the Christian core (Christ, grace, repentance); the Adventist distinctives — Sabbath, sanctuary, state of the dead — would be taught afterward, in discipleship. Support: the New Testament baptises on a simple confession (“Believe on the Lord Jesus,” Acts 16:31); don't raise the threshold of entry; becoming a disciple is a lifelong work.
Others reject that split. The distinctives are not Adventist add-ons but recovered New Testament truths — as Luther recovered justification by faith. Making the Sabbath optional for baptism would “compromise the entire doctrinal corpus.” The 28 are “expressions of truth as it is in Jesus” — so the whole is presented. (John M. Fowler, Dialogue 34:2, 2022.)
The common ground — don't lose it. Both camps agree on the essential: one is not saved by doctrinal correctness, but by receiving Christ (Ephesians 2:8), and every doctrine must be Christ-centred. The disagreement is about the threshold and the pace, not about salvation.
For the leader: hold your position without caricaturing the other. And whichever camp you're in, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are taught around Christ, never as a toll at the door.
These pillars aren't preached like a checklist. Teach them around Christ: each one shows something of him (high priest, Creator, returning Saviour). Have people discover them in the text rather than recite them, as in a Bible study. And remember: people embrace truths they've seen hold together, not isolated arguments.