In Figure 1 world population and Seven th-day Adventist membership are plotted in a manner that places on a straight line data having a constant percentage of increase. Throughout this plot a given lineal vertical increment corresponds to the same percentage increase. Accordingly an increase from 100,000 to one million in this figure covers the same vertical distance as does an increase from 10,000 to 100,000.
In order to save space and permit easier visual comparison, the world population figures have been divided by 1,000 for plotting in Figure 1, placing the estimated world population in 1965 at approximately 3 billion. Over the past five decades data points for the world population fall very closely on a line corresponding to an annual increase of 1.08 per cent.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church was organized in 1863 with a membership of approximately 3,500. By 1870 this membership had grown to 5,440, a total increase of 55.2 per cent, which could have been produced by a steady annual growth rate of 6.48 per cent. Adventist membership development from 1870 to 1965 is traced in detail by the lower solid line of Figure 1. A net loss in church membership occurred in 1871 and in 1902. No membership report for 1874 is available. From 1902 through 1965 Seventh-day Adventist world membership has increased at an average rate of 5 per cent per year. Projected growth of Adventist membership at a 5 per cent rate is traced by the dashed line in Figure 1. The conformity of actual growth to idealized constant 5 percent rate of growth over approximately seventy years is remarkable.
The fluctuations in Seventh-day Adventist growth rate are shown more clearly in Figure 2. Since the 1874 membership is unknown, for the years 1874 and 1875 the growth rate is taken to be 16.82 percent, the constant rate which would have produced the 36.54 per cent increase which was experienced between 1873 and 1875.
The first question in the introduction to this presentation can be easily answered. For the past seventy years the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been growing approximately four and one-half times as rapidly as the world population. If the present 5.00 and 1.08 per cent annual growth rates were to be maintained, approximately 200 years from now the Seventh-day Adventist Church would have a membership equal to the then expected world population (26 billion). We do not expect to convert the world any more than we expect our great-great-great-great-greatgrandchildren to see our Lord's second coming delayed 200 years!
Answers to the second question posed in the introduction will be left to individuals who are familiar with Seventh-day Adventists and world history. A correlation between the percentage changes plotted in Figure 2 and the various factors which have influenced world attitudes and Adventist activity might yield some observations that could be helpful for the future direction of our gospel witness. In 1909 Ellen G. White stated:
If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tenderhearted and pitiful, there would be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one.—Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 189.
With a 100-to-1 increase, a 5 per cent growth rate becomes a 5-fold growth rate. Although it may not be sound exegesis to give such precise treatment of a statement that was possibly only intended for general emphasis, it is nonetheless instructive to consider what would be accomplished if the Seventh-day Adventist Church membership were to increase by 5 converts per member each year. For each member there would be 2 members a fifth of a year later on the average; those 2 would multiply to 4 by the end of a succeeding fifth of a year; the 4 would become 8 by the time three fifths of a year had passed; at the end of one year each original member would have become 32; in the following year another 32-fold increase would bring the total up to 1,024; over a three-year period the total multiplication would be 32,768. In 1909 the Seventh-day Adventist membership reached 100,931. Starting with a membership of 100,000 a 5-fold increase per member per year would produce a membership of over 3 billion in slightly less than three years. The entire world population in 1912 was probably not over 1.7 billion.
A more conservative approach can be taken by considering a net 5-fold increase in membership by the end of a one-year period. The cumulative effect of such an increase is 5-fold in one year, 25-fold in two years, 125-fold in three years, 15,625-fold in six years, and 78,125-fold in seven years. According to this computation the Adventist membership in 1909 could have embraced the world population in slightly over six years.
Seeking a less incomprehensible possibility we may turn to a statement issued by Mrs. White in 1876:
Had the believers in the truth purified their minds by obeying it, had they felt the importance of knowledge and refinement of manners in Christ's work, where one soul has been saved there might have been twenty. —/bid., vol. 4, p. 68.
A 20-to-1 increase in a 5 per cent growth rate would produce one convert per member each year. At this rate the membership would double in one year, quadruple in two years, increase 8-fold by the end of three years, double again during the fourth year to reach a total increase of 16-fold, becoming 1,024 times greater at the end of ten years, and increase 32,768 times over a fifteen-year period. With such a growth the 10,044 Seventh-day Adventists in 1876 would have embraced the entire world population by 1894.
It is of passing interest to note that in the two years preceding Mrs. White's 20-fold statement the church's growth rate averaged 16.82 per cent per year and in the two years preceding her 100-fold statement the average was 3.34 per cent per year. Twenty times 0.1682 equals 3.36, one hundred times 0.0334 equals 3.34. Is this a chance coincidence or does it reflect divine wisdom expressed through the Lord's messenger? Computing on the basis of a net 3.35-fold gain per year there would be 4.35 members at the end of a year for each one at its beginning (one plus the 3.35 gain) and in slightly over five years the present Adventist membership would grow to equal the world population.
The conclusion seems to be inescapable that the gospel witness can be completed speedily in this generation. What can the church do to terminate the unnecessary delay of Christ's return? In 1900, when the Seventh-day Adventist membership was increasing at the rate of 18.38 per cent per year, the Lord's messenger bore the following testimony:
The Lord does not now work to bring many souls into the truth because of the church members who have never been converted and those who were once converted but have backslidden.—Ibid., vol. 6, p. 371.
The following statement was made concerning a specific Seventh-day Adventist church in 1876:
A holy God will not bring out souls to the truth to come under such an influence as has existed in the church. Our heavenly Father is too wise to bring souls into the truth to be molded by the influence of these men [two church leaders] who are unconsecrated in heart and life.—Ibid., vol. 4, p. 238.
The emphasis of these statements on God's leading in producing a membership growth is worthy of special consideration. It appears that when God has a satisfactory model of Christianity He will draw sincere men and women to it.
From the foregoing considerations, it seems firmly established that Jesus can come very quickly when the Seventh-day Adventist Church comes to an appropriate spiritual condition. On page 69 of Christ's Object Lessons the servant of the Lord states, "When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own." Later on in the same book (page 340) we are told, "When those who profess to serve God follow Christ's example, practicing the principles of the law in their daily life; when every act bears witness that they love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves, then will the church have power to move the world."
It is a pleasure for the author to acknowledge his indebtedness to Jesse 0. Gibson and Mrs. Janet Lamb, of the General Conference Statistical Department, for assistance in securing and checking the membership data required for this presentation.—R. H. BROWN.
