Why are Seventh-Day Adventists considered Christian?

[ChristTheWay]

This is in response to Michelle Arnold who answered the question whether SDAs are a cult or whether they are genuinely Christian. What makes them validly baptized Christians when they hold to doctrines like mortality of the soul condemned by the Fifth Council of Lateran just before the Reformation? They also deny that hell is eternal and affirm that the wicked are annihilated in the end or that the soul of the wicked ultimately ceases to exist.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Unlike Evangelicals, who dismiss SDAs as “cultists” because they do not subscribe fully to Evangelical Christianity, the Catholic Church does not condition recognition of a group’s Christian status on whether or not it is fully correct in its understanding of doctrine. (If it did so, Evangelical Christianity would not measure up as “Christian” in the estimation of the Catholic Church since Evangelical Christianity is also doctrinally flawed.) The Church recognizes an ecclesial community to be ontologically Christian if it has a valid baptism. If the ecclesial community believes in the divinity of Christ and in the Trinity, then it is considered theologically Christian. Seventh-Day Adventists pass both those tests in the eyes of the Catholic Church.