"In 1905, Albion Fox Ballenger, a popular Seventh-day Adventist preacher, was released from employment for advocating views in conflict with Adventist teaching about Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. Three quarters of a century later, another popular Adventist preacher again questioned the church's sanctuary doctrine, with similar results. In some important ways, the Ballenger case may be seen as a foreshadowing historical footnote to a doctrinal controversy that shook Adventism in the early 1980s." "Thus, in this meticulously researched volume, Calvin W. Edwards and Gary Land collaborate to provide the first in-depth scholarly examination of a revealing, if nearly forgotten, episode in Adventist history. Acting in part as a biography of the public figure of A. F. Ballenger, Seeker After Light also necessarily presents a portion of the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church within the context of the larger story of religion in the United States. Through an investigation of the denomination's dabbling in such things as the Holiness Movement and faith healing, it becomes clear that neither Ballenger nor the Seventh-day Adventist Church was isolated from American religion and culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved