We still have to be careful even creating a limit to the number of suposedly wrong doctrines before a person or group is "unsaved". I would say it is certain doctrines that deny the Gospel or who God is that would count, and even then, we have to be truthful as to whether it really denies the Gospel.
Heresy #1--Redefining the grace of salvation to include the works of the law
Heresy #2--Sabbath-Keeping
Heresy #3--Soul Sleep
Heresy #4--Annihilation of the Wicked
Heresy #5--Ellen White as a Prophetess and Inspired Commentator
Heresy #6--Investigative Judgment
Heresy #7--Misuse of the Mosaic Law
#1, 2 and 7 involve a dispute as to which laws we are to keep, and I have certainly been battling Bob, and some others in the past on that. But just because you do not believe we need to keep those laws does not mean that a person is denying salvation by faith just because he believes they are mandatory. Just think if you ran across a Christian who believed adultery was OK. You would probably deny he was saved, but then he could accuse you of "Redefining the grace of salvation to include the works of the law". You would respond that
that was different; the Bible clearly condemns adultery. If a person has "faith", he would not do that. But then the sabbatarian believes the same thing about the sabbath. Those are but two separate commands of the same Law. The difference is in which laws we believe are still in effect. The SDA's as much as they argue with us, at least grant us the benefit of the doubt and say we are still saved, and won't have the mark of the Beast until the issue is made more clear. I reject that too, but I cannot say it is a denial of the Gospel.
The old-line IFB type fundamentalists, on the other hand, have a bunch of rules that are the same way.
You (DHK), for instance, have argued against contemporary music, with God accepting only traditional music, particularly in Church; which is one of their key doctrines of "separation". Now you do not claim that a person who listens to rock is "unsaved"; but just "disobedient". But that's exactly what the SDA's say about not keeping the sabbath. But which issue, as a matter of "obedience" can you actually find in the Bible? (This could never be answered in the old music debates!)
On the other hand, the music doctrine, rather then being biblical, is also ultimately tied in with cultural superiority, though most are unaware, or refuse to see it. And let's not forget how racism was more openly advocated int he past by "conservative Christians", and many still hold onto it in different ways. Many argue that America was a Christian nation ruined by all the "godless", "immoral", "multicultural", "liberal", etc. (in other words; everyone else's sins but theirs) in recent generations. Others are KJVO, with one claiming "All truth is English truth". Then other old rules in the past, such as meticulous skirt and hair measurements, total beard and mustache bans (as to not look like the "godless" or something like that). Yet most of our apologists have never condemned them like that. No, they are looked up to as the "standard" modern Christians, society and "the cults" have fallen from, and should return to!
However, all of these doctrines chipping away at the core of the Gospel, and pointing to some form of self-righteousness, and self-exaltation; often in the name of the works of the Law. Yet the same people will condemn the sabbatarians for "denying the Gospel of Grace in favor of the works of the Law". But
at least the sabbath was actually apart of the Law! That means there is more scriptural support in the Bible for the sabbath than for any of those doctrines.
So the SDA's, if you want to stack up wrong doctrines, are far less worse than some of the very circle of Christians who define the "orthodoxy" they are judged by!
#2 and 3 are at best debatable. Those do not change the Gospel of how one may be saved, or who God is. But since they remove some of the fear element, that is why they are non-negotiable to fundamentalists. Even people like Billy Graham, who do not teach annihilation, but claim the fire may be symbolic of some other pain are railed against by old-liners are having denied the faith. "How can we win souls without being able to scare them with Hell?" But that is not what the Gospel depends on.
#2 in particular can be argued as what necessitates a Resurrection, while the standard view of spirits/souls floating straight to Heaven or Hell, being raised out millennia later, and
then judged, then then sent back to where they were, renders the Resurrection redundant. It basically leads to the common cartoon image of Heaven or Hell as the person being judged at Peter's gate immediately, and then taking an escalator or elevator up or down to your destination.
So to judge the SDA's as unsaved on that one, again, is ridiculous, particularly considering all of the less-biblical or completely unbiblical doctrines many so-called "orthodox" or "fundamentalists" believe.
#5 and 6 I say are ridiculous doctrines that have no biblical basis, and many SDA's probably don't even dwell on them. But again, with all of the other fluff believed under the banner of "orthodox Protestatantism"; I don't see how those can be salvation issues either.
One aspect of #1 touches upon the OSAS debate (the so-called "saved by faith, but not without works", and "perseverance" arguments), and that would be the closest to denying salvation by faith, but even then, there are many others, including right here who agree with that. (But because they keep Sunday and believe in the immortal soul, they get over). That doctrine we may see as
implying a denial of salvation by faith, but you can argue that it is simply ceasing to believe that revokes salvation, and it would not be based on works.
The Catholic doctrines can be seen as explicitly denying salvation by faith, as well as making other gods out of inanimate objects and dead saints; and they even appeal to extrabiblical sources to justify all of this. So there is a better case with them. But since they believe in the Trinity, Sunday, and the immortal soul, some, such as our leading apologists have even gone soft on them. SDA's get an appendix in Kingdom of the Cults, where their "culthood" is fairly weighed; and in other books, are considered, full blown, one of the "four major cults". But all of these books left out the RCC. (It is mostly the findamentalists who have been consistent in condemning them, and Hanegraaf has now stepped up separate literature on them where the old CRI under Martin did not).
JW's and Mormons change who Jesus is, as well as flatly denying salvation by faith. So there is no dispute on them.
But for the SDA's, I would agree with CRI's balanced assessment of them.
