Theologically Conservative, Methodologically Progressive — The Biblical Framework for Adventist Adaptive Capacity

This meta-LRP establishes the foundational analytical framework that governs all AdventistPulse research. It examines how the Seventh-day Adventist Church — and Christianity more broadly — navigates the distinction between non-negotiable theological foundations and flexible methodological application. The evidence reveals a consistent pattern across two millennia: communities that maintain theological conservatism while embracing methodological innovation tend to grow. Communities that sacralise their methods (treating cultural habits as doctrine) tend to ossify and die. Communities that use methodological flexibility as a vehicle for theological revision tend to hollow out and collapse. Jesus modelled this paradigm. Ellen White inherited and applied it. The healthiest periods of Adventist history have embodied it. The most painful crises — 1888, Glacier View, the ordination debate, COVID responses, the 2025 GC Session health statement controversy — can each be understood as failures to properly distinguish theology from methodology. This LRP provides the taxonomy. Every subsequent AdventistPulse research project references it. **Key Finding:** The theology-methodology distinction is not merely an academic framework — it is the single most predictive variable for denominational health across traditions. Denominations that maintain it grow. Those that collapse it — in either direction — decline.