Quote from the Seventh-day Adventist Church:

At a General Conference worship, Jan. 9, 1976, General Conference President Robert H. Pierson said:

When you and I joined the General Conference family something special happened to us. When we begin work in the General Conference office we become part of what inspiration describes as God’s highest authority on earth. … All of us are something special in God’s sight. Our relationship to our church, to the world field, to one another, and to the work entrusted to us is unique. We are part of ‘the highest authority that God has on earth.’… This office is the headquarters of our Commanding Officer — the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. These three buildings are not ordinary buildings…. These buildings constitute a consecrated place where God, through His appointed servants —you, me — directs His worldwide work. … As those of us here on the General Conference staff continue our unique service for Him, let us remember that we are daily, hourly, momentarily a part of a group of leaders that constitute the highest authority of God upon earth…

I guess the Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Evangelicals and others are not part of the Body of Christ? And what about the great reformers and preachers of the past that we studied about in our Bible classes?

A triumphalistic church and a triumphalistic leadership will not be quick to repent and to openly acknowledge mistakes. Unqualified admission that mistakes have been made are rare in Adventism. A thoughtful observer could not but see that this Rome-like ecclesiology springs from a soteriology of the same character.

Quote from the Seventh-day Adventist Church:

"Structure. At the local conference level the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a representative form of government. Above that level the polity of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is hierarchical: Authority flows downward and members in local congregations have virtually no voice. Above that level, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a closed, self-operating, and self-perpetuating system similar to the Roman Catholic Church, in which those in authority are not responsible to lower echelons. Above the local conference level, those in authority are not elected by, representative of, or administratively accountable to, local congregations or the membership at large." (Raymond Cottrell, associate editor of the SDA Bible Commentary, Spectrum, March 1984, page 42)