Reviewing the Adventist Review

December 18, 2008
Vol. 185, No. 35

GENERAL COMMENTS
This is a “safe” issue in that it is primarily devotional and provides the reader with no original insights into the way we Adventists lead our lives. The cover article by Larry R. Evans, Two New Questions the Church Must Ask, was a disappointment. “Where are you in your relationship with God?” and “Where are you in your relationship with your brother?” summarize age-old questions, not new ones.

Two news articles deserve inspirational Bouquets.

Adventists’ Aid Welcomed by Mozambique’s President chronicles Adventist work in Mozambique. Literacy and fighting malaria are among the goals set for the 500,000 Mozambiquan SDA’s. “Maranatha is currently building 1,001 community centers throughout Mozambique. While Adventist congregations will use the buildings for worship on Saturdays, they will function as literacy centers, schools, and medical clinics throughout the week.” Church members “have joined other religious, government, and nongovernment groups in a coalition coordinated by ADRA” to improve health and human services.

Fear-Free Education: Adventists Aid in Human Rights Struggle, is an account of the amazing work of the Kajiado Adventist Rehabilitation and Education Center in Nairobi, Kenya. “Rajmund Dabrowski, director of communication for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, visited Kajiado and talked with the center’s director, Jacinta Loki. The interview. . .connects the center’s mission to provide fear-free Christian education with the acute need to repair basic human rights. These rights are often overshadowed by traditional Masai beliefs and practices that leave scores of Masai girls without education and force them into early marriages.”

COMMENTS
While this issue is primarily devotional, some quotes deserve attention.

Mark A. Kellner reports that Students in Adventist schools in North America] are doing above average work, but the claim that these schools “produce students who. . .[score] above their potential” seems a bit unrealistic.

Larry R. Evans provides an amazing quote by Ellen White in his cover article. “Any man, be he minister or layman, who seeks to compel or control the reason of any other man, becomes an agent of Satan, to do his work, and in the sight of the heavenly universe he bears the mark of Cain” (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 1087).

Bread for Bread tells the story of Peter and Suzie Ventner’s South African evangelistic campaigns in the 1930’s. This picture is worth at least 1000 words.