Reviewing the Adventist Review

December 25, 2008
Vol. 185, No. 36

GENERAL COMMENTS
This issue is definitely Christmassy. Roy Adams has been awarded a Bouquet for his editorial, Tidbits From the Christmas Story. Megan Brauner’s interview of Mark Finley is disturbing. It’s as if Finley is still beating that old Revelation Seminar drum. For that, Mark has earned coal in his stocking.

I was fascinated by Hugo Simberg’s painting, Wounded Angel. It was the illustration that accompanied Elfrieda Volk’s essay of the same name. Its impact on me was visceral and immediate, and led me reassess my assumptions about religious symbols and the human condition.

COMMENTS
In “Year of Evangelism” to Span 18 Months, Mark Finley makes the following announcement: “It is true, evangelism is always the focus of the world church, but there are times when we give it special emphasis. We see this being unique in a number of ways. We will give it adequate promotion and emphasis, but also we're preparing materials for it. There'll be sermons prepared, called Revelation of Hope, and materials on the book of Daniel.” (Sounds like the same old stuff is being repackaged one more time!)

Congolese rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda, contrary to media reports, is not an Adventist minister and ”not regarded as an active member [of the Seventh-day Adventist Church]”

In Kids View, Rilla Taylor should be standing under a real puhutakawa tree. That plastic palm doesn’t do Rilla’s New Zealand postcard justice.