Reviewing the Adventist Review

December 24, 2009
Vol. 186, No. 36
www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2009-1536

COMMENTS
This Christmas issue arrived at my house after New Year’s Day. Am I alone in consistently receiving the Review a week or more after the publication date?

I looked at the Review website when I was out of town and was prepared to comment on a piece by Angel Manuel Rodriguez in which he made the distinction between “heresy” and “apostasy”. When I received my copy of the magazine, I was happy to note that this particular BIBLE QUESTION was not included in the print issue, and I was surprised to discover that it no longer appeared in the online edition either! Way to go, whoever was responsible!

REVIEWS
Check out the inside front cover. Pictures of the Review and Adventist World editors and support staff are pictured in living color.

The reports included in WORLD NEWS IN PERSPECTIVES make me proud to be an SDA. Thousands of Africans die from AIDS every month including 500 to 600 Adventist church members. However, because AIDS International Ministry and ADRA programs teach, prevent, and provide needed medical help, thousands of other lives are saved. Adventist Global Mission programs in Siberia are active in providing shelter, drug and rehabilitation programs for the homeless.

Loma Linda has opened a Geoinformatatics Lab that uses “geospacial thinking and technology to aid in solving health problems, not one person at a time but entire groups of people at a time”. It provides information that enables health workers to better analyze and mitigate the impact of the environment on human health. Very cool!


In his editorial, COUNCIL BLUES, Gerald Klingbeil writes about his reaction to the personal and job related challenges that confronted him during the Adventist Church’s Annual Council. It brought on an attack of the “council blues”. It was then that he discovered that the best antidote for the blues was remembering the excitement of the first Christmas.

Christmas doesn't have to be bad. Sandra Blackmer tells us why in her editorial, BAD OR GOOD? In the cover story, THE STRONG GALILEAN, William G. Johnsson describes Christ’s powerful personality and how it changed the world. Hyveth Williams reminds us that when we are down, there is a strong Savior to pull us up and set our feet ON SOLID GROUND.

In A GREAT AWAKENING, Bill Knott interviews Justin Kim “about a revolutionary movement making huge strides for Christ. Call it a movement. Call it a ‘confederation of possibilities.’ Call it a Spirit-inspired meeting of minds and hearts. Or just call it GYC—Generation of Youth for Christ. The eight-year-old young adult organization has grown from a handful of idealistic college students to a powerful force for Bible study, evangelism, and mission service in the life of North American Adventism—and now around the world”.

Ellen G. White suggests that AS WE GIVE GIFTS at Christmas and “bestow upon one another tokens of love and remembrance, we should not. . .forget God, our best friend”. In his feature article, YES! AND GOOD RIDDANCE! Associate editor Roy Adams takes a sobering look back at 2009, and, while decrying the tragedies of the past year, voices his “concern for the poor and marginalized in society”.

HERE’S TO YOU, PVA, Jimmy Phillips offers the following tribute to his alma mater, Platte Valley Academy, now merged with Enterprise Academy in Central Kansas. “So here’s to you, Platte Valley Academy. It is fitting that where your buildings once stood, crops will forever prosper under the hand of the Master.”

THAT ARMY, RIGHTLY TRAINED by GYC leader, Justin McNeilus offers readers this reminder: “Adventist youth are ready to steer to the church into the future. On every continent of the globe young people are asking, sometimes begging, to be more involved in this movement called Seventh-day Adventism. . .Why is this phenomenon” happening now? Because we are weary of amusement, tired of PowerPoint, annoyed by unfulfilling music, and weighed down by committees.”

This issue of KIDSVIEW is the best ever, even though I continue to question its popularity with students above the third grade.