Thursday, March 22, 2012

Reviewing Adventist World, NAD Edition


February, 2012
Vol. 8, No. 3
http://www.adventistworld.org/

Adventist World is free online. For that reason, I only review or comment on articles that I believe to be of special interest. This includes editorials, special supplements, and NAD features not available online.

REVIEW
This issue of World has a lot to commend it. SOMETHING’S FISHY by Drs. Handysides and Landless talks “fish” and “fish oil” in their usual intelligent and informative way.

THE WITCH DOCTOR AND THE PREACHER by Wellesley Muir is a MUST READ mission story which features two of Adventism must famous missionaries, Ferdinand and Ana Stahl.

CHRIST’S HEALING TOUCH is a report about our church’s disabilities ministry that should make every member proud to be an Adventist.

MALAMULO: GOD’S OUTPOST is the inspiring story of two youthful graduates from Loma Linda’s School of Medicine, Drs. Adrienne James and Sandy Mattison, who participated with other national and foreign medical personnel in staffing Malamulo Adventist Hospital in Malawi.

THE VISION LIVES ON by Humberto M. Rasi clearly articulates Adventist educational philosophy. He also includes the following troubling statistic: “The global ratio of baptized members to students in our schools continues to decline to the point that in 2008 there were only nine students per 100 members—an ominous trend in a growing, youthful church such as ours.”

COMMENT
In Ted N. C. Wilson’s FOLLOWING THE WAY OF THE WORD: A GREAT OBLIGATION, his expressed concern is “how to keep youth and young adults in the church”. Unfortunately, he suggests the same old bromides that he believes will “inoculate” Adventist young people against worldly pursuits. He goes on to opine “that there is a worldly culture and that there is a biblical/heavenly culture that is applicable around the world”. The reference here is to music and worship.

Ted, the must fundamental problem isn’t providing young people with social outlets approved by the church or integrating “youth into the daily responsibilities and activities of the church” or encouraging them to sing hymns without electronic accompaniment. The problem is rigid formulistic church creeds and, most glaringly, official pronouncements regarding biblical literalism and the misogynistic and homophobic attitudes embraced in church doctrine and policy.

Angel Manuel Rodriguez describes the significance of THE ARK OF THE COVENANT in the following ways. It was “God’s residence among the Israelites”, it symbolizes “that God’s last word for us is mercy in the form of atonement through blood”, and it is a sign that Jesus is now interceding “for us before the ark of the Lord in the heavenly temple, in the presence of the King of the universe”.

Angel, a little humility wouldn’t hurt. I suggest a trip outside on a clear night before there is even a sliver of a moon. Look up and check out the universe.

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