Thursday, November 29, 2012
Reviewing Adventist World, NAD Edition
November, 2012
Vol. 8, No. 11
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. Online readers can now read the entire print edition. Just click on the cover in the bottom left of the home page, and every page of the entire magazine is yours! Editors, way to go!
GENERAL COMMENTS
Check out World on line by clicking on the cover in the bottom left of the home page. It’s magical! High-resolution computer screens produce every page in vibrant, high definition color as you turn the pages in the virtual magazine.
This issue is an enjoyable read. Articles as written so the reader can determine his/her interest level in the first or second paragraph. However, if you are indecisive about taking the time to read the entire piece, check out the last paragraph.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Don’t miss 100 YEARS OF GIVING by Gina Wahlen, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE by Handysides and Landless, and TRANSLATOR OF THE WORD. Mikhail Kulakov, Jr., leads a team of scholars in translating a new version of the Bible into modern Russian.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Adventist Entertainment Channels
According to independent research, this is a singularly ineffective form of evangelism.
Reviewing the Adventist Review
October 25, 2012
Vol. 189, No. 30
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1530
NOTE TO READERS:
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES is an important section of each magazine. I don’t usually report on its contents because it is available at the online address I provide with every review.
COMMENTS
DIVERSITY IN THE CHURCH: WHAT WE ARE DOING TO EMBRACE IT featuring red, black, green, blue, and yellow M&M’s is the promise on the cover page.
Five diversity issues were discussed at the October 31 Diversity Celebration Summit at Silver Spring: gender, disability, age, race, and culture. Ann Roda, Richard Mouzon, Andrew W. Kerbs, Calvin Rock, and Jimmy Shwe presented the issues and, with the exception of Ann Roda (gender diversity), provided the context in which it was discussed.
There was no mention of when the findings of this conference would be reported or the weight given to their recommendations. For these reasons, I smell a PR stunt rather than a serious attempt to discover the advantages and problems inherent in an increasingly diverse membership. I hope I’m wrong.
It’s too bad than Kimberly Luste Maran felt the need to counsel Jessica how to dress when “checking out” Adventist churches in her area, so that she would experience A GOOD VISIT.
It continues to be unfortunate that there is no middle ground in the creation issue. Uncertainty is not an Adventist option. Delbert W. Baker makes that crystal clear in ORIGINS: BELIEFS HAVE IMPLICATIONS, PART 2. Creation truth is interrelated with salvation truth.
Deleise Cole-Wilson is a theologian that certainly doesn’t speak for me in her essay, and our ideas about God would make it impossible for us to be TOGETHER PERFECT! In our lives we know how much we each deserve death for all of the things we constantly do wrong. If we had been around when bears ate people for being disobedient or disrespectful, many of us would not be here.
I emailed Andrew McChesney regarding his inability to “witness” to a Russian government official when Andrew asked him, WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? And the man replied, “I’m reading a book called About Prayer.” Our correspondence follows:
Andy Hanson
Upon reflection, did it occur to you that it was the government official that brought God into the conversation? Were you so busy thinking about how you could "witness" that you missed the fact that the official might have been witnessing to you? God is at work in the world.
Andy McChesney
I wholeheartedly concur with you! Warm regards.
Clifford Goldstein has written his first play. Shadow Men: A Play (Warburton, Victoria: Signs Publishing Company, 2012), 108 pages, A$14.95. The setting is Death Row. Chantal Klingbeil gives it a positive review.
There is a MUST READ article in this issue. MISSION FOCUSED LEARNING by Richard H. Hart provides an outstanding blueprint for effective teaching and learning in today’s world.
With the information explosion now all around us, this paradigm is fundamentally changing. Educators are being urged to create “learning environments” in which students can explore in their own way, at their own speed, driven by their own desire to learn and understand. To be effective, these learning environments require careful planning and orchestrating. Ultimately they will build the foundation for lifelong learning—an approach to education that becomes a pattern for life. It recognizes the broad spectrum of learning styles that we all have and lets students develop and maximize their own pathway to discovery and understanding.
Vol. 189, No. 30
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1530
NOTE TO READERS:
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES is an important section of each magazine. I don’t usually report on its contents because it is available at the online address I provide with every review.
COMMENTS
DIVERSITY IN THE CHURCH: WHAT WE ARE DOING TO EMBRACE IT featuring red, black, green, blue, and yellow M&M’s is the promise on the cover page.
Five diversity issues were discussed at the October 31 Diversity Celebration Summit at Silver Spring: gender, disability, age, race, and culture. Ann Roda, Richard Mouzon, Andrew W. Kerbs, Calvin Rock, and Jimmy Shwe presented the issues and, with the exception of Ann Roda (gender diversity), provided the context in which it was discussed.
There was no mention of when the findings of this conference would be reported or the weight given to their recommendations. For these reasons, I smell a PR stunt rather than a serious attempt to discover the advantages and problems inherent in an increasingly diverse membership. I hope I’m wrong.
It’s too bad than Kimberly Luste Maran felt the need to counsel Jessica how to dress when “checking out” Adventist churches in her area, so that she would experience A GOOD VISIT.
It continues to be unfortunate that there is no middle ground in the creation issue. Uncertainty is not an Adventist option. Delbert W. Baker makes that crystal clear in ORIGINS: BELIEFS HAVE IMPLICATIONS, PART 2. Creation truth is interrelated with salvation truth.
Deleise Cole-Wilson is a theologian that certainly doesn’t speak for me in her essay, and our ideas about God would make it impossible for us to be TOGETHER PERFECT! In our lives we know how much we each deserve death for all of the things we constantly do wrong. If we had been around when bears ate people for being disobedient or disrespectful, many of us would not be here.
I emailed Andrew McChesney regarding his inability to “witness” to a Russian government official when Andrew asked him, WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? And the man replied, “I’m reading a book called About Prayer.” Our correspondence follows:
Andy Hanson
Upon reflection, did it occur to you that it was the government official that brought God into the conversation? Were you so busy thinking about how you could "witness" that you missed the fact that the official might have been witnessing to you? God is at work in the world.
Andy McChesney
I wholeheartedly concur with you! Warm regards.
Clifford Goldstein has written his first play. Shadow Men: A Play (Warburton, Victoria: Signs Publishing Company, 2012), 108 pages, A$14.95. The setting is Death Row. Chantal Klingbeil gives it a positive review.
There is a MUST READ article in this issue. MISSION FOCUSED LEARNING by Richard H. Hart provides an outstanding blueprint for effective teaching and learning in today’s world.
With the information explosion now all around us, this paradigm is fundamentally changing. Educators are being urged to create “learning environments” in which students can explore in their own way, at their own speed, driven by their own desire to learn and understand. To be effective, these learning environments require careful planning and orchestrating. Ultimately they will build the foundation for lifelong learning—an approach to education that becomes a pattern for life. It recognizes the broad spectrum of learning styles that we all have and lets students develop and maximize their own pathway to discovery and understanding.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Reviewing the Adventist Review
October 18, 2012
Vol. 189, No.29
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1529
NOTE TO READERS:
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES is an important section of each magazine. I don’t usually report on its contents because it is available at the online address I provide with every review.
GENERAL COMMENTS
This issue leaves the reader with a positive feeling that there will be greater honesty and generosity in the way we as Adventists conduct ourselves.
Bill Knott begins things with his editorial, HOLY CONVERSATIONS.
The way forward for an Advent people too easily divided by our differences in culture, language, history, and opinion is also inescapably dialogical, even when good dialogue requires the services of a translator or a mediator. A candid self-examination reminds me that not every preference of mine should be doctrine for my sister. Some ideas, however much I like them, are not central to the faith of Jesus. They must correctly be identified as in the negotiable margins that allow two different individuals to hold a civil conversation, talk about their common truths, and even agree to respectfully differ when necessary. Any faith community in which every opinion is sacralized ceases to be holy—or wholly Christ’s.
On the next page, Sandra Blackmer echoes Knott’s concerns.
We each choose how to respond to less-than-ideal circumstances, to criticism, to controversy. We determine whether to become defensive, to lash back, to make excuses, or to try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective and ask ourselves if there’s something we can do to improve things.
Joanne Davis, speaking at the GLOBAL MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS SUMMIT, argued:
Now is the time to make every change necessary to reach the world. And Greg Dunn echoed the refrain: “If ever there was a time to break out of the mold and to step up our game, it is now.”
Education, not doctrine, is celebrated with the LAUNCH OF THE CHURCH’S FIFTH MEDICAL SCHOOL IN PERU.
Clearly Cedric Vine was LISTENING TO THE SPIRIT when he wrote the following:
It is the theologians and administrators who play catch-up, seeking to interpret and understand the acts of the Spirit in light of Scripture…The preamble to the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Statement of Fundamental Beliefs captures nicely the dynamic role of the Spirit in guiding the church: “These beliefs…constitute the church’s understanding and expression of the teachings of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God’s Holy Word… While Scripture remains a constant, our interpretation of Scripture may require further growth and development. This truth requires that as a church, whatever procedures we use to deal with internal issues, we must always surrender to the dynamic leadership of the Holy Spirit. He will lead us into “all truth” (John 16:13)—if we are willing to be led.
Honesty and humility triumph as Cliff describes the death of his parents in a DEATH IN THE FAMILY.
My father died this summer. He shot his wife in the head, crawled into bed next to her, put the gun in his mouth, and shot himself. He was 86, almost blind, had leukemia, emphysema (the man had smoked for 72 years), and such terrible shakes that he could barely put food in his mouth. (He had joked with his brother-in-law a few weeks before their deaths, “If I don’t do this soon, I’m going to miss.”) His wife of 34 years had, among other things, kidney failure, severe osteoporosis, and spinal cancer. Life had become miserable, even worse…
My dad’s ending wasn't an Adventist one. But he wasn't an Adventist, so what did I expect? How glad I am, though, that a loving God, with a compassion I can’t conceive, is judge, and that I will be able to say, “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (Rev. 16:7), whatever His judgment on my father is.
RESPONDING TO THE CALL OF MINISTRY by Ashley Batiste. It is a MUST READ account of Christian service that is the definition of worldwide Gospel Ministry. The National Association for the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS) ministry doesn't stop at responding to national disasters. Instead, it goes beyond to bringing hope, love, and support to remote, less-known places.
Andy Nash asks an important question in MAX LUCADO’S CONFESSION: Would my own church leaders feel safe being this honest with their congregations—with their colleagues? Or is this honesty only for someone else?
It pains me to report that there is a canker in the rose of this excellent, generously Christian issue. THE INCOMPLETE GOSPEL by Andrew W. Kerbs discounts the life and teachings of Christ and is shockingly parochial. His argument: Without the fuller understanding of the work accomplished in the sanctuary, what happened at Calvary would be little more than a moving story of another murdered prophet.
Vol. 189, No.29
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1529
NOTE TO READERS:
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES is an important section of each magazine. I don’t usually report on its contents because it is available at the online address I provide with every review.
GENERAL COMMENTS
This issue leaves the reader with a positive feeling that there will be greater honesty and generosity in the way we as Adventists conduct ourselves.
Bill Knott begins things with his editorial, HOLY CONVERSATIONS.
The way forward for an Advent people too easily divided by our differences in culture, language, history, and opinion is also inescapably dialogical, even when good dialogue requires the services of a translator or a mediator. A candid self-examination reminds me that not every preference of mine should be doctrine for my sister. Some ideas, however much I like them, are not central to the faith of Jesus. They must correctly be identified as in the negotiable margins that allow two different individuals to hold a civil conversation, talk about their common truths, and even agree to respectfully differ when necessary. Any faith community in which every opinion is sacralized ceases to be holy—or wholly Christ’s.
On the next page, Sandra Blackmer echoes Knott’s concerns.
We each choose how to respond to less-than-ideal circumstances, to criticism, to controversy. We determine whether to become defensive, to lash back, to make excuses, or to try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective and ask ourselves if there’s something we can do to improve things.
Joanne Davis, speaking at the GLOBAL MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS SUMMIT, argued:
Now is the time to make every change necessary to reach the world. And Greg Dunn echoed the refrain: “If ever there was a time to break out of the mold and to step up our game, it is now.”
Education, not doctrine, is celebrated with the LAUNCH OF THE CHURCH’S FIFTH MEDICAL SCHOOL IN PERU.
Clearly Cedric Vine was LISTENING TO THE SPIRIT when he wrote the following:
It is the theologians and administrators who play catch-up, seeking to interpret and understand the acts of the Spirit in light of Scripture…The preamble to the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Statement of Fundamental Beliefs captures nicely the dynamic role of the Spirit in guiding the church: “These beliefs…constitute the church’s understanding and expression of the teachings of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God’s Holy Word… While Scripture remains a constant, our interpretation of Scripture may require further growth and development. This truth requires that as a church, whatever procedures we use to deal with internal issues, we must always surrender to the dynamic leadership of the Holy Spirit. He will lead us into “all truth” (John 16:13)—if we are willing to be led.
Honesty and humility triumph as Cliff describes the death of his parents in a DEATH IN THE FAMILY.
My father died this summer. He shot his wife in the head, crawled into bed next to her, put the gun in his mouth, and shot himself. He was 86, almost blind, had leukemia, emphysema (the man had smoked for 72 years), and such terrible shakes that he could barely put food in his mouth. (He had joked with his brother-in-law a few weeks before their deaths, “If I don’t do this soon, I’m going to miss.”) His wife of 34 years had, among other things, kidney failure, severe osteoporosis, and spinal cancer. Life had become miserable, even worse…
My dad’s ending wasn't an Adventist one. But he wasn't an Adventist, so what did I expect? How glad I am, though, that a loving God, with a compassion I can’t conceive, is judge, and that I will be able to say, “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (Rev. 16:7), whatever His judgment on my father is.
RESPONDING TO THE CALL OF MINISTRY by Ashley Batiste. It is a MUST READ account of Christian service that is the definition of worldwide Gospel Ministry. The National Association for the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS) ministry doesn't stop at responding to national disasters. Instead, it goes beyond to bringing hope, love, and support to remote, less-known places.
Andy Nash asks an important question in MAX LUCADO’S CONFESSION: Would my own church leaders feel safe being this honest with their congregations—with their colleagues? Or is this honesty only for someone else?
It pains me to report that there is a canker in the rose of this excellent, generously Christian issue. THE INCOMPLETE GOSPEL by Andrew W. Kerbs discounts the life and teachings of Christ and is shockingly parochial. His argument: Without the fuller understanding of the work accomplished in the sanctuary, what happened at Calvary would be little more than a moving story of another murdered prophet.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Reviewing the Anventist Review
October 11, 2012
Vol. 189, No.28
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1526
NOTE TO READERS:
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES is an important section of each magazine. I don’t usually report on its contents because it is available at the online address I provide with every review.
GENERAL COMMENTS
There is a fascinating juxtaposition of theological differences in the editorials that appear across from each other on pages 6 and 7. On page 6, Mark Kellner argues that LOVE ISN’T ALL YOU NEED. On page 7, Stephen Chavez opines that EVEN OUR ADVERSARIES will know that we are followers of Christ by the way we love and serve each other.
This theological difference of opinion raises an important question. Are Adventists Seventh-day Adventist Christians or Christian Seventh-day Adventists? In other words, which is more important, being a Seventh-day Adventist or being a Christian? How important is our trademarked “brand” of Christianity when it comes to issues of community welfare and self-renouncing love?
When FLORIDA ADVENTST HOSPITAL’S COLLEGE BECAME THE NEWEST DENOMINATIONAL UNIVERSITY, university officials said that they added the word “Adventist” to enhance the school’s reputation as one with a Christian mission. One has to wonder about the efficacy of this “official” reasoning given that the Adventist hospitals in Florida, part of the Adventist Health System, face an impending federal lawsuit contending that routine billing fraud occurred in the emergency departments from 2001 to 2008 and possibly longer…This new allegation "fits like a glove” with the original complaint…filed in July 2010, claiming that Florida Hospital used improper coding from 1995 to 2009 to overbill Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare, all federal government payers, for radiology services. The suit also alleges that the hospital routinely overbilled for a drug — octreotide — used to enhance MRI scans by billing for larger doses than were actually administered. It also alleges that bills were issued for computer-aided-detection analyses that were never performed. Orlando Sentinel, Wed. Oct. 17, 2012
In THE GIRL WITH DIRTY BLOND HAIR, Jimmy Phillips puts “Christian” before “Seventh-day Adventist.” I don’t know about you, but my ultimate goal is not to further a political agenda. My mission is not just to win friends, but to win people for the kingdom. Lately I’ve realized that criticizing others and creating controversy—even when I’m technically right—doesn’t work toward that end.
“TRUST IS THE FOUNDATION OF UNITY” is clearly a “Seventh-day Adventist” before “Christian” piece. Bill Knott’s interview with Artur Stele, along with an historical review of Adventist policy regarding the ordination of women, is informative but nowhere in the four-page spread do the words “Christ” or “Christian” appear. “God” is also a nonexistent word.
Lael Caeser’s “FIGURING OUT CHRISTIAN” is a poorly written, jingoistic definition of “Christian” that seems to place “Christian” before “Seventh-day Adventist,” but his willingness to lump people living in regions of the United States and members of other faiths as somehow inferior of character and intellect, challenges the usual definition of the word.
"Christian” is not so because sociologists apply it as a label. Nor is it so because interviewees so self-identify. Jesus, recorded and reported in the Word, Jesus, reproduced in the witness of word and life among His followers—that is Christian. “Christian” has no further need of definition.
Against today’s cringing apology for the weakness of the gospel before New York’s materialism, or California’s narcissism, or India’s mysticism, or Tibet’s Buddhism, Aristides contends that there is no way of missing the gospel’s power.
PROVIDENCE by Dixil Rodriquez is a magical story of faith restored in an embittered old woman. It’s definitely in the “Christian” before “Seventh-day Adventist” category.
Sandra Blakmer’s BULLYING IN ADVENTIST SCHOOLS? is clearly a “Christian” before “Seventh-day Adventist” interview with Debra Pershing, and a MUST READ for everyone working with young people in Adventist schools.
The INBOX features letters to the editor regarding Herbert Blomstedt’s essay on appropriate church music “Present Truth in Music" (July 12, 2012) and Andy Nash’s “The Missing Story in ‘Seventh-Gay Adventists,’ ” (July 19, 2012). The Review is to be congratulated for encouraging a dialog on these controversial issues.
Finally, a personal suggestion. The Review’s paid readership averaged 22,600 for the past 12 months. (p. 25) This is the “flagship journal” for 1.1 million Adventist members in the North American Division. This means that less than 3% of NAD members subscribe. The question is, “Why?” Editors, researching this question might prove instructive.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Reviewing Adventist World, NAD Edition
October, 2012
Vol. 8, No. 10
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. Online readers can now read the entire print edition. Just click on the cover in the bottom left of the home page, and every page of the entire magazine is yours! Editors, way to go!
GENERAL COMMENTS
I’m confused! A United Nation’s representative reports that CONGOLESE ADVENTIST REFUGEES ARE STREAMING INTO RWANDA, but many are refusing transport on Saturday! What are these members being taught about Sabbath keeping?
Ted N. C. Wilson will contest to the bitter end the right of individual Divisions to ordain women. And he may stake his presidency on his conviction that all the Divisions of the church must agree to ordain women before official church policy can be changed. To that end, Wilson is advancing what he calls “Following the Biblical Way.” WORKING THROUGH OUR DIFFERENCES is an administrative, tour-de-force designed to give him the ability to call the shots as the President of the Executive Committee that meets between General Conference sessions.
Docs Handysides and Landless demystify PARKINSON’S DISEASE.
Unfortunately, THE POWERFUL BREATH, Frank M. Hasel’s riff on Fundamental Doctrine #5, is cliché riddled, poorly written, and more confusing than enlightening.
FOR PEOPLE BY PEOPLE: A VISION FOR MEDICAL EVANGELISM reported by Chantal and Gerald Kingbeil is a MUST READ for anyone interested an evangelistic project that showcases Adventist community outreach at its very best.
Nathan Gordon Thomas is interested in obscure church history. PART II: MICHAEL BELINA CZECHOWSKI chronicles the European saga of this American born evangelist that preached The Three Angel’s Message in the 1860’s after he lost the official sponsorship of the church.
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