Thursday, October 4, 2012
Reviewing the Adventist Review
September 13, 2012
Vol. 189, No.25
http://www.adventistreview.org/index.php?issue=2012-1525
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
Bill Knott’s editorial, HOLLY DISAGREEMENTS, is his best effort in a long time. It would be exciting if Adventist traditions, and even practical theology, were discussed, even debated, in ye goode olde Review. Here’s hoping for that bright new day!
Fortunately, the disagreements between believers are usually over more substantial things than chocolate. Though we are loath to admit it, we read the Word through the lens of our own experiences with God; we tell our stories of how grace works with grateful enthusiasm, even as we listen to another’s very different story and wonder how it came to be. The most vital facts of the life we are called to live together are the respect we show to those who “know” differently and our mutual surrender to the authority of God’s Word that ought to be more important than our own life stories and opinions…
In the coming weeks this magazine will highlight numerous articles and insights under the banner “Called Together.” These interviews, letters, features, and editorials are specifically designed “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14, NKJV), a time when the vigor of our disagreements over the appropriateness of ordaining women to gospel ministry and the process to follow in making that decision have threatened our ability to stay in civil conversation with each other.
I am encouraged by the report in “World News & Perspectives” that THOUSANDS OF NEW ADVENTISTS BAPTIZED IN A SINGLE DAY. That means that lots of people believe that membership in the Adventist Church is a good thing. I also like the fact that membership in our Christian fellowship, at least in Papua New Guinea is not limited to those whose theological purity regarding the 28 Fundamental Beliefs is a determining factor in church membership. It would be thrilling if such were the case in North America and Europe. Sabbath school and church services might then be devoted to an open discussion of doctrinal issues.
There were two things that bother me in Sandra Blackmer’s report of the events that transpired at the North American Division’s Teacher’s Convention. MOVING HEARTS AND MINDS UPWARD is an admirable goal. However, Carlton Byrd’s remark, “If you don’t believe in the Adventist message, you shouldn’t be teaching in the Adventist school system” sounded scary to me. My question: “Who is it that decides what the ‘Adventist message’ is?” This comment leaves the door open for individual teacher persecution by church members whose definition of the “Adventist message” is in conflict with the teacher’s.
In addition, the photograph and caption identifying NAD Prayer Ministry’s Stanley Ponniah as walking past all 6,800 chairs in the auditorium and praying for the people who will be sitting in them smacks of an irrational, almost occult, notion of spiritual influence.
Dixil Rodriquez does not disappoint. In GOD’S STARS she watches early morning stars with a little girl from a cancer ward and reflects that we are all patients of sorts. Jesus identified Himself with the suffering of humanity to provide the final solution. Looking after one another, this we do as we witness the consummation of the work of deliverance He has initiated.
MEMORIES AND LESSONS FROM SEPTEMBER 11 is a MUST READ. Darold Digger was a Chaplain who was at his desk in the Navy Annex near the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. His story is easily worth the price of a Review subscription.
CAN HUMANS KNOW THE FUTURE? is a schizophrenic piece that cautions members not to get hooked on predictions of the end. But then, Ranko Stefanovic predicts it anyway!
Christ’s second coming will be biblical prophecy’s ultimate fulfillment. But although this event opens the door to the end of sin and the beginning of God’s eternal kingdom of wholeness, joy, and justice, we must shun speculations about its date, and the sequential events preceding it. At the same time, Jesus identified signs that will show He is near (Matt. 24:4-14), signs that will be evident in all spheres: natural, political/social, moral, and religious (see Rev. 13-16).
The intensification of these signs in today’s physically, morally, and religiously deteriorating conditions, in context of the astonishing advance of worldwide proclamation of the gospel, are a clear indication of the imminence of Christ’s coming.
Monte Sahlin reports on Adventist CHURCH TRENDS. Did you know that the 2010 U.S. Religion Census shows that 88 percent of Adventists belong to a church located in a metropolitan area? Other research suggests that as many as one fifth of these may actually live outside the boundaries of the metro area and commute to church, but that would still mean that 70 percent of Adventists live in metro areas and that fewer than one third live in small towns and rural areas. This is a very significant shift over the past quarter century.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Reviewing Adventist World, NAD Edition
September, 2012
Vol. 8, No. 9
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
This issue is dedicated to Adventist families. I’ll summarize. Be good Adventist adults, good Adventist parents, send your children to Adventist schools, pray that they marry good heterosexual Adventists (But be nice to people who have had the misfortune to marry nonAdventists), attend church regularly, have daily Bible study, pray earnestly, and do everything you can to keep your family from being influenced by the world outside the Adventist bubble. I have just two other irreverent comments.
ONE WHOLE HUMANITY: Third International Bible Conference Focuses On Biblical Anthropology as reported by Mark Kellner, was held in Israel. It might just as well have been held in Silver Spring. For Adventist theologians and so called “anthropologists”, the ancient world is anathema. For them, Ancient Middle East settings are 4000-year-old Biblical props.
Ted was there, of course, to make sure that Delegates to the 10-day conference strongly affirmed the president’s challenge.
Wilson called on educators to lead a positive revolution on your campuses—a revolution back to the Bible with an historicist position and with an historical-biblical approach. His message also stressed the importance of the Adventist understanding of the sanctuary service, which, he said, holds the ultimate answer to the two distortions of Christian belief, legalism and ‘cheap grace.’
And then there is Fundamental Belief Number 23.
Marriage was divinely established in Eden and affirmed by Jesus to be a lifelong union between a man and a woman in loving companionship. For the Christian a marriage commitment is to God as well as to the spouse, and should be entered into only between partners who share a common faith. Mutual love, honor, respect, and responsibility are the fabric of this relationship, which is to reflect the love, sanctity, closeness, and permanence of the relationship between Christ and His church. Regarding divorce, Jesus taught that the person who divorces a spouse, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery. Although some family relationships may fall short of the ideal, marriage partners who fully commit themselves to each other in Christ may achieve loving unity through the guidance of the Spirit and the nurture of the church…
Number 23 needs a rewrite, and I’d be glad to offer some corrective help!
- Marriage is not discussed in either of the creation stories found in Genesis.
- No two persons share “a common faith.”
- There are a number of good reasons why divorce is a good idea.
- Marriage partners, straight or LGBT, can’t always “achieve loving unity” no matter what help and assistance is provided, temporal or spiritual.
- Second marriages, by definition, are not adulterous.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Reviewing Adventist Today
September-October, 2012
Vol. 20, No. 4
WWW.ATODAY.ORG
GENERAL COMMENTS
After the last print edition, there was nowhere to go but up, and I’m happy to report that this issue is definitely up! I am particularly delighted with the easy access to the magazine’s pdf file! It’s easily worth the subscription price. Kudos to all concerned.
The title of J. David Newman’s editorial, GC PRESIDENT’S PLEA FOR UNITY WAS REALLY FOR UNIFORMITY says it all. I was particularly struck by his side note.
On a side note. The only power the General Conference has over a union is to remove it from the sisterhood of union conferences. But that poses a dilemma for the president. His membership resides in the Columbia Union. If the union is declared out of conformity with the will of the General Conference and removed, then Wilson would lose his membership in the Adventist Church. Since he would no longer be a member, he would have to resign as General Conference president.
KINGLY POWER: IS IT FINDING A PLACE IN THE ADVENTIST CHURCH? by Stanley E. Patterson is a thoughtful and thorough discussion of the politics of Adventism as related to the issue of women’s ordination, and a defense of the Union’s rights to ordain whom they wish. An Ellen White quote summarizes the argument:
It has been a necessity to organize union conferences, that the General Conference shall not exercise dictation over all the separate conferences.
Patterson concludes:
Proponents of the centralized model of authority challenged the newly adopted representative model at the 1903 General Conference Session. The delegates defended the idea that it was the people’s church and held to the distributed model of governance and rejected what was referred by some as “kingly authority.” It should not be ignored, however, that the tendency to control rather than to trust the voice of the body remains a temptation that has an insidious and persistent pull upon those called to lead. Remember
Plato’s tyrant; he started out as a protector! We must ask ourselves and, yes, even assess our organization to determine whether controlling behavior is impacting the church in a systemic manner. Are we still honoring the spirit of the 1901 reorganization? There is evidence that the church is functionally moving toward an
Episcopal model as the representative structure crumbles from lack of maintenance.
Patterson follows this article with another. SIX POINTS ON THE ISSUE OF ORDINATION OF WOMEN in which he discusses church structure, hierarchical permission issues, the histories of the various commutes appointed by the GC to study the issue of women’s ordination, conflicts in the church’s working policies, the meaning of the word, “unity”, and interpretations of biblical authority. He concludes:
Given that this matter has been under study for more than 60 years, some see the current action as further stalling tactics by a body that has authority to advise on the issue but does not have the constituted authority to make the decision for implementation. While the General Conference in session is recognized as the highest authority in the world church, it is not entitled to impose its actions on other levels of the church, in which it does not have constituted authority.
Following the Patterson articles is UNITY AND AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH, the presentation made to the July 29 Columbia Union Constituency by Raj, Attiken, President of the Ohio Conference. He makes a persuasive case for what he calls, “Doing What’s Right, and ends his presentation with the following words:
We conclude that the action today by this body, to approve the ordination of persons to the gospel ministry without regard to gender, is within the rightful purview of this body and that to wait for another level of the organization to address it would be to abdicate our responsibility and privilege.
We conclude that the world church, at multiple General Conference sessions and Annual Council sessions, has amply demonstrated its inability to act decisively in this matter. We have no evidence that the regional and cultural biases have
changed on this subject.
We conclude that our action does not intrude upon or usurp the authority of any other level of the organization, but respects our collective commitment to delegated and distributed authority.
We conclude that the proposed action is not a violation of any biblical teaching or theological principle.
We conclude that gender-based discrimination in ministerial ordination is a practice that we must not condone any longer in the Columbia Union Conference.
We conclude that the action we are proposing is morally and ethically the right thing to do—and that the right time to do the right thing is right now.
In DOES ADRA HAVE A FUTURE? Monte Sahlin reviews the history of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency and concludes that the recent shakeup in administration is due to personality conflicts at GC headquarters and a significant turbulence in its strategic environment, including issues that will likely force major changes in the way it operates.
Sahlin approves the choice of Elder Robert Rawson, ADRA’s interim administrator, but recommends the selection of a new leader that will stir things up. In addition:
All of the board members and the entire staff need to spend two solid weeks in small groups brainstorming: What are the issues? What do we need to do? They need to listen to some hard-to-hear input from people capable of providing a fresh, outside assessment. They need to spend some quality time together in prayer.
GOD ENCOUNTERS is an interview with Adventist Pastor A. Allen Martin, one of the co-founders of a nondenominational organization whose aim is to help young people to establish a strong connection with God. It has become an international program with scheduled events designed to build an online community. www.GODencounters.org is an open door to that fellowship.
A QUANTUM PARADOX OF TIME AND PROVIDENCE: DEATH BEFORE SIN AND MAN’S FALL AFTERWARD AS ITS CAUSE by Darrel Lindensmith is a title in search of coherent thought.
In MAKING PEACE WITH CHANGE, when Alden Thompson opines, Adventists resist admitting change in beliefs and practices…We know that change comes. We also need to know that it usually comes very slowly, he’s stating the obvious. However, when he asserts that typically changes happen quietly, without fanfare—like the dropping of circumcision from the list of requirements at the first General Conference in Acts 15, that statement certainly understates the kerfuffle that preceded that change!
LETTERS
Gary E. Fraser, MD, Ph.D. provides an analysis of The China Study critique in the last issue. Fraser claims Dr. Roger N. Trubey doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Reader, you’re on your own.
Adventist Man’s Satirical Look At Adventist Life should be funnier than it is. I’m not sure why. PERHAPS COMMENTERS NEEDED! while attempting to caricature varieties of online gadflies, the Man’s attempt at humor may be an unintended reminder of the exasperating, mind numbing, albeit addictive attempt to discover pearls of wisdom in the unending comments of commenters.
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