November 24, 2011
Vol. 188, No. 33
GENERAL COMMENTS
Most of what interested me in this issue was in the INBOX and WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES. However, GOOD STEWARDS OF GOOD PLANET EARTH by Joseph Sesay is a MUST READ, and TOO SWEET FOR YOU? by Docs Handsides and Landless is an excellent discussion of sugar and its place in a healthful diet. Andrew McChesney is always a fun read, and FRIENDSHIP AND GOD is a thoughtful piece by Kimberly Luste Maran that’s worth prayerful reflection. In addition I have a comment on Lael Caesar’s writing and theology in GIVER GOD.
INBOX
Thumbs up for Chris Patterson comment: “While we're often encouraged to give to this ministry or that, perhaps we could have the greatest impact by rolling up our sleeves, getting to know our neighbors, and being involved in some project that benefits us all.”
Another thumbs up for Arlene Jessop: “I read the article “No Fear” with a feeling of déjà vu. Like the author, I grew up in an Adventist home, and I also was haunted by images of sinister forces determined to persecute God's people (Adventists) for worshiping on Sabbath rather than on Sunday. I now regret all those years spent worrying about the future, and looking with suspicion at the Christians of other denominations as potential persecutors.
Thumbs down for the conspiracy promoter Dennis Priebe: “One more point of information should be on the table–a question that was not asked during the interview. For the courses taught by the [seminary] teachers interviewed, what are the non-Adventist books required or recommended? Without straightforward answers to this question, doubts and questions will continue to feed rumor mills.”
Thumbs down for fear brokers Lorna Wagner and Sandra Hayesenflug: “ If we don't recognize these deceptions for what they are, we will be swept into the camp of the enemy. None of us is safe unless we recognize our own fallibility and heed the message is given to our people to secure us from Satan's cleverly disguised deceptions.” (LW) “Our church has to wake up before it's too late.” (SH)
WORLD NEWS AND PERSPECTIVES
‘Women in Leadership’ Motion Voted in both the Trans-European and North American Divisions. Both unions have decided it is time to “promote women as pastors and leaders”.
According to Bertil Wiklander, TED president, "What works best for the TED at this time is to let all know where we stand and what we want regarding women in leadership, while doing all we can to promote women as pastors and leaders in our church within the working policy. We will continue to work with our unions to see how we can support and enable the many women who the Holy Spirit has clearly called to leadership.”
Arnold Trujillo, Vice President of the Pacific Union Conference, spoke for NAD. “We were not designed to be a monolithic organization, but one were dynamic tension is allowed to exist. We need freedom to be different, without compromising our mission. We sing in harmony, not in unison.”
Guam and Micronesia are now part of the North American Division.
Loma Linda Medical School accepted 11 medical students following the closure of their former school in Puerto Rico.
REVIEWS
GOOD STEWARDS OF GOOD PLANET EARTH by Joseph Sesay is a MUST READ. It’s loaded with facts and figures that made me weep.
“Even in the midst of recent global economic challenges, 2010 world gross domestic product (GDP) was more than US$63 trillion.2 GDP is a measure of economic output within a year. And $63 trillion is enough to give each of the 6.9 billion people on earth $9,000 worth of food, shelter, health care, clean water, and everything that makes life relatively comfortable.3 Not an overwhelming amount, you may think, given that the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty threshold for 2010 was more than $11,000.4 However, that $9,000 level of living remains beyond the dreams of billions.
“So while we ask where God is in the midst of earth’s suffering, maybe we should be asking where are the good stewards who will connect humanity to the resources God has provided. For ever since Adam and Eve were created, there has been enough, and still is, for everyone to enjoy good living.”
CHOSEN TO BE LOVED is a reminder that November is adoption awareness month. “God gave explicit commands about our duties and responsibilities to the disenfranchised, including orphans: ‘Bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied’ (Deut. 14:28, 29).”
Sugar isn’t necessarily the enemy, according to Docs Handysides and Landless. It doesn’t have to be TOO SWEET FOR YOU.
Andrew McChesney found THE PERFECT VIDEO PROJECTOR for a friend in need under circumstances that another friend called, “almost too perfect”.
According to Kimberly Luste Maran, Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate FRIENDSHIP AND GOD. It’s also a time to remember the following deaths: E. Jeane De Haven, George Virley Fuller, Robert C. Goransson, and J. Martin Peterson.
COMMENT
I find it hard to equate “Associate Editor” with the written work of Lael Caesar. (I suspect that English may be his second language.) In GIVER GOD his theology is as tortured as his prose.
“The answer is as straightforward as it is unfathomable: God made Jesus ‘who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Cor. 5:21). Simply, and inexplicably told, Jesus did not merely take victims’ places. He incarnated their toxic venom. Believing the cross, we understand that when God's wrath destroyed Jesus on the cross, he destroyed sin, for Jesus became the curse and by God's destruction obliterated the curse, to give us the blessing (Gal. 3:13, 14)”
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