From Non Sequitur, by Wiley
(click image to enlarge)
(click image to enlarge)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Reviewing the Adventist Review
January 20, 2011
Vol. 188, No. 2
GENERAL COMMENTS
The “historical-critical” method of biblical scholarship informed Alex Cortez’ essay, READING WITH UNDERSTANDING. Petra Houmann Howe added an extra-biblical bit of information about Jesus’ childhood in YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE, and Cliff Goldstein asserted in CONFESSIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER that “unless you can answer the problem of death, you have no answer to the problem of life”.
While I’ll have an observation or two concerning the aforementioned, there will be no separate COMMENTS section in this review.
In TRANSFORMATION, an editorial by Gerald Klingbeil, he argues that “true transformation is a heart issue. It comes from within. It requires a mind-set change—not a change of social, legal, or any other circumstances.
Carlos Medley notes the impact of one small act of kindness in HE MADE A DIFFERENCE.
NEAL C. WILSON PASSES TO HIS REST is a brief, informative, and well written biography of President Wilson. Kudos to Mark A. Kellner.
The title of Melissa Breetzke essay says it all. LET THEM HAVE SEX…LATER.
The illustration that accompanies SUPER-SIZED CHURCHES by Clinton Wahlen is a not-do-subtle indication of how he feels about nonAdventist megachurches.Note to Editors: In READING WITH UNDERSTANDING by Felix Cortez uses the officially discouraged “historical-critical” method of biblical scholarship* in his effort to share his thoughts in reading the Bible with understanding.
“Epistles are not theological expositions. They are pastoral messages that contain counsels and teachings (as well as greetings, news, and other things), written to produce a specific effect in a particular audience. In other words, they were designed as a solution to a problem or a set of problems. Therefore, in order to understand a letter, we need to understand the situation or the problem it’s addressing. Every interpretation of a letter, or of any section of it, implies, then, a reconstruction of its historical situation.”
* ”The historical-critical method of explaining the Bible, however, puts the scholar or individual above the plain approach of the Scriptures and gives inappropriate license to decide what he or she perceives as truth based o the resources and education of the critic. This type of approach leads people to distrust God and His Word.” Ted Wilson, page 11, Adventist World, September 2010 www.adventistworld.org/article.php?id=838
CONFESSIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER is Clifford Goldstein’s latest installment of his Cliff’s Edge essays. In it he quotes Bryan Magee, an Oxford professor who “was overwhelmed, almost literally so, by a sense of mortality.”
“Magee wrote eloquently about his struggle with meaninglessness, the realization that no matter what he did ‘none of it would make the slightest difference to me or to anyone else when all of us were nothing, as everyone was going to be, including everyone not yet born; …that there was no meaning in any of it, no point in any of it; and that in the end everything was nothing.’ “
“Magee expressed what I’ve [Goldstein] been harping on for decades now: unless you can answer the problem of death, you have no answer to the problem of life. Death ruins everything. It voids all that comes before it. It’s not the great equalizer; it’s the great neutralizer, the great destroyer even.”
Cliff, I see things differently. Unless I can deal with the problems of life, I have no answer for the problems death presents. Life is the greatest gift, and my dead heroes live on in my mind, and they accompany me wherever I go. They provide guidance and inspiration and comfort every hour of every day. I have children and grandchildren who will live after I die. Death doesn’t frighten me. I’m part of an ecosystem in which death makes life possible.
Our separate take on existence my hinge on our theology. Christ’s life is what makes living significant for me--what He taught and the manner in which He celebrated the good and confronted the evil in the world. Christ died because men killed him, not as a blood sacrifice offered up to appease an angry god. For you, it seems, Christ’s sacrificial death is an all-important affirmation that your life has significance.
REKINDLING OUR PURPOSE reflects the outlook of Andrew W. Kerbs.
"I am only 21 years old as I write this. I am young, but I am acutely aware that I am a part of the next generation (and hopefully the last) of Seventh-day Adventists. With this in mind, it leads me to be concerned. Upon graduating from academy, I didn’t know too much about the heart and soul of Adventism. It took personal study and devotion to get me there, a journey well worth the effort, but a journey not shared with many others of my generation, as I’ve come to find.
“And so I state the problem: Though our schools may teach our doctrine, we have lost every ounce of urgency. In other words, a church that touts itself on preaching the three angels’ messages shouldn’t be celebrating its 160th birthday; it should be mourning it! We have lost (or betrayed) our identity and therefore our purpose.
“It is time we wake up. It is time we rekindle the flames of urgency and biblical fervor that once drove our church. It is time we stop riding the fence of compromise and make a choice.”
YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE by Petra Houmann Howe recounts what she learned as someone who didn’t “fit in” socially because she was a “highly mobile” missionary kid. The essay is thoughtful, and my only criticism is her extra-biblical statement that Jesus “grew up getting picked on and cuffed about by bullies in tough Galilee”.
PARTY UNLIMITED is the story, recounted by missionary to the Philippines Maritess Robles-Branson, about a birthday party for 12 that unexpectedly became a party for an entire village.
In CRESTING JOY, Associate editor Gerald A. Klingbeil shared an experience with dolphins with poetry and a photograph. The experience was “a symmetry of joy”.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Reviewing the Adventist Review
January 13, 2011
Vol. 188, No. 1
GENERAL COMMENTS
This issue is pretty standard stuff with the exception of one MUST READ story. It’s I JUST WANTED TO VOLUNTEER by volunteer hospital chaplain, Dixil Rodriguez. The writing is superb, and her account of what happened at 2:00 am in a hospital emergency room will both move you to tears and make you proud to call yourself a follower of Christ. My critical comment regarding WE’RE ALL ONE ARMY will appear at the end of the review.
REVIEWS
I UNDERSTIMATED HIS POWER by E. Edward Zinke is a testimony to what happens when you read the Bible with an open mind.
PRACTICING VERSUS PREACHING is a reminder by Wilona Karimabadi that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
The WINDS OF RENEWAL, FLAMES OF REFORMATION by Hyveth Williams is a call “to go where the needs are great” after the inspiration provided by “spirit-filled gatherings”.
I JUST WANTED TO VOLUNTEER by Dixil Rodriguez is what happened when she decided to enter the chaplain certification program. It meant that she committed herself “to on-call hours, 24-hour shifts, and a sacred ministry”. I’ve read the Review for many years, and this is the finest written testimony of what it means to be a Christian that I have encountered. If you don’t have a subscription, borrow a copy of this issue and read this story.
David Asscherick’s advice is PREPARE. PREPARE. PREPARE if you decide to run a marathon. “My marathon quest turned out to be about so much more than personal physical fitness. It has proved more important than toned calves and a lowered body mass index (BMI). It has opened a window to my soul. It has been a call to personal religion and personal revival—alone, in the inward being and in the secret heart. It has been a call to unrushed prayer, undeferred Scripture study, and unfeigned ministry. It has been a call to radical self-evaluation and a thorough spiritual inventory.”
HE CALLED, GOD ANSWERED is the improbable story of Mathew Gamble’s coversion told by Wilona Karimabadi. It begins in Jamaica. “At age 19 ‘I decided to travel to Jamaica in hopes of learning firsthand about the Rastafarian religion,’ Gamble remembers. After two weeks in the Caribbean nation he met a Rasta named Peter who provided him with all the marijuana he desired—including two pounds of the stuff stashed in his bags as he arrived in Miami. Somehow Gamble made it through customs undetected. ‘When I didn’t get caught coming through customs, I started believing for the first time in my life that a power greater than me was looking out for me,’ Gamble says. And in that highly unusual moment, his quest for truth and understanding of spiritual things was born.”
In IT’S YOUR CALL Jimmy Phillips tells us how he ended up writing a column for the Review.
AN APPEAL is an Ellen White recounts the story of Cornelius to encourage members to recognize the financial needs of the church.
Amy Lee Sheppard advises us that BUCKING THE TREND of giving up on our spiritual new year’s resolutions can be avoided if we “stay focused on Jesus”.
COMMENT
Justin McNeilus claim that WE’RE ALL ONE ARMY is a quote from Bill Knott’s interview with Justin McNeilus, president of Generation of Youth for Christ (GYC). I know I’m not in that army, in spite of McNeilus’s assertion that “this movement isn’t “conservative”. I’ve read this article and checked out GYC’s conference speakers and seminar leaders. GYC is also affiliated with Hope Media Ministry. But I’ll let McNeilus try to make his case.
“This movement isn’t “conservative”—it’s Adventist; it’s centered on the Bible; it’s right in the center of God’s will for His remnant church…We want a strong working relationship with the youth ministries of the Adventist Church…We were officially part of the delegation to the Atlanta General Conference session; we’ve been invited to serve on key committees, such as the new Revival and Reformation initiative. We’re meeting and interacting with top church leaders in youth ministries and other departments.”
I’m a survivor of the Missionary Volunteer and Youth Congress movement of the 50’s and 60’s. We too were assured by evangelists and charismatic youth leaders that they were preaching THE TRUTH, that we were living in END TIMES and that our generation was THE ONE THAT WOULD FINISH THE WORK and usher in the return of Christ. Only three of the graduating class of my Adventist high school and less than a dozen of my college companions at Pacific Union College are Adventists. And by no stretch of the imagination would any of us be comfortable at a GYC convention.
Why did the Adventist youth movement of my day fail? Because, over time, irrational doctrines breed cynicism. Because along the way, we met and even married wonderful people who weren’t Adventists. Because we read the Bible rather than the Adult Quarterly. Because calling ourselves “the elect” fostered a kind of egotism that we were ashamed of. Because of the realization that we are going to die rather than “be caught up in the air”. Because of bureaucratic pettiness. Because of the Church’s official misogyny and homophobia. Because we had children and grandchildren whom we loved more than we loved Adventism. Because we could be followers of Christ without being afraid.
What I am saying is that emotional, anti-intellectual, conservative “movements” like GYC don’t accomplish much in the long run in spite of all the hoopla. They are ineffective in achieving their own long-term goals and can be spiritually harmful to the young innocents who blame themselves for delaying the Second Advent.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Psalms 15 Prayer
The Tucson Tragedy: In memoriam
Lord
Who will live next to you in Heaven?
Who will be your neighbors?
Those with integrity
Those us do right because it is right
Those who tell the truth
Those who speak well of others
Those who are true friends
Those who treat their neighbors as themselves
Those who do not associate with evil
Those whose lives reflect your graciousness
Those who stand by their word at any cost
Those who loan money without interest to those in need
Those who cannot be bribed to harm the innocent
Those whose characters are honorable
Our prayer today
Is to be invited to live forever
In your neighborhood
Amen
ah
9/07
1/11/11
1/11/11
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