News
News Briefs for May 25, 2018 - News reports from Austria; Andrews University; the Galápagos Islands; Portland, Oregon; Samoa; Escondido Adventist Academy; and Papua New Guinea Pastor Reinhard Schwab (age 40) was elected president of the Austrian Union of Churches, the Adventist union conference encompassing Austria, at its constituency meeting on May 13. Schwab has been the youth director. Stefan Guiliani (age 27), a church […]- Jamaican Adventists To Release Child Protection Manual to Protect Against Sexual Predators in Church - 24 May 2018 | The Adventist Church in Jamaica is planning to release a child protection policy manual for use in the denomination’s churches, schools and institutions. A key focus of the manual will be the screening of volunteers and workers who work with children. Plans are for the document to be released before the […]
- Hong Kong Adventist Health Foundation Raises $637K With “Women of Hope” Fundraiser - 23 May 2018 | According to a Facebook post by Hong Kong Adventist Health Foundation, the organization’s 5th annual Women of Hope (WOH) Awards Fundraiser Luncheon raised over HK$5 million (USD 637,139) in donations to help patients without financial means and good access to care by providing them with PET/CT scans, MRIs, Tomotherapy, Mammogram and […]
- Adventist Churches in London Join Demonstrations Against Violence - 22 May 2018 | Two Adventist congregations in London (U.K.) have joined recent demonstrations against gun and knife violence. On May 7 the Pathfinder Club drum corps of the Hackney church led the march in the community in the west of metro London which included the mayor and town council members as well as religious […]
- Loma Linda Mental Health Awareness 5K Draws Over 500 Runners - 22 May 2018 | On Sunday, May 20, over 500 runners participated in the second annual “Stand up to Stigma” 5K run/walk sponsored by the Loma Linda University Health Behavioral Medicine Center in Redlands, California. “We want to raise awareness of issues surrounding mental health,” said the administrator of the Behavioral Medicine Center, Edward Field, […]
- Growing, Creative Young Adult Initiative Brings Together Adventists in Los Angeles - 21 May 2018 | The Converge Art and Music Festival began as a Friday night worship service in the summer of 2014 in the Los Angeles area. Initially, it was a fellowship of mostly young adults welcoming the Sabbath. In 2016, the group organized the first annual Art & Music Festival. The goal was to […]
- British Academic Discusses the “7th Day Black Single Woman” - 21 May 2018 | Val Bernard, a lecturer at Dauphine University London and Bracknell and Wokingham College in the UK, is sharing findings from her PhD entitled It’s Not Good to Be Alone, Singleness and the 7th Day Black Single Woman. Britain’s The Voice weekly newspaper (which caters to the UK’s Afro-Carribean community) reported on […]
- Spicer University Administrators, Alleged Fake Degree Holders, Missing - 21 May 2018 | Times of India reported yesterday that two days after the police filed a case against the vice chancellor and two top ranking officials of Spicer Adventist University for allegedly claiming fake Doctor of Philosophy degrees, no one knew their whereabouts. They were not at the university or at their homes, and their relatives claimed […]
- Royal Wedding Rendition of “Stand By Me” Featured Adventist Soloist - 20 May 2018 | Paul Lee, an Adventist who is often linked to the award-winning London Adventist Chorale, was the featured soloist during the Royal Wedding performance of Stand By Me on Saturday. Lee performed as part of The Kingdom Choir in front of Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and about 600 guests at St. George’s […]
- News Briefs for May 18, 2018 - News reports from Taiwan, Jamaica, Walla Walla University, Chicago, Loma Linda University, Colorado Springs, Colorado and Hutchinson, Minnesota. Australia’s The Guardian reported that an Iranian refugee and her son who had both received treatment at Taiwan Adventist Hospital in Taipei, have been flown back to detention in Nauru despite psychiatric advice that the son not be returned due […]
- Unity Oversight Committee Has Started Outline of New Compliance Document - 17 May 2018 | Adventist World announced that the General Conference’s Unity Oversight Committee has started the process of outlining the basic components of a compliance process due to be discussed in October at Annual Council 2018. Mike Ryan, chair of the group, characterized the most recent May 14 meeting of the group as positive and productive. […]
- New Zealand Adventist on Trial for Allegedly Raping Former Jehovah’s Witness - 16 May 2018 | An Adventist man in New Zealand is standing trial on 16 charges including two of rape, two of kidnapping and four of assault. New Zealand’s Stuff news site reported that Teina Toru met the alleged victim, a former Jehovah’s Witness, on a religious dating site. Prosecutors accuse Toru of “violent and […]
Commentary
- Adventist Tomorrow: Militant Pacifism - By Jack Hoehn There is a confluence of ideas coming from within and without the Seventh-day Adventist church that suggest directions this church can go to fulfill its theology and mission. Jack wants to talk with you about some of them. This article is #6, and is about recapturing Christian non-violence. The other articles in […]
- Are We Flexible Enough to Carry Out God’s Plans? - by William Vercio | 23 May 2018 | Recently I was invited to take a survey about the Seventh-day Adventist church and my feelings about various aspects of it. One of the questions was about whether I would send my children to a Seventh-day Adventist school. I went to Seventh-day Adventist schools through medical […]
- Why Did Jesus Have to Die? For God’s Sake or for Our Sake? - Richard W. Coffen | 20 May 2017 | Throughout life, Ancient Near Eastern males accrued a savings account of acquired honor, which they felt duty-bound to maintain. Shechem, a Canaanite Don Juan, had raped Dinah. Her brothers, Simeon and Levi, wreaked vengeance upon the male inhabitants to restore the diminished honor of Jacob’s family (Genesis […]
- Little Matchstick Me - by Rebecca Murdock | 17 May 2018 | “Ladies and Gentleman, make sure your seat backs and folding trays are in their full, upright position. Flight attendants, prepare for take-off.” I gripped my armrests and settled further into my seat as the cabin lights dimmed, and the airplane engines began to vibrate through my chest. […]
- Evaluating the Outcome of the Paul Ratsara Degree Inquiries - by Alvin Masarira | 16 May 2018 | A number of Seventh-day Adventist church matters are ending up in the public courts of law around the world, even when the contesting parties are all members, entities and institutions of the church. This though the Bible and spirit of prophecy counsel against this. The biblical testimony in […]
- Why I Think an All-Powerful God Might Not Exist - By Stephen Ferguson | 16 May 2018 | I am increasingly convinced that we view God’s supposed power all backwards. I don’t think Lucifer would have bothered starting his rebellion if he thought he was up against an all-powerful divine being. In fact, I suspect God may be the weakest being in the entire universe. […]
- The Kingdom of Heaven - by John Bryan | 11 May 2018 | How would you explain color to a man who’s never seen before? With what words would you describe the sounds of music to someone who is deaf? Pingelap is a small circular island in the Pacific, an atoll, forming part of the country of Micronesia. A portion […]
- An Adventist Today Logo - 9 May 2018 | Chapter 1, by Loren Seibold Awhile back I was attending a General Conference Executive Committee meeting in Silver Spring. It was mid-afternoon, about an hour after lunch. The discussion on the dais was a matter of considerable pith and moment to our work: Mark Finley on the opportunities to evangelize people […]
- The Day My Church Broke My Heart - By Elle Berry | 8 May 2018 I remember July 2015 as a miserably hot month. Temperatures were circulating well into the triple digits every day, and since my sister and I had spent the end of June in San Francisco, I recall our July return to Walla Walla as being a particularly painful transition. […]
- Seventh-day Adventists and Abortion - by Ronald Lawson | 8 May 2018 | The Seventh-day Adventist Church is conservative in its interpretation of the Bible, and typically upholds conservative standards on family issues, so much so that it has adopted strict rules concerning divorce and remarriage, and has stated that practicing homosexuals are not acceptable as members. However, on the […]
- How Much Can We Trust Adventist Consciences? - by Loren Seibold | 6 May 2018 | When I was a teen, one Adventist teaching that seemed extraordinarily clear to me was that Seventh-day Adventists were, and I supposed always would be, noncombatants in military service. This was the Vietnam era, and I knew Adventist young men who got drafted and served, not as […]
- Reading What’s There: The Ten Bridesmaids - by Steven Siciliano | 4 May 2018 | This series of articles, called “Reading What’s There,” intends to show how studying biblical passages in their own context can provide insights beyond those that can be derived from other methods. Here we survey representative expositions of Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids, a passage in Matthew […]
Features
- Email with the Church Organist - To comment, click here.
- Recent Adventist Today Articles by Jack Hoehn - ADVENTISM TOMORROW – by Jack Hoehn #1.) Reading Your Bible with Greater Care. #2. ) Open to the Openness of God. #3.) Against All Abuse, For all Love (the Bible and homosexual people.) #4.) Very Political. #5.) Rehabilitating Satan. #6.) Miltant Pacifism _______________________________________________ Other Recent Articles by Jack: “Death on St. Valentine’s Day, Slow Resurrection” […]
- Adventist Today Looks to Future During 25th Anniversary Celebration - 22 April 2018 | Two events marked the Loma Linda, California-based 25th Anniversary Celebration for Adventist Today on Saturday, April 21. Over 100 people attended the first event, a Commemorative Lectureship presented by David Neff, the former editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. The event was co-sponsored by AT and Loma Linda University’s Humanities Program. It took place […]
- Adventist Today’s 25th Anniversary Celebration To Take Place Tomorrow in Loma Linda - 20 April 2018 | Tomorrow, Saturday, April 21, Adventist Today editorial staff, members and friends will celebrate the independent journalism ministry’s 25th Anniversary in Loma Linda, California. Two events: a commemorative lecture and a banquet, will mark the milestone for the Adventist publication that was established to provide a source for independent journalism and innovative […]
- Baptismal Vows - To comment, click here.
- International Children’s Care – Following God’s command to care for the orphans - By Lindsey Painter | 13 April 2018 | In 1976 a terrible earthquake hit Guatemala. Thousands of people died and left thousands of children orphaned. Pastor Ken and Mrs. Alcyon Fleck’s hearts were so moved by the plight of these homeless children. They wanted to do something. Pastor Fleck took an early retirement, and with […]
- Why did Adventists Adopt Radical Positions on Some Social Justice Issues, then Abandon Them? - by Ronald Lawson | 11 April 2018 | The paper I’m introducing you to here is titled “Sectarian Groups and Social Issues: Broadening Church-Sect Theory.” I have been working on a series of four books as the main product of my major study of global Adventism. When I was planning the second volume, tentatively titled […]
- The Crusader - To comment, click here.
- Adventist Sociology: Church, Government and Military Service - by Ronald Lawson | 23 March 2018 | Three more of my papers, two that were originally published in academic journals and one in Spectrum, have been uploaded to my website for you to read. Readers may find them both fascinating and important. One of these is “Church and State at Home and Abroad: The […]
- Selective Culpability - To comment, click here.
- Why a Facebook Group about Modesty? - Recently we noticed a Facebook group, administered by two Seventh-day Adventist men, called “Modesty: A Call to Stand Apart,” that had grown to over 3,000 followers. We asked Wyatt Allen, one of the originators of the group, to talk about it. Wyatt is a senior evangelist for Amazing Facts. Why did you feel a need to […]
- The Inspiring Stephen Hawking - by Warren Nelson | 14 March 2018 | I’ve spent a lot of time, over the course of my life, thinking about various disasters that could befall my person and how I would react. Oliver Sack’s book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was probably the most terrifying book I’ve ever read, […]
Poetry & Arts
- The Kingdom of Heaven - by John Bryan | 11 May 2018 | How would you explain color to a man who’s never seen before? With what words would you describe the sounds of music to someone who is deaf? Pingelap is a small circular island in the Pacific, an atoll, forming part of the country of Micronesia. A portion […]
- Somewhere: Spiritual Lessons from West Side Story - by S.M. Chen | 26 April 2018 | “There’s a place for us…” —from “Somewhere,” song in 1957 Broadway musical “West Side Story” One of the finer achievements of the late musician (conductor and composer) Leonard Bernstein was the music he composed for “West Side Story.” In collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, lyricist, he created for […]
- Revelation 2:17: A Poem - by Carolyn Shultz | 13 April 2018 | A smooth white stone. Mystery-white like Melville’ s whale? Alabaster— Or perhaps a new-made onyx Forged in the last prolific fires That purge and permute the once clean earth To Earth again. Inscribed, John says. Ur-Hebrew? Apocalyptic Greek? I think I’d fancy Strange new shapes and lines […]
- Lest We Forget - “Love is so short; forgetting is so long.” ~Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet (1904-1973), Nobel laureate (1971) in literature “… before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” ~Isaiah 65:24 I take a number of pills daily. These include a multivitamin formulation, chewable megavitamin C, vitamin D, L-lysine, and […]
- Something for the POTUS - by S.M. Chen | 23 February 2018 | I don’t know if Donald Trump reads USA TODAY. The back page of the first section of the 2/13/18 issue caught my attention. Someone named Tom Blair took out a full page ad entitled “Mr. President,” with the subheading: “In anticipation of Presidents’ Day (February 19) consider […]
- Ken Lauren: An Appreciation - by S.M. Chen | 12 February 2018 | Dr. Ken Lauren died not long ago of an injury sustained in Costa Rica, while he was working as a volunteer on the construction of a church. A report was posted here at Adventist Today. I visited Peru in 2005 at the invitation of my brother, taking […]
- Jesus’ Response to Nationalism & Racism - by Lars Justinen | 2 February 2018 | There was an immigration problem back in Jesus’ day. It seems the culture then was steeped in nationalism and racism. Especially hated in Israel were the “Muslims” of their day: the Samaritans. While sharing the same roots in Father Abraham, the Jews viewed the Samaritans as […]
- Doing Nothing Because You Can Do Only a Little? - by S.M. Chen | 22 January 2018 | “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” —Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish statesman and philosopher The story is told of an old man who walks the beach. He is in the habit of doing this before he begins […]
- Sunrise, Kapaa 1/11/18 - by S.M. Chen | 12 January 2018 | Some ancients bent a knee to sun. With outstretched arms they welcomed it And turned their face to catch its light And heat that warmed them to the bone, That took away the chill within. We, too, have shared the wonder of A rising sun in flaming […]
- More Rain - By S.M. Chen | 21 December 2017 | “The rain falls on the just And also on the unjust fella But mainly on the just Because the unjust steals the just’s umbrella.” —Heywood Broun, 20th century American journalist When, a few months ago, I wrote an essay, “Rain”, little could […]
- A Light to Lead Us Home - by Sharan Bennett | 20 December 2017 | Christmas, 2017 enters a chaotic and gloomy world that seems unprepared to receive it. But has our world every been much different? Ellen White says of the first Christmas: “The earth was dark through misapprehension of God.” (The Desire of Ages, p.22) And “While the light of […]
- On Learning from Bad Decisions - By S.M. Chen “There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.” – Abraham Lincoln “Every why hath a […]
All
- Adventist Tomorrow: Militant Pacifism - By Jack Hoehn There is a confluence of ideas coming from within and without the Seventh-day Adventist church that suggest directions this church can go to fulfill its theology and mission. Jack wants to talk with you about some of them. This article is #6, and is about recapturing Christian non-violence. The other articles in […]
- News Briefs for May 25, 2018 - News reports from Austria; Andrews University; the Galápagos Islands; Portland, Oregon; Samoa; Escondido Adventist Academy; and Papua New Guinea Pastor Reinhard Schwab (age 40) was elected president of the Austrian Union of Churches, the Adventist union conference encompassing Austria, at its constituency meeting on May 13. Schwab has been the youth director. Stefan Guiliani (age 27), a church […]
- Jamaican Adventists To Release Child Protection Manual to Protect Against Sexual Predators in Church - 24 May 2018 | The Adventist Church in Jamaica is planning to release a child protection policy manual for use in the denomination’s churches, schools and institutions. A key focus of the manual will be the screening of volunteers and workers who work with children. Plans are for the document to be released before the […]
- Hong Kong Adventist Health Foundation Raises $637K With “Women of Hope” Fundraiser - 23 May 2018 | According to a Facebook post by Hong Kong Adventist Health Foundation, the organization’s 5th annual Women of Hope (WOH) Awards Fundraiser Luncheon raised over HK$5 million (USD 637,139) in donations to help patients without financial means and good access to care by providing them with PET/CT scans, MRIs, Tomotherapy, Mammogram and […]
- Adventist Churches in London Join Demonstrations Against Violence - 22 May 2018 | Two Adventist congregations in London (U.K.) have joined recent demonstrations against gun and knife violence. On May 7 the Pathfinder Club drum corps of the Hackney church led the march in the community in the west of metro London which included the mayor and town council members as well as religious […]
- Are We Flexible Enough to Carry Out God’s Plans? - by William Vercio | 23 May 2018 | Recently I was invited to take a survey about the Seventh-day Adventist church and my feelings about various aspects of it. One of the questions was about whether I would send my children to a Seventh-day Adventist school. I went to Seventh-day Adventist schools through medical […]
- Loma Linda Mental Health Awareness 5K Draws Over 500 Runners - 22 May 2018 | On Sunday, May 20, over 500 runners participated in the second annual “Stand up to Stigma” 5K run/walk sponsored by the Loma Linda University Health Behavioral Medicine Center in Redlands, California. “We want to raise awareness of issues surrounding mental health,” said the administrator of the Behavioral Medicine Center, Edward Field, […]
- Growing, Creative Young Adult Initiative Brings Together Adventists in Los Angeles - 21 May 2018 | The Converge Art and Music Festival began as a Friday night worship service in the summer of 2014 in the Los Angeles area. Initially, it was a fellowship of mostly young adults welcoming the Sabbath. In 2016, the group organized the first annual Art & Music Festival. The goal was to […]
- British Academic Discusses the “7th Day Black Single Woman” - 21 May 2018 | Val Bernard, a lecturer at Dauphine University London and Bracknell and Wokingham College in the UK, is sharing findings from her PhD entitled It’s Not Good to Be Alone, Singleness and the 7th Day Black Single Woman. Britain’s The Voice weekly newspaper (which caters to the UK’s Afro-Carribean community) reported on […]
- Spicer University Administrators, Alleged Fake Degree Holders, Missing - 21 May 2018 | Times of India reported yesterday that two days after the police filed a case against the vice chancellor and two top ranking officials of Spicer Adventist University for allegedly claiming fake Doctor of Philosophy degrees, no one knew their whereabouts. They were not at the university or at their homes, and their relatives claimed […]
- Royal Wedding Rendition of “Stand By Me” Featured Adventist Soloist - 20 May 2018 | Paul Lee, an Adventist who is often linked to the award-winning London Adventist Chorale, was the featured soloist during the Royal Wedding performance of Stand By Me on Saturday. Lee performed as part of The Kingdom Choir in front of Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and about 600 guests at St. George’s […]
- Why Did Jesus Have to Die? For God’s Sake or for Our Sake? - Richard W. Coffen | 20 May 2017 | Throughout life, Ancient Near Eastern males accrued a savings account of acquired honor, which they felt duty-bound to maintain. Shechem, a Canaanite Don Juan, had raped Dinah. Her brothers, Simeon and Levi, wreaked vengeance upon the male inhabitants to restore the diminished honor of Jacob’s family (Genesis […]