20 April 2025

Comments of the Week April 14-20

Comments of the Week April 14-20

“Time for leadership that knows how to build shalom by leading and living lovingly with differences.” –Kaye Judge on the quote by William G. Johnsson

Comments on Should Adventists Embrace the Nicene Creed?, Pascal’s Wager, When a Door Closes and a Window Doesn’t Open, When Silence Becomes Complicity, and Aunt Sevvy

Should Adventists Embrace the Nicene Creed?

“I know I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but here is a reminder of what one of the pioneers of our church thought about creeds. From the Wikipedia page on J.N. Loughborough:

‘One well-known quote by Loughborough appeared in an October 8, 1861, Review and Herald article (now the Adventist Review), in which he was quoted speaking against the formation of creeds:

“The first step of apostasy is to get up a creed, telling us what we shall believe. The second is, to make that creed a test of fellowship. The third is to try members by that creed. The fourth to denounce as heretics those who do not believe that creed. And fifth, to commence persecution against such.'”

(end quote)

“Also, as those who study such things and are much smarter than me have noted, the Sermon on the Mount contains much instruction on how to live, and very little on what to believe. 300 years later, the Nicene Creed is all about what to believe, and has nothing on how to live.”

–Aldona Jones

Pascal’s Wager: Does It Work?

“A problem with Pascal’s wager is that I can’t turn belief on and off. I can turn on and off my profession of belief, but actual belief and profession of belief are not the same thing, are they? I believe what I do and don’t believe based on a world view developed from my observations and experiences over many decades.“

–Arthur Klym

When the Door Shuts and the Window Doesn’t Open

“I have experienced a couple of miracles in my life, notably at times when it could not be said that I deserved or had earned them. Mostly any more my prayers consist primarily of apologizing to God for misrepresenting Him so badly so much of the time, thanking Him for His graciousness and mercy to me, and asking Him to indulge me while I make my feeble efforts to stay close to Him and just accept His presence in my life and His care for me no matter what happens.”

–Don Drury

“Time for leadership that knows how to build shalom by leading and living lovingly with differences.”

–Kaye Judge

When Silence Becomes Complicity: What an Adventist Partnership with Charlie Kirk Signals to the World

“Jesus said the world will know our faith by our love, not our fundamental beliefs. Many Adventists support and are blindly loyal to a traitor with idolatry despite his shockingly low criminal character. Sadly, our faith is now associated with corruption, division, deception, exclusion, and bias rather than loving one another and seeking the common good as God commanded. For some Christians to believe that a political leader that is as robustly vulgar, fiercely combative, callously inhumane, criminally, politically, and morally compromised as Trump is could be an avatar for the restoration of Christian morality and social unity is beyond delusional. Trump is not a solution to America’s cultural and spiritual decline, but a symptom of it. Trump is not God’s plan. If anything, he is God’s test, and many Christians failed! #MakeAmericaKindAgain“

–Kimberly Ranger