by Bill Davis | 25 October 2019 | What’s it like to face death? As a younger person I didn’t think about death very deeply. In my early years of ministry, as I performed funerals, I would talk about death and how it wasn’t something to be afraid of. In trying to give comfort to […]
Dear Aunt Sevvy, My great-grandfather was Ellen White’s gardener. He spent most of his adult life believing that the Second Coming was just over the horizon. So did his daughter, my grandmother. Her daughter, my mom, worried, even in her final dementia, about the soon return of Jesus. Now I have grandchildren who are learning […]
by Dennis Meier | 23 October 2019 | I was in attendance in 2012 when my union conference (the North German Union Conference, or NDV) voted for equality in pastoral service. The motion was placed on the agenda by a single individual, though the Executive Committee seemed happy to bring it up for a decision. […]
22 October 2019 | It has been 175 years since the Adventist movement began in the aftermath of “The Great Disappointment” on 22 October 1844. Baptist evangelist William Miller began preaching in the 1830s that Jesus would return in 1844 and attracted the support of an estimated one in ten Americans. When Christ […]
By Loren Seibold | 22 October 2019 | Just one month ago, I published a piece about a rumor I’d heard concerning the discontinuance of the infamous compliance committees. I took my cue from two bits of information: some leaks we’d heard from an Adventist Today friend to the effect that Elder Wilson was having […]
by André Reis | 21 October 2019 | To Adventists everywhere, happy Great Disappointment Day! In this anniversary commentary on Millerite history, I deal with the day-year principle (or year-day principle)—of which Seventh-day Adventists are the main proponent—which posits that any time period found in biblical prophecy must be converted to days and then to […]
by Neroli Dobson | 20 October 2019 | Dear Church Leaders in the South Pacific Division and the Australian Union Conference: This morning I was reminded of a quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.: “There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.” Challenged by these words from a great man of God, I must […]
by Edwin Torkelsen | 19 October 2019 | Certain dates become important markers in our personal life because they represent the tipping point between before and after: birthday, wedding, first-child-day. Our last day alive will certainly also qualify, though we are unable to remember it. Let’s hope someone else does. Most nations also have such […]
19 October 2019 | Public statement of the executive committee of the North German Union Conference (Der Vorstand des Norddeutschen Verbandeson, or NDV) concerning a “warning” issued by the Executive Committee of the General Conference. The Executive Committee of the worldwide General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, in its autumn session on October 15, 2019, issued […]
by Loren Seibold | 18 October 2019 | I am not an expert on the ethical questions surrounding abortion, or on the history of this issue in the church. What I’m reporting here is what I heard in Monday’s meeting of the General Conference (GC) Excom, followed up, and the final version of the statement […]
18 October 2019 | Dear Readers: I’ve had a number of responses to a recent short piece on why young people are leaving the faith. Here are a few of them. Thank you all for your interest! (As usual, with correspondence to Aunt Sevvy, we don’t use respondents’ names.) Dear Aunt Sevvy: Ask any senior […]
by Hannele Ottschofski | 18 October 2019 | I’ve often asked myself what made me what I am. As a Finn, I am totally atypical: a housewife and mother, wife of a pastor, I have not worked for most of my life, or engaged in volunteer activities. Actually, I have repeated my mother’s life pattern, […]
