9 January 2023 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, Was the tabernacle in the wilderness a literal copy of one in heaven? Or is it all just symbolic? Signed, Really Wondering Dear Wondering: You pose a provocative question, because the difference between the real and the symbolic is an overdue discussion in Adventism. Seventh-day Adventist eschatology has […]
by Jim Walters | 7 January 2023 | Ellen White was born into a devout shouting Methodist family, and coped with poor health and limited education. Nevertheless, Ellen rose to become a canonized authority in world Adventism, and that 22-million-member church now holds her writings—in practice, if not in doctrine—equal to the Bible. Consider two […]
by Thandazani Mhlanga | 5 January 2023 | Towards the end of 2021, a fascinating religious drama played out on the internet and social media. Dr. Yitzhak Y. Melamed, a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, posted to Facebook a letter he received from the Portuguese synagogue (the Esnoga) in Amsterdam. Dr. Melamed had […]
4 January 2023 | Fake news and conspiracy theories are not new phenomena. They have been with us through the centuries. Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and secret societies have often been the subjects. Today these stories play an ever bigger role. Religious people of the more conservative variety appear to be especially susceptible for all kinds […]
by Carsten Thomsen | 3 January 2023 | Whether Christian or not, many carry a lot of negative baggage about sex, its dangers, risks, and sinfulness, along with guilt and shadows of condemnation of your thoughts and actions. Yes, sex can be misused and abused. But of course, so can food, drink, exercise, and religion. […]
2 January 2023 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, The only Bible class I recall in four years of academy Bible was the day we covered the final destruction of the wicked and the second death. I will never forget Ellen White’s explanations about how all are resurrected, just to be destroyed again—some in a moment, others […]
28 December 2022 | On its surface, prayer appears to be straightforward and easily understood. But the reality is quite different. Does prayer really matter? Does God ever answer prayers in a manner that changes the outcome of our stories? Why should anyone care to pray? Mike Tucker may not have all the answers, but […]
30 December 2022 | For many Christians across the world, doubt is condemned as evidence for a lack of faith and is usually taught as something that true believers do not engage with. Yet, nowhere in the Gospel of John does Jesus condemn Thomas for doubting. Instead, doubt is praised throughout the gospels as something […]
by Rajaratnam Jones | 28 December 2022 | When my train arrived at the Poona railway station, it was almost 7:00 A.M. I came out of the station to hire an autorickshaw to take me to the mission guest house at Salisbury Park, when a large billboard caught my attention. “Religion:” it said. “Talk about […]
26 December 2022 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, I was married to an Adventist for 25 years of total mismatch—emotionally unavailable. Then I dated non-Adventists, and met my current husband of 4 years, a Jewish man. This marriage? Sexual betrayal. Pornography addiction. Narcissistic emotional abuse. I’ve spent over $30,000 in therapy to work on myself. Now […]
25 December 2022 | Satan is hardly mentioned in the Old Testament—just three times—and is present almost everywhere in the New Testament. Where does that emphasis on Satan come from? The Old Testament is silent about an afterlife: the dead know nothing, feel nothing, experience nothing. The New Testament shows a different picture. There is […]
by Christopher C. Thompson | 23 December 2022 | Did you ever participate in a Christmas pageant or recite an Easter speech? If you have, then you’ll appreciate the story I have to tell you. When I was growing up in the First African Baptist Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, we commonly had Christmas pageants, […]
