23 November 2022 | Spiritual abuse is a sensitive and largely neglected topic in the church. We are accustomed to talking about it in the context of cults, such as the infamous Waco group. For some, any criticism of the church seems like cutting the branch we are sitting on. So to even suggest that […]
9 November 2022 | Read this essay in preparation for this Adventist Today Sabbath Seminar (ATSS) class. by Thandazani Mhlanga I find the story of Uzzah in 1 Chronicles 13:1-11 and 2 Samuel 6:1-8 still as puzzling and perplexing as the first day I heard it. After all, if it weren’t for Uzzah, the ark […]
2 November 2022 | by Bryan Ness When I started my biology education in 1980, I was confident that the creation story in the Bible could stand up to scientific scrutiny. As a third-generation Adventist educated in Adventist schools from first grade through high school, I had been taught that the earth was young (about […]
21 September 2022 | Humans need a purpose for which to live, and religion addresses this existential need more adequately than any other discipline. Religion functions at the affective level, where we really live; its content may sometimes be fuzzy and even wrong, but that’s secondary. Teacher: James W. Walters is professor emeritus of ethics […]
7 September 2022 | by Raj Attiken The following incidents, as reported by news media, have at least one feature in common: they all involve some question of freedom of conscience or religious liberty: Twenty-three Amish families in Minnesota lived in homes without running water or a modern sewage system because of their religious practice […]
31 August 2022 | Melchizedek is one of the most mysterious figures in the Bible. He appears in person only once— in Genesis 14—but is referred to again in Psalm 110 and at length in Hebrews 7. But who was Melchizedek? All we know from Genesis is that he is a priest, but one whose […]
17 Aug 2022 | This Sabbath Dr. Gil Valentine will present on some of the themes of his recent book, Ostriches and Canaries, and we will discuss the problem of coping with change. All during the 1960s unprecedented waves of turbulent social change had washed over North America and rippled around the world. The waves […]
3 Aug 2022 | Dr. Lisa Clark Diller will cover some of the social science research on how disgust impedes our ability to love our neighbors and how the vulnerability of the Incarnation can help us do that better. We use the stories from Jesus’s birth and childhood to show how he valued those whose […]
27 July 2022 | by Tom de Bruin Why do we get ill? Why do we die? Why are there earthquakes, floods, and pandemics? Adventists are often quick to answer: because of sin, Satan, and the fall. The Fundamental belief explains it all: “Human sin resulted in the distortion of the image of God in […]
24 July 2022 | Despite the traditional interpretation of a scattering of “clobber texts” that are assumed to prohibit gender nonconformity and same-sex sexual relationships, the Bible gives little to no direct guidance about how LGBTQ+ individuals should be treated by believers, and certainly does not support condemning such individuals as sinful. From New Testament […]
20 July 2022 | by Bryan Ness Many people assume that human sex and gender is binary, and that the normal outcome of reproduction and development is distinctly male or female. Likewise, it is considered normal for individuals to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Adventist believers typically consider this to be the way […]
13 July 2022 | by Andreas Bochmann I rarely use the King James Version as an English Bible translation these days. But “self-control” and “self-discipline” (the usual modern English translations) sound a bit too much like a fitness studio to me, so don’t quite catch the idea of the word “Besonnenheit” which Bonhoeffer would have […]