11 March 2022 | How is moral authority best understood and exercised in a worldwide church when there are deep divisions about so many ethical questions? Who’s in charge? Who decides? To comment, click/tap here.
9 March 2022 | The history of the Adventist church starts with a woman. That woman still holds the highest place of any of our church pioneers. She is quoted, used as a spiritual authority, exalted as a leader, and by some almost worshipped. But after Ellen White, our church history remembered almost none of […]
2 March 2022 | by Gerald Winslow I look forward to meeting with the AT Sabbath Seminar this coming Sabbath. For those who would benefit from study of a passage from Scripture, let me propose Acts 15, the entire chapter. That’s a bit long for a memory verse. But, if you’re willing, you’ll have opportunity to […]
23 February 2022 | by Michael W. Campbell The early twentieth century was a transformative time within American religion and culture. World War I contributed to a heightened sense of militancy; as did the 1918-19 influenza pandemic that only further reminded people of their own mortality. American Christianity experienced a bifurcation between the theological modernist […]
20 February 2022 | “Headship theology belongs to an old dispensation in which man plays God and ironically erodes human worth and dignity; for to diminish one half of humanity is to also diminish the other half. We have seen the violence that has been perpetuated by this headship theology of male entitlement to female […]
by Olive J. Hemmings | 9 February 2022 | Jamin Hübner critiques the headship argument in terms I like. He says: “It is an unbalanced, reductionistic, and simplistic approach. And it bears all of the marks of a theology born out of contemporary culture wars, not centuries of scholarship and contemplation.”[1] I would revise that […]
26 January 2022 | Adventists have consistently maintained that there is a direct link between the global preaching of their message and the timing of Christ’s return. However, will we Adventists ever succeed in communicating the gospel to every human being? Does the global communication of the gospel depend only—or even mostly—on us? And is […]
19 January 2022 | Should we connect prophecies and signs with specific historical events? We will look at particular on events in the Middle East, the tensions between West and East and on the question of whether the establishment of the state of Israel has any end-of-time significance. To read for this class: Excerpt from […]
5 January 2022 | In 1958, the Chinese Communist regime implemented a radical policy of homogenizing the Chinese Protestant population in the notion of “unified worship.” The policy banned all distinct denominational practices to give way for a united mode of Chinese Christian faith in a socialist setting. After the Maoist decades of hostile suppression, […]
31 December 2021 | Our teacher scheduled for this week, David Geelan, had a medical emergency and isn’t able to teach. Your teachers will be Loren Seibold and John McLarty. Topics we’ll be covering that relate to the junction between old and new: Accomplishments: past and upcoming Contentment and acceptance—of others and ourselves How much […]
22 December 2021 | Christmas falls on a Saturday this year, which no doubt will have many Sabbath keeping congregations making it a high day. (I know of pockets of Sabbath keepers who forbid any mention or celebration of Christmas in their official liturgies…but we will not mention them further.) It likely will be a […]
15 December 2021 | The 28 fundamental beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists turns out to be a poor tool for capturing the tapestry, richness, nuances, complexity, and downright contested differences in theological convictions among the members who make up the religious community. As the denominational family grows, ecclesiastical maneuvers jockey to hide the differences that reside […]