by Richard W. Coffen | 1 October 2024 | To quote recent politicians: “Let me be clear.” Theologically, divine will means that which God wants. John Calvin averred such in Institutes: God has predestined everything, no matter how small, to happen. That which God wills, is what God wants. According to Calvin, God wanted Adam […]
by Reinder Bruinsma | 27 September 2024 | Read Part 1 here My conclusion in first part of this essay—that The Great Controversy belongs to an earlier age, and is out of context in our time—has been strengthened and amplified by a stream of publications about the person and ministry of Ellen White, beginning in […]
by Reinder Bruinsma | 26 September 2024 | There were not many books in the home in which I grew up, but we did have a small library that was more or less standard in Adventist homes in the Netherlands. Seventh-day Adventists could be expected to have some quite voluminous, blue-gray tomes in a Dutch […]
by Mark Johnson | 24 September 2024 | “I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; […]
by Skip Bell | 19 September 2024 | It is not easy being the church. Especially if you regard your church as the one true church, the distinctive repository and custodian of truth. In recent weeks I have been reminded of the humanity that accompanies our being the church. Some congregations of Christian believers in […]
“The universe [is] shot through with appalling threads—violence, slaughter, sickness, and pain.” [1] by Jack Hoehn | 18 September | It is incontrovertible that we live in a great controversy. Life and health are under constant attack. How can we keep body temples safe for worship? It seems that some have learned how to avoid […]
by Rich Hannon | 17 September 2024 | I’m getting old, and I’ve heard a lot of sermons in my life. But, quality aside, within the past few years it has occurred to me that they could be categorized based on their structure, not content. Sermons can roughly be divided into two forms: Leading with […]
13 September 2024 | Recently one of my friends, noting the new optimism generated by a fresh presidential candidate in the United States, wondered, “Could that happen to the Adventist Church?” “With Harris-Walz, it seems like the nation is starting to breathe again, seeing hope, sensing joy. Does the church need the same? Who could […]
by Jack Hoehn | 12 September 2024 | What are the politics of conscience? On the sidewalk outside of your church, have you heard things like this? “Surely every Seventh-day Adventist must vote in favor of life? How can we do anything but hold our noses and vote for politicians we may not like—but who […]
by Melody Tan | 11 September 2024 | Humankind wanting to know “why?” is the reason we know about things such as gravitational forces (“Why does an apple fall to the ground and not up?”) and the structure of the atom (“Why do materials have different properties?”). Our natural curiosity has led us to make […]
David Geelan | 10 September 2024 | Most of us know the story of Lot, the one righteous man in Sodom who was saved from the destruction of that City of the Plain. We recall Abraham’s negotiation with God—“If there are even ten righteous men in Sodom…”—and that it turned out there weren’t. We find […]
by Loren Seibold | 6 September 2024 | When I was a teen, one Adventist teaching that seemed extraordinarily clear to me was that Seventh-day Adventists were—and I supposed always would be—noncombatants in military service. This was the Vietnam era. I knew Adventist men who got drafted and served, not as soldiers but as medics, […]
