Comments of the Week Mar 17-23
“Basic hygiene? Ah, how low the bar doth go….”
–Patti Purdy Hansen Tompkins on Satire about Eligible Adventist Men Being Declared Extinct.
Comments on Bass Memorial Academy Closing, Is Prophecy Fate? Am I the Villain? Andrews University Time Capsule, Satire Pieces, and Aunt Sevvy
Adventist Boarding Academy Bass Memorial Projected to Close
“I was educated entirely in the Adventist school system and it hurt so much to see my parents working multiple jobs to send me and my two siblings to school!! I think it is outrageous and disgusting to pay the extremely high tuitions our schools charge in the name of Christian education….The denomination holds the children hostage, playing the fear games with our parents….now all these many years later I wonder if it was worth the sacrifices. But every parent feared not sending their child because they’re told ‘You’ll lose them to the world and they won’t stay Adventists!!’ This is unforgettable and unforgivable!! So much more I could say but I’ll end it by saying…if we had loving (!) caring churches that really want the children to stay, it shouldn’t matter where they were educated. They’d receive instruction and acceptance (which is a really big issue) and wouldn’t desire to leave. So no surprise to me to see our schools struggling!!!”
SATIRE: Trump Pulls U.S. Out of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
“Wow, some Seventh-day Adventists have really lost their way when they voted for our first official Antichrist! If you did, you should be ashamed of yourself! Don’t forget, Lucifer is very religious in the same way that Mr. Trump is – fake, fake, fake!“
–Alice Lucas
Is Prophecy Fate?
“Keep watch in the context of the Matthew 25 eschatological parables doesn’t mean looking for signs. It means to stay alert at one’s post of duty.
The household manager thought that the master was coming back later than he did. His return was sooner than the manager thought it would be. That, in and of itself, was not the biggest problem. It was what he did in the meantime, shirking his responsibilities and mistreating the servants of the household. He was surprised in the midst of his unfaithfulness. The warning at the end of the parable was to always be ready, because you don’t know the day or the hour/the time of parousia. That is not a call to condition one’s readiness on what time it is. It’s a call to remain faithful precisely because we don’t know the time and timing. Such faithfulness should be intrinsic to faith, not based on extrinsic conditions.
The same exhortation was given by Jesus after the next parable, that of the ten bridesmaids. Those without enough oil were not prepared for the long haul. The appearance of the bridegroom was later than they thought. Again, the end stress of the parable was to always be ready because you don’t know the day or the hour/the time of the parousia.
From both parables, such readiness is not to be conditioned by timing. It is to be a constant, regardless of what time it is, because Jesus was saying to his disciples that they didn’t and wouldn’t know.
Luke 17 then gives Jesus’s response to the sign watchers of his day who asked him what would be the signs of the coming kingdom. His response was that the kingdom would not come with/ according to their careful observations, but that the kingdom was in their midst. In other words, the works that Jesus was doing as messiah, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom already at hand, and demonstrating it with acts of love, healing, mercy, compassion, and inclusion of the outcast and rejects, were the signs of God’s kingdom already here. They still are. The call is to be involved with God’s kingdom work in the here and now, and trust God with his future, whatever the timing may be, however conditions get in the world around us.
They missed what was going on right in front of their noses in their preoccupation with sign watching. Do we?”
–Frank Merendino
SATIRE: Eligible Adventist Males Declared Endangered Species
“Basic hygiene? Ah, how low the bar doth go….”
–Patti Purdy Hansen Tompkins
Am I the Villain?
“Great one, Lindsey. Your piece reminds me of a season on The Good Place where a guy tries to live a perfect life to make it into the Good Place (i.e., heaven). It proves impossible because, as you rightly point out, even things we do with good intentions often have negative consequences. As you rightly point out, we are a villain to someone else.
“One thing that strikes me is Christianity is (meant to be) a different sort of religion. It is (meant to) reject the basic idea behind most religions, that you go to heaven if you do more good than bad. Because as you rightly show, that is impossible. Even the good things we try to do almost always end up hurting people. And good and evil are indeed a matter of opinion.
I like to think most people are trying to do the right thing even if for weird and wrong reasons. But an understanding God also accepts how muddled we all are down here.“
–Steve Ferguson
–Mark Dalegowski
Aunty, I tried to read the Bible and got discouraged with the Old Testament God
“I think Aunty had given a very measured answer to an incredibly difficult question. One that has plagued everyone from the casual Bible reader to the expert theologian.
“It is hard to square the idea of a loving God with a biblical command to exterminate children and even animals.
For me it took a long time to realise the Bible is not a book written BY God but a book written ABOUT God. It doesn’t mean the Bible is not inspired, but the inspired authors are very fallible people. And we need to accept the likely fact they had warped views of God.
Just as my kids at 5 years old are likely to have a very different view of me at 25 or 55 or after I am long dead and buried. I agree with Aunty. Jesus is the only answer to this. We have to read the Old Testament (OT) through the lens of Jesus, not the other way around. In some sense the OT tells us less about God and more about these very flawed ancient peoples who grappled with the idea of Him.“
–Steve Ferguson
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