TAG: ATSS

John McLarty: How the Poor in Spirit Trouble the Church

21 October 2021  | Read this essay in preparation for this class. Excerpt: Thirty years ago, in my church in New York city, it was schizophrenic, homeless Alex who troubled our conception of ourselves.  Radical Christians, people who see themselves as the special forces of the kingdom of heaven, gladly opened the door for Alex […]

Righteousness by Faith Is a Wrestling Match with God

30 September 2021  | Read this paper for our class this week. To believe is to wrestle with God. It is in the moments when we question God, when we doubt God, that we are closest to God. But that’s often not how righteousness by faith is presented or understood. Sola fide, the central doctrine […]

Are Our Grandchildren Damned?

15 September 2021  | Read this poem, and the following essay, in preparation for our class. Are We and Our Grandchildren Damned? A Biblical Basis for Setting Our Hearts at Rest Just a year or two into my first ministerial assignment, I conducted a funeral service for the eighteen-year-old son of one of my new […]

Julius Nam: Ancient Neighbors, Present Gospel • 9/18/21

15 September 2021  | Ancient Neighbors, Present Gospel Berrien Springs, Collegedale, Huntsville, Takoma Park, Angwin, Loma Linda. What do they have in common? The answer is obvious to those familiar with the story of Seventh-day Adventists in the United States. These are towns where Adventists planted their educational institutions over a century ago and grew […]

ATSS: Remembering 9/11/2001

8 September 2021  | Read this essay in preparation for the class. Excerpts of the four points: 1. The enemy Some Christian leaders rushed to Islam’s defense. Yet I also received an email written by a clergyman, that was just short of Hitlerian in its bigotry and willful misinterpretation of the theology and social system of […]

Bryan Ness: Noah’s Flood vs. Science – 4 September 2021

4 September 2021  | Read the essay by Bryan Ness here. Excerpt: These are important questions because Adventists that are scientifically well educated often recognize that the scientific evidence does not support the existence of a worldwide flood, and if the church insists all must believe in a worldwide flood, or their salvation is at […]

Reinder Bruinsma: Adventists and Catholics—What Are the Issues?

25 August 2021  | The following reading was given us by the author. It is reprinted from Spectrum, 1999, summer, pp. 45-52:  “Adventists and Catholics: Prophetic Preview or Prejudice?” You can read the entire essay by clicking here. Excerpt: Adventists did not invent anti-Catholicism. Even before the Reformation drastically changed England’s ecclesiastical landscape, there were […]

Stephen Chavez: Who Controls the Holy Spirit? 8/21/2021

18 August 2021  | Read the article by Stephen Chavez here: For most of the last decade, Seventh-day Adventist church leaders at the highest levels have hammered the necessity of revival and reformation. The height of this obsession was perhaps demonstrated most starkly in March 2021, when 10 pages in Adventist World magazine featured messages […]

Fundamentalism and the Rise of “Muscular Adventism”

11 August 2021  | Muscular Adventism, by Michael W. Campbell While attending some recent scholarly meetings, I was standing in line to visit the book exhibit. In front of me was a renowned Old Testament scholar whom I readily recognized. After I complimented him, telling him that I enjoyed his books and noting a relative […]

The Art of Remembering: How We Tell the Sabbath Story – 7 August ’21

4 August 2021  | Read Dr. Frey’s paper about the Sabbath’s lessons of justice and equality here.  The Art of Remembering: It Matters How We Tell the Sabbath Story I remember the girl, 8 years old, trembling beneath a towering, gray-haired madman teacher. To the left of her outstretched arms twenty-four students held their breath. […]