6 September 2023 | For thousands of years mankind has wrestled with the problem of human suffering. The book of Job is primarily concerned with this problem. The first two chapters are in prose and the last chapter is mostly prose. Sandwiched between these two prose passages are 39 chapters of poetry. If we take […]
30 August 2023 | A community cannot exist without general consensus about its goals and its self-identity, but responsible dissent is healthy for the future of the church. History shows that at times the church has been wrong and dissenters were often pioneers of renewal and reform. Dissent forces the community to re-assess its self-understanding. […]
16 August 2023 | In that phrase—“what language shall I borrow”—the translator of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” captures the sense of speechlessness we experience when confronted with divine mystery. When we experience life’s greatest joys or sorrows, when we sense the Divine presence in church, in the natural world, or in our relationships, we […]
16 August 2023 | My title is not a misspelling or manufactured. The Sabbath among Adventists has primarily been seen as a divine commandment. What if this is a sin of omission, or at least a misperception? What will we say if, after putting the seventh day in our denominational name, it should turn out […]
9 August 2023 | Adventists have used certain key terms and phrases to express their view on doctrinal development. These catch-words reflect both the determination to uphold the doctrines of the church and the readiness to advance in the understanding of truth. Because of this tendency to use these expressions without an accurate understanding of […]
2 August 2023 | For a number of years, an increasing number of voices in Seventh-day Adventism have been interested in the topic of the Apocrypha, lost books of the Bible, and particularly the Book of Enoch. In this Sabbath School, a leading expert on Ellen White’s use of the Apocrypha (with almost ten publications […]
12 July 2023 | I’ll share from my own experience of how my faith has changed, and then we’ll look at how various theories describe a sequence of how faith typically changes. We’ll look at theories of moral, religious, and spiritual development by Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, James Fowler, and others, along with attachment theory. […]
5 July 2023 | Read this essay in preparation for the presentation. So many people I know are struggling right now—significant things like death, suicide, abuse, divorce, depression, discrimination, panic attacks, mental health disorders, cancer, failure, debt, job loss, marriage struggles, substance use, and more! So why has everything gotten so difficult? The speed and […]
28 June 2023 The topic for our seminar this week focuses on a single biblical book—Esther. However, the implications arising are much broader and potentially profound. These include questions such as, How should we read the Bible? What presuppositions should we bring to our reading? What should we do when traditional interpretations do not seem […]
14 June 2023 Early Adventists took steps to support women in ministry, and there was a context to those actions. What was that context? This presentation explores the documentary record, both in Adventist archives and newspapers across the United States. Expect to learn something about women in Adventist ministry that you didn’t know before! Teacher: […]
14 June 2023 Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved in a certain way. According to the social scientist Leon Festinger, “When a person experiences cognitive dissonance the […]
7 June 2023 There has never been complete unanimity regarding Adventist beliefs. Which ones can I question and still remain Adventist? How many could I disbelieve, and still call myself a real Seventh-day Adventist? Does the denomination have the right to specify what people need to believe in order to be members of the church? […]