When I grew up, everyone had a religion. They may not have been very faithful in it, but they had one. More and more Americans, when asked their religion, reply “none.” In 2007, the “nones” were 16%, according to Pew Research. “Nones” now outnumber Roman Catholics, who are 23% of the population, and Evangelical Christians […]
I was brought up not to ask questions. There were nine of us in the family. We were supposed to do what we were told in order to keep that large household ticking: stay quiet, obey, and keep the peace. Our church had a youth group, but we were not allowed to take part—it was […]
There’s a reason it’s called Adventist Today. Most Adventists understand that we no longer live in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. The fact that we live in the twenty-first century makes it absolutely essential that we plant ourselves firmly in the present and accept today’s realities. Yes, we once had a prophetic voice. We embraced […]
All my life I’ve heard this phrase: “Finish the work, so Jesus can come!” I confess, I find it problematic. The Gospel Commission, you’ll recall, is “Preach the good news everywhere!” But what is the good news? Is it lecturing people about a bunch of doctrinal abstractions, and then recording their names on the church […]
The topic of “success” has been on my mind lately. What exactly does success look like at 35 years old? Does it look like the lives of family members from older generations with more “traditional” lifestyles? Does it look like influencers on Instagram gathering followers and making money? Maybe success is having found the right […]
Often when I’m at my wits end about the state of the Adventist Church, I turn to my dad for a long conversation. It’s not because we agree—we often don’t. Although labels are restrictive and don’t truly capture anyone’s essence, I would describe my father as an Adventist conservative and myself as an Adventist liberal. […]
Pearl was close to 70 when I was her pastor. It would be hard for you to imagine just how primitive Pearl’s life was, especially given the harsh Dakota climate we lived in. Her house was a leaky little shack, far out in the hills. I don’t know what she lived on—probably some small Social […]
In case you’ve forgotten, we Adventists have a lot of denominational offices. Above the congregations and their pastors there is a local conference, then a union conference, then a division office, then the General Conference. Each of these offices is fully-staffed, some of them massive—and all duplicating functions done at other levels. These office people […]
Sometimes people ask me what it was that made me begin to question the fundamentalist faith of my childhood. I’ve thought about that question a lot. And the truth is that there’s not one clear or concise answer I can give. There were a lot of things over the years that began to build up […]
I remember being in cradle roll Sabbath School, and handed a red paper heart. Opening the double-doors in the middle revealed a picture of Jesus. This all happened as we sang about Jesus being in our hearts. I didn’t understand what it meant then. I’m not sure I do now. We Christians use formulaic phrases […]
A few nights ago a big storm system moved across the central United States, from Kansas and Oklahoma through Ohio and Michigan: tornados, high winds, river-flooding rain, and the kind of hail that destroys farmers’ crops. Having grown up in North Dakota, I’m no stranger to thunderstorms. When it moved through Columbus, and while sensible […]
The first day of my oldest child’s life I snuggled her in my hospital bed and began to tell her Bible stories. I started with Noah’s Ark—but stopped because the story begins with the death of everyone in the world except Noah’s family. I moved to David and Goliath but stopped because it’s about a […]