Don’t Judge Me, Restore Me

Currently our church leaders are in the process of seeking to bring about reconciliation between certain church entities and voted church policy. This is a work we all ought to assist through our prayers and vocal support.                                                                                                                            

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A Call to Atonement

During the past few days, America and the world have shuddered in revulsion at the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. This graphic and perverse eruption of racial hostility, one among many that our country has witnessed in recent times, forces to the surface a cluster of painful and unpalatable issues for Christians in general and Seventh-day Adventists in particular.

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From Gilboa to Louisiana

Much of First World Adventism, in modern and postmodern times, has been obsessed with the fear of legalism. Admonitions and tirades against “legalists” and “Pharisees” in the church have long been the daily meat and drink of the denomination’s fashionable circles of thought and devotion. Contemporary trends and their impact on the church might offer glaring evidence of a...

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“Alternative Facts,” Seventh-Day Adventists, And The Truth

The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously stated, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Living in a world of alternative reality may be nothing new in the human experience, but it seems we presently find ourselves at a point in history where the capacity to live in a world of false assumptions and selective perception is uniquely possible, due in large measure to the cyber world and its unprecedented means of transmitting, blocking, and altering information.

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Recycled Myths about Youth and the Church

Some might wonder, aloud or otherwise, what business a man in his fifties has writing about youth-related issues. The answer may lie in the timeless wisdom of Solomon’s pronouncement that “the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9).

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Universal Legal Justification: Do The Inspired Writings Teach It?

For a number of years now, a theory known as “universal legal justification” has been making the rounds among devout Seventh-day Adventists. In short, this theory teaches that on Calvary’s cross, Jesus didn’t simply die for the whole human race—something we all believe—thus providing for all a way of salvation should they meet the prescribed conditions found in Scripture. Rather, this “universal justification” theory insists that Christ legally justified the whole human race when He died on Calvary. 

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Donald Trump Meets Pope Francis

The President of the United States will soon continue a now well-established practice of meeting the leader of Roman Catholicism at his magnificent world headquarters, Vatican City. The eyes of the world’s press will be watching closely, because on the surface at least, the two leaders appear to have little in common—religiously, politically, or personally. There will be a certain soap opera appeal to at least some observers. A brash, outspoken, even belligerent American President will meet a gentle pontiff who visits the poor in their homes and calls for peace and unity. 

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Five Popular Myths about Last Generation Theology

In certain circles of contemporary Adventism, what has come to be known in recent years as Last Generation Theology has become an epithet. Punctuated with quotation marks, dismissive scorn, and the taint of implied extremism, this belief is noted by certain ones as an example of a thought system which Biblically informed, theologically mature, and spiritually balanced Adventists should rightfully shun.

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A House Divided Shall Fall

The year was 73 B.C. Rome was stirred with the news of a vast gladiator army running free through the Italian countryside. For centuries the Romans had held gladiator competitions, pitting men against animals as well as other men. Gladiators were usually drawn from slaves, people whom the Romans captured in their various conquests. Today one of the most iconic and recognizable monuments of Rome are the remains of the Roman Colosseum, where perhaps thousands perished in the name of blood sport.

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Three Co-Eternal Persons

Anti-Trinitarianism is starting again to make headway in certain circles of conservative Adventism. Typically, those drawn to these views adhere to—or find themselves attracted to—one or both of the following theories: 1) That Jesus, at some distant point in eternity past, was brought forth (or begotten) by the Father. 2) That the Holy Spirit is not a separate divine Person, but is rather the spiritual presence of the Father and the Son. 

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Message and Mission

The fear that religious controversy inside the church holds the potential for distracting its leaders and members from their mission to the world is an age-old concern, especially when the body of Christ finds itself acutely rent by doctrinal or moral divisiveness. As the Seventh-day Adventist Church today confronts a variety of theological and moral disagreements, concern that the church might experience the distraction noted above has become especially serious among thoughtful persons at all levels of denominational life.

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Two Conflicting Gospels

A recent article in an independent Adventist magazine has drawn attention to the continuing struggle over the scope and the meaning of the Biblical gospel in the Seventh-day Adventist Church (1).The article defines this struggle over the gospel in contemporary Adventism as taking place between what it calls the “gospel of grace” taught by Martin Luther and classic Protestantism, and what it calls the “gospel of character development,” which in the article’s view is a “variation of the Roman Catholic tenet of salvation by works” (2). The article uses both Scripture and the writings of Ellen White to articulate its stance.

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