Adventists have two things to offer the world: the health message and the Sabbath. What we have neglected to illustrate to this global culture is Jesus, front and center. Our movement has been mired down in finger pointing and polarized camps of liberals and traditionalists. Everyone is posturing their own spiritual agenda, while we forget what we as Christians are supposed to be doing in the first place, reflecting God’s love. How dense and immature we have become, and yet we strut around in our theological glitter all hyped up on self-absorbed egotism.
Read MoreTheistic evolution incompatible with Adventist doctrine
An outright hand-wave dismissal of theistic evolution would be unfair to those in our church that sincerely believe that a compromise is possible. Indeed, it is only fair to give the matter a proper treatise and confront the issue face-to-face. For this reason, this article seeks to provide rational and theological arguments that show the incompatible partnership of theistic evolution and Adventism and why any attempt to prove the contrary is futile and damaging.
Read MoreGiving as God commands
Paul commends the Christian brethren in Macedonia who, though themselves suffering economic want after three subsequent wars reduced the Macedonians to petitioning Tiberius for a reduction of taxes, nevertheless managed to raise a considerable offering for the church in Jerusalem. The Macedonians had faced famine conditions following widespread crop failures in Judea.
Read MoreAppeal dismissed in LSU-3 lawsuit
The North American Division has announced that the appeal in the LSU-3 lawsuit has been dismissed, thus finally ending the litigation. ADvindicate readers will recall that this case began with an inadvertent recording of a conversation among three La Sierra professors Jeffrey Kaatz, James Beach, and Gary Bradley and La Sierra board member Lenny Darnell at the home of James Beach April 20, 2011.
Read MoreDramatic questions
We live at a time when Adventists are unashamedly producing their own films and when youth programs regularly feature drama. Now, for example, talk is adrift regarding the second proposed movie in as many years on the great controversy between Christ and Satan called "Heaven." That is ironic. But the irony will be more apparent toward the end of the article.
Read MoreEmergent thought: questions and deconstruction
During the 1980’s and 90’s rogue bands of Christian pastors began asking themselves how they could repackage, bend, hacksaw, and sell Christianity to a postmodern global culture no longer interested in the cranky and judgmental values their parents collectively gave them as a society. An unofficial movement that transcended Christian denominational boundaries slowly began to take shape as brash thought leaders explored new and fresh possibilities for reshaping Christianity into one fabricated for Western culture.
Read MorePride
Each of us struggle with pride. This particular sin caused the downfall of Lucifer in heaven.
Then it infected 33% of the holy angels. Next pride passed to the entire human race. It’s so bad that a pack of lions are appropriately named after it: Pride.
Monster Energy Drink Is Anti-Christ: A Case Study In Occult Epistemology
Occult epistemology teaches that there are two levels of knowledge. The lower level is the knowledge that can be gained by observation and reason through the normal and boring disciplines of history, science, philosophy, etc. The higher level of knowledge that leads to supernatural power is not laid open to ordinary observation and disciplined reason but is secretly layered on top of ordinary reality in a system of hidden symbols that only the initiated can interpret.
Read MoreMy take on Dr. Rogers’ arguments
My first thought after reading “Old Universe But Young Life?” by Dr. Lynden J. Rogers in the recent issue of Christian Spirituality and Science published by Avondale College was that Mrs. White would be rolling over in her grave if she knew what the school she helped to found in the late 1800s was promoting in its “Christian Spirituality and Science” journal. How can one of our own schools be publishing articles like this that strike as the very basis of the church’s existence? – the very basis of the name “Seventh-day Adventist”? And, how can the Adventist Church continue to be associated with a school that is so willing to publicly thumb its nose that the organized church and its leadership?
Read MoreGeneral Conference 2015: Back to the Future
The conservative Ted Wilson has set up a vote that, if the conservatives lose, will give the liberals what they asked for, but if the conservatives win, will merely reiterate the 1995 vote that the liberals have already ignored with impunity. I believe Elder Wilson's heart is in the right place, but he has been completely outmaneuvered on this issue.
Read MoreINSTB
INSTB’s can leave us with the feeling that our problems are a distinctive dark cloud designed to make our lives uniquely miserable. But unique experiences don’t have to be bad experiences — they can also be instructive and necessary. In fact each of these scenarios pale by comparison to three final “firsts” that lie directly ahead for our world.
Read MoreWatch Operation Iceberg symposium
Qualified in the journey: a response to 'Adam and Steve'
Satan is laying hold of multitudes, which brings me to the sad case of Jonathan Henderson. In his presentation, “Adam and Steve,” in front of impressionable students during Week of Prayer, he makes a number of declarations. It’s almost as though he’s in a fist fight with God’s Word insisting on a new and different “truth.” He mocks those who believe in God’s written Word, mocks God, and mocks the sanctity of marriage.
Read MoreAdam and Steve
Pacific Union College chaplain and PUC Church associate pastor Jonathan Henderson was the featured speaker at PUC's Fall Revival last week, an annual fall quarter week of spiritual emphasis, focused on relationships. Monday began with Adam and God, and Tuesday followed with Adam and Eve, but on Wednesday, Henderson focused his attention on the issue of homosexuality in a sermon titled "Adam and Steve."
Read MoreKeep silent woman
Two passages in the New Testament have frequently caused misunderstanding regarding the application within Christian circles of the universal Biblical principle of spiritual male headship.
Read MoreIs God's model of church organization optional?
The final meeting of the Theology of Ordination Study Committee saw the emergence of a “third way” caucus. This group acknowledges that Scripture sets forth a “model,” “pattern” or “ideal” of male leadership in the church, but feels that because male leadership relates to organization, it can be waived or altered by local constituencies of the church. Male leadership in the church, they argue, is among those ideals that...
Read MoreThe blind leading the blind
There has been little discussion regarding same-sex attraction and “homosexuality” in our church’s history. For many years we considered it a sin so vile that few dared to speak of it. Enter Satan. From the cover of darkness, Satan advances his war against our Creator. He hopes no one notices His clever lies imposed upon those waiting to “feel” good.
Read MoreChurch celebrities: assessing an old but contemporary challenge
Her name was Maria Anne Hirschmann. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. (Her former husband recently passed away, I am told.) An Adventist teenager living in the German-dominated Sudetenland of what was then Czechoslovakia, she left home at the age of fourteen to receive advanced training in the Hitler Youth movement. Soon she became a devout and passionate Nazi, leaving the faith of her childhood behind.
Read MoreUnity on the ship that will go through
Today I make an appeal to leaders and laymen at every level of the church to begin an ongoing, unceasing dialogue on how to finish the work of God according to His plans. We know that our track record regarding that message is not good and what the outcome is if that message goes unheeded: we will be spewed out. Friends, it is time to unitedly study Revelation 3:14-22 on our knees with fasting and prayer. It's time to humble our pride, put aside our prejudices, meet, pray and plan together and practice the “unity in diversity” that the Lord prayed for as He went to the cross for us.
Read MoreASI Highlights
Adventist Laymans' Services and Industries (ASI) recently held its annual convention, this year at Grand Rapids, Michigan. I wasn't there this year (for only the second time in the past six years) but I took note of some of the highlights.
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