Pioneer History: Old News or Good News? “In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what God has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord
“Love one another…” - The New Testament In the previous articles, we explored two main themes. The first was the Spirit’s experiential utility. Here we discovered that the active presence of the Spirit among us is not merely a nebulous theological concept but rather a tangible reality that has practical use in the realm of post-church missio
September 11, 2001, was my generation’s Pearl Harbor. I was awakened by my grandfather who exclaimed in his native tongue that New York was in chaos. I turned on the television in my room and I saw a strange sight. I saw one of the Twin Towers with a gaping hole with smoke coming out of it and I was perplexed that the other tower was missing. I
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” The above poem
Desire needs mystery. - Esther Perel In the previous article, we saw that mission in emerging secular contexts requires the church to shift from the centralization of rational discourse toward a more holistic rhythm that balances gnosis (knowledge), koinonia (relationships), and doulos (service). In fact, it is the element of service that, in the p
Most Seventh-day Adventists and Adventist churches I know are functionally binitarian. - David Hamstra In his book “The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated”, authors James Emery White makes a remarkable observation about contemporary mission. In the olden days, he argues, a church could reach its community by
Earlier this year in the Brazilian Adventist theological journal, Kerygma, I published “A Moral History of the 2016 United States Presidential Election Campaigns” asking whether the elections that elevated Donald Trump to the presidency were “Judgments of God?” on the United States. In it, I compared and evaluated two sources with theologies of his
The Conflict of the End is the End of Conflict. And this end of conflict is a message of hope. Conflicts of any nature, from small household disagreements to nuclear threats across continents are less-than-ideal situations, to say the least, and can amount to serious threats to the value of human existence. No one likes conflict. But conflict doesn
The church building has over the years evolved to become an important part of religious practice. This has been the place where rituals, sermons, communion, funeral services, matrimonial services, prayer, religious music, baptism, and various aspects of religion find their expression. As a liturgical church, Adventists have a special relationship w
Dealing with Death “But I do not want you to be ignorant brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.”[1] For most people, death is not an easy thing to swallow. And for good reason, because we were not created to die. God created humanity with the intent that we would always live life to the fulles
