In the News:

 
First Blind Person to Serve as Senate President in Jamaica is an Adventist
Senator Floyd Morris made history in Jamaica’s Parliament last week when he became the first visually impaired person to be appointed chairman of the national legislature's upper house. He is an Adventist Church member and an advocate for the disabled, according to the Jamaica Observer newspaper. The 44 year-old lawmaker is well-known in the Caribbean island nation....
 
Survey Explores Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Among Adventists
Attitudes among Americans regarding various issues related to homosexuality are changing. What do Seventh-day Adventists in the pews really think about this topic? Do most Adventists side with the official church statement [1] that condemns “homosexual practices and relationships” as sinful, while affirming the “dignity of every human being,” including gays and lesbians? How many have found their understanding of homosexuality changing as new information is made known?...
 
Adventist Community Services Responds Immediately to Oklahoma Tornado
On Monday (May 20) when an F4 tornado plowed through the town of Moore, Oklahoma, devastating about 30 square miles of suburban neighborhoods and schools, Adventist Community Services (ACS) immediately mobilized volunteers to help. ACS is the domestic community action agency sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the United States. It is officially recognized as one of the major disaster response agencies under written agreements with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the American Red Cross....
 
Adventist General Conference Organized 150 Years Ago this Week
The Seventh-day Adventist denomination began as a very small, regional fellowship of mostly house-church groups in the United States, but it was soon to develop a world vision and a broad concept of mission. Within a few years it had started a hospital, a college, schools and city missions. It soon began to connect with believers in other nations and began sending missionaries, both officially sponsored and independent, self-supporting workers. The prophetic gift exercised by Ellen White, who was still in her 30s at the time of the GC founding session, constantly spurred innovation, expansion and a broad vision for the movement....
 
Blessing of the Hands at Adventist Hospitals in the Chicago Metro Area
"It may be something new to many Seventh-day Adventist Church members," a veteran pastor told Adventist Today. "It is common to ask for God's blessings on meetings, new or refurbished buildings, vehicles and printed materials. In health care the hands of the professionals and trained workers are all more important than any of those things, so it is a logical extension of a long tradition."...
 
Pacific Union Conference Ordains Theology Professor Jean Sheldon
On April 27, eight months after its highly disputed vote to approve women’s ordination, the Pacific Union Conference officially recognized Pacific Union College (PUC) religion professor Dr. Jean Sheldon as an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Sheldon is the only female professor in PUC’s religion department....
 
What did the Australian Census Really Tell Us About Church Growth?
What we need to understand with the Australian Census data is that it only records what denomination people identify with. It is not exclusively about church attendance but also includes people who have had past affiliation with the church. It does not accurately record growth in membership and so the need to view other data is crucial as it tells a totally different story....
 
Volunteer Physician Missing from Adventist Mission Trip in Ukraine
A massive search is being organized for Thursday morning (May 16) to find Dr. Jay Sloop, a physician from Yakima, Washington, who was in Kiev, Ukraine, with a team of volunteers helping the Seventh-day Adventist Church set up a lifestyle medicine center there. The 77-year-old takes a walk every morning, usually with friends, but left the place he was staying by himself at 6:45 on Tuesday morning despite the fact that a roommate could not accompany him. He told the roommate that he would be back for breakfast in 45 minutes, according to The Spokesman-Review, a Spokane daily newspaper, but did not return....
 
 
 

Opinion

   
Can Less Faith Bring More Belief? - Chris Barrett
If faith is the evidence and substance of both what is hoped for and what is not seen, at least two suggestions arise: First, that faith itself is simply what happens within the mind of the person involved, effectively, a decision.  Secondly, that the resulting state of mind, or mindset, is ultimately the sole evidence for the reality of the things that are hoped for, but not seen....
   
   
Dr. David Wilbur: Power and Illusion: Religion and Human Need: Part 12 - Ervin Taylor
Religious diversity might be explained by one God who loved diversity or by many Gods who each created his preferred religion or lastly by the powerful human mind interacting with its complex environment. Religious thought and behavior might have given an evolutionary survival advantage to groups or individuals and therefore supported the development of a biological propensity for such belief....
   
   
Hymns Our Mothers Taught Us - Lawrence Downing
From earliest times hymns have served to unite and inspire Adventist believers. Our hymns, whether by intent or default, express in subtle and direct ways our theology and practices. The hymns published in early Adventist hymnals reflect or, perhaps in stronger terms, shaped how the first Adventists understood their community, their mission and their world....
   
   
Why Does Life Have to Be so Hard? - Katelyn Pauls
Why do things have to hurt? Why do we have to feel lonely or sad or broken or distressed? Why do relationships end? Why do people shut others out? These are just a few of the questions running around in my head. Some of them I have had to deal with regarding the way I treat others. Some of them I have to deal with regarding the way people have treated me....
   
   
Overlooked Themes in Amos - Mark Gutman
As I worked my way through the recent Sabbath School lessons on Amos, I wondered which verses or themes would be featured and which would be ignored. We can do the same exercise in our approach to life. What are we missing?...If we’re not careful we end up imitating the Pharisees. Big on doctrine and talk and criticism; low on concern and action for those who need it....
   
   
Some Thoughts on the Book of James - Andy Hanson
In my opinion, the author of the original letter believed that theological and political problems in the church could best be solved when Christians treated each other as friends. The author of the attached letter placed his confidence in legalistic and authoritative solutions. Could it be that the philosophical tension in this letter reveals an early struggle to establish Christian orthodoxy regarding the nature of God?...
   
   
The Mini Great Controversy - Stephen Foster
Certainly, we all know of or have heard of The Great Controversy between Christ and Satan. Our mini internal controversy is about the testimonies to the Seventh-day Adventist Church that have come from the pen of Ellen G. White, through the inspiration of God....
   
   

     Recent Comments:

 
 

2013-05-25 3:46 PM

To whom it may concern; After myself having served in the U.S. Army Special Forces (Airborne) for a lengthy career I can only approach this with a comment that each and every person has that "Right" to have whatever view they choose due to...

2013-05-25 1:53 PM

Cris, "everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena". Jesus said,  John 3:6, "that born of the flesh is flesh; that born of the spirit is spirit"....

2013-05-25 1:43 PM

Simply amazing! The first link provided did not work, but a search for "vaux swifts" on the web page will take you to the story.

2013-05-25 12:55 PM

Stephen, please clarify for me, "even time & space are created things".  A.This gives concept of parallel universes, to me. God, being eternal, and there being "God time". B. i think space is also eternal, and...

2013-05-25 12:39 PM

Clumsy, rather than fuzzy. i like that Nathan.

2013-05-25 11:55 AM

The SDA and LDS church are the two  uniquely American religions that began at approximately the same time and in the same region of the country and have attained about the same number of converts during that time.  They also are the two...

2013-05-25 9:20 AM

Typographical correction note; I omitted an important comma (after the word fact): …The point is that many Christians are taught that, in fact, nothing actually belongs to them; but that they are stewards of that which they have been blessed or...

2013-05-24 12:57 PM

Of course this is a great idea.  Now that Medicare partly reinburses hospitals on the basis of satisfaction in surveys taken from discharged patients.  The federal government has decided that patient attitudes about the medical and...

2013-05-24 1:33 AM

Hi Preston and  22Oct1844, This discussion commenced with the following statement. "However, it seems (or at least one could interpret from these Scriptures) that the cleansing of the Sanctuary had already occurred:"...

2013-05-22 11:07 PM

Do people ever have opinions these days that are not the subject of high moral dudgeon? Many of those who have commented on this story have absolutely no understanding of Stark Law or its complexities. Most have probably never heard of it, and have no...

 

 
 
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Chimney Hotel is for the Birds 
The swifts could not know they were about to become a celebrated tradition at Rio Lindo Adventist Academy, Healdsburg, CA. Nor could they know this was the first year the boiler was not being used to heat all the water on campus, because natural gas prices were going down and now water was heated with gas. They just knew they’d found a great hotel....
 
Victory Over the Beast, Chapter Seven, Singing in the Courtroom
The Seventh-day Adventist Church literally had its birth in this phrase from Revelation 14:“the hour of His judgment has come.” As the pioneers gradually started to see a connection between Daniel 8:14 and Revelation 14:7, this understanding became to them a tremendous help in overcoming their prior disappointment of October 22, 1844. Though Jesus had not returned when they had expected Him, God had not failed them. The second coming of Jesus was still their certain hope. But preparatory to His coming, there must first be a work of judgment in the heavenly courtroom....
 
 
Interview
 
Laila Mickelwait (Part 1), About Her Work Against Sex Trafficking 
Exodus Cry was born out of a prayer meeting, and we do identify ourselves first and foremost as a prayer movement to end slavery. We work in three primary areas—prevention, intervention, and restoration....
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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