The Spectrum Blog

Happy Wittenberg door day

By Alexander Carpenter

I first found the Wittenburg Door in the James White Library. Always a good time, especially on October 31.

Further QOD reflections

By Alexander Carpenter

Blogger and pastor Bill Cork writes two posts after returning from the Questions on Doctrine conference.

Post one:

I’ll have a lengthier post about the content of the weekend (that might not be for a few days). The highlights of the conference were first, that it happened. Two young scholars, Julius Nam and Michael Campbell, succeeded at something that an older generation never attempted: bringing together a wide diversity of protagonists to talk face to face with one another about subjects they have spent years writing about (often very emotionally). The background to this includes Julius Nam’s 2005 Ph.D. dissertation (Reactions to the Seventh-day Adventist Evangelical Conferences and Questions on Doctrine, 1955-1971), and the publishing in 2003 of the annotated edition of QOD (through the efforts of Ron Knott, Director of Andrews University Press, and George Knight, recently retired from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary). It was evident throughout the conference that all the participants benefited from the historical research done by Julius and George, which has given us a common understanding of what happened 50 years ago, and what mistakes were made by people of all sides.

Post two:

Reflecting on this from the perspective of having been away from Adventism for over two decades, having studied at Lutheran and Catholic institutions of higher education, it seems to me that the different parties have more in common than I think they realize or want to admit. All agree Christ was fully human and fully divine, and that his humanity was affected by heredity, and was the weakened, mortal flesh we share. All agree he is substitute and example. All agree as a high priest he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. They all agree he could have sinned (something Catholic and most Protestant theologians would deny), but never wavered. All agree that while we are born separated from God, his relationship with the Father and the Spirit was never broken. All agree that Seventh-day Adventists are fully Arminian. All agree that Jesus is coming and that there will be a time of trouble and that those who live through it will have a very intense experience that will require them to cling closely to Christ. All agree, I think, that the Holy Spirit will continue to uphold them.

QOD conference bulletin five

By David Larson

Photos by Bronwen Larson

A reflection on the Sabbath meeting

“Dave Larson  and I wept unashamedly as we received communion together ministered from the front by Angel Rodriguez, Colin Standish and George Knight (if the significance of this teamwork eludes you ask either of us),” wrote Jon Paulien, Dean of the School of Religion at Loma Linda University, to his faculty about Sabbath Morning, October 27.  “I have long prayed to experience a day like this.”

Were our tears for the needless pain our church has suffered since the publication of  Questions on Doctrines fifty years ago, or for the visible prospect that it is ending?  Both!

“Look!” Jon had whispered.  I then really saw what previously I had only looked at.  Angel Rodriquez, Director of the General Conference Biblical Research Institute, was standing behind the Bread and Wine of the Lord’s Supper.  Collin Standish, the President of Hartland Institute who is an eloquent spokesperson for the school of Adventist thought that finds QOD objectionable, stood beside him to our right.  George Knight, a retired historian of Adventism and prolific writer who is an equally persuasive advocate of much of QOD, despite the historical shortcomings that he has confirmed, was at his other side, to our left. 

Never had I even imagined such a moment!  “Quickly,” I whispered to Bronwen, my wife.  “Take a picture before it is too late.  People may not believe this.”  The result is a little fuzzy, but maybe that, too, is significant.  The blurriness of tears can make some things more clear.  The Dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University asked Bronwen for a copy of her photograph. [see above] History has been made!

Earlier in the morning Michael Campbell welcomed us to worship and then dismissed us for the Ordinance of Humility, one place for men, another for women and yet another for couples.  After washing each other’s feet as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples shortly before he was crucified, we returned to the Seminary Chapel for the Lord’s Supper. 

We all stood as the bread was distributed, sitting only when we had received our portion.  “Take, eat; this is my body.”  Then again we all stood as the unfermented wine was distributed, once more sitting only as we received our cups.  “Drink ye all of it.  This is my blood which is shed for you.” 

Then a congregational hymn:

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

The Scripture was John 1: 1 – 3 and 14:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made…..And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten son of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

Following the prayer by Ed Reynolds, Ron Knott and William Fagel thrilled us with a stirring duet:

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

“You have been good,” Angel Rodriquez declared with a [relieved?] smile to those of us who had participated in the conference since Wednesday evening.  His Homily was titled “Looking Back:  Profiling the Future.”  It invited us to mentally leave our “scholarly bags” in the foyer and, for a few moments at least, to worship the One about whom there had been so much scholarly discussion.  “Be sure to pick them up again on your way out,” he implored, “because you must continue your work.  But for now let us worship.”

Another congregational hymn:
All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessèd Savior,
I surrender all.

Speaking in both Spanish and English, Johnny Ramirez-Johnson articulated the thoughts and feelings of all in a passionate final prayer and benediction.  Finally Julius Nam thanked the conferees for their participation, invited us to continue tearing down the walls that we have built between us and wished us God’s blessing.

The Spirit of Worship continued over lunch at the Wolverine Room of the Campus Cafeteria, albeit in a less formal and more convivial fashion.  Like those who do not want to leave a good party even though it's time to go, we lingered, chatted, took pictures, more pictures and still more pictures. 

The photograph that means the most to me features Julius Nam [R], Michael Campbell [L] and Jerry Moon.  These three young men brought together -- for half a week -- people from all over the world with very different convictions about QOD, accomplishing something that no one else had been able to do in fifty years.  The good results of this historic meeting are beyond calculation.  God has only begun to make good use of their talents and dedication!    

South Pacific Adventist News

By Alexander Carpenter

You can listen to the Spirit of Things interview on spirituality and health here. 

NOW | God and Global Warming | PBS

By Alexander Carpenter

In August, NOW traveled with an unlikely alliance of Evangelical Christians and leading scientists to witness the breathtaking effects of global warming on Alaska's rapidly changing environment. Though many in the evangelical community feel recognition of global warming is in opposition to their mission, the week-long trip inspired new thinking on the relationship between science and religion, and on our moral responsibility to protect the planet. A breathtaking and surprising journey to find common ground between earth and sky.

Watch the episode here.

This web-exclusive special footage is related to the NOW on PBS program "God and Global Warming" which aired Friday, October 26.

Ex vs. anti SDA?

This post, by an former member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, raises some fruitful questions about religious identity:

I don’t actually view myself as “ex” anything, even though we all are ex-something and headed onward to something else, I hope. But I don’t shun contact with members of the church in which I grew up, and thus I sometimes have to deal with the default identity of ex-Seventh-day Adventist.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of SDAs who see me as a person apart from that one point of identity. There are even some non-SDAs–who were never SDAs–who define me as an ex-SDA. The connection between the church in which I grew up and my present identity cannot be severed in their view. What they would like me to do is cut all ties as clearly as possible and make myself anti-SDA. It’s the old “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” approach. And of course that approach isn’t bad if the question is good and evil, God or satan, constructive or destructive. But for brothers and sisters in Christ, I reject that approach.

I can illustrate this through two experiences. 

Read the rest at Threads from Henry's Web.

Cult/ure

By Alexander Carpenter

I'm spending my Sunday catching up on the current New Yorker. I just enjoyed this paragraph in an article, "The Mission," on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 

The application to emerging acculturated Adventism will be clear, for it gets at the deep identity connection in those who love a Christian community for more than its past disappointments and hope.

Many commentators have suggested that Romney will need to make a speech akin to the one that John F. Kennedy gave in 1960 to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which he promised to resign if there was ever a collision between his beliefs as a Catholic and the national interest. Jan Shipps [a leading non-Mormon scholar of Mormonism] is skeptical of the idea that Romney could do something similar. “Mormonism was a cult, just as Christianity was a cult in the beginning,” she told me. “But a cult, when it grows up, becomes a culture, and the people who are a part of it take on an ethnic identity, a peoplehood. Romney is not Mormon the way, say, Ted Kennedy is Catholic. Romney is Mormon the way Ted Kennedy is Irish. That’s the difference. And, when it’s that much a part of who you are, it’s very hard to explain it to other people, because you can’t figure out why they can’t see it. [emphasis supplied]

A peculiar peoplehood?   

Science Sunday: Phantoms in the Brain

By Alexander Carpenter

As regular readers of the Spectrum Blog know, I'm a big fan of the TED Talks (Technology, Entertainment, Design) that happen in Monterey, California each October. I really enjoyed this lecture by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran on "phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and family have been replaced with imposters." While I watched it, I reflected on our recent discussions over homosexuality and climate change, as well as the interesting bulletins and conversation surrounding the QOD conference.

"Missing the metaphorical meaning." I wonder in what ways, how we read scripture, or human sin, or scientific evidence, or this blog post, depends in part on the cellular structures of our mind?

Mediation and peace with Thich Nhat Hanh

By Alexander Carpenter

Thanks to Raymond's post about the Dalai Lama, a discussion about religious leaders has broken out on the blog. Since Thich Nhat Hanh has come up in discussions, I wanted to give commenters an opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.

This video comes from an Asia Society meeting on October 10, 2007 in which he leads a meditation and then discusses the Kingdom of God, Suffering, Consumption, and the Environmental Impact of Meat and Alcohol in addition to the comparisons between Viet Nam, Iraq and Burma. I love what he says about the relation between spiritual leadership in this country and Iraq. (Click on Open Tools to select chapters.)

"World-renowned Vietnamese-born Buddhist teacher, scholar, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh talks with Vishakha N. Desai, President, Asia Society, about his controversial and distinguished life as a Buddhist and a voice for peace from the days of the Vietnam War to the ongoing conflicts of the 21st century. Hanh is author of the national bestseller Peace Is Every Step and his new book is The Art of Power."

QOD conference bulletin four

By Richard Rice

Friday, October 26, 2007

Today was the final full day of the QOD Conference, emphasis on “full.” It began with a stirring appeal from John McVay, president of Walla Walla University, based on Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians to Christians to put away all animosity and treat each other with consideration and love. The various presentations and discussions that followed were variously characterized by scholarly impassivity and spiritual fervor, giving the overall atmosphere a rather strange mix of campmeeting, testimony meeting, and academic seminar.

Roy Adams and I had the first two papers on the theology of QOD, and we both addressed the question of Christ’s humanity. Roy wrote his dissertation on M L Andreasen, so he had a lot to offer about the historical and theological backstory of QOD. But we agreed, I think, that in his human nature Christ was not subject to sin either experientially or inherently. Adams detailed the various faux pas of those who prepared QOD—the same problems noted by a number of presenters--and concluded with a critique of “final generation” theology, the view of Andreasen, Douglass and others that the last generation of God’s people on earth will attain an unprecedented level of spiritual excellence, and will thereby demonstrate conclusively that Satan’s charges against God’s character are false. “To bend theology to fit our eschatological goals and objectives,” Adams asserted, “is neither sound nor prudent.”

The other morning papers offered impassioned pleas for opposing views of perfectionism. Colin Standish, Russell’s twin and close collaborator, took emphatic exception to the two problematic elements in QOD, the affirmation of Christ’s sinless humanity, and the notion that the atonement was complete on the cross, rather than continuing with Christ’s ministry as high priest. He too railed against the authors of QOD, describing their work as “a planned attempt to reshape the beliefs of our church.” For Standish, the concept of original sin is particularly objectionable, since it describes sin as a condition rather than an act of transgression.

Woodrow Whidden matched Standish’s rhetorical flair as he talked through his paper on the “enduring theological legacy” of QOD. A historian of SDAm, Whidden finds a great deal of Wesleyan theology in the background of EGW's doctrine of salvation, and he faults “last generation” theology for a failure to appreciate the difference between sanctification and glorification. Sinlessness comes only with the latter, he argues, and not before. For Whidden, “effective forensic justification” and “penal substitutionary atonement” are the key concepts in a valid doctrine of salvation, and last generation theology is a huge mistake.

LeRoy Moore argued that it is possible to pull together competing strands from both groups by affirming the paradoxical nature of truth. In his view, Christ had “a post-fall inheritance” but a “sinless spiritual nature," resisting sin throughout his life by relying on the Holy Spirit. I’m not sure just how these pieces fit together, but I like Moore’s irenic motives and his confidence that we can all get along.

Dave Larson began his remarks with a touching remembrance of his father, the late Ralph Larson, who is well known for his extensive discussion of the issues of the conference, especially his treatment of Christ’s humanity. For his part, David believes the denominational preoccupation with the person of Christ and the question of whether the atonement was or was not completed on the cross are not worth the theological energy SDAs have spent on them. On the one hand, the whole idea of human nature is problematic, as Buddhist views of the ephemeral self indicate. On the other, there are suggestive elements in SDA thought that deserve much more attention, such as Sabbath time, God’s ongoing work of salvation throughout human history, and the affirmation of human freedom, and our concern for “the state of the living.” To those mired in a concern for the precise nature of Christ’s humanity and the precise locus of the atonement, Larson had a strong piece of advice: “Get a life!”

At the close of the day, the deans of the three sponsoring institutions, Andrews, Loma Linda and Oakwood, offered some concluding observations on the conference and its themes, along the lines of where we have been and where we might go from here.

In retrospect, the conference gave me an overload of things to think about. I learned a great deal more about the production of QOD than I ever knew; I heard from people who have been energized by its controversial themes for years, and I still have a hard time understanding why it has attracted so much attention. It is a persistent challenge to me as a theologian to relate issues of such specific denominational dimensions to some of the larger issues in Christian thought. There are other elements in Adventism, and there are certainly other elements in Christianity, that deserve more consideration.

At the same time, I recognize that doctrinal diversity includes not just conceptual differences, but emotional differences, too—for want of a better word. What is a minor matter to one SDA may be an issue of crucial importance to another. Learning to live together requires us to accept different ideas and different personalities, too, and sometimes the latter pose the greater challenge. However, in this supposedly postmodern age, in which beliefs allegedly no longer matter, it was encouraging to me as a theologian to find so many people intensely interested in doctrinal issues. It gives pause to consider the fact that virtually every theological question has been, for someone sometime, a matter of life and death.

One final note. The organizers of the conference deserve enormous credit for pulling it off. They did all they could to plan an interesting program (in the face of widespread suspicion) and to make things run smoothly, from setting an appropriate tone in the first meeting, to providing various ways for us to interact with each other, from group prayer to common meals, and for so efficiently covering all the details that no one thinks about until something goes wrong, like getting us meal tickets and parking permits. Kudos to all of them, Michael Campbell, Jerry Moon, Julius Nam, and their associates. 

Note enough QOD for you. . .check out the QOD wikipedia page.

Learning to love the Psalter

by Johnny A. Ramírez

This post is the first of what may become a series of journals from divinity and seminary students. At the end of the post there is a note requesting feedback on how interesting readers find this concept.

Called by Luther the little bible, the Psalms have sustained Christian life since its inception even forming a rich part of Christs own reflection up to and including His dying words.  Before Bibles were in broad circulation the Psalms would have been one of the best known segments of Scripture familiar to Christians as they formed a central part of early and medieval Christian liturgy. 

By the time John Wesley came onto the scene this sort of ritualized recitation of the Psalms had become routine to the point where (although he never left Anglicanism) his offspring churches seem to share his lack of any sort of aesthetic sensitivity.  The Puritans had outright contempt and scorn for 'high church' ritualized worship including the reading of the Psalms.  These outlooks have affected many American churches including our own American-born denomination.

Bonhoeffer, who in the secret seminary of his Confessional church instituted a regular reading of the Psalms, said that after praying the Psalms you could never go back since any other prayer seems woefully inadequate.  He also proposed that the Lords prayer is actually the summary of main themes of the Psalms.

Even if you read the Psalms regularly on your own you lose much as the Psalms were intended to form part of communal worship.  Indeed monastic recitations of the Psalms incite physiological changes in the part of the participant as they move, and breathe, with fellow readers as they go through the text.

My report is that my experience of the past few weeks of attending morning prayer at Kings College chapel has positively impacted my daily outlook in relationship to Scripture. The service has two regular leaders, Brian Brock and John Webster faculty members in practical theology and systematic theology respectively, who alternate in leading the prayers.  The leader reads one verse and we read  together the following verse. Brock has an American evangelical background and Webster is a life long Anglican.  This comes across as a marked difference as although Brock has been attending morning prayer for several years his readings lack the tempo, cadence and memorization of Webster who has, after years of this, obviously memorized quite a bit of these texts. 

I can't help but feel that such familiarity with Scripture should be present within all of us especially those who would pretend to make Christian ministry our life's work.  I've struggled to keep up with what feels to me to be a fast reading and also to pause at appropriate times and for the proper duration. I also had to be told how to find that mornings prayer in the book of common prayer (it's numbered by the day of the month). 

My deepest impression has been the experience of immersing myself in the Psalms and beginning my day with regular readings from Scripture. This is something that I had not experienced in the same way with private extemporaneous prayers following devotional readings on my own. I'm not suggesting that we take up a prayer book or structure our worship like "high church" denominations.  I do however think that a daily worship practice would be a positive addition to the life of any Christian. 

This is a practice which with time will become habit and in turn contribute to forming a character rooted in Christ and reflection on the word.  I have fast come to look forward to, and depend on, morning prayer to bring me closer to the word and the Word, Christ.

I hope that some readers can share how weekly morning worships look at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University, the seminaries at Southern and La Sierra and Adventist seminaries beyond North America.

I personally would love to read reports from Adventist seminary and divinity school students on the Spectrum blog.  Any volunteers please email our Campus News editor alexander [at] spectrummagazine [dot] org.  Thanks!

QOD conference bulletin three

By Richard Rice, reflecting on Thursday

If the organizers of the QOD Conference wanted a variety of viewpoints, they certainly got it today, with nine different presentations, two panel discussions, and second evening keynote address, this time from Herbert Douglass.

In the first session after the morning worship by Nik Satelmajer, Julius Nam neatly divided the various reactions to QOD into four groups—pro- and anti-Adventist Evangelicals, and pro- and anti-QOD Adventists. Among the nine observations he made following this division, was the unlikely fact that the first and fourth groups agreed that QOD represented a change in SDA theology, and the second and fourth agreed that it didn’t. Nam also noted the “tactics” of the QOD authors in excluding M L Andreasen from the preparation of the material and “finessing” the EGW material to support a position that significantly shifted the traditional view of Christ’s human nature. Describing himself as “a heart-broken member” of the SDA church, Russell Standish left no doubt about his views of QOD. It represented “compromise,” “alterations” in basic Adventist beliefs, “the destruction of this body of truth,” “this intrusion of rank apostasy,” “rank error,” as well as a misguided attempt to please “those who despised our faith” on the part of those who “suffered from a strange denominational inferiority complex.”

Another Australian, Arthur Patrick took a strikingly different approach. As he sees it, the QOD controversy as it emerged in Australia reflected in part the disillusionment that followed the end of WW2, when people who thought the end of the world was upon them found out it wasn’t. In reaction, some saw in the QOD controversy a sign of prophesied apostasy. Others saw it as a call to reconsider unexamined certainties and rethink SDA identity. Patrick issued a thoughtful appeal to SDAs to open all the QOD material to thoughtful research. Ciro Sepulveda presented the interesting thesis that the QOD discussion reflected to a significant degree demographic and economic transitions. As church members become more sophisticated and affluent, they wanted a “more enlightened theology,” to match the growth of their educational institutions and their movement into respectable society. QOD provides yet another example of the way religious movements change from sect to denomination.

Alberto Timm provided a detailed account of the QOD in Latin America, where a Portuguese translation is just about to appear. Various parts of the book were published in the form of articles. For the most part the continent was spared the controversy that engulfed the book elsewhere. The membership in Latin America is generally respectful of church leadership, and even those who opposed QOD had not even read it. He also noted, to the amusement of the audience, some critics of QOD presented their views to Brazilian SDAs in Spanish, not realizing that Portuguese was their national language.

The afternoon session, “QOD and the Evangelicals,” presented contrasting views of the theological changes represented in QOD. Paul McGraw detailed the vigorous objections of many Evangelicals to the view of Martin and Barnhouse that SDAs, for all their distinctive beliefs, should be considered fellow Christians. For vocal critics like Louis Talbot, E B Jones, and Harold Lindsell, the distinctives of SDAs posed an insuperable obstacle to any such judgment. For all the supposed changes in other areas, these unique beliefs exclude them from the Evangelical fold. Larry Christoffel gave a straightforward affirmation of Evangelical Adventism, with its emphasis on the central themes of Reformation theology—the Trinity, the sinless nature of Christ, the complete substitutionary atonement of the cross, and justification by faith alone, to mention just a few. These common themes call for a closer alliance between Adventists and other members of the larger Evangelical community.

Two of the non-SDA participants were notable for the differences in their views of the transition that QOD represents in SDA theology. Kenneth Samples, an Evangelical Calvinist who worked for a time with Walter Martin, welcomes the theological changes that QOD embodies, noting that EGW helped the Church toward full-fledged Trinitarianism and an orthodox understanding of the nature of Christ. While noting the differences between traditional, evangelical and liberal SDAs, Samples indicated that Walter Martin regarded the revisionary perspective on SDAm that he encouraged as one of his most important accomplishments. If Samples sees the developments in QOD as a move in the right direction, Donald Dayton, a Wesleyan scholar, takes a different approach. He finds the familiar categories such as conservative, liberal, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism, unhelpful when one takes a close look at the origins and development of religious movements, including SDAm. For him the move away from our roots represents a loss of the distinctive insights that we have to offer the world, and the real driving force behind the SDA ethos (my expression) is eschatology. His paper concludes with this ominous caveat: “I fear that Adventism may sell its heritage for a mess of pottage.”

Herbert Douglass ended the day with a long paper based on the image of clashing tectonic plates, symbols of Calvinism and Arminianism. No summary will do justice to the care with which his presentation was constructed or convey the personal passion with which is was delivered. But he is clearly dismayed at the maneuverings of those who produced QOD in excluding Andreasen from the discussion and manipulating EGW quotations to support unprecedented doctrinal positions, a straightforward example of “fraud.” The greatest tragedy of the whole episode, his view seems to be, was the missed opportunity on the part of the Church to present to Barnhouse and Martin the great controversy perspective that is unique to SDAs and that affects the full range of SDA doctrines, particularly the view of Christ’s humanity and the importance of sanctification.

I’ll have to wrap this up, since I have an early presentation of my own tomorrow morning, but I would like to see more reflection on the nature of theological change at this conference. Religious movements always change over time in lots of ways, beliefs included. But what do these changes represent? Gains or losses? Growth or decay? Refinement or apostasy? When it comes to QOD, opinions obviously vary, widely. But addressing theological change in general might help us to understand just what has been going on for the past fifty years.

Vessels of Divine Love and Compassion: Adventism & the Dalai Lama

By Raymond Roccograndi, a student at Southern Adventist University & a Spectrum collegiate correspondent

"Let us cultivate love and compassion, both of which give true meaning to life. This is the religion I preach, more so than Buddhism itself. It is simple. Its temple is the heart. Its teaching is love and compassion. Its moral values are loving and respecting others, whoever they may be. Whether one is a layperson or a monastic, we have no other option if we wish to survive in this world" – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

On Monday, October 22, 2007 along with ten-thousand plus other people twenty students from Southern Adventist University (SAU) attended the “public talk” of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These twenty students were members of SAU Amnesty International and College Democrats of Southern. I am their leader. It was my idea to attend the Emory University hosted event. I thought that Southern’s students might gain some insight from this humble Buddhist monk that has advocated so vehemently the causes of world peace and nonviolent resistance to the oppression of Communist China on the people of Tibet.

After all, the Dalai Lama is a Nobel Peace Laureate, recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, and a Distinguished Presidential Professor at Emory University. I naïvely thought that no one could possibly be against a message of tolerance, understanding, compassion, and peace. I knew from history that Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth all had their “protesters,” but this was the twenty-first century, an age that claims to understand the harvest of hate. Harvests chillingly exemplified in the horrors of the Holocaust, tragedy of the Armenian Genocide, terrors of Rwanda, tragic aftermath of the War in Iraq, and the current Genocide in Darfur.

It had been my belief that this generation was going to hold themselves to the exclamation of the previous generation of “never again.” Never again will genocide go unchallenged - as can be seen in the support around the globe for the immediate deployment of U.N. and African Union peace-keepers into Darfur, Sudan and northern Chad due to the efforts of student-led movements and organizations; never again will war be a solution to our diplomatic problems - as can be seen in the unprecedented world-wide protests to the war in Iraq; never again will our society be complacent in the affairs of the world but become involved and concerned about the interconnectedness of the world around us. This is the zeitgeist of my generation and I believed of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Imagine then how surprised I was when members of my generation as well as professors told me that the Dalai Lama was an agent of the devil. I was completely shocked and almost baffled – I write "almost," because after all this is a church that has yet to accept scientific research in the area of human sexuality or which openly refuses to fully value women by barring them from ordained ministry, but I digress. Still I had hoped that in the matter of world peace and nonviolence resistance that the Adventist Church might find a fellow-traveler in the Dalai Lama. That our church, having advocated for healthy living practices of wholeness, having open conscientious objection to war, having had prominent Adventists involved in the American antislavery movement, would suggest that the ethos of Adventism was more in tune with my generation than other denominations. Instead I found that there was a majority at Southern who viewed the Dalai Lama as an agent of evil.

It has been my experience that when such convoluted statements as “he is an agent of the devil” or “one driven by evil forces” are the product of ignorance or intolerance. When pressed on their knowledge of Buddhism most of those who had stated the Dalai Lama’s allegiances to Satan were, indeed, ignorant of what Buddhism was and what it is not. This is not atypical of mainstream Adventists.

There is this fear in the Adventist Church that some of my friends' expressed. They said that it is best typified as a strong caution and willful ignorance of other faith traditions other than our own. This worries me greatly as we are a growing church. The notion that at an institution of “higher learning” one would be dissuaded from attending a lecture on peace by someone no affiliated with the Adventist Church is astounding. It is my sincere belief that this incident is indicative of a greater insecurity that these Adventists have with respect to other faiths.

I cannot help but imagine: would that our church be those “peculiar people” written about in the Spirit of Prophecy; would that our membership was so filled with the love of God for man that we had such a Godly-driven desire for the nourishment of mankind through interpersonal relationships.    

As for me, I can read the words of the Dalai Lama, "let us cultivate love and compassion,” - what I believe is the very essence of God - and connect instantly on a spiritual level. Those who attended the public talk expressed that, “It is such an awesome feeling to be able to put aside religious differences - labels, whether they be Christian, Buddhist - I like to put it this way when discussing my faith, "I'm a believer in a Higher Power - greater than my existence, yet interconnected with my being - and a follower of 'The Way,' manifested in many faith traditions.”

I fully understand that this comes off as "New Age" to some and I'm, quite frankly, openly and unabashedly alright with that. I believe that our understanding of God must grow and constantly evolve. Living life with a stagnant view of God only produces, at best, bitter Christians or, at worst, broken atheists. God inspired the biblical author to write, "My ways are not your ways." It is interesting to recall that Christ continually challenged the contemporary view of God and the "religious community" in his day.

With respect to the Adventist Church and the greater Christian Community, I have observed that, too often, it is unfortunately the so-called “religious” that typifies a faith tradition; this is an unfortunate axiom because it limits the expression of a particular faith to its most conservative and fundamentalist elements - our religious communities are much more diverse than that, Adventism emphatically included. I asked members of our Southern Democrats and Amnesty group attending the Dalai Lama’s lecture to ask themselves, “what does it mean to be an Adventist?” It is important to have these questions in the back of our mind and to have an answer should a question arise within ourselves or be provoked by others. 

Yet the answer to that quest must be different for everyone. For me, it means "cultivating love and compassion." I let my temple be my heart - welcoming the Spirit of the Lord to dwell within me and God to work through me, i.e. having and upholding "moral values [of] loving and respecting others, whoever they may be." This includes the "outcasts" of society - homosexuals, women, nonbelievers, believers of other faiths, AIDS victims, the poor, those who have a different "non-orthodox theology" than ours, etc. When Jesus ministered to the people, he widened the inclusion of his ministry and outreach.

Christ included the outcasts of society - his moral values were centered on loving and respecting others. His life dramatically portrayed the Divine Love and Compassion that God has for humanity. May we as a church community learn to respect and love the "outcasts of Adventism." May we cherish the spiritual wisdom of other faith traditions and may we strive to be vessels that express the Divine Love and Compassion that our Lord has for all of humanity.

QOD conference bulletin two

By Richard Rice

Thursday, October 25, 2007

I got to the Seminary Chapel last evening right on time for the first meeting of the QOD conference and discovered I was late. Every pew on the main floor was filled, and I was lucky to find a seat in the small balcony. The meeting began on a decidedly religious tone, with congregational singing “I Would Be Like Jesus,” prayer and a beautiful soprano solo for special music. Jerry Moon introduced the conference and laid down some ground rules for the proceedings. There is to be no cheering (it only escalates), all questions will be submitted in writing (no speeches from the floor, obviously), and we should not expect to agree on everything. Instead, the planners want an honest exchange of views that remains cordial throughout. After brief welcoming comments from representatives of two of the sponsoring institutions for the conference, Denis Fortin, Dean of Andrews University Seminary, and Jon Paulien, Dean of Loma Linda University’s School of Religion—Mervyn Warren of Oakwood was delayed in leaving Huntsville—George Knight gave the first keynote address.

George Knight is well know to SDAs. Now retired from teaching at the Seminary after thirty years, he is the author of thirty books, with three more in production, and he has guided many doctoral dissertations dealing with SDA history. His presentation, entitled “Questions on Doctrine: symbol of Adventist Theological Tension,” gave a clear and helpful account of the background of the book. Among the major points he made was the fact that the book paradoxically held firm on many points of distinctive SDA beliefs, such as the heavenly sanctuary and the mark of the beast, and finessed the issue of the atonement—arguing that it included references to both Christ’s sacrificial death and his ministry in the heavenly sanctuary (not just the latter). It broke new ground in asserting the sinless nature of Christ’s humanity. Knight showed that this was a clear departure from the view that prevailed among Adventists through the years, in spite of later assertions to the contrary by church leaders. He also detailed the bitter conflict between M L Andreasen (pictured) and the church administrators responsible for QOD. It led to his forced retirement and the eventual lifting of his credentials. There was, however, a touching account of his deathbed reconciliation with the G C President and another church leader.

Knight’s presentation ended with a moving account of his own experience. “My life has been dominated,” he said, “by the events surrounding the QOD controversy.” He entered the church through the ministry of Ralph Larson, worked hard to achieve the endtime perfection which Andreasen called for, left the church for six for years, disillusioned with religion generally, and finally returned with a new vision of what Christ meant to him. He moved away from Andreasen’s theology, convinced that biblical perfection is not sinlessness, but mature Christian love.

Well, the sun is finally up—that means it’s after eight a.m. in western Michigan—and I’m looking at a good ten hours of meetings today. More later. 

On homosexuality: a Bible study

By Alexander Carpenter

As is clear to anyone who's cruised through the 130-plus comments, discussion of the proper Christian homosexual position has been pinned somewhere between missionary zeal for openness and dogged opposition.

While discussion was kicked off by a film, thus far the comments have danced around the actual scriptural support without really digging into the text.

I'm ready to tackle the text and only the text. Time for some good ol' Sola Scriptura and Holy Spirit-blessed reasoning. And I've got a serious Bible study to kick it off.

Let me introduce you to Justin Cannon. He attends the Graduate Theological Union with me and he arrived with a bit of notoriety due to his man bites dog story. Justin takes the Bible very seriously and he has a boyfriend. He runs a site for theologically conservative gay Christians called Inclusive Orthodoxy where he writes of GLBTs:

The Church needs to embrace and support this group of people, not despite scripture and tradition, but in light of scripture and tradition. The doors of the church need to be opened and human prejudices set aside, so that we can truly live according to the law that Christ taught us.

If you're ready for a serious 15-page Bible study on the actual six texts and the issue of procreative sex, here you go: The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality.

There is also a rule on the comments for the post. They can only be on the textual issues, so let's have some Sola Scriptura in practice and bring your thoughtful support or critique of the Biblical evidence.

QOD conference bulletin one

By Richard Rice

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

“To Rick from Grandpa Klose March 25, ’58.” That’s the inscription on the flyleaf of my copy of Questions on Doctrine. My grandfather, an Adventist missionary and minister for his entire career, always gave me books as gifts, usually ones written by Arthur Maxwell. But if a study of church doctrines seems an odd selection for an eighth grader, I must admit that I was a rather serious child and my thirteenth year proved to be the most deeply religious of my entire life. So I was glad for another book to add to my growing library.

The much anticipated conference on QOD begins tonight at Andrews University. It commemorates the publication fifty years ago of the book that was supposed to build bridges between SDAs and the larger Christian world, and would up generating bitter divisions within the church. Not everyone is looking forward to the conference. In his address to SDA world leaders at annual council a short time ago, GC President Jan Paulsen expressed his own reservations about it. He hopes that the conference will not refuel the controversies that the book ignited over the atonement, the nature of Christ, and a number of other issues.

Organized by Michael Campbell and Julius Nam, young scholars specializing in Adventist history, and sponsored by several Adventist Universities, the QOD conference features keynote addresses by George Knight, a retired Seminary professor who has authored a stack of  books on SDA history, Herbert Douglass, onetime president of Weimar College and associate editor of the "Adventist Review," and Angel Rodriquez, currently the director of the church’s Biblical Research Institute. 

The seven sessions scheduled for Thursday and Friday will be devoted to presentations and panels on the following topics—the history and impact of QOD, the relation between Adventists and Evangelicals, the theology of QOD, and “QOD and the Church.” Along with a number of SDA scholars, the slate of participants includes scholars from outside the church, Edith Blumhofer of Wheaton College and Donald Dayton, who taught most recently at Azusa Pacific University. It also includes some people who have been highly critical of church administration and theology, such as Colin Standish.

I don’t recall reading much of QOD until I found the list of Ellen White quotations in the appendices helpful in my college theology courses. And I was only vaguely aware at the time of the clouds of controversy that Questions on Doctrine stirred up. So, idea that we should have a conference to commemorate its publication came as a bit of a surprise to me. I don’t know what the mood of the conference will be—celebration, reflection, or controversy—and I’m not sure what it will accomplish. The conveners look forward to “an engaging, reflective, scholarly dialogue.” It won’t be long till we find out if they are right.

Here is a link to the QOD conference website.

Adventists on national radio in Australia

by Nathan Brown

This past weekend featured a one-hour special on Seventh-day Adventists, focusing on various public health activities, on Australia's Radio National—similar to NPR.

The four-part feature included interviews with Pastor John Gate, director of the church's Bible correspondence school in Australia, Dr Gerald Winslow of Loma Linda University, Jonathan Duffy, director of Adventist health for the South Pacific Division, and Dr Peter Landless from the General Conference health department.

The program was a direct result of the second Australian Conference on Spirituality and Health that Dr Rachael Kohn, host of the ABC Radio National program Spirit of Things attended both as a delegate and a guest speaker. The conference was held in August and was organised by Adventist Health in the South Australian Conference.

The broadcast is worth checking out. Listen online or dowload from:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2007/2059943.htm

Happy Great Disappointment Day!

By Alexander Carpenter

During her sermon at the Adventist Forum conference La Sierra University professor of religion Kendra Haloviak pointed out that October 22, 1844 was actually a day of great hope. And therefore, the 23rd was the day of great disappointment.

While some churches are built on great traditions of biblical literalism (Southern Baptists) or great spirit (Assemblies of God), Seventh-day Adventism comes from great disappointment. When one gets GOD so publicly incorrect it takes a liberal hope in human understanding and divine understandability to keep on proclaiming truth. And we have, mixing the literal and the spirit and the allegorical in present ways. Due in part to our great White hope we went from wrong to 15-million strong.   

Like the hymn says, "we have this hope burning in our hearts." And I think that this hope is embedded in our Seventh-day and Advent name -- hope in humans and God meeting in time as well as when there are no more disappointing days. 

Spectrum poll: Would you vote for a Mormon?

By Alexander Carpenter

Opinion Polls & Market Research

The director on For the Bible Tells Me So

By Alexander Carpenter

On the intersection of religion and homosexuality, For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) director Daniel Karslake, discusses his documentary.

Does the Bible Condemn Homosexuality? A look at the film For The Bible Tells Me So

By Daneen Akers, Spectrum Reviews Editor

Trailer for the new documentary For The Bible Tells Me So

My first encounter with For The Bible Tells Me So, a new documentary about homosexuality and the Bible, was at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. My husband and I had taken a group of students to the festival, and we waited in line for three hours hoping to get into a midnight screening. We got in, but just barely, sitting in the very front row of the theater, watching the film at an extreme angle. Even in the “worst” seats in the house, the film moved us all.

It was a bit of an odd paradigm. Here we were in the middle of a secular film festival, the crown jewel of an industry not exactly known for its overly kind portrayal of “religious folk,” and we were watching one of the most spiritual films any of us had ever seen. This film took religion and scripture seriously. This film didn’t want to simply toss out Christianity for its intolerance and storied past of scripturally-sanctioned abuse towards gays. This film wasn’t an angry screed. Instead it was a heartfelt and passionate plea for a new attitude, one in which gays didn’t have to deny themselves or their religion. This film proposed reconciliation, to bridge the chasm between what people often think their beloved Bible says—that gays are an “abomination”, and their children who don’t seem like abominations.

Early that morning after our students had kept us up for hours discussing the film (it was crystal clear to me how to keep our youth in the church after this wee-hours-of-the-morning conversation—address real issues honestly), I wrote a blog entry about my experience with this film for the Progressive Adventism site. The ensuing outpour of responses (from a wide variety of perspectives) made it clear to me that it’s not just college students who want to discuss this issue.  (To read that post with all 198 comments, click here)

After a second screening here in San Francisco (and a thorough read of Rev. Jack Rogers’ Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church), I’m even more convinced that this is the issue of our time. The Bible has been used repeatedly throughout history to rationalize all sorts of oppression and injustice (slavery and the subjugation of women most recently), and now it’s being used again to excuse discrimination and intolerance against gays.

This issue is looming large in our society and our church. An Adventist LGBT advocate recently pointed out that a newly voted document “Safeguarding Mission in Changing Social Environments,” moves the church even further in its stance against gays and is now extending its condemnation towards those who advocate for homosexual rights. “The Church does not accept the idea of same-sex marriages nor does it condone homosexual practices or advocacy.”

To start (or for some of you continue) this important conversation, I’ve asked three people to review the film. David R. Larson is a Seventh-day Adventist minister and professor of Christian ethics at Loma Linda University; Obed Vasquez is a professor of sociology at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA and has been a member of SDA Kinship International since 1978; and Jacqueline Hegarty is a partnered Seventh-day Adventist lesbian mom living in the San Francisco Bay Area who is also a member of SDA Kinship.

To find a screening near you (and please do), visit  http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/screening.htm.

On homosexuality: Kinship reviews For the Bible Tells Me So

By Obed Vazquez and Jacqueline Hegarty

On Sunday, October 14, 2007, a group of Kinship members from the San Francisco Bay area joined many of our straight friends at the Lumiere Theater to attend the San Francisco screening of the new 99-minute film documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, produced and directed by first-time filmmaker, Daniel Karslake.

The film follows the journeys of five American families, each of whom discover that they have a gay or lesbian child. Two of the featured families were Gephardt family, with Chrissy Gephardt, lesbian daughter; and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop, elected Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004. The other families were ordinary, Christian, “typical” American families who faced reconciling the issue of homosexuality with what they had always believed the Bible said on the subject.

Each of the five families dealt with the issue differently; yet, they had a commonality, their literalist understanding of what the Bible says about homosexuality. The families are all confronted by a big challenge—the apparent attack on their belief in the Bible as the written word of God that gives them ultimate truth. But more than a challenge, it feels like an assault that threatens the very core of their relationship with their God. For most of the families, their love for their children and knowing that their children are good, sincere, and God-fearing, propels them to seek a way of understanding this “condition.” 

The stories of these struggles stir the emotions, reach out to the heart, and resonate with the familiar. Each story is poignant, from the story of Mary Lou Wallner, a mother who has to live each day with the suicide of her daughter because of her own rejection, to the Poteats who are portrayed as loving and accepting their lesbian daughter but still resistant towards accepting her “lifestyle.”

This is the strength of the documentary, the joining of home and the altar. Home is where the young homosexual feels the pressures of the ultimate sacrifice of coming out. Will they be rejected by their parents as they acknowledge this “truth” about themselves, and will God side with their parents?  What is their God really like? The message from both home and church seems clear: we are an abomination. But are we? 

The strength of homosexuality is its ability to bring the committed, sincere, and honest Christian to face to face with the possibility that what he or she has been taught is perhaps wrong. That the Bible they cherish and rely on may not mean quite what they have always taken for granted. That the God they have come to know may not be the “right” or only version of God. And this is the other strength of the film—it validates the sincerity of these Christian families without attacking them. This film takes the Bible seriously and wants to reconcile gays and lesbians with the scripture they love. The film interviews Biblical scholars and ministers who help explain the context of the Bible’s few verses about homosexuality. Much of this scholarship is not new to us “out” LGBTI Christians, but we appreciated how compassionately it is presented throughout the film.

One of the scholars interviewed, Dr. Lawrence Keene of the Disciples of Christ, talks about how he responds to Biblical literalists who frequently assert, “This is what the Bible says” by countering,“…No, that’s what the Bible reads...”  He challenges fundamentalists to consider the context, the language, the culture, and the customs that helps us to understand the meaning of what the Bible is saying. For example, the Bible does not offer much advice for modern marriage because marriage as we know it today (between one man and one woman with both parties considered equal) simply did not exist. Likewise it does not say anything about committed homosexual relationships today—homosexuality as we know it today did not exist when the Bible was being written.

The producer has chosen not to address the parents that decide to send their children to conversion camps or reparative therapy programs. It doesn’t show the emotional and spiritual damage this has caused many gay and lesbians, denying them a path towards developing a relationship with the God of their childhood. In fact, the relationship is impossible because the God they read about condemns them, and there is no negotiation with “abomination.”

One of the film’s highlights that we found especially moving was the story of Bishop Gene Robinson. His story is at first a story we have all heard—he follows cultural tradition, marries, and has children. Then what has been denied within him begins to clash, putting pressures on his relationship with his wife, his ministry, and his values. His decision to come out and to continue in his ministry, however, can not be taken lightly; this is not the easy path. The courage to continue in the ministry is what makes this such an incredible story.

The film tells the highlights of his nomination to become bishop through the testimony of members of the nominating committee who were looking for the best spiritual leader they could find. The fact that he happened to be gay was not taken lightly but recognized as an additional quality that he was bringing to the office. Seeing his consecration at the General Convention with the accompanying pageantry, pomp and circumstance, and thunderous applause was a powerful testimony of the dedication of a gay man, a gay minister, and the faith of a congregation who accepted the impossible: that a gay man can be a spiritual leader.

Another highlight for us came towards the end of the story of the Poteat family. Here we have a couple who are obviously dedicated to their beliefs, but also dedicated to their children. Their prayer for their children is answered, but not how they expected. God has a sense of humor. Their inability to accept the “lifestyle” of their daughter was admittedly frustrating in many ways. They functioned on the “love the sinner, but hate the sin” mentality, a conflicting duality that is painful and an impossible reality.

Which brings us to the good question of what indeed is the “gay lifestyle"?  Mel White addresses this by sharing a moment he had while on Larry King Live. A caller asked what Mel and his partner did in bed. Even though Larry King hung up on the caller for being rude, White answered, “What do we do in bed? We’ve been together for 24 years—we sleep in bed.” Indeed, many of us lead very boring lives of working long hours, taking care of children, cooking, cleaning the house, and doing the laundry. We go to church, sit on boards, lead Sabbath school, and fall exhausted into our beds at the end of the day to sleep: the “gay lifestyle”?

Showing families on their journeys to reconciliation and unconditional love is powerful; it is the heart of society, and none are excluded. In a way, the Poteats can be seen as representative of many Americans (at least, we hope)—they admit to not having settled issues of sex; they admit they might need to read the Bible again; they admit to not being able to accept the “lifestyle”; and yet they still want to love their daughter. They want to see her as a child of God. There is still pain because they can’t offer her complete acceptance yet. “We’re not there yet.” But, there is hope that they will be there soon.

Obed Vazquez is a professor of sociology at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. He is a partnered Seventh-day Adventist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been a member of SDA Kinship International since 1978 and serves as a regional coordinator for SDA Kinship International.

Jacqueline Hegarty is a partnered Seventh-day Adventist lesbian mom living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is active in SDA Kinship’s Region 8 (northern California), serving as editor of the region’s electronic newsletter, Region 8 News & Views. She also serves as Public Relations Coordinator for SDA Kinship International (www.sdakinship.org).

The authors would also like to recommend an Adventist-produced video entitled, “Open Heart, Open Hand,” featuring three Adventist families and their experiences with their gay/lesbian children. It shows similar journeys, similar struggles, familiar pain, and it is our families. (More information about the video is available from Carrol Grady’s website, www.someone-to-talk-to.net.)

On homosexuality: Larson reviews For the Bible Tells Me So

By David R. Larson

Getting started too late, my wife and I sped the 51.8 miles from our condominium in Loma Linda to the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs. Things were going well until we got lost in that California oasis because our Internet directions told us to turn right when we should have turned left. When we finally arrived at our destination, the previews of coming attractions had begun to roll. But For Me the Bible Tells Me So had not yet started. We are happy that we did not miss a single frame!

I encourage as many as possible to see this movie during its preliminary screening. For locations and further information about where it is showing, please visit www.forthebibletellsmeso.org. If you cannot see it now, watch for it on the Sundance Channel and on DVD in early 2008. Buy it!  View it!  Discuss it!

Robert Greenbaum, one of movie’s executive producers, said in the question and answer period after the film screening that the film’s purpose is “to open up conversations” about those who say they wish their church loved them as much as they love it. These would be our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ.

I misspoke. This movie is not about them. It is about the rest of us. It is about how we straight—or pretending-to-be-straight—Christians often treat them. It is about why homosexual men and women commit suicide at three times the rate of others. It is about sin, not theirs but ours.

The film shows in a compelling way (those who know more about making movies can explain) a collage of snippets from the actual lives of at least five groups of people. These bits of film seem to have been thrown into a hat, stirred up and then pulled out and rearranged topically without a booming voice that proclaims, “Now we turn to the issue of …………..”  Everything just flows together in what I experienced as a zigzagging but smoothly running cinematic stream.

One of these groups is a small number of well-educated Christian homosexuals. As I now recall it, three are women, two are men. Four are white and one is black. Four of them are alive and well today. One is not. She was found dead, dangling in her home closet from a rope with a dog chain around her neck. She had kicked a chair out from under her.

The parents of these gay and straight people make up a second group. Those who use Scripture to make life miserable for homosexuals are a third. Others who read the Old and New Testament more responsibly constitute the fourth. The fifth is made up of animated characters that summarize recent scientific answers to the endless questions such as:  “Why are they like that?” Well, why are we like this?

I think it generous that those who produced For the Bible Tells Me So say nothing about the leading Christian gay bashers who have recently displayed their hypocrisy by being caught in homosexual activities themselves. In some deep way did they want to be discovered so as it bring their big lies to an end?  In their own fashion were they also “coming out of the closet?”  Is this why the movie spares them?  I don’t know but I do wonder.

For fear of dissuading some from seeing it, I hesitate to mention anything that I think this movie might have done more effectively; nevertheless, I hazard the following. First, I think it would have been helpful to have devoted more footage to thoughtful Christian leaders who are perplexed or even troubled by some things some homosexual men and women say and do. I understand that this movie’s producers tried but failed to find such people who were willing to be interviewed on camera. Only Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, agreed to be interviewed. Regrettably, as I know from my own attempts to get people involved in this topic, this is par for the course. No wonder most of those in this movie with more conservative views are unlettered and uncouth bigots!

I also think that this movie could have done more to emphasize that there is no such thing “as the homosexual life style” even though this expression has long been a menacing mantra. Just like straight people, gays and lesbians arranges their lives in many different ways. Many are healthy, others are deadly. To treat this subject by putting all heterosexuals in one moral category and all homosexuals in the opposite is false no matter which one we favor. The line between good and evil falls within us, not between.

A third issue is more strictly theological. The movie effectively shows how silly it can be to select some portions of Scripture and apply them to our own lives today without reference to their original contexts. But to some extent this still leaves unanswered the questions as to how we should pick and choose, as certainly we must.

I share the view that the life, teachings, death, resurrection and continuing ministry of Jesus Christ make up the criterion by which we should measure everything we find in Scripture and elsewhere. As Charles Scriven has written so well on this site and in Spectrum, we need to think of Scripture as a moving narrative with a discernable plot, one that moves to and from our Lord and Savior.

I like the language of “trajectory” because for me it connotes more strongly that this story advances into our time and beyond and that it does so in a certain direction, the one to which the ancient plot propels us!  Being a Christian today is not to do in our time what the ancients did in theirs. It is to continue the struggle. It is to go further in the same direction. It is to remember that “His truth keeps marching on!” and to get in step.

One way to do this is to see and discuss For the Bible Tells Me So!          

David R. Larson is a Seventh-day Adventist minister who has taught Christian ethics at Loma Linda University since 1974.  He, David Ferguson and Fritz Guy are editing a book titled "Christianity and Homosexuality:  Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives." It should be available by Christmas.

YOUR comments: On homosexuality

Since we have three posts for our "On homosexuality" section, I've closed the comments there and created this one thread to make it easier for you to comment after reading the reviews, watching the film or engaging in thoughtful reflection on what the Bible tells us. 

Forgive us our debt: Jubilee USA finally gets its daily bread

By Alexander Carpenter

While the Frost family dominated many conservative minds and Ann Coulter's sans-Jew perfectionism offended everyone else, the folks at Jubilee USA drew a 40-day focus on debt relief to a close. Incredibly Rev. David Duncombe participated for the entire Cancel Debt Fast. That's right, he fasted for 40 day and 40 nights.

Here's video of Rev. Duncombe talking about the experience about sixteen days along. 

Yesterday, due to Jubilee USA's six week lobby efforts, Representatives Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO), also did a one day fast in support of debt canceling legislation. During the 40-day fast campaign the Jubilee Act for Expanded Debt Cancellation and Responsible Lending got 20 additional congressional sponsors to:

* Cancel the debts of up to 26 additional nations not currently eligible for debt cancellation, provided that they demonstrate plans to spend the money wisely on poverty reduction;

* Cut harmful requirements that are delaying access to life-saving debt relief for countries like Haiti and Liberia;

* Call on the Treasury Secretary to address the challenges presented by so-called vulture funds, one of which recently extracted $15 million from impoverished Zambia; and

* Establish policies for responsible lending to avoid odious and unjust debt accumulation in the future, beginning with an audit of past odious debts by the Government Accountability Office.

 An Adventist, Brian Swarts, played a significant role in this campaign as the national organizer for Jubilee USA.

Film club: Citizen Kane

By Alexander Carpenter

I first saw Citizen Kane (1941) on break during my first year in college and was blown away by the nontraditional narrative technique and that rich Toland deep focus. And Orson Welles just commands the screen.

On Growing Up Adventist in the Caribbean

By Matthew Hunte, our man in St. Lucia.

From what I hear, the Caribbean islands are pretty well known for their sun, sand and friendly locals; I’ll get around to checking out that scene one of these days. To be quite honest, I’ve lived what some would call a rather sheltered life, though as I’ve grown older, I realized that due to my quite introverted nature–-thank you Jonathan Rauch!–-I would have spent most of my time reading and writing anyway. However it occurred to me that I, with a penchant for over-analyzing, had never turned the lens inward on my own religious community/beliefs.

I should not pretend that the Adventist experience in the Caribbean is monolithic and that I’m in any position to provide an exhaustive account; I can only speak from my position as a middle class fourth-generation Adventist who grew up in a house containing too many books and who also has a possibly unhealthy fascination with Prince and those violent eighties cartoons. I also should add that while Transformers (2007) was underwhelming, I can’t honestly say I was disappointed since my expectations were low as they should be for any Michael Bay film. Sigh…

Outside of a general appreciation for androgynous, star-crossed musical geniuses, my other views aren’t absolute. However, I could honestly say that for the most part, I have thought through whatever position I hold at a given time exposing it to great scrutiny, which perhaps explains why my views are constantly in flux, that and the fact that I’m only in my early twenties. I could tell you at a given point what my political/economic/sports views were and explain why; not so with religion. I never got around to examining my own religious community–-and/or personal beliefs–-with the scrutiny I used on the other aspects of my life. Anyhow, shall we dance? (Figuratively speaking of course…) 

The dominant culture within Caribbean Adventism, as I’ve experienced it, is a proud conservatism. Indeed, the greatest compliment that could be paid is that you are steadfast and grounded in the Word. In case you’re wondering, this means strict Biblical Literalism, along with Biblical Inerrancy. In a sense, the use of these terms within the Caribbean context to describe these viewpoints is unnecessary because it presupposes that other viable positions may exist. Fundamentalism is essentially unchallenged, not only in the sense that dissenting views are quickly suppressed, but in that few people think that there is any other way.

There really isn’t much of a discernible intellectual culture within Adventist circles, outside of the pastors sprinkling some Greek into their sermons. However, this could possibly be explained as a reflection of wider Caribbean culture. This is partially due to having a poor and for the most part uneducated population, in addition to the insularity which results from coming from such small places; none of this is unique to Adventism. Thus, one could assume that attending college would be a way for me to be exposed to a whole different side of the church culture.

However, during my time at what was then Caribbean Union College, now University of the Southern Caribbean, I came to seriously question the whole notion of an Adventist higher education. Throughout much of my time at CUC, I felt that much greater emphasis was being placed on getting me to worship services than getting me to think. Of course I was hardly a model student to begin with; home schooling must have wrecked my chances for success within a formal education system. At one particularly cringe inducing evening when there were so many other things happening in the world, we were having a public debate on whether or not women should be allowed to wear pants to class. Often I felt that the school was in its own sort of ivory tower, completely divorced from contemporary world.

To be fair, my rather un-illustrious tenure at CUC coincided with a particularly unstable period; I went through five different presidents during my four years and only once did I have the same president opening the school year and making the address at graduation. Nevertheless, there was a significant intellectual vacuum which seemed deeply embedded within the culture of the institution. Perhaps this was because part of the school’s culture which explicitly saw itself as preparation for service; the few of us who studied the liberal arts, often less than fifteen majoring in English or History at any time out of a population which was then around nine hundred, were either pariahs or simply invisible. (By the way Clifford Goldstein’s autobiography provided me with great solace while early in my collegiate career, I was trying to justify my existence as a student of literature. I figured he didn’t turn out too bad so there was still hope…) Nevertheless, though in many ways the school fit the profile of any other cash strapped liberal arts college, this sure wasn’t a Christian Bennington.

But this is not necessarily to state that CUC was a failure; what I’ve grown to suspect is that my goals and that of the institution were in dissonance. This was a school which was indifferent to intellectual development, not one which merely failed to live up to its pretensions.  To be sure, the majority of the student population was apathetic. However the plebes at the bottom could hardly bear the major responsibility in creating an environment conducive to intellectual discourse. During my erstwhile tenure as editor of the school newspaper, I was explicitly informed not to contact the most successful editor in the publication's history since he was said to not have had the institutions best interest at heart. This stems from the paper having run a story dealing with the Folkenberg affair, which lead to an editorial committee being established and the paper being censored until it wilted.

I often used to quip that if anyone in the theology department made any significant discovery, they would by definition be placing their continued employment in doubt. There were relatively few public lectures, book readings or anything of that. I am still not sure whether or not this was simply due to there being no firm leadership during my attendance, whether it is something unique to the institution I attended or if this is endemic within Adventist higher education. (There has been a major spike in enrollment at USC recently with the student population now twenty-six thousand. There has also been the establishment of a scholarly journal and greater engagement with the society with the hosting of a crime symposium for example. Too late for me but still…)

From where I stand, there is little room for dissent within the Adventist community; my growing interest in Bishop Spong wouldn’t gain me any favors among the few who know who he is. (I remember hearing some guy in college complaining about that heretic Richard Rice.) I wouldn’t venture to state that mine is the authentic Caribbean Adventist experience though I suspect that any difference in experience is rooted mainly in my reaction to it. In the mean time, I’m torn between my commitment to intellectual pursuit and a deeper connection to a community which I can’t shake despite my fiercely individualistic nature. So I’m not quite sure where I stand, except that I’m stuck out here on an island.

La Sierra University Wins 2007 World SIFE Competition

By Bonnie Dwyer

Congratulations to all the good people at my alma mater La Sierra University who were involved in the World SIFE Competition over the weekend. Representing the United States, LSU took first place. To John Razzouk, president of the LSU SIFE chapter and Johnny Thomas, the dean of the LSU Business School, in particular, congratulations. You made us proud. Read all about it at: lasierra.edu/news/sife/

Or visit their blog: LSUSIFE World Cup

Jan Paulsen gets it again

By Alexander Carpenter

The General Conference has been engaged in retooling the world administrative structure and this weekend, for Annual Council, Jan Paulsen delivered a pointed sermon on a few priorities (and moot points) for the future.

Recalling the world church's past discussion on women's involvement in church ministry, Paulsen said many woman trained in ministry are not so much concerned with the issue of ordination as with just being employed in ministry.
 
"Local churches are reluctant, and conferences find them difficult to place. That, I think, is a most unfortunate failure," Paulsen said.
 
But the issue, Paulsen said, that has the potential of dividing the church most is theology. He said he does not support another restudy of theological issues originally presented 50 years ago in the book "Questions on Doctrines," particularly regarding the nature of Christ.
 
"I think there is a reason why we have chosen generous language in describing our position as a church on the nature of Christ," Paulsen said.
 
"The uniqueness of Jesus Christ ... leads us to that," he stated. "I just cannot imagine a post-modern person in Europe, a businessman in Asia or Latin America, any more than a farmer in Africa will care one iota whether Christ had the nature of man before the fall or after," Paulsen said. "The realities of the world in which we live have other concerns and other priorities which occupy us."

I believe that's called present truth.

This gets at a Spectrum Blog discussion about Adventists showing moral solidarity with the people -- not the military junta -- of Burma. Should we hone our public moral voice, not just our theological one?

Film club: Battleship Potemkin

By Alexander Carpenter

The famous Odessa Steps sequence from the Sergei Eistenstein film Battleship Potemkin (1925). An early breakthrough in montage in cinema which is one of the reasons this footage is canonical in film history.

The soundtrack was created in 2005 by the Pet Shop Boys.

Congratulations to Al Gore and the IPCC

By Alexander Carpenter

As you've heard, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize went to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Spectrum Blog would also like offer congratulations to La Sierra University's M.Div. student Jared Wright who created the blog: Adventist Environmental Advocacy.

Al Gore said that he accepted the Nobel Prize "on behalf of all the people that have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency." Thus, kudos to Jared and everyone else who worked to integrate faith with the science of global warming.

The Times adds: "In New Delhi, the Indian climatologist who heads the panel, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said, that science had won out over skepticism."

Thoughtful Adventism, like good citizenship,  means always asking questions, but it also requires thinking critically about answers and action. As information increases, we all must form habits of critical appraisal of facts and their authorities.

Some might object to this Nobel Prize going to a polarizing figure, but that may say more about our current climate of ideological antagonism. There's been some debate, although few substantive disagreements over the science of human-caused global warming on the Spectrum Blog. Unfortunately there remain folks still pish-poshing every major scientific body in the world and the 2,000 scientists of the IPCC, who only recycle fossil-fuel industry press releases and redacted governmental reports. But as the great physicist Richard P. Feynman warned: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

Thus, from now on: if someone wants to quote the novel opinions of Michael Crichton or tobacco industry scientists moonlighting for the coal industry or complain that Gore's house is too big, they will have to do more than comment. They will have to marshal evidence, engage the research, and go beyond arm chair skepticism. They will also have to state their parameters for being convinced by the evidence. I have a sticker on my laptop that says "Question Authority," but really anyone can ask questions -- as most children do. Mature citizenship means prizing solutions, even though they might cause -- or stop -- change.

Al Gore responds:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis--a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years.  We face a true planetary emergency.  The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

SPD Adventist News

By Alexander Carpenter

• Adventists are talking with both major parties in the lead up to the Australian elections
• Cuban refugee Jaime Jorge is passionate about his ministry and music
• Kiwi born female church leader honoured as Adventist International Woman of the Year
• Sanitarium goes pink in support of breast cancer research
• Signs Magazine receives commendation as a religious website

Children make deal on SCHIP

By Alexander Carpenter

Campaign for America's Future put out this hard-hitting video in support of the upcoming congressional vote to override Bush's veto of the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. This video is especially good since the few folks who have defended defunding children's health care and attacked young advocates like Graeme Frost as spokespeople forget that their future depends on children too. At least healthy enough for all those photo-ops.

Comix

By Andrew Hanson

De-Halo Christianity

By Alexander Carpenter

According to Matt Richtel at the New York Times: "First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.  Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo."

I strongly suggest reading the aforementioned article as it raises crucial issues surrounding the sloppy-headed approach to youth ministry that has pervaded evangelicalism and even Adventism of late. (My favorite: our Center for Youth Evangelism's Jesus Loves Jeans.)  Mainstream Christian moral priorities have been warped pretty bad when it's the Times and secular blogs that raise concerns about church youth groups' uncritical use of popular culture.

Apparently reacting to the history of evengelicalism's rejection of popular culture, now mainstream Christianity seems too hip to engage in much moral critique, except for telling kids that making out or drinking WILL mess 'em up, but remaining pretty mum on the effects of consumerism and martial imperialism. As the article notes, Halo 3 is rated "M" which means it cannot be sold to anyone under 17 and yet twelve-year-olds are encouraged by their churches to play on site. Of course the arguments pro include meeting people where they are and the constant need to save souls. However, except for talk about "good and evil" -- a tacked-on point accessible to any 3rd rate gamer -- it seems pretty clear that mainstream Christianity has sold its soul to the false marketing idea that we judge Christianity by its growth, not by its witness.

Without dipping into questions about virtual life vs."real" life, it seems that Christianity loses it's prophetic voice and moral clarity when it fails to distinguish between market-driven entertainment and serious questions about human existence -- not to mention this festering failure to foster Christianity-based, critical thinking skills. Or to interrogate at the teenage level the real issues of evil, not killer monsters, but like, ahem, the morality of killing through occupation. Did Blackwater really need to shoot thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of whom are innocent, in order to keep evil from catching a ride to America?

Furthermore, I'm not interested in the unprovable argument about whether killing in a video game dulls human empathy.  What's happening as reported in the Times raises deeper questions about the small-mindedness that creeps into Christianity when we reduce faith to winning souls and growing churches. If the single highest goal of Christianity is to save as many souls as possible then the logic follows that any means to accomplish that highest of ends -- whether video game community killing or stretching people on racks -- can be justified if the score goes up. It's time that the evangelists and the growth gurus start thinking less about means and more about ends. 

10 Minutes

By Alexander Carpenter

Now that's storytelling. Sarajevo. 1994. 

10 minuta (2002) by Bosnian director Ahmed Imamovic, winner of the 2002 Best European Film award at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Remember: War is peace. 

Battles for Belief in WWII

By Alexander Carpenter

Here's a really interesting American Public Media program on conscientious objectors and the World War II Starvation Study. The participants were by-and-large patriotic conscientious objectors who opposed the killing but risked their lives for research. This radio piece includes some fascinating archival audio and references historic peace churches and Seventh-day Adventists in Takoma Park, MD.

Battles for Belief in WWII (the first ten minutes or so.)

Saturday night at the movies: is SiCKO about Christianized medicine?

Since SiCKO is now out on DVD no Adventist has to risk angel-abandonment to engage this film.

By Heather Isaacs Royce, a hospice chaplain in Napa, CA.

Documentary. 113 min. PG-13. Now available on DVD.

The ever present good-girl, eldest child in me reeled in horror as I watched Michael Moore’s latest film SiCKO. Important lessons my parents taught me (and I have dutifully followed) about taking responsible care of one’s self—including working a “good job” where your health insurance needs will be met—were undone frame by frame by Moore’s clever and troubling examination of the American health care system. Because, as Moore states in the first five minutes of the film, this is not a movie about the sizable population in the United States who are not insured; this is a movie about people like me who are. Adding to my sense of discomfort, I walked away from the film wondering about my profound ignorance on the state of health care in my own country—never mind the health care systems of other countries. What made bearable the unsettling experience of having my assumptions tested and my ignorance probed was the realization that I am not alone in either case. Apparently, on this issue at least, I am a fairly normal citizen of the United States; that is, I have been grossly uninformed about the state of our health care system. Or, even worse, misinformed.

Moore’s approach in SiCKO is to build his argument for universal health care by linking together stories of personal loss and tragedy resulting from an irreparably broken, even corrupted, American health care system; juxtaposing those stories against an alternative vision of health care being lived out in other countries: Canada, Britain, France, and, most surprising of all, Cuba; and positing systemic change by appealing to the greatest common denominator: a deep regard for human life and dignity that transcends political affiliations and defines American ideals.

The success of Moore’s film is that he manages to keep the human dimension of the health care plight in full view while exposing the terrible brokenness of the American system itself. He could have easily fallen in the direction of making a maudlin tear-jerker of a film or, in the other direction, a spewing cauldron of angry polemic. But the balance he achieves between heart and head results in a compelling argument grounded in personal and political realities. Even my husband, who somewhat reluctantly joined me in seeing the film given his historical distaste for Moore’s insinuating, rhetorical style, was compelled by the sense of truth-telling that characterizes SiCKO.

Smartly, Moore anticipates the questions and concerns that are frequently raised in a discussion of universal health care. The scary world of “socialized medicine” is made a little friendlier with a playful musical aside pointing out that libraries, public schools, firefighters and police are funded by taxes much in the same way as universal health care would be. And the commonly held belief that universal health care compromises the quality and availability of medical treatment is dispelled with evidence to the contrary in cinematic trips to emergency rooms, hospital corridors, and home calls in countries where universal health care is a fact of life. Witnessing the happy and healthy faces of the beneficiaries of these foreign health care systems provided a stark contrast to the litany of horrors voiced from our own: a mother recounts the death of her young daughter after a battle to obtain emergency treatment at a hospital not covered by her insurance provider, a wife mourns the death of her husband after he was denied a life-saving treatment because it was deemed “experimental” by their insurance company, a former medical director at an insurance company confesses her role in denying medically appropriate care to patients for the purpose of saving money and competing for a bonus, a surveillance camera records an ill and disoriented woman in a hospital gown being dumped by taxi at the curb of a shelter because there is no room for her at the hospital.

These and other stories evoked feelings of disbelief and outrage as I began to consider how my country, the wealthiest nation in the world, could allow—even create—these injustices when other countries of supposedly lesser means are able to meet the health care needs of their citizens. And I was humbled as I watched 9/11 rescue workers with serious and chronic health care issues receive free, competent, and humane treatment in Cuba. The cognitive dissonance I experienced was palpable: How could this be Cuba? You mean, a third-world country led by a dictator is able to provide inexpensive, quality health care to its people and my own country can’t? Seeing this reversal of roles, the strong becoming the vulnerable, the enemy becoming the friend evoked a sense of hope and compassion that I would best describe as a movement of the Spirit.

And if SiCKO convinced me of anything it is this: our crisis of health care is not only a political issue, it is a spiritual one. Perhaps if Americans began to engage in the health care debate with this truth in mind, the necessary political corrections would follow. Other countries have already taken the lead in aligning universally shared spiritual values of compassion and human dignity with political will and action. One Canadian woman interviewed by Moore in a hospital emergency room reflected on the health care system of her country, saying, “it’s a fabulous system to make sure the least of us and the best of us are taken care of.” In this and other statements in the film, it is hard not to hear echoes of Matthew 25 where Jesus’ definition of righteousness is to simply serve the “least of these.” But as Moore points out, it is not simply the “least” of us who are in need; where health care in America is concerned, most of us are in need.

Spectrum Church: We are all children of God

By Alexander Carpenter

Happy Sabbath! Welcome back to the Spectrum Blog Church. Thanks to those who commented after the last service. If you have ideas for future services, drop a comment.

The service today centers on the parental model for how humans relate to God. We say "relationship" and we say we are "God's children." But what do these offspring and family metaphors imply about our behavior? To mediate on: if we are all children of God, what ought our primary ethical concerns be?

Opening Prayer
A reflection on the children of the Cambodian killing fields

Scripture reading
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. —Mark 10:13-16

Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything.  ~Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone Scelto

Special Music
Antony and the Johnsons cover Millie Jackson's"Children of God" 

Children's Story

Homily
I met Rabbi Arthur Waskow about a year and a half ago at the Progressive Faith Bloggers Conference in NY. He kinda embodies the idea of "prophetic."

Offering
You may have heard of Paul Kim's award winning documentary Unto the Ends about the young medical missionaries at Bere Adventist Hospital in Tchad. Dr. Appel and his wife are heroes to me because their service reminds me of Christ's example and my priorities. This is why (Sep. 23):

As I sit to write this, I'm sobbing deep down with no tears. How much have I prayed for this girl over the last four days? How much of my own time, strength and energy have I put into her despite having Malaria myself? Why do I bother?

Why does God seem to never intervene? Why does it seem I'm on my own in this?

I need to make sense of it or I'll lose my faith.

Maybe it's not God's fault at all...maybe it's ours. Maybe if this girl had a clean well or running water she wouldn't have been forced to draw from the side of the road. Maybe if the road had been paved with appropriate bridges and drainage systems the truck wouldn't have slid into her. Maybe if the hospital had better lab facilities we could've intervened to prevent any of the number of things that could be unknown contributing factors to her death.

Maybe we in the West can't go out to buy the latest Energy drink or expensive gourmet coffee without using up the resources that could have gone to furnishing clean water sources in the Third World.

Maybe we can't buy bigger and fancier gas-guzzling SUVs without wasting the money that could've gone to provide simple improved infrastructure in developing nations.

Maybe we can't spend millions of dollars on boob jobs and face lifts and lipo suction without depriving bush hospitals of basic laboratory and x-ray equipment.

Adventist Health International/Loma Linda University School of Medicine supports their work. Click here if you'd like to donate to their work.

Announcements

• Have your say in helping Christians get the House (the Senate already has the votes!) to overturn Bush's veto of S-CHIP
  
• Also, the new Spectrum website, with blog included (yeah for integration!) will be coming soon.
• I understand that the church's religious liberty department will be making a statement on Burma early this week. Keep an eye out!

Benediction

La Sierra rally for Burma

By Alexander Carpenter

Today at La Sierra University: Show solidarity with the freedom movement in Burma.
WHEN: 12:15 PM Friday Oct. 5
WHERE: The Prodigal Son statue in the middle of the campus, between"> the bookstore and the administration building.
(h/t) Trisha at Adventist Gender Justice. Of course most blog readers can't join in, but perhaps a prayer request for Burma while at church tomorrow and dropping this news anecdote about what Adventist students are doing would help!
 

Rolling Up Our Sleeves: Liberal Religion As Hard Work

From Alexander Carpenter

A friend of mine, Rev. James Gertmenian, delivered the following convocation address yesterday at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.  Jim raises some essential issues for the future of social justice and I reprint it below, not just because he mentions me in the address, but because his tripartite list of liberal weaknesses casts a vision for a strong progressive Christian future.

By Rev. James Germenian

President McVay, Dean Weis, Trustees, Faculty, Staff, and Students, thank you for the privilege of being your Convocation speaker today.   Though I am a graduate of another seminary – one of which I am most proud – I have felt, over the past decade, the gentle press of United’s influence on my ministry (and, more important, on my soul), so that standing here feels as natural as standing in my mother’s kitchen, and the words alma mater, take on a new, more inclusive meaning.   I also want to express my thanks to Doug and Carol Baker, dear friends, and to the Seminary, for the honor of the new scholarship that bears my name.  This is more meaningful to me than you can know.

Ernst Kasemann, of blessed memory, recounted the following incident that happened when a series of terrible storms and floods hit Holland in 1952. The scene was a small town where strict religious observance was still the norm and where adherence to God’s commandments was the highest value. It was a Sunday, and some of the worst tempests were passing through.  The wind and the waves were so strong that one of the dykes protecting the village was in danger of collapsing.  Immediate work would have to be done to avoid a disaster, and the police urged the local pastor to mobilize his congregation to help. But it was a Sunday, you see… the Sabbath… when no work was supposed to be done. What could the minister do?  Call the people to the task, even if it meant profaning the Sabbath? Or let them be destroyed in order to honor the commandment? Finally, the minister felt that he couldn’t bear the decision alone, so he called an emergency meeting of the church council. The direction of the discussion was clear: God’s will is what is most important. If God wants to, he can always perform a miracle with the wind and the waves. Therefore, the Christian’s duty is obedience to the commandments, even if it means death. The dyke would not be rebuilt, not on a Sunday. At this point, the pastor tried one more argument, maybe even against his own conviction. Didn’t Jesus himself occasionally break the commandment about the Sabbath, and didn’t he say that the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not the other way around? At which point an older member of the council stood up: "I’ve always been troubled, pastor, by something I’ve never said publicly. Now I have to say it.  I have always had the suspicion that our Lord Jesus was just a bit of a liberal."1

Suspicion of liberals and of our ideas became something of a blood sport in the United States about thirty years ago, and to be honest, I never really thought I would live to see the day when the “L-word” would be willingly embraced again anywhere beyond the academy, but now I believe myself to have been wrong.  The excesses and shortcomings of conservatism – both political and theological – are coming home to roost, and though that storm has not passed, it is surely passing, or at least breaking up, and liberals are beginning to emerge again, as if from their underground shelters, a bit bewildered, to be sure . . . blinking gratefully against the resurgent sun of progressive ideas and stretching their intellectual limbs where before they felt cramped and constrained.   There can be no doubt about it: the progressive religious movement is greening up across the country, from the Center for Progressive Christianity in the East to Progressive Christians Uniting in the West to the Network of Spiritual Progressives everywhere, and here in the Twin Cities – I am proud to say – at the Plymouth Center for Progressive Christian Faith, an outgrowth of Plymouth Congregational Church where I serve.  This is a movement

•      that values tolerance and inclusiveness,
•      that embraces pluralism, 
•      that honors the role of individual reason and the gifts of science,
•      that is open to an expansive and imaginative hermeneutic,
•      that envisions world unity and the waning of nationalism,
•      that seeks the God who transcends all of the various faith traditions but who may be experienced profoundly in each of them. 

In its Christian form, progressive religion eschews legalistic and mechanistic views of the atonement, including those that seem to sacrilize violence, and it replaces them with a view that emphasizes the moral nature of Jesus’ death-defying love.   Through it all, as Professor Gary Dorrien points out, liberal theology offers today, as it always has, a third or middle way between the extremes of atheistic rationalism on the one hand and rigid orthodoxy dependent on external sources of authority the other.2 

Now, news of a liberal resurgence may seem odd to hear at a place like United Seminary where progressive ideas never really ebbed, but unless you have been quarantined on this bucolic campus for the last four decades, you know that United has been the exception, not the rule.   At any rate, like the people of Israel returning to a destroyed Jerusalem after the Exile, we liberals face massive challenges of rebuilding and daunting tasks of restoration.   Put it simply:  Friends, we have work to do.  A lot of work to do.  And given the failures in our recent past as well as some of the soft spots in liberalism’s essential nature, it is not at all unreasonable to wonder whether we are up to the task.   More about that in a moment.

First, though, I want to make sure that I cast our situation in something other than polemical terms, tempting though such language may be.   To begin with, it is simply too easy to set up fundamentalist straw men – Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell are the usual suspects – as though they were broadly representative of Christian evangelicals and conservatives.   They are not, nor is the so-called Religious Right nearly as monolithic as some make it out to be.   Then, too, it is hardly productive – especially in a post-modern context – to continue to envision liberal and conservative Christians at one another’s throats, battling for turf and seeking domination over one another.   We may differ in everything from hermeneutics to theology, from Christology to cosmology, but I take it as a given that the search for truth is absolutely dependent on vigorous argument from both sides of any question.   And the church – the Body of Christ – can only be whole when all of its parts are healthy.     Don’t get me wrong.   There are surely strains of conservative and fundamentalist Christian thought and practice that deserve our censure, but as Bill Coffin used to say, anything worth our censure is also worth our compassion.   So if I speak of the difficult work ahead for us, and of rebuilding the liberal and progressive movement, its infrastructure and its institutions, I’m not suggesting that our task is to achieve dominance or to be victorious over anyone but only to hold up  - ably and without apology -  our end of the argument . . . to seek health for our part of the body.   Conservative and liberal Christianity each need the other in order to be whole . . . not that we seek some muddled synthesis of ideas but that we understand the creative power of a lively and ongoing tension between great poles of thought.

So, back to the notion of liberal religion as hard work.   As I said, we have a movement to build.  I would say “re-build,” but that would imply a simple replication of what existed before.   At a recent gathering of Progressives where I spoke, a lovely woman came up to me at the break and gushed:  “Oh, it’s just like the sixties!”   Ouch!  Friends, the last thing we need is a sixties re-run.   That’s not progressive, that’s regressive.   Actually, the best metaphor I’ve heard recently came up at a meeting where we were planning an upcoming conference that will bring together fifteen of the brightest progressive seminarians from around the country together with fifteen progressive elders for three days of talks and relationship-building.   Dierdre Hinz of United is one of the planners.   The question was:  What to call the event?   Alex Carpenter, a seminarian from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, also on the planning committee, said, “How about this: ‘Re-weaving the Dream?’”  We liked it, and that’s what our conference, to be held next month, will be called.   Whatever the metaphor, though, it’s work that will require creativity, courage, patience, and lots of resources.  It is not for the faint of heart, the weak of conviction, or the selfish of spirit.  Earlier I raised the question of whether we are up to the challenge.   The fact is, I see a series of weaknesses that will threaten our effort.  Time is short this morning, so I will only speak of three.   Each of them, I think, traces to a hyper-extension of what is essentially a good thing:  the Enlightenment notion of the autonomy and value of the individual.   Frankly, I hesitate to take a negative tack like this, but I hope you’ll see that in naming our weaknesses, my aim is to bolster our strength.

The first weakness is a conundrum endemic to liberalism itself.   The belief in the value of the individual, her autonomy, his right to a life guided by his own reason rather than by some external authority, has a paradoxical effect.   On first blush, it suggests a grand permissiveness.   You can believe what you want to believe, and no one can tell you different.   Many people in churches like the one I serve are drawn to those congregations because of that permissiveness.   No priest or bishop will set down doctrine for you.   No minister or church council can dictate the faith.   This freedom is a great gift of the liberal tradition.   But if it is a freedom that fails to mature, it can foster a theological laziness.   If there is no external authority dictating theological orthodoxy, this false reasoning says, then I may be able to get away with not thinking about the questions at all.  If the Bible is not to be read literally, then perhaps I can jettison it – and its insistent, maddening questions – altogether.  Liberalism, taken this way, can be a massive defense against God.   The task of those who would lead the progressive Christian movement is to gently but firmly remind ourselves and our congregants that the freedom implied by the liberal idea demands, in the end, more work and more discipline, not less . . .  and surrender to the Divine not rational garroting of the eternal mysteries.   If no external authority is going to dictate doctrine or prescribe a particular praxis, then the burden is on me, on the individual, on my local community, to do the theological ditch-digging, the ethical heavy lifting, the spiritual scut work.   That initial blush of permissiveness gives way to a daunting, though holy, burden.    The question – to which there is no sure answer – is whether we have the fortitude to wean ourselves and others from the more superficial view of liberalism, that apparent permissiveness, to a deeper view which demands a soul-shaking responsibility, a life-long labor.   Liberal religion is, indeed, hard work

The second weakness, like the first, grows out of liberalism’s essential nature; it is the flip-side of one of our great strengths.   Liberals are, congenitally, an “on-the-one-hand-this-and-on-the-other-hand-that” kind of people.   The liberal idea itself invites a host of competing views, and that’s a wonderful thing, but it leads, too often, to a fractured vision.   Paul asked, “If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will prepare for the battle?”  And a contemporary evangelical leader said, “People will go out on a limb for an exclamation point, but they won’t go out on a limb for a question mark.”   I’m not sure he’s absolutely right about that, but his point is still telling for us.  How do progressives, who entertain a pluralism of ideas, come together enough to sustain a cohesive movement?  How do we find our exclamation points?  I listed a few of them earlier in my talk, but I have no certainty that they are broadly representative even of this community, let alone the greater progressive movement.  This too, then, is hard work that will demand difficult soul-searching, painstaking coalition-building, and not least what Bob Edgar, formerly of the National Council of Churches, calls “ego-disarmament.”3   For progressives to come together around a common vision will be no easy task.

The third weakness (and here I realize I may step on some toes) is what I would call the cult of self-care.   It has become particularly popular in the seminaries in recent years, and it is an understandable corrective to the masochistic self-abnegation that marked generations of clergy who went before.  So don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against ministers seeking balance and wholeness in their lives, ministers who set appropriate limits on what their churches may require of them.  I’m not against Sabbath or the regular laying aside of our work.  But I am concerned about clergy whose view of self-care makes them so intent on avoiding burn out that they never experience the ravaging joy of being on fire with their calling.    Yes, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”   But also, “The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.”   Yes, “Jesus went to a secluded place to pray,”   But also “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity.”   Yes, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly,” but also, “Whoever seeks to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”  The ministry, especially now for progressives, is no place for those who aren’t ready to work hard.   In a conversation among a small group of clergy, one was complaining endlessly about how exhausting the work was.   Finally, a wiser colleague, in a moment of fine pique and excusable theological incorrectness turned to him and said, “Hey man, get down off the cross.   We need the wood.”   

Indeed, we need the wood.   And we need the brains and muscle and endurance and sweat and courage of people ready to “re-weave the dream,” to re-build a movement.   We need a strong, growing United Seminary, and other seminaries like it.   That means some of us (and I speak here as a Trustee) need to be out there seeking support, raising money, telling the story.   We need to be encouraging the difficult intellectual work that liberalism undertakes on the boundaries of orthodoxy.    We need to be in that exhausting, tenuous place where faith and politics overlap.   We need to endure insult from those who would draw a restricting line of Christian doctrine that leaves us out.   We need to be about, with quiet perseverance, the inconvenient demands of pastoral work, the challenging regularity of sermon preparation, the tedious but necessary tasks of church administration.   What we need, heaven help us, clergy and laity alike, is to be so swept up by the majesty of God, so seized by a vision of God’s shalom, so flooded with compassion for the world, and so consumed by the primordial and everlasting love burning at the heart of the universe that even when our work leaves us tired and worn and spent, we will still rejoice and feel ourselves strangely filled.   I think it is possible.   I know it’s possible.  Our movement alone will not save the world.   But without a strong progressive presence much that is necessary and many who are precious will be lost.  In this time, United Seminary is a great inspiration to me and to many; the work you do here is as encouraging as anything I know.  Thank you for that.   As you go about your tasks of teaching and learning, of research and exploration, of administration and service, and when, in the end of the day, you find yourselves exhausted, may it be said of you – may it be said of us all – as in the blessing from an unknown fourteenth century writer:

To [them] shall be proffered and returned gifts of such an astonishment as will rival the hues of the peacock and the harmonies of heaven, so that though [they] live to the greate age when [they] go stooping and querulous because of the nothing that is left in [them], yet shall [they] walk upright and remembering, as one whose heart shines like a great star in his breaste.

Thank you.

1 Käesmann, Ernst, Jesus Means Freedom, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968, pg. 16.

2 Dorrien, Gary, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive
   Religion, 1805-1900, Louisville: Westminster John Know Press, pg. xxi.

3 Unpublished paper from Res Publica, “The Future of the Progressive Faith Movement,”
   2004, pg. 14.

SPD Adventist News

By Alexander Carpenter

• Cupcake girls raise $40,000 to assist needy communities and schools
• Sanitarium feeds 5000 people breakfast in Fiji this week
• A vegetarian diet is healthy for you and also good for the environment
• New journal for Christian teachers
• Uncle Arthur's Bible Stories to be used in school curriculum
• A new way of selling Adventist books is working

Adventist grad student organizing pro-Burmese democracy protest

By Alexander Carpenter

An Adventist Forums member, Spectrum writer and USC political science doctoral student, Ron Osborn is organizing a Burma-supporting event in Los Angeles.

Ron Osborn writes:

The news from Burma is grim. Unknown numbers of Buddhist monks have been killed. Thousands more are being sent to remote prison camps as a punishment for defying the generals. Shocked and dismayed, a group of us students at the University of Southern California have been struggling to think of how we in the United States can show our solidarity with these courageous individuals. Here is what we have decided:

We hope to stage an event on or before December 8 that will: 1) call attention to the ongoing crisis in Burma; 2) let the people of Burma know they are not forgotten; and 3) shame the Chinese government into taking a more serious stand on human rights atrocities in Burma before the Beijing Olympics.

●The event will be called “LA-88” in honor of those killed not only over the past two weeks but also during the pro-democracy demonstrations of August 8, 1988.

●We will meet in front of the Chinese Consulate General’s Office in Los Angeles since it was China that blocked UN action as the killings unfolded.

●A total of 88 of us will then publicly shave our heads in solidarity with Burma’s courageous monks.

We are inviting students from other universities, celebrities and public figures, and others from across the country to join us in any way they can, whether with their presence at the event, their support from afar, or their active participation.

We realize that LA-88 is not going to change the harsh facts on the ground in Burma, and we are daunted by the challenge of planning and organizing a consciousness-raising event of this kind. We are determined, though, to resist the temptation to despair and apathy and to do whatever we can to focus attention on Burma’s plight. Our hope is that news will leak through to Burmese monks even in remote prison cells that many hundreds of people, in at least one American city, took symbolic action in solidarity with them and are united with them in spirit.

If you are willing to be a part of this public event in Los Angeles in any way, please join the group. We need help from people with organizing skills and media connections. We need sponsors. We need hair. Please encourage your friends to join.

To learn more/support the action: rosborn@usc.edu

The LA 88 Facebook page.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles 88 web site.

“The only real prison is fear and the only real freedom is freedom from fear” - Aung San Suu Kyi

Oakwood president dives as enrollment soars

By Alexander Carpenter

The Huntsville Times reports: "Dr. Delbert Baker, president of Huntsville's Oakwood College, this morning fulfills his promise to dive into the college's swimming pool dressed in his suit when the Seventh Day Adventist school's enrollment hit 1,800. This semester's enrollment was 1,824. He promised to jump off the high-dive fully clothed when enrollment reaches 2,000."

Malcolm X on his Adventist upbringing

By Alexander Carpenter

I was looking for Busta Rhymes's or Flipmode's "sanitarium" lyric (anyone know the song?) and found this from The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley (1964).

. . .Time went by, and some folks tried to help. The Seventh Day Adventists were an encouragement to Malcolm's mother.

"Meanwhile, the state Welfare people kept after my mother. By now, she didn't make it any secret that she hated them, and didn't want them in her house. But they exerted their right to come, and I have many, many times reflected upon how, talking to us children, they began to plant the seeds of division in our minds. They would ask such things as who was smarter than the other. And they would ask me why I was 'so different.'" [Malcolm was lighter than his brothers and sisters, but also at the time, getting into more trouble.]

"I think they felt that getting children into foster homes was a legitimate part of their function, and the result would be less troublesome, however they went about it." "And when my mother fought them, they went after her -- first, through me. I was the first target. I stole; that implied I wasn't being taken care of by my mother." [p 21]

The state Welfare people attacked and ridiculed Malcolm's mother on account of her dietary practices, eschewing "gifts" of pork and other food objectionable to Seventh Day Adventists.

"They were as vicious as vultures. They had no feelings, understanding, compassion, or respect for my mother. They told us, 'She's crazy for refusing food.' Right then was when our home, our unity, began to disintegrate. We were having a hard time, and I wasn't helping. But we could have made it, we could have stayed together. As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, I loved her."

Religious right runs for third

By Alexander Carpenter

This weekend, while Adventist Forum members debated the finer points of Adventist sectiness -- can it increase with maturity? -- the old goaders of majority evangelicalism met in Salt Lake City to express their discomfort with Giuliani's dominance in the GOP presidential primary.

Now the religious right's lockstep support for the Iraq war is coming back to hurt the old leadership of James Dobson, Tony Perkins and Richard Viguerie.  In expending their moral influence on hyping the post-9/11 neoconservative clash of civilizations fantasy, they have confused their believers and lost their more reflective members: pro-life and pro-pointless slaughter?

Because pro-choice Giuliani is also running to be the president of 9/11, as both the Onion and Thomas Friedman note, the religious right is getting split by its own rhetoric. As Chris Matthews notes, what these religious right leaders really care about is raising money on pro-life issues and wielding influence over GOP candidates.  Now a new generation of Christian conservatives care about a broad range of issues, pro-life and pro-poor and pro-stopping global warming.   

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, evangelicals 18-29 have gone from a 55% GOP party affiliation in 2005 to 40% in 2007. (Interestingly, during the Adventist Forums conference Keith Lockhart noted Adventist party affiliation has shifted in the last 15 years from a majority Republicans to now about only 35% of Adventists identifying with the GOP.

In this six minute interview, David Kuo, a beliefnet.com contributer and former Bush official, notes why this has-been guard, which come out of Salt Lake City threatening to form a "pro-life" third party, is losing ground.

Desert sturm and God drang it

By Alexander Carpenter

I just read this review in the New Yorker on a new Robert Alter translation of Psalms. Anyone using the that book of scripture in a sermon or theological argument will want to consult article and then Robert Alter's new translation of that long book of storms.

James Wood reviews:

Psalm 90, like many others, belongs to a theological landscape quite remote from our own. Its wisdom is spacious and fortifying, but while we all feel the brevity and smallness of human life—perhaps especially so now, with our new, borderless knowledge of the cosmos—most of us no longer use an angry and capricious deity as the means of our measurement. This is what the Biblical scholar James Kugel refers to as the “starkness” of the Hebrew Bible, a bare, hard world in which a desert landscape of rocks and rare streams is briefly lit up by columns of fire. For the Psalms, as well as being prayers, are also a people’s military songs, with martial values very different from those we nowadays cherish. How many people, dabbing at tears at some memorial service, actually listen to the words of Psalm 23, in which an archaic satisfaction is taken in the fact that God, now more of a captain or a warlord than a shepherd, will set out a table for me in front of mine enemies? Look, I’ll stuff myself while you just watch! (I suppose it might bring to mind the reception afterward.) In his commentary for the Anchor Bible text on the Psalms, Mitchell Dahood finds a useful analogue for this attitude in an ancient Akkadian text: “A petty ruler of the fourteenth century B.C. addressed the following request to the Pharaoh: ‘May he give gifts to his servants while our enemies look on.’ ”

The Psalms, like the rest of the Hebrew Bible, are haunted by the traces of the paganism that Judaism must refute. God is merciful and just but is also seen as what Alter calls “a warrior god on the model of the Canaanite Baal riding through the skies with clouds as his chariot, brandishing lightning bolts as his weapons.” Throughout the Old Testament, one is aware of the unnaturalness, in ancient terms, of choosing only one God and sticking with him. A bargain has been struck, in which Yahweh says, in effect, “If you choose only me I will choose only you.” But both sides find it hard to honor their pledges. How much more consoling, really, to worship lots of gods—to make grateful images of them, to have certain gods work for you as personal helpers and aides—than to be rescued from such comfiness by the irascible and nearinvisible singularity that is Yahweh. The Israelites waver, and thus, in the Book of Exodus, after the parting of the Red Sea, they give thanks to God in a psalmlike hymn in which, as in a kind of straw poll, Yahweh has beaten various contenders. . .

The Desert Storm: Understanding the Capricious God of the Psalms