The Historical Jesus?

This week’s lesson claims that “the historical evidence is overwhelming clear” that Jesus lived on earth. We should be careful about making this claim, even though his life and death is at the center of our Christian beliefs and we are prepared to testify that he lived in Palestine about two thousand years ago.

Nathan Blake is a 28-year-old lawyer who left his firm to work full-time in Iowa on the Barack Obama campaign for president. He talks to Spectrum about mixing politics and religion, and Obama's chances.

Question: What is your role in the Barack Obama campaign? What do you do every day?

Answer: I've been a field organizer for about a year and recently switched to the communications team in Iowa.

Field work is on-the-ground voter contact – what this campaign is famous for.

A few years ago, I called a friend (one to whom I talk seldom, but always happily) who had moved to a small midwestern U.S. city. Among other questions, I asked, “How’s the church there?”

“We don’t attend the Adventist church here anymore,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“A voice of one calling…prepare the way for the LORD.…” If asked to come up with some key phrases to express our sense of identity and mission, is this the kind of language we might use?

When I found this Sh'ma interview in my inbox, it raised a question: we Seventh-day Adventists qua Sabbathing followers of Jesus seems to be on all sides of this conversation, except the ecology part. Why? I'm curious to read your reactions.

And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1:6)1

I grew up immersed in Bible stories. I often wondered what it would have been like to meet the passionate David, the pious Abraham, or the powerful and holy Moses.

First Corinthians 9:19–27 is often read in the context of cultural sensitivity. This is understandable because we live in a time in which the world has shrunk to a global village, a time in which knowing how to work with and appreciate each other’s culture has become a matter of survival.

As a rioplatense of German ancestry, a Latino who received his higher education and pursued a career in the educational system of the United States, I am a double hybrid whose identity is somewhat ambiguous.

An anonymous blogger has begun posting caricatures of famous Adventists online. He's taking requests, so think about who you would like to see in a slightly different light!

Question: Your blog shows caricatures of well-known Adventists, both living and dead. Are you making fun of the people you depict?

In this column I hope to elaborate an idea that surfaced in Alex Carpenter’s recent blog on “Sabbathing” and in the excellent comments that followed it. This is that celebrating Sabbath can be a powerful and much needed Christian affirmation of Judaism, on the one hand, and disaffirmation of religious coercion, on the other. Chuck Scriven, Monte Sahlin and probably others expressed themselves along these lines. I would like to join them without implying that all of us agree about everything.