October 14, 2008 Manila, Philippines
Megan Brauner and Ansel Oliver/ANN

Seventh-day Adventist world church officers approved several education proposals during an October 14 business session, including an initiative to promote and fund research, as well as a policy change delegating education oversight to local administrations.

Although mentally competent citizens of the United States do not have a right to die, they do possess the right to refuse any medical intervention even if doing so results in their foreseeable deaths. Unfortunately, many dying patients needlessly suffer because they don’t know this. On September 30, Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger of California signed into law legislation that I think will help.

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” Seventeenth-century Puritan children in America chanted this rhyme from their alphabet books as part of their early theological training. Puritan parents knew that to save their children they had to begin to break the sinful will, which came from Adam, and then shape character to receive God’s sin-erasing grace.

Loma Linda University in California and Atlantic Union College in Massachusetts announce they have begun exploratory discussions toward a close working relationship between the two Seventh-day Adventist institutions. Academic and financial leadership at both institutions are studying various concerns and possibilities, such as rotating teaching assignments, strengthening existing programs and consolidation of support services. Plans are progressing to develop a proposal for consideration by their respective boards in late October and early November.

I have some anxiety about what’s happening in the financial world right now. After decades of a defined benefit retirement plan, the Church switched the younger of us over to a defined contribution plan. So now most of my retirement is in that erratic stock market, and the rest in my unsalable house.

The ancient worldview held that there were many gods, some good, some bad, and many between.

Monotheism as introduced by the Israelite nation stood in contrast to this pantheon of gods. But monotheism had a problem. If there is only one god from whence comes evil?

I interviewed Roy Branson for the Association of Adventist Forums' printed Annual Report, handed out at last weekend's Forum Conference in Orlando, Florida. But the Annual Report did not have enough space to capture all of Roy Branson's thoughts on the history of Spectrum, so the complete interview is published here.

We learn atonement concepts from an early age. I pulled my sister’s hair, so I got no pocket money that week to atone for my sin. I missed my mother’s birthday, so I rushed out to spend that week’s pocket money on flowers to atone for my negligence.

After the Spectrum blog featured a new business that crams traditional Adventist culture and stereotypes into clever T-shirt slogans, we thought we'd track down the young Adventist entrepreneurs behind the idea and ask them how their brand-new business got started.

A church member pointed to the cross on the cover of a Bible I was carrying one day, and asked, “You know what that stands for?”

“The sacrifice of Jesus?” I said.

“No,” he said. “That’s what the Catholic Church wants you to think. It is initial of the pagan god Tammuz. The Catholic Church uses it to keep paganism alive, while people are deceived into thinking it’s Christianity.”

Bless his heart.