Feb. 16, 2010: President Obama's personal aide Reggie Love and White House doctor Jeffrey Kuhlman ride in a spare limousine from Lanham, MD to the White House.

Official White House Photo By Pete Souza

Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman, USN, a member of Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, is head of the White House Medical Unit and is the chief physician to President Obama.

In Part 1 we established that the Jewish prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus and the early church were concerned about the economic life of the community.[1] In light of Ellen White’s statement that economic injustice would be an on-going scourge, Wednesday’s task was to begin listening to the cry of the oppressed.

Freud, like Lewis, associated the spiritual worldview with the metaphor of a father. But this is always problematic. Even the best father figures are insufficient as role models. So the more expansive question is not about fathers per se, but what should we use as a model for God? It is to that question we now turn our attention.

Anselm and Perfection

"An interview with Adventist historian Merlin Burt about the Millerite prophecy chart that inspired Spectrum's prophecy chart tee shirt.

February 25, 2010 - Vol. 187, No. 6

GENERAL COMMENTS
Once again, there is nothing in this issue that inspires controversy. However, the cover feature, ANOTHER BATTLE OVER DAVID AND GOLIATH, is interesting and cutting edge informative. Note: For those of you who do not subscribe to the Review, some of the news and articles I review are “members only”. Often, those are worth the very affordable subscription price.

Soulforce, which engages in relentless nonviolent resistance against political and religious oppression of LGBTQ people, will be visiting Oakwood University on Monday, March 15, and Union College on Thursday, April 21.

The ways we eat, approach politics, worship God and spend money are highly emotionally charged because they emanate from the core of our identities.

In the beginning, before the modern age, when man hurt himself from injury or acquired a disease there was no one to help him. So he cried out for healing, and someone responded, and studied how they might help man and cure him from his disease.

I often hear the expression (used rather glibly, I must say): “God told me.” The words are typically the preamble to a description of some strongly held conviction. But the expression leaves me uncomfortable.

For starters, just how did God tell the person? Was there a booming voice from heaven that all in the room heard? Was there an actual voice, but audible only to the person? Or was it just a strong conviction—a moment of clarity—that came at a crucial point in the person’s mental wrestling?

View our live conversation on the 82nd Academy Awards below.
Great bunch of films this year!

With this session we approach what could be one of the most contentious and impassible subjects to be tackled in a SS class. There is much heat generated on how literally one should read Genesis and whether YEC (Young Earth Creationism) and/or YLC (Young Life Creationism) is mandatory to be a true Adventist or not. One prominent Adventist thought leader has suggested those who do not adhere to such conservative views are, in effect, “Seventh-day Darwinists” and ‘fifth columnists”[1].

Environmentalism did not begin with Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis in 1972. It didn’t start with the founding of Green Peace in 1971 or the celebration of Earth Day in 1970. Its commencement preceded the publication of Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 and even John Muir’s efforts to establish the Sierra Club in 1892.

February 11, 2010 - Vol. 187, No. 4

GENERAL COMMENTS
There is nothing in this issue that isn’t kosher, including a shot at critics of the church in a letter from Trevor Connell, comparing them to “Jesus’ enemies”.

WORLD NEWS & PERSPECTIVES

In previous posts, we’ve discussed both Augustine’s biography, and also the Platonism that influenced much of his thought. For better or worse, most of us in the Christian or post-Christian West have imbibed from this well.

Theology, Philosophy, Medicine, Justice

Damien Hirst

2008

Bull sharks, glass, steel, silicone and formaldehyde

When I was young, my family’s vegetarianism embarrassed me. I thought vegetarianism was a strange affectation, just one of many things that made me self-conscious, eccentricities that separated me from non-Adventist friends.

Today, during his Board of Trustees briefing, President Niels-Erik Andreasen announced that Dr. Andrea Luxton will become the second woman to hold the Provost position at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan.

I am happy to see my friend Peter Laarman holding forth in this informed discussion with David Gushee on the futures of the evangelical and mainline Christian movements.

Is there really a universal human longing for transcendence? Augustine famously wrote “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee”. But is he right? Is there really a ‘Hound of Heaven’ in pursuit or might any such perceptions, if they exist at all, be better explained as naturalistically grounded in physiology or psychology?

By Desmond Murray and Charity Garcia

February 2010 - Vol. 6, No. 2

Adventist World is free online. For that reason, I only review or comment on articles and editorials that I believe to be of special interest.

REVIEWS

"There are 6,000 Adventist Churches in North America—each one has a story."

G. K. Chesterton observed, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Arguably, this statement is most clearly true in Jesus’ call to love our enemies.[1] If you’re anything like me, you embrace this teaching at a cerebral level and yet have difficulty responding with kindness when even slightly provoked or criticized.

With this posting I begin an 11 part series structured for possible use as an alternate Sabbath School Study Guide. I will post one lesson/study per week. The springboard for discussion comes from a PBS television program (subsequently released as a DVD) and book entitled The Question of God. The book is authored by Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Armand Nicholi, who also developed and produced the PBS broadcasts. I integrated segments from the DVD into the class. The issues he raises touch some of the most foundational spiritual questions people face.

Welcome back to the Lenten series on giving our time to work for peace and justice.[1] Today’s focus is community. This may not be the first topic that comes to mind when contemplating social action, but I believe it is important for positioning our future discussions. Even the Lord’s Prayer begins with a sense of community—“Our Father…”[2] “The prayer Jesus taught us is a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new kind of people who have left the land of ‘me.’”[3]

January 28, 2010 - Vol. 187, No. 3

GENERAL COMMENT
If you like a Review that is potentially more inspirational than thought provoking, this is your issue. However, I am going to do my best to get you to rip the lid off the theological monologue that accompanies the cover article, SIFTING THROUGH THE PAST, and sober up the saccharine manikins posing for the cover shot.

OPEN DOORS, Gerald Klingbeil uses open and closed doors as metaphors for the Christian life.

Today is Ash Wednesday, which means that Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, Catholics and faithful members of other denominations are beginning the observance of Lent, the 40-plus days leading to Easter that are marked by fasting and repentance. I think early Adventists would have whole-heartedly participated in this Day of Atonement writ large if not for Fat Tuesday blocking the way.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a rabbi, an imam and a swami walk into a restaurant. . . .

But what if 6,000 religious people, from 100 different faiths, met together to discuss the world’s problems, and whether it might be better to cooperate than to compete?

January 21, 2010 - Vol. 186, No, 2

GENERAL COMMENTS
I’m loving the reviewing the Review. This issue is not only exceptional, it’s personally, very special.

WHAT PEOPLE SWALLOW

The following statements are by Ellen White from the compilation Counsels to Writers and Editors:

"There is no excuse for anyone taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation...