I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which is very interested in eschatology. We didn’t learn the term all that early, but we were subjected constantly to sermons about it. SDA eschatology is one of the key reasons I’m not SDA any more, but when I first joined a United Methodist congregation, I was…
From time to time various Methodists get very worked up about the idea that members of United Methodist congregations are using Beth Moore studies in their study groups and Sunday School classes. Via Facebook I encountered an older post regarding Methodists and Beth Moore. That article is actually quite restrained and gentle by comparison to…
October 22 probably doesn’t mean much to most of my readers, but for someone who grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA), it has great significance. It was on October 22, 1844 that early Adventists (before they were Seventh-day Adventists) expected Jesus to return. It was actually the second time they had expected that. first…
There’s an insightful article on the Spectrum Magazine web site titled Holy Bricks. This one deals particularly with Seventh-day Adventist bricks, but the principles discussed apply anywhere. I have yet to encounter a community that doesn’t have a few holy bricks to deal with. I particularly liked the point where a constituent in a meeting…
Over the last few weeks I’ve been following events at my undergraduate alma mater, Walla Walla University, largely via the Spectrum Magazine blog, starting with the news that Pastor Alex Bryan of the Walla Walla University Church had been recommended as president by a search committee. Now it has been a number of years since…
No, I don’t mean this in the very literal sense, but either in the spiritual sense or in terms of affiliation. One of the defining experiences of my life involves crossing the street in this sense. I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist. That involves quite a number of things, including keeping the Sabbath (Saturday)…
As an ex-SDA who is now Methodist, I just have to share this video: Now my experience amongst Methodists is that most will just shrug their shoulders about worship on Saturday. They get a little more tense about soul sleep. I have encountered a few Methodists who are like the one in the video,…
Mark Kellner (Adventist Review, Dec. 8, 2011) says he makes no apologies for believing the Bible. That’s great. Neither do I. (Jan M. Long responded to this at some greater length than I am on the Spectrum Magazine blog, to whom a tip of my hat.) I don’t usually pick on my former denomination (I…
Ellen G. White Image via Wikipedia Since I grew up as an SDA and later got involved in a somewhat charismatic stream within Methodism, I found this article by Alden Thompson pretty interesting. It’s not surprising, however, that the SDA movement, which arose in the mid 1800s, had some charismatic elements. The funny thing for…
This was brought to my attention when I read the text of Ted Wilson’s address to the SDA General Conference. (I listened to he first 10 minutes as well, but preferred reading.) Why am I interested in the sermon presented by the new president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists? I am, after all,…
