Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Reviewing Spectrum

Spring, 2009
Volume 37, Issue 2

GENERAL COMMENTS
I read the entire magazine on one Sabbath afternoon. An issue that successfully competes with my naptime deserves a gold star. And since I don’t have to consult with any committee or engage in political maneuvering to make the award, consider it awarded. Bonnie and Leigh, along with your entire team, take a well-deserved bow.


FREEDBACK
The letter from Donna Haerich motivated by a churlish “noted evangelist” and the issue of male only ordination inspired me to include the Non Sequitur cartoon that follows this post. (Come on Donna, name the guy!)

It’s a shame that William S. Peterson left the Church because he believed that Adventists would never “view Ellen White as most Lutherans regarded Martin Luther—as a revered (though fallible) founder of the Church whose opinions were treated with sometimes cautious respect—rather than as a prophetess who claimed to receive messages directly from God in supernatural visions”. It’s happening, Bill. (See Ellen White’s Writings as Religious Classics by Richard Rice, this issue, p. 22)


ELLEN WHITE REDUX
Nancy Hoyt Lecourt’s Searching for Ellen White, an interview of her uncle, historian Frederick Hoyt, was a gas. Hoyt discovered, but was afraid to publish, an account of a vindictive teenager named Ellen White who announced that her visions indicated that those who didn’t believe what the Millerites were preaching were going to hell. “And you’re going to burn eternally. And I’m not going to have any sympathy for you. None at all. You deserve what you’ll find—the shut door.”


ADVENTIST HIGHER EDUCATION
For anyone interested in the current administrative and financial state of Adventist higher education, this section is a MUST READ, even though the nineteen pages could easily have been condensed by a third. The long and short of it seems to be that church leaders with the authority to make the necessary changes aren’t making them because they are afraid of the wrath of their Union constituents.

That’s California’s problem, too. Legislators, who have been elected to make informed decisions regarding the welfare of the state, are afraid to act for political reasons. Consequently, vital decisions are passed on to the electorate whose votes are based on what they believe benefits them, individually. It’s no way to administer a state or Adventist higher education.

No comments: