Thursday, October 27, 2011

Reviewing the Adventist Review

October 13, 2011
Vol. 188, No.27

GENERAL COMMENTS
All but one of the essays and editorials in this issue reflect the upside of being an Adventist. SWEENEY’S GARDEN, OF AIRPORTS AND PHARMACIES, and GETTING BEYOND PAIN are inspiring and spiritually uplifting, and CHURCH TRENDS provides authoritative answers to often asked questions regarding SDA demographics. Unfortunately, NO FEAR, is frightening in its attempt to reassure.

REVIEWS
Kimberly Luste Maran interviews Rustin and Stacy Sweeney, who moved “across the tracks” to share their lives with the residents of a poverty stricken and crime ridden neighborhood. SWEENEY'S GARDEN is more than the story about a garden. Their community garden symbolizes Rustin and Stacy’s willingness to share what they have, materially and spiritually, with their neighbors.

In OF AIRPORTS AND PHARMACIES, Dixil Rodriguez discovers that the waiting room in a pharmacy can be a place to provide others with help and healing.

R. Steven Norman III reports on his visit to Vad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. GETTING BEYOND PAIN that visit entailed, resulted in a “rebirth, renewal, and a life recommitted to love”. It’s a MUST READ.

In CHURCH TRENDS, Monte Sahlin supplies the answers to three commonly asked questions regarding membership in the North American Division: How many active members? What is the average age? Is the Adventist Church growing?

Lelis Souza de Silva argues that there are five reasons why Adventists should not be afraid of end-time trouble. Unfortunately, NO FEAR is simply a recounting of terrifying events followed by timeworn bromides that offer the assurance that Adventists might escape torture and death if they survive until the actual Second Coming.

World News is available online.

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