QOD.andrews.edu is up and running!
This is be the official webpage for the Questions on Doctrine 50th Anniversary Conference (October 24-27, 2007 @ Andrews University).
Come take a look . . . especially the lineup of participants with their pictures!
http://qod.andrews.edu/presenters.html
Notice Barack Obama to Rick Warren’s right and Sam Brownback to his left, joining hands in prayer….
I think a similar thing is happening in both the right and the left wings of Adventism—a much less partisan and more communitarian next generation of conservatives and liberals. Will that new centrism spawned yet another swing toward polarization in the following generation? The Questions on Doctrine saga demonstrates at once the lure and danger of over-centralization and over-polarization….
No other book has aroused so much controversy in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine. Published in 1957 as a direct result of the dialogues between evangelicals Walter Martin and Donald Grey Barnhouse and a select group of Adventist leaders, Questions on Doctrine was hailed initially as the apology par excellence of Adventism by its writers and promoters. However, when the book came out, it created great uproaramong Adventists who questioned whether it accurately represented Adventist theology and the writings of Ellen White, in particular.
For Leroy Edwin Froom, one of the authors of Questions on Doctrine, the book “completed the long process of clarification, rectification of misconceptions, and declarations of truth before [the Christian] Church and the world.” But M. L. Andreasen, a theologian and author on the sanctuary doctrine, saw the book as “the most subtle and dangerous error” and “a most dangerous heresy.”
Hence, historian George Knight has noted that Questions on Doctrine “easily qualifies as the most divisive book in Seventh-day Adventist history,” while theologian Herbert Douglass has observed that “most, if not all, of the so-called ‘dissident’ or ‘independent’ groups of the last 45 years are direct results of the explicit and implicit positions espoused by [Questions on Doctrine] on the atonement and the Incarnation.”
On October 24-27, 2007, 50 years after the publication of Questions on Doctrine, scholars, church leaders, and pastors across the theological spectrum of Adventism, along with guest scholars from the evangelical world, who have given careful study to the theology of Questions on Doctrine and Adventist history of the past half-century, will convene at Andrews University for an engaging, reflective, scholarly dialogue.
To register, go to Plusline’s QOD Conference Registration Page. Watch for the official Conference website soon to be unveiled: qod.andrews.edu.
This conference is sponsored by Andrews University, Loma Linda University, and Oakwood College.
See below for the Program Schedule
(more…)
Christopher’s line about T-Rex in Eden is the funniest, I think. But the line that follows is even more interesting and telling. Listen in….Overall, this scene is funny and entertaining, but not completely fair to evangelicals. It’s typical of media’s portrayal of evangelicals as a rigid and arrogant bunch which is true only of very few of them. At the same time, I agree with the last interchange. “You wait….” If I were a Jew, I wouldn’t be so trusting and appreciative of evangelical Christians, either.
In November 2006, thirty leaders from Christian colleges met in Washington, D.C., to present the Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative to their faith and elected leaders, demanding swift action on climate change. This group of students is working in concert with a Christian environmental stewardship ministry called Restoring Eden.
We as Adventists do disservice to our academy and college students by focusing so much on keeping their bodies and minds pure and not enough on how they can impact the world. Focusing so much on personal habits and practices breeds obsessive preoccupation with personal salvation—or resigned disinterest from it. Whether Adventism can remain relevant in the world is a much greater concern than whether or not our 19th century heritage remains relevant for Adventists today.
So, it turns out that Philip Workman, who was executed on May 9 for the 1981 armed robbery and death of Lt. Ronald Oliver of the Memphis (Tennessee) Police Department and became famous for his request that a large vegetarian pizza be sent to a homeless person in lieu of his last meal, was a Seventh-day Adventist. (Click here for CNN’s postmortem on the pizza story.)
According to a court document, Workman became an Adventist during his time on death row. After his conversion, he came to hold a religious conviction that the death penalty, since it involves taking of a human life, was unsupportable. Thus, in 2000, he refused to sign the form that gave him the choice between electrocution and lethal injection, since signing the form would constitute “participating in and sanctioning the process of talking a human life.” (Click here to read his 2000 affidavit.)
Another religious conviction that Workman apparently arrived at was that the body after death must not be autopsied. Prior to his death, he obtained a court order against autopsy and gave his brother, Terry, the power of attorney, instructing him not to autopsy his body or have chemicals or fluids removed from his body. However, “the state overruled that request last Monday and allowed the state medical examiner to verify that the lethal injection was conducted properly by autopsying Workman’s remains. The autopsy is scheduled to take place, ironically, on Sabbath, May 19.
Interestingly, the reason that Terry Workman gave on behalf of his brother was that autopsy conflicts with his Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. As far as I can tell, this belief was a personal one particular to Philip Workman and not generally held by Adventists. Some have raised the question of burial versus cremation based on Amos 2:1, but former head of the Adventist church’s Biblical Research Institute George Reid makes it clear in his Dialogue article entitled “Burial or Cremation?” that this is a matter of personal choice.
P.S.) Wasn’t it heartwarming to read that homeless shelters were flooded with free pizzas when people heard that the state would not honor Workman’s request that a pizza be delivered to one homeless person? I hope the Adventist church in Nashville were among those took park in this.
P.P.S.) Another interesting Adventist angle to this story has to do with Workman’s post-conversion conviction against the death penalty. It’s easy to be cynical about this. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, it’s significant that he arrived at a radical “pro-life” stance that made him stand against the death penalty, meat eating, and autopsy. The latter, presumably, was a stance for the dignity of the remains. I often find myself admiring the consistent pro-life ethic of Roman Catholicism, though I don’t always feel comfortable with it.
P.P.P.S.) I can’t not mention that Workman’s execution—and conviction itself—was heavily contested based on the fact that his conviction was based solely on a strongly disputed witness. The following video makes a compelling case on Workman’s behalf.
This is the older sibling of an article that will be published in the July/August issue of Adventist Today under the theme of “The Future of Adventism.” I made some significant changes to this piece that resulted in a different tone, emphasis, and identity of characters. I’ll wait until the revised article is published in Adventist Today before posting it here. Meantime, here is the unedited first version of the article.