Skip to content

Tasty Sabbath Afternoon Reads: Adventist Blog Potluck

Enjoy these musings from around the Adventist blogosphere. Sure beats traditional Sabbath “lay activities”!
Nomad is Chantel Davies’ blog. Davies is a researcher in the UK who fostered a recycling and composting program in her Adventist congregation. Recently she considered the newsy matter of Anne Rice’s renunciation of Christianity. She writes:

    I feel for Anne, and for the many other people within Christianity who are looking for something rich and fulfilling that is not characterized by hate and animosity toward those people who do not conform to what we believe they should be. I feel jaded too. Worn down and eroded by inflexibility, harsh fundamentalism, bigotry, racism, sexism and entirely un-Christlike attitudes that appear to be the majority, but probably are not.

The SAU President’s blog is the place where Gordon Bietz shares interesting tidbits, including the news that he will be serving as interim senior pastor of the Collegedale Church while the congregation searches for a new senior pastor following John Nixon’s transition to teaching at SAU. Bietz also revealed on his blog that university presidents occasionally get “punked”:

    Some prankster student – I assume – ordered me a subscription of Playboy magazine. I got an invoice at home and at the office. Cynthia noticed the invoice and wondered what was going on. I understand Bill Wohlers got one to (sic). I hope that Playboy understands the prank and doesn’t end up sending the magazine, I would have more explaining to do. Lots of sitting tomorrow! The General Conference Committee is meeting.

SDA Gender Justice, Claremont grad student Trisha Famisaran’s blog, addresses issues of equality, gender and faith, and this week shares reasons for wanting to ban high heels to shoe hell:

    I think that heels, whether they be low pumps or high stilettos, are among the strangest of human inventions. Sure, they lengthen a person’s legs and have sex appeal. But they’re one of the most impractical pieces of attire humans have thought of–heels are right up there with corsets and bustles, in my opinion.

NewChurchLife is Peter Roenfeldt’s blog about “creating new environments for people to experience God, exploring biblical and fresh expressions of church that will make a difference, and sharing the creative ideas of those prepared to be revolutionary to honor God and reach friends with the gospel.” Roenfeldt says that house churches expand witness:

    Even though homes were places where believers gathered in the first century, and modern church planting movements are house-church based, many church pastors are wary of them. There are good reasons – but also some misunderstandings!

Ministry Sister is a collaborative blog by women in the UK preparing to work in ministry who want to build community among women and to create a supportive, nurturing environment to share resources and stories. Ministry Sister provides a concise fact sheet on ordination.

    There seems to be increasing amounts of chatter about the role of women in the church in both the Adventist church as well as in the church of England, which recently held its general synod. While at GC 2010, the Adventist Women’s Centre distributed some very useful information that I wanted to share here.

The Sacred and the Space in Between is a blog by Loma Linda University professor Siroj Sorajjakool. There, he enters conversation with 4th century Chinese philosopher 莊子 (Chang Tzu) and French sociologist-philosopher Michel Foucault in a post entitled “Chang Tzu, Foucault, and Deoconstruction:

    Michael Foucault would have agreed with Chuang Tzu that webbed toes becomes marginalized only in relation to the society that pathologizes it. Pathology, as we understand it today, is rooted in individual psyche. Madness expresses itself in behavioral aberration that ultimately lands a person in social isolation and alienation. Alienation, perpetuates madness itself and the cycle continues. Foucault sees this whole process differently. It is the reversal of the process, argues Foucault, that leads to mental illness.

On the Lighter Side…
The Straight Testimony tackles Adventism’s most important topics including the top ten ways not to baptize someone, the state of the dead: Adventism’s sexiest doctrine, and most recently, data revealing that 80% of Adventists are unsure when to clap:

    “I just freeze up” said one rural church member after a traveling musician stopped on their way through town for church. “I was so moved inside, yet my outside was paralyzed. I heard one or two people give a couple token claps, but when I didn’t hear a third or fourth join in I… I just couldn’t go through with it.”

Bicycle Truth provides damning evidence of Adventist pastors and lay leaders cycling. It also invites people to hold bicycling Adventists accountable by submitting photographic evidence of two-wheeled indiscretions:

    If you have the name and photo of an Adventist caught in the sinful act of bicycling* you may submit their name and photo to this website, and we will expose their abomination to the world. It could be your pastor, your professor (extra credit for biologists and theologians), your conference president, or even yourself!**
Subscribe to our newsletter
Spectrum Newsletter: The latest Adventist news at your fingertips.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.