During Colonial times, the story is told of a benevolent woman who dedicated her life to providing medical service in the country of Haiti.   While she was much loved by the Haitian people, she was still a foreigner.   She was the outsider who came with superior skill and resources to “help” those deemed less capable and knowledgeable.  And she kept close control over these resources.

Even after there were Haitian medical Doctors working in her clinic – she kept the key to the drug cabinet on a chain around her neck.   If an operation were needed i

Tomorrow was Passover.  He must speak to his people.  After many years of neglect, he had ordered the Temple Service restored and had made an edict that the yearly feasts would be celebrated.

Israel had neglected worship of Yahweh and fallen into apostasy.  King Solomon knew it was due in large part to his own lack of leadership and his woefully poor example.  His sins were now reflected in the lives of his countrymen. 

I like Ellen White.  She is one of my role models.  My childhood bedroom was the same one in which she had slept when visiting Graysville, Tennessee in the early 1900’s.  I believe I grew up breathing in her residual spirit.  But the Ellen I know and love is not the Ellen of most of my contemporaries. 

No matter what biblical topic is being discussed be it homosexuality, ordination of women or the age of the earth; no matter what is being debated in the realm of Christian ethics, morality or behavior; no matter what is being argued in the area of theology be it the nature of Christ or the perfection of the saints; the bottom line always comes back to the Nature of Inspiration - how one is to view and interpret the Scriptures. This is, in my mind, the most critical issue facing the church today.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:42, 45).

The Mohaven Conference

The list of conference attendees reads like a veritable who’s who in 1970’s Adventism. They were no light weights! Represented were women such as Leona Running, Miriam Wood, Kit Watts, LaVonne Neff and Josephine Benton along with men such as Gerhard Hasel, Raoul Dederen, Frank Holbrook, Charles Scriven and James Spangenberg. The quality and depth of research presented by scholars such as Betty Sterling and Madelynn Halderman was impressive. (1)

This past week I had the good fortune to attend the Adventist Society for Religious Studies in Atlanta, Georgia. It was both an honor and a humbling experience to be able to share this event with such an illustrious gathering of Adventist scholars and educators.

In the summer of 1973, at the urging of Gordon Hyde, Director of the Biblical Research Institute, the President’s Executive Advisory Committee approved plans for a select committee to meet for the purpose of “giving through and adequate study to the role of women in the church organization.”[1]

PROLOG (given by a narrator)

We have all been told that in the hereafter there will be those who arrive in heaven without having heard the gospel message. This is a story about one such woman. She had lived her entire life in an isolated area of the country, an area that certain believers fled to in the final days of earth’s history. As our story opens the woman, Mary Jane, is sitting on her front porch, smoking a cigarette and worrying about some folks she had sheltered just the night before.

It was 8:00 AM on a Sabbath morning and I was kneelling on a prayer riser at the Episcopal Cathedral. Normally at this time I would be getting ready for services at my home church. I felt somewhat strange and out of place. Then the Deacon began to pray…