Alex,

Thanks for the sermon clip. I loved it. Rev. Flunder speaks for quite a few of us, I imagine.

Heather

Alex, hopefully she DOES KNOW what saves her and her congragates. Otherwise, her words are just hot air. She might just be another Jim Jones, for all I know from that video. NOT IMPRESSED.

Or not.

Yes, thank you for posting this. Rev. Flunder definitely speaks to and for me. I needed to hear this especially this morning.

RDS--your posts on a few threads have gotten especially vitriolic of late. I know I'd appreciate it if you'd speak to ideas and try to avoid putting people down or dismissing them outright.

Daneen, I am unclear what was so revealing by the Rev Flunder. Why can Mr. Carpenter get out of the Bay area with his special projects. There is a whole big world out there beside Berkeley and San Fran. Sorry I offended you, but I live in the Mid West some of what Spectrum comes up with leave me and others shaking their heads.

Daneen, maybe some of ought to ask the question Cliff asks about liberal SDAs, why bother? Maybe because we think it can be something better in both cases than it is, eh?

Also sorry, my question in the above post should have been:

"Why CAN'T Mr. Carpenter get out of the Bay area with his special projects. ..."

RDS: the blogosphere is a big place. Why don't you follow a market approach and start your own site?

Spectrum has worked for 40 years to facilitate new ideas in Adventist conversation. If one wants their ears tickled, one can review the alternatives.

I'd still care about these issues no matter where I lived. Having lived for awhile in the Mid-west (and dating a great Illinois lady who just texted me that she's at a forum with Mel White right now), I know that these issues matter to folks of faith in any region, even outside of America.

Let's not be so ego-centric and ask that someone else's blogging interests conform to a region. In fact, most Adventists I know in the Mid-west care about open discussions, and can do so without attacking people.

"We simply request that you focus on the posted topic, and not attack anyone. . ."

It always amazes me how some who rail against sinners cannot follow the simplest rules of civil discourse.

Now stop personalizing this and let's have a idea-centric conversation.

Alex, wonder whay this suggestion is made to Cliff, since he disagrees with your labelling tactics:

RDS: the blogosphere is a big place. Why don't you follow a market approach and start your own site?

If you aim to be controversial, take your medicine and be prepared to take your medicine, "and don't be so thin skinned". Oh, try to get your ideas away from Berkeley and San Fran, it doesn't impress the rest of the country, even if you think it does.

[Cliff's remarks on another thread reinvigorated me, Sorry.]

Ah yes, the old "dismiss people for the region in which they happen to be" tactic.

This stereotyping by place is really beneath civil discourse and I say that about the South as well.

As this map shows, the Adventist world is a lot more diverse and open to thoughtful discussions that some imagine.

Some stats on our site visits.

Per capita, this is pretty reflective of Adventist population distribtion (except for those extra web crazy Orlando, FL folks)

It appears that Adventists don't need anyone telling them what they can't discuss.

It is my view that if every thought that can pop into Alex's head can be a topic of discussion here, that, without telling people to go away and start their own blog, they have a right to say it is a radical idea and crazy that popped into Alex's head, all part of the discourse, right Alex, or do you get a pass for your ideas over everyone else because your skin is thinner that others?

Thanks for posting this great sermon. Bishop Flunder is an amazing woman, and her City of Refuge congregation has done what so few churches are brave enough to do: to live out the good news for the "last," the "lost," the "least." It is a beautiful glimpse of the Kingdom coming.

To RDS, if you think the issues being raised on this Spectrum blog only relate to two cities in the whole country, I'm afraid it may be you who is thinking provincially. Especially global is the matter of equal rights/rites for homosexual and bisexual persons. There are same-gender-loving persons everywhere in the country that there are different-gender-loving persons. They may be silenced - through word or deed - but they are there. The stories of too many lesbians and gay men who have suffered physical violence because of their God-given identities should shame any Christian into compassion. I am grateful for the small oases any of them may find, even if they are places so easily-written-off as San Francisco.

I would stress that it is exactly for the silenced persons - as well as the simply open-minded persons - all over the country, especially in places where views such as yours may predominate, that this blog is needed. These online conversations about important human issues are exactly what need to reach people living outside "Berkeley and San Fran," to offer hope and to keep people alive. I hope that Alex and the rest of the courageous Spectrum team never back down from offering a lamp to their readers everywhere.

In case it has escaped notice, there are many contributors to Spectrum magazine (of which I am one). There are many people for whom Spectrum represents the best in Adventism (I again being one of those people).

I would go further and say this - were it not for the thoughtful, intellectually honest, well-read Adventists like the ones I've met through the Spectrum community, I would probably have decided that there really isn't a place for people like me within Adventism, and I would be a statistic: one of the millions of former Adventists who have simply said enough!

But I thank God for the thoughtful, respectful, honest and searching Adventists like those who make up this online (and in person) community. Because of them, I have found my faith in community and my faith in God restored and deepened.

I have hope for the future of Adventism because I have seen that there are many, many people all across the United States where I live, and all around the world where I have traveled who believe that truth is not a destination but a journey, and that truth really will set us free.

Thank you to the Spectrum community for what you have given to me. I hope to be able to return the favor. And to all the terrific people who make up this community, thank you for giving me so many reasons to believe!

-Jared Wright

Rasputin

Rev. Flunder needs to come into contact with the SDA Church. We have all the answers. We have (or used to have the little red books {they're not red anymore}) that answers every question from pre creation to everything in between to the interplanetary travels of the saved. The answers are detailed in many cases.

Come join us Rev. Flunder, and you won't flounder around for answers anymore.

I am trying to figure if that comment from Rasputin was sarcasm or boasting.

Rasputin

Dick, I'm a humbly proud SDA. If there is such a creature alive. We have the answers and we ought not be shy about letting the world know that.

Rasputin, I admire your honesty.

To belittle a child's question with "I don't know," rather than a patient wondering with the child or imagining with the child, would have impressed me more. For Alex to wish me away to compete with the forum, truly was breath taking. Alex, not impressed, I assume you are more creative than that.

Is this kind of like voting people off the island?

Jared,
Love your comment and your posts here on Spectrum.
Proud to know you buddy!
-Johnny

Just so we're representing the minister honestly - she's not giving child raising tips - just making a point about getting beyond the fear that a faith tradition has to supply the most answers or it's not the truest.

In addition to misrepresenting the minister, RDS is misrepresenting what I said.

As RDS was going on and on during the discussion about homosexuality about how oh-so-extreme and oh-so-radical and Bay Area-based this discussion was, 1) I posted proof that folks from around the world are interested in this, 2) and I never said leave, only that RDS can always start discussions on any topic. Of course, as many people on this site understand, having a blog doesn't obviate commenting here. My point was merely that there is plenty of room in Adventism for all kinds of discussions, since students and faculty in places like Tennessee and Michigan have been discussing these issues as well. Anyone repeating, "I'm not impressed" is always welcome to contribute something impressive, and not regionally wrong.

Thanks for posting that map, Alex! RDS might like to think there are only Bay Area liberals who read sites with interesting and provocative content, but clearly folks all over Adventism enjoy stretching their minds here.

RDS--Of course you're welcome to stay, but stop your bellyaching if you just can't get over the idea that a lot of folks in Adventism (apparently all over the country) want to talk about issues that don't turn up in the Review. No one is voting you off, but start contributing some real ideas and discussing actual issues instead of just whining! I for one am not from the Bay Area (not even from CA), and I find this site to be a great respite from the Adventism-as-usual that is all I can find in my local churches. Thanks to the contributors (official authors and commentors) for continually finding interesting and relevant issues for me to think about.

Bravo Alexander!
Hope you don't mind my bringing in some of our shop talk on this comment.

RDS,
I think that those of us who hold a more narrow vision of what sort of sexual expressions are appropriate have a high burden to ensure we're speaking in a Christ-like manner. Sometimes it feels like we're more like the crowd ready to stone than the Christ who called the adulterous woman out of sin.

There is no shortage of invective thrown at us on the web team on all sorts of mediums. And it doesn't increase or decrease depending on your stance on gay marriage or any other topic shaking Adventism today. Some people just seem to really resent we're talking about certain timely topics critically.

No, we don't have thin skin but that doesn't mean attacking us is ok. There are lots of loud voices who want to intimidate us but there are also quiet voices that let us know that they appreciate us speaking about issues that matter for the church today.
Truth isn't a stone to be hurled at the weak. Jesus ministered in the margins and didn't lack courage in engaging powerful and dominant ideas in the church and society. Or, we have a website and journal covering issues, yes, but we're also trying to do it in a way that builds community and is true to the greatest commandment. That's the pastoral impulse which drives our engagement on that and other issues.

Thanks!

We were talking about the origination of posts but the origination of subject matter. It definitely, obviously for a couple of weeks there was "Bay area". Betweeen PSR and the Rev, how can Alex escape that. To suggest that the map was a map of those that supported the subject matter is a real hoot, having read the posts.

Sorry, that first sentence should have read:

"We weren't talking about origination of posts...."