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A Boon for The Voice of Prophecy

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In another press release today, the North American Division announced that “The Voice of Prophecy Board met Tuesday, April 30 in Simi Valley, Calif., and elected Pastor Shawn Boonstra the new speaker/director of The Voice of Prophecy.

Recently, Pastor Boonstra served as an associate ministerial director at the North American Division. His role in the Ministerial Department was to inspire, train, and equip pastors and churches for evangelism. Prior to this assignment, he served for seven years as the speaker/director of It Is Written, an international Christian television ministry dedicated to sharing insights from God’s Word with people around the world. 

Shawn Boonstra has also occasionally penned articles for the Adventist Review. In 2011 he wrote the following about the tragic Japan earthquake

But I am convinced that each successive catastrophe is also a clear message to God’s church. They are meant to stir us to action. They ought to remind us that our neighbors can’t explain what is happening—and that they are utterly lost without Jesus, hurtling down a path to final destruction.

He asserted that earthquakes were increasing in frequency and magnitude and this was a sign of the times. 

The spiritual significance of these larger-than-life disasters—and the accelerating frequency with which they’re happening—is eluding most of the human race…. In case you’re also struggling with recall, let me give you a head start: Haiti, China, Chile, Indonesia, New Zealand. In reality, there have been more than 30 earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 or greater since the beginning of 2010.

In an article on this blog, “Tragedy and Our Moral End,” I looked at the US Geological Survey data through 2010 and it showed that earthquakes were not increasing in frequency or magnitude. Since then, the data has continued to undermine Boonstra’s point.

In this new job, hopefully Boonstra will avoid this “amazing facts” approach to televangelization. As he steps into H.M.S. Richards shoes perhaps this is an opportunity to keep calm and carry on the legacy of the Biblical prophetic voices of compassion and moral action regarding human suffering.

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