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Further QOD reflections

By Alexander Carpenter
Blogger and pastor Bill Cork writes two posts after returning from the Questions on Doctrine conference.
Post one:
I’ll have a lengthier post about the content of the weekend (that might
not be for a few days). The highlights of the conference were first,
that it happened. Two young scholars, Julius Nam and Michael Campbell,
succeeded at something that an older generation never attempted:
bringing together a wide diversity of protagonists to talk face to face
with one another about subjects they have spent years writing about
(often very emotionally). The background to this includes Julius Nam’s
2005 Ph.D. dissertation (Reactions to the Seventh-day Adventist Evangelical Conferences and Questions on Doctrine, 1955-1971), and the publishing in 2003 of the annotated edition of QOD
(through the efforts of Ron Knott, Director of Andrews University
Press, and George Knight, recently retired from the Seventh-day
Adventist Theological Seminary). It was evident throughout the
conference that all the participants benefited from the historical
research done by Julius and George, which has given us a common
understanding of what happened 50 years ago, and what mistakes were
made by people of all sides.
Post two:
Reflecting on this from the perspective of having been away from
Adventism for over two decades, having studied at Lutheran and Catholic
institutions of higher education, it seems to me that the different
parties have more in common than I think they realize or want to admit.
All agree Christ was fully human and fully divine, and that his
humanity was affected by heredity, and was the weakened, mortal flesh
we share. All agree he is substitute and example. All agree as a high
priest he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. They all agree he
could have sinned (something Catholic and most Protestant theologians
would deny), but never wavered. All agree that while we are born
separated from God, his relationship with the Father and the Spirit was
never broken. All agree that Seventh-day Adventists are fully Arminian.
All agree that Jesus is coming and that there will be a time of trouble
and that those who live through it will have a very intense experience
that will require them to cling closely to Christ. All agree, I think,
that the Holy Spirit will continue to uphold them.

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