Video of Spectrum Book Club on “Ostriches and Canaries”

On August 27, the Spectrum Book Club met to discuss Ostriches and Canaries: Coping with Change in Adventism, 1966-1979 (Oak and Acorn, 2022). Author Gilbert M. Valentine joined to talk about his book, which details Robert Pierson’s presidency of the Adventist Church in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think this would be an excellent book for any Adventist who desires a greater understanding of recurrent issues in our church and how they have been handled,” Scott Moncrieff wrote in a review of the book for Spectrum.

Spectrum team members Carmen Lau, board chair; Alexander Carpenter, executive editor; and Bonnie Dwyer, editor emerita; hosted the discussion.

Watch the full conversation below:

Gilbert Valentine, recently retired professor at La Sierra University, is a leading historian of Adventism who continues to forge new paths of understanding in Adventist historiography. He has authored almost 80 scholarly articles or book chapters and is noted for his biography of W.W. Prescott (2005) and The Prophet and the Presidents (2011), a groundbreaking study that examines the political influence that Ellen White’s letters had on various General Conference presidents. His magisterial biography of John Nevins Andrews (2019), according to fellow historian Douglas Morgan, provides one of the most revealing studies of the social, psychological, and religious world of early Seventh-day Adventism published thus far. Gil is married to New Testament scholar Kendra Haloviak Valentine.

Title image credits: Oak and Acorn / Spectrum

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