Last Minute Gifts Ideas? ASRS Announces Release of Two New Books

Scholars of the Adventist Society for Religious Studies (ASRS) have published two books based on the themes of the yearly conferences held in 2020 and 2022. Oak & Acorn Publishing (Westlake Village, California) published both volumes. The books provide major contributions to Sabbath theology and to the ministry of healing. 

The first book, Remembering: It Matters How We Tell the Sabbath Story, was edited by Mathilde Frey (Walla Walla University), Ed Allen (Union Adventist University), Denis Fortin (Andrews University), and Sigve Tonstad (Loma Linda University) with Frey serving as senior editor. 

The book’s title reflects Frey’s presidential address at the 2020 ASRS meeting, and contains 17 chapters organized into four sections: Biblical Studies Background, Sabbath and Ecology, Sabbath and Social Justice, and Rest and Restoration.

As we are witnessing a resurgence of interest in the Sabbath in religious and theological studies, there is even a greater awareness about the significance of the Sabbath in the public realms of culture, environment, and society. Modern civilization seems at a loss for accommodating human needs; it offers productivity, but not plenitude; commerce, but not connection; recreation, but not rest; pleasure and distraction, but not fellowship and peace. The social glue of shared time has dried up, and the connective tissue of generational memory has shriveled. Greed and reckless predation have catastrophic ramifications for the climate and for the earth we inhabit. The insights in this volume about the divine gift of the seventh-day Sabbath offer hope and remedies for the needs of our world. In response to the despair of climate change and the tragedy of unjust economics, Sabbath as a shared day of rest includes care for the earth, rest for the land, reprieve for the destitute, and a stop to ruthless acquisition. In a time of unparalleled alienation and loneliness, remembering and sharing the story of the Sabbath in a fresh way is an art that holds transformative power. Relationships might begin to heal, communities may find ways to reconnect, trust could be restored, and hope would begin to blossom again. Here is the Table of Contents showing the breadth and depth of topics addressed in the book:

Section 1— Biblical Studies Background

Chapter 1
The Art of Remembering: It Matters How We Tell the Sabbath Story
Mathilde Frey, Walla Walla University

Chapter 2
The Sabbath as a Sign of Holiness: In the Context of Babylonian Days and Theology
Jean Sheldon, Pacific Union College

Chapter 3
To Fight or Not to Fight: The Sabbath and the Maccabean Revolt
Sigve K. Tonstad, Loma Linda University

Chapter 4
The Rabbinic Sabbath: Re-Creating Paradise
David Kraemer, Jewish Theological Seminary

Chapter 5
Paul’s Observance of the Sabbath in Acts of the Apostles as a Marker of Continuity Between Judaism and Early Christianity
Denis Fortin, Andrews University

Chapter 6
The Sabbath and Her Sisters: Circumcision, Sacrifice, Ceremony and Sabbath in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho
Edward Allen, Union College

Chapter 7
How Did the Jewish Sabbath Become the Christian Sunday? A Review of the Reviews of Samuele Bacchiocchi’s From Sabbath to Sunday
Edward Allen, Union College

Section 2 — Sabbath and Ecology

Chapter 8
The People of God in the Sabbath Psalm: An Eschatological Study of the Shirim Shel Yom
Melissa Brotton, La Sierra University

Chapter 9
“Remember the Sabbath“: An Anchor to Hold an Earth-Sustaining Theological Metanarrative
Ginger Harwood, La Sierra University

Chapter 10
Sabbath to the Rescue: Finding Respite from Ecological Despair
Sigve K. Tonstad, Loma Linda University

Section 3 — Sabbath and Social Justice

Chapter 11
Equality Through the Lens of Sabbath Hermeneutics
Mathilde Frey, Walla Walla University

Chapter 12
Re-member Shabbat: The Call to Come Out of Babylon
Olive J. Hemmings, Washington Adventist University

Chapter 13
Prophecy, Sabbath, and Jubilee: The Social Justice Implications of an Eschatological Sabbath Message
Nicholas Miller, Andrews University

Section 4 — Rest and Restoration

Chapter 14
The Sabbath Healings and Biblical Sabbath Ethics: An Interpretation
Andrews Blosser, Loyola University, Carthage College

Chapter 15
Being, Holiness, and Freedom: On the Sacramental Character of the Sabbath
Daryll Ward, Kettering College

Chapter 16
Disabling Sabbath: A Practice in Shaping Livable Presents
Vaughn Nelson, Boston University School of Theology

Chapter 17
Jewish Shabbat, Christian Sabbath: A Practical Theological Study of Contemporary Clergy Practice
Erik C. Carter, Loma Linda University

The second book is, Restored!: Mediating Wholeness in a Broken Word, and is based on the theme of the 2022 ASRS conference. Zdravko Plantak (Loma Linda University) edited the book. 

The book invites a robust conversation about the obviously malfunctioning world, ancient and contemporary; to see how God has desired to restore the brokenness and chaos; and to ask how we may be involved as participants in such wholeness-building. Contributors to this volume offer a polyphony of voices coming from various perspectives and disciplines within religious studies—from theological, historical, ethical, philosophical, and practical theology—and explore through multiple genres the importance of the wholeness that God desires and what it may look like in a broken world. These are not utopian or programmatic essays; rather, they are attempts to paint a picture of what God intends for the suffering and imperfect world here and now and how we can become more motivated to participate with God in such restoration. This is the Table of Contents:

Section One: States of Brokenness

Chapter 1
Remember That We Are Dust: Following Jesus in Seeing Our Broken World Through the Eyes of Weakness
By Ann Collier-Freed

Chapter 2
Restoring the Broken: The Function of Military Language in the Feeding of the Five Thousand Narrative (Mark 6:30–44)
By Oleg Kostyuk

Chapter 3
Deceived, Broken, Whole: How the Garden Explains the Cross
By Thomas Toews

Chapter 4
Jeremiah’s Rebuilding of the Destroyed City Without Brick and Mortar
By Oliver Glanz

Section Two: Pathways to Wholeness

Chapter 5
When Healthcare Gets Sick: Epaphroditus, the Parabalanis, and Broken Hallelujahs
By Kendra Haloviak Valentine

Chapter 6
For the Healing of the Nations
By John Brunt

Chapter 7
Social Locations At the Margins: A Path to Wholeness in Theological Interpretation of Scripture
By Iriann Marie Irizarry

Chapter 8
Spiritual Wholeness: Sustainable Spiritual Resilience in a Conflicted, Destabalizing World
By Ben Holdsworth

Section Three: Brokenness (Un)acknowledged

Chapter 9
Self-Evident Truths: A Critical Race Informed Adventist Apocalyptic
By Keith Augustus Burton

Chapter 10
Women Who Shaped Adventism: Eight Who Cracked the Glass Ceiling
By James Wibberding

Chapter 11
Human Nature and Human Flourishing: Adventism’s Wrong-Headed Obsession With Binary Sexuality
By Mark Carr

Chapter 12
The Double-Sided Mirror: Wholeness as Integrity; Wholeness as Connectivity
By John R. Jones and Patricia S. Jones

Sections Four: Visions of Healing

Chapter 13
The Minister and the Mother Wound: Trauma Conversations Between Jeremiah 13 and 31
By Mathilde Frey

Chapter 14
Humility as a Key to Mediating Wholeness in a Broken World
By Nicole Parker

Chapter 15
Mending Collegial Relationships: An Intentional Process
By Boubakar Sanou and Petr Cincala

Chapter 16
Reconciliating the Two Sides of the Wall of Separation: The Sanctuary Tension and Its Missiological Implications Based On Ephesians 2:14–18
By Lian Chuanshan

Chapter 17
Esther: The Beauty of Perishing as Revolutionary Practice
By Ramona Hyman

Afterword
By Sigve Tonstad