Higher Interest at Food Banks

The Liveblog at Christianity Today reports  that food banks are being hit hard by the economy as food and fuel prices go up. More people are using the services as they find they can’t afford gas and their mortgage. At the same time, high food prices mean that subsidies don’t go as far as they used to.

Sacrificing yourself without sacrificing your convictions

Pfc Desmond T. Doss, United States Army, was one of my heroes when I was growing up. He died two years ago — Thursday, March 23, 2006. He refused to violate the Sabbath as he understood it and refused to carry a weapon. However, his actions in the Philippines and on Okinawa earned the respect of those around him. President Harry S Truman awarded Pfc Doss the Medal of Honor, making Doss the first “conscientious cooperator” to win the award.

More information is available about his life from Wikipedia

Religious Liberty and Civic Responsibility

Bill Cork has some good thoughts examining our responsibility to God and our responsibility to the government.

California Assemblyman Introduces Resolution Supporting Homeschooling

The Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council and the North American Religious Liberty Association - West (NARLA-West) report that Joel Anderson, a California Assemblyman from the San Diego area, has introduced Assembly Concurrent Resolution ACR 115 to encourage the California Supreme Court to overturn the opinion in the case of In Re: Rachel L. . The Court of Appeals for the Second Appellate District of Los Angeles ruled that homeschooling without a teaching credential in the state of California is illegal.

Residents of the State of California are urged to contact their Assemblymen and Senators, encouraging them to support this resolution.

Republicans Endorse Torture

Via Bill Cork

Voting mostly along party lines, the United States House of Representatives failed to override President Bush’s veto of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. President Bush objected to section 327:

(a) LIMITATION.—No individual in the custody or under the effective control of an element of the intelligence community or instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

(b) INSTRUMENTALITY DEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘instrumentality’’, with respect to an element of the intelligence community, means a contractor or subcontractor at any tier of the element of the intelligence community.

The the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations prohibits interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD 6th) represents Hagerstown, where I lived in several years ago. The Seventh-day Adventist Congressman broke with his party and voted to override the veto. My current representative, Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD 1st) also broke with his party and voted to pass the measure, “Objections of the President Not Withstanding.”

Information about the Bill is available from the Library of Congress

President Paulsen reaffirms Adventist Church’s noncombatant position

Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has an article in this week’s Adventist World to answer the question of the Church’s official stance on military service.For some people this is a non-issue, either because they have decided that they are going to serve regardless of the Church’s official position, and others have decided that they will not serve, regardless of the Church’s official position.

However, many young people struggle with this issue, especially as tensions mount. If the United States were to be attacked on our soil again, there would be another surge of volunteers ready to defend our country.

Paulsen affirms that the official Seventh-day Adventist position has not substantially changed since the 1867 General Conference resolution that stated that “the bearing of arms, or engaging in war, is a direct violation of the teachings of our Savior and the spirit and letter of the law of God.” Historically Seventh-day Adventists who were served (usually drafted) in the United States Armed Services were encouraged to serve in a medical capacity, helping to heal, rather than killing the enemy. My personal hero when I was growing up was an example. Private Desmond T. Doss endured hardship for his tenacious refusal to break the Sabbath or carry a weapon, even in training. However, he served with honor and was given the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor.

But what about now. Do conditions now really warrant a change in the church’s official stance on serving only in non-combatant roles? Paulsen doesn’t think so.

I agree with Pastor Paulsen that these issues need to be discussed. The Church needs to “be an unambiguous voice of principle.”

Is this truly a biblical principle that we should hold on to? If a person in a country with compulsory military service chooses, as Paulsen advises, to serve time in prison rather than violate the Sabbath or serve as a combatant, will the Church help them? What help can we give?

Link: World church leader reaffirms Adventist Church’s noncombatant position (Adventist News Network report)

Time to Remove Racial Divisions

It’s past time for the Seventh-day Adventist Church leadership to abolish “separate but equal” conferences. They should never have been started in the first place, but we can’t go back and change past history now.

Frederick Russell has a good article in the Adventist Review. It’s interesting to note that Russell is the senior pastor of the Miracle Temple in Baltimore, part of the Allegheny East conference. I have been told many times that the reason that we can’t abolish racially-segregated conferences is because of those in the “regional” conferences.

It is understandable that people will worship with those with a similar subculture, at least in areas where there are multiple churches to attend. However, that does not warrant having separate administrative offices supervising the congregations. Indeed, in the Chesapeake Conference, where I work, we have White, Black, Korean, and Hispanic pastors. Maybe others that I’m forgetting. I don’t define them by race (other than for identification purposes, much as someone might point me out as being the bald short white guy in a place where people are tall, black men with full heads of hair!) I see them as colleagues who are trying to help people come to a closer relationship with Jesus.

The old excuses of “conference leadership” need to be abandoned. I don’t really care what race my ministerial director or conference officers are — I’m more concerned with their calling to administration, which has nothing to do with race.

Dr. Russell’s last paragraph hit home as I’m dealing with some of these issues in my current assignment (issues that are not solely related to race):

If our church is going to reach this culture, we need to think well what we are presenting to the world, as well as to a new generation in this church.

People do notice when we can’t get along with each other. Questions arise like “Why don’t you ever do anything with so-and-so church in town?”

I look forward to the day when the Seventh-day Adventist Church can abolish these divisions and get on with the Father’s business.

Link: The Obama Message by Frederick A. Russell

Banned From Church

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on church discipline.

Banned from Church from the Wall Street Journal, 18 January 2008.

Emerging Critical Issues Facing the Church

Christianity Today’s David Swanson is blogging about the National Pastor’s Convention in San Diego. His first report focused on one of the Critical Concerns Courses: “Emerging Critical Issues Facing the Church.”

The issues addressed were:

1. the role of Scripture,
2. the church and politics,
3. homosexuality, and
4. religious pluralism.

Swanson’s blog focused on the discussions about the role of Scripture and homosexuality.

One particularly good quote from Swanson regarding homosexuality.

The question many in church leadership are wrestling with is, “Can a gay person can serve in leadership? And at what level?”

Can churches that understand homosexual practice to be a sin actually provide a safe space for gay worshipers? And regarding Tony’s question, should gay members of your congregation be allowed some opportunity of leadership? At what level?

While we are all sinners (and I am chief), Paul’s admonition in Titus 1 seems to indicate that those who willfully make excuses for their sin and do not repent should not be leaders. Of course, Paul also says that leaders must be good parents, even-tempered, temperate, and able to teach. Perhaps we need to follow the Bible’s call to a higher standard — the standard of holiness that comes only through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We must allow Him to transform every area of our lives, including, but not limited to, our sexuality.

Perfect love for God and for man will lead to a desire to obey God’s law — not to make Him save us, but because He already loves us. Like David when he had been convicted regarding his sins of abuse of power, adultery, and murder, I pray “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51.10. Only as God creates in a new heart in me can I truly change.

Links

• A Big Can of Worms at the Out of Ur blog from Christianity Today
• Before the Deluge - an article by Andy Crouch on the issue of sexuality in the church

Baptism Prayer Poem

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, I had the privilege of baptizing a new member. There’s not a baptistry in the Lutheran Church that we rent, so the Dover First Church agreed to let us use their facility on Friday night, 4 January 2008. As part of the service, Kate read a letter and poem that she had written. Here is the poem that she wrote, a prayer:

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Dear Jesus,

Humbly I come before you today,
With not much to offer or to give,
Before you, my sins and burdens lay,
And seek your forgiveness that I may eternally live.

For years, I have tried my own way,
Thinking I knew best,
Only to screw things up, might I say,
I’ve failed my own test!

Now I come to you and pray,
To put my life back in your hands,
Forever with you I want to stay,
I will always see our footprints in the sands.

You lived and died to take my sins away,
And all I can think,
What a high price to pay,
And you didn’t even blink!

Amen!

Kate Sprague
January 4, 2008 Baptism

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