Tag: Issues

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Harold Camping – Are Adventists Looking In The Mirror?

Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world in late May of 2011. This is not the first time he has made such a prediction. Many have gone on before.

Well guess what, the time came and the time passed, and Harold Camping changed the date again. Now the date is October 2011. I see many folks laughing at him. Others stand with a critical eye on his work. But just like others before (especially the Second Advent Movement that moved the date to October after a missed date) he changed the date.

Doug Bachelor said, “Reckless predictions of the second coming of Christ create an artificial excitement among believers followed by a corresponding depression.” You can find it here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43054329

Some of these same folks either act like they don’t know, or they don’t know that the Advent Movment was born in this type of thing. And all of the arguments that they are using now could have been used against their origins.

Camping is not the first gentleman that I know who has predicted the end…I have a few friends who send me material predicting the end ALL THE TIME. I have a particular elderly friend who is always predicting the end, only he has no radio program to publicize his predictions.

I sometimes wonder if my elderly friend is allowing his great desires for the end of time to cloud his judgement. I wonder if we have the heart longings of an older man who probably does not wish to die, but wishes to be translated…mixing in with the apocalyptic prophecy that he has made the foundation of his thought…and old age with its struggles on 80 year old people…all mixed together to create a climate where predicting the end is almost unavoidable…perhaps those who are close around him should be more deligent about protecting him…

Be that as it may, I still look forward to the time when the coming kingdom is fully realized. I cut Camping some slack. I know it looks bad on christinaity. I know there will be a lot of disapointed believers. But for some reason I got an image in my head of my friend, Harold Camping, my elderly friend, William Miller, and Jesus when the kingdom is fully realized. Like all of these men, I long for that day…

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Osama Is Dead…Should I Be Happy?

Photo by André Karwath

Spectrum Magazine put up a post on reflections on the death of Osama bin Laden. I decided to post mine here. When the news flashed that President Obama was to make a speech, Then President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the one who was behind the 9-11 attacks on the American twin towers, had been killed.

I see my jubilant sisters and brothers sing the praises of our President for his work that ended in the death of this wanted man.

Celebrations of Defeating the Symbol of Evil

The collective exhale of relief soon gave way to Christians looking at jubilation. and some questioned whether it was a valid response to celebrate the death of this one that many saw as the epitome of evil.

These individuals quickly got uncomfortable at the celebrations and soon we saw the biblical record referred to as many quoted Proverbs 24:17 telling us not to gloat over an enemy. Another Ezekiel 18:32 where god takes no pleasure in death of anyone. And of course Ezekiel 33:11 where God takes not pleasure in the death in the death of the wicked.

Bible Does Have Celebrations of Evil Defeated

Certainly there was a stark contrast between the jubilation we saw among some and these texts that call for a different response. Well then a counter attack came from other Christians with other texts. 2 Chronicles 20:27 seems to demonstrate that God’s people did just that int he old Testament. I am sure that the “rejoicing over their enemas” looked a lot like what we see happening in the United States.

But at the end of the day, I just don’t feel right celebrating the death of anyone. I don’t feel right declaring “welcome to hell” as the Baptist minister former presidential candidate Huckabee did. I had a sense of sadness come over me after the other feelings left.

Seeing The Great Day

Is this all there is? Is this all we have to look forward to? Will we simply celebrate “payback?” After seeing the towers go down and the 3K die there. After seeing the deaths caused by the attempts to find him and the wars started in the name of finding him. After all of this, we can say “we did it.” But we still find ourselves in a world where “might is right.” We still find ourselves in a world where pain reins. We still have fear for our children to live in a world like we have.

I don’t begrudge our sisters and brothers for celebrating the death of one who we have expended so much energy in finding. But I just hold on to that promise of a Great Day that the slaves used to sing about. I hold on to the promise of a new heaven and a new earth that the Bible writer wrote about. I hold on to the promise that my father preaches about. I hold on to the promise of a never ending peace where we won’t celebrate the death of anyone…but instead will be able to celebrate the death of death itself…

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Should We Be Celebrating?

Photo by mattbuck.
A little while ago the Religious News Service put out an article about Seventh-day Adventism being the fastest growing church in North America. On Facebook it appeared that a huge percentage of Adventists were sending links to this article all over the place.

Here is a link to that article.

Well it turns out that while Adventism is growing…it was not as much as originally thought. In addition, it appears that it might be based in immigrants. Here is the Christian Century’s article. It appears as though the 4.3% growth rate has been fixed in the original articles to 2.5%.

Growing But Not As Fast

At any rate, Adventists are still growing…aren’t they? Well they are growing, but like everyone else, we are trying to figure out where our converts are. In addition, like everyone else, we are trying to keep our youth.

Whenever we talked about retention the fingers start coming out. The evangelists point to the pastors for not watering the growth. The pastors point to the elders for not doing their job. Finally, the elders point to the other members for not being loving.

Pointing Fingers Or Fixing The Problem?

I know we have a book come out every so often. we have a discussion every so often about retaining members. But when you have a system where you barely tell people what they are getting into when you dunk them…and then leave them to fend for themselves….What do we expect?

What do we expect when church growth is measured in terms of membership transfer and tithe increase (based largely in membership transfer)? Certainly growth is happening, don’t get me wrong, but much of our growth (not all…but much of it) is simply based in where a particular members will consume her or his religious entertainment. The mega churches are growing because they got the best show in town.

Good News?

But more than that, what is very interesting to me is how quickly we want to jump on “good news.” I mean we were giddy about this. One Facebook friend said “this is surely a sign of the end” as he forwarded this article. We know what it looks like in our particular congregation. We know how the growth looks. We know that 15 of the 20 baptisms in the last evangelistic meeting were gone before they could warm the pew. And yet we jumped at this. “we are important…we are significant…God is using us.”

Growth is fine…but for many of us, We don’t keep our converts. they leave.

I realize this is anecdotal. I hope I am wrong. But, I see baptismal numbers all the time. I see growth numbers all the time. But at the end of the day. where are all these people because they sure ain’t at church? Now some of you will give the exception to the rule. Some of you will condemn me for saying it. That’s fine. I hear you. But maybe we need to stop yelling amen about how well we are doing and come to terms with the facts that our growth is going out the same door they came in on. Spectrum Magazine Blog has a discussion of this topic at this link.