Posts in Theology
Women and the Vote: What Did the Adventist Publications Say?
Women and the Vote: What Did the Adventist Publications Say?

“What did the Adventist publications say about women earning the right to vote?”

This was one question that came to my mind while I was visiting Aurora University, doing some research in their Adventist archival collection. I was entertaining questions in my mind about how Advent Christians reacted publicly to major current events. Case in point – the ratification of the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave women (who were legal US citizens) the right to vote. And so, I began to read.

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Church History, Catherine Rybicki, TheologyCatherine Rybicki
Are Mormons Christians?
Are Mormons Christians?

Growing up in my home church I heard about these people called “Mormons,” and I was told hardly anything about them or what they believe and I even felt that I was being told that Mormons were born-again Christians, but they simply had some weird doctrines. As I got older, I met some Mormons and befriended several. Even they, however, struggled to tell me exactly what they believed as Latter Day Saints. If I were to summarize all of the answers I received, It would go something like, “It’s complicated.” Eventually, I decided to stop asking people about Mormonism and investigate it at the source.

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Biblical Theology, TheologyDevin Nicelymormons, joseph smith, polytheism, works, LDS, latter day saints, mormonism
Defending the Trinity: “Jesus never said, ‘I am God’”
Defending the Trinity: “Jesus never said, ‘I am God’”

One of the most common attacks on the Trinity focuses on the deity of Christ. The skeptic might say, “If Jesus was God, then why didn’t He just say, ‘By the way, I’m God’?” For emphasis, they might even grab your Bible, flip through the pages, and challenge you by saying, “Show me one verse where Jesus said that He was God. You can’t do it, because He never said it!”

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Biblical Theology, TheologyDevin Nicelytrinity, son, jesus, moses, I Am
Lent Through the Eyes of Adventism
Lent Through the Eyes of Adventism

Without belaboring the basics, I thought it would be interesting to consider what special contribution Adventism can make to the season of Lent. At first glance, the two might appear to be strange bedfellows. While Lent looks to our past and present condition, Adventism by its very nature looks forward to the future. To the uninformed, the essential message of Adventism is that the Christian’s hope should be fixed upon the day of Christ’s return, that day in which the reign of Christ will be fully revealed along with new heavens and a new earth. It is the message that God promises to set everything aright in the end, bringing all of Creation to the glorious end instituted by her Creator. It is the promise of a coming age far removed from our present condition, but which carries with it the assurance that we who have been joined to Jesus Christ shall live again to see all things made new.

The value this conviction brings to the season of Lent is that the hope of resurrection is necessarily preceded by the need for death.

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Tom Loghry, TheologyThomas Loghryadventism, lent, repentance, resurrection, death
Antisemitism and “Replacement Theology”
Antisemitism and “Replacement Theology”

Last summer, the murder of eleven Jewish people while at worship in a Pittsburgh synagogue stunned so many of us, not just because it represented an assault on religious freedom in the United States, but because it served as an ugly reminder that Antisemitism still lurks in the shadows of American life. In the last ten years, we have seen horrible Antisemitism manifested in Europe and the Middle East, but beginning with Charlottesville and the alt-right “tiki-torch” march through the campus of the University of Virginia in the summer of 2017 we were shocked to see it expressed in such hateful ways in our own country.

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Robert Mayer, Ethics & Society, TheologyRobert Mayerantisemitism, replacement theology, pittsburgh, synagogue, Messiah, Vicktor Frankl, Nazis, Jews
A Wedding, A Bishop, and Christianity in the 21st Century
A Wedding, A Bishop, and Christianity in the 21st Century

As I was getting ready for commencement, I watched another ceremony that captured much of the world’s attention—the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Nobody does ceremonies like the British Royals. And this one mixed hundreds of years of tradition with icons of popular culture. As the ceremony progressed, cameras panned across a crowd that featured a who’s who of world famous celebrities.

But what grabbed my attention was the sermon.  

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Robert Mayer, Ethics & Society, TheologyRobert MayerMeghan Markle, Harry Windsor, Curry
A Devil of a Dilemma Part 2: Why Angels are Immortal and Humans are Not
A Devil of a Dilemma Part 2: Why Angels are Immortal and Humans are Not

In A Devil of A Dilemma: Part 1, we examined Revelation 20:10 honestly and cogently, but many were not impressed or satisfied with what we termed a sort of “modified conditional immortality view.”  In truth, that is not a particularly good name since there is nothing actually modified about it per se, it merely states the main assertion of conditional immortality in plain language and follows it to its logical conclusion. 

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Biblical Theology, Biblical Studies, Conditional immortality, TheologyCorey J. McLaughlindevil, immortality, conditional immortality, hell, angels, humans
"What is Theological Fragmentation?" A Four-Part Leadership Series Pointing the Church Forward
"What is Theological Fragmentation?" A Four-Part Leadership Series Pointing the Church Forward

At the 2017 ERA annual meeting, President Steve Brown of BICS presented the idea that the major barrier to unity within the Advent Christians is “theological fragmentation.”  The major proposed solution, assuming one accepts the premise, was a call for a hermeneutical reformation (a la Kaiser as exemplar) to reinvigorate and reestablish basic, core, essential principles of interpretation in hopes of gaining unity of mind together. 

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Pastors, Dialogue, Church History, TheologyCorey J. McLaughlinseminary, steve brown, christian education, Edward Farley, Walter Kaiser, Jeff Reed, Bernhard Ott, Robert Banks, Schleiermacher
Hold on Tom and Corey...I want to go on vacation!
Hold on Tom and Corey...I want to go on vacation!

Corey McLaughlin and Tom Loghry have levied some heavy charges over the last couple of weeks. They have indicated that it is our responsibility  as Advent Christians to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. I want these good and well meaning servants of Christ to know this…I’m not ready for that.  I certainly want Christ to return, but can’t he wait until I’ve gone on vacation first?

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Spiritual Formation, Church Practices, TheologyErik Reynoldstom loghry, corey mclaughlin, Neo-Adventism
The Dawn of Neo-Adventism?
The Dawn of Neo-Adventism?

The title of this article is punctuated with a question mark because of the embryonic stage at which it is being put forward. In his latest two-part series, “Advent Christians in the 21st Century”, Corey McLaughlin has set before us what is in my estimation one of the most pivotal reflections on Adventism in late Advent Christian history. Conditionalism has dominated Advent Christian identity in the latter part of our history, but McLaughlin has reminded us of our other hand, in fact what was once our dominant hand, which is our Adventism.

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Tom Loghry, Unity, Dialogue, Church History, TheologyThomas Loghrycorey mclaughlin, Adventism, Neo-Adventism, imminent, return of christ, hasten