When I was introduced to church-sect theory while studying undergraduate sociology of religion in Australia, I immediately realized that it gave me a new understanding of Seventh-day Adventism, the faith in which I had been raised. I wrote a paper exploring the evolution of Adventism in these terms, and determined that this would be the…… Continue reading Dilemmas in Religious Research: When a Stigmatized Researcher Researches a Conservative Church
Month: August 2019
Beasts, Rules, Grace, and Relevance: What is the Message of Multicultural Adventism?
These days we hear a lot of talk and analysis of “message” , especially of the stances of politicians and the content of advertisements. Message is a word long-used by Adventists. But let us begin by asking ourselves: What was the core of the message of Jesus? Read Matthew 28: 19, 20. Teach what? What…… Continue reading Beasts, Rules, Grace, and Relevance: What is the Message of Multicultural Adventism?
Adventism and its Fringes
Review of Lowell R. Tarling, The Edges of Seventh-day Adventism: A Study of Separatist Groups Emerging from the Seventh-day Adventist Church (1844-1980). 241 pp., appendices. Barragga Bay, Bermagui South, N.S.W., Australia: Galilee, 1981, $A11. Available in the USA from Calvin Edwards, 13021 Lincoln Way, #82, Auburn, CA 95603, $15 postage pd. Click here for a…… Continue reading Adventism and its Fringes
In the Wake of the State: Seventh-day Adventism and Apartheid in South Africa
During the Apartheid period in South Africa, the Seventh-day Adventist Church not only failed to critique the discriminatory system, but it formalized the establishment of internal apartheid within the Church, with two (and for some time three) separate race-based organizational structures that had very little contact with one another, and segregated congregations, schools, and welfare…… Continue reading In the Wake of the State: Seventh-day Adventism and Apartheid in South Africa
Ronald L. Lawson Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Queens College, CUNY 