Ronald Lawson Department of Urban Studies Queens College, CUNY A paper read at the meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Pittsburgh, August 1992 For PDF Click here: AIDS and International Seventh-day Adventism. The Problem Summers were a time of fear during the polio crisis of the ­1950s–but Seventh-day Adventists were at the forefront of…… Continue reading “IS THIS OUR CONCERN?” HIV/AIDS and International Seventh-day Adventism.

Ronald Lawson, Ph.D.  Queens College, CUNY This paper was presented at the meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco on August 22, 1998. Updated, October 14, 2007 For PDF Click Here: The Troubled Career of an Ex-Gay Healer Abstract This paper examines the goals, dynamics, and effectiveness of “ex-gay ministries” and their supporters through…… Continue reading The Troubled Career of an “Ex-Gay” Healer: Colin Cook, Seventh-day Adventists, and the Christian Right.

Ronald Lawson For PDF Click Here: The Caring, Welcoming Church? Introduction In 1983, Charles Bradford, the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, invented a new slogan, which was disseminated widely: Adventism styled itself “The Caring Church.”1 Some twenty years later, the newly reelected president of the world church, Jan Paulsen, preaching on…… Continue reading The Caring, Welcoming Church? The Seventh-day Adventist Church and its Homosexual Members

Ronald Lawson For PDF click here: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Polygamous Converts A paper presented at the meeting of The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Albuquerque, N.M., November 1994 Polygamy has been the most complex, perplexing and persistent marriage-related problem encountered by churches in their missionary enterprise. The most intense and resistant…… Continue reading CHURCH-SPONSORED INJUSTICE: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Polygamous Converts

Ronald Lawson For PDF click here: PRO-WHAT Seventh-day Adventists and Abortion Presented at the Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Raleigh, NC, October 1993 The Issue The Seventh-day Adventist Church is conservative in its interpretation of the Bible, and typically upholds conservative­ standards on “family” issues: it has, for example, adopted…… Continue reading PRO-WHAT? Seventh-day Adventists and Abortion.

Ronald Lawson For PDF Click Here: Sectarian Groups and Social Issues:  Broadening Church-Sect Theory A paper presented at the meeting of the Religious Research Association, Columbus, Ohio, October 2001 Introduction: the Evolution of Church-Sect Theory Church-sect theory, which was originally put forward by Ernst Troeltsch in 1911 and amplified by H. Richard Niebuhr in 1929, has…… Continue reading Sectarian Groups and Social Issues:  Broadening Church-Sect Theory

For PDF Click Here: Church and State at Home and Abroad: The Evolution of Seventh-day Adventist Relations with Governments. Ronald Lawson The SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST Church is known in the U.S. for its defense of the First Amendment and its espousal of religious liberty. Its Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty (PARL) lobbies for or…… Continue reading Church and State at Home and Abroad: The Evolution of Seventh-day Adventist Relations with Governments*