Adventists, led by Ellen White, early turned their attention to education, and began to found primary schools, academies, and “colleges”. Their main purposes were to indoctrinate and evangelize the students, to protect the children of church members from threatening ideas and information, to provide spiritual and practical education as well as academic skills, and to…… Continue reading The Metro New York Adventist Forum: Celebrating its First 50 years, 1968-2018
Category: Culture
Tensions Over Worship Music within SDAism: A Global Church Wrestles with both Inter-generational and Inter-cultural Issues
Seventh-day Adventists were born in mid-C19th America, and their church music originally reflected both their roots and beliefs (the evangelical hymns of the time leavened with a large number expressing their belief that Christ’s return was imminent) and their humble origins (unpretentious buildings and musical instruments). As their missionaries carried their message abroad, they taught…… Continue reading Tensions Over Worship Music within SDAism: A Global Church Wrestles with both Inter-generational and Inter-cultural Issues
Twenty-First Century Adventism: The Impact of The Decline of The Church in The Developed World and Its Rise in The Developing World
I will begin by showing you the dramatic changes that have taken place in recent decades in the global distribution of all Christians, and of Adventists in particular. I will then compare and contrast the Adventist statistics with those of the other major religious groups that emerged, as we did, in the U.S. during the…… Continue reading Twenty-First Century Adventism: The Impact of The Decline of The Church in The Developed World and Its Rise in The Developing World
A Changing Church: Adventism in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and 1990s
Although Adventism experienced an astonishing rate of upward mobility in the New Guinea Highlands, especially the Southern Highlands, during this period, much of the rest of PNG Adventism, especially in the villages, remained poor in income, lifestyle, and level of education. When these saw the difference between their goods and those of the missionaries and…… Continue reading A Changing Church: Adventism in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and 1990s
Adventist Relations with Other Churches
Adventists viewed themselves as “God’s Remnant People,” who, as the bearers of “present truth,” were charged with delivering God’s final warning message in the last days. Other Protestant groups were “apostate” and had become “the whore of Babylon”; the Roman Catholic Church was identified with the persecuting “beast” of the book of Revelation. Adventist evangelists…… Continue reading Adventist Relations with Other Churches
Ronald L. Lawson Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Queens College, CUNY 