Perhaps they might post something here on Spectrum 6 times this
year to let us know WHAT they are doing and the RESULTS of
their activities.
I noticed that Glendale City Church was a member. Their current
pastor has been one who is Ecumenical and has brought their
congregation to MANY Front Lines in their community.
The downtown SDA church has been there a number of years
and has been quietly working with a lot of the downtown people
needs for several years. Soon after they organized there in
Chattanooga. They got a “store front” in a depressed part of the
downtown area and have been attempting a good work almost
from the beginning. They had the advantage of a number of
Southern University students who were visionaries and infected
others in the SDA family of churches to assist with warm bodies.
Soon a number of persons “off the streets” began joining them.
Just something to THINK ABOUT – Jesus was a preacher of Peace
for 3 and half years. It got him beaten, 39 lashes with a “cat of 9 tails”,
and then Crucified a very slow death.
There are some who DO NOT want peace in the world. Are we OK
with that? We HAVE to BE if we want to preach Peace.
Jeremiah and Isaiah attempted to be preachers of Peace. Look what
their lives were like. Jeremiah abused, finally forced to go to Egypt where
he died. Isaiah – tradition says he was stuffed in a hollow log and sawn in half.
Prooftext Theology will not survive very long in the mind of a thoughtful person.
Yet, it is a sort of game. Or at least I have noticed in meetings of religious people that someone will propose an answer with a text that seems appropriate. Those who do not agree with a proposition rarely choose the opposing prooftext and spout it immediately. Instead, at least in the South, we tend to allow whomever tosses the first zinger protest to have power in the decision.
I wish we would move AWAY from using prooftexts and see the Bible as a casebook. This requires more mental effort and more reading. That is why I referenced the 3rd quarter lessons in 2019. That series of studies laid a comprehensive case for peace and justice.
I have to admit that I have been willing to play the prooftext game to make MY point and that may not have always fair.
We have a Radical Reformation heritage. We all ought be peacemakers, and we ought to be known as a “peace church.” Our top leaders seem oblivious to this, but an exemption was Jan Paulsen, whose example deserves more of our attention and appreciation.
My best wishes to the new leaders, and my thanks to Jeff Boyd. I hope the new leaders can figure out a way to get the Adventist Review to interview them.
What a lovely level of engagement with this announcement! As with any networking and volunteering organization, we are only as “productive” as the people who choose to be part of it can be. We do hope to provide resources and community for those local churches and individuals who are wanting to tap into the Adventist church’s specific theology and heritage of peace-making, both internally and externally. And we’d love to tell more of the stories of those who are doing so. We don’t see our job so much as to “make” things happen as to be a fellowship of those Adventists who are encouraging each other to continue in the best of our church’s tradition of working for the good of others in the areas listed together. There are many ways to follow God and do good in the world, and this is just one little community of Adventists trying to do it using the language, heritage and theology of peace and justice.