Lake Union Conference President Don Livesay Announces 'Journey to Healing and Understanding'

Spectrum Website
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In a video message, Lake Union Conference President Don Livesay has invited members of the conference to join him for “A Journey to Healing and Understanding.” The event, slated for October 1 at the Village Seventh-day Adventist Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, is an opportunity for conference members to share personal experiences with racial tension in the church and a chance for attendees to listen closely.

The special meeting follows feedback Elder Livesay received after apologizing last summer for the racist roots of the Lake Region Conference. Livesay stated during the conference’s 70th anniversary celebration that it was racism in the 1940s that led to the creation of the conference. The Lake Region Conference is one of five conferences that make up the Lake Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

After this apology last summer, people came to him with their personal stories, Livesay said in the video. The stories opened his eyes to the journey that African Americans and other minority groups have experienced in the United States. “It led me to believe that those stories must be shared to a wider audience,” he said. Livesay explained that the meeting is “designed to hear the stories that exist in those of color as they live in this country and even as they worship in the Seventh-day Adventist church.” He highlighted the importance of listening: “It’s a time that we pray that, of telling the stories, healing can take place.”

Livesay urged white members of the union in particular to come and listen to the stories being told in order to better understand the historically multicultural membership of the conference. As racial tensions become clearer in our society, Livesay added, it is the time for the church to come together and “rise above the culture around us and come together to hear each other, to find each other spiritually and journey forward for the mission of this church.” The Village Seventh-day Adventist Church is located at 365 St. Joseph Avenue Berrien Springs, Michigan. The Journey to Healing and Understanding is October 1 at 3 p.m.

Hallie Anderson is a student intern for Spectrum and a senior communications student studying journalism and public relations at Walla Walla University.

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://spectrummagazine.org/node/7596
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#2

Kudos to him…a little late but not too late.

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#3

Hope many more such events follow and more healing opportunities take place. It’s overdue but not too late, as @cincerity has written.

Perhaps this could be live streamed.

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#4

Live streamed AND Archived for viewing by those unable to watch the Live Presentation October 1 at 3PM Michigan time.

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#5

Would this be live online. Kindly the producers kindly do it. Barrington in The Bahamas

#6

Gracias por la iniciativa. La encuentro muy oportuna y necesaria. Creo que ni la Iglesia Adventista, ni ningún cristiano que se aprecie, debe tener prejuicios contra nadie. Todas las personas, independientemente de su color de piel, condición social y creencias, han de ser respetadas como nos gustaría que los demás nos respeten a nosotros mismos. Felicidades y mucho éxito en la conferencia-reunión. Dios ilumine siempre a las personas, dentro y fuera de la iglesia, en fe, conocimiento y humildad

#7

EGW’s exceedingly racist statements, hitherto not transparently revealed in full by the White Estate, are surely responsible for existing racist structures in Adventism.

White unequivocally stated that whites and blacks should not worship together under the same church roof. She also indictated that whites and blacks should not socially mingle with each other. What did she expect in heaven?

I wish her a black neighbor on each side of her heavenly mansion!

I am South African born and lived through the horrific Apartheid era. I have also lived in the American southern states, where racial bigotry was as entrenched as in South Africa.

It sounds, from her comments, that EGW would have been very comfortable in either of these racist regions! If she was truly the Lord’s messenger, why did God transmit such racist comments through her?? Even in South Africa, I was taught that God loves EVERYONE, black, brown, whatever. Her bigoted comments were not from God!

That said, I am of the strong opinion that ALL conferences, both the regional black ones, and the white/racially mixed ones should be ABOLISHED.

We do not need multi-level layers of bureaucracy.
The union conferences should be sufficient, since these days we have Internet,
Interstates, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, all not in existence, when in the “horse and buggy era” the original conferences/ Union conferences were set up

To Groucho:
So sorry but the biblical "Gentiles " were not disparaged and denounced on the basis of skin color nor race, but because they were pagan/heathen/non-believers. But let us pretend that EGW’s inflammatory racist comments were plagiarized by her, or penned by one of her entourage of “literary assistants”, as was often the case. Does that make you feel better?

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#8

What nonsense! That’s like saying the inspired statements in the Bible about Gentiles were racist. Only if taken out of context can any of her statements be considered racist. It is also foolish to judge past generations by today’s standards. Unless you lived 150 years ago, you can’t really judge the situation accurately.

In fact, if you had tried to impose today’s standards of race relations on the average white people of the mid to late 1800’s, you’d most likely be hanging at the end of a rope before long.

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#9

These kinds of activities do not foster any kind of real positive change. All they do is affirm one group’s feelings of being victims and subsequent feelings of entitlement and one group’s feelings of self loathing as they take responsibility for things that they are not responsible for. Each group feels “good” for a little while, but then requires more of the same, then more of the same on a bigger and bigger scale, and the cycle is never-ending with neither side ever being satisfied and done with the madness. Like a powerful drug, it only makes things worse. The church does not need Social Justice Warriors, it needs leaders who will teach the Truth. Leaders who will lift up Christ and Him crucified, for the only answer to racial tension is Christ! Christ in us! Only Christ in us will allow us to forgive and move past perceived wrongs, and only Christ in us will allow us to look on every human as a child of God! Let’s stop talking about the problems and start talking about the Solution!

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#10

Groucho,
See my reply to you in my original edited comment.

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“God has called the church to preach the three Angel’s Messages and he has called us to seek to become like the character of God…which is love.” President Don Livesay

What I can’t understand is how the Judgment hour message of the 3rd Angel calls for the world to see the character of a loving God. To the contrary, it is a terrifying portrait of a God who “torments,” is full of “wrath” and enjoys the sight and smell of a fire that burns millions of human beings, young and old, male or female. I call for honesty in dealing with the 3rd Angels message. This is not a call to love God, but a picture of God’s justified vengeance against sinners who fail to heed the call to repentance or perfect a perfect character. Sinners must pay for their acts by being burned alive in a fire that smolders each individual for their allotted time as a punishment, Satan burning the longest as the sins of the saved are hoisted on his head. Atonement is now complete.

“Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand 10 must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath [anger]. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.11 The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night… (Rev 14, NLT)

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