Ecology and the Sabbath

In a very thought provoking post the Adventist Environmental Advocacy blog discusses an Adventist theology of ecology based in the Sabbath. We often hear about making the doctrines "practical" and often by that we mean making it relevant to daily life. Here is a post that is "practical" in that it takes the Sabbath and applies it to our communal responsibility and hopefully changes behavior.

This post definitely places the Sabbath into the conversation about ecology and I would recommend all to read it. Here are a few quotes from the post:

If we were to stop there and consider how Christians, and more specifically Seventh-day Adventist Christians might approach ecology, the first answer would have to do with the charge to care for what God creates.

(...Ecological stewardship, on the other hand, is something that we don't often hear from the pulpit. Perhaps a good starting point would be the simple recognition that it is up to us - it has always been up to us - to tend to that which is God's.)

Creation Care is not only part of our commemoration of God's creative work each Sabbath, it is not only fulfillment of God's charge to care for what He has made, it is also a way in which we continue to look for and to pay attention to the many, many ways in which God reveals Himself to us.

State of the Dead and Holistic Ministry

One of the fundamental components of the Black church is that it has been called a "All Comprehending Institution." By that, it is one that deals with the whole being. The Pastor in the Black Church had to do more than his or her white counterparts. The pastor might dabble into educational endeavors of people, health, and politics. The pastor was to help the whole person and not just the spiritual endeavors.

In other words, you cannot separate someone's physical, emotional, and other needs from ones spiritual ones. Sometimes we say that we must engage in works of social betterment because it opens the door to evangelism. However, I think we must engage in these acts because our very doctrine, the belief that you cannot separate the physical from the spiritual, requires us to engage the whole person in ministry.

We cannot place these physical concerns above spiritual ones, but neither can we do the opposite if we are to minister to the whole person. So the teaching of the state of the dead not only provides a theological basis to attack any kind of dualism. But also because we cannot separate mind from spirit from body then we must recognize that ministry to a human being must include ministry to the mind, body, and spirit. This means that we cannot fall into the trap of eliminating physical concerns and only dealing with physical ones. This doctrine can serve to promote social action because it makes social ills just as important as issues of individual piety.

Benefits of Biblical Wholeness - Preaching against Dicotomy

Seventh-day Adventists believe, rightly in my understanding, that a human beings is an indivisible union of body, mind, and spirit. When you remove one then you no longer have a "living soul." Often when I have heard this doctrine preached or taught it is within the context of protection from demonic influence. In other words, "Do not listen to dead folks becuase they are imposters. So the doctrine is totally and solely about protecting us from being fooled by those who say they are who they are not.

However, the doctrine of Biblical wholeness has many more implications than that. Thanks to a Feminist Theology course that I was taking I was introduced to many of the evils that the dichotomy between body and mind/spirit have created. The western world has argued that the body and soul can be separated and that the soul is much more important. Then the western world has implied that there are some who tend towards the mind while others tend toward the body. At any rate, the Biblical doctrine of wholeness strikes those ideas at their root. There is no dichotomy, that which affects your body also affects your mind.

AdventistPulpit.Com is Now SabbathPulpit.Com

I have voluntarily changed the name of AdventistPulpit.Com to SabbathPulpit.Com to be in compliance with the web site guidelines of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Please update your favorites to the new address.

In the interim we have lost our Podcast and a few other features of the website. I hope to have it all back up in a week or two...

God Bless and thank you for your interest in this website.

Celebrating Advent - The Kingdom is Come - The Kingdom Will Come

Ryan Bell of the Hollywood Adventist church has written on Advent and makes this interesting statement

I wish I had time to post about the irony that, for the most part, ADVENTists don't celebrate ADVENT

While we have passed Advent and moved into epiphany, I think it is interesting to look at Advent and its importance for all Christians and especially Seventh-day Adventists. Bell argues:

The great danger facing Christmas is Christians who sentimentalize it. Once we’ve sentimentalized Christmas – de-clawed it – neutered it – tamed it; once we’ve reduced Christmas to sentimentality, it lays wide open to every abuse.

Has Christmas become something more than a celebration of Christ coming into our world? Is it just about a celebration of family and friends and "smiling and saying hello to people we don't know?"

Bell reminds us that the Jesus who stood up and read from Isaiah a passage that had Herod shaking in his boots has been replaced. Replaced with a Jesus that looks a little like the Santa Clause that we try so hard to distinguish him from.

But Advent is anticipation of the King coming to earth. The King with those different principles like the first being last. The King who called us to preach, "Fear God and Give Glory to Him for the hour of his judgement is come, and worship the creator." The King is come. Let us live as though the King has come until the King does come.

Sabbath as Promise

Charles Bradford notes in his book Sabbath Roots: The African Connection that:

Sabbath is a promise of heavenly rest, a gift that brings with it a token or pledge of life in the escheton, the kingdom of God. It is God's future experienced in the now. A portion of eternity set in the midst of time.

The Sabbath is promise, but it is experienced now. The Sabbath is the Kingdom of God experienced and brought to today. The Sabbath is our ability to catch a glimpse of what the future Kingdom will be about. The Sabbath is our proof that the future Kingdom will come to past. We are certainly called to talk about and preach that Sabbath.

The Sabbath A Great Cathedral

Here is an interesting quote from Heschel's book the Sabbath.

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificient stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn; a shrine that even apostasy cannot easily obliterate

And

"When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time."

When God gave us the Sabbath, God gave us something that could not be taken away by others. The Sabbath is something that we can only take away from ourselves.