Depression in Pastoral Ministry

Guest Post by Ryan Bell

Yesterday’s USA Today carried the disturbing story of a 42-year old pastor in North Carolina who committed suicide. I was deeply moved as I read about this young man who had apparently come to the end of his hope and, in complete despair, took his own life. Suicide is rare among pastors, the article reports, but many live with depression. Loneliness, isolation and the resistance of congregations to cultural change are cited as primary causes of depression.

The day before, the New York Times ran a piece entitled “Kierkegaard on the Couch,” by Gordon Marino. After reading the piece twice I began to discern the important distinction he makes between depression and despair and Kierkegaard’s concern for the spiritual dimensions of despair.

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Book Review: Beyond Ellen White

For those of us growing up Adventist in Australia, Avondale College was our mecca. I can remember, as a child, always hearing about how Avondale was the place to go to develop spiritually, physically — and find a life partner! In my younger days, I had the opportunity to briefly visit Avondale a couple of times and remember feeling awe at walking on such "sacred" ground. But, it hasn't come as a surprise that this was a very romanticised picture. Avondale is a human institution run by flawed humans and, despite the alleged supernatural circumstances around its establishment, the human has played a major part in its evolution. Contributing to our understanding of this evolution is Michael Chamberlain's deeply scholarly book, Beyond Ellen White: Seventh-day Adventism in Transition.

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Review: By the Rivers of Brooklyn

Review by Nathan Brown

It has been a bumper publishing year for Adventist author Trudy Morgan Cole. But of her four books released in 2009, the one you are least likely to see advertised—or reviewed—in church venues is probably her most significant literary achievement.

By the Rivers of Brooklyn deserves a place of honour on that relatively small bookshelf that contains published mainstream fiction authored by Adventist writers. Cole has already established herself as one Adventist publishing’s regular, reliable and successful writers but her second foray into literary fiction—after The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson—sees her prove her credibility in a much wider publishing world, even if her book sales may well be fewer in that wider world.

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Reading Into Doubt?

About a year ago I posted a blog article here entitled The Need to Read. I was honoured to have it published in the Record a few weeks ago. In that article, I suggested that it was necessary to read widely in order to have a robust faith.

I was reading the Letters to the Editor section in the latest Record where Adrian Contant, in Queensland, wrote in response to my article:

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We Are Sabbath, Part II: An Event Worth Celebrating

Guest post by Travis Claybrooks

She...was...PERFECT! All 7lbs. 6oz. of little Abeni Michele Claybrooks – PERFECT! At about 12:25, on an early Sunday morning, October 2, 1994, Abeni let the world know that she had arrived. Boy, could she yell! It was a moment to celebrate – the birth of a baby. Our best of friends were crowded there in the hospital room. New grandparents were on the phone. There I was juggling conversations between both, lost in sheer ecstasy.

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A New Order of Things?

Guest post by Pastor Glenn Poole

The events in my life have condensed in the last six months into principles and concepts of "church", "spirituality" and "religion" that can only be described as a new order of things. Though their form is only as a misty fog right now, their function takes some discernible shape in phrases like:

• living loved and loving
• institution-less spirituality
• Christ as the true, practical Head of His church
• guilt-less, shame-less grace-filled spiritual existence
• and many more of this nature

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Worshiping the Sabbath vs Worshiping on the Sabbath

Guest post by Travis Claybrooks

Recently, we celebrated my oldest daughter, Abeni's 15th birthday. She was born October 2, 1994 and I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember all the details of the experience – the labor, the delivery, the incompetent nurses that didn't believe that she was-a comin' right now! I remember feeling real good as I tastied her with my kisses, touching her with my hands, hearing her extremely loud cry, smelling that newborn baby smell, and just seeing the miracle of something that, just a short while ago, was not.

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Adventist Church Launches Youtube Channel

This is well done:

 Posted by Gary Walter
http://bit.ly/gwalter

The Abominable Blister Beetle

To those like Clifford Goldstein (“One Lord or the Other”, Adventist Review, August 20, 2009) and F. J. Ayala ("Darwin's Greatest Discovery: Design Without Designer", 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 (Suppl 1): 8567–73.) who make authoritative arguments designed to force a choice between creation and evolution to explain life on this planet, I offer the life cycle of the Abominable Blister Beetle. Are other choices possible?

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