When I experience heavy stress, I find taking a shower sometimes helps. After reading the latest Review (Prisoners of Hope, September 28) I took a long, long shower. It did not help. I grew up believing America was beautiful and the Adventist Church was wonderful. I was a while accepting that the American Indians had a valid, major beef with our beautiful country. Bit by bit I have painfully admitted to myself that along with the good, our country has done many things very wrong. In 50 years as an Adventist I have come to the even more painful realization that our church has, along with its good things, done wrong things too. Hoping against hope that things I heard were inaccurate or exaggerated, I found some were too true. I was distressed when I heard a rumor that our church in Germany had condoned army enlistment in regular, combat status. It was so painful to think about that I have never attempted to verify or refute it. I wanted to think of my church in a Norma Youngberg/Eric B. Hare purity. I have watched many friends become cynical, casual Adventists. Many totally left over such things. I did not in the past and do not intend to now but my heart so wishes we were different from the rest.
My first reaction to the lead article about Japanese internment and the official Adventist response to it was a deep ache followed quickly by a resentment that the article was printed. No, no, no. I did not want it to be true. But it is in the Review. Fat chance you would paint us in such a light unless it is terribly, documentably true. But why write about it now? What do you expect me to do about it? I wasn't even born when all that happened. But the part of me that believes that history is important, that facing the bad stuff might keep us from repeating the same wrongs over and over forced me to continue to read. Next to watching my Bible teacher become a Sunday preacher, I think this is the most agonizing thing I have done as an Adventist. OK. You wrote it. I read it. Now what?
---Certainly a formal public apology by each of our essentially silent papers and our church leadership is in order.
---I personally have to take back a lot of mental recriminations I had against the Catholic church about bowing to pressure and keeping silent about German atrocities. I need to be more understanding of the mistakes of other individuals and groups. I think if I ever watch TheScarlet
and the Black again, it will be with new compassion. I need to renew a commitment to speak up even if I think I will suffer for it, knowing the truth of the saying that bad things happen when good people are silent.
---The author needs to take a look at his last paragraph. It would appear as sympathetic as he is to what happened to our people in W.W.II, he still has a problem understanding that what happened, not only could happen to us, it did happen to us, because the Japanese Adventists were just as much "us" as Adventists of German, English, or French heritage.
---I have not had the courage to read the rest of the paper. For the moment I am washing my mind with a story I heard of one of our local members.
Limited in funds, he bought the land owned by one of our Japanese Adventists for $1 when they were herded off, took care of it, and sold it back to them
for the same price when they got out. What do you do when confronted with the realization that our church, as a church, has fallen so far short? You must see and hear a lot. How do you deal with it? Maybe it is time for a little soul-searching about what we tolerate. Maybe it is time to be sick and tired of lining up by race and culture instead of by religion and right. This is the way we should be known: how we love one another.
Dee Dee Bindernagel
The situation in which our church failed to do
its duty in response to the plight of Japanese Americans in World War II pales
into insignificance to what happened in Germany. I doubt if you have the courage
to tell that story. Our leadership is going to have far more to answer to in
that situation. We have leaders for a purpose. They are the ones who are supposed
to have the wisdom to make tough choices when it is not popular to do so.
Deano
SHOW BUSINESS
I recently read the article (The Age of Show Business,
October 12) on line about the rise of interest in entertainment. I
believe people are searching for something better and are not finding it in
the church and must go elsewhere, they think, to find fulfillment in their
lives.
We have the good news in the church but it’s obvious
most of the world does not think so. Why? Could it be our attitude? People are
attracted to kindness and caring. Maybe we ought to examine these two things
in our personal lives and see if what we have is enough to attract a hurting
soul. I believe the church will have a lot to answer to at the second coming
when Jesus asks the question "Where is the flock I entrusted to you?"
Stuart Dixon
Lenox, Massachusetts
TOUGH LOVE
I appreciated the article about tough love (Sour
Grapes and Tough Love, October 12). I thought it gave some interesting insights.
May I offer another perspective on tough love? What if we used tough love with
church leaders who were lying, cheating, and destroying people's lives for personal
gain? What if we told these leaders that we loved them enough to hold them accountable
for their actions? What if we held the belief that accountability gives opportunity
for repentance and growth? What if we shared the perspective that our youth
are watching the actions of our leaders and believing that this is acceptable
Christian behavior? What if we used tough love and prevented leaders with these
traits from leading?
What if we used the scriptural principals on leadership and accountability
of leaders in leadership positions? What if.....?
Pam Armando Whitted
DEVIL
George Knight--How can we say thanks [for If I Were the Devil]! One of the gifts
of the spirit is the gift of discernment. I praise the Lord. He has allowed
you to have this gift and you have not repressed it! Blessings!
Marie Petrelis
NET RESULTS
In Monte Sahlin's article "Net Results" in the Sept. NAD edition
of the Review there was a section called "Preferences and Tastes."
He describes a poll that was taken of people who have come in to the church
through the NET meetings.
The questions were, "What kind of music do you like at church?" and
"What Bible translation would you recommend be used?" From the answers,
Sahlin concludes, "Obviously a mixture of music styles and Bible translations
must be used to meet the needs of all who attend." How is it that he translated
"like" to "need". Are these new members mature Christians?
Were they when they attended the meetings?
The question was "What do you like?" not "What do you need?"
If you ask a child what he would like for supper, and he answered "ice-cream",
would you then interpret that to mean that he needed ice-cream, and therefore feel obligated to give it to him? What if you rephrase
the question and ask the child, "What do you need for supper? He may still
answer "ice cream." Would you then be convinced that he indeed needed
ice-cream? No.
A truly loving parent will learn from experts what is truly healthy to feed
his child, and a truly loving church will learn from God, through His Word,
what is truly the spiritual need of the human heart. What we offer the world
must be based on principle and biblical truth--not taste, likes, or felt needs.
Joyce Kimbel
Woodbury, Tennessee
RUDY
I am writing out of sheer disappointment in regard to “Rudyesque” by Kimberly
Luste Maran in the September 28 issue of the Review.
I want to be as charitable as I can be. If for 13 weeks the writer wanted to
waste her time with such TV, that is her choice. But I was amazed that the Review
would ‘‘review’’ such trivia by way of this article.
What was the point of the article? Maybe I would have discovered it if I had
waded through, but was turned off in the first paragraph and in seeing the name
calling in the snake and the rat at the end of the sources.
As far as I am concerned it was a whole page wasted in your good magazine whose
"mission is to uplift Jesus Christ." As much as I read, this scripture
immediately sprang to my mind: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever
is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever
is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise,
let your mind dwell on these things.” Philippians 4:8 (NASB).
Eileen Lapree
SUMMER SPECIAL
I do hope you find it in your hearts to make up a special edition for winter,
fall and spring too. We really enjoyed the photos, the wit, and especially the
Real Life Angels.
Ruth Dalgleish
ONLINE EDITION
Since delivery of the Review is very late and sporadic in our area (sometimes
a month late) I have enjoyed downloading the current edition to share with my
wife on Friday evenings. We greatly appreciate the Review, and read it
from cover to cover. However the latest available download edition was August
2000, why? We will certainly continue to pay for our subscription but please
continue the download service.
Lloyd L. Miller MD
Abbotsford, British Columbia Canada
Our Online Archives has issues up to the current date.–Editors
