rom the Review's inception, news and information have been an important part of its mission. This is still our commitment: to bring you the church news accurately, candidly, expeditiously, and redemptively.

Church journalism differs in significant respects from newspaper journalism. Some items that a secular news agency would pick up and maybe play up don't make it into the Adventist Review. If an Adventist loses their balance and burns down a church, we will not carry that story. We focus on church news that has a national and international scope.

That does not mean that we avoid bad news. Not at all--we strongly believe that members have a right to know about developments that significantly impact their church family. Readers tell us overwhelmingly that they would rather learn the bad news from the Review than from the public press or some other source. We believe that our members can handle bad news; the one thing they cannot abide is cover-up.

The Review was the first Adventist publication to take the lid off the problem of sexual abuse among Adventists: we devoted an entire issue to the topic, and the volume of mail and pain that poured out was extraordinary. Likewise we were first to write on AIDS, right back in 1986, and more recently on the problem of clergy sexual abuse. When the General Conference went through a crisis in the presidency in early 1999, we stopped the presses three times, tore up the cover story, and rushed the news into print.

On all these occasions and others like them we sought to share information not only accurately, candidly, and expeditiously, but redemptively. Every magazine has a slant; ours is Christian, Adventist, redemptive. We delight in sharing good news--and it comes in abundance, way more than we have space for. But if the news is bad and of such weight that the church at large needs to know, we share that, too, but in a way that readers will not feel that the Lord has abandoned His people.

The Bible records the reaction of David when a messenger from the battlefield brought word that the Philistines had killed King Saul, who had tried to take David's life. Instead of rejoicing at the news, David lamented: "Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen! Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon" (2 Sam. 1:19, 20, NIV).

Gath and Ashkelon were cities of the Philistines; David is saying: "The enemies of God's people don't need to hear this news!"

That principle still guides our coverage. Although we don't withhold any news that members need to know, we don't print everything we know--again for redemptive reasons. The Adventist Review is the church paper of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and goes around the world. We know that the Review is read, clipped, and filed in government offices.

Thus, a major factor that influences our decision to print or not to print a news story is its likely impact on Adventist believers in other countries. It is all very well for those of us who live and work in open societies to rail against abuses of civil rights and religious freedom elsewhere. We may feel that print is the best way to expose governments in those societies and bring pressure on them to change their ways. We don't have to live with the consequences of our words; our believers will, however. Because Adventists are a global family and the Adventist Review is global in its reach, we must be conscious of the fallout from what we print.

For similar reasons you won't see the Review "taking a stand" on political and social issues, except in carefully selected areas such as alcohol, tobacco, and abuse. Does this mean that the editors lack convictions? Not at all; we just think the Review isn't the appropriate forum for us to sound off. We encourage members to do their part as individual citizens.

These days many people want and get the news faster than print can deliver it. But print still has a place, will always have a place until Jesus returns. The Lord led James White to start "a little paper" that would help to bind together the people of the Advent. That is still our mission--in all that the Review carries, including news and information.

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William Johnsson is the editor of the Adventist Review.