Elisabet Kirkland Page 15

23 Oct

MAKING SENSE OF THE CHAOS: ARE WE LIVING IN POSTNORMAL TIMES?

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An era in which old orthodoxies are dying, new ones are emerging,
and very few things seem to make sense.
– Ziauddin Sardar

There is tension in today’s world between the order of the old age and the chaos of the current age—a sense that we are in a transitory phase and either headed toward rigid regimentalism or post-legal anarchy where law is no longer applied consistently or predictably and where traditional media objectivity is degraded to the point that people no longer trust it to sort out what is occurring.

This in-between time we are currently experiencing is what British-Pakistani scholar Ziauddin Sardar calls “Postnormal Times” or PNT. He describes PNT “as an era in which old orthodoxies are dying, new ones are emerging, and very few things seem to make sense.” 1

According to the Centre for Postnormal Policy & Futures Studies, “PNT is a product of the forces shaping our globalized, networked world: accelerating change, uncertainty, and ignorance.”

Previously, people received news and opinions as distilled in printed publications and a few short news programs. Lay opinions were shared privately between friends and, if publicly, in carefully curated “letters to the editors.” Investigative journalists reviewed subjects that they thought were important, and they knew that deference was the key to maintaining their sources.

Today, opinion drives the news, which rages through society in massive, repetitive torrents. Consumers pick their favorite flavor and load up on it exclusively, sharing their views to unlimited audiences from their phones that they take with them everywhere. To capture even a fraction of its prior audience, which is now massively diluted, the media actively attempts to drive its listeners to anger against their opponents. There is no longer a shadow of balance in most news programs, with many openly stating that to platform opposing views is tantamount to committing violence. Ordinary people present their opinions without any editorial filter in raw and emotional ways.

This chaos has not gone unchallenged by those who wish to curate public dialogue. During the 2020 election cycle, views that opposed “the science” of vaccines were actively blocked on social media platforms. Those who dared to share the “discredited” Hunter Biden laptop story were called “conspiracy theorists.” As people were compelled to “stay home” during COVID, their primary means of communication was through highly filtered and funneled popular social media platforms. At the same time, government organizations tried to tell the corporate platforms what they should allow people to say about the most pressing issues of the day, and what they should disallow. Independent platforms sprung up to counter the censorship. Still, they were quickly delisted from the Apple and Google app stores and considered dangerous.

The censorship regime, as a counter to the chaos, gained tremendous power until Elon Musk purchased Twitter to allow a platform for free speech. This was considered a dangerous move, with Musk derided as some sort of free speech anarchist because he refused to censor political speech or scientific opinion that went against the narrative.

The formerly dominant media enterprises faded into the background, and Twitter, now X, became the primary source for finding current news as it was happening. If the media will not release the photo or name of a suspect in a mass killing, somebody on X will. Suppose a cable news channel refuses to show a political candidate’s speech. In that case, it will be carried live on many social media platforms. If the media does not describe all sides of an issue, a quick search will reveal endless perspectives. Information is democratized, and this itself is ironically considered by some in the established media as a “threat to democracy,” which they alone define and defend. View counts show that independent media on YouTube often meets or exceeds the number of people watching traditional media outlets online. Many people search for news by the story. They don’t have time to wade through what’s next if it doesn’t interest them.

So, is this sustainable? If PNT is to be applied, probably not. We’re definitely living through a time of accelerating change and uncertainty. So many people are now involved in sharing ideas with vast audiences that pop into their heads, and ignorance is increasing as well.

However, just as the printing press threatened the Medieval hierarchy by making it possible for one person to have their exact idea quickly spread throughout a region, the Internet posed a threat to the established order on an international scale.

Musk’s latest battle with the Brazilian government exemplifies this tension between old rigid information management and modern chaos. The government is asking him to stop certain forms of speech, and he’s refusing to do so, potentially subjecting him to fines and criminal penalties.

I would propose that we are at a crossroads between chaos and consistency. This was the status quo before the rule of law became the norm in the West, and faithful maintenance of a constitutional order that risks causing inconvenience to the enforcer is a human anomaly. It is hard to see exactly what will happen next. Still, perhaps the first step is to recognize that we are, in fact, at a time of chaos when the old ways of sharing information are closing, and a new set of rules will emerge. This is a time when few things seem to make much sense and concepts like the rule of law and constitutional principles of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion may be turned on their heads in service to the political expediency of a few.

And seeing this and knowing that these foundations are in danger of shifting and fracturing, what can we do? According to Sardar, PNT cannot be “controlled” or “managed” but only navigated. A taxonomy of unknown events can help organize these ideas.

The Postnormal Zoo

There are three major types of PNT categories identified in the “Menagerie of Postnormal Potentialities.” 2

BLACK SWANS are events nobody could accurately predict and can be devastatingly troubling or very positive. They are named after a type of bird that was thought not to exist until it was discovered in Australia. It is hard to think of retrospective examples of these deus ex machina-type occurrences because, if you were to examine them, in most cases they’d appear as if they had been products of the Black Elephants or Black Jellyfish described below.

BLACK ELEPHANTS are extremely likely and widely predicted events that most people ignore. Like the proverbial “elephant in the room.” According to Vinay Gupta, they are “high probability and high impact as seen by experts if present trends continue, but low credibility for non-expert stakeholders.” Examples of Black Elephants would be the recent pandemic or economic or climate change issues. People who do not actively follow them often initially consider them Black Swan events.

BLACK JELLYFISH are postnormal phenomena that are not easy to foresee but can escalate rapidly or instantaneously as jellyfish blooms can happen in the ocean. This is often characterized by “things we think we know and understand but which turn out to be more complex and uncertain than we expect.” It can be thought of as small things that dramatically increase in scale to the point where they are dominant. In a way, social media is a Black Jellyfish—the Internet has been around for decades but the emergence of many “super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones” going to war against the established media could be considered a Black Jellyfish event. An even more striking example is the rapid expansion and increasing dominance of Artificial Intelligence.

There is a good analysis of how the war in Ukraine is a postnormal event3 where the war has primarily been reported in a decentralized manner on social media through memes, videos, and social media posts. The established media is working backward to assemble that information into stories rather than providing primary reporting on what is happening on the ground using war journalists.

It’s hard to tell what will happen next since this is a transitory phase. Granted, PNT categorization may be highly subjective and controversial, but PNT analysis might provide a helpful method of organizing our understanding of current events in some sort of taxonomy instead of viewing them only in terms of a chaotic cloud.

For people of faith, trust in the unwavering goodness of God provides an eternal thread of hope and order in the midst of an increasingly chaotic world.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God (Psalm 90:2, KJV).

Recalibrate:

  1. What are the main characteristics of “postnormal times” as described in the article, and how do they differ from previous historical periods? 
  2. How can understanding the concept of postnormal times help us navigate current global challenges and societal changes more effectively? 
  3. What role does faith and spirituality play in making sense of the chaos and uncertainty of postnormal times, according to the article? How can these perspectives provide comfort and guidance?

Michael Peabody, Esq., is an attorney in Los Angeles, California. He has practiced in the fields of workers compensation and employment law, including workplace discrimination and wrongful termination. He is a frequent contributor to Liberty magazine and edits ReligiousLiberty.TV, an independent website dedicated to celebrating liberty of conscience. Reprinted with permission. Mailing address: Founders First Freedom, PO Box 571302, Tarzana, CA 91357.

 

1  https://www.cppfs.org/

2  https://postnormaltim.es/essentials/menagerie-postnormal-potentialities

3  https://postnormaltim.es/insights/nadiya-part-3-scrolling-down-first-tiktok-war

23 Oct

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

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Raising a toddler is an exercise in madness.

It’s like going to war every day with a clinically insane enemy, losing to said enemy, and still being profoundly grateful for the opportunity. They are not rational. They throw tantrums that make no sense. They do not like to do the things that are good for them and seem to be determined to do things that could end their lives.

They are insane.

And yet I love my toddler daughter so much I can’t even imagine a universe in which I don’t get to spend every day loving her no matter how ridiculous she is. I wouldn’t change a thing.

That is love.

Now, before I paint myself as some sort of saint, there is no one else I could exist that way with.

Maybe my wife.

Maybe.

But when you consider just how much insanity exists everywhere, one wonders how anyone stays in a relationship with anyone ever. People can be selfish and dishonest in the most nutso ways.

Did you hear about the “birds aren’t real” guy? In 2017, on a whim during a counter protest that was happening outside his window during a Women’s March, Peter McIndoe decided to throw everyone for a loop. He quickly made a sign that read “Birds Aren’t Real” and went and stood amidst the counter protesters. He then proceeded to start making stuff up on the spot about how birds were all a government conspiracy to spy on the American people because all birds were actually drones and that the entire bird population had been killed and replaced with said drones.

It’s insane, right?

Except that, some people believed him. He spent years playing the part of this conspiracy theorist as a joke and as an experiment. Lots of people knew it was a joke. It was an open secret. But many believed him. He backed it up with fake documents and pictures and such.

Eventually he started doing interviews and even a Ted talk about what he had done and why he had done it explaining how he had made it up and why.

But here is what is even crazier than people having believed such a ridiculous conspiracy. Even after he told everyone he made it up and why, there were still people who refused to stop believing the conspiracy.

Perhaps you’ve met people like that.

Here are some questions. What do we do when everything around us becomes unbelievably insane? How are we supposed to relate to that? What happens when everything changes and all the stability we thought we lived within is turned upside down around us?

What do we do when the world goes mad?

We currently live in a time where Christian Nationalism has a real chance of making life in our country very unstable. Our separation of church and state could begin to disappear. Along with that, we could see the disappearance of religious liberty. Add to that, the uncomfortably high number of powerful Neo-Nazi influencers who have hitched their wagon to Evangelical Christianity and helped shape this current Christian Nationalistic movement.

Rights are being taken from women. Openly racist individuals have increasing say in policy creation. If anyone ever wanted to know what passionate Christianity would look like if the love of Jesus was removed, now may be your chance to find out what could come of that.

And it seems ridiculous that this could happen now.

Haven’t we made progress as a people and a nation? Haven’t we learned from the mistakes of our past? Have we forgotten our history? Did we learn nothing from WWII and other historically significant times like it?

It’s frustrating. And I’m terrified for the future my beautifully insane toddler may have to live in when she grows up. How do I or any of us relate to the events of now and the potential realities of the future?

As is my custom, I want to try to address this by asking some questions peppered with some statements and try to simplify it and add some perspective.

Here we go.

If we are servants of Jesus, does a changing context alter the spirit of how we conduct ourselves?

If, even in the day of Jesus, which was a volatile and dangerous time of unrest, we were to be known by our love, does that change now just because our world suddenly becomes volatile in its own way?

If the person we don’t want becomes the president, whichever one that is, do we stop being love to everyone we encounter? If every fear we ever had about life and politics and religion and good and evil comes to pass, does that mean we stop being love to all people?

Do we stop being love just because it becomes inconvenient?

Are we disciples of Jesus always or only when it works in our favor? Which, if we aren’t willing to be known by our love in every situation, I might question whether we were ever actually disciples of Jesus.

Being a disciple of Jesus means we act in love, always.

Being born of the Spirit means we will follow an unpredictable path and find ourselves in places and situations we never expected, and doing things we might not otherwise do. But whatever those things are, we will do them in love.

For example, if the spirit leads you to be a soldier, you will be a soldier, but you will do it in love, walking a line that balances justice and mercy.

If the world goes completely bonkers, does that change who we are in Jesus and who Jesus is in us?

Adventism is a religion that believes deeply in Religious Liberty, although, based on an unfortunate and growing subset within the denomination, you might not know it. Standing for Religious Liberty is more than just doing so to make sure Adventism is free to be Adventism. And, counterintuitively, it isn’t just to make sure people can choose whatever belief they want. It is to make sure people have the freedom to follow wherever the Spirit of God leads them, whatever that turns out to look like. Because, as disciples of Jesus, it is not just our duty, but it should also be our sincere pleasure and desire to make sure people have the freedom and a safe space to follow the Spirit’s leading.

Adventism likes to hang its hat on things like the Sabbath, our interpretations of prophecy, the state of the dead, and the investigative judgment, amongst other beliefs. But there are a lot of Adventists who seem to have forgotten that Religious Liberty has always been foundational to who we are. Along with another one that is more foundational than any of them.

The love of Jesus.

The belief that a disciple of Jesus will be known by their love must supersede anything else we think or believe. It should define us. It should compel us. It should oblige us.

It should be our greatest desire.

If that is all true, then what should change about our discipleship in Christ if the world goes completely mad?

Absolutely nothing.

No matter how much our context changes, no matter how much more dangerous our world becomes, no matter how much we may have to adapt to a newer and crazier world, if we are doing it right, our character won’t change. Because, no matter what happens and no matter how scary and dangerous the world becomes, there is another thing to remember.

Love transcends all fear.

God is love. Where love is, God is. And where God is, love is. And if love isn’t there …

I think you get that logic sequence.

I don’t actually know if the things I fear will come to pass. I do know that I cannot let my fears undermine my love.

And here is the thing about my toddler. She is not actually crazy. She just doesn’t get it yet. She’s only 2. But one day, after years of growing and learning and experiencing, she will become someone different. And, if my wife and I do a really good job as parents, that someone will be an even better version of the amazing kid she already is. But for that to happen, she has to see what it is to be a loving, kind, and patient human.

If we as servants of Jesus can’t maintain a character of patient love and mercy and kindness, through the presence of the Spirit, no matter how ridiculous the world gets, how can the world ever grow and learn that there is a better way to exist that doesn’t involve hatred, violence, fear, and the suppression of freedom?

The world doesn’t get it yet. And, probably, neither do we.

And since we don’t, how about we just focus on being love to as many people as possible and let God sort out the rest?

It isn’t easy, but it’s so crazy a solution it just might work.

Tony Hunter is a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and a hospital chaplain working for UCHealth. Tony, his wife Nirma, and daughter Amryn live in Firestone, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]

23 Oct

IN THE GRIP OF MODERNITY: THE VALUE OF HISTORY

In

Historian in-coming, as they say on social media reels:

There never was a normal.

That’s not what we want to hear, because we want to think there’s stasis, or at least some sort of benchmark. Almost always, when we talk about things not being how they used to be, or not being “normal,” what we mean is “things aren’t like they were when I was young.”

Since the beginning of the modern era, by which we mean the mid-eighteenth century or so, humans have had to face what they feel to be radical change each generation. This is quite different from the pre-modern period, in which change occurred, albeit much more slowly. Occasionally, there would be massive shifting disasters like earthquakes, fires, or plagues that would shift society in dramatic ways. Or there might be a big invasion or cultural change, such as the Muslim conquests, or the Aztec movement into Central America. But these were rare, and, once they happened, things settled into slow change again.

But we live in “Modernity”—the “Age of the Institutionalization of Technical Specialization,” as the twentieth-century scholar Marshall Hodgson termed it. And even though it has been going on for 250 years, our brains and DNA are not wired for it. So, we experience it as trauma. And make no mistake, we still aren’t totally Modern, and we are reacting to it all the time, but the conflict with the experience is what forms our attempts at creating community, worship, and political organizations.

Let’s describe the values and attributes of the Modern, and then explain how that is shaping us in the church.

Modernity’s primary commitment is to Progress. This is radically different from what had gone before, where most societies are interested in recovering some sort of past or looking to the past as a model for how to be. On its own, this is a huge shift. But because modernity was based on the economic and technical changes from integrating the Americas and the intellectual shifts of the Scientific Revolution, it also included another massive shift that is profound break with the past: We have new ways of knowing.

In the pre-modern, we “knew” something was True because authorities told us it was—mostly authorities in the past. Sometimes Truth was discerned through philosophical speculation and reasoning, but, even in these cases, it was done by using the rules and definitions laid out by the wise ones of the past. Or it might be received by accepted supernatural means such as visions or the results of rituals provided through a spiritual mediary. There was no universal way of deciding what was true, no one way of knowing. Each culture and geographical region had its own methods of discerning truth or identifying the authorities

The modern era developed new ways of knowing, ones that they determined had universal applications. There was now one way to know something was Truth: measurability, verifiability, definability, explicability. This was radically different from the past. But it went along with the other values of Modernity: a focus on productivity
and efficiency. The inventions and practices of the Scientific Revolution and Industrial Revolution privileged homogeneity and uniformity—it was easier to mass produce when all the products were the same. When the same laws and legal system applied to all citizens the same, or when everyone received the same education, it also contributed to individualism. But this wasn’t an individualism that focused on uniqueness; instead, people were cogs in the great machine of society rather than standing out as quirky characters.

The pre-modern world had valued the personal, the beautiful, the mysterious. But with modernity, the focus on technical specialization in all areas of life meant increasing commitments to homogeneity in education, politics, and industry. And then increasing bureaucracy to measure and manage the productivity with greater efficiency. Technical specialization occurred in all areas of life—greater specificity about citizenship, borders, academic disciplines, religious ideology, capitalism, and the dependence on paperwork and administrative organization that went with it.

The commitment to progress and greater productivity created a constant expectation of change; in fact, to fail to change or to assess greater efficiencies, profits, or growth was seen as “backward” or inefficient or even corrupt. To focus on the personal or the beautiful at the expense of the productive would even be considered immoral in the era of the modern. And yet, as humans, we rebelled against this. And we still do. We know that the personal and the beautiful and the mysterious matter. We “know” things that aren’t verifiable using data. I like to tell my students that I “know” my sister is angry with me just as surely as I “know 2 + 2 = 4.” We don’t want to treat everyone exactly the same, even though the values of modernity say we need to. We know that sometimes some people (especially those we love) need different treatment. And we love the inefficiencies of beauty and mystery. We know life is more than productivity.

But it was in the height of the Modern, the era of technical specialization, that the Adventist church was formed. Against our founders’ strongest ideals, we formed an official organization, developed the thick bureaucracy and secretariat that the Victorians were so good at, created a brand, kept membership lists and ever-accumulating records, and tracked our growth and efficiency in giving Bible studies and collecting offerings.

Each generation found a way to integrate spiritual practices into the current technical specialization. New institutions such as publishing houses, medical establishments, food industry, and eventually media empires grew. Programs developed, administrators hired to oversee all the programs, and a professional educated class inserted to be the middle managers of conferences, schools, and industries. There was a constant need to update, improve, and provide numbers demonstrating growth. This is just what the values of Modernity require. Homogeneity and reliance on data impacted the Church as well as political structures and educational institutions.

But within our structures were embedded the values and assumptions of the pre-modern. The historical Church is based on the ancient truths that beauty and personal relationships and mystery are at the heart of our practice and belief. This remains true even in the modern era. Each week when we worship, each day when we read our ancient text, we are brought back to a historical way of being human. And the way we express truth is best done in the ancient way. Because there are different ways of knowing. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Our belief in the Incarnation is not double-blind-study verifiable.

So, when things in the modern world fall start changing, it is just part of what has been happening for 250 years. And perhaps it is a rejection of what has happened in the last 250 years and a recovery of a better way of being human. There’s never a “normal” in the modern world, just a constant chasing of the elusive thing called “progress” and our human attempt to extract some sort of embodied value out of it that is based on the sublime and the loving rather than the productive.

And yet, we don’t like change, and each of us can only explain the present in the light of the previous decades of our own life. And we decide what to use as a benchmark for productivity. If some of the assumptions of modernity continue to prove to be less than universal, or the practices of modernity are less valued, it can make us fearful. We worry that there might not be a way to demonstrate universal Truth or that we aren’t keeping our children as members, or our schools are getting smaller. By modernity’s standards, this might feel like failure.

If we are losing our commitment to bureaucracy and expansion as a church, if we begin to think we may not be homogeneous or unified globally as an institution in the modern way, if we aren’t sure we can rely on definitions and measurability as a test of what is True, then we can rest assured that others who have gone before us have done this as well.

Maybe we will become more like the pre-moderns. Maybe the postnormal is going to be more like the pre-modern. Christians found ways to flourish in that world, and we will find ways to flourish in ours. We have nothing to be afraid of. It is always a good time to be the Body of Christ, to find ways to love and create beauty and justice, and it may not look like measurable growth in numbers and there may be fewer institutions, but there will be the Holy Spirit, love, confession, and forgiveness.

Lisa Clark Diller, PhD, is chair of the History and Political Studies Department at Southern Adventist University. Email her at: [email protected]

23 Oct

THE ACCIDENTAL ADVENTIST

In

“The world and everyone in it is passing strange, except for me and thee—and even thou art a little strange.” That was my grandfather, a teacher and historian, harking back to his Yorkshire roots. With a twinkle in his eye, he applied it to the late 1960s in which I—passing strange—was a teenager whom he and my grandmother were raising.

“May you live in interesting times,” is supposedly an ancient Asian curse intended to rock the complacent to their beige core. By that measure, we are living right now in interesting times. People of my vintage have been here before. I’ve never regretted coming up in the 60s. Sheltered though I was within the cocoon of the Adventist community centered on Pacific Union College, I was attuned to the world outside—its music, its culture, its violent changes, and its politics. The events on the six o’clock news were horrific, but they were such commonplace that it was difficult to measure one against the other. Assassinations, airplane hijackings, the frequent bombings by groups like the Weathermen and the Baader-Meinhoff gang were the foreground to the constant thrum of the Vietnam War.

After a while, it all became the exhalations of a giant wounded beast, whose labored breathing could keep you awake at night. In the apocalyptic cast to our days, it wasn’t hard to imagine the world ending. Whether we would survive to see it through—to see the cloud the size of a man’s hand, to see Jesus riding triumphant—that was another question altogether.

I wonder now if my high school friends and I became inured to the chaos in the larger culture or if we were so insulated that the waves of that tempestuous sea only lapped at our feet. Or were we less attuned to the world than we thought we were, accepting that this was the way the world was when run by adults?

Behind the teenage angst about self-identity and social standing, there were the religious pressures to conform. We knew the guideposts by heart: “This is the way, walk ye in it,” or “Higher than the highest human thought is God’s ideal for His people.” And the hammer: “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Our attempts to interpret the moods of the Father oscillated between two poles. The first was God’s unyielding standard of moral conduct (“narrow is the way”) and the second was Jesus’ crucifixion, proof of God’s infinite love for us, though it was we who continued to drive the nails into Jesus’ hands. I pictured this as a double helix twisted by forces at both ends, an image designed to wind me up like a rubber band and launch me into walking in Jesus’ footsteps—but without sin.

In some classes we read long passages from Ellen G. White’s Messages to Young People, handy spiritual advice from our stern and frowning prophet-mother. There were other books, of course, like The Desire of Ages and Steps to Christ, books that portrayed the daily life of Jesus in such detail that it gave new meaning to the argument-clincher, “I was shown.”

In the early phase of my newly awakened spiritual life, I drew strength from these books. I still have a Living Bible with quotations from them about Jesus, written
out in a tiny script on pages I laboriously pasted into the back of the Bible. I vividly recall hitchhiking from Pacific Union College out through Sonoma to Jenner-by-the-Sea while carrying a small paper-bound Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings. One driver, a young man not much older than I, was blissfully stoned to the point that his response on catching sight of the title was “Far out, man!” I left it with him when he dropped me off.

For me, caught up as I was in the late 60s on the fringes of the Jesus Movement, what mattered was to carry a witness to the world. The phrase that powered me was another one of Ellen G. White’s aphorisms: “Everything depends on the right action of the will.” By this time, righteousness by faith was the track I was on, and while her phrase had a faint whiff of works-righteousness about it, its moral agency and the freedom it took to carry it out was attractive.

It turned out this reliance on the strength of the will had a long history in Western philosophy. Beginning with Aristotle’s virtue ethics in which a good character is developed through assiduous practice, and continuing through the Stoics and the Epicureans, all the way to Kant, this form of moral fortitude was captured in another of Ellen G. White’s maxims: “Be as true to duty as the needle to the pole.” Whenever I was faced with some moral breakpoint, however small, my grandmother would quote it to me. It was my responsibility to work it out for myself in the light of this North Star of duty.

The historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin, once wrote an essay on Tolstoy that has become a touchstone for me. Entitled “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” it provides a kind of assay or test of one’s general direction and method in life. Quoting a fragment from the Greek poet Archilochus which says: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” Berlin observes that a vast chasm exists between the foxes who pursue many various and unrelated ends, and the hedgehogs whose lives are governed by one central compelling vision.

The former group lead lives that are centrifugal, “scattered and diffuse,” with no organizing moral or aesthetic principles. The latter group tends to be centripetal, focused around unifying moral or psychological precepts. Without too rigidly insisting on the classifications, Berlin put Dante with the hedgehogs, Shakespeare with the foxes. Plato, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche are in varying degrees hedgehogs; Aristotle, Erasmus, Goethe, Balzac, and Joyce were foxes.

Berlin’s thesis is that Tolstoy was a fox who thought he should be a hedgehog. The essay discusses the resulting conflict in his work which becomes clearer through his view of history.

When I first read this essay, I immediately knew myself to be a fox. I have disparate and sometimes conflicting interests; I tend to throw a wide net and eventually choose the one fish; I become restless and anxious when I feel herded down a single chute instead of released into the wider forest. But at the same time, as a Christian, I hear Jesus talk of the pearl of great price for which the merchant sold everything in order to possess it. I remember Soren Kierkegaard whose intensity about discipleship is summarized in his saying, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” And Ellen G. White echoes in my head: “Everything depends on the right action of the will.”

My interest in this is not just aesthetic, relating to how I go about writing essays or crafting poems. It is also autobiographical, social, and spiritual. For example, to what extent did my upbringing determine me as an Adventist? How much of my early life was the result of my own decisions? If I had been raised by my father, I might have been rather more secular, certainly not an Adventist, and maybe not a Christian.

As it was, I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom were converts in their youth to Adventism and who taught within the Adventist educational system their whole lives. You could trace the fact I was raised by them back through many branching decisions which were made without them fully understanding the consequences. Were those decisions wholly human or was the Holy Spirit nudging the ball at certain points?

Now here I am, seventy-two years of age, a lifelong Adventist who considers himself to be on the boundary between the church and the world, Christianity and world faiths, a minimalist on the 28 Fundamentals and a maximalist on Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. I have remarked to many classes and students that I was raised a Christian and an Adventist and, at a certain point, I became, by choice, a member of both communities.

I ask myself, is there an overarching pattern to history which can be discerned through Scripture and prophecy, that regards Adventism as the hinge of history? I am convinced of the first part, not so of the latter phrase. Is there a pattern to my life revealing the leading of the Spirit? I hope so. I see fragments and glimpses of it now and then. As much as I am a fox without a single focus, I believe I shall one day know as I am known. Until then I shall try to make my way, under the influence of the Spirit, through these very interesting, postnormal, times.

Barry Casey is the author of Wandering, Not Lost, a collection of essays on faith, doubt, and mystery, published by Wipf and Stock (2019). His recent work has appeared in Brevity, Faculty Focus, Detroit Lit Mag, Fauxmoir, Humans of the World, Lighthouse Weekly, Mountain Views, Patheos, Pensive Journal, Rockvale Review, Spectrum Magazine, The Dewdrop, The Purpled Nail, and The Ulu Review. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from Claremont Graduate University. He writes from Burtonsville, Maryland. Email him at: [email protected]  

23 Oct

MY MOTHER’S ANXIOUS REFRAIN

In

“I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

These are the words I sometimes heard from my mother when I was growing up after we had heard of the latest disaster or outrage on the BBC news.

Always war somewhere. Her father went off to fight in France in WWI. Her husband, my father, was away in the army during WWII. If she then hoped for a life free from strife, she was disappointed. Korea, Suez, Viet Nam, Congo, Cuba all followed, dark clouds on the horizon of our simple domestic life.

And then there were fast-changing moral standards. The slow loosening of standards in the 50s quickened in the 1960s. A neighbor was a divorcee, the subject of tittle-tattle in our street. A friend of the family was “effeminate” and treated with suspicion. A girl we knew had a “miscarriage”—somehow regarded not as a misfortune but an offence. And laws were changing fast to reflect such changes in social attitudes. And then there were the periodic natural disasters which were also part of our changing world. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she would lament.

Now my mother was a fringe church member, not well-versed in doctrine. But those towards the center of our faith community did know. They knew, or thought they knew, exactly what the world was coming to. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass … (Matthew 24.6). Conflict and disaster everywhere—it was the prelude to the return of Jesus in glory.

+ + +

But the verse in Matthew does not quite end there. It continues: But the end is not yet.

And we still live in that interim, this uncomfortable place, every day. My mother died less than 20 years ago but she would have been astonished by the Internet and social media; angry at the lack of simple civility in public life; impressed by cell phones but unable to use them; overwhelmed by the strain which Covid placed on us all. And as for the world of Artificial Intelligence, she would simply have been unbelieving, and very anxious. And beside all this big-picture stuff, she had, like everyone else, to confront deaths and personal losses, and the disappearance of the familiar.

I find I can echo my mother’s words. I don’t know what the world is coming to. Even the most secular of observers will agree that we live in strange times and getting stranger by the day. I don’t know exactly what to expect before God judges that enough is enough. We’re in uncharted territory.

How shall we then live in this in-between time? How shall we live by faith?

There are no simple answers to this question. It would be wrong of me to pretend there were. We must each accept the responsibility of answering it for ourselves. After all, we have different personalities. Life has dealt with us rather differently. We are at different stages in our journey of faith. We see the world in different ways. I almost feel a fraud for writing about this and can speak only from my own experience.

+ + +

If life were a jig-saw puzzle, we as Adventists may claim to have the edge pieces but we still must put together the middle. How shall we then live? Live by faith? Jesus told his disciples to Occupy till I come (Luke 19:12-13). How do we occupy faithfully?

As always it is easier to write about the problem rather than offer any solution, but let me suggest a few ideas that seem crucial to me.

+ + +

Considering the vast problems confronting us today, it is entirely natural to feel a degree of anxiety and fear. So perhaps the first thing to recall is that Jesus said many times “be not afraid.” That does not mean that I can sail through life in a totally carefree manner. That’s unrealistic. I am afraid, quite often. But it does mean that, with the assurance of God’s presence with me, I may come to the place where such anxieties do not overwhelm me. Living without fear. It is a long journey.

I may come to that place by knowing, really knowing, that I am loved. Truly loved. It is a commonplace in all our religious life but to experience it at your core is something quite different. “God so loved the world” is true but “God so loves me …” may be more difficult to grasp. Loved, accepted for who I am. No need to keep justifying myself. It does not mean that God makes my way smooth. It may not produce warm feelings all the time. It does not mean that God approves of all that I am. But I am welcomed without question into the warm embrace of Jesus. Do I feel that warmth? Perfect love casts our fear (I John 4:18).

Some people will say that the key is to know my life has meaning. I, like most people, go through times when life just seems to be running into the sand. I need some sense of how my story fits into a larger story. It means having some of those edge pieces of the jigsaw in my life in place.

More important than that even is feeling, knowing that I am truly alive. Alive to the color of the world. Alive to others in all their different giftedness. Alive to joy but also to grief—they frequently go side by side. “The glory of God is man fully alive,” so said Irenaeus, a bishop in the ancient Christian church. Sometimes the world seems to deaden my spirits. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed and confused by the multitude of mixed messages I receive … even in the church. I want to be alive, alert, not running on automatic pilot.

+ + +

I have somehow to keep my sense of wonder alive. Familiarity can easily breed contempt. Or at least dullness. One of the temptations of the spiritual life is to make God into a mere concept. A known quantity. God is somehow manageable in that way. And I easily make the church the object of my religious devotion, not the Living God. This is understandable because the Living God may simply overwhelm but I can—and do—criticize the church in a way I cannot do with God. But, in the end, this way I only create idols in my own image. Somehow, I must keep my sense of wonder alive. Wonder at God’s presence in the world, in ways great and small. Vast mountains, daisies, and new-born babies. Displays of moral courage and everyday generosity … and everything in between.

+ + +

And then there is joy. It is hard to maintain a spirit of joy in a world where there is so much going wrong, so much hatred. Things going awry in my own personal world. So much negativism to dampen my spirits. But joy is not the same as happiness. Joy wells up from deep-down sources. It does not principally depend on my circumstances. And nobody promised that my life in God would be free from struggle. I must keep the flame of joy burning, come what may.

Go into the arrivals hall at a large airport and you may see a young child running arms wide open to meet a grandmother coming in on an international flight. The hugs! The uninhibited embraces! Pure joy! I would like to have that childlikeness which sometimes rushes joyfully into the arms of God.

+ + +

So, what do we really know in this confusing world?

That things are bad and getting worse.

That God will in His mercy call time on earth’s history. Things cannot go on as they are indefinitely.

That we have little idea when or how that may be, even though it is tempting to see ourselves as the last generation. So many others have thought the same over the centuries.

That the tide flowing against Christian faith is strong.

That the erosion of public decency and civility continues apace.

That the best is yet to come.

I must live in faith in a world which threatens to stifle it. I will not be crippled by fear in a world which trades in fear. I want a resilient faith which engages with present realities rather than simply living in some cozy denominational past, however formative it was for me.

I follow Jesus, a man who went against the stream. It may be that the in-between times are tough times for me and you for many reasons. We shall not go to the stake, but we will face all manner of threats to faith, many very subtle, some direct.

Even so, come Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20). I want still to say that in all good faith. Not out of fear, but out of joy.

Jesus made “the darkness the very fuel from which is kindled the light of life” (Harry Williams, The True Wilderness, p 97. London: Constable, 1965).

I take strength from this.

Michael Pearson is Principal Lecturer Emeritus at Newbold College in the U.K. For many years he taught topics in ethics, philosophy, and spirituality. He and his wife, Helen, write a weekly blog pearsonsperspectives.com Email him at: [email protected]

23 Oct

THE TEMPORARY NATURE OF NORMAL

In

“This changes everything.”

Some forms of those words have been uttered countless times by people since creation when confronted with some mind-blowing development that redefined the known world. From the first writing to the latest artificial intelligence, our species has faced the realization that the current definition of normal has just been rendered inoperative.

I vividly recall the first time that I realized that everything had just changed. After watching a grainy live video of Neil Armstrong step onto the moon and declare, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I went outside to look up at the moon in wonder. Day to day life might not be altered very much. Same house, same activities, same school. But the process of getting those men onto the alien surface of the moon would bring Teflon, Velcro, and satellite communications to the average consumer, as well as a shift in the balance of the Cold War that would lead to the end of the Soviet Union. I was aware of none of that at the time, but I did know that what we all thought of as normal was out the window.

You might think that the geopolitics of that change is the big picture, but, in reality, it’s not much more profound than the development of Velcro. Empires have risen and fallen since the Tower of Babel, and life goes on. Consequently, I think technological changes, even small ones, ultimately alter our lives more than the endless shifts in which army or culture is dominant at the time. No election has changed my life as much as the phone in my pocket that is more powerful than all the computers NASA had in 1969.

The really big picture is above human agencies. The unseen universe beyond our moon is aware that events on earth do indeed change everything, but those events are primarily beneath the notice of the vast majority of humanity, at least at the time it happens. Everything changed when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Everything changed when Jesus died on the cross. Everything changed when Martin Luther nailed his challenge to Rome on the door of the church in Wittenburg.

In the actual moment of those redefinitions of normal, very few noticed anything, though each eventually came to the attention of the whole world. In that same pattern, a little noticed event took place in 1818 that changed everything, but the process of coming to the attention of the whole world is not yet complete. I suspect that the universe beyond us was keenly aware that change was coming when William Miller’s eyes fell on Daniel 8:14: Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed (KJV).

That was the beginning of the formation of the movement which would carry the message of Revelation 14:6-13 to the whole world. Seventh-day Adventists are a piece of the big picture, a proclamation that changes everything. We are here to reveal a new normal that the fall of empires, the rise of technology, or worldwide pandemics can never match.

Since this movement stepped onto the world stage, “normal” has shifted. It appears that Adventism is facing challenges that our parents and grandparents never imagined. I spent a significant amount of work time on things that I never saw coming as few as five years ago.

Consider the changes that the COVID lockdowns have had on the church. I drove nearly empty highways into the office, coordinating with others to minimize building occupancy, where I could only unmask at my desk with the door closed. I worried about how we could maintain a sense of community in churches that were not meeting at all, or, at best, had a handful of socially distanced worshipers broadcasting in the hope that many more at home were tuning in to the service. How long would this go on? Would we ever bounce back? How many would decide it was too easy to watch worship, and forever after, choose not to actively participate in worship? How many would not even do that much? It sure felt like everything had changed.

Don’t be too quick to say it all turned out fine. True, the fact that nearly every service is now live streamed is a blessing, as some who can’t attend now have more connection than before, and many are tuning in for the first time. Praise the Lord for all of that! But at some level, we must admit, we lost something along the way. Many became inactive, and some disassociated completely. To this day there are churches whose attendance has never equaled pre-pandemic numbers.

There are many other things that redefine normal in ways that affect the church, some to the benefit of our mission, and others that challenge our mission. For every advance in technology that provides a new way to share the Gospel, there are developments that seem to block our path. Truth has been reduced to a point of view, and many points of view once considered perfectly normal will now get you in trouble if you express them. It’s not just the humanities that are up for debate. The fundamental realities of biology, chemistry, and other sciences are proclaimed by the elites to be outdated and intolerable. How can we proclaim the truth of scripture to a world that declares even mathematics to be an artificial construct designed to subjugate unfavored groups? After all, if the formula 1+1=2 is debated, how do you assert that the Bible is reliable?

Welcome to Adventism in postnormal times. Where do we turn to for help in navigating the new reality?

The same place as always. Scripture. Let’s start with the Book of Jude.

In verse 7, Jude reminds us that tough times are nothing new, and there have always been people who will tell you that up is down, blue is red, and God can’t be trusted: Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example … (NKJV).

The author points out that in his own time, people were experiencing a new normal in the form of members who were causing dissension: For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ (Verse 4).

Finally, he prophesies that at the end of time, the same troubles will be present: But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit (Verses 17-19).

Maybe our times, beset by mockers causing dissension, are not so postnormal as it feels. The same problems we face go back a long way. That’s good news because it gives us a model for navigating our challenges.

“Postnormal” may be a lot of things we never saw coming. It may be a world awash in astonishing technology and in denial of everything from the existence of God to the reality of gravity. It may be Christians who are so conformed to the world that they no longer care if the Bible supports their ideas. It may even be people who disbelieve many of our fundamental doctrines and would rather profoundly change who we are than to find a group more suited to their belief system.

But is any of that really new? Or is it more likely that Solomon was right when he said nothing is ever really new (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Even the technology that would have blown his mind is mostly just more efficient ways to travel, design, communicate, etc. But the real problems of a world gone mad (and churches not far behind) is older than Jude or Solomon.

That being the case, the way to relate to a postnormal world is still found in the Book of Jude:

But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives (Jude 1:20-23, NLT).

That’s it. Stay faithful, show mercy, and hate the sin but not the sinner. It’s not easy, because it’s not normal. But it is how Jesus lived.

Doug Inglish is the RMC vice president for administration. Email him at: [email protected]   

 

23 Oct

NOTHING IS LIKE IT WAS

In

I am now of an age that when I tell stories of my early years to younger parents, they look at me with a mixture of disbelief, and sometimes, horror. Horror in that they can’t even imagine doing or allowing their children to live as I did.

If you are older, too, you know what I mean. My (and likely your) childhood days were often lived outside away from your home. You had friends a block or two or three away, and you’d hop on your bike and ride over and see if they were home and ready to play. Our parents rarely knew where we were during the day. They just knew we’d show up eventually, usually around supper time, and all would be well.

I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and we lived about three blocks from Glendale Union Academy, a few more to the Voice of Prophecy headquarters, and a couple of blocks from where the Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital was. They had a nice pool there that had a great summer membership rate for Adventist families, and a guy in their maintenance department would fix your bike’s flat tire for free when the need arose (as it did a few times for me). He treated me like fixing my bike’s tire was the most important thing he had to do that day.

Sometimes I’d ride my bike all the way up to Shoal Canyon Park at the top of Glen Oaks drive. It was a hard ride up that long, gradual hill, but nothing compared to the thrill of riding it back down again, though I was always careful to slow down as I passed HMS Richards’ house. I knew he didn’t see really well, and I wanted to make sure I never hit him!

Of course, allowing your kid to roam around the neighborhood or ride several miles away from home just to enjoy a downhill ride is unthinkable for most of us. A new normal has taken root and is pretty much a full pendulum swing the other way. “Helicopter parents,” we were called. By definition, these parents pay extremely close attention to their kids’ activities and schoolwork to protect them from pain and disappointment, and also to help them succeed. They’re known to micromanage their children and become extremely entwined in every aspect of their lives.

But this new normal comes with a price: because these children were never taught the skills to function independently, and because they may have been held to unattainable or even “perfectionist” standards, children of helicopter parents can experience anxiety, depression, a lack of confidence, and low self-esteem. But that was just the new normal.

But now, we live in “postnormal” times. The norm for us is that nothing is normal anymore. Nothing is like it was. So much about our world is no longer recognizable to us anymore. Just as we get used to some new seismic change, we are forced to face yet another one—and we never seem to have a vote on whether or not this is a change we want!

Where is a good Adventist Christian to turn to for an anchor in times like these? We may find some comfort in our apocalyptic charts and timelines, because we have long expected for things to get really crazy. And while there is some comfort in that, there is not enough comfort for these times.

For me, I find the most comfort in reliving Biblical accounts. Funny how often it turns out that ancient writings can speak to modern times. Right now, I’m thinking of a man, who in just a few seconds, lost everything he knew as normal. I know it only took a few seconds because I’ve been through a number of earthquakes and know that, though these seem to go on and on and on, most of them only last a few seconds.

But for this Philippian jailer, the rumple and the shaking formed an immediate realization that his prison, as secure as he formerly thought it was, was no match for the power in that temblor. His postnormal was terrifying. He personally would be held accountable for every prisoner who would escape, and he harbored no hope he would survive this. In fact, he would die by his own hand. He didn’t see this coming, and he could not escape this devastating change that was now his to face. But to his utter astonishment, the two men responsible, as it were, for the earthquake—Paul and his duet partner Silas, assured him no one would be found missing.

You could say the postnormal had been abated in that all his prisoners were still there. But something had shifted inside his soul, and he knew that from this day on he was living in different times because he was different.

You can tell he was still living in a soul’s postnormal state because Acts 16.29 says that he rushed in a fell trembling before Paul and Silas. Why was he trembling? The earthquake was over, and every prisoner was accounted for.

You can tell because he desperately asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Would it be too far a stretch to rephrase this as “Sirs, I don’t know how to live in this postnormal world of mine. I am changed. I am undone. What must I do now? How shall I survive and live?”

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved …”

Could that simple declaration be enough to help you stand through the complexities of living in a society that seems about to crumble? Could it really be that believing in Christ Jesus and following Him is enough to stabilize you in a world where there seems to be a new earthquake every day?

For me, He is enough. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Is He enough for you?

Mic Thurber is the RMC president. Email him at: [email protected]

23 Oct

MONTROSE CHURCH SERVES MANY WITH THANKSGIVING BASKETS

In

Nathan Cranson – Montrose, Colorado … For over 20 years, the Montrose Seventh-day Adventist Church in Montrose, Colorado, has been involving the community to help struggling families in the region. This year, the Montrose Church mobilized to pass out 2,300 paper bags to local homes with instructions on how each could participate in the ministry. One week later, the bags were collected filled with donations.

“It was amazing to see the church fellowship hall filled with young and old, all working together. It was like a busy beehive, sorting each food item into their corresponding categories,” remarked Nathan Cranson, lead pastor at the Montrose Church.

“It was also amazing to see the enthusiasm of the community when they realize they have a chance to give to those that have needs,” Cranson continued. “People whose bags were missed during the pick-up process called and left messages at the church or drove to the church and left their bags at the doors. There are good, loving people in this world. We usually pass two large boxes of food out to between 50 and 80 families.”

The church leadership would like to recognize Judy Kelly and Jerilyn Pester for their many hours meticulously planning and carrying out this beautiful ministry. What a privilege getting to work together.

—Nathan Cranson is the lead pastor for the Montrose, Gunnison, and Paonia Seventh-day Adventist Churches. Photos supplied.

22 Oct

TRANSFORMING LITERACY IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN CONFERENCE SCHOOLS

In

Sandy Hodgson – Denver, Colorado … It is the fourth year of dedication to transforming literacy in the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC). Over half of the RMC elementary schools are participating in monthly reading professional development.

Trish Martin, a speech pathologist and founder and president of NEU: Neuroplasticity and Education United, spearheads the training. She has created successful integration of techniques of rewiring the brain with daily literacy instruction. Elements of the program include “Unlocking the Reading Code,” “Grammar Code,” “Spelling Code,” and “Writing Code.”

Monthly training sessions have equipped teachers with research-based practices that are designed to enhance student outcomes in reading, setting the stage for academic success across all subjects. Martin’s systematic instruction and decoding skills ensure students gain a deep understanding of how written language works. In a world where literacy is key to lifelong learning, this program aims to address the reading needs of every student, from those struggling with decoding to those looking to enhance their fluency and comprehension.

When “Unlocking the Code” was first launched, the pandemic emerged and required all training to switch to monthly zoom sessions. Beginning last spring, some training was transitioned to in-person, and educators had two days of training in August before school began with Trish Martin and her colleague, Teresa Snoap.

The latest training session, held at Vista Ridge Academy (VRA) in Erie, Colorado, October 14, included 25 educators from eight RMC schools. Martin and Snoap again led sessions emphasizing the importance of intentionality with literacy.

As the teachers gathered at VRA, the atmosphere was one of collaboration and growth. Kari Lange, vice principal and K-2 teacher at HMS Richards Adventist School in Loveland, Colorado, was invited to share about the impact of the program in her classroom.

Based on a recommendation last year from Martin, Lange rearranged her class schedule to focus on literacy. “This program has been a game-changer for my students,” said Lange. “I’ve seen noticeable progress, especially in students who were previously struggling. They’re now more confident readers.”

The long-term commitment to this initiative is showing results. Educators like Lange are reporting improvements in student reading scores and overall literacy engagement. The focus on decoding and phonics has been particularly beneficial for young learners, setting a strong foundation for future academic achievement.

Trish Martin’s involvement has been instrumental in shaping the success of this program. Her approach is brain based and data driven but with a personal touch that resonates with teachers and students alike. As she continues to provide guidance through regular professional development sessions, the goal remains the same: to unlock every child’s potential through the power of reading.

Looking ahead, schools within the Rocky Mountain Conference are excited to see even more growth. The dedication of our educators, coupled with the strength of the “Unlocking the Reading Code” program, is a promising combination for fostering literacy across the Conference.

—Sandy Hodgson is the RMC Education assistant director. Photos supplied.

22 Oct

FUTURE STUDENTS EXPERIENCE CAMPUS LIFE AT CAMPION ACADEMY DAYS

In

Alexandra Cordoba – Loveland, Colorado … Campion Academy (CA) in Loveland, Colorado, hosted 60 students from seventh to eleventh grade at the annual Academy Days open house, October 11-12. Students arrived from across Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Kansas. They got to experience staying in the dorms, interacting with students, and participating in worship services while they were here.

Students started the weekend on October 11 with interactive games including a bounce house obstacle course, a donut-eating contest, giant connect four and checkers, and pick-up basketball games.

Following the games, the prospective students and families had a chance to learn more about Campion’s academic program and compete for scholarships from different departments. Additionally, their families had the opportunity to discuss their questions with Campion’s administration.

A highlight of the day was when the student body gathered with the visitors in the gym for a Pep Rally to encourage the varsity teams before they headed off to the Fall Tournament at Union Adventist University. The girls and boys varsity teams ran into the gym with the crowd cheering while the jazz band played “Eye of the Tiger.” The pep rally included several music performances from the CA jazz band as well as a rousing speech from Campion’s athletic director, Caleb Jahn, and games hosted by Student Association (SA) officers.

Jessica Rios, CA director of enrollment, planned the event with the help of the SA officers. She shared her favorite part of this year’s event: “I love watching students come together who don’t know each other and begin to talk and become friends. I love seeing our student leaders trying to make our student visitors feel welcomed and seek them out to get involved.”

An important aspect of the weekend was the chance for the visitors to draw closer to Jesus as they worshiped with like-minded peers. After a vespers service on Friday evening, the students gathered together in the Hankins Hall tower to continue the tradition of singing praise songs late into the night.

On October 12, chaplain Lindsey Santana led Sabbath School, followed by the main church service where Koinonia performed “I Want to Walk.” After the Sabbath service, current and prospective students had the opportunity to go for a hike, watch a move in the chapel, or go back to their dorms to rest.

Finally, on Saturday evening, many of the visitors stayed to experience the Student Association’s Fall Party filled with flannel, hay, and pumpkin pie.

When asked how she felt this year’s Campion Academy Days went, Rios responded, “It went so well. We usually get 40 percent of participants to attend Campion Academy, so this is a very important event on our campus. I would say the future for next school year looks bright.”

—Alexandra Cordoba, Campion Academy student news editor. Photos supplied.

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