Failure:

[Gregory Matthews]

Failure:  Recent news stories have reported on apparent failures in Adventism.   The following article exams that perspective and suggests that life is often a cycle of beginning, success and ending.  One interesting aspect of this relates to her example of a marriage that was successful, as she put oit, yet finally came to an end.

https://atoday.org/its-been-a-success-and-now-its-ended/

[Kevin H]

Good points in the article, but it is also missing some points. I sadly know that our schools have become too expensive. There are strong and weak points.  I know that we need a wider, affordable, outreach for teaching our young people. But there are other roles that these schools do or may play. Local academies/colleges give a focus place for church life all around the area. A begining and reuniting places for life long friendships and contact with the church, a highlight for other events throughout the year and throughout people's lives, even for those who never attended the schools. This secondary role maybe even more important than their primary role. 

There may also be additional points; such as Atlantic Union College, the campus saved many of the historical buildings and is full of history, historical events that took place there, and not only Seventh-day Adventist history. The closing of this school looses so much more than a place to study. Yes, some of the history will probably be saved, but how much will be lost. Sadly, Andrews did not hold to this sense of history. It was a constant destroying old and building new buildings and as you read about the history that took place on the campus and wanting to visit where they took place, I kept getting the answer "It happened here someplace."

Being Scandinavian, I am heartbroken with our Dainish school closing down. 

Some religions would have one main college that would just regurgatate the same old same old ideas. Mrs. White set us up in a way of growing ideas. Independent publishing houses, multiple schools. Leaders hated that she did this. There was the attempt to have the Review take over the Pacific Press. She put a stop to this.  However, since she died, especially with the 2022 General Conference, there have been voices to make us more homogenis than heterogenis. We have been in a fight between growth and control, to be thinkers and to reflect only certen men's ideas, we say we want to grow, but freekout unless these specific ideas are repeated.  Yes, we keep the letter of the law and allow the Review and Pacific Press to be "independent" of each other, but I have a sneeking suspcician that we have been trying to make the staff members clones of each other and interchangeable.  How many of our pastors come from other colleges than Southern?

Yes, the major issues are the fianancing of these schools, the distance of travel from home for people so young, and how we can reach out to and teach our young people with these issues. But this is just the tip of the iceburg that we need to think about, pray and discuss. 

 

[Gregory Matthews]

There was a time, when we had three major English publishers of Adventist material.  Of those three, Southern Publishing Association sometimes published cutting edge material.  That probably had some role in its close.  Now the two that are left publish the accepted norm for Adventist literature.

Yes, Adventist Today and Spectrum publish insightful material.  But they are not alone and two other organizational publishers have arisen.

Avondale Press, is owned by our SDA School in Australia.  It regularly publishes cutting edge material such as: Biblical and Theological Studies on the Trinity, 251 pages in 2014 and The Biblical Flood, 238 pages in 2020.

Oak and Acorn is the publishing arm of the Pacific Union Conference.  It contracts with Amazon to print its material.  One example is the 456 page, 2022 book, Ostriches and Canaries: "Coping With Change in Adventism 1966-1979.

The short story is that the voice of an independent Adventism cannot be quieted.

[Asia Joe]

As always, the focus of these NAD publications is on NAD. 

I can tell you, in Asia, Our schools are growing. In the Philippines, there is a growing number of American Adventists attending our colleges.

We cannot ignore the serious economic problems in the NAD.  In addition, there are some parents who do not want to send younger teenage children to a boarding school.

In NAD education at all levels is a financial challenge.

I do not know about those schools, but when I was in Michigan, many churches sponsored students at the academy.