Category: Uncategorized

The preparations for the new issue of our journal Spes Christiana are in their final stages. I believe it will once again contain a number of high quality articles about issues that will be of interest to most Adventist scholars in the fields of theology and related disciplines. And from data provided by our web-editor I may conclude that the book review section is rather popular. Of course, I hope that the quality of our journal will be maintained or even further increased and that the number of readers will also grow. Steps are taken to ensure that our journal is not only indexed in the SDA Periodical Index and Google Scholar, but in the future also in the Adventist Digital Library and the ATLA Religion Database. This will help to make the articles more accessible and to see them more frequently quoted in other academic publications.

But a journal does not come about by spontaneous generation. To guarantee its regular publication a constant flow of articles and of book reviews is needed. Ideally, the contributions come from authors who are connected with all Adventist institutions with theological faculties, spread over Europe. This is still far from reality, and therefore I launch an earnest appeal to keep Spes Christiana in mind in your academic work. No doubt many of our various theological staffs have been involved in projects that could result in a worthy publications. Perhaps quite a few have invested a lot of time in academic papers which they have read during a symposium or professional convention. If the results thereof have not yet been published, this work could perhaps be converted into an article in an upcoming issue of our journal.

If you are in doubt whether a particular topic and/or approach would be suitable for the journal, please contact Reinder Bruinsma (reinder@bruinsmas.com), and when you have a particular book in mind for a review, please contact Kerstin Maiwald, who is the book review editor (kerstin.maiwald@thh-friedensau.de). If it concerns a subject about which I know little or nothing (and there are many such domains), I will make sure to get the right kind of advice. We are still in need of a number of manuscripts for the spring issue of 2022. The sooner these arrive the better, but not much later than early February, as the peer review process also tends to take a fair amount of time. (And—by the way—we are always looking for qualified peer reviewers with the expertise required for evaluation a particular topic.)

Working on Spes Christiana must be a combined effort and I need your help in the coordinating role that I fulfil as the General Editor.

I fervently hope that this appeal will result in the submission of a range of manuscripts. I hope to hear from many of you.

Blessings and warm greetings,

Reinder Bruinsma, General Editor

In August, the third volume of the book series will be obtainable. It is a reprint of Rolf Pöhler’s doctoral dissertation on “Change in Seventh-day Adventist Theology.” Originally edited by UMI in the USA and later published by Peter Lang in two volumes, it is now out of print. Being the first and most comprehensive study so far of doctrinal continuity and change from an Adventist perspec­tive, it is still used as textbook in Adventist schools. The 464-page tome with almost 1200 footnotes is entitled Dynamic Truth: A Study of the Problem of Doctrinal Development. The bibliography comprises 600 books, 40 theses and dissertations, over 1100 articles and 100 letters and manuscripts. In view of recent developments and trends in Adventism, the book is still timely and eye-opening.  In spite of its size, the price is the same as that of the other two volumes.

To order, write to ias@thh-friedensau.de (€19.90 | 27.00 incl. international shipping), go to Amazon.

The Adventist Theological Society and Italian Adventist University will host a Symposium on the Trinity to be held at IAU Villa Aurora, Florence, Italy, on June 19-22, 2019.

This Seventh-day Adventist statement of belief in the Trinity is simple, not filled with explanations of how God can be three in one. Yet, it is complex in that it clearly declares both the oneness and the threeness of God. The history of the doctrine is also complex, both in Christianity at large and within Adventism. Currently in Adventism, there are a number of challenges to the idea of conceptualizing God as a Trinity so that continued study is necessary. Some want a biblical prooftext to support a doctrine, and will take a single idea about God from Scripture to represent the whole conception of God. The complexity of all that is revealed by God about God in Scripture does not lend itself to a prooftext approach to understanding God.

This symposium is intended to clarify from Scripture the fulness of the revelation about God, from history the complexity of human attempts to understand God, and from theology the attempts to express the fulness of the revelation. As such, papers will be considered which add to the understanding of the scriptural revelation on the Trinity, the historical attempts to understand the nature of God in both Adventist history and in the history of Christianity in general, and the theological attempts to express the truth about God.

Speakers include Greg Howell, Denis Kaiser, Jiri Moskala, John Peckham, Trevor O’Reggio, John W. Reeve, Teresa Reeve, Matthew Tinkham, Ekkehardt Mueller, Alberto Timm.

The cost to attend the Symposium is 220 € and is all inclusive: full board in a double room at the IAU Campus, from Wednesday June 19 in the afternoon to Sunday June 23 breakfast, and one tour.

For reservation and payment information, contact centro@casaurora.it ; Subject: ATS-IAU Symposium.
Deadline for Reservation: FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2019.

See the schedule here.