Reinder Bruinsma

The new queen of the Netherlands, formally known as Princess Maxima, is of Argentinian origin. After she and the crown prince of the Netherlands fell in love with each other, her life changed dramatically. Maxima and Willem-Alexander married…

Several years ago I officially retired. In my country the rules are quite clear: Once you are 65, you are expected to quit full-time employment. This also coincides with retirement tim­ing preferences in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.…

 IN THE upper room the church was given a new commandment—to wash one another's feet as the Lord had washed the feet of the disciples. This plain commandment of Christ soon fell into dis­use in the Christian church, but it is most in­teresting…

The term contextualization is not universally accepted. In evangelical circles the word remains somewhat suspect because of its alleged liberal and sociopolitical overtones, and because it supposedly carries the smell of process…

What you see is what you get.” Computer veterans know what that means. When you work on a keyboard and then print what you have written or developed, you will get on paper what you see on the screen. That sentence expresses succinctly what…

Worldwide missions was not uppermost in the minds of the earliest Adventists. Immediately after the 1844 disappointment, for example, the small group that was to form the nucleus of the Seventh-day Adventist Church…

After reading a book by an American Episcopalian priest, who untiringly works for renewal in his church, I contacted him by email. Later, in our growing correspondence, I summarized the main challenges the Seventh-day…

When did modernism give way to postmodernism? It is impossible to pinpoint the beginning and the end of any era in a precise manner. Just as it was not immediately clear when the "Middle Ages" ended and the "modern"…

I am the president of a small union conference. A few decades ago the General Conference gave its approval to disband the two existing conferences and create a simplified organization with only one administrative…

Editor’s note: This is an adaptation of a message delivered during the European Pastors’ Council, held in DeBron, Netherlands, September 11–16, 2007.

O people, the LORD has told you what…

Some might say that an article about the mentality of Babylon hardly fits as a subject for an Adventist journal for clergy. Because God’s people of all denominations, the inhabitants of Zion, the citizens of the heavenly…

The composition of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has changed drastically in recent decades. In North America, Australia, and Europe, among other places, church growth has been relatively slow, and, regrettably,…

Recently I discovered an Adventist section on a Web site that facilitates different faith groups.¹ An anonymous contributor offered a short analysis of the theological diversity in contemporary Seventh-day Adventism. The author…