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By now you might have guessed that the main interest of this forum is life, and news, current events, religion and ethics are at the foundation of life. This is why those issues play a significant part in this web site; nevertheless, the right to physical existence and well being in itself is at the core of what we call life; and I am talking about human life. When society deprives a specific group of human beings of their right to life, humanity is diminished; it makes us all less fulfilled physically, spiritually and emotionally.
During the long history of humanity there have always been individuals who have manifested an obsession in depriving certain groups of human being of their right to life. The excuse for this type of behavior has been the gender of the individuals, their skin color, place of residence, religion, ethnicity and even their stage of development. This is ethically and morally deplorable. There is a need to restore the right to life to all human beings if we want humanity to reach the noble ideal for which it has been created.
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Description: A Loma Linda University Church Sabbath School with emphasis on Creation
Name: Faith & Science
Teacher: Dr. Paul Giem, M.D.
Place: Mortensen Hall’s upstairs amphitheater
Time: 10:25 AM
Date: Every Saturday
Archive of past prsentations: http://secondlookseminar.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dcPresenters: Paul Giem and other guest visitors
Description: A Loma Linda University Church Sabbath School with emphasis on Theistic Evolution
Teacher: James Walters, Ph.D.
Place: Centennial Complex third floor, Room 3208
Time: 10:25 AM
Date Every Saturday
Topic: Check the schedule at http://thebookreviewer.org/ Presenters: James Walters, Richard Rice and other participants and visitors
A few years ago, when I was working on my doctoral dissertation, one day I decided to visit the Loma Linda University Library’s “Heritage Room.” I was looking for material which had been published in our Adventist periodicals dealing with the issue of abortion. I was appalled by the scarcity of articles that had been published in recent years. Then it occurred to me to check the number of articles that had been published during the same time span on the Sabbath. I was floored.
Here is the result: I counted 242 articles dealing with the issue of abortion listed in our Adventist Periodical Index between 1971 and 2006. Now compare this with the number of articles dealing with our favorite subject, the Sabbath. I located 21,324 articles dealing with said topic for the 1971-2006 years in our Periodical Index, which means that for every topic dealing with abortion we published 88 topics on the Sabbath. This fact seems to suggest that for us the most important subject is sacred time; human life is not. Evidently, our focus lately has been on the sacredness of holy time, while neglecting the importance of the sacredness of human life.
Another interesting discovery was that I found 144 articles dealing with the issue of abortion between 1984 and 1993, while during the following decade the number was reduced to 30. This is significant; it reveals the effect of the publication of a comment in our official “Ministry” magazine putting an end to the readers’ comments on abortion and the publication of two pro-choice Adventist books: one by David Larson, “Abortion: Ethical Issues and Options,” and another authored by James Walters entitled “What is a Person.”
What followed was a dead silence on the issue. Several pro-life leaders left the Adventist denomination in disgust because they felt that they could no longer support the Adventist Church’s altered position on abortion. They concluded that leaving the Adventist community was the only ethical response if they wanted to avoid having their hands stained with the blood of the innocents. I almost did the same, but decided against such a move when I realized that there was no community of faith which was still faithful to both the Fourth and the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue.
I am glad I remained an Adventist because this gives me a chance to say now to my fellow Adventists: Let’s focus on human life. Focusing on the Sabbath with the exclusion of the Sixth Commandment places us in danger of imitating the Jewish leaders who two thousand years ago crucified the Author of Life and then rushed to keep God’s Sabbath holy.
Nic Samojluk
This Web Site was created in order to fill a vacuum in both the Adventist official and independent press. It was Ellen White, I believe , who once stated that if the people of God had embraced the Ten Commandments the way they should, there would have been no need for the Bible. This argument was further extended by suggesting that if Christians had followed the dictates of Holy Writ, there would have been no need for the writings of Ellen White.
Then somebody else added that if the Adventist community had lived by the advice found in the “Red Books” there would have been no need for the Adventist Review. And finally I heard another person add that if we had lived by the teachings found in the Adventist Review, there would have been no need for the publication of both Spectrum and Adventist Today. Well, I want to build on this reasoning by adding that, if we had taken advantage of all the good spiritual material found in all of the above, there would have been no need for me to create both http://sdaforum.com and http://letsfocusonlife.com.
The material contained in both of the above web sites is free for you, the reader, but it was the result of a considerable sacrifice of time and effort on my part. Let me illustrate this with the following anecdote: When the LLU Medical center was excavating the tons of soil for the new Children’s Hospital, the institution decided to donate all that soil for the construction of the new Loma Linda Elementary School. The soil was free, but the delivery was very expensive: $50,000 dollars at a time when the purchasing power of our dollar was much higher.
Likewise, the material contained in the web sites alluded to above is free for you, the reader, but it represents thousands of hours of my time. In fact, for over a decade, I have been investing half of my working time into these projects; and do not think for a minute that I am a rich man. Actually, the opposite is true. All this time I have been neglecting both my family and my real estate business in order to share with you my concerns about the direction my church has taken three decades ago.
Had the editors of our official and independent magazines been willing to give me the opportunity to share my views with my fellow believers, all this sacrifice of time and effort would have been unnecessary. On several occasions I have tried to get access to said periodicals without success. On one instance the Adventist Review did accept for publication a piece I wrote, and I was paid $50 dollars for it. That was two decades ago, and I am still waiting for them to publish what I wrote. On another occasion I wrote to the editor of a now defunct local church paper in response of an editorial critical of the pro-life activities of some individuals. My request for equal time was denied.
Then the Pacific Union Recorder published a pro-abortion article alleging that an unborn has no moral right to life until it takes the first breath. I submitted my pro-life response, but the editor refused to publish it alleging that the paper did not engage in controversial issues. Well, aren’t the Sabbath and smoking controversial issues? Have we remained silent on those issues for said reason? Let me illustrate my predicament with another anecdote: Many years ago I shared my frustration with a member of my Sabbath School class. She reacted with the following statement. “If that is the case, you should start shouting from the rooftops.” I did relate this experience with my nephew, and he responded: “Yes, you should cry out loud from the rooftops, but every time you try to climb to the rooftop, someone kicks the ladder from under you.”
As I pondered what to do, I decided to leaf through the pages of both Adventist Today and Spectrum. I discovered that the names of every author were followed by the following title: Ph. D. I thought: “Perhaps, this is the reason why my submissions are not accepted for publication.” This discovery prompted me to sign up for a doctoral program in religion by distant learning. It took me a decade to complete the program. Nevertheless, I was wrong on my assumption. The reason for the apathy I was faced with was not the lack a Ph. D. title, but rather the fact that the Adventist intelligentsia had become sympathetic to the pro-abortion position on this issue. My church had compromised on a moral issue.
This is what prompted me to create these alternative ways of getting published. I wanted to publish my doctoral dissertation, but I did not have the extra time to do this. This is why I published my dissertation online as a temporary solution. Here is a link to it: http://letsfocusonlife.com/?page_id=109 . I hope you understand my thinking. I could have opted to leave the Adventist Church for another religious community, but my love for the church which fed me with spiritual milk from my youth is stronger than that. I owe what I am to the community I belong to and I am not planning to leave. So help me God! By the way, I will be 78 pretty soon, which means that I have no hope of recovering the investment of time and money I made into my pro-life activities this side of eternity.
Nic Samojluk
