Divergence

This blog post was written for the Spectrum Blog and was posted on August 15, 2012 here . Last week I asked what Martin Luther King would say about the current ordination struggle. Today I am asking what Ellen White would say. In The Great Controversy, White writes about Martin Luther’s experience before the Diet of Worms. In this chapter, she hails Luther as a great model of faith who was willing to stand up for his convictions despite great opposition and risk of personal peril. During his trial at the Diet of Worms, Luther was told that he must either retract his writings or face severe consequences. White records Luther’s response: “The Reformer answered: ‘Since your most serene majesty and your high mightinesses require from me a clear, simple, and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless...

This blog post was originally written for the Spectrum Blog and was posted on August 8, 2012 here .  I often find myself turning to the sermons and writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. when contemplating issues of justice. In light of the debate surrounding women’s ordination, I turned again to his writings, specifically his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” [i] for guidance. In reading this letter again, I was struck at how relevant it is for the discussion today. The “Letter From Birmingham Jail” was written in response to a letter he received while in jail from eight white ministers. This letter was titled, “A Call For Unity,” in which the pastors urged King and others fighting for justice to pursue the matters through the courts and to abide by their decisions. They suggest that progress was being made and that the demonstrations were “unwise and untimely.” [ii] In eerily similar fashion, on June 29, the General Conference also issued their own “Appeal For Unity...