Peace Messenger

Ryan Bell on "Killing the DREAM: Still No Room at the Inn"

As U.S. Senators denounce consideration of a nuclear weapons reduction treaty as a desecreation of Christmas and go on to kill the DREAM Act, the senior pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church comments:

"It is more than a little ironic that Jesus, within days of his birth, found himself immigrating to Egypt with his family to escape the tyranny of King Herod the Great who ordered the execution of all male children in Judea. Had he grown up in similar circumstances in our country, Jesus would have been the perfect candidate for the DREAM Act. Many of the children who come to this country without proper documentation, come for the same reason people have always come to the United States and for the same reasons Jesus fled to Egypt -- to escape poverty or physical danger (or both) and to seek better opportunities for themselves and their children. But it seems this Congress would sooner deport children in the name of securing our borders than give them a chance to contribute more effectively to the U.S. economy and a chance at the American Dream."

Read the entire piece published today by the Huffington Post internet newspaper.

Should I Fight? Essays on Conscientious Objection & the Seventh-day Adventist Church

How does an Adventist who follows the command of Jesus to lay down the sword and pray for enemies remain a good citizen when the state calls for war?  That's the central question addressed by this new volume, edited by Barry W. Bussey (below), the Seventh-day Adventist representative to the United Nations, and now available for pre-order. Here's more from a recent announcement of the book's publication:

Should I Fight? is a must-have volume for those who want to understand the history of the Seventh-day Adventist position on war and the modern challenges.

Since its organization in 1863 the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been counter cultural.  In its Christian