Adventist Counter Cult-ure

A new exclusively SDA clothing company eighteenfourtyfour.com has Adventists talking about fashion and culture. It's debatable whether the two should go together in the SDA context. Still, the company seems to be a hit with their "Homeschool Hottie" and "I [heart] haystacks" t-shirts, among others. But hey, why should they have all the fun? Here is some Adventist apparel for the church-lover in all of us.

SDA Tats

Following up the story that Shawn Boonstra plans to hit the big city (Los Angeles) despite his not being "gangsta", I found this photo of someone who certainly is. At least as gangsta as an Adventist can be. Here's the photo from Flickr, courtesy of user http://flickr.com/photos/sergei1971/

Now here's the big, big question: Is gettting "Seventh-day Adventist" tattooed on the forearm super-tough or just plain nerdy?

Boonstra on the Boob Tube

Adventism has its own honest-to-goodness televangelist, Shawn Boonstra. A friend of mine living in the Los Angeles Metroplex says that Shawn Boonstra was on KCAL 9 TV last Sunday morning (competing with Joel Osteen on the Fox affiliate).

Boonstra gets Gangsta in LA

Boonstra, who took over It Is Written after Mark Finley had "other stuff to do" at the GC (Finley's a vice-president), has apparently getting some face time in Los Angeles. Sources close to the situation (i.e. Southern California Conference of SDA's) reveal that Shawn Boonstra is going to be the speaker for a massive campaign to turn Southern California Adventist green (it's a real color, I'm not even kidding!). The campaign called cLAim is a ramped up revelation seminar-type thing that sources say will cost $1 million. I wonder how much it costs to get Boonstra on KCAL 9.

My friend who spotted Boonstra on the Tube says that his message was part of a series entitled "In Tables of Stone", which unsurprisingly is about Adventism's favorite topic--besides the three R's: Revelation, Remnant and Revelry (meat, jewelry and dancing)--the 10 Commandments!

Boonstra reportedly told a story about some Russian guy who kidnapped a girl. Everyone was outraged that the guy would do such a thing. So that's how we know that postmodernism is wrong. There ARE absolute moral values because everyone just KNEW that it is wrong to kidnap a girl and make her your captive. Postmodernism says that everything is relative, and that one person's morals are just as good as someone else's. But we KNOW that it's not true because of the story of the Russian guy. And that's why we should follow the 10 Commandments!

I wonder how well a message like that is going to go down in LA. Shawn Boonstra is obviously not gangsta. He's not really fly for a white guy. He can't lean like a cholo.

I guess he does have the "in" of being a TV star...kind of. So that should get him a little respect in Hollywood at least. And come to think of it, there are probably lots of people in LA who can identify with a message about tablets and stone--those Californians... It'll be interesting to see how the Million Dollar Man does next year in the hood. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, enjoy these screenshots my Cal Pal got for me:

Energy Policy [For Adventist Environmental Advocacy]

I created this to go with a post on energy policy for Adventist Environmental Advocacy. Oh, by the way, I do commissions sometimes if you ask nicely ;-)

(and just for the record, the Energy Information Administration had nothing to do with this image, just in case anyone asks)

Ted N. C. Wilson Holds the Keys to the Kingdom?

Ted Wilson has done all sorts of interesting things - lived in Abidjan, been president of something large and significant in Moscow, and received a Ph.D. in Religious Education from New York University. To some astute GC watchers, this puts him next in line for the presidency of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists once current president Jan Paulsen leaves the post. And to further drive the Ted-Wilson-as-president buzz, this official picture from the GC website has Wilson at the front of the line of current vice presidents ahead of Ella Simmons, who looks awfully lonely floating amid the veep sea of men. And what is with the creepy right-eye motif?

Of course from another perspective, the picture above has Ted Wilson as far away as he can be from current president Jan Paulsen, indicating that Wilson is least likely to become the next Prez. Some folks have hinted that Mark Finley (who for some strange reason reminds me of Kermit the Frog) might be next in line.The truth of the matter is that all this guesswork about who might be the next leader of the Free SDA World is premature. Jan Paulsen is doing a fine job of presiding, and until the conclave with its grey smoke and white smoke, the speculation will just have to sit patiently like a kid in church.

Hiram Edson sees the light

On October 23, 1844, the day after the Great Disappointment, Hiram Edson purportedly saw a vision while standing in a grain field that changed the Advent movement forever.

Queen Sarah the Palin Comparison

Sarah mania strikes America, and the new Queen strikes back...with requests for prayer for America's soldiers who are doing a task that is from God in Iraq. Seriously. And praying for pipelines in Alaska. But it won't matter if Alaskans' hearts are not right, she says.

Watch this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4LjsfWbZLA
See also "Hocky mom pitbull with lipstick"

Or was it attack dog?

Editoon - Essence of Adventism

For Spectrum (click image to enlarge).

Rajmund Dabrowski

A while ago I got a request for Rajmund Dabrowski (please call him Ray). Director of Communication for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. You can find out much more about Ray Dabrowski including a podcast interview he did with Alexander Carpenter of Spectrum Magazine here.

Ray owns one of the top five most caricatureable Adventist faces of all time!