@george: Well spank my spurs if it ain’t …

Comment on Christians and the Sabbath by wesley kime.

@george: Well spank my spurs if it ain’t good ole George. Welcome back to the corral, pard.

wesley kime Also Commented

Christians and the Sabbath
At the beginning, back in the early church, the first several centuries of it, the rationale for the switch from the 7th to the 1st day was that Christ Himself had tacitly done that by being resurrected on the 1st day, surely a cosmically crucial event worthy of the most sacred ceremonialization. This was offered as self-evident and overwhelming, and duly validated by the very vicar of Christ, as documented by Sean, if only distantly but discernibly scriptural or unscriptural.

Now about 2 millennia later the reasoning is really quite different, startlingly different. It turns out that God never actually gave a specific day that needed formal switching, or has lost interest in one, but being consummately compassionate was all along mainly yearning to give us rest. Promises of rest, often presented metaphorically as “Sabbath rest,” are abundant in both the Old and New Testament, more abundant than clear declarations of a switch of day, and precious, increasingly precious as the world becomes increasingly stressful. And the same Jesus who was so grieved by the Pharisaical obsession with ritually detailed 7th-day slavery is infinitely more concerned with this gift of rest, plus the bonus of the possibility of undivided communion with Him or at least a lovely choral Te Deum echoing in a magnificent cathedral or Worship Complex, than the specific day. Notable advocates of this lovely picture of “the Sabbath rest” that come to mind are Abraham Heschel, noted Jewish thinker, plus sundry emergent evangelical thought leaders, and, most cogently, recent popes, once the ex cathedra thunder from Sinai, now the global vicar of gentle nonjudgmental Jesus. Or so it is presented.

As I understand foundational Adventist prophecy, to which I still adhere, this summer of rest and the promotion thereof will prove only as a preparatory, transitional device, temporary. Circumstances, terrible ones, will require a categorical, unequivocal, no pussyfooting or evasive obeisance to the re-emergent and re-inaugurated Commander of the Universe and savior of humanity, a rerun of the yes-or-no arguably arbitrary conditions laid down by the very same God, or virtually the same, at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, in the form of the Tree of Good and Evil – a “silly thing” like that. The 7th day, yes or no.


Christians and the Sabbath
@george: Ah my dear erstwhile cowpoke roaming the range where only is heard an agnostic word, now pontificating Socratic-questioning professor. Glad you came around – to the corral, if not yet to the, er, truth. While our indeed indomitable (If I reviewed all his activities you wouldn’t believe it) sheriff, Sean, seems to have attracted a couple of caviling caballeros (our cow-pasture operational metaphor would have them flies, swat the thought; I know one personally, a great and gifted friend), you and I seem naturally saddled up together, pards, lariats aswinging.

To leave no stream unpanned, I submit, A., Alas, most of us, whether we’re Trump or the pope, cannot be other than, damnit, resoundingly right. But by the Holy Spirit, a seldom known resource, and on condition of humility, if possible even more seldom known, neither by built-in superiority nor superiority of education, a man may have wisdom and actually be right, beyond postmodernistic correctitude. This comes to mind, a concatenation, probably I’ll be paraphrasing it: “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,” in Me only is wisdom, and “I dwell in a high a holy place, and with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.” That God should dwell in a person who proclaims from his own stump, “here I stand I’m right! I can be no other!” is an oxymoron – it just can’t happen, Adventist or anybody. Adventists are – I still hold, I can do no other – right in much of their interpretation of the scripture while much of the world is wrong. But they are not right in the eyes of God – nothing else matters – until they start their sermons not with “I’m right! Hear ye me!” but with “May I have a drink of water?”

B. You say “faith…to give meaning to their existence.” Faith? Meaning? Seems rioting or a pilgrimage to the latest movie requiring the suspension of disbelief and special effects, are more commonly believed to give meaning to life, virtual meaning which is close enough, as close as we want to get. Any closer and we would cry for the rocks and mountains to fall on us. Look, it isn’t just the having of faith that gives meaning, it’s what you have faith IN! And you know to whom I refer – it goes without saying. Backlit clouds and the hills are already saying it, singing it.

C. Enchanting list of charismatics, but as soon as EGW pops into it, I’ve got to shout across the lowing herd, WHOA THAR! I rather agree, the lady must have been charismatic, an apt adjective. But technically and classifiably a noun, a Charismatic? Horsefeathers! Likewise, that she proclaimed herself the new authority, balderdash! She insisted, shouted, reiterated incessantly, and convincingly, that the Bible is the only authority, not she, never. I take her at her word – she’s no authority. Only as she is consonant with the Bible, the consummate authority, is she authoritative. Likewise Sean, me, the whole SDA evangelizing caboodle.
d. “Something to ponder every 7 days.” Somehow I’m pondering as we speak – continually, almost continuously.

Until we swing the doors open again, WK


Christians and the Sabbath
@george: Bless my slicked up or down mustache if palaverin’ with you ain’t like chasin’ after a tumbleweed. But you’ll never hear from me a discouraging word, out here on Sheriff Sean’s celestial range. Saddle up and tumble on!


Recent Comments by wesley kime

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.