The “Adventist Review and Sabbath
Herald”
Five years after the “Great Disappointment,” a group who
advocated the observation of the seventh day of the week as the true Sabbath
began to publish a paper called the Present
Truth. This was founded by James and Ellen White. By 1850, they had also published six issues of
The Advent Review. The papers were
merged in November of that year, and the combined endeavor was christened Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald.
Today it is simply called the Adventist
Review. The Church Heritage Manual
is very insistent that future Master Guides be cognizant of the fact that the Adventist Review is the general church
paper, but its unfailing arrival in every member’s mailbox, every month is the
best reminder of this periodical’s preeminence. As previously noted, the printing facility
that published this periodical when it was headquartered in Battle Creek burned
to the ground in 1902. It is currently printed at the Review and Herald
Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Maryland. In the beginning of this
journal’s history, a few thousand copies would be printed. In the 1950’s
circulation exceeded 50,000. In the 1990’s over a quarter million readers
subscribed to this Adventist “house organ.”
The “Advent Tidende”
The English-language version of the Danish site of the
Adventist Church provides some detailed information about the Danish-language
periodical Advent Tidende (the
“tidende” part simply means “journal.” In an irrelevant digression, it may be
noted that Soren Kierkegaard lambasted the stagnation of the Danish church of
his era with countless pseudonymous diatribes published in Danish “tidendes”).
Adventism reached Denmark in 1872 by means of issues of the Tidende. It was initially published by
John Matteson for Scandinavian immigrants living in the United States. Matteson
sent the magazine to Denmark in response to letters received from people interested
in keeping the Sabbath. Over a thousand copies had been shipped prior to 1875,
when a Danish printer, M. A. Sommer, asked Matteson for permission to include
articles from Advent Tidende in his own monthly journal. Matteson, an enthusiastic
evangelist for the faith, readily assented to this. In 1877 he wrote to General
Conference president James White asking to be sent as a missionary to Denmark.
Thus he became the first Adventist missionary to northern Europe, just three
years after J. N. Andrews went to Switzerland. Matteson’s efforts were blessed
by God. In 1880 Matteson helped organize the Denmark Conference with seven
churches and 120 adherents, the first Adventist conference outside North
America. Currently, the denomination only contains about 2,500 members out of a
total population of over five million, and this number is diminishing. This is
not a reflection upon Adventism, as all faiths in Europe are experiencing a
similar decline. The website maintained by the Adventists of Denmark requests
that you pray for Denmark.
“Les Signes des Temps” en francais… en
anglaise, c’est “Signs of the Times”
People who are not born and bred to the Adventist Church may
involuntarily recall the popular song titled “Sign of the Times,” performed by
Petula Clark, and released in 1966. This song was temporarily banned by Clear
Channel Communications in the wake of the 911 terrorist attacks (the salient
features of which Ellen White had accurately prophesized) as being
inappropriate. Signs of the Times was
first published in 1874 by James White as a weekly newspaper, therefore making
it one of the “longest running, continuously published, religious subscription
magazines,” as the Wikipedia article on it notes. This article also states that
it was influential in the founding of Pacific Press. The White family scouted
west coast locations for the establishment of a sanitarium and publishing house
in 1872. Due to a lack of ready money, the start of this venture was delayed
for two years, but a meeting held in California in 1874 an amazing $19,414 was
raised from only 500 attendees, a fortune back in those days. A facility was soon
erected in Oakland with these funds. In the 1980’s it was determined that the
cost of doing business in the Greater San Francisco area was getting ludicrous.
Pacific Press was therefore relocated to Idaho, which is not nearly as close to
the Pacific Ocean as Oakland. Here is a statement from the official website of
Pacific Press regarding its mission: Its
sole purpose is to uplift Jesus Christ in communicating biblical teachings,
health principles, and family values, in many languages, through various types
of printed materials, video products, and recordings of Christian music. The
Sign of the Times was first printed
in the French language in Basil, Switzerland in 1876. This is still important
to Haitians, French-Canadians, and perhaps the dwindling number of Adventists
who actually live in France itself. The former French colonies in Africa and
Polynesia are also edified by their copies. Spanish language Adventists are
recipients of their own Pacific Press periodical. Here is a very brief note
about the history of this version from the website of El Centinela (The Sentinel):
Pacific Press publicó “El Centinela”
desde julio de 1919 hasta junio de 1921 en Mountain View, California; desde
julio de 1921 hasta marzo de 1953, en su sucursal de Panamá en Cristóbal; desde
abril de 1953 hasta septiembre de 1959, en Brookfield, Illinois; desde octubre
de 1959 hasta septiembre de 1984, en la sede de Pacific Press en Mountain View;
y desde ese entonces en la planta actual de Nampa, Idaho. The periodical
was published in Panama for a short period, this statement reveals. Spanish is
the future (should the Lord delay His coming), and Pacific Press is keeping up
with “the times,” or as Spaniard would say, “el tiempo (“des temps,” en
francais, s’il vous plait).
“Liberty” magazine
Due to their inconvenient habit of keeping the Lord’s day on
the true Sabbath, Adventists have historically suffered a measure of discrimination
and persecution at the hands of the “first day” majority in the United States.
The protection of the minority was a consideration of the framers of the
Constitution, but it is far from perfect at affording much beyond minimal
safeguards. The seed of the knowledge of the “Sabbath truth” was planted by Mrs.
Rachel Oakes, a Seventh Day Baptist who came to an early Adventist assembly in
Washington, NH bearing tracts upon this topic, thereby creating what was, in
effect, the very first “Seventh-day” Adventist congregation. The “grand old
man” of the Advent pioneers, Joseph Bates, was an early and vehement advocate
of this teaching. James and Ellen White were not initially impressed with the
importance of the Sabbath doctrine, but soon (largely through the effort of
Captain Bates) came to see the truth. It was even ratified later in a prophetic
vision granted to Ellen White. A desire to worship God in the manner one
chooses is important to the preservation and perpetuation of the Adventist
Church. Having experienced a measure of persecution as a result their
observation of the Sabbath, and not Sunday as the correct day for rest and
worship, the denomination is subsequently in the forefront of a continuing effort
to ensure the right of other to worship as they see fit. The freedom of the SDA
Church is linked to the freedom of all of the citizens of this nation (the USA)
and of the world. Here is the two sentence ”history” of this publication, taken
from the Liberty Magazine website: Founded in 1906, Liberty magazine continues
to be the preeminent resource for matters of religious freedom. Published by
the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Liberty currently maintains a circulation of
just under 200,000. The second of the three guiding principles listed on
the site reads as follows: Religious
liberty entails freedom of conscience: to worship or not to worship; to
profess, practice and promulgate religious beliefs or to change them. In
exercising these rights, however, one must respect the equivalent rights of all
others. Salvation is a matter of choice, and cannot be imposed upon people.
It must be willingly accepted. “Liberty” is dedicated to the removal of
state-sanctioned barriers to these individual manifestations of free will.
Church and state should maintain a respectful distance from each other. When
the state does delegate responsibilities to the churches (or mosques, or
synagogues), it must not favor one over the other (this last statement is a
recognition that Adventists in the United States currently accept federal money
for their social programs, assuming there are no doctrinal “strings attached”
to these funds).
The high quality of healthcare, and the exceptionally high
ethics (merely Biblical precepts at work) of the Adventist medical
establishment often comes as a revelation to patients and patrons who have
never before experienced healing mercies administered in a manner that Christ
Himself would approve of. Here is a sample from Wikipedia regarding Porter
Hospital: In the early 1930s, Denver
businessman Henry Porter fell ill while traveling in California. His treatment
at two Seventh-day Adventist sanitariums inspired him to build a hospital in
Denver that embraced the Seventh-day Adventist philosophy of caring for the
whole person. In 1930, he donated land and money to build Porter Adventist
Hospital. It is a noble work, and for a season boasted its own periodical
titled The Medical Evangelist Magazine.
The Southern University archive notes that Medical
Evangelist was published from 1908 through 1923. It then re-emerged in 2011
(a misprint, as the archive includes a first issue from 2007), and is still
being published today (2016). The revived publication, a product of the
Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (a.m.e.n.) is described on the “amen”
site: The original Medical Evangelist
journal was published in the early days of
Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists [now Loma Linda University] to promote the principles of health reform
and share graduate experiences. It also states the choice of name for the
revived magazine was “no accident.” It may be viewed online. The “mission
statement” of this journal reads: The
Medical Evangelist is the official publication of the Adventist Medical
Evangelism Network. The purpose of the
publication is to equip physicians and dentists to be effective medical
evangelists. A quick peek at some of the 1908 through 1923 editions (with a
doomed attempt to home in on the editions that coincided with America’s
participation in World War I) reveals that the first periodical was
discontinued in 1962, and not 1923. Loma Linda University, the archivists for
this manifestation of The Medical
Evangelist has not yet enjoyed sufficient leisure to digitize every
edition. Curiosity as to what Adventist medical missionary attitudes were
toward the mass carnage of “the war to end all wars” will not be satisfied by
the Loma Linda archive, for there is a huge (and, as yet, unexplained) gap in
the record of the publications concurrent with World War I. The earlier
archived issues are slim, perhaps to save on postage when shipping them to
remote locations like Borneo and Sumatra.
The same Loma Linda archive that contained a most truncated
collection of the periodical The Medical
Evangelist also contains an archive of Present
Truth magazine. It cites the duration of this journal to have extended from
the years 1884 through 1950. A recent (2016) guest pastor at Berean Seventh-day
Adventist Church, Atlanta continuously referred to “present truth” in his
various presentations. As the speaker was practically a septuagenarian, his
perception of the images and denominational associations these two words evoke
was shaped by his constant exposure to the term as a youth. The term “present
truth” It has a long, long history, and is pregnant with meaning for older
Adventists, but is no longer “au courant.” Here is a sentence recycled from the
preceding paragraph that described the “Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald:” Five years after the “Great Disappointment” [1844],
a group who advocated the observation of
the seventh day of the week as the true Sabbath, began to publish a paper
called the “Present Truth.” This was founded by James and Ellen White. This
antebellum manifestation of Present Truth
seems to have quickly morphed into the Review
and Herald. At look at the first copy from the much more durable 1884-1950
run reveals that it was produced in Great Grimsby, England, under the aegis of
the International Tract & Missionary Society. The front page features an
article by Ellen G. White titled Search
the Scriptures. This lays the groundwork for a second article by John N.
Andrews that states some basic Adventist beliefs. Anyone who had stopped
reading Present Truth in order to
read the Bible, as Ellen White had previously implored them to do, would be in
a good position to verify that the points outlined by J.N. Andrews in his
article, Seventh-day Adventists, were
not “cunningly wrought fables,” but are rather based on the Word of God. This
edition represents the “alpha” of the run. Leaping ahead 66 years to the
“omega” issue (now titled The Bible and
Our Times) from 1950, the cover features a herald, ringing a hand bell,
dressed in Georgian era garb. The lead article decries the fact that a proposed
nation-wide festival would be closed on Sunday, as the organizers of the event
were on record as declaring this day of the week the “Sabbath.” The incipient
demise of this periodical is not announced in what is (presumably) the last
issue to be published. A representative edition from the portentous (for Great
Britain, and, ultimately, for the entire world) of 1939 (volume 55, number 26)
still retains the original title of the magazine. It cannot avoid a focus on
the mounting tensions in Europe. The lead article refutes the views of
evolutionists like Thomas Henry Huxley, who perceived creation to be morally neutral.
Current events were betraying the hand of Satan, who is most immoral. A quote
from the apostle Paul was borrowed in order to assist in illustrating the
ominous disposition of planet earth: [the] whole
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.
“Youth’s Instructor”
This is from the “Church Heritage Manual: The magazine that is named the “Youth’s
Instructor,” begun in 1852 by James White, has evolved into several age related
magazines, in order to better meet the needs of the youth. Today, the church
publishes “Insight,” “Guide,” “Primary Treasure,” “Our Little Friend,” and “Sabbath
Lesson Quarterlies” for all age groups. But Youth’s Instructor led the pack. James White edited the journal for
the first two years of its existence, and then passed the torch to his sister,
Anna in 1854. Anna died that same year of tuberculosis, so James White resumed
leadership until 1858, when G.W. Amadon (Martha’s husband, and John Byington’s
son-in-law) took over. The main Adventist archive site states: The “Youth's Instructor” was a paper
intended for youths aged sixteen to thirty. The paper was published monthly
until demand led to a weekly edition starting in 1879. In 1970, the magazine's
duties transferred to Insight magazine, which is still published today. Even
the very first edition is available online. A lead article proclaims that the
new endeavor is designed to plug a regrettable gap in the knowledge of most
young people, a knowledge of “the religion of Christ.” The author of this
article insinuates that many adults who profess to follow the Lord are not
doing a particularly spectacular job at this. Youth’s Instructor was aimed straight at their children, whose
souls might be in jeopardy as a result of their parents’ ineptitude. The
author, of course, declares this in a very diplomatic way. An illustration in
the first number portrays each of the ten commandments as fruits on a tree. Two
large supplementary fruits are labelled with the two commandments Jesus
emphasized: (1) Love God, and (2) Love your neighbor. The final issue of the Youth’s Instructor prior to its
integration into Insight is dated
April 28. 1970. This is a year in which over 300,000 American soldiers were
fighting in Vietnam. The lead article in the final issue was simply titled May 9, 1970. It did not glamorize war,
but urged that Christian literature be provided to those who were serving in
the military. A biennial offering for this very purpose would be collected on
the date named in the title of the article. The article admitted that soldiers
who were Adventists were in a difficult position (“Thou shalt not kill”), but
should try to represent Christ as best they could while in uniform.
“Southern Tidings,” the voice of the
Seventh-day Day Adventist Southern Union
Over 90,000 people read Southern
Tidings magazine every month. It has been around more than a century, but
it was not always named Southern Tidings.
Here is a statement taken from the Southern Union website: “The ‘Southern Tidings’ was first published in 1907 as ‘Report of
Progress;’ from 1910 to 1932 as ‘Southern Union Worker;’ then merged with
‘Field Tidings’ to become ‘Southern Tidings.’ All issues of these magazines are
available online…” The first issue was printed in Nashville, TN (presumably
by the Southern Publishing Association, an Adventist press, and successor to
the Gospel Herald Publishing Company which was founded by Ellen White’s son,
Edson. Like the “Review” factory in 1902, an abandoned Nashville building that
once housed Southern Publishing burned as well in 2011). The lead article in
this July 2, 1907 edition of Field
Tidings states that previous attempts to make another periodical, the Watchman, serve as both a missionary
tract and a conference newsletter were most unsatisfactory. Thus was the Report of Progress born. The masthead of
this first issue features a reaper holding a sickle and a basket of grain. This
could have been intended as a reference to the fact that, at that time (1907),
the South was still predominately an agricultural region. It is also highly
appropriate for representing the act of harvesting souls for the Kingdom, but
the lead article belies this interpretation by affirming the delegation of
evangelical material to the Watchman.
But assisting the Spirit to reap souls is a business that everyone is
admonished to be engaged in. The periodical assumed a more communicative name, Southern Union Worker in the September
7, 1911 issue. The redesigned masthead of this issue brackets the title of the
periodical with two images; a sower on the left, and a reaper on the right. On
March 30, 1932, the name of Southern
Union Worker (perhaps a result of the animosity displayed by most
plutocrats to the incendiary word “Union”) was modified to Southern Tidings (a kind of homage to the original name of the
publication, Field Tidings). The new
look of the newsletter was very spare, and it was assembled in Collegedale, TN.
Perhaps as a result of having been published during the Great Depression, this
issue does not contain a single illustration. One lonely and forlorn
advertisement offers the reader a sample box of the “best Oatmeal Cookie on the
market,” if you should care to send a dollar to P.O. Box 481, Birmingham, AL.
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