Doug Batchelor today denied rumors that the merger talks that began in April between Amazing Facts, an independent ministry supportive of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and Three Angel's Broadcasting Network (3ABN), a self-supporting ministry with similar status, have been called off.

"It is not done," he said of the merger, "but it is definitely not dead.... I spoke with [3ABN president] Danny Shelton last week about it."

Employees of both organizations have been quoted as affirming informally that the merger talks have ended. "I have heard of the rumors, though I have not heard the rumors themselves," Batchelor said. "It may be that our extensive travels in recent weeks have made it appear this way. I just got back from Alaska, myself, and others involved have been traveling too." These travels have slowed the process, he said, but plans for a merger remain alive.

Batchelor says that he favors releasing a progress report about the merger process to help squelch rumors and speculation now apparently enjoying some credibility among staff members of both organizations.

"At least one conference in the Seventh-day Adventist Church's North American region has concluded that frazzled pastors don't make for successful ministry. That conference, spanning the U.S. states of Iowa and Missouri, is encouraging pastors to trim their sometimes 80-hour workweeks to a saner 45 to 55 hours.

'We've seen more disturbingly high incidents of stress-related illnesses, marriage problems, divorce and conflict between parents and children among Adventist pastors than at any other time,' says Iowa-Missouri conference president Dean Coridan.

The region is inviting pastors to reprioritize their lives and recast their roles within the church. 'The day of working an 80-hour week must come to an end. The church does not own us,' Coridan tells ministers during workshop sessions, which he has led in the region for 18 months.

Ministry shouldn't jeopardize the health of any pastor's spiritual life or family happiness, Coridan says. But all too often conferences, church members and pastors themselves have equally unrealistic expectations of pastoral ministry.

The conference's executive committee is developing a curriculum to teach church elders how to better support pastors by being spiritual leaders. Coridan says the committee also plans to push for cohesive job descriptions for pastors throughout the region, in which they'll be cast in mostly outreach, rather than church maintenance roles.

'It's easy to keep piling onto that initial job description until the pastor is overworked and overwhelmed,' Coridan says.

The solution, he says, requires pastors to delegate and say 'no' to some responsibilities. Coridan adds that while the plan may not fully eliminate pastoral exhaustion, ministers in the conference have found it beneficial." [More of the Story]

Thank you AT for your honesty and integrity in searching for truth. The best of journalists and cartoonists have always been torched for putting their pencil (or processor) where it hurts... keep at it !!

By the way, I did attend the [Spiritual] Renaissance [Retreat] in Monterrey last year. There was excellent work by all. Alden [Thompson], [James] Londis, and Des [Ford] were superb.

If our church is ever to pull out of this spiral, we must be honest about our situation, the Bible, EGW, the Gospel, our sometimes dysfunctional history and cover-ups.

Families that refuse to cover-up, but love relentlessly tend to blossom.

Altogether in His service,

Shane Dresen
By email

Editorial comment: Thank you, Shane. This is the type of communication that makes contributing to the success of Adventist Today worth all of our collective efforts. -Erv Taylor, Executive Editor.

Cross Purposes
Biggest Christian conference splits amid growing atonement debate.

By Madison Trammel, Christianity Today, ( 2 July, 2007)

"Three of Great Britain's most prominent Christian groups have ended their 14-year conference partnership, scuttling the annual Word Alive youth event. At issue was disagreement over a speaker, the Rev. Steve Chalke.

But below the surface simmers a theological controversy that threatens to split the country's evangelicals.

Spring Harvest's namesake conference, the largest Christian event in the country, draws about 55,000 people each year to a multi-site, multi-week lineup. The organization recently asked that Keswick Ministries and the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) be willing to put Chalke, a member of Spring Harvest's council of management, on the student- and family-focused platform they co-host. When the ministries balked, Spring Harvest cancelled the event.

'The Word Alive committee, in good conscience, just didn't feel it would be appropriate, during that week, for Steve Chalke to be given a platform,' said UCCF communications director Pod Bhogal. 'Steve Chalke has made his dislike of penal substitution really, really clear, and ... we didn't feel the nature of the atonement was one of those things you could agree to disagree over.'

Chalke's theology first came into question in 2003 with the publication of his book The Lost Message of Jesus. In it, Chalke, the senior minister of Church.co.uk and founder of Oasis Trust and Faithworks, compared the prevailing Protestant view of the atonement to divine child abuse.

'[W]ouldn't it be inconsistent for God to warn us not to be angry with each other and yet burn with wrath himself [against sin and sinners]?' he later wrote in an article defending his position. 'I, for one, believe that God practices what he preaches.'

Chalke criticizes the penal substitutionary theology of 19th-century Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, subscribing instead to a view of the atonement called Christus Victor, which focuses on how Christ delivered fallen humanity from Satan. In 2005, the Evangelical Alliance (EA), an umbrella organization for U.K. evangelicals, hosted a public debate on the atonement. Its revised doctrinal statement, which Chalke signed, appears to uphold penal substitution-the belief that Jesus endured God's punishment for humanity's sin while on the Cross.

According to Adrian Warnock, a lay preacher and blogger who broke news of the conference split, Chalke's signing of the EA statement, which alludes to the precise view he criticizes, deceptively muddies the issue.

'What we're in the process of, really, in the U.K. is a battle for the very definition of what is an evangelical,'Warnock said. 'And it's as simple as that.'

According to J. I. Packer, British-born board of governors' theologian at Regent College and CT senior editor, various biblical understandings of the atonement need not conflict. Rather, penal substitution, Christus Victor, and other Scriptural views of atonement work together to present a fully orbed picture of Christ's work 'To omit any part of this story," Packer said, "is to distort and damage the gospel.'

Neither Chalke nor leaders from the EA or Spring Harvest have been willing to comment on the conference split or atonement debate.

Keswick and UCCF (the U.K.'s sister body to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) plan to launch a new Word Alive conference without Spring Harvest's sponsorship in 2008. World Alive has scheduled two strong proponents of substitution as speakers: Donald A. Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and John Piper, preaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis." [ Link to Story]

"Undocumented North Korean migrants to China are being deported back to North Korea where they are held in prison camps and subjected to forced labour. Most of these migrants are fleeing food shortages and economic crisis in their home country. Crossing the border is a crime in North Korea , and detainees are forced to carry out work such as farming, logging, and quarrying, working long hours without rest days. They are frequently beaten and subject to degrading treatment and punishment. The fact that these migrants will be subject to forced labour if repatriated means that they are refugees sur place in China, and so are entitled to international protection." [Click here to take action].