News: 2009

The South German Union in conjunction with its conferences organized a meeting for all its pastors dealing with the important issue of hermeneutics. The meetings took place from July 3 to 5, 2009 at Seminar Marienhoehe. Speakers were Ángel Manuel Rodríguez and Ekkehardt Mueller from BRI, Fernando Canale and Richard Davidson from Andrews University, and Stefan Hoeschele from Theologische Hochschule Friedensau. Church members interested in the topic of interpreting Scripture were also admitted. Open questions and honest answers contributed to the good spirit of the meeting.

Malamulo Secondary School was the setting for the worker’s meeting of the Malawi Union which has more than 300,000 members. The meetings were held from the 11th to the 15th of January 2009, and they were attended by about 150 ministers, administrators and their wives. The main speaker, Gerhard Pfandl, presented a series of lectures on Current Trends in Adventist theology, Adventist History and Eschatology.

From May 7-9, 2009, all five scholar of the Biblical Research Institute participated in a Bible Conference at the Dominican Adventist University organized by the Dominican Union Mission. The theme of the conference was the twenty-eighth fundamental belief – Growing in Christ. Five hundred pastors, students, and administrators listened to a variety of topics ranging from “Evil Powers and Occult Practices in the Apocalypse” to “Perfect in Christ.”  The history and procedure of how this new fundamental belief came into existence was explained by Dr. Ángel Rodríguez, Director of the Biblical Research Institute. Other presenters included Drs. Eli Henry, Vice president of the Inter-American Division, Efrain Velasquez, Academic Dean of the Inter-American Division Adventist Theological Seminary, and Jon Paulien, Dean of the School of Theology of Loma Linda University.

“Issues in SDA Theology” was the course Gerhard Pfandl taught at the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies (AIIAS) in the Philippines. Fifteen MA, M.Div, D.Min, and Ph.D. students had registered for the class, but several Ph.D. students, who had already completed their class work, attended as auditors. AIIAS, a General Conference institution, offers only post-graduate programs and serves primarily the Northern- and Southern-Asia Pacific divisions, but students come from the South Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas.