Ethics

The Biblical Research Institute (BRI) of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has been asked for an opinion on capital punishment and its promotion within local Adventist churches. It was decided to take the request to the Biblical Research Institute Ethics Committee (BRIEC), discuss ...

Recently, while traveling to Europe, my wife found an interesting article in a magazine, describing the behavior of modern women. Fortunately, a lady wrote the article. She illustrated her point by describing the breaking apart of a marriage. A former gold medalist and world recorder holder, who ...

At its September 2016 meeting, the BRI Ethics Committee discussed a request for an opinion on surrogate motherhood that provides children to homosexual couples. The committee felt that before moving on to the question of whether Adventist women should provide children through surrogate motherhood to homosexual couples, something needed to be said about the issue of surrogacy. The following document and its two major parts reflect the opinion of the BRI Ethics Committee. Ekkehardt Mueller

In recent months the Ethics Committee of the Biblical Research Institute has received a number of inquiries about the pertinent topic of transgenderism. As transgender persons accept Jesus and join the Seventh-day Adventist church, some crucial questions emerge, two of which are addressed in the ...

Leviticus contains the following laws concerning homoerotic activity: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (18:22 ). “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them...

The New Testament contains a number of texts that directly or indirectly address the issue of same-sex sexual behavior, a topic widely and controversially discussed today. Among these New Testament texts, the most important ones are Jesus’ discussion of heterosexual marriage in Matthew 19 and Mar...

This article investigates the historical development of homosexuality. It begins with the Ancient Near East, continues with Israel and Judaism, the Greco-Roman world, Christianity and Gnosticism, and finishes with Europe between the Medieval Ages and our time. The Ancient Near East Egypt So far n...

New state laws on euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, recently approved in some countries, prompted the Ethics Committee of BRI to discuss and suggest revisions to the document “A Statement of Consensus on Care for the Dying” (approved by the executive committee of the GC on October 9, 199...

Inspired by the very character and nature of Yahweh, with whom evil shall not dwell, Psalm 15 establishes the inextricable relation between worship and conduct and thus highlights important characteristics of the true worshiper. This short study reviews the context, structure and message of the p...

At the beginning of the twenty-first century we face two equally important challenges in the area of church growth. The first one is very slow growth in some parts of the world and the second is its opposite, fast growth. Both situations bring with it specific problems that need to be addressed i...