The year was 1569. The place, Holland, which was then under Spanish rule. That meant Catholic rule, and Protestants were treated harshly, especially those known as Anabaptists. Dirk Willems was an Anabaptist. When they came to arrest him for preaching the Gospel, he took off running, with an officer known as a “thief catcher” in…

It’s one of the shortest of the Ten Commandments. It seems clear. Desmond Doss said he got his conviction against killing because of a framed picture of the Ten Commandments that hung on a wall in his childhood home, with the sixth commandment illustrated by Cain and Abel, with a club in Cain’s hand over…

(Originally given as a devotional at SDA military chaplains training; revised and extended) Paul asked me to share with you some reflections based on an event I attended last week at the University of Notre Dame. I start with this text: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). General Douglas…

I’m attending the Summer Institute for Faculty in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame. My reflections center on how to promote peacebuilding within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In our education, we need to encourage examination of the church’s heritage of noncombatancy, and its work in religious liberty, health and…

This article was originally prepared for the 180 Symposium sponsored by the Center for Youth Evangelism at Andrews University, May 7-9, 2019 (also posted here). All the papers will be published in a forthcoming volume by AdventSource. For the first time in U.S. history, Soldiers are deploying to a war that began before they were…

Rosa del Duca, Breaking Cadence: One Woman’s War Against the War. Portland, OR: Ooligan Press, 2019. Rosa del Duca joined the National Guard before 9-11. She was thinking about money for education, and interested in helping out in responding to disasters like wildfires. She hadn’t reflected on war or military service. She was a teenager…