I don’t scare easily, but I recall like yesterday how terrified I was. It happened in the mid-1980s when I worked in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon, about 250 kilometers from the coast. I was the manager of the Imprimerie Adventiste, the denominational publishing house and printing plant for the French-speaking part of Africa. That day I had gone for some business to Douala—the port city at a 40-minute flight from where I lived. When I had finished my mission and returned to the airport, I missed the last flight of the day back home. I had no desire to spend the night in a hotel, so I d ..read more

This essay is about life and death, and about life after death. It is an intimate and personal topic, because it touches directly on my own life and inevitable death. I know that I am alive. The fact that I am writing this is sufficient proof that I am still in the land of the living. But I also know with absolute certainty that one day I will die. It would be foolish of me were I not to recognize that most of my life is over. I don’t want to ruminate too much about my inevitable demise, but I have reached the phase that, according to Psalms 90:10, “by reason of strength” I’ve made it past thr ..read more

Volodymir Oleksandrovych Zelensky is the 46-year-old president of Ukraine. In his earlier life he was a comedian and actor who played the role of president in a popular TV series. Seeing that his country was suffering from political chaos and deeply entrenched corruption, he ran for the presidency in the national elections. Zelensky won those elections with an overwhelming majority of 73 percent of the votes. He was installed on May 20, 2019 as the sixth president of the second largest country in Europe, with a population of some 44 million. Now, a few years later, he is widely admired for his ..read more

On Tuesday mornings I can usually be found in the basement of the office of the Netherlands Union of Seventh-day Adventists. I am one of a small number of volunteers who are steadily working on building and optimizing the denominational archive in our country. Documents from the past are sorted, categorized, described, and stored in folders and document boxes. When we have finalize a particular period the boxes goes to the Provincial Archives in Utrecht, where the storage conditions are optimal and where interested parties can consult it. Recently I worked my way through a thick stack of docum ..read more

About two months ago (September 15, 2023 to be precise), Dr. Joo-hee Park, the president of the (Adventist) Sahmyook Health University in Korea, introduced ADAM. The participants in the conference of the Asian chapter of the Global Adventist Internet Network (GAIN-Asia) were informed about a unique project: Park and his team are developing a robot which can serve as an assistant-Bible-instructor. The robot is being trained in knowledge of the Bible and in the details of the 28 Fundamental Adventist Beliefs. Park gave the assurance that the ‘training’ of the robot will be extremely thorough, to ..read more

Adventist leaders might benefit from a study of Dutch church history. The Netherlands have become a very secular country, but its spiritual roots continue to shape at least part of its national identity. Through the centuries religion and church were crucial pillars of Dutch society, and its theologians were respected far beyond its borders. Moreover, Dutch ecclesial life was diverse, to say the least. A striking maxim underscored this: One Dutchman, and you have a theologian; two Dutchmen makes a church; three Dutchmen and there is a schism. The two southernmost provinces of the Netherlands r ..read more

In his sermon during the recent Annual Council, our General Conference president commented on the ‘shaking’. In our Adventist jargon this term refers to a specific phase during the climax of end-time events, just before the ‘close of probation.’ Large numbers of believers will give up on the ‘truth’, turn their back on the ‘remnant’ church—and as a result will be eternally lost. The concept of the ‘remnant’, and the conviction that ‘probation’ will close, as well as the expectation of an imminent ‘shaking’, raise all sorts of questions. Specifically: When I look at all Bible passages in which ..read more

Lectori Salutem. These Latin words sound like a somewhat solemn invocation–and there’s a reason for it. After much hesitation, I have come to a decision. This will be my last weekly blog. I don’t know exactly how many pieces I have written since I started, but I estimate the number to be well over 800. I began this project shortly after I became the president of the Dutch Adventist Church, in late 2002. Every week I posted a blog on the website of the Netherlands Union. It proved to be an excellent means of communicating with the church membership. After I retired at the end of 2007, I switche ..read more

Does God favor Argentina? I am not a soccer fan. I have never attended a soccer match in a stadium. So far, during this World Cup, I have watched maybe 20 minutes of matches on TV. And I look on with great amazement as a frenzied crowd goes wild when their favorite team scores. Of course, I did follow the Dutch team’s performance in Qatar, and I am aware that the Dutch lost to Argentina, when it finally came down to penalties. (Actually, a strange way to decide a match. To me it looks like a lottery.) One in every three Dutch people watched the Netherlands-Argentina match. That is considerably ..read more

Since about two months I am the proud owner of an Apple Smartwatch. I got it for my birthday from my wife, at the suggestion of my son. The idea is, that for a man like me, who is somewhat advanced in age, this smartwatch can help monitor all sorts of health issues. The device not only looks smart, but can–in combination with my smartphone–also do an incredible amount of different things. Using all sorts of sensors, the smartwatch can count the number of footsteps during my daily walk, measure how many stairs I’ve climbed, the exact distance I’ve covered, and the calories I’ve consumed in thes ..read more