The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics [Paperback]

The relationship between the Adventist church and society at large has always been ambiguous. One reason for this has been the church's inarticulate social ethics. While the church upheld the concept of human dignity, promoted religious liberty and sided with the poor, nationalism and racism developed among its members. Women in the church were also unfairly treated. Zdravko Plantak confronts this problem head-on. He begins by looking at the church's history, theology and ethics in order to discover reasons for the inconsistencies in its approach to human rights, and then moves on to propose a more comprehensive approach to its social ethics.Acknowledgements - Foreword; S.Kubo - Introduction - PART 1: SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS - Adventist Attitudes Towards Human Rights: A Historical Perspective - Emergence of Concern for Human Rights - PART 2: SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST RESPONSES TO SOME ISSUES IN HUMAN RIGHTS - Wealth Divide: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Poor - Racial Divide: Discrimination and Adventism: Historical and Theological Considerations - Gender Divide: The Role of Women in the Seventh-day Adventist Church - PART 3: SOCIAL THEOLOGY IN SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST SCHOLARSHIP - Reasons for Social Concern in Modern Adventism - Adventist's 'New Theology' - PART 4: THEOLOGY AND ETHICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST PERSPECTIVE - Philosophical Basis for Human Rights - A Common Theological Basis for Human Rights - Adventist Basis for Human Rights - Conclusion - Appendix 1: Seventh-day Adventists in the Former Yugoslavia During the 1990s War - Endnotes - Bibliography - IndexZdravko Plantak is Pastor in London and Kent, and an international speaker on Adventist issues.