Zdravko Plantak

Can you “have too much religion”? Depends on what you mean by religion, of course, but from one perspective, the answer is surely, “Yes!”

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines addiction as “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects.” Could this apply to the way we approach religion too?

Say what you like about the Pharisees, but at least they were totally committed to their religion. All too often we paint a caricature of these God-fearing believers, labeling them as just bunch of legalists, hypocritical, and self-righteous.

But let’s look a little deeper. Their name comes from the Aramaic word for “separated,” since they wanted to live different lives from others, more committed to the truths of Scripture. They were a lay-led movement who wanted to help others take their faith more seriously. This led them into the role as the main religious teachers in the country.

After the disaster of the Exile to Babylon, those who returned to Judea determined to follow God better, and not to make the same mistakes that had led them into captivity in the first place. The Pharisees were an extension of this perspective, wanting to do all that God had said in the most detailed manners.

In many ways then we can identify with the Pharisees. They were doing what they thought was right. And there’s the problem, right there. The concentrating on doing. Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees was that they only did what they understood God wanted and thought that it didn’t matter who they were. In the words of Francis Chan, “If God cared only about religious activities, then the Pharisees would have been heroes of the faith.” They concentrated so much on religious actions that they didn’t even consider inner principles and motivations.

They took this to such extremes that they could readily be classified as being addicted to religion. What they thought they needed to do for their faith influenced every aspect of their lives. From the moment they woke up to the time they fell asleep, their primary concern was making sure they kept all the religious rules. Their self-worth depended on such religious affirmation just as much as a drug addict depends on their latest “fix.” To help with this, they looked for the approval of others by being called “Rabbi” in the marketplace, praying on street corners, or looking miserable when they were fasting.

Let’s ask a few questions. Was it compulsive? Yes. Was it chronic behavior? Yes. Was it habit-forming? Yes. Did it have “harmful physical, psychological, or social effects”? Yes. So, by definition they were addicts, addicted to religion.

Now comes some questions: How do you deal with such people and such behavior? What do we learn from the way that Jesus treated them, remembering that “sometimes we emulate the Pharisees more than we imitate Christ.” (R. C. Sproul). How does Jesus speak to us if we exhibit such thinking?

Interestingly, he identifies with them, at least in their role of teaching God’s truth! He tells both the crowds and his disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees are the authorized interpreters of Moses’ Law. So, you must obey and follow everything they tell you to do …” (Matthew 23:2, 3 GNT).

But then he gets to the heart of the matter when he continues, “Do not, however, imitate their actions, because they don’t practice what they preach.” (Matthew 23:3 GNT). Here’s the problem with such a religious addiction. You are so caught up with all the doing that you don’t really do things with meaning and proper perspective. You just go through the motions. Nor do you stop to consider the fundamental question of why you’re doing what you do. You have the requirements, so you just follow them. In this, they were just like the people God addressed through Isaiah (1:11, 13 NLT): “‘What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?’ says the LORD. ‘I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats … . Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgusts me! As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days for fasting—they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings.’”

This from the God who spent so much time describing in detail the sacrificial system! Yet if you’re a religious addict, you think that’s what is required so you concentrate on just doing that. So how did Jesus deal with these people who are too often so much like you and me?

The first point to make surely is that even though he had some tough words for them at times, Jesus wanted them to respond to his offer of love and salvation. He told them “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Of course, the Pharisees saw themselves as righteous and healthy when they were not. His call, repeating Hosea 6:6, was a reminder that God wanted care for others, justice for the marginalized, and heartfelt love for those in need so much more than he wanted religious observance in the form of sacrifices. But if you are sure that you are on God’s side doing what he wants, why do you need to worry about that?

So that’s one example. Jesus is trying to get them to think. In the over eighty instances in the gospels of Jesus’ interacting with the Pharisees, that is primarily what he is attempting—to break through the outward shell of religious duty to get to the inner person and develop a relationship with them. Generally, he failed because they were so sure they were right. They were so addicted and had invested so much in their “system” that to admit they were wrong was to them an impossibility. Yet there were a few who responded, such as Nicodemus, who is identified as a Pharisee.

In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounced seven woes on the Pharisees, calling them hypocrites, blind guides, and even snakes! He catalogues their errors and speaks truth to power. This shows that, at times, direct interventions are necessary in dealing with addicts, especially religious addicts. But even here it is done in love, for Jesus weeps over them and all the people of Jerusalem who would not come to him (Matthew 23:37, 38).

These hyper-religious people cannot even see anything wrong in plotting murder after Jesus heals a man with crippled hand in synagogue on Sabbath (see Matthew 12:14). They are so furious about him “breaking” the Sabbath by healing, they don’t see that they are breaking the commandment by trying to kill him.

So, let’s bring it home and ask ourselves some pointed questions. In what ways may we Adventists be guilty of believing some alternative to the true good news of God? Getting obsessed over the furniture in the Sanctuary? Identifying the toes in the image of Daniel 2? Preaching salvation through vegetarianism? Being preoccupied with the King of the North? Being addicted to apocalypticism? Arguing over the 28 Fundamentals? Taking up the cudgels to beat one another over the role of women? Making tithe-paying the passport to the kingdom?

We all have our hobby-horses when it comes to the kind of Adventists we are. The problem for the Pharisees was not just their rule-keeping but they were so totally confident in their system. In the end they crucified the Lord of the Sabbath and then went home to keep the Sabbath. Jesus says to all of us, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20 NIV). 

It’s a whole different kind of righteousness Jesus is talking about—it’s not about being so sure you’re right. It is righteousness that breaks the chains of pharisaical addiction to religion as a system and legalistic obedience to become more of a loving person who is focused on others more than focused on self and the rules that could easily cause the death of a Savior on Friday so that they could observe the celebration of Sabbath. 

The questions remain: how can the pharisaical addiction to religion blind us to pursue God’s desire for us to be God’s hands and feet and heart in the broken world today? Do we contribute to brokenness by being stiff religious addicts or do we work on healing the world in the spiritual and physical realm by loving our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39)?

Zdravko (Zack) Plantak, PhD, is a professor of religion and ethics at the School of Religion at Loma Linda University. Email him at: [email protected]

By Zdravko Plantak – “What is truth?” asked a cynical governor, not waiting for an answer.¹ In his eyes he didn’t need to, because as supreme leader, he was the one who defined truth. Truth was what he said it was.

As commander of the Roman occupying power, he certainly didn’t need to be told what the truth was by some Jewish prisoner brought to be condemned by religious leaders who had also defined what truth was. He, Pontius Pilatus, even had the ultimate power of life and death over everyone in the province. His question was a rhetorical disregard for knowing “what is truth.?”

The Bible has much to say about truth. God’s word is truth (John 17:17). We differentiate truth and falsehood through our response to God (1 John 4:6). Jesus says he is the truth (John 14:6).The Spirit guides into all truth (John 16:13). The truth sets us free (John 8:32). Yet there are many varieties of “truth” out there, even among Christians.

So, the real question for us is how we determine “what is truth?” especially in a world of conspiracy theories, “fake news,” and vaccine misinformation.

Many have suggested ways by which we discover the truth. Of course, there are even different levels of truth. The factual (e.g. water is a liquid), the experiential (you fall as a result of gravity), the abstract (most aspects of religion, etc.). But across subjects and disciplines, there are some generally accepted ways of determining what is true. So, let’s look at them and see how they relate, especially to fundamental aspects of “truth knowing” that are philosophical and religious.

Just a fancy word to say, “Does it fit all the facts?” In other words, if you take everything you know about some subject, what concept brings those ideas together and makes sense of it all? It’s a bit like the scientific method which assembles all the known facts about an object or a process, develops a hypothesis that fits all that, and then designs an experiment to test the hypothesis.

Sometimes, such a process is not possible, so then we have to go back to a general coherence of what we know (That is a limitation of this aspect of determining truth. We rarely have “all the facts”). However, we can ask, “Is it more likely or more unlikely that something is true?”

Take for example, the resurrection of Jesus. We weren’t there to observe for ourselves. So, we have to examine the evidence that we have in order to draw our conclusion as to whether it is true. Certainly, those companions of Jesus believed it, and the resurrection is coherent with the rest of Christian belief. In fact, as Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless,” (1 Cor. 15:14 NLT).

This aspect really relates to the world we all observe. We could even say this approach to truth is saying “It’s obvious!” We may accept certain propositions as true without even thinking about them. Water gets you wet. Hot stove tops can burn you. Gravity pulls everything downward. Such a consensus of truth is based on common experience. We can also apply consensus to abstract ideas such as love and goodness, and their opposites, though there will always be arguments about how they are defined. For Christians, some examples of consensus would be “There is a God”; “The Bible is his Word”; “Jesus came to save us.”

Paul uses a kind of consensus argument when he says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse,” (Romans 1:20 NIV). Some, of course, may disagree with such a consensus statement, and the different Christian denominations are proof that consensus is hard to achieve, despite the attempts of ecumenism. In the words of Woodrow Kroll, “Truth can’t be judged on the basis of popularity.”²

While you could separate these out, they all follow similar logic, and all have the same problematic issues when it comes to determining truth. Sometimes we say that a proposition of truth has “stood the test of time.” In other words, if people have believed something is true over a long time period, it must necessarily be true, for if it were not, it would have been discarded. It doesn’t take much thought to conclude that even if a belief has been around for a long time, that doesn’t make it true. The same applies to custom and tradition. Custom says, “We’ve always done it this way, so it must be right.” Clearly not necessarily true.

Similarly with tradition. From a Christian perspective, appeal is often made to the “tradition of the church fathers.” While their experience should be considered, just because it was their belief doesn’t necessarily make it true. In fact, some beliefs and practices that are seen as true because of tradition may be at variance with what the Bible says. As Jesus told the religionists of his day, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:9 NIV).

Many appeals to truth are done with reference to some authority. In other words, because someone famous (or even a divine figure) says something is true, then it surely must be. The question to be raised first is, “What is the reason this person is given the status of an authority figure?” (It may be because of previous statements that have been accepted, or lifestyle, or claims). We do this frequently today by appealing to “experts,” or to powerful leaders. However, once again, claims to truth do not necessarily make things true. In religion, appeals to the authority of church leaders are made as a way to determine truth or otherwise. Thomas a Kempis wisely observed, “Do not be influenced by the importance of the writer, and whether his learning be great or small, but let the love of pure truth draw you to read. Do not inquire, who said this? but pay attention to what is said.” ³

Yet we must admit we are all fallible, and sometimes those in power may have other reasons for asserting “truth” other than the fact that it is true. Jesus had to deal with questions of authority in terms of his truth-telling. The religious leaders came to Jesus. “‘By what authority are you doing these things?’ they asked. ‘And who gave you authority to do this?’” (Mark 11:28 NIV). Authority in and of itself doesn’t determine truth.

This aspect is often used to say something is “always true.” In mathematics for example, strict logic applies. Two and two always makes four. That statement is always true. Or in logic we can say that “A” is not “non-A.” That is invariably true. In religion, the equivalent statement of consistency is “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8 NIV). Jesus is consistent, and this is taken as a baseline of truth. Appealing to the importance of logic, hymn writer Isaac Watts wrote, “It was a saying of the ancients, ‘Truth lies in a well;’ and to carry on this metaphor, we may justly say that logic does supply us with steps, whereby we may go down to reach the water.” ⁴

“I just feel it’s true.” Such a statement cannot be tested or verified, and so is not a means to determine truth. People have different feelings about many subjects, and they cannot all be true. Yet this is frequently the most common attempt to define what the person believes to be true.

We cannot trust what we feel. Francis Schaeffer observes, “We must stress that the basis for our faith is neither experience nor emotion but the truth as God has given it in verbalized, prepositional form in the Scripture and which we first of all apprehend with our minds.” ⁵ Similarly Jeremiah: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV).

Just like the previous aspect, instinct and intuition cannot be seen as reliable guides to discovering what is true. While we may “instinctively” know that we need to drink when we’re thirsty, and while it may be true that we have a “spiritual thirst,” the fact that we come to different conclusions as to what to do and where to go indicates that this is not a reliable way of finding truth. Intuition, similarly, leads people in different directions.

And yet, Ellen White admonished believers that “we must sink the shaft deep in the mine of truth. You may question matters with yourselves and with one another if you only do it in the right spirit; but too often self is large, and as soon as investigation begins, an unchristian spirit is manifested. This is just what Satan delights in, but we should come with a humble heart to know for ourselves what is truth.” ⁶

So, having examined these different aspects, how do we, in fact, discover truth? First, it’s clear we need to use our minds! God gave them to us so we could separate right from wrong, to differentiate between truth and error. Don’t listen to people who tell you to leave your brain at the church door!

Then examine the evidence. Ask yourself, does it make sense? Read the Bible and ask what it tells you about God and the way he relates to human beings. Most of all, look at the life of Jesus who said so clearly, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” (John 14:9 NIV). Look for some of those aspects mentioned above—logic, consistency, coherence and so on.

Also, admit that you have to make some assumptions. Like, there is a God. That he’s involved with this planet. That he cares for us. And so on. But then ask yourself, “What kind of God is represented here?” For that’s the most important aspect of discovering truth.

Pilate didn’t wait for an answer to his question. But Jesus had already answered it beforehand, when he told Pilate, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me,” (John 18:37 NIV). Discover the truth as it is in Jesus!

— Zdravko (Zack) Plantak, PhD, is a professor of religion and ethics at the School of Religion at Loma Linda University. Email him at: [email protected]

1 https://www.thoughtco.com/of-truth-by-francis-bacon-1690073

2 https://www.pvariel.com/dr-woodrow-krolls-quotes-from-giants-of-the-old-testament-part-iv/

3 https://www.christianquotes.info/quotes-by-topic/quotes-about-truth/

4 https://www.bartleby.com/349/302.html

5 https://www.christianquotes.info/quotes-by-author/francis-schaeffer-quotes/

6 Ellen G. White, Counsels to Writer and Editors, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Assoc, 1946), p. 42.

By Zdravko Plantak — “I hate your Sabbaths!” This sounds like a pretty strong sentiment, right? “I hate, I despise your feasts, I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, . . . Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of the harps, I will not listen.” These are, of course, God’s words recorded by a prophet. Amos penned them in the context of what seems to be utterly detestable to God–Sabbath assemblies and worships that are not matched by social justice that rolls down like an ever-flowing stream. And Amos is not ambiguous on what is at stake in the same chapter [Amos 5] where he defines the social injustice problems in crystal clarity: “You trample on the poor, . . . you oppress . . . and deprive the poor of justice, . . . you turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.”

Of course, Amos is not the only prophet who suggests similar lines of thinking that link the issues of Sabbath and justice. In Isaiah 1, the community is called to repentance from meaningless worship and evil Sabbath assemblies (Vs. 13), “Sabbaths and convocations. I cannot bear your evil assembles . . . as they have become a burden to [God]” because the faithful do not “seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Vs. 17, 22-23). The anger of God is against those who have ruined God’s vineyard (God’s people, Is. 5:7) because “the plunder of the poor is in [their] houses [because they are crushing God’s people] and grinding the faces of the poor” (Is. 3:14-15).

I hope to briefly develop three constructive points, as I think we would do well to look again at the meaning of Sabbath observance and its relationship to necessary social implications and applications through the vision of the prophetic responsibility.

Sabbath’s Universality

Philo’s expression that the Sabbath is “the birthday of the world” and consequently a “festival, not of a single city or country, but of the universe” (Philo, On the Creation, XXX, as cited in Sakae Kubo, God Meets Men: A Theology of Sabbath and Second Coming, 1978), p. 19.), points to the universality of the Sabbath. And the universal Sabbath makes no distinction among people. Instead, it makes all people equal before God.

Sabbath teaching does not involve only the Sabbath day; it concerns the other six days of the week as well. The atmosphere and the principles of the Sabbath will not only “extend beyond the worship service to the dinner table and the living room” (Kubo, p. 27.) on the seventh day, but they would also become a part of the Sabbath attitude which ought to be practiced throughout the week. In the words of Jack Provonsha:

True Sabbath-keeping touches the whole of life. The Sabbath sanctifies the week. One cannot be dishonest on Monday and truly keep the Sabbath, because Sabbath- keeping is essentially a posture toward God that is not a one-day-in-seven kind of activity. (A Remnant in Crisis, 1993, p. 87.)

The concern for other people which the believer is called to have on the Sabbath must be extended to a way of life exercised daily. The Sabbatical concern, which extends from the weekly Sabbaths to Sabbatical years also, was to teach the faithful about the needs of the less fortunate, the poor, the widows and the orphans (Ex. 35:12-33). In a similar way, we must develop a greater “Sabbatical” conscience for the poor, the unfortunate, the racially and ethnically disadvantaged, and the powerless whose basic human rights are denied.

As Karen Mains suggests, without the meaningful Sabbath cycle, our spiritual world is being ravaged, defoliated and deforested . . . as the forests in the Amazon River Basin in Brazil, and with similar spiritual consequences. “We have become a dehydrated people, with meager spiritual life, dwelling in desert places of the soul. God meant when He said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” (Making Sunday Special, 1987, p. 145)

You see, without true Sabbath observance, without regularly entering that promised rest, our personal spirituality and our social concern can become dehydrated, deforested, and ravaged. We are becoming dehydrated people because we forget what Sabbath could bring to our compassion, relationship with, and love for others. On the other hand, a weekly reminder of God’s Shalom offered through Sabbath observance can replenish our compassion for and interest in others.

In the prophet Isaiah’s vision, in that oft-quoted passage in Chapter 58, that one needs to keep one’s feet from breaking the Sabbath and calling it delight (Is, 58:13) is directly linked to the earlier verses that have explicit social justice connection that elaborates on what may be a day acceptable to the Lord: “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and break every yoke; to share your food with the hungry, to provide the poor sojourn with shelter, to clothe the person you see naked, to spend yourselves on behalf of hungry and satisfy the need of the oppressed” (Is 58: 6.7.10).

Jesus is again the supreme example of the way God desired to have fellowship with man and how He intended the Sabbath to bring meaning to the worshipping community. As “the Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), Jesus took pains to clarify the true meaning of the Sabbath. At the time of Jesus, the Sabbath had become a legalistic exercise of self- righteousness on behalf of different groups of believers who wanted to prove their perfection. Jesus, however, pointed out to the almost forgotten humanitarian function of the fourth commandment. As one commentator notes, To counteract prevailing legal interpretations which restricted humanitarian service on the Sabbath to emergency situations only, Jesus intentionally ministered on this day to persons who were not critically, but chronically ill. (Samuele Bacchiocchi, Divine Rest for Human Restlessness, 1980, pp. 194-195)

In such a way Jesus pressed the Sabbath into salvation history, making it a day intended for the benefit of humankind.

The Sabbath points to equality among all human beings. It is a memorial to God, the Creator. Remembering weekly that God is our Creator, and that all human beings are only creatures among whom the differences are really non-essential, should encourage Sabbath observers to accept and respect others regardless of their occupation, race, culture or nationality, ethnic or economic background, ability or disability, or their occupation, or educational level.

Sabbath’s Liberation

So, the Sabbath becomes the true means of liberation for humanity. It celebrates God’s merciful act of liberation and deliverance from the bondage of Egypt (Deut. 5:15), but it also points to the ultimate liberation from sin and all its consequences.

Charles Bradford remarked in his treatise on “The Sabbath and Liberation” that the Sabbath lay at the very heart of the first great freedom movement. Moses delivered God’s message to Pharaoh: “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me” (Ex. 7:16). This was a direct appeal to Pharaoh to allow the enslaved people to observe the Sabbath rest. Later, God re-established the Sabbath as a sign of their liberation (Deuteronomy 5:15).

Moreover, this arrangement was to be permanent be- cause Sabbath rest and Sabbath observance is directly related to human dignity and freedom. Yahweh never intended for one human being to tyrannize another, or for one nation to subjugate another nation (Charles E. Bradford, “The Sabbath and Liberation: With the Sabbath, No One Can Keep Us Down,” Anchor Points, 1993, p. 28).

Several commentators call Isaiah’s description of the Sabbatical attitude in Isaiah 56:1-7 “Yahweh’s manifesto,” or God’s sign of freedom, independence and liberation. “Maintain justice and do what is right. . . . Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it.” And “Yahweh’s manifesto” is relevant and applicable to the whole human family, especially to the outcasts—the poor, the powerless, foreigners (e.g., refugees) and eunuchs (politically and economically impotent). Bradford adds that, “The Sabbath is a sign in perpetuity
and a constant reminder of the relationships that exist between human beings and their God and between human beings and their fellow humans” (p. 28).

In the words of Sakae Kubo: “Sabbath observance has integral social and humanitarian aspects that we dare not forget. The Sabbath, as sign of redemption, points in two directions—to our own redemption and to that of the oppressed. We must bring rest to those who live in servitude (p. 46).

Ironically, we have many times failed to recognize that Sabbath observance should initiate liberation beyond our own community. Even within the church, the principle of equality was not always practiced rigorously. But, as Kubo concludes, if Adventists “fail to practice true fellowship and genuine equality, they betray a lack of understanding of the Sabbath as a sign of fellowship and equality” (p. 46).

Sabbatical Year Principle Through Annual Sabbaths and the Sabbath of Sabbaths

In Deuteronomy 15, the extensions of the weekly Sabbath idea apply to the sabbatical year and the Year of Jubilee, and it emphasizes almost exclusively humanitarian aspects. From a week of days to a week of years, God’s desire for the poor and the oppressed to be liberated is the prime concern of the true Sabbatical attitude (Ex. 23:11 and Lev. 25:10).

It is fascinating to notice how Jesus’ programmatic speech in Luke 4, where He said that He came to “set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” resembles the description of the Year of Jubilee. If we listen carefully to Leviticus 25:5.8-11, and also the detailed description of the Year for Canceling Debts in Deut. 15:1-11, we can detect the resonances of Jesus’ announcement of His ministry in Luke 4.

Jesus’ work was the true Sabbatation, the proper celebration of the Sabbatical consciousness. The idea of the land resting (lying “unploughed and unused”) on the seventh year focuses on concern for the poor, the slave, the underdog, as well as the rights which go beyond mere human rights to protect and preserve the environment because God cares about the Earth to the point of destroying those who destroy the Earth.

Theodore Friedman, the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in New Jersey and a former editor of Judaism, wrote that the Sabbath “is the anticipation, the foretaste, the paradigm of life in the world-to-come” (“The Sabbath: Anticipation of Redemption,” in Judaism 16, 1967, p. 443).

True Sabbath keeping is “playing heaven.” Rabbi Friedman concludes his article by saying: “The Sabbath is at once the climax of that primordial time and the paradigm of the future time. Therefore, man should so conduct himself on the Sabbath as if the future time were already at hand”
(p. 447).

–Zdravko (Zack) Plantak, PhD, is professor of religion and ethics at the School of Religion at Loma Linda University. Email him at: [email protected]