Author Archives: Juliette Johnson

Pedersen Donation

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Borge Shantz and the Pedersen family were present to present the papers and materials of an early missionary, Emanuel Pedersen, during the Chapel service at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on April 17, 2007. After the Chapel service, there was an open house for them at the Center for Adventist Research.

Borge Shantz spoke about Emanuel Pedersen describing his life and work. With his Danish passport in hand Emanuel W. Pedersen, lived on four continents and in six different countries. This incredible history was with one intention: to share the eternal gospel to thousands of human beings.

Emanuel was born in Odense, Denmark on May 28. 1904, the same town that Hans Christian Andersen was born. Friends and family say he had a real way about him, that made him a very good salesman. Emanuel Pedersen became when quite young an excellent literature evangelist. Especially in the summer months between the studies at the mission school in Nærum. After school he got a number of different jobs like teacher, preacher, field-secretary and evangelist. He never held a job outside of the church.

Emanuel traveled together with his lovely wife Esther in 1937 to Uganda as a missionary. After extensive negotiations with Uganda’s Minister of Education the school that was to become Bugema University became a lasting reality. In the years 1943-1953 they worked in Kenya.

Emanuel worked in the church for 40 plus years and was on sustenance for 30 plus years. Though he was retired he did not sit at home and spend all his time reading the Washington Post and the Review and Herald. He was an advisor to the General Conference President, and in 1971 he traveled to Iran as a guest for the 2,500 year anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great.

The Pedersen collection will be a useful resource to researchers and is a welcome addition to the Center for Adventist Research.

Borge Shantz

Borge Shantz

Archiving the Adventist Web

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In the fall of 2006 an exciting new project was launched at the Center. The rapid proliferation of Adventist related Internet resources has led us to begin archiving the Adventist Web. The Website Archive project creates an electronic duplicate of Internet sites that are operated by entities and organizations in the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. We also include as many other Adventist related organizations as possible regardless of their orientation. While difficult to fully identify, we are also attempting to preserve copies of selected forums and blogs.

Since the rise of the Adventist Internet in the early 1990s the Center for Adventist Research has selectively printed paper copies of Adventist-related Internet resources. Now, an electronic archive will enhance access and be more comprehensive. The web’s dynamic nature means that websites will need to be archived repeatedly. We envision that in future years researchers will use our Adventist Website Archive as a primary source for finding Adventist online information and discussions from the past.

The Center will download the selected Internet sites once a year. More active sites and blogs will be copied more frequently. There are certain challenges with a project of this nature. We have discovered that forums are particularly difficult to archive. Some sites have limited bandwidth. We have been guilty on rare occasions of slowing down some servers.

A special thanks to our friends who have provided partial funding to launch this project and particularly Robert Johnston, Seminary professor emeritus, who first suggested the idea at our annual friend’s dinner.

We could not have done this without your help