Comment on A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education by Sean Pitman.
@GMF:
This is a very good question…
It seems to me though that the educational endowment in this case is going to be under the control of the Northern California Conference, not any one particular school. This should make it more difficult for an individual school to go rogue, outside of the oversight of the entire conference. I would hope that this would also make it more difficult to promote ideas in any one of our schools that directly undermine Adventist ideals… since the entire conference would have to go rogue for that to happen on a significant scale.
Of course, it would be even better along these lines if the General Conference as a whole started up an educational endowment program. But, for now, this seems to me to be a good start. If we wait for all the problems with Adventist education to be ironed out, we’ll be waiting forever. However, I live in northern California and I have to say that Adventist education, as it currently stands in this region of the country, is still the very best option we can provide for our young people.
That is why I am committing myself to a sizable monthly contribution to this endowment fund.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
@Professor Kent:
The elements of what is commonly known as the “Spiritual Formation” movement or the promotion of “Contemplative Prayer” by the leaders of this movement are what undermine Christianity in that they mirror various forms of eastern mysticism. Some of these elements make “truth” relative to the individual and negate the primary importance and objectivity of the claims of the Bible.
There is also a danger in various forms of prayer that “empty the mind” via the use of repetitive words or phrases (regardless of the type of “centering” word or phrase chosen). The mind and thoughts are directed inward and the mind made open to suggestion without critical thinking or comparison to the claims of the Scriptures. The higher thoughtful mind is not engaged. In other words, one’s personal experience and feelings take primacy over intelligently and rationally considering the written Word and having an intellectual conviction regarding its origin and authority.
Such methods are now being preached from some of our pulpits and taught in some of our own schools. These ‘New Age’ mystical concepts are indeed a source of concern for our church today – as well as all Christian churches.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
@David Read:
That is why it is better to endow educational programs at the conference or even the General Conference level. This would have the effect of giving the organized church more control when it comes to the governance of our church schools, making it much harder for an individual school to go rogue independent of the church at the conference level or higher.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
@Monse Salazar:
I certainly agree with these concerns, but I don’t think our school system as a whole has gotten to a point where it is not worthy of our collective financial support. We can still support our schools financially while voicing our concerns for these other issues at the same time.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
