Bob Ryan is correct that there’s absolutely nothing in FB …

Comment on Lawrence Geraty, Fritz Guy, and the Framing of Fundamental Belief #6 by David Read.

Bob Ryan is correct that there’s absolutely nothing in FB #6 as currently worded that hints at non-Adventist views. Anyone with an Adventist background who reads the statement will automatically read it as indicating literal, 24-hour days. This is indicated by the Sabbath commandment that is based upon the creation week. (See, Gen. 2:2-3; Exodus 20:11)

The idea that it somehow makes room for old life creationism of theistic evolution is entirely in the minds of those with reservations about the Adventist view of origins.

Nevertheless, the contention that it leaves room for these un-Adventist views (however much bad faith is implicated by such a contention) means that it needs to be and will be tightened up to indicate literal, contiguous, 24-hour days.

David Read Also Commented

Lawrence Geraty, Fritz Guy, and the Framing of Fundamental Belief #6
That should be, “old life creationism OR theistic evolution.”

By the way, I’m impressed to emphasize Bill Eichner’s observation about how long the liberal conspiracy has been working inside the church. We’re here talking about wiggle room on FB#6 that liberals secretly left themselves over 30 years ago. And the conspiracy (that is now bearing fruit) to take La Sierra away from the SDA Church has been underway for about 40 years.

I’m discouraged about the prospects of traditional Adventism, because traditionalists tend to leave the church and start independent ministries, whereas liberals use every scrap of political guile and skill and planning and networking and lobbying to liberalize the OFFICIAL church. They’ve been working very hard for decades, and they now control great swaths of the official church.


Recent Comments by David Read

LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: I do not agree that science must be naturalistic, but if that is your bottom line, it will not trouble me much where it concerns most day-to-day science–the study of current, repeating phenomena. But a rigid naturalism applied to origins morphs into philosophical atheism. Hence, mainstream origins science is not science but atheistic apologetics. This is what should not be done at an Adventist school, but sadly what has been the rule at La Sierra.


Dr. Paul Cameron and the God of the Gaps
@Pauluc: The Adventist doctrine of creation is that God created the world in six days and rested on the Seventh day and hallowed it. (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:11) Do you believe that doctrine? It won’t do to say that you accept some vague “Christian doctrine of creation.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a very specific mission to call people back to the worship of the creator God, on the day that He hallowed at the creation.

You say you believe that the “core doctrine of Christianity is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ,” but what was Jesus Christ incarnated to do? Wasn’t his mission to redeem fallen humanity, to be the second Adam who succeeded where the first Adam failed? And doesn’t your view of origins make nonsense of a perfect creation, a literal Adam who fell, and the need for redemption because of Adam’s sin? You seem to want to gloss over all the very profound differences you have not only with Seventh-day Adventist dcotrine, but with the most basic reasons that Seventh-day Adventism exists.

The syncretistic hodgepodge religion you’ve created for yourself, combining elements of a biblical world view (the incarnation) and elements of a pagan worldview (a self-created creation) is not Adventism. It is anti-Seventh-day Adventism.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Holly Pham: Holly, I will try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: Since no creationist could land a job as chairman of a biology department at a public university, it seems entirely appropriate that no Darwinist should be given the chairmanship of a biology department of a Seventh-day Adventist college.

The SDA educational system doesn’t exist to expensively duplicate the public university system. It exists to provide a uniquely biblical and Seventh-day Adventist education to interested young people. If mainstream origins science is correct in its assumptions and conclusions about our origins, the entire enterprise of Seventh-day Adventism is an utterly foolish waste of time. So at Adventist institutions, our professors should assume that Darwinistic science is false, and that creationistic science is true (just the reverse of how it is done at public universities), and proceed accordingly.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@gene fortner: What I like about your list of topics, Gene, is that it points out that many disciplines are implicated in the necessary change of worldview. It isn’t just biology and geology, although those are the main ones. History, archeology, anthropology and other disciplines should also be approached from a biblical worldview. The biblical worldview should pervade the entire curriculum.