Elder Jerry Page
June 21, 2010
Pacific Union Conference Officers
Post Office Box 5005
Westlake Village, CA 91359
La Sierra University Board of Trustees
4500 Riverwalk Parkway
Riverside, CA 92515
Dear Friends,
Our hearts and voices are continually lifted up in prayer for you as you wrestle with the very sensitive and difficult issues at La Sierra. Our Central California Conference Executive Committee spent quality time at our June 15 meeting discussing those very issues and voted unanimously to share our beliefs and convictions with you as a constituent conference leadership group.
Following are key points of our voted action:
The Central California Conference strongly affirms all of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church found in God’s Word. This includes the sixth belief regarding Creation.
We affirm the historic Adventist position that Creation occurred in seven literal 24-hour days forming a week, identical in time to what we now experience.
We agree with the voted 2004 Annual Council response to the document titled “An Affirmation of Creation†as submitted by the International Faith & Science Conferences.
We appreciate and agree with Pastor Paulsen’s appeal letter to the church of June 6, 2009 calling all teachers in colleges and universities to teach according to these voted and affirmed beliefs, and his call for all of us in leadership to hold the faculty accountable to this sacred ministry. See attached or http://news.adventist.org/statements/an-appeal.html
Our Executive Committee and leadership team also wishes to:
1. Express our deep concern regarding reports of professors at La Sierra who do not fully affirm and teach these beliefs.
2. Make clear our appreciation and support of the efforts and actions the La Sierra University Board of Trustees has taken in pursuit of solutions to this situation. We appreciate your voted affirmation last November that La Sierra stands for these principles and will hold the administration accountable to implement your actions.
3. Share our deep sense of concern that the young people, many of which come from our conference, are taught by teachers that fully agree with our core beliefs, thus affirming our students’ faith in the Word of God and the fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
4. Make it extremely clear that young people are of great importance and priority to us. Therefore, we have a duty to solicit assurances of a satisfactory outcome. We affirm your efforts, but feel after a year of process that a decisive and conclusive resolution needs to occur very soon. We cannot continue to risk our young people’s faith or their parents’ trust in us for much longer and will soon need to consider whether further actions are warranted.
5. Ask for regular reports of progress to our Executive Committee and the officers of the Conference. Honest, transparent communication is essential and will avoid gossip and hearsay.
Our prayers are continually with you. We realize these issues can be very difficult to deal with fairly and yet firmly. Thank you for your serious consideration and understanding of our deep concern and urgency for clear and definitive resolutions.
Your brother in Christ,
Jerry N. Page
President, Central California Conference
XC: GC Officers, NAD Officers, Pacific Union GC Delegates, CCC Pastors & Principals
P.S. “An Affirmation of Creation†by the International Faith & Science Conferences, and the voted response by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Executive Committee 2004 Annual Council can be found at: http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main_stat54.html http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main_stat55.html
