“LSU biology faculty have faith that God is their Creator…” http://pacificunionrecorder.adventistfaith.org/issue/14/11/231 …

Comment on LSU board affirms support for church’s creation doctrine by Sean Pitman, M.D..

“LSU biology faculty have faith that God is their Creator…”

http://pacificunionrecorder.adventistfaith.org/issue/14/11/231

Pacific Union Recorder: “The La Sierra biology faculty have faith that God is their Creator and Sustainer,” said James Wilson, Ph.D., department chair. “Each faculty member understands the important responsibility to facilitate broad education in biology in ways that embrace the Adventist perspective of God as the Creator of all things.”

Time and again I’ve heard this very same line from the leadership of LSU – “We all believe in God as the Creator here at LSU.” Geraty told me this the first time I spoke at LSU some 5 years ago now. Wisbey has used this very same line many times himself. The problem is that many of LSU’s science professors, while believing in God, don’t believe that he created all life on this planet in 6 literal days just a few thousand years ago. They believe that God first created life on this planet a few billion years ago and that these early forms of primitive life gradually evolved, in a Darwinian manner, over eons of time until mankind finally arrived on the scene a few million years ago.

This is what many believe at LSU and are teaching to their students as the gospel truth. This is the type of “Creator” in which they believe – – not even close to the type of Creator God presented in the fundamental beliefs of the SDA Church as an organization. These professors are clearly and unabashadly theistic evolutionists who strongly and consistently oppose the SDA idea of a literal creation week in their classrooms – calling those who do believe in such an antiquated notion that “lunatic fringe” in both the classroom and in public press.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/01/evolution?utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Big+News.

So, in short, I find such statements published by LSU and now the Pacific Union Recorder highly disingenuous if not deliberately deceptive. Larry Becker knows full well what people will think when they read his article – They will think that LSU’s science professors are actually only teaching “about” the mainstream theory of evolution, but do not actually believe it personally and are not really promoting it as truth to their students. That is the impression given by Becker’s article – an impression that Becker himself has to know is very far from the true situation at LSU.

Such deceptive tactics are much worse that the actual practice of promoting mainstream evolutionary theories at LSU. It would be far better for LSU’s leadership to simply come clean and openly admit what their own professors do in fact believe and teach their students on the Church’s dime. Why this need to misdirect future parents, students, and the Church constituency at large? – with carefully chosen words that are calculated to cloud the truth rather than to reveal it?

For a summary of the current situation at LSU see the following open letter:

http://www.educatetruth.com/letters/open-letter-to-general-conference/

Sean Pitman
http://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.