La Sierra’s website says: You “[w]ill study with professors who will help you navigate issues of faith and science, in and out of the classroom, so that your faith in God is strengthened.”
Do Seventh-day Adventist parents want LSU biology professors who believe and teach evolution as the best explanation and doubt the divinity of Christ, helping their children navigate issues of faith and science?
This, the first of three public debates clashing the ideas of the Trinity vs. Biblical Unitarianism (not to be confused with Universalist Unitarianism), also called strict monotheism, was held in Riverside, California on Friday, December 30, 2005. This debate is a discussion between conservative Trinitarian and Unitarian Christians who both share a high respect for the grammatico-historical method of hermeneutics (exegesis and interpretation). Biblical Unitarian disputants in the debate are Lee Greer, director of The Jesus Institute Forum(http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org), Danny Andre Dixon, member of HungerTruth Christian Educational Ministries and moderator of the Disciples for One God discussion forum (http://4OneGod.net), and Dan Mages, director or Hunger Truth (http://HungerTruth.com). At the Trinitarian table are the three founding members of the Evangelical Debate Society (http://www.evdebate.com/), coached by Dr. Robert Morey of Faith Defenders Christian Ministry (www.faithdefenders.com). Disputants on the Trinitarian side are Gabriel Coleangelo (Pastor of DC Christian Fellowship, Moreno Valley, CA), Mike Sarkisian (Pastor of DC Christian Fellowship, Moreno Valley), and Edward Enochs, Reformed Presuppositional apologist in the tradition of Cornelius Van Til and prolific blogger for the society. This scholarly debate was lively and contains a lot of technical information relevant to the Trinity vs. Unitarian – Trinitarian vs. Unitarian discussion. Some irregularities in debate protocol are present when the Trinitarian side brings up new arguments in the last speech of the debate, but overall there is a lot of information in the discussion that will educate those uninformed about the major issues of the Trinity vs. Unity debate. The 2 hour 51 minute discussion was videotaped by Michael Hawkins and M.G. Dockery in the auditorium of the historic First Congregational Church 3504 Mission Avenue, Riverside, California (Rev. Jane Quandt, Senior Minister). Paul Millunzi did a masterful final edit for the Google video upload.
Lee Greer is currently a professor in the biology department at La Sierra University. In this video he defends the Unitarian position.
Unitarians believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament and other early Christian writings. Adhering to strict monotheism, they maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself. Unitarians believe in the moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity, of Jesus. Their theology is thus distinguishable from the theology of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, mainline Protestant, Pentecostal and other Christian denominations which hold the Trinity doctrine as a core belief (Wikipedia).
Greer begins his main rebuttal at 00:59.
April 2, 2010
This is the type of Adventist professors we’re hiring at LSU:
1. Rejects the historicity of Genesis 1-11
2. Rejects the divinity of Christ
3. Rejects the Spirit of Prophecy expressed in Ellen White
He’s not even Christian much less Adventist.
April 2, 2010
Greer butchered both context and content for John 1, John 8 and then John 17 in his less than compelling response to the points raised there. One might choose to be lax with him for doing such a sloppy job with context and content given the stand-up fast-paced nature of the debate – but then when you recall that the entire POV he is arguing for is every bit as corrupt as his treatmet of John 8 and John 17, a pattern begins to emerge.
The bigger problem here is that unsuspecting SDA parents and students who did NOT watch this video before spending time and money to have students trained by Greer – are subjecting students to Greer’s compromised POV when it comes to facts and truth.
But Greer could not have done this on his own. Someone had to hire him and someone had to choose to retain him “at all costs”.
in Christ,
Bob
April 2, 2010
I tried speaking with Greer through email, but his wife refused to let me communicate with him. She did all the writing.
Greer, I hear, is a really nice guy. But nice doesn’t cut it when you’re teaching theories contrary to your employer.
April 2, 2010
Far be it from me to claim that any of these people might not be “nice” in person. My argument is not that they are not nice – but that they are butchering the text to pursue a distinctively non-Adventist agenda at all costs.
It is possible that they may all be sincere in their errors. But we need to give them some alone-time to figure their way out of that paper bag before standing them up in front of SDA students as if they will not just go ahead and lead our young adults down the same slippery slope they have chosen for themselves.
In Christ,
Bob
April 9, 2010
This “nice” label reminds me of a book I purchased not long ago. The author is Timothy Smith and the book is entitled “The Danger of Raising NICE KIDS.” The Subtitle is “Preparing Our Children to Change Their World”
“Nice” people can open the door for others to go through, help a disabled person to make it safely across the street, use good table manners, etc–and Mr. Greer may be all of this–but we need and want MORE than this from our leaders and institutions. We need honest, God-fearing men and women in charge of our most precious possessions–our children. And a person is not honest if he (or she) takes a paycheck from an employer while underminding the employer’s foundational principles.
“The greatest want of the world is the want of men–men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.” EGW, Education, pg. 57 (And this applies to women also!!!)
Somehow I don’t see these characteristics in Mr. Greer or any of the other faculty members who are teaching “doctrines” that are destroying the faith of the young people entrusted to their care. Anyone who will take a paycheck from his employer while undermining the very foundation upon which his employer stands is certainly not the person who should be teaching our youth! They are welcome to their views but that does NOT give them license to undermine the very foundation of our church and indoctrinate young minds in error!
Further, I also don’t see those characteristics in some of the “higher-ups” who have allowed this despicable situation to continue for so many years. I don’t care how “spiritual” they may appear or how many “wonderful sermons” they may preach or how high they are in the chain of command–they are also betraying their God and they, as well as the teachers they are defending, should be dealt with speedily and firmly.
I, personally, am very grateful for the courage displayed by those who have spoken out and made these web sites available to the church at large. ‘Till I ran across these I was totally unaware that this was happening in our schools and other institutions (apparently LSU isn’t the only one–just the worst one). And I’m reasonably sure that a great number of our people are in the same situation. It isn’t preached from the pulpit and many, many of our people do not have access to a computer. (Many through choice, I might add–which absolutely amazes me.)
It is past time for this to be cleaned up from top to bottom and I hope and pray that strong action will be taken this summer. May God give us the kind of men and women that will pick up the torch of truth an courageously “clean house!”
Remember:
The Lambs Follow the Sheep
‘Twas a sheep, not a lamb, that went astray
In a parable Jesus told–
A grown-up sheep that had gone astray
From the ninety and nine in the fold.
The Lambs will follow the sheep. you know,
Wherever the sheep will stray,
If the sheep go wrong, it will not be long
‘Till the Lambs are as wrong as they.
And so with the sheep we earnestly plead.
For the sake of the lambs today–
If the lambs are lost, what a terrible cost
Some sheep will have to pay!
Author Unknown
And God will hold those “sheep” accountable in the very near future–and the rest of us accountable if we fail to do something about the situation!