Comment on LSU undergraduate biology bulletin by Ervin Taylor.
I trust that the EducateTruth.com administration will keep the entire record of the postings on all threads of this site from the beginning and provide that record to an historical archive specializing in Adventist studies such as at Loma Linda University and at Avondale College in Australia.
That record will be a valuable reference source for future historians of the Adventist Church to document one small aspect of how difficult it is for a denomination to mature from its populist and fundamentalist roots in light of the extremist, vocal views of small groups of arch-reactionaries with access to the internet.
The role of the internet in allowing marginalized groups to seek to influence church administration continues. Fortunately, the activities of EducateTruth.com have obviously backfired and benefited La Sierra University (LSU). LSU enrollments are up–in the freshman class in particular–and the Department of Biology has had the largest increase in its majors in two decades.
Sean Pitman and Shane Hilde should be encouraged to maintain EducateTruth.com so all can read the vitriolic inclinations of the supporters of its mission. Forward looking parents who want a modern, progressive Adventist education for their children are choosing LSU and students are benefiting from the increased attention to this topic. They are becoming aware that there are reactionary forces which want their church and its educational institutions to return to those dark days of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and will stop at nothing to accomplish this. These students and their parents are choosing to be part of the right side of Adventist history—the bright side that looks to the future and the search for truth wherever it leads and rejects the repression of free and open exchange of ideas.
For those that want to return to those dark days of Adventism and obtain their the education of their children to be in an Adventist institution that retains the ethos of Adventism’s fundamentalist past there are several institutions from which they can pick, several of which have been mentioned on this web site.
For those who want their undergraduate education to be obtained where the light of intellectual excellence and freedom is honored and the best of a mature Adventist Christianity is honestly studied and nurtured, LSU is an excellent choice. There are several Adventist institutions where the light of modern understandings about science and religion and respect for the best in Adventism are well combined. One of them certainly is LSU and more and more parents and students are becoming aware of this.
Table of Contents
Recent Comments by Ervin Taylor
What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
I just noticed Sean’s comment some time ago that “John’s “Revelation” has very little to do with the Roman Empire.”
Perhaps Sean was just trying to be funny or something. If he was serious, then I guess I will have to revise my assumption about his knowledge of the Bible. That was the entire context of the Book of Revelation. But I guess someone who rejects evolution must also have some problems with history.
La Sierra University Hires Another Darwinist
LSU should be congratulated for standing-up against the reactionary forces who wants to turn it into a Bible College. May LSU live long and prosper — as it is doing now with enrollments continuing to increase and new buildings going up.
What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
It would appear that Dr. Pitman aspires to be the modern Adventist version of Girolamo Aleandro.
For those a little hazy about the history of the Reformation, Girolamo was the individual appointed as papal nuncio by the Pope to be the theological point person opposing Martin Luther and his theology at the Diet of Worms. (The Diet of Worms was an assembly of churchmen and political elites of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany which met in 1521, not a list of things to eat to reduce your weight. And Worms was not an item on the menu, it was a town).
Girolamo argued that Luther had no right to challenge the church’s theology. That theology had been settled for hundreds of years and had been agreed upon by scores of theologians. It was the truth.
Girolamo wrote the denunciations of Luther that were embodied in the Edict of Worms which declared Luther to be a heretic.
After attending the Diet of Worms, Girolamo went to Brussels and was instrumental at having two monks who had adhered to the teachings of Luther burned at the stake.
Sean, like Girolamo, appears to view his role is to root our heresy where ever he finds it in the Adventist Church.
Fortunately for the rest of us, Sean,
unlike Girolamo, has no power to carry out what he would to see happened to those he denounces as Adventist heretics.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
I’m sure that the vast majority of scientifically-informed Adventists will thank Dr.Kent for his every effective and rational approaches to the views expressed by Dr. Pitman and others on this misnamed web site. There is little that needs to be added. Dr. Kent has done a masterful job of exposing the misunderstandings of scientific data dealing with geology and evolutionary biology that has been offered by Dr. Pitman on this and his own web site.
Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
I see that Professor Kent has been casting pearls of logic and reasonableness before certain types of individuals on the educate truth (sic) web site again. I share with him my amazement at the new insights about inspiration revealed here.
