An Open Letter to the Leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Update 3/15/26):

The Spanish Version has now been updated as well, removing Valenzuela’s article (Link).

Update (3/9/26):

The Pacific Union Conference issued the following statement:

A Message to Our Community Regarding “Honoring God Through Science and Scripture”

by Ray Tetz

Ray Tetz, Publisher

Pacific Union Conference

March 9, 2026

The views expressed in the article “Honoring God Through Science and Scripture,” which appeared in the February 2026 issue of the Pacific Union Recorder, solely represent the perspective of author, Alberto Valenzuela, and do not constitute the policy of the Pacific Union Conference.

The Pacific Union Conference is in full support of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. These beliefs constitute the church’s understanding and expression of the teaching of Scripture. Belief #6 – Creation states, “God has revealed in Scripture the authentic and historical account of His creative activity. He created the universe, and in a recent six-day creation, the Lord made ‘the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them’ and rested on the seventh day. Thus, He established the Sabbath as a perpetual memorial of the work He performed and completed during six literal days that together with the Sabbath constituted the same unit of time that we call a week today. The first man and woman were made in the image of God as the crowning work of Creation, given dominion over the world, and charged with responsibility to care for it. When the world was finished, it was ‘very good,’ declaring the glory of God. (Gen. 1-2; 5; 11; Exod. 20:8-11; Ps. 19:1-6; 33:6, 9; 104; Isa. 45:12, 18; Acts 17:24; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; 11:3; Rev. 10:6; 14:7.)”

A key feature of the Pacific Union Recorder is to nurture thoughtful discourse about our rich and diverse history, culture, convictions, stated beliefs, and values, within our shared Adventist perspective.

Dr. Leonard Brand, Emeritus Professor of Biology and Paleontology, Loma Linda University, Earth and Biological Sciences, has accepted our invitation to provide an article for the May 2026 issue of the Pacific Union Recorder that will present his perspective on science and religion. Other organizations have expressed their viewpoints in various ways on their own media platforms, and we are grateful for their engagement on this topic.

Alberto Valenzuela is not an advocate of theistic, nor Darwinian, evolution, as he explains in this statement:

In the February 2026 issue of the Pacific Union Recorder, I authored the article “Honoring God Through Science and Scripture.” After careful reflection and in response to concerns that have been expressed, I wish to offer a clear clarification and apology. The views presented in that article were my personal reflections and do not represent the official position of the Pacific Union Conference. I want to state unequivocally that I am not an advocate of either Darwinian evolution or theistic evolution. I fully affirm the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Fundamental Belief #6: Creation, including a literal six-day creation, creatio ex nihilo, the Sabbath as its memorial, and the complete framework of our biblical doctrine of origins.

It was never my intent to undermine confidence in Scripture or to create confusion. My purpose was to encourage thoughtful dialogue between faith and science. However, I recognize that certain statements and sources in the article were not expressed with sufficient clarity and may have caused misunderstanding. I regret that and apologize sincerely to those who were troubled by the article. If my words became a stumbling block to any believer, I ask forgiveness. I remain firmly committed to presenting a faith-affirming message that upholds the authority of Scripture and the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. —Alberto Valenzuela

. . . .

While I am encouraged to see that the Pacific Union Conference is still in “full support” of the Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I find it disingenuous for Valenzuela to claim that he was only trying to “encourage thoughtful dialogue” while not actually “advocating for either Darwinian evolution or theistic evolution”. How is this possible when he cited Pope John Paul II and his claim that “evolution is more than a hypothesis” and wrote that the Theory of Evolution is “foundational, not speculative”? In support of this claim, he argued that the Tiktaalik fossil “bridges the gap between fish and land animals” and that this is “not chance—it is evidence.” He clearly wrote that efforts to detect intelligent design in nature “masks theology as science”. How does this not undermine our ability to read and understand “God’s Second Book” and our ability to see Him through the works of His own hands? (Romans 1:20). Valenzuela offered nothing in favor of a Literal Creation Week and leaves little room to conclude that he believes that there is nothing beyond blind faith to support this notion.

These statements are just too clear for Valenzuela to now claim that he is actually in full support of a literal Creation Week and Noachian Flood as promoted by the Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In addition, he also published his article without any review or advice from the Conference leadership, knowing full well that his position is out of line with the Church’s Fundamental Beliefs. This clear break of trust in an important position of leadership disqualifies him from continuing on as Editor of the Recorder.

An additional concern is that the Spanish version of Valenzuela’s article remains on the website(s) for the Pacific Union Conference, while the English version has been removed (Link, Link, Link).

Now, I am encouraged by the request of the Pacific Union Conference for Leonard Brand to publish an article in the Recorder on the intersection between science and religion. I’ve known Brand for a long time. Not only is he a thoughtful, well-published research scientist, he is also an advocate for Biblical Creation. I am eager to read his article.

________________

Update (3/4/26):

As of today, the Pacific Union Recorder has removed Valenzuela’s article from the English version. Pages 22-25 have been deleted (Link), and the specific link to this article on the Pacific Union Conference website is now inactive (Link). However, the Spanish version is still posted on the Recorder’s website (Link), and is linked in the Pacific Union Conference archives of the Recorder (Link). Also, Valenzuela maintains his position as Editor of the Recorder, listed in the March edition, and even wrote another article, entitled “Fundamental Belief #24: God for Us: Hope, Assurance, and the Heavenly Sanctuary” (p. 8-9).

While there is some token progress being made, after a delay of a few weeks, additional progress is needed and encouraged. Like the English version, the Spanish version should also be removed and a public apology issued by the Recorder and the Pacific Union Conference, with some kind of assurance that a process where articles are vetted more carefully will be put in place going forward. Also, I’m sorry, but allowing Valenzuela to remain as the Editor of the Recorder is not a good idea at this point, nor is allowing him to continue to write articles for the Recorder. Is it not ironic that he now publishes an article promoting Fundamental Belief #24? after just thrashing Fundamental Beliefs 6 & 8? effectively undermining the very bedrock for our “Hope and Assurance”?

_________________

This is an Open Letter to Elders Bradford Newton and Erton Köhler, Presidents of the Pacific Union and General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

This letter is in regard to an article published in the most recent Pacific Union Recorder by the Editor Alberto Valenzuela, promoting the Darwinian story of origins as being superior to the Biblical account of a literal Creation Week and a literal worldwide Noachian Flood. Valenzuela’s article, entitled “Honoring God Through Science and Scripture” (Link, Link) strikes at the very heart of what the SDA Church regards as “Fundamental” to the Gospel Message of Hope that we are responsible to spread throughout the World before the Second Coming of Jesus to take us all Home.

Several church leaders contacted me, asking me to write a response to this article, which I published on February 13th (Link). Several other pastors and religious liberty attorneys have also published their concerns in public forums (Link, Link, Link, Link, Link). It has been almost two weeks now, and still, there has been no official response from the Pacific Union Leadership. The online links published on the Union’s website (noted above) and Facebook page to Valenzuela’s article remain active (both Spanish and English versions), and no retraction or apology has been issued to the wide readership of the Recorder (a distribution of around 76,000).

Something should have been done about this before now. It may be true that Valenzuela published this on his own, as the Editor of the Recorder, without the permission or oversight of the Union Leadership. However, the lack of response from the leadership of the Union ends up being viewed as tacit support for what was published against the Fundamentals of the Church – similar to the open and brazen promotion of Darwinian evolution at La Sierra University some 15 years ago. The culpability here is now much larger – well beyond Valenzuela and his theistic evolutionary views on origins. Letting this simply pass in silence only makes things worse. It suggests that an entire Union of the SDA Church is in open opposition to the stated fundamental goals and mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church at large. It supports a very harmful division within the Church and makes it appear to those on the outside that we are not united on a very key issue – an issue upon which our very name is based. We should be forming a united spearhead on this, not taking a tentative backseat on a topic that strikes at the heart of Biblical credibility and the rational basis for the very reason for the Hope that we have been given.