David – I did not mean to imply that Fritz …

Comment on GYC Q&A addresses universities who hire and protect evolutionists by BobRyan.

David – I did not mean to imply that Fritz Guy was no longer influential at LSU. Just that historically the problem at LSU was being underwritten by Fritz Guy in the theology department as well as those who have been named here in the Biology department.

And I believe that the administration was reluctant to do anything other than “wait and see”. Thus “retirement” appears to have been the “solution” they were opting for –

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

GYC Q&A addresses universities who hire and protect evolutionists
@Andrew Anderson:

Ellen White’s response to the Kellogg situation was used as an example of how to wait for the right time to act. However, there were notable differences. John Harvey Kellogg was not an employee paid by church funds. He was the chief admnistrator of a sanitarium, and he was in a position to take the sanitarium right out of the church’s control. He was a man of powerful influence in the church and the world, widely admired for the spectacular success of the sanitarium. (His position was more analagous to the leader of an independent ministry in our day.)

By contrast, professors at LSU are employees. Discipline of employees is a relatively simple matter — especially if they do not have tenure, as is the case for those who most blatantly teach evolution as the factual answer to the question of origins.

Ellen White had special ties to John Harvey Kellog, regarding him almost as a son, and she naturally wanted to do all she could to win him back. But in time, she had a dream of the ship of the church meeting an iceberg, with the Captain’s command to “meet it!” After that she threw her influence behind those who believed it was time to act. That part of the story should have been included in the reference to White and Kellogg.

Actually Mark Finley did include the followup fact that Ellen White was told by God in a dream to “meet it” to face it head on when it came to Kellogg’s errors in “Living Temple”, as can be seen on that video.

One guess is that Finley was trying to “allow the point” made by Don to as much a degree as was possible – but was trying to add the balancing fact that action is still required and you cannot excuse yourself from taking decisive action decade after decade with the old “I am just being pastoral” argument. Finley was just being tactful in pointing out “there is a limit”.

Of course, even in meeting obstinate error, we should always act in the spirit of Christ. But it takes wisdom only the Holy Spirit can give to know just what that means in specific situations. In Kellogg’s time, students and staff who worked under him had trouble distancing themselves from his errors. The church suffered from the fall-out right up into the 1960’s, when I was a young man.

We had a similar situation in the Desmond Ford crisis. Instead of giving him a bigger platform and more students to influence by calling him to PUC, church administrators should have dealt with him in Australia. Concerns of “pastoral compassion” caused a delay which proved costly in terms loss of confidence in fundamental Adventist beliefs throughout the world, but particularly in North America. The aftershocks are still shaking the Adventist world.

As Ellen White said – lack of timely decisive action on the part of church administrators yields the church itself no end of grief. In a time of crisis we need men of prayer, students of history, men of vision – who are known for letting their actions speak for them.

But a note of interest – comparing Ford to the LSU problem. Even the “fix” for evolutionism still has the SDA church universities teaching evolutionism in science courses so that students can be informed about the particulars in that junk-science religion as it is practiced in the secular world today.

Now suppose in the case of Kellogg, that the Adventist church had to “continue teaching” Kellogg’s ideas in all of our schools – because those ideas were in fact “the religion of the land” outside of our schools.

The problem with Kellogg would have been 1000 fold greater.

in Christ,

Bob


GYC Q&A addresses universities who hire and protect evolutionists
It is interesting that at the 1:03:00 Q&A on Evolution taught at places like LSU – Ella Simmons’ answer indicates that she thinks this must be something that non-SDA faculty are doing. She is apparentl not aware of what is going on at LSU – and so this is/was not a well known topic at the GC level (to some extent).

Hopefully there is more information generally available to them by this time.

At the 1:11:15 Mark Finley gives his “no academic freedom” response when it comes to teaching non-SDA doctrines such as evolutionism at an SDA school.

At the 1:20:52 point – Mark Finley addresses the need to “meet it head on” when it comes to issues like the Living Temple and evolutionism taught in SDA schools.

And at the 1:13:30 point – Don Schneider expresses is primary concern which is that there be no trials, no uncomforable circumstances for the teachers – but rather that they be asked “are you happy doing what you are doing”. In his view those people that report to him in some fashion who have been teaching non-SDA doctrines from whatever those positions were – were not really happy in their jobs and would be happier in some other area, working someplace else.

Very interesting video segment.

in Christ,

Bob


GYC Q&A addresses universities who hire and protect evolutionists
@David Kendall, BMus, MA:

I would certainly not tolerate a physics professor dictating my method of teaching or the content of my music theory classes, nor would he or she be qualified to do so. We are professionals and experts in our own fields

Point well made.

“evolutionists taking over” a university should not be thought of as “evolution taking over music theory” or evolution taking over computer science, or graphic arts, or Calculus or geometry etc.

in Christ,

Bob


Recent Comments by BobRyan

Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?

Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?

Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.

“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)

Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.

(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)

By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:

Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
Gentlemen,

What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.

An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.

1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..

2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.

3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.

4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).

In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.

Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??

Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.

hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.

The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.

Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis

Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind