Comment on PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood? by Sacha Fisher.
I spent four years as a student and PUC but chose to leave the college this year. I am not an SDA though I did grow up with the majority of my family belonging to the church. My mother and I were asked to leave the church when I was two years old because the pastor’s wife overheard my mother commenting to her friend about how she disagreed with an interpretation that the pastor had; the following Tuesday she received a phone call asking her to please not come back because of her conflicting views with the church.
I tell this backstory because during my 22 years on this earth, I have spent quite a few Saturdays visiting many SDA churches in California. I have never felt really welcome to express my personal views on things and like I was safe to engage in real, honest theoretical discussions… until PUC.
I have read a lot of comments on here, questioning the right that PUC faculty have to engage in open and frank conversations with students in a classroom capacity, when it comes to “truths” that the church has. I can tell you right now that I would not have stayed at PUC for as long as I did if it had not been for teachers in the honors program (of which I am not even a part of) and a select others who made me feel safe and welcome to make theology a discussion and not a lecture. And I can also tell you that after hearing of the rational and in my view somewhat inspirational way that Dr. Ness (whom I have never attended a class of and think that I met in the caf perhaps once in four years) presented a touchy and highly important matter, I am going to consider coming back to PUC.
And I would also like to say something specifically to Sean Pitman: I’m not sure that I believe that you really have the best interest of the STUDENTS at heart if you are willing to call into question the motives of a professor who is actually sparking learning, research, prayer, and conversation among young adults. And I would ask you to please meditate on the importance of knowing in your heart that you believe what you proclaim to believe, and not just because it has been what you have been told your entire life in a church and in a classroom.
Again, I congratulate Dr. Ness — and every other professor at any SDA or religious school for that matter — who compels students to think about all sides of the argument so that they can truly be educated.
