Comment on Hope? Slim to none by David Read.
Bob, interesting thoughts. For over a year now, I’ve been preaching a sermon entitled “the two Adventist Churches” about how there is a traditional Adventist church and a liberal church within the church.
I’ve been more interested in the origins issue, but I was very shaken, a few years ag, to hear a rejection of substitutionary atonement from an Adventist pastor of a major Adventist church. It’s interesting that sinless perfectionism is the enthusiasm of hyper conservatives while moral influence theory is an enthusiasm of hyper liberals, but both ideas share a focus on Christ as example and a rejection of Christ as savior and substitute.
Still, the creation issue is simpler and more clear cut than even these core gospel issues. I can’t understand where the confusion is coming from.
Pray for me, that I will have wisdom, discernment, love, self-control, self- discipline, motivation, and perseverance. I mean that sincerely.
David Read Also Commented
Hope? Slim to none
Jennifer, I’m completely baffled by the firing of the board members. If Graham was about to jettison the three “sisters of Satan”, then why the positive comments in the Review about the “joint statement.”
None of this makes any sense to me, starting with the idea that Lee Greer, who I knew in college, is clever enough to earn a Ph.D. 😉
Seriously, though, a great many people are blundering around looking very foolish, including Graham, Blackmer, Jackson, etc. But it is important to bear in mind that this entire mess was, is, and will be the fault of those academics who somehow imagine that it is ethical, right, or decent to accept a salary from an Adventist institution while proselytizing for an utterly hostile worldview. Their insane rebellion is ultimately responsible for everything that has followed, and will follow.
Hope? Slim to none
Bob, I rest MY case regarding the relative complexity of gospel issues versus the six-day creation. It seems the relation between faith and works will always be a source of disputation.
I agree with you about faith and works, and also that Darwinism has not heretofore been disqualifying for salvation. However, if Adventist eschatology is correct about the Sabbath becoming a testing truth at the end, I think Faith is right that at that time Darwinism will seal the doom of it’s adherents, because they will not accept the Sabbath as an issue of principle, as a sign of faithfulness to the Creator.
Recent Comments by David Read
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Pauluc, it is not an either or. We make our own laws through our own elected representatives (or in states like CA that often use plebiscites or ballot initiatives, by directly voting on them). But once the law is passed and becomes law, we are not free to break the law. In other words, the fact that we made the law does not put us above the law. To the contrary, the fact that the law reflects a democratic consensus gives it greater authority and dignity.
That the church selected the canon doesn’t give the church license to ignore the plain teaching of Scripture. The fact that the books that comprise the Bible were widely acknowledged by early Christians to be inspired by God, and clearly of a different quality than many pretenders deemed uninspired, gives greater authority to he Word.
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
“No one prior to Galileo even knew that the Earth was round.”
Kip, the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round and came very close to correctly calculating it’s circumference. This knowledge was never lost during the middle ages. Columbus wasn’t surprising anyone by holding that he would eventually reach the far east by sailing west; his critics knew he was grossly underestimating the earth’s circumference, and they were right: had he not run unto the Americas, he would have starved long before reaching China.
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Some of these students haven’t mastered English, so it is not surprising that their opinion pieces betray that they do not understand how the Seventh-day Adventist faith fits together to form a harmonious system of truth.
It isn’t the students from whom I expect spiritual maturity and understanding, however, but their teachers. I wonder the extent to which the students’ apparent ignorance of theAdventist faith reflects their teachers attitudes.
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
“The only real debate is when did evolution start? 6000 years ago when Cain was born, or millions of years ago.”
Exactly so, Ron. The difference between Bible history and mainstream science (Cambrian explosion) is five orders of magnitude. That’s an enormous difference. It cannot be papered over, or compromised. We all must choose whom we will believe.
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Ron, if Darwin was right, talk of salvation is sheer idiocy, utterly deracinated and pointless. There was no Adam, no fall, no need of redemption or salvation, no point in Jesus’ death, no hope of a supernatural future free of death and disease and predation (because there was no perfect creation free of death, disease and predation). Darwinism makes utter, contemptible nonsense of Christianity.
I think Bill is profoundly misguided and unbiblical in his views about justification, but he’s much closer to sound religion than you are if you embrace mainstream science’s origins narrative.
