Comment on Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’ by wesley kime.
How fitting, Erv Taylor’s rhapsody, even if meant as a lampoon, to Sean’s heroism. Sounded more like an old Dean Martin Roast.
But if Sean is heroic, as indeed he is, and his undertaking heroic, as indeed it is, and timely, as indeed indeed it is — it’s about time! — the award presenter himself, Dr. Taylor, merits an Award for Disruption/Enlightenment on a Biblical scale, fittingly of the Bible itself, and of denominational identity. Under his inspiration, the Bible is to be seen as allegorical, not inspired. Thus Dr. Taylor stands among the heroes of Adventism, along with James White and Hiram Edson (cornfield fame), Canright and Kellogg (not of corn-flake fame). Applause-applause, as nowadays is heard bursting forth beneath the Klieg lights, from our churches, for an especially great performance.
As any gracious awardee would say, “Thank you thank you! But there are so many others who also deserve this award!” Gracious words, and true, for Taylor’s Heroes have pretty much taken over our Stalag 13, as they see it. Ceded to them are just about all SDA scholarly circles, in the bigger churches and bigger medical institutions and bigger educational centers. I know, I can attest. I’m not making this up.
I can with the authority of experience speak to and of those circles, for by fluke of profession and my scholar-admiration, those are the circles I have found myself in, for nearly fifty years. The only circles I’ve known, they enclose my best friends, really my only friends, my most admired mentors. Even if, in those circles, I was an alien, fearing to speak up, and put in my place when I did (“I feel sorry for you”).
I can but trust that outside such enclaves other kinds of Adventists do exist. Thanks again, then, to EduTruth, for opening the door to those other Adventist voices, unfamiliar to me ensconced in my higher circles, and for opening the closet, from whence I feel it is time to emerge, however sweatingly, anxiously, guardedly.
That it is that way inside our edu-ghettos, is, again (I find myself saying “again” a lot), thanks to the pioneering and untiring work of our Dr. Taylor especially. Nearly fifty years, that’s a long time. (By the way, his and my tenures started in the same little church, and are synchronous if not, in the end, tandem. I’ve seen him at work for a long time. A Lifetime Achievement award?)
Honestly, I’m a little sweaty and nervous about naming names, but, well, Dr. Taylor has – again – set precedent. Do unto others as…pretty good ethics, still.
That’s not the end of it. Another award is due, again fitting if unsought. For as Dr. Pitman says in the preface to this thread, if Dr. Taylor is the archetype of the Postmodernist Adventist (Postadventist) thought-leader, he is by the same token responsible for jarring awake and perking up another, if minority, segment of educated Adventists. I can certify such cases. Like, long ago, when Dr. Pitman was in high school and more concerned with girls than genomes, this Adventist, lulled and lethargic (once known as Laodicean), went into a Taylor seminar taking Creation and Genesis 1 for granted (Creation is true, of course, so what else is new?), and came out whacked and reeling, staggering back to Genesis 1, this time seriously. And being educated and scientific, saw evidence, and believed, this time staunchly and actively. “Thanks, Erv, I needed that,” as some old movie line goes.
And there was this other Adventist who likewise for years and years was whacked and whacked at large SDA Medical Center Sabbath Schools, of all places, as taught by a string of our PhDs. There, whew! I’ve come out of the closet. Not easy, among friends.
Now, I must muster the audacity to insert this I-was-there witness among all the other postings insisting that the evidence and documentations presented herein are all boat-rocking, insensitive, biased and baseless and base distortions and outright lies and invasions of privacy and incursions against academic freedom; and anyway so what – it’s progress, it’s freedom, it’s liberation. It’s science. (Meanwhile, over at Adventist Today…better left in ellipsis.) Well, sigh, if I felt constrained to hold my peace for all those years at Sabbath School, my own church, by the same token I shan’t here. And I’ll do it on Thanksgiving, while waiting for the feast, when nobody will notice and it’ll all soon lost to the archives. This isn’t heroism; it’s merely, at my age, anticlimax. Happy thanksgiving, all.
wesley kime Also Commented
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
@Ken:
Dear Ken, Wonderful! See you at the debate, then. Let’s get there a little early, for a chat. I do feel I know you pretty well now, so am all the more eager to meet you en vivo, away from blog’s built-in and contagious rancor and cantankerousity. I’ll be the asymmetrically dimpled old guy with the Brillo pad white beard, subliminal grin and a non-subliminal kyphosis. (Interesting suggestion, that Ted Wilson moderate. Hmmm. But I think he’d do better for the opening prayer and benediction. They may be more crucial than the polemics anyway. But, say! hmmmm, would you be willing?)
If this doesn’t work out for us, some other time – even if only allegorically.
Expectantly, W
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
“…the final authority scripture,” which our scholars turn into just allegory, especially Genesis 1, putting us not just into a circular orbit, which can serve in a pinch, but into a spiral tailspin spiraling hellward, just where Satan wants us vectored. Which God knew would be the vector Satan would spin us into, and is why He, through Paul again, admonishes us to test… — but we really do know what Paul said. Our problem isn’t a lack of Pauline quotes, or doc #1 or #6 or the whole catechistic caboodle, EGW, anybody’s book on hermeneutics, or Huss or Jerome, even Alexander Carpenter. Our problem is, we are simply out of control in this faith-evidence vortex, which thus itself becomes an allegory of The Allegory, as we blog ourselves into a black hole.
Dr. Pitman (and, by faith, God) never asked us to put evidence in place of faith, or scripture (certainly not Genesis 1) — to say he has is to utterly misconstrue and misquote him. He has said, how many times — even Google couldn’t count them — and as clearly as HTML can put it, to put evidence along with, with faith, with, and faith along with evidence. With.
Why can not the two work, function, walk, live, and work and function and walk together? Why is it one or the other? No, it’s not like serving two masters, science or faith, but like marriage with husband needing wife and wife need husband. I know I couldn’t function without mine. As evidence I submit our grandchildren. Would you like to see our snapshots?
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
…this crusade is getting more heroic by the minute!
Recent Comments by wesley kime
Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”
FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)
In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.
FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.
With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.
Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.
Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”
I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.
But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.
Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.
For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.
As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.
What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.
Until then, your jousting friend, W
Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”
A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.
What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.
