@Faith: That is right, Faith. Wearing my lawyer hat, …

Comment on La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond by David Read.

@Faith: That is right, Faith. Wearing my lawyer hat, I have to make clear that the courts have for many years consistently ruled that creation science is faith and Darwinism is real science. But wearing my Adventist believer hat, I agree with Ellen White when she says:

The deepest students of science are constrained to recognize in nature the working of infinite power. . . . Only by the aid of that Spirit who in the beginning “was brooding upon the face of the waters;” of that Word by whom “all things were made;” of that “true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” can the testimony of science be rightly interpreted. Only by their guidance can its deepest truths be discerned.

David Read Also Commented

La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
@Sean Pitman: There is certainly documentation somewhere of what the remainder of the bond funds was spent on. I imagine that the University was required by the bond trustee to document the capital projects the money was used on (because the funds could not be used for salaries or ordinary current operation expenses). So this is probably a public document that can be obtained through the freedom of information act.

Also, I imagine that this information has been made available to the Board of Trustees and/or constituents, so if you have any contacts in those bodies, ask for the information.

Keep digging, because you or Shane will find this information somewhere.


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
@Ron: Ron, in the context of legal documents, there’s no question that creation science is faith. The courts have ruled repeatedly that creationism and even Intelligent Design are faith positions that may not be taught in public schools.

Now, I personally believe that just as much, if not more, faith is required to believe the Darwinian origins narrative than is required to believe that we were created.

But as far as the courts are concerned, there simply is no question that creationism is a sectarian belief. This has been held over and over and over. There’s simply no question that teaching creationism or Intelligent Design in the PSC will violate the prohibited use covenant.


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
@Sean Pitman:

“I’m not sure what business any president of any Adventist university has signing such a bond agreement? – an agreement that basically says that we promise not to teach our own primary goals and ideas to our own students at all places/buildings within our own schools.”

Wisbey had no business doing this. None whatsoever.

In order to survive this, Wisbey will need to have very solid documentation in the board minutes that the Board of Trustees was fully apprised of this prohibited use covenant language, and that with full knowledge of this language and its implications, the Board nevertheless voted to take the municipal bond money. Wisbey will also need an opinion letter from legal counsel to the effect that the prohibited use covenant language is effectively unenforceable.

I rather doubt that Wisbey has either of these things, and hence I imagine that his tenure as president of La Sierra University will be coming to an abrupt conclusion.


Recent Comments by David Read

LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: I do not agree that science must be naturalistic, but if that is your bottom line, it will not trouble me much where it concerns most day-to-day science–the study of current, repeating phenomena. But a rigid naturalism applied to origins morphs into philosophical atheism. Hence, mainstream origins science is not science but atheistic apologetics. This is what should not be done at an Adventist school, but sadly what has been the rule at La Sierra.


Dr. Paul Cameron and the God of the Gaps
@Pauluc: The Adventist doctrine of creation is that God created the world in six days and rested on the Seventh day and hallowed it. (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:11) Do you believe that doctrine? It won’t do to say that you accept some vague “Christian doctrine of creation.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a very specific mission to call people back to the worship of the creator God, on the day that He hallowed at the creation.

You say you believe that the “core doctrine of Christianity is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ,” but what was Jesus Christ incarnated to do? Wasn’t his mission to redeem fallen humanity, to be the second Adam who succeeded where the first Adam failed? And doesn’t your view of origins make nonsense of a perfect creation, a literal Adam who fell, and the need for redemption because of Adam’s sin? You seem to want to gloss over all the very profound differences you have not only with Seventh-day Adventist dcotrine, but with the most basic reasons that Seventh-day Adventism exists.

The syncretistic hodgepodge religion you’ve created for yourself, combining elements of a biblical world view (the incarnation) and elements of a pagan worldview (a self-created creation) is not Adventism. It is anti-Seventh-day Adventism.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Holly Pham: Holly, I will try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: Since no creationist could land a job as chairman of a biology department at a public university, it seems entirely appropriate that no Darwinist should be given the chairmanship of a biology department of a Seventh-day Adventist college.

The SDA educational system doesn’t exist to expensively duplicate the public university system. It exists to provide a uniquely biblical and Seventh-day Adventist education to interested young people. If mainstream origins science is correct in its assumptions and conclusions about our origins, the entire enterprise of Seventh-day Adventism is an utterly foolish waste of time. So at Adventist institutions, our professors should assume that Darwinistic science is false, and that creationistic science is true (just the reverse of how it is done at public universities), and proceed accordingly.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@gene fortner: What I like about your list of topics, Gene, is that it points out that many disciplines are implicated in the necessary change of worldview. It isn’t just biology and geology, although those are the main ones. History, archeology, anthropology and other disciplines should also be approached from a biblical worldview. The biblical worldview should pervade the entire curriculum.