Comment on La Sierra University gets 3-year AAA Accreditation by David Read.
@Beatrice: Beatrice, I note that you have posted here a copy of your post at ADvindicate.com.
It’s interesting that you say that John Perumal replaced Lee Grismer as department chairman “a long time ago,” but the first news of that change was your own comment at ADvindicate a couple of days ago. There was no public announcement, and no news from any of the usual sources: the Review, ANN, Spectrum, ADvindicate, or Educate Truth. When I was researching my story, there was nothing on La Sierria’s official website to indicate that the chairmanship had changed; the website was not updated to reflect the change in chairmanship until after my article was posted at ADvindicate on October 17. Am I “lazy” if I don’t telephone La Sierra every couple of months and ask if Wisbey has had a change of heart and demoted the hardened Darwinist that he promoted to department chair two years ago?? I cannot help but wonder why this change in departmental leadership was a closely held secret until AFTER my article started making the rounds and being read by Adventist opinion leaders, but some mysteries will likely remain mysterious.
It’s hardly an excuse for wrecking the Adventist faith of those who take upper division biology courses at La Sierra that most students do not take upper division biology courses. But the information that has been provided by LSU students like Louie Bishop is that even a seminar science-faith course intended for a broad non-specialized student audience–specifically the one instituted in response to the 2009 controversy over the teaching of origins–was destructive of Adventist faith; LSU religion teachers, including John Webster who (at that time) was chairman of the religion department, told students that the Adventist hermeneutic was unhelpful, and that the Genesis narrative should not be taken literally as a description of the creation.
If AAA has witnessed a change of direction at La Sierra–and I very much doubt that–then it is up to them to say what they saw, and why they voted the way they did, in connection with their vote to extend Adventist accreditation for a further three years. There is a very public controversy about La Sierra’s blatant undermining of Adventist beliefs, and if AAA is, in the face of that controversy, going to certify that LSU is fulfilling its Adventist mission and upholding its Adventist identity, then AAA must publicly explain its vote, and justify it by outlining the changes that it observed.
You say that I “have not taken the approach Jesus advocated” and I assume that by that you are referring to Matthew 18. That passage does not apply. No one at La Sierra has wronged me personally; I have no personal stake whatsoever in the matter. The issue is that LSU is publicly undermining Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, and the response to that issue needs to be public. The relevant passage is 1 Tim. 5:20: “Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.” Please look at Testimonies, v. 2, pp. 14-16.
It is not my desire or goal to undermine unity in the church, but there can be no unity except on the basis of sound biblical truth. La Sierra has been sowing the seeds of a very profound disunity, as it has for a generation been training Adventist youth at an Adventist institution (AAA approved!) to lightly regard the word of God. It has been telling the Adventist youth entrusted to it that God’s claim to have created the world in six literal days and rested on the Sabbath day (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:11) is unsustainable nonsense. This can only lead to disunity on the most fundamental level, as one group, raised and educated in the SDA Church, has an entirely different conception of what the Bible teaches and God requires than another group also raised and educated in the church.
Lay people are under an obligation of conscience to see that those who live off the tithe uphold the religious mission of the church. One very highly placed Adventist official has instructed us to “hold them accountable,” and he is right. In the absence of a vigilant laity, the SDA Church will lapse into corruption as did the post-apostolic Christian Church.
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Recent Comments by David Read
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@pauluc: “Science has no opinion on whether God or the supernatural have never intervened . . .”
Not true, Paul. When science insists on abiogenesis, even though there is no empirical or logical reason to believe that it could happen, science is expressing an extremely strong– in fact absolute–philosophical opinion that if God exists, to exist is all God has ever done. If Science were open to the existence of a Creator God who had ever created or otherwise intervened in nature, science could easily say, “God created the first life forms, then evolution took over.”
But, of course, the entire purpose of evolutionary science is to be able to deny the existence of a Creator God without looking foolish. It has not been entirely successful. Because when people claim that life can accidentally self-assemble, or that the genetic code somehow wrote itself, they look foolish.
LSU Responds to Issues Regarding Dr. Diaz and WASC
@Professor Kent: Jeff, the messenger of the Lord for our time is Ellen White, and you should be familiar with her warnings regarding Lyellism and Darwinism. If not, some of the more pertinent passages are set out in chapter 7 of my book, “Dinosaurs — an Adventist View.”
In promoting an atheistic origins narrative in opposition to the biblical, Adventist view of a creation in six literal days a few thousand years ago, La Sierra is flagrantly disregarding the Lord’s messenger for our time. I should think this would be obvious to you.
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: Jeff Kent says, “Recognizing the error in much of apologetics does not equate to blind faith. Twisting every fact to fit a theory about a supernatural event that cannot be duplicated by the naturalistic approach of science is simply misinformed belief based on a fragile faith devoid of the surety . . .”
But twisting every fact to fit a naturalistic theory is okay? Because that’s exactly what mainstream science does.
For example, everything in human existence, absolutely without exception, shows that you never get a code without a codemaker. You never get music without a musician, writing without a writer, computer code without a programmer, etc. Yet mainstream science insists that we got the genetic code, which is more complex than all of the foregoing, without a designer. That’s what I call “twisting every fact to fit” into science’s philosophy of naturalism.
Why is it okay for mainstream science to twist facts to fit its theories but not for creationist to construe and interpret the data of nature in accordance with revealed truth?
God wants you to be fully converted, in both heart and mind. And it doesn’t matter which is converted first. Some people have a heart experience that eventually results in them changing their views on origins, while others see design in nature and it leads them to the God of nature. Either is okay.
But you seem to be “halting between two opinions.” You believe in God and have a relationship with Christ, but that relationship has not converted your mind or your approach to your profession. You insist on doing your scientific work in a way that effectively denies what you claim to believe. It would be too rude to say you lack integrity, but clearly your Christian beliefs are not integrated with your work life; there is no integration between your faith and your work.
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: “What do you think is the single most compelling geological, fossil, or biological evidence that life arose via fiat creation?”
I think it is the genetic code. Coded information–written books and articles, computer programs, musical compositions, etc.–never arises accidentally but always has an author. And the genetic code is a language of such complexity and genius that we’re still trying to figure it all out. I don’t think the genetic code wrote itself any more than I think “War and Peace” wrote itself, or “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” wrote itself.
The second best evidence is life itself. Even single-celled organisms are so staggeringly complex that accidental self-organization and self-vivification would involve a miracle. Science cannot do this in a laboratory much less come up with a generally agreed upon “just so story” (that passes the laugh test) as to how it could have happened accidentally.
The other thing in the realm of biology I would point to is the difference between humans and animals. The gap there is very large, and supports the biblical teaching that man was created in the image of a Creator God, whereas the animals were not.
The fossil record is ambiguous, but the Cambrian Explosion fits the Flood model far better than it fits the Darwinian model. It’s not what Darwin expected at all; he even admitted that the fossil record from the Cambrian on up should be matched by an equally long fossil record leading up to the Cambrian. (This doesn’t directly bear on fiat creation, but does compare Bible history to the natural history Darwin posited.)
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Professor Kent: Jeff Kent said, “Evolutionists believe there is a designer, and that it’s a random process rather than a supernatural being.”
That’s nonsense. Design implies teleology, intent, and purpose, all of which evolutionists deny a priori. Evolutionists officially believe that the world and its life forms did not require a designer but arose from random processes.
And, frankly, whenever the Darwinists use teleological language like “design” and “designer,” we should call them on it and force them to use language that reflects what they officially purport to believe.
