“The only real debate is when did evolution start? 6000 …

Comment on Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case by David Read.

“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.

David Read Also Commented

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.


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
“We keep the law to be saved. And faith in Christ is part of obedience to the law and keeping the moral law by doing God’s will is also part of keeping the law.”

Bill, here’s how you should consider saying it: “We are saved by faith in Christ. And keeping the moral law by doing God’s will is also part of having faith in Christ.”

The teaching is essentially the same, but the first formulation sounds profoundly heretical to a biblically literate person, whereas the second wording sounds biblically sound. This is what I mean about modes of expression.


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Bill, the word you are searching for is not censor but censure. You were threatened with censure.

And that should have been an opportunity for reflection and self-examination, for you to think about whether your views, and especially your modes of expression, are balanced and biblically sound. There’s a reason why your ceaseless use of language like “salvation by works” makes your fellow church members uncomfortable–so uncomfortable that they’ve threatened you with censure– and it isn’t because they want to dance around the golden calf.


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.


If the Creation Account Isn’t True…
Bill, it speaks poorly of us that the unconverted feel comfortable among us, and feel no need to leave the church. What kind of Christian am I, that unbelievers in my fellowship have no plans ever to believe? That the unconverted feel comfortable in my church, calling me one of them?

It is not a worse commentary on me than on them?


The Origin of the Sabbath and the 7-Day Week
“It would seem that being a “professional” Christian and getting “paid” to represent God carries special temptations that few are able to deal with.”

Probably the biggest issue is the demystification of the clergy, I.e., being clergy and realizing that you’re no different, and no better, than anyone else. Ideally, this should lead to humility, but in some cases it leads to the attitude that since you are the church, you can do anything you want to do with the church. Things that should be treated with reverence are treated commonly.