LSU resignations discussed by Faith and Science Sabbath School

Educate Truth shares the following video from Faith and Science Sabbath School as a service to readers.

Paul Giem discusses the La Sierra resignations, reviewing LSU’s news release and Gary Bradley’s email. Afterward he recounts the story behind the accidental recording of Jeff Kaatz, Gary Bradley, Jim Beach, and Lenny Darnell. Geim’s presentation on LSU begins at 00:47:20, followed by further discussion of the situation with the audience at 01:03:00.

20 thoughts on “LSU resignations discussed by Faith and Science Sabbath School

  1. I agree with Dr. Giem in general except where he acknowledges he goes into “conjecture” mode, but his conclusion comes across too vague. What exactly is it that needs to be done besides what La Sierra has already done both pre-resignations and during the resignations?

    Also why ignore the contents of the town hall meeting? Is that not evidence that leadership is talking out of both sides of their mouth to their constituency? I guess we’ll see where things go from here.

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  2. There was a gentleman in the video who made some very interesting comments that I appreciated. A friend has confirmed this is actually Ariel Roth, the “dean” of Adventist creationism (former director of the Geoscience Research Institute).

    At 1:12:47 – “And you can turn a Church into a debate Society. And effectively a Church becomes ineffective when it’s a debate society. It no longer have a message because everybody is disagreeing with everybody else, so what do you do? In terms of us trying to fulfill God’s purpose on earth, here, you have to keep a perspective in mind on this thing.”

    1:13:54 – “Pretty soon if you debate too much, you lose interest in saving souls.

    1:15:20 – “There is no question: we always need to test our beliefs in the face of new light. This is so important, and we have to do this. Ellen White say, ‘truth can afford to be fair.’ She does not suppress those investigating at all; that type of thing. The Methodist Church went into pluralism, and they lost 20%–and I think it’s been going…it’s worse than that now–because they lost their message. Everybody was disagreeing with everybody else, I mean ‘come and join my Church, we’re debating.’ This doesn’t go over very big. A Church is trying to fulfill God’s purpose on earth, to save souls. We must not lose that when we get into these debates–as interesting as they are; I just love ’em. We’ve got to keep in mind it can paralyze the main purpose of the Church. We have to make sure we have the truth, but don’t make it your primary goal.”

      (Quote)

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  3. I assume that all of us can agree with Dr. Roth on the following points:

    1 – Debate can take the Church from its primary purpose: to save souls. It can also muddy up the Church’s message.

    2 – We should be willing to give some voice to those who believe our understanding of “truth” can be improved (but not to the extent that official Church positions are disrespected and taught to be factually in error at our universities).

    3 – The quest for “truth” and purity in the Church should take a back seat to the primary goal of winning souls to the Church.

    These are solemn points to take into humble consideration (and I have said as much myself a number of times). Thank you, Dr. Roth.

      (Quote)

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  4. “There is no question: we always need to test our beliefs in the face of new light….”

    You will note, Prof Kent, that it speaks of new light, not old darkness. Trying to marry light and darkness is not new light. It is the same old darkness.

      (Quote)

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  5. Agreed, Prof Kent, that we shouldn’t be allowing the church to be in controversy this way. If we do, what have we got to bring outsiders into? However, if the problem we are experiencing isn’t fixed, the same principle applies. Are we going to bring people into the church just so that the liberal element can take them right out again? We need to purify the church and bring all its members into agreement with God’s truth. (Thus the shaking–God’s fix for the problem.) Then we will have an atmosphere that will nurture the tender new convert. You can’t simply ignore the problem and it will go away. That approach has been tried for decades now and hasn’t worked. Let’s learn from history, shall we?

      (Quote)

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  6. Faith: We need to purify the church and bring all its members into agreement with God’s truth. (Thus the shaking–God’s fix for the problem.)

    As long as there are sinners in the Church, there will always be sin and error in the Church.

    You’re missing the main point: if we are persistent in purging the Church of members, we will neglect the mission to bring in new members. And more importantly, if we have members who believe in truth but fail to fulfill the Church’s mission to save souls, we still have a failed Church.

      (Quote)

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  7. 0:11:45 Paul Giem points out that the I.D. concept is simply a minimal first principle that can be adopted by anyone but an atheist.

    Beyond that is the POV of actual Christians and this is especially true if you are an SDA Christian who believes in an actual 7 day creation week just as the Bible describes it.

    The more advanced concept is not negating the first principle of “design” — rather it relies upon it in the same way that the first principle admitting to the “existence of intelligent life” is a prescursor to admitting to more advanced concepts about life.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

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  8. At 16:28 we are told by an author that God’s miraculous intervention would have been needed to “increase the genetic diversity” if mankind came from just two parents.

    Fast forward to 21:25 the question is asked as to exactly what diversity could not have come from Adam and Eve – or (or from Noah and his two sons after the flood presumably).

    The answer is that the arguments are vague and undefined at that point.

    I find that curious.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

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  9. At 23:50 a statement is made about mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosome Adam – and we are told that the timescales for Eve in the initial pronouncement gratuitously assume evolutionary-time instead of “real time”. And that when you use real time – the date for mitochondrial Eve comes out to about 6500 years!

    Which appears to be a reference to Carl Wieland’s research

    http://creation.com/mitochondrial-eve-and-biblical-eve-are-looking-good-criticism-of-young-age-is-premature

    This is kind of like S.J Gould’s arguments for Punctuated Equilibrium that came up on the basis of the “lack of transitional forms” — the very thing evolutionists were adamantly denying when creationists pointed out that paucity in evidence to support their claims.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  10. At 16:28 we are told by an author that God’s miraculous intervention would have been needed to “increase the genetic diversity” if mankind came from just two parents.

    Fast forward to 21:25 the question is asked as to exactly what diversity could not have come from Adam and Eve – or (or from Noah and his two sons after the flood presumably).

    The answer is that the arguments are vague and undefined at that point.

    I find that curious.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  11. At 23:50 a statement is made about mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosome Adam – and we are told that the timescales for Eve in the initial pronouncement gratuitously assume evolutionary-time instead of “real time”. And that when you use real time – the date for mitochondrial Eve comes out to about 6500 years!

    Which appears to be a reference to Carl Wieland’s research

    http://creation.com/mitochondrial-eve-and-biblical-eve-are-looking-good-criticism-of-young-age-is-premature

    This is kind of like S.J Gould’s arguments for Punctuated Equilibrium that came up on the basis of the “lack of transitional forms” — the very thing evolutionists were adamantly denying when creationists pointed out that paucity in evidence to support their claims.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  12. There was a gentleman in the video who made some very interesting comments that I appreciated. A friend has confirmed this is actually Ariel Roth, the “dean” of Adventist creationism (former director of the Geoscience Research Institute).

    At 1:12:47 – “And you can turn a Church into a debate Society. And effectively a Church becomes ineffective when it’s a debate society. It no longer have a message because everybody is disagreeing with everybody else, so what do you do? In terms of us trying to fulfill God’s purpose on earth, here, you have to keep a perspective in mind on this thing.”

    1:13:54 – “Pretty soon if you debate too much, you lose interest in saving souls.

    1:15:20 – “There is no question: we always need to test our beliefs in the face of new light. This is so important, and we have to do this. Ellen White say, ‘truth can afford to be fair.’ She does not suppress those investigating at all; that type of thing. The Methodist Church went into pluralism, and they lost 20%–and I think it’s been going…it’s worse than that now–because they lost their message. Everybody was disagreeing with everybody else, I mean ‘come and join my Church, we’re debating.’ This doesn’t go over very big. A Church is trying to fulfill God’s purpose on earth, to save souls. We must not lose that when we get into these debates–as interesting as they are; I just love ’em. We’ve got to keep in mind it can paralyze the main purpose of the Church. We have to make sure we have the truth, but don’t make it your primary goal.”

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  13. “There is no question: we always need to test our beliefs in the face of new light….”

    You will note, Prof Kent, that it speaks of new light, not old darkness. Trying to marry light and darkness is not new light. It is the same old darkness.

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  14. 0:11:45 Paul Giem points out that the I.D. concept is simply a minimal first principle that can be adopted by anyone but an atheist.

    Beyond that is the POV of actual Christians and this is especially true if you are an SDA Christian who believes in an actual 7 day creation week just as the Bible describes it.

    The more advanced concept is not negating the first principle of “design” — rather it relies upon it in the same way that the first principle admitting to the “existence of intelligent life” is a prescursor to admitting to more advanced concepts about life.

    in Christ,

    Bob

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  15. Agreed, Prof Kent, that we shouldn’t be allowing the church to be in controversy this way. If we do, what have we got to bring outsiders into? However, if the problem we are experiencing isn’t fixed, the same principle applies. Are we going to bring people into the church just so that the liberal element can take them right out again? We need to purify the church and bring all its members into agreement with God’s truth. (Thus the shaking–God’s fix for the problem.) Then we will have an atmosphere that will nurture the tender new convert. You can’t simply ignore the problem and it will go away. That approach has been tried for decades now and hasn’t worked. Let’s learn from history, shall we?

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  16. I assume that all of us can agree with Dr. Roth on the following points:

    1 – Debate can take the Church from its primary purpose: to save souls. It can also muddy up the Church’s message.

    2 – We should be willing to give some voice to those who believe our understanding of “truth” can be improved (but not to the extent that official Church positions are disrespected and taught to be factually in error at our universities).

    3 – The quest for “truth” and purity in the Church should take a back seat to the primary goal of winning souls to the Church.

    These are solemn points to take into humble consideration (and I have said as much myself a number of times). Thank you, Dr. Roth.

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  17. Faith: We need to purify the church and bring all its members into agreement with God’s truth. (Thus the shaking–God’s fix for the problem.)

    As long as there are sinners in the Church, there will always be sin and error in the Church.

    You’re missing the main point: if we are persistent in purging the Church of members, we will neglect the mission to bring in new members. And more importantly, if we have members who believe in truth but fail to fulfill the Church’s mission to save souls, we still have a failed Church.

      (Quote)

    View Comment
  18. I agree with Dr. Giem in general except where he acknowledges he goes into “conjecture” mode, but his conclusion comes across too vague. What exactly is it that needs to be done besides what La Sierra has already done both pre-resignations and during the resignations?

    Also why ignore the contents of the town hall meeting? Is that not evidence that leadership is talking out of both sides of their mouth to their constituency? I guess we’ll see where things go from here.

      (Quote)

    View Comment

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