Comment on GYC Q&A addresses universities who hire and protect evolutionists by Andrew Anderson.
“The heart of the pastorâ€
Don Schneider’s reference to the “heart of the pastor†missed a very important principle of service. (Evidently he was primarily interested in “the heart of the pastor†towards leaders in our institutions.)
The educational institutions of the church have, as their primary responsibility, the spiritual and intellectual welfare of their students — not primarily that of the faculty and staff. (That is not meant to imply that the welfare of the faculty and staff should be ignored.)Thus the first responsibility of the leadership, both in terms of administration and pastoral care, must be the welfare of the students, not professors and administrators who are out of harmony with the fundamental teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church.
Consider the actions of Jesus in a parallel situation. The Pharisees (the religious elite of the day) were misleading the common people, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. To the Pharisees Jesus gave his strongest reprimands, comparing them to white-washed graves containing dead men’s bones and calling them “serpents†and “a generation of vipers.†This must have been utterly shocking to the common people accustomed to venerate the Pharisees as having a degree of sanctification that they could scarcely hope for.
Ella Simons gave a good assessment of the educators’ responsibility to the students, but her counsel to students demonstrated a lack of understanding the impact of the usual teacher-student relationship in an Adventist institution. She used her own classroom experience in a secular university as though it were parallel to an Adventist student in an Adventist classroom. She seems unable to appreciate the reality of it being far more difficult for an Adventist student to disagree with an Adventist teacher in an Adventist classroom in matters of conscience than for an Adventist student to disagree with a non-believing teacher in a secular university on matters of conscience. Adventist teachers are assumed to be teaching the truth; that’s why Adventist parents send their children there. Thus it is often easier for students to keep their faith in a secular university than in an Adventist classroom where a teacher claims to believe but teaches principles that undermine faith.
That said, any student attending an Adventist school should feel free to question a teacher’s presentation if it is not clearly understandable or appears to be contrary to Adventist beliefs. However, this assumes a degree of maturity and a boldness that few students possess when they arrive at our colleges. Parents send them there to *develop* such maturity and boldness.
If Adventist students encounter professors whose teachings are out of harmony with Adventist fundamental beliefs, they should present the matter to the administration, and the admnistiration should be quick to respond with action to remedy the situation in a matter of days, rather than decades. However, is that what really happens in such a scenario?
Ellen White’s response to the Kellogg situation was used as an example of how to wait for the right time to act. However, there were notable differences. John Harvey Kellogg was not an employee paid by church funds. He was the chief admnistrator of a sanitarium, and he was in a position to take the sanitarium right out of the church’s control. He was a man of powerful influence in the church and the world, widely admired for the spectacular success of the sanitarium. (His position was more analagous to the leader of an independent ministry in our day.)
By contrast, professors at LSU are employees. Discipline of employees is a relatively simple matter — especially if they do not have tenure, as is the case for those who most blatantly teach evolution as the factual answer to the question of origins.
Ellen White had special ties to John Harvey Kellog, regarding him almost as a son, and she naturally wanted to do all she could to win him back. But in time, she had a dream of the ship of the church meeting an iceberg, with the Captain’s command to “meet it!†After that she threw her influence behind those who believed it was time to act. That part of the story should have been included in the reference to White and Kellogg.
Of course, even in meeting obstinate error, we should always act in the spirit of Christ. But it takes wisdom only the Holy Spirit can give to know just what that means in specific situations. In Kellogg’s time, students and staff who worked under him had trouble distancing themselves from his errors. The church suffered from the fall-out right up into the 1960’s, when I was a young man.
We had a similar situation in the Desmond Ford crisis. Instead of giving him a bigger platform and more students to influence by calling him to PUC, church administrators should have dealt with him in Australia. Concerns of “pastoral compassion†caused a delay which proved costly in terms loss of confidence in fundamental Adventist beliefs throughout the world, but particularly in North America. The aftershocks are still shaking the Adventist world.
Ted Wilson’s emphatic emphasis to “work through the channels†of church administration were misleading at best. Most students are not aware of the “channels.†And it shouldn’t be the students’ job to start working through the “channels.†Unfortunately the Adventist church is no better than the government in dealing with immediate issues. Administrators prefer to avoid the issues by setting up “study committees.†This avoidance of issues is a breach of responsibility to the students who are at the university because it presumably upholds the teachings of the Adventist church.
If administrators of an institution are unprepared or unwilling to meet the issues, they should resign or be removed by the larger constituency. If the compromise with error is so wide-spread that even that is not feasible, a church that is committed to upholding the pillars of Adventism should be willing to sever ties with the institution and let the local constituency support it, if they wish. That way the tithe dollars of the wider Adventist body do not contribute to the salaries of teachers who teach contrary to their values.
Wilson’s remarks seemed calculated to cast aspersion on the efforts of the sponsors website. Wilson has the reputation as a “conservative,†and he is widely seen as a candidate for the next GC president. Is that the kind of “conservatism†church members want? A conservatism that insists on formality while souls are lost? Does Wilson know of all the efforts to “work through channels†made through the last couple decades? How long are people to “work through channels†while impressionable minds are misled?
Perhaps we need to consider again the experience of Joshua at Jericho. If there is an Achan (or several) in the camp, deal with him. That was instruction directly from God.
