@ Shane Hilde So now what Kent? Should we have just …

Comment on For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists by Professor Kent.

@ Shane Hilde

So now what Kent? Should we have just ignored it all? Let it slide? Let it go on and on? What should have been done instead that hasn’t been tried already? Write more letters, hoping somebody will care eventually.
I get it. You don’t like the website, yet you’re a Seventh-day Adventist creationist etc. etc. So what’s your better idea?

Shane, I recognize the dilemma, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Here are a few suggestions:

1 – Now that you have a large following, send out notices to subscribers rather than posting for the whole world to see.

2 – Ask your readers to write letters to their leaders. The internet is not God’s ordained way to enforce Church discipline. If it ever becomes endorsed by this Church, I’d leave it in a heartbeat.

3 – Organize a constructive approach for finding qualified SDA biologists, which are scarce and probably becomer scarcer yet with every appearance of a full-fledged witch hunt. You may not think it’s one, but many in the trenches see it as such.

4 – Keep this out of the public media, which does more harm than good for the Church and for God’s cause. It brings reproach on us.

5 – Stop allowing people to post comments. Many are inflammatory and unChristlike.

6 – Tell Johnny Vance that the Church functioned just fine with discipline issues prior to the internet, and that the internet isn’t the only way to work on this issue.

7 – If you allow posts, make them ALL anonymous. That way, no one ends up on an ego trip, and no one can really identify who they are arguing with, which inevitably invites cheap-shots (which I’ll freely admit I am prone myself to take, however wrong I am in doing so).

Professor Kent Also Commented

For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists
Ron, thank you for your very insightful post.

I believe that those who have responded here fail to understand your message–which was very stated by Paul and by Ellen White. Jesus can identify wrong and has the authority, as EMK put it, to make scenes by overturning the tables, yelling, and cracking a whip. For us, in contrast, the instruction is unmistably clear:

“Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church, but He has not committed to us the work of judging character and motive. He knows our nature too well to entrust this work to us. Should we try to uproot from the church those whom we suppose to be spurious Christians, we should be sure to make mistakes.”


For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists
@ Johnny Vance

1) Does the Spectrum blog get the same criticism from you for its public and vitriolic rants against the church as Educate Truth? If not then I’d be curious to know why they get a pass.

I’ve only read a handful of articles at Spectrum, mostly concerning EducateTruth. I’m not familiar with the “rants” there against the Church, unless you’re speaking of the liberals who complain of narrow-mindedness, and the conservatives who openly criticize the leadership for not being decisive enough in dealing with the liberals. I don’t really doubt your assessment. I would hazard a guess that much of the discussion at Spectrum is probably a keen embarrassment to our Lord.

2) If you think that Educate Truth is so bad, then why do you keep on feeding the fire by posting on it? Common sense would say that you’d shun it to prove it’s as irrelevant and as awful as you claim it to be. It’s ironic to note that you’re one of those who’s actually proving Educate Truth’s point.

I’m proving Educate Truth’s point? Really? I’m here for one reason only, and that is to defend those who I think are being shamed and humiliated in an unChristlike manner, regardless of whether they are “guilty” of the charges levied here, and even more so if they are not. I’d like to get away from this site because I am thoroughly disgusted by the way SDAs enthusiastically and unapologetically treat each other–particularly those who cite Bible verses to justify their vitriolic attacks. Frankly, it often makes me want to walk away from the Church, and that may one day happen (to your rejoicing, perhaps). But I feel as though I’m in a providential situation to defend my fellow biologists since I’m not employed by the Church…and having been around for decades, active in both teaching and research in biology, I recognize that much of the so-called “science” passed along here to the eager audience is absolute rubbish. I’m saddened by how poorly informed our Church membership is on science issues, and how faith and spirituality take a back seat to “evidence,” which truly makes our young people vulnerable when they go into the “real world.” If you shared this concern, perhaps you’d speak up about it.

3) I have yet to see you back up your accusations and rants with Biblical support. Do you just pick and choose at your convenience? There are many of us who want a better way. Please feel free to come up with a solution that will move people in a position of power to action. If not then you’re just playing ring-around-the-rosies with the devil while nothing gets done because there’s a lack of backbone in the house of God.

Let’s get this straight: I think there’s a backbone in the house of God, and you are the one making vitriolic rants at the SDA Church, not me. I’ve continually defended the Church, including its fundamental beliefs and its leadership, while you and others here continue to condemn it. You need to reexamine your own posts. I’m not responding to this further because you are simply out of line, brother Vance.


For real education reform, take a cue from the Adventists

SOUTHWESTERN ADVENTIST UNIVERSITY seeks Ph.D. prepared Biologists for Spring 2011. Looking for talented, committed Adventist creationist who is able to inspire students in classroom and in research. Teaching assignments are negotiable in a five-person department. Contact Dr. Suzanne Phillips, chair, Biology. SWAU, Keene, TX. 817-202-6274 or suzannephillips@swau.edu. – Gleaner Online, December 2010

I learned of this at Adventist Today. If I remember correctly, the two positions available for “creationist” biologists last year at SWA apparently went unfilled and are available again this year. And if I remember correctly, there were several more positions (2 or 3)for “creationist” biologists that went unfilled last year at SAU, too. It’ll be interesting to see if SAU also advertises these positions again.

Eddie has pointed out repeatedly that the Church may have a bigger crisis on it’s hands–no one seems to be available to take the place of the biologists you guys are determined to root out. Clearly, Sean Pitman and Bob Ryan are unwilling to step up to the plate, so what is the Church to do? “Houston, we’ve got a problem!”


Recent Comments by Professor Kent

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic&#032Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?

You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.

The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,

Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.

I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.

Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”

Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”

Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).

Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).

Be sure to protest equally loudly.


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:

So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.