In response to Dr. Willey's fine essay, indeed SDA higher education has provided many with a solid educational foundation in math and science. If young people are raised within the SDA microcosm and led to believe that creation took place in 6 literal days a mere 10,000 yrs ago, they will find that scientific data will probably not reinforce their belief system. For example if an SDA young person takes a course in astrophysics at one of our schools or at a secular institution an immediate schism develops.  When a student realizes that we can "see" light emanating from stars out to 10 billion light years, it stands to reason that much of what we are seeing are already extinguished entities and indeed we are looking into the "past" with regards to the universe. 

These great time epochs are not consistent with a neat 6 day/10,000 yr creation paradigm and should render us a bit more humble with regards to what we think is "true."  Yet particular adventists recoil in fear and scream, we have the truth. At this point in the development of modern astrophysics we do not even need to argue about the paleontological record to recognize that our solar system, earth and the universe have been around for a long time.

What La Sierra University is doing is trying to teach modern molecular biology to science majors that they may only get at another institution e.g. University of California. How can we compete in the education industry if we fail to first train our young people in such pursuits and then bring them back to our institutions to give our young people a competent education? Should we stay away from bringing into our institutions people trained in areas such as astrophysics? Even if we do recruit such expertise, should we then mandate that these professors beat the traditional SDA theology drum despite what science has to say? 

Current SDA theology is inconsistent with modern science. Thus, as Dr. Willey suggests the beliefs must be protected from all outside influence so that young people will not have to hold two contrary beliefs simultaneously. On this blog the holding of contradictory models is called "cognitive dissonance." To those I say welcome to reality! I have yet to see where God is going to protect the human mind from controversy. Controversy is guaranteed once one becomes "educated" and begins to speak the language of math, science, philosophy and theology.  We can never protect our young people from extreme cognitive dissonance once they are introduced to higher education.

So the solution by SDA traditionalists? Reinforce the standard SDA theology, and threaten anyone who sees "truth" differently. This stance also requires that SDA higher education must either stay away from particular topics and/or reinforce the literal reading of genesis in spite of data from the paleonotological, geophysical and astrophysical records which does not support the SDA stance. 

To carry out what the traditionalists want (these people now have the appearance of being "Grand Inquisitors"),  the GC is going to have to form committees on conformity of our science courses to SDA theology. Oh what fun that will be.

Richard L. Noel, DMD

As a nearly retired professional with a background in theology and science, I recognize the need for an honest-hearted dialogue on many issues.  Even as I have been doing research in OT issues, i have found a great resistance to anything "new" or "different" from what most church people are accustomed to hearing. Those who choose to use EGW as their "inspired interpreter" are often the most ardent opponents of the plain reading of Scripture. It is as if we tend to hide and run in fear from thinking clearly.  Many church people are in the category of fear of being led astray by scholars.  At the same time God calls all of us to become scholars in the word and to "reason together" with God and each other.  IF we FEAR GOD we have no need to fear man.

Pickle,

A-Today does not necessarily represent the official SDA church. This organ allows a diverse readership to hear from a diverse group of authors, both from the fundamentalist side and from more progressive thinkers.

The editors at A-Today do not have to come out with some "official position" on what you call outright heresy. This publication is not supported by the GC but by private donors and this is why it publishes on its blogs and official documents a diversity of viewpoints.   

And yes the US supreme court on matters of constitutional law and protections the constitution affords is the final authority. Not the bible. Thank heavens. If the bible were the final authority we would be committing all kinds of atrocities with people we do not agree with. Our country is not a theocracy. Be glad you do not live under the jackboot of a theocracy. Chances are you would be classified among the heretics in that type of government. Embrace your freedoms and the people that formulated a new government where a religion using threats cannot restrict the freedom to express your viewpoint.

I wish progressives could resist the temptation to caricaturize their critics by falsely dichotomizing the issues: "On the one hand, you can be open-minded to scientific evidence - on the other hand, you can deny reality, and insist that students be deprived of the truth."  Why not actually let the critics speak for themselves, and address the arguments they actually make, rather than spinning their positions to make them more vulnerable to self-evident progressive "Truths"?  It is intellectually lazy, not to mention dishonest, to restate, in one's own terms, the argument that another is making in order to attack it.  

As I understand the "fundamentalists" position, they have no problem with thoroughly exploring evolutionary theories in the classroom.  Their concern is that SDA professors in an SDA university seem to embrace  basic Darwinian evolution (including macroevolution and natural selection), as settled science, and have adopted curriculae that exclude the possibility of intelligent, serious challenges to the often theoretical and conjectural aspects of what is passed off as "science". 

Now, even though I personally have grave doubts about a literal 7-day creation in either the recent or distant past, I think it is reasonable - even compelling - to suggest that scientists, teaching in an SDA faith tradition, need to be humble about the temporal limitations of science and life origins, and acknowledge that evolutionary theories are for the most part useful working hypotheses rather than objective descriptions of ultimate reality - descriptions which may ultimately turn out to be just as limiting as the Ptolemaic explanations of the universe. 

I realize that my perspective is likely to please neither the progressives nor the fundamentalists, each of whom seems to believe that Truth will rise or fall on the outcome of the debate. 

Baby boomer SDA's, who were indoctrinated with less credible objections to Darwin's theories than are presently extant, seem to have weathered the disinformation storm without being too crippled intellectually.  Why do we seem to believe that the current generation of SDA students cannot possibly become good scientists unless their classrooms are turned into evolutionary greenhouses?   I never cease to be astonished by progressives' resistance to lay criticism, transparency and accountability in SDA higher education, when they so stridently demand it for Church administrators.  I guess the wonderful thing about being post-modern is that you don't have to worry about consistency, because the very concept of consistency is an artificial construct of the power structure to disempower the "enlightened", and to discourage progressives from speaking truth to power.

Nathan I don't know you, but you sound like a lawyer with a basket full of words.  And like a good lawyer, if you are, it appears to me you trade across both sides of the intellectual stream with blissful ignorance of the varieties of the struggles a professor faces in teaching young minds entering the fields of science or medicine for the first time.  They enter with faith held simply, and without the ability to exercise adequate logics not even knowing they are running the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition.  Learning is filled with wonder.  And the complex relationship between knowledge gained by faith and knowledge gained by reason can be summarized in two opposing phrases, "I believe so that I may understand," and "I understand so that I may believe."  (Credo ut intellegam vs. Intellego ut credam.)

There are many examples today where we readily accept scientific views without getting all bent out of shape (and believe me this is the surface where most learning takes place in both secular and religious classrooms).  For instance, the most compelling example I can think of right now is the shifting acceptance from supernaturalism giving way to naturalism that has occurred in medicine and physical science.  Think about epidemics, explanations of eclipses and earthquakes.  Most fundamentalists don't readily admit this shift, but hardly anyone today uses the sixteenth century supernatural explanations for disease or runs and hides from eclipses.  If you are in a physician's office or hospital it is pretty rare to hear physicians and other health care professionals mention God or the devil as the cause of disease or infections.  Nor did you hear the governor of California call for a day of fasting and repenting of the sins that have "stirred up the Anger of Heaven against us," when the swine flu threatened to march across the border from the south.

Benjamin Franklin after announcing the invention of the lightening rod to prevent another of God's judgments on erring humanity ran into a wall of clerical opposition.  These battles are now behind us. Every age faces new accommodations. 

Even you my friend,without questioning that God was the creator, expressed doubts about the actual events described in Genesis.  I suppose the fundamentalists might find this offensive because the next step for you is believing that God achieved the varieties of creation in both animals and plants (species formation) through natural ends.  Now don't jump to the conclusion that I set up a straw man for purposes of argumentation.  I'm simply saying, over time science keeps forging ahead, little-by-little gaining acceptance of ideas related to natural causes, and reasonable men and women (not fanatics) adjust their beliefs in response to new findings and evidence. 

Following W. K. Clifford, British mathematician and philosopher in his essay on the ethics of belief, I think it is useful to think of beliefs in terms that we have an obligation to believe certain things, and it is wrong to believe others, simply on the grounds of the desire of what is believed or not believed.

And in the La Sierra science faculty debate here no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone when teaching young people the general conceptions of science.  No reasonably informed person is arguing that premise whether trading on one side of the stream or the other. In my view there is no practical danger that such consequences will ever follow from scrupulous care and self-control in the matter of belief and care given to teaching truthfully.  It has been my experience that both Adventist and non-Adventist science professors are quick to recognize that they are unable to prove the ultimate "truths of existence or origins."  If it is even discussed these are often revealed through faith in the Christian revelation, at least in an Adventist community of believers.  The hard-core conservatives unfortunately have over reached their conclusions and demands, just as occurred in times past.  Some people just go kicking and screaming into the future. 

To many dedicated scientists the evidentialist principle is a moral principle... holding that beliefs in scientific ideas not justified by the evidence is immoral or maintaining such with deceit is with the purpose to deceive.

Cheers....

tjoe

Very fine points, Joe, and I certainly cannot argue with your experience or knowledge.  But it is my sense that neither side in the debate is very good at limiting their assertions to what can be scientifically validated.  Darwinian "science" has led to philosophical materialism, denial of original sin, discounting of human freedom, none of which are scientific, but all of which are routinely promoted as beliefs compelled by inferences that can and should be drawn from science.  Are these conclusions logical necessities that flow from evolutionary beliefs?  Perhaps not.  But I believe there is a strong correlation. 

And by the way, Joe, name-calling is a cheap shot.  But yes, I am a lawyer.

Kids who drink and experiment with drugs in high school don't necessarily get worse grades.  Nor are they necessarily more sexually active.  Correlation is not causation.  But odds are that one will find a clustering of behaviors and outcomes in most areas of life.  And when it comes to evolution, it is my experience that those who embrace macroevolution and natural selection are highly likely to deconstruct and discount the transcendent personal God revealed through scripture and Christian experience.  If I am correct, is this not a serious problem for the Adventist Church and higher education?  Can it be resolved by simply saying, "render unto science what belongs in the realm of science, and unto faith what belongs in the realm of faith?"  Each has profound implications for the other.  "Faith" has greivously wounded the cause of God by resisting the truths of empirical science.  Science has all but killed off God by rejecting Transcendent, Incarnate Truth.

I see the most important task of SDA universities as  faith building -  passing the torch on to future generations.  And many of us who are not "fundamentalists" are rightly fearful that there are  professors in our universities, particularly on the left coast, who think they shouldn't even be expected to carry the torch, much less pass it on.   One of our daughters graduated from Point Loma University, where she took science classes from theistic evolutionists who overtly passed on the torch.  One chemistry professor regularly reminded his students that teaching them was his service to God.  A biology professor wrote a syllabus that students could take home to concerned parents, outlining in a humble, confessional manner the compelling science behind a long earth age and evolution.  We could personally see the faith strengthening quality of her education at Point Loma as opposed to a West Coast SDA university (not La Sierra) which she attended her freshman year.  She is a committed Adventist.  She never doubted the deep faith and Christian commitment of her professors, because they wore it on their sleeves.

The greatest rebuke to fundamentalist critics of Adventist higher education would be for professors to wear their faith on their sleeves - to tangibly demonstrate to students their commitment to the Lord and to the Church (I'm sorry, political advocacy and activism don't count).  The doctrine of circumcision was abandoned by the early Christian Church because the gospel was spreading like wildfire among uncircumcised gentiles.  I do not presume to know the faith commitment of Adventist science professors, who are committed to macroevolutionary theories, but I have my suspicions that it is for most of them a "don't-ask-don't-tell" faith, which is passed on to most of their students as non-faith.

The natural world, known and experienced, can be an overpowering reality, as Elisha's servant learned at Dothan.  Truth for the sake of truth is a dangerous pursuit.  Most of the things that lead mankind away from God are truths.  The problem with the evidentialist principle is that, in application, it frequently begs the question of "what is science?".  When it blinds us to the Truths revealed by a transcendent, living God, we've got a problem as Christians.  

I remember a story by Mark Twain about discovering a wisp's nest near the bedroom window of his friend Jim Wolf.  What seemed to be a happy inspiration, Twain brushed a few hundred wisps under the covers of Jim's bed nearby, while it cost him one or two stings.  Before Jim appeared for sleep, Twain blew out the candle causing Jim to crawl into his bed in the dark.  After stretching out in comfort and pleasant chatting  Jim's conversation became disjointed and filled with gasps.

As Twain was used to saying, "Presently, by-and-by," Jim's talking stopped altogether and he reached down and began to explore his bed with his hands.  The wisps resented this intrustion and began to stab him over and everywhere.  After capturing a few wisps in his hand Jim climbed back out from the covers with some crushed wisps on his chest, arms and legs while holding a dozen or so prisoners that were stinging him.  With grit he held these wisps fast and asked Twain to light a candle to identify what was source of his displeasure and irritation.

Seeing these insects, Jim identified them as "wisps!" and it was, as Twain explained, "his last sane remark for the night."

Nathan, the local necessity of your assertion that " Darwinian 'science' has led to philosophical materialism, denial of original sin, discounting of human freedom, none of which are scientific," cause me to think (when held to the light of a candle), that this summary is little more than a handful of wisps.  This I find especially respecting how biology and evolution possibly comingle in the classroom of an Adventist institution where I was familiar.  Your handful of wisps is exactly why a young person coming into an Adventist educational environment will enjoy increasing interest in the common feelings and common destiny of human beings, not unrestrained attraction to the wisps you laballed Darwinan "science." 

As a reformer, be fair and responsible. Think of your own benefits in learning.  All continual pursuit of happiness is best directed at exhalting the good, while quaranting the irresponsible.  So now I apologize for bringing into play some balance.  Two quick examples will serve our discussion in this regard.  (Both occurredl before Darwinian science came on the scene.)  First, in 1830 United States Congress, acting against the "savages" who were in possession of good cotton lands, passed the Indian Removal Act. In defending this act President Jackson questioned if "the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home, than the settled, civilized Christian."  Before "Christians" arrived there were an estimated 10 to 12 million " aboriginies" already here.  By the turn of the 20th century only an esimated 200,000 remained.  And nearly all 60 million Bison were destroyed in an effort to remove the food sources for these people.

My next example involves slavery and racial discrimination in America principally during the 19th century, but reaching beyond.  This was a time of less than tranquil history with Christians using the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, to defend common actions dispised by African Americans and others under domination. Reading about the awakening moments when slaves were emancipated creates a solemnity of how wrong individuals can be when hidding proudly under religious defenses.  I would be the first admit, there is not much value in calling down a curse because it provides little to admire in my argument.  But reading your response in the form of wisps brought on this darkness in my response.

I recommend that you read an astonishing new portrait of Darwin's "Sacred Cause" written by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009).  A moral fire was built in Darwin's upbringing as a child and continued while on the Beagle while observing how people were treated during the voyage.  Darwin's notes show that this became a "Sacred Cause" against slavery and he opposed the arrogant arguments that Negroes were less than human, what even Mrs. White referred to as an "amalgamation of man and beast." (Although I am quite sure Mrs. White never read Darwin.)  Leading Christian apologists for slavery in both the North and South during Darwin's time argued that blacks and whites had originated as separate species, with whites created superior.  Darwin in "Origin of Species" essentially abolished the theory of "polygeny" which originated in the North, and it became (according to Desmond and Moore) his "sacred cause" in his theory of evolution that all races, blacks and whites, animals and plants had common ancestors.

So shake off the wisps, life is less than perfect, it seems every blest school of thought has fevers.  Cultivate understanding and give credit due to dedicated teachers and professors who sincerely prepare and admire their own "sacred cause." To quote Aeschylus...

By the way Nathan, my speculating that you wrote like a lawyer, which you called "a cheap shot," was nothing dimly close to a warning that if you stay where you were and I counted to ten, it would cost you your life.

Cheers

Developing trends in the sciences are never encountered in a cultural vacuum, so debates giving voice to a range of other anxieties often erupts.  This is illustrated by statements such as, “Darwinian science has led to philosophical materialism, denial of original sin, discounting of human freedom, none of which are scientific.”  Such statements present what are called “is-ought to problems.” 

Darwin’s himself in a letter to Asa Gray wrote, “I am bewildered,  I had no intention to write atheistically.  But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I sh’d wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us…On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & and especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force.”

On the subject of creationism Darwin said, “I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.”

Apparently, Darwin’s personal moral dilemmas were the result of “damnable doctrine of eternal retribution,” and his reaction following the senseless, cruel death of this delightful daughter Annie.  Even without evolution or Darwinism a person can turn away from Christianity.

Frederick Temple, who became archbishop of Canterbury, came to agree with Darwin’s views early in the 1860s.  He felt that natural selection enhanced the Creator described in the Bible, “Because a universe governed by natural law was more dignifying than the image of divine conjurer who magicked new species into existence from time-to-time.”

To “seriously grapple with the tension between faith and science, and the implications each has for the other,” as Nathan Schlit pleads, requires considerable time, forebearance and a blusing sympathy to avoid taking sides.  A way would have to be found in the Adventist community to create an asylum for science liberated from the strictures of religious dogma and the attitude of “my way or take the highway.”

And Nathan, paying my due tribute, I found myself wondering how you drew any condescending implications in the historical account of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the Biblical apologetics before the Civil War for the continuation of slavery.  I’m puzzled and fretting about you becoming an exile in the dialogue.

I simply was attempting to show the collectivism, “Darwinian science has led to philosophical materialism, denial of original sin, discounting of human freedom, none of which are scientific,” are often statements widely used for the moral outlook and absurd interdependence of a collected group, and that one can also make these same kind of statements against Christianity by selecting worst cases (for which I apologized before I began).

If my optimistic theory is correct about the present debate, La Sierra University and other Adventist higher education institutions understand the challenges posed by modern science and medicine and will continue to educate students to continue their faith in the existence of an unseen order of the kind found in Adventist religious teachings, but when it comes to science in which the riddle of the natural order may be found explained will continue to present modern and up-to-date viewpoints and evidence.

Cheers

Nathan,

Not all people use paraphrasing to attack an argument rendered by another. Restating in ones own words a data summary and the conclusions made by other authors is part of the scientific process and can result in even greater clarity. This process often occurs in the introduction and discussion sections of any scientific paper and is part of the intellectual process.

Maybe restating an argument in order to attack it occurs more in the legal world but in the science world we struggle for clarity. At the same time some scientists can be just plain mean. But, most of the time they are not trying to be so. In my experience they actually try to help when I publish my work and will often paraphrase what I have said for the purpose of clarity. Thus, restating the argument of another and then providing new data along with a different discussion may actually clarify an older argument. I recognize that you do not exist in the same world of science that I do but I do not think Dr Willey was necessarily trying to deride your argument. 

When scientists discuss topics face to face, they often restate a presented argument and ask "did I hear your correctly"? 

Response by T. Joe Willey:

Sean Pitman asks...

"What evidence would you present, if someone were to ask you for it, for the existence of God? For example, why don't you believe in Santa Claus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but you do believe in God? Upon what basis?"

Sean, I presume that you are not really being frivolous, but desiring to profess a real creator God that exists (not Santa Claus or Flying Spaghetti Monster).  And if this is the case, then we can ask how involved is this "creator God" in the running of the Universe and His creation.

It turns out this question is crucial between both theology and science and the way that individuals answer this question involves many colors of resolution and engagement in their mind.  In doing so, we want to determine to what extent does nature operate on its own inherit features or laws, or put another way, to what extent does God involve Himself in nature.  This is the basic question of causation, what causes the phenomenon in nature that we can see or observe.  And I might add, this is the central question of scientific inquiry-the discovery of causes.   This is also a question for theologians.

Taking this under consideration; the way that God influences creation is the way scientist's study the natural world.  Some scientists suggest, for example, that a single omnipotent God provides the necessary, although not sufficient basis for studying science in the first place.  Such a God can provide regularity which is what scientific study endeavors try to uncover.  Science depends on repeatable observations.

Within Christianity there is a range of answers on the nature of God within nature.  One position is what is called Supernaturalism, e. g., God effects everything in the world.  This position holds that all causation is supernatural.  The power comes from outside of nature instead of power within nature.  All events are immediately caused by God.  Within this one position there are several supdivisions.  The simplest and most extreme one might be what we call naïve supernaturalism, e.g., God causes everything.

People who hold this view often have a lack of interest in understanding science.  There is no point, no objective that can be achieved.  So a more sophisticated version of supernaturalism is called occasionalism.  In this position, the links to causation are merely perceptions, instead what we see is God's direct intervention on occasion.  One thing doesn't actually cause another, it only marks the occasion at which God acts.  I knew a dean at Loma Linda University who was traveling down Interstate 10, near Beaumont, when a car suddenly came across the divider and smash into his car from the side,  He took that to mean that God did not want him to purchase property in Cherry Valley away from the heat and smog in the valley.  So he canceled his purchase contract.

You can see from this that supernaturalism potentially diminishes one's interest in the natural world.  If there is no causative power residing in nature, then why bother to study it.  Supernaturalism can also undermine confidence in scientific laws because the laws themselves have no real existence.  But this is not the only perspective on supernaturalism.  Thoughtful Christians who believe in supernatural occasionalism almost always never believe that God is capricious, so their position drifts toward naturalism.  For them God acts in uniform and stable ways according to a kind of covenant that He established with the world when He created it.  This covenant fills in for the laws of nature.

On the other end of the spectrum are intellectual positions that God ceased interventions after creation using the Biblical text which says after six days God rested on the seventh day.  Under this interpretation the effects and phenomenon that we witness in nature are caused by inherent powers or laws that God implanted or embedded originally in creation before resting.  This view is known as Naturalism.  Causation is nature flows in and through natural things.  God delegated some of his power to the things he created, leaving powers of causation.  Nature operates naturally and independently.  Christians who believe in naturalism therefore agree that all things came from his created act, and therefore they are secondary to Him.  Thus, if nature has powers of causation they are secondary.

The supernaturalist rely on primary causation, the direct cause is the first cause; God.  Naturalists on the other hand invoke secondary causation, the regulated activity of natural created things.  We can end up arguing how many intermediary steps are there between supernaturalism and naturalism in creation?  A supernaturalist would say none and a naturalist would say some, although how many depends on your ideas about naturalism.

For a supernaturalist, if God goes on vacation or decides to stop acting things stop working or even existence stops.  For a naturalists, the powers implanted in things would still continue to cause their usual effect(s).  There is order, observable order and not everything is possible.  Importantly, we as human beings cannot decide ultimately which is the true description of objective reality about God.  Is it supernaturalism or naturalism?  There is no empirical test that is possible.  All we can observe are effects, and a temporal relationship between cause and effect.  We are unable to actually demonstrate an operational connection between what we sense and the cause that we witness as an effect.  Between these two extremes there exists intermediate positions.  Individuals position themselves along various points on this continuum.  And I might add, Christians are not alone in these discussions, but so are other monotheistic faiths.

There are of course, objections to both extremes at either end.  Naïve supernaturalism, which invokes God for every cause without uniformity of action, flies in the face of our daily experience.  Our experience of the orderly like nature makes no sense under naive supernaturalism.  On the other end, naturalism which attempts to make sense of the natural world in its extreme form can be seen as anti-providential determinism.  In this case, there is no room left for God's care and intervention in the world.  This runs the risk of rendering God unnecessary after the initial creation.

A most interesting study is how these various positions have played out historically?  We just don't have room here to develop this further and fill in the edges.  There are a number of sources to study.  One source I found useful is a book edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, titled When Science & Christianity Meet.  Univ. of Chicago Press. 2003.  The most challenging aspects apparent in the clash between science and religion seems to be in finding a way to reconcile the advancements of modern thought with the religious instincts of human beings without coming to the conclusion that the story of creation was a trick placed by God Himself to tease mankind or the story was for a different purpose than it is presently used.

In conclusion, Theodore Hornberger, in Scientific Thought in the American Colleges 1638-1800 argues that, "For every natural philosopher who lost his faith to science, many more found their beliefs untouched by the search for natural causes of physical events.  For them, the search for natural laws led to a fuller understanding of God, not disbelief."  Given the bent toward naturalism the theologians often say that God's direct activity is almost invariably working through "secondary causes" and God appears to have limited direct activity to an initial moment of creatio ex nihilo.

It's probably a bit late in the dialogue, but let me try once again to respond, Joe, to what seems to me a specious parallel between Christian values 150-200 years ago and the philosophical values associated with contemporary Darwinian progressives.  

Most Christians did not support slavery in the 19th Century, and Christianity was virtually alone in the world in fighting the battle against slavery.  Christian nations were the first to abolish slavery, a practice that had been deemed morally acceptable by nearly all cultures throughout history.  Just which Christian thought leaders of the 19th Century argued that slavery was a scriptural mandate?  Progressive secular acolytes of Darwin, such as Margaret Sanger and fascists, were at the forefront of the eugenics movement in the early 20th Century.   Blaming Christianity for the minority of Christians who used scripture to justify slavery is like blaming Christianity for the minority of Christians who justify homosexual behavior in the name of scripture.  

Furthermore, few Christians argued that slavery or the Indian Removal Act were logically deducible from Christian principles. On the other hand, philosophical materialism, rejection of God, human freedom, and original sin have been, and continue to be, fundamental beliefs of the overwhelming majority who subscribe to Darwinian philosophy. They view those beliefs as logically compelled by inferences that should be drawn from their "science".   If you want to suggest a moral equivalence between slavery and mistreatment of American Indians on the one hand, and philosophical materialism, etc., on the other, I'm fine with that. But there's one minor detail you've overlooked - Christians aren't advocating  slavery today.  I'm not suggesting Christians are always right.  What I'm saying is this: ideas have consequences that go beyond the realm in which they originate. Faith has impacted science, music, architecture - virtually every realm of human existence.  The same is true of science.  It does not exist in a vacuum. Those defending the La Sierra biology department are wrong to circle the wagons and pretend that Darwinian "science" can or should be separated from faith concerns.  Such a defense raises serious questions about their intellectual integrity and faith commitment, regardless of how one believes the issues should be addressed or resolved.

Incidentally, I am puzzled to know the provenance of your great confidence in the objectivity and intellectual integrity of university professors.  I know of few groups (other than lawyers) who are more conformist, self-referential, and consumed with moral vanity than academicians. (Maybe that's why I like them so much) When my daughter went through La Sierra during the mid to late 90's, she was thoroughly trained, with the tools of deconstuctionism, to subscribe to the tenets of Marxism, radical feminism, multi-culturalism, and religious pluralism. I could name names, but will resist. Fortunately, once she encountered the real world, she came to her senses, a process that most who go straight from being students to becoming professors do not undergo.  She left La Sierra equally disdainful of all religions, including the SDA tradition in which she was raised.  The classical liberal education which you fantasize to be the fare of the modern university is just that - a fantasy.  Personally, I think the religion and humanities departments at La Sierra are far bigger threats to Christianity than the biology department.  But that's another issue.  I am highly confident that there is far less independence or diversity of thought and belief in the religion or humanities departments of La Sierra than you will find in most churches from which their students come.

While I disagree with much of the "fundamentalist" agenda being demonized by progressives, I cannot for the life of me understand why they should be excoriated for asking questions and expecting La Sierra to be accountable to parents and constituents.  Why should the mantra of "academic freedom" serve as kryptonite to those inquiries?  I still haven't heard an answer to my question: WHY IS IT OKAY - YEA, A MORAL DUTY - FOR PROGRESSIVES TO DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY OF CHURCH LEADERS, BUT CONSERVATIVES, WHO DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY FROM EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, MUST BE DEMONIZED AND SILENCED?

Nathan, I hear you...

           The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!

"Most Christians did not support slavery in the 19th Century..."

What's your evidence for this?

Half of the country (U.S.) fought a brutal civil war to preserve the "peculiar institution", and many of those on the other side didn't care for slavery one way or another.  Many mainline Protestant denominations split over the issue, with what is now the largest U.S. Christian sect--Southern Baptists--taking the pro-slavery side.

Conservatives can't both argue that America is a Christian nation while denying the many allowances, covert and overt, that the "Christian" founders, first in the colonies, then later in the states and the nation at large, took, to protect slavery in both formal (Constitutional) and informal ways.

Ultimately, for its defenders, the Bible provided suitable evidence for the rights of slaveholders and governments to treat slaves as "property" (see Exodus 21).

Meanwhile, after slavery officially ended, African Americans in the (Bible Belt) South continued to be sold (usually after being arrested for such "crimes" as "vagrancy") as forced labor to private companies, not to mention the murderous practice of "lynching", which, again, the Bible Belt South allowed to occur, whatever its supposed "Christian" heritage.

The fact is that until the 1960's (which according to most conservative narratives of American history was when the country actually begin sliding into Gomorrah), American Christianity dropped the moral ball when it came to protecting African Americans and the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution, as well as under Natural Law. And when it finally did begin to assert itself in the Civil Rights movement, religion and Christianity was primarily represented by, in order, African American Christians, Jews, and mainstream, as opposed to "evangelical" Christians.

Glennspring:  Wow!  That's a slanted version of Christianity and slavery through the centuries.  The northern abolitionist movement was strongly Christian from the beginning.  (John Brown had gone to prep school with the goal of becoming a congregationalist minister, but lack of funds and eye problems prevented him actually training for the ministry).  Northern Christians generally opposed slavery, which is why several denominations split, as you rightly pointed out.  I don't think those denominations would have split if the northern Christians weren't at least as strongly opposed to slavery as the southerners defended it.  After the emancipation proclamation in 1862, the civil war became, for northerners, an explicitly Christian abolitionist war.  Consider the third verse of the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea; with a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; as He died to make men holy let us die to make men; while God is marching on.

The same tune was also sung with the words, "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave," and while those words orignally referred to a different John Brown, they soon came to be identified with the abolitionist.

And of course, the struggle to outlaw the transAtlantic slave trade was carried on in England by group of very fervant Christians led by William Wilberforce, whose crusade to outlaw slavery grew directly out of his conversion to Christianity.  Thanks in large part to Wilberforce, the British navy and empire became a force against slavery all over the world.  And whereas Britain had previously been culturally neutral, it eventually began to oppose practices llke suttee in India.  Pressure by Western Christian nations prevailed upon the Muslim world to outlaw slavery (although it still goes on in the Muslim world). 

David, actually, Glennspring is right on and absolutely historically accurate with his post.  You, on the other hand, are, in the immortal words of Bob Uecker, "Just a Bit Outside!" of the truth. 

For you to portray the Civil War as a "Christian North" against a "Non-Christian South" war is horribly inaccurate.  Your portrayal of the Civil War as an "explicitly Christian Abolitionist war" is so for off base that any historian would find it laughable.  I'm not sure if your quote of the "Battle Hymn" is supposed to be probative, but it's hardly the case.  The war started and finished as primarily a war to preserve the Union. 

These facts regarding Christian America's history remain:  For almost a century in America, with Christian Presidents, Legislators, and judges,  it was legal to own black people.  By the time the Civil War rolled around, it was laso clear that the northern abolitionists had little to no inclination to treat blacks as equals.  Hence, even after the end of legal Slavery, it was yet another hundred years before Civil Rights became a fundamental issue at the forefront of the American consciousness.  Remember, many of the Christian fathers of our Christian nation, including Washington, Adams, and Jefferson owned slaves.  So for you to color Glennspring's post as "slanted" is , well, slanted, far, far away from reality. 

Thanks Glennspring for shaking the heterodoxy out of Nathan’s response….

Nathan tried to plunge the conversation back into cold water which I presume came from a shallow understanding on the history of racism and slavery in America during the nineteenth century under Christian leanings.

During this time most Northern and Southern whites regarded blacks as inferior, on the level of brute beasts, not on par with superior whites and doubted the blacks were capable for freedom.  In fact many whites considered blacks a separate species inferior to whites, and thus treated as brute beasts. In a most ambitious scientific book written in the 1860s (Races of the Old World: A Manual of Ethnology) Charles Brace employed Darwin’s theory to explain how the varieties of humankind could have only developed from a single origin, and he tried to break the false idea that blacks were a separate species..  At this time, Uriah Smith, the editor of the Review, defended the Adventist’s position that natural history did not believe there was a sharp line between animals and man and Smith identified Hottentots, Bushman from Africa and Digger Indians in America as possibly other kind (species or race) from the amalgamation of man and beast.  

While many individuals, both churchmen and non-churchmen, in both the North and South, opposed slavery nearly everyone believed that there were indelible marks of differences between whites and blacks and black people could not assimilate with the superior and enlightened whites.  Generally, the nineteenth century abolition movement was not based on racial equality at all, except by a few radicals. Both North and South invoked God’s will and righteousness in fighting the Civil War.  Under the banner of heaven, Christians, as much as anyone had a direct hand in the killings and during reconstruction some of the worst treatment of former slaves included lynching of blacks for little reason at all.  It was a terrible time for both African Americans and American Indians

The biblical justification of slavery (the religious center piece) was based on the story of Noah, Cain and Ham.  And it will surprise many Adventists to learn that Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets (1890) employed Noah’s Curse to justify slavery.  Keep in mind that Adventist pioneers continued to convincingly believed Revelation prophesied that slavery would exist until Christ’s second coming, even after the Civil War.  Mrs. White wrote, “Noah, speaking by divine inspiration, foretold the history of the three great races to spring from these fathers of mankind.  Tracing the descendants of Ham, through the son rather than the father, he (Noah) declared, ‘Curse be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brothers.’”  In a recent book Stephen Haynes (Noah’s Curse, 2002) demonstrates the origin of Noah’s curse and how it was used in both the North and South to justify American slavery. 

I remember in academy in the 1950s listening to a better-known minister during a week of prayer extrapolate the story of Noah and explained how youngest son Ham made sport of his drunken father.  The minister justified the treatment of blacks in the South on this confabulation.  Anyway…it is exceedingly difficult to argue an apologetic position defending Christianity over slavery during the nineteenth century or for that matter the way American Indians (savages) were treated during this same time.

                                                    Part Two

You will note, the more belligerent challenging aspect of Nathan’s arguments places the blame for his daughter abandoning her faith at the feet of the professors and the Adventist higher education system. He continues to say that non-Adventist evangelical colleges do a better job to thwart the failure of faith during or after college.  This approach falls under what social scientists call dimension reduction.  Basically his argument leads to the false perception that the blame for young people (like his daughter) leaving her faith is because young minds were given daring or free initiatives and came unglued while in an Adventist college.  This completely and literally ignores many other possibilities for blame placements. 

Young people, fresh out of high school in most instances, have been under the shelter of willow trees living in “genuine truth.”  Then they enter college following the imperatives to become mature adults where ignorance has the force of vice.  Most teachers in the lower grades are pragmatic and narrow, avoiding openness of mind, exploration or other fancies.  But young college-age scholars are expected to deepen their maturity and broaden their intellectual views.  After more than a decade of care from age six to eighteen with absolute convictions from exposure in home and church school, it is now time to grow up.  During college some of this growth comes from peers, some from books and magazines, some from teachers and some from introspection, and some who knows where.  The air is tainted with bright colors of exceptional change and often compressed in space and time. 

Despite the ambition by conservatives (I do not like this term but use it quickly to get to the point) to deconstruct Adventist college education the truth is that learning during this time is much more complicated than it was before.  For the first time college students are free to make choices.  Their parents expect them to grow up, become responsible for their own lives, but how can they be free and still be responsible.  Essentially Nathan proposes what Nassim Taleb, the statistician, calls a Black Swan which reduces the dimensions and invents a cause.  Humans find it easy to attach blame and simplification by the easiest possible route.  The heritage of growing up is a very complicated reality.  Let me illustrate.

Recently I was in the White Mountains with my journalist son who was writing a piece for the newspaper on recent climate studies taking place with Bristle Cone Pines.  He invited me along for the day as he interviewed a researcher from the University of California out in the field among the trees.  The researcher had a genuine passion for her work because it was possible to date Bristle Cone Pines back to 11,500 years using clever scientific methods and to relate her studies to possible changes in climate.  That evening while eating in the cafeteria at the research station she revealed that she had attended Pacific Union College.  This launched a wonderful quiet conversation about life.  In the process, I listened to her story about how she lost her faith in Adventism.

She had been a biology major at PUC.  Her freshman year, when the class came to the chapter on evolution the teacher asked the students to skip this part of the book and he explained they would not be delving into evolution.   After class she asked the instructor why he avoided this chapter. He explained that the PUC biologists did not want to undergo the same scrutiny that the religion department had several years earlier with Desmond Ford.  When she returned to her room she read the “chapter and biology began to make sense for the first time,” she said.  Before her junior year she transferred to UCSC wanting to obtain training in botany and ecology which PUC did not offer.  It was there that she stopped going to church, a great “disappointment to her parents,” but she said her questioning started earlier, even before college.  Her father was a physician and later after many family discussions and her revelations what she had learned about paleontology, geology, etc., both of her parents also quit going to church.  Her grandparents insisted that the three of them were going to be lost.  It wasn’t all over evidence on the age of the earth, but also theological discussions around Adventist doctrines such as the judgment, forgiveness, perfectionism, etc. 

So in this case let’s go looking for blame as Nathan proposes.

Starting from early childhood she grew up in an Adventist home where she had been carefully sheltered, that is to say; no reading of novels, vigorous attitudes of health reform, no competitive sports, little mixing with the outside world, attending Adventist grade schools, academy, Sabbath School and church each week, hearing what she said were sermons along “the fairly narrow gospel path with literal interpretation of the Bible and frequent use of the Spirit of Prophecy.”  Her pastor took pride in vigorously opposing the theory of evolution (with almost no knowledge of the field) and other satanic philosophical intelligences.  Actually, she also said she grew up fearful of the persecution at the end of time from Catholics.

As a youth, she enjoyed reading Ellen White’s writings until one of her boy friends in academy convinced her that Mrs. White drew liberally from others in writing Desire of Ages, but that Mrs. White denied this.  Her family caused her to break up with this friend.  So by the time she got to college she was beginning to experience what she called “unshaped skepticism without really knowing what was happening.”  Even before college she was beginning to question her upbringing.  Did her genetics and her propensity to be intrinsic curiosity result in her reading the chapter on evolution in college and exploring different philosophical positions in psychology while at PUC?

Was it the fault of her teacher, as an overseer of her learning that spoiled her upbringing as Nathan implies, by warning the students not to read the chapter on evolution because she noticed the inconsistencies in dealing with what was perceived as opposition to the teachings of the church?  She recognized that her teacher was not a dedicated biologist and she perceived he was limited in terms of the great scientific movements taking place in biology and molecular chemistry.  She wanted more.

Was it the group of students who sometimes met at lunch and dueled over mutually assured self-abnegations noting certain gaps behind the veil of religion in their earlier upbringing?  She began to listen to “beat” music.  She admitted that she was impressionable and sensitive at this period of her life and wanted to be like other smart students.  She told me, “the shades over her eyes began to lift” and she began to recognize that there was an unseen universe that she had missed in her narrow upbringing.  She did not provide a trail of blame, her teachers at PUC had nothing to do with this part of her personal journey.  Actually, what came through was how much better off she was doing what she thought would be of great benefit to mankind, free from restrictures.

The more she studied the more she recognized the combination of primitive simplicity, even how the Bible came to exist and she materially recognized that her PUC professors were nearly always careful to shade the truth a little here and there in order to maintain a good reputation and to avoid certain things, what she called “weakness of nerve.”  She was a very bright student and the swiftness of change did frighten her and she discussed her religious spreading with the student chaplain at PUC.  He recommended that she read her Bible more and avoid studious examination of everything in greatest detail.

We could go on beating to death the search for the cause of her march away from Adventism.  It occurred over several years.  But I was not persuaded in listening to her story that her faith failure was the result of any single event or events while attending PUC, or even her earlier upbringing.

Some day she may discover the soundest way to protect our environment and save our children and then I suppose we’ll be moved to say it was God’s will that she denounced her upbringing to make her triumphant discoveries.  No, I wouldn’t go that far. But we’ve heard the volatile and pessimistic voices of the deconstructionists and we’ve heard this before, what in the 1970s period came to be called “the whackers.”  Unfortunately, the network of letters and dispersions are almost strong enough to create a nation unto itself.  I sincerely hope that others will see the real value of reason and depth and clearness and fuse understanding in the fire of infinite rationality.  Learning is a dielectric of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.  Be strong.

Cheers

Nathan,

I read your post and regarding your daughter there is no one to "blame." She came to that institution of higher learning as a free moral agent. She left that way and continued her journey and within time seemed to come back to some of her original roots. Do you think that the religious and philosophical positions of intelligent SDA young people are not subject to alteration over the course of ones life if they just have the "right" professors? Believers become atheists and atheists become believers. These transitions occur when one really investigates their own philosophical perspectives. Indeed some young people can find a particular political view such as feminism liberating for a time, and later with experience and an honest look at the philosophical foundation of such will once again alter their personal view.

In the end I am responsible for my own positions, not my former professors, mentors or friends. Whether I view God as a supernatural wonder who is involved in his creation or as a nonplayer on the side lines allowing creation to go its own way within the bounds of natural law, is dependent on many variables. No matter what position I take, over time my positions are subject to modification. Thus, the religious and philosophical positions of people evolve over time.

When I told my father 20 yrs ago I was no longer an SDA I was at the Univ of Calif in advanced training. He was afraid for me and first tried to be authortarian and when that did not work he pointed me to biblical texts that he said I could not argue with. I told him to dispense with the threats and listen for once. We became friends and from there I was able to bring him out of the 10,000 yr literal creation and flood nonsense (that is what it is to me) and over to my side of thinking. It took 15 yrs. In the end my father died an SDA but he was also a more spiritual person having cast off much of fundamentalist SDA theology. When he died he was both my father and a very good friend and confidant.

What is wrong with that? 

Couldn't agree more Doctorf.  My point wasn't that my daughter was a helpless "victim" of academic indoctrination.  In fact, the anectodote was simply offered to illustrate two tangential points: 1) that the religion and humanities departments at La Sierra are far more serious threats to Christian faith than the biology department; 2) Contrary to Joe Willey's highly idealized and lofty view of university professors as truth-seekers rather than ideologues, my perception is that a very large number of them are hugely ideological, and do not even expose students to well-qualified expositors of credible alternatives.  

Surely you are not suggesting that teachers do not significantly impact values and beliefs, are you?  Do educators not have a responsibility to expose students to the best arguments on various sides of an issue, without making them feel like only morons and bigots would adopt views different from the teacher's? 

I don't know, for example, whether Lee Greer uses his biology classrooms at La Sierra to discuss the politics and "science" of climate change and environmental issues.  But I have a strong feeling, from exchanges I have had with him, that he does, and that his students aren't offered any resources from which they might get balancing information.  Unlike the education I received in college, professors today are emotionally invested in their own values and beliefs, rather than imparting information and critical thinking skills that might call into question their own values and beliefs.  This is of course inherent in their post-modern presuppositions and methodology.

I remember another of my daughters texting me from her 17th Century British History class at Walla Walla years ago to report that her professor was on a tirade about the fact that the Bush Administration was denying habeus corpus rights to the Gitmo Detainees.  He refused to entertain arguments and comments from class members to the contrary because they were "off-topic".  I texted her back to say "That's terrible; the next thing you know, the Bush administration will also be denying the detainees their right to bear arms."  This kind of drive-by opinionating is pervasive among "progressives" when they have the stage.  I guess, like all religious people, they have to witness to their faith when the opportunity arises. 

It certainly would be nice if more progressives would apply the "free moral agent" standard to the SDA Church that they apply to academic indoctrination, and quit blaming  Church leaders and teachings for "wounded" Adventists and ex-Adventists.  At least the Church freely admits its agenda, whereas progressives, who love to see students indoctrinated to be contemptuous of traditional values and religion, disingenuously deny that indoctrination occurs. They delight in intellectual "hide-the-ball" games, selectively dismissing the reality that ideas matter, and that ideas have profound implications for the Church.