04.05.10
Here We Go Again!
The title of this post refers to my reaction to an evolution versus creation controversy currently enveloping a West Coast Adventist institution of higher learning; it’s an allusion to the course that controversies in the Adventist church have historically taken and my dismay that this too might conclude similarly. Our doctrinal and theological debates are often acrimonious and are seldom ‘resolved’ until the party or parties responsible for challenging or calling for reconsideration of the existing orthodoxy are removed or remove themselves from the community.
The La Sierra University contretemps is a topic of debate/discussion on a number of Adventist-oriented blogs (e.g., http://spectrummagazine.org/). My comment and reflection on what it means and how it might play out arises only from the fact of my membership in the wider Adventist community.
There’s a very informative and, to my mind, instructive interview (a transcript is also available) that Adventists who are more interested in respectful and thoughtful dialogue than in scoring debating points on the religion/science question might benefit from. Titled, “Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God,” it can be found at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/asteroids/transcript.shtml.
There’s much to commend an approach which recognizes religion/spirituality and science as being separate pursuits; at least that’s an approach that commends itself to me. In this perspective, the Bible is my source of spiritual, moral and religious instruction. I seek information/instruction about history, geology, mathematics, physics or other scientific disciplines elsewhere.
As usual, television (3ABN) and the Internet have been used to keep the controversy going. Seems to me our church has failed to learn the lessons from past controversies; its leaders and laity seem incapable of addressing disagreements without tearing the institution apart and causing disillusion, especially among its young and thoughtful membership.
