Curious Conference

A Curious Conference: An analysis of the Faith and Science Conference in St. George, Utah, organized by Leonard Brand, Art Chadwick and Ed Zinke with the blessing of Elder Ted Wilson

This is a revised version of a piece published by the Adventist Today web site.
NOTE: I did NOT attend the conference or talk to conference attendees. This  report is based on information publicly available through the conference web site at the time I wrote. 

Friday, August 15, 2014, was opening day for the “International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation.” The following description is posted on its web site:

The biblical creation is central to the message of salvation found in the Bible and the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The purpose of the International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation is to bring together Adventist educators to explore the creation through both Bible study and study of the creation itself. Ultimately, it is hoped that participants will leave better equipped and inspired to teach about the creation in an informed, responsible and faith-affirming way. Held primarily in St. George, Utah, this conference features Christian speakers and invitees from the global community of faith in the Creator God as revealed in the Bible.

In his opening address, Elder Ted Wilson, president of the General Conference, called on the 350 participants “to be champions of creation based on the Biblical account and reinforced so explicitly by the Spirit of Prophecy.”

This introduces one of several curiosities of this conference. Elder Wilson is quite adamant about the need for Adventist educators to adhere to and wholeheartedly advocate the Biblical account of creation. However, the details of the Adventist interpretation of Genesis 1-9 are in flux.

First curiosity: If we regard the presenters at this faith and science conference as authoritative (and Elder Wilson clearly intends this), Adventists no longer believe God created the heavens and the earth 6000 years ago. Richard Davidson and Randy Younker (and by implication Elder Wilson) believe God created the heavens 14.5 billion years ago. They believe the material of earth coalesced 4.5 billion years ago. They disagree with science only in their dating of the phanerozoic rocks. (To be more precise, in papers presented at earlier faith and science conferences, Davidson and Younker argued that Genesis One gives no information about the date of the creation of extra-terrestrial or pre-biological material, which leaves the conventional dates unchallenged.)

Further, Adventists no longer believe the Flood created all the fossils. Current orthodoxy is that the Flood created only the Paleozoic and Mesozoic fossils. The fossils of the Cenozoic (roughly speaking “the age of mammals) were formed after the Flood.

Second curiosity: In his inaugural address, Elder Wilson famously urged Adventists to refrain from reading non-Adventist authors in areas that touch on theology and spiritual life. This conference features presentations by non-Adventists, including John Baumgartner, Kurt Wise, Marcus Ross, and John Whitmore. Most of the other presenters are well-known, long-time stalwarts of Adventist creationism. The only new voices at the conference are these non-Adventists.

Third curiosity: Ed Zinke, one of the organizers of the conference scheduled himself speak seven of the nine days of the conference. These are not seminar or breakout group presentations. They are plenary sessions. His prominence in the conference program is problematic he has not held a pastoral, faculty or elected position in the church in years. I have to wonder how the conference participants who are actually involved in the life of the church will respond to being instructed by a someone who lives and thinks completely outside the accountability structures of the church. Especially in light of Elder Wilson's strident advocacy of accountability.

The other dominant voices at the conference are Leonard Brand, Art Chadwick, Joann and Richard Davidson. Each of these four plus Zinke spoke every day of the conference (except for the field trip days when there were no plenary sessions). This concentration of content delivery in a very small group of friends is highly unusual for a conference with academic or scholarly pretensions.

Fourth curiosity: Secrecy. This from the conference web site:

Resources provided for invitees to the International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation (ICBS) are solely for the use of those who received invitations to attend this conference from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and actually do attend the conference. By accessing these resources you are stating that you are an invitee to the ICBS with permission to access and use them.

All resources linked to from the “ICBS – Materials for Invitees” (http://fscsda.org/icbs/icbs-program/) website remain the property of the conference presenter who provided them. They are made available solely for the private use of invited attendees of the Faith and Science Council sponsored “International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation” held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and St. George, Utah, August 14-25, 2014. Those who are not invited attendees may not access these materials and may not be provided with either links to these materials or the passwords necessary to access them. These materials may not be redistributed in any form or via any media without the express written permission of the person who provided them to the conference organizers. By clicking on any of the links in the “ICBS – Materials for Invitees” (http://fscsda.org/icbs/icbs-program/) website, you are acknowledging reading and agreeing to these terms.

This secrecy was apparent even before the conference began. There was no general announcement that the church was going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to gather educators for this conference. In May, I was in the field with an Adventist geologist and met a couple of the organizers at an outcrop in southern Utah. We spent a couple of hours together. They carefully avoided the slightest mention that they were in the area scouting sites for the Faith and Science Conference.

I will refrain from speculating about the reasons for the secrecy, but it is an “in your face” feature of the conference.

A final non-curiosity: If you wish to know the content of the presentations at the conference, all you have to do is google the presenters. They are well-known and their views are readily available.

As of August 21, 2014, you could find the complete schedule here: 

http://fscsda.org/icbs/

Teachers

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, October 6, 2012

This is preliminary draft, subject to copy editing and substantive change.

How to Understand the Bible – Part 3. “Teachers”

As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, "Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza." So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and walk along beside the carriage." Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The man replied, "How can I, unless someone instructs me?"

And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him. The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth." The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?" So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus. As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "Look! There's some water! Why can't I be baptized?" He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. He preached the Good News there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea. Acts 8:26-40

About 2000 years ago a Christian named Philip became a celebrity in the city of Samaria. He had come to Samaria because back in Jerusalem the authorities were imprisoning Christians and even killing some of them. Christians scattered all over the Mediterranean world. Philip wound up in Samaria, a non-Jewish city a few days travel north of Jerusalem.

There, he began preaching about Jesus. People were fascinated. Crowds gathered. The more he preached, the bigger the crowds. And, just like the Jesus he preached about, in addition to preaching Philip healed people and cast out demons. Eventually the entire city was talking about this preacher Philip. Thousands got baptized—both men and women, Luke makes a point of saying. (Christianity did not have separate religious practices for men and women as the Jewish religion did. e.g. circumcision.)

The apostles back in Jerusalem heard what was going on and sent Peter and John to check things out. When they arrived they conducted a special prayer service and prayed for the people to receive the Holy Spirit. And it happened.

After a little while Peter and John headed back to Jerusalem. Then something utterly unexpected happened. Philip left town. An angel appeared to him and told him to head back to Jerusalem and then to keep going south out of Jerusalem on the road toward the Sinai desert. Philip followed orders.

Somewhere south of Jerusalem Philip heard a carriage coming along behind him, also headed south. The Holy Spirit told Philip, “Go walk next to the carriage.” Philip did so.

He heard the rich man in the carriage reading. (In those days, when people read, they did not read to themselves the way we do. They read out loud. So Philip heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you're reading?”

“How can I?” the man answered. “I have no one to teach me.”

“I could help you with that.”

So the man invited Philip up into the carriage and they moved on south reading and talking as the miles crawled by.

Who was this man? He was the treasurer of Ethiopia, a very powerful man in the administration of Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. He had been in Jerusalem to worship and was headed back home.

Obviously he was a worshiper of the true God. He may or may not have been officially a member of a synagogue. But he had been to the temple in Jerusalem to worship. He was not “casually” interested in Judaism.

He was reading when Philip joined him. This tells us several things. Obviously he was educated. More than that, he cared deeply about the Bible. People did not have pocket Bibles. Scrolls of the Bible were very, very expensive. Perhaps he had bought this scroll in Jerusalem. For sure, he was serious about studying the Bible. Because he was rich and educated, he had his own copy of the Bible (or at least part of it.)

Still, when Philip asked, “Do you understand it?” he said, “How can I without someone to teach me?”

This is the third in a series on how to understand the Bible. (The technical term used by theologians is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the theory of how to correctly interpret the Bible.)

In the first sermon I listed a number of steps or processes for correctly understanding the Bible. Rule Number One was (and is and always will be) READ THE BOOK.

Last week, we talked about a special approach to understanding the Bible, and that is to see it as the “Jesus Book.” Everything in the Bible, the people, the sacrifices, the religious and civic structures set up by God in the OT, everything is connected to Jesus.

This week I'm going to talk about the role of teachers.

The Bible offers some challenging perspectives on the role of teachers.

The eunuch asked Philip, “How can I understand if I have no one to teach me?”

God sent Philip to supply the eunuch's need. A central theme in the stories of the NT is the role of the church as a source of teachers. Paul was converted through the direct intervention of God. But after three days in blindness, God sent a teacher, Ananias to both restore Paul's physical vision and to begin his training in Christianity.

Later in his life, Paul tried to minimize the role of his human teachers.

I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:12

Of course, Paul had been instructed in Christianity by Christian teachers: the very people he was arresting and prosecuting in Jerusalem. He had listened to teachers so convinced of their beliefs they were willing to testify to them in the face of imminent death. Then when Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road, he compelled the arrogant Pharisee to receive healing and welcome from the very teachers he had been prosecuting.

Then when Paul entered his new Christian ministry what kind of ministry was it? Primarily a teaching ministry. In Acts 18, Luke describes Paul's work in the city of Corinth:

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, "Don't be afraid! Speak out! Don't be silent! For I am with you, and no one will attack and harm you, for many people in this city belong to me." So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half, teaching the word of God. Acts 18

The people Paul was teaching had access to the OT scriptures. They didn't need Paul to give them the Bible. As for knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus, Paul was himself a learner. He was dependent on the reports of eye witnesses. Still he had a large role as a teacher. He helped the people of Corinth to see Jesus in the OT. He helped them learn to read the OT as the Jesus Book.

Just as was the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, it was not enough to have the book, they needed the teacher.

How do we understand the Bible? We read it. And we rely on teachers. There are things we will never see in the Bible unless someone helps us see it. The book is not enough.

Richard Davidson, a well-known professor at the Seminary at Andrews University has written a long article about how to correctly interpret the Bible. He begins by stating that Adventists, like other Protestants, believe in the Bible and the Bible Only. He then explains what this means. And part of his explanation is “. . . the Bible alone is sufficient in clarity so that no external source is required to rightly interpret it.”

Davidson's paper can be found here: http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/interp%20scripture%20davidson.pdf.

But Davidson is wrong. The Bible alone is NOT sufficient. We need teachers. Always have. Always will until we are in the New Earth.

A couple of examples. First from Davidson's own world: Davidson is a strong advocate of the Adventist doctrine that teaches the judgment began in 1844. No one in the last 100 years has ever found that doctrine in the Bible without the help of an Adventist teacher. Of all the billions of people who have read the Bible, not one single person has come even close to guessing the interpretation of Daniel 8:14 that our church teaches. This doctrine requires sources other than the Bible.

If the church is going to retain this doctrine it must maintain an unbroken chain of Adventist teachers. A single generation without those teachers and the doctrine will become extinct. Permanently.

Another example of the danger of attempting to read the Bible without any help. William Miller thought he would study the Bible without teachers. He eventually figured out the approximate date of the Second Coming. Then some of his followers, using his methods, came up with the exact date. October 22, 1844. How did that work out? Thousands of people experienced bitter, devastating disappointment. Over a hundred and fifty years later we are still trying to escape the temptation to figure out “times and seasons” related to the end of the world, distracting us from the real work of spiritual life.

If William Miller had allowed the teaching ministry of classic Christianity to shine some light on his Bible study, he would have realized that Christians have experimented with doomsday scenarios periodically through history. They all follow the same trajectory. And they all end in ignominy.

One of the roles of teachers is helping to protect us from foolishness that comes from our own blind spots.

Walter Vieth is someone in present day Adventism that is repeating William Miller's mistake. He thinks he sees what almost no other theologian or Bible scholar can see. He has misled thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. His presentations feel “true” but they don't stand the test of solid scholarship. Why? Because he himself is operating so far outside his areas of expertise.

For instance he did a series of lectures on Bible manuscripts. He got his facts wrong. More importantly, he got his tone wrong. He suggested to people that they were in danger of being deceived if they read the wrong translation of the Bible. He was wrong. More tragically, he sowed suspicion and distrust between church members.

Based on the teachings and example of Jesus and the teachings and example of Paul, we would expect teachers to play an important role in helping us to rightly understand the Bible.

Having said this, it's important to note a balancing perspective.

And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. Acts 17:11

Just because a teacher, even one as prestigious as Paul, says something, that does not make it so. A teacher points us to understandings in the Bible. A teacher can help us see connections we would not otherwise see. But teachers are also susceptible to error. Teachers make mistakes.

Fact check. Even when learning from the most honorable and brilliant teacher.

I remember a Bible teacher adamantly insisting that the sun was the center of the Milky Way galaxy. He was the teacher. He was still wrong. Another teacher told us he had figured out the precise hour of Christ's return. He was wrong.

When evangelists tell you about the rising crime rate in the United States, they are wrong. Violent crime has been decreasing for more than ten years.

When prophecy buffs tell you they have discovered some new secret that sets dates in connection with the end of time, you don't even have to consider their evidence. They are wrong. It's like when you receive an envelope with no return address. You don't need to open it to figure out whether it's important or not. It's not. By definition. No one yet has sent you or me a million dollars in a letter without a return address. And they aren't likely to.

Fact check your teachers.

The Ethiopian eunuch had a good religious life. He had a vital connection with God and a sweet hunger for more. He read the Bible to feed that hunger. And God responded by sending him a teacher to open a whole new vista: Philip taught the eunuch to see Jesus—the fulfillment of a thousand-year-long wait—as the definitive revelation of the person and purpose of God.

If you are cultivating your spiritual life and if you desire more, if you are seeking a deeper relationship with God, God will put teachers in your life as well. Welcome them. Honor them. Fact check them.

Then put what you've learned into practice. Live out what you've been taught. That's the ultimate purpose of teachers.