As many of you know, La Sierra University has been plagued with professors that teach heresy and spiritually weak administrators who allowed it to happen. Instead of making sure our young people received a high quality Adventist education, administrators allowed the evolution theory to be taught in place of six literal days of creation.
The university has been under Adventist review to make sure they are committed to our Biblical faith. To help makes things right at the university, God has allowed a Three Stooges type event to take place. At a recent meeting between Adventist accreditors and La Sierra faculty…
Darnell, the La Sierra trustee, was present at the meeting and decided to record the proceedings using an application on his smartphone. According to the Spectrum article, Darnell met up afterward with Beach, Bradley, and Kaatz at a private home, where they watched a National Basketball Association playoff game and discussed the meeting. The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men. It captured “foul language, references to alcohol consumption and unflattering comments being made about board members, administrators, and church leaders,” according to the article. Darnell then sent the recording to a number of key members of the Adventist community, including The Spectrum, reportedly without knowing that it contained more than just the audio of the meeting. Eventually, the recording made its way to Ricardo Graham, chair of the board of trustees. [READ MORE] [Spectrum Magazine Article]
These four La Sierra University “spiritual leaders” choose to dig themselves an Adventist career-ending hole, jump in, and pull the dirt in on themselves. Sorry to say… PRAISE GOD! Adventist pastors, teachers, professors, administrators, etc. are to be committed to God, missions, and ALL of our 28 Fundamental Beliefs. We should NEVER allow spiritual leaders to remain in positions of influence if they choose to rebel against God’s truth and love (God is love and the Word became flesh/Jesus).
The accidental recording has proven that these four men do not belong in Adventist leadership (foul language, alcohol, etc.). How many more Church, school, and health leaders are currently in place who are far from Jesus and the mission His has given us to seek and to save the lost (beginning in our churches and schools)?
Do not get me wrong… there should always be a place in our churches for people who are still studying and processing our basic fundamental beliefs. Everyone should feel welcome in our churches. This does not mean we need to employee individuals who are not ready to commit to our Biblical, Adventist faith.
Let us pray that God will empower us (Adventist leaders and laity) to stay true to His wonderful, lifesaving truths and hold our spiritual leaders accountable in these last days.
Frank Allen
June 20, 2011
I can’t say “praise God” about what happen to these men. You seem to be happy for their judgment day. I would have wished to see redemptive steps taken as Jesus did with Peter, even after curing and taking an oath. Your article is sadly lacking in love and redemption. We talk about saving the lost, but in our midst are the lost we kill while we send out missionary to find more to save.
This was time for the spiritual on the board to pray for and with these individuals. The actions they take will influence the youth in their school more than any sermon.
It does not add up to me. I believe if this event happened to a Catholic priest he would be send away to a spiritual retreat and counseling. Did not Jesus come to call the unrighteousness and sinners?
cing
June 22, 2011
It is only a matter of time now before the whole Adventist system as we know it collapses. From churches to educational institutions to hospitals. We are so far from the original blueprint that we have come to see and judge matters based on what we feel is right rather than according to the standards we have been given in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy.
We have come to look at education in the same manner as the world and accordingly we are reaping the results. In the Great Controversy Martin Luther was quoted as saying: “I am much afraid that the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the word of God must become corrupt.” GC 141
When our schools were established, they were originally founded upon the Protestant model of education with the Bible as the central theme of education. Unfortunately, and I speak this as a product of modern Adventist education myself, our schools have now adopted the papal model of education and must now maintain an accreditation status which only serves to bring our schools more in harmony with the worldly institutions as well as placing an unnecessary amount of debt upon our constituents.
Many schools and hospitals have thus been closed or sold and I believe we will see yet more examples of this in the future. My heart breaks to see it take place. May God help us.
In reference to the above I wish to make the following remarks:
1. A catholic priest has no business teaching in any of our institutions. This is analogous to a priest of Baal teaching in one of the ancient schools of the prophets in Israel or the Protestant schools of the Reformation employing Catholics as professors. This is directly contrary to the word of God and the counsel we have been given as a remnant people.
2. In teaching science we are not to use the texts of infidel authors. Here is just one of many quotes from the Spirit of Prophecy regarding this: “We need to guard continually against those books which contain sophistry in regard to geology and other branches of science. Before the theories of men of science are presented to immature students, they need to be carefully sifted from every trace of infidel suggestions. One tiny seed of infidelity sown by a teacher in the heart of a student may spring up and bring forth a harvest of unbelief. The sophistries regarding God and nature that are flooding the world with skepticism are the inspiration of the fallen foe. Satan is a Bible student. He knows the truths that are essential for salvation, and it is his study to divert minds from these truths. Let our teachers beware lest they echo the falsehoods of the enemy of God and man.” {CT 390.1}
3. “Judgment Day” has not yet come for these men. There is yet time to repent and reform if they are so inclined. The tone of the response from Dr. Bradley, however, seemed more like an attempt to palliate guilt than anything resembling repentance. Let us hope that ourselves and they are ready for that day when “every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.” Let us not forget that Peter after his fall went to the very spot where Jesus had prayed and “wept bitterly” in repentance for his sin. Do these men manifest the fruits of repentance?
4. Jesus did come to call sinners to repentance but the position of teacher is not a light responsibility. It is not the mere communication of scientific or mathematical facts which constitutes education but the inculcation of eternal principles. To this end, teachers must be chosen who will represent the standards of the Bible both in the classroom and in their daily lives. If a teacher demonstrates that they are opposed to the standards of the Bible it will do more harm than good to keep them employed.
Lorelei Cress
June 20, 2011
I sure hope yours isn’t the voice of Adventism that most people hear! Your judgment of these men is unjust, and your rejoicing in their suffering is unkind. Jesus would have reached out to them with compassion, mercy, and love. We Christians (and Adventists!) should, too.
Better Living
June 26, 2011
Brother Lytle, the beginning of the end was when we permitted teachers schooled in the Higher Critical method of Bible study to teach our future leaders and educated laity in our churches. This hermeneutic permits the modern reader to reinterpret the plain words of scripture to accommodate modern social mores. An early practical fruitage of this new hermeneutic has been the insistence of some conferences to ordain women to be pastors of our churches, when the plain sense of the words of scripture give no command or precedence for this, but rather consistently treats this role as one presumed to be held by a males. Bit, we know better than the primitives of the Old and New Testament periods and can now progress beyond those repressive cultural errors. We now “know”, it is alleged, that homo-sexuals are born that way, ie God made them that way, and whatever is, is right. It is necessary for us to move beyond those archaic ideas and become more tolerant and loving…we need to ‘grow up’, spiritually. Besides, we can now ignore the context of Galatians, gayly proclaiming that there is now neither “male nor female”…a misinterpretation of that text routinely used to celebrate the ordination of females to the male role of spiritual leadership in the church and the home. The same hermeneutic can come in handy if we wish to adapt our Sabbath doctrine to Sunday usage instead swimming against the stream of popular practice.
Carmen Sanz
June 7, 2013
Adventist trustees should read this research…”Trustee and Trusteeship of Selected Private Universities and Colleges in the United States of America and Canada”:..Found in must Adventist Universities/Colleges…Read their comments in the study.
http://circle.adventist.org/browse/resource.phtml?leaf=11306