Noah’s Ark Ministries International are reporting that they found Noah's Ark. They are “99.9 percent” sure that it is the ancient Biblical artifact. 15 researchers were searching in East Turkey when they discovered what they believe is the ark on Mount Ararat at the 13,000 foot level.
Current Seventh-day Adventist News
The Adventists
The ADVENTISTS, a documentary on health is scheduled for broadcast on PBS stations beginning at the end of February, 2010.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an American-born religion that began in the mid-1800’s. From the outset it gave a priority to a healthy lifestyle as part of its understanding of Scriptures. Special diets, concentration on exercise and healthy living have resulted in its membership living on average 8-10 years longer than others.
National Geographic's Dan Buettner collaborated in a study by the National Institute on Ageing and later wrote about its findings in a book that became the best-selling The Blue Zones. In his interview for the film he shares what he discovered about Adventists. "Week after week, month after month, year after year they're observing the Sabbath, maintaining a plant-based diet and getting exercise. And we know that each of those are associated with longevity - lower body-mass-index, lower rates of heart disease and lower rates of cancer."
Current Spotlight Article
Higher Education, The Great Deception ~ Part 2
By Little Steps
By Richard Myers
Inscribed on the gates at Harvard University we read: “After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government; one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers lie in the dust.” What would John Harvard, who was a Puritan minister, say if he could see Harvard today?
In part one of our series, we asked how it is that Yale and Harvard as well as multitudes of other schools which were founded as Christian institutions can end up so far removed from God. How did this happen to America's oldest and one of the most prestigious universities in the world?
One way in which it happens is that the church itself is unfaithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the research I have studied, I found no mention of the failure of the church in its doctrinal teaching. Why would this effect the relationship between church and school? If the school is to continue its mission of training young men and women to be Christians, the teachers themselves must be Christians. Not in profession only, but in reality, living the faith of Jesus. When the church falls from grace why would we expect the teachers to continue in the true faith? We would not. Jesus warned us to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. That leaven is hypocrisy. I contend that part of the problem with the fall of the Christian schools is the fall of the churches themselves. Babylon is fallen.
One of the results of the failure of church members and pastors to live the truth, is the baptism of those who are not truly converted. The lack of piety is reproduced not only in those coming in from outside the church, but church members also fail at bringing their children to Christ. The young ones go through the church schools and then some become teachers in these very schools. Others become ministers and priests. The failure of those charged with the spiritual condition of the church is seen in the failure of the administrators and teachers in the schools to not only live the truth, but to teach it. It is impossible for the unconverted teacher to maintain the mission of the church when it is contrary to his desire to become successful in the world.
In 1934 Pastor Jay T. Stocking, a female Congregationalist pastor, addressed a seminar on the decline of her church’s commitment to higher education with this statement: "The chief means on which a college must rely for the realization of its purpose are its teachers. It is Christian teachers who make a Christian college. They are not only the interpreters of facts; they are also the incarnation of interpretations. It is idle to expect men who are not Christians to help provide a Christian education." She may have been pointing out the results of hiring non-professing Christian teachers, but I take it further to placing non-converted "Christian" teachers in such positions. The results will be the same. (1)
In his book The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches, James Burtchaell, presents his study of seventeen American colleges and universities that were founded by Christian denominations--Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, and Evangelical.(2) He shows that today they are anything but Christian institutions and makes a strong case as to how these schools were lost to the churches that established them. In his research he discovered a number of changes that occurred over a period of time. There was not one large step that caused the separation, but many "little" steps over a period of many years that allowed the world to take over the administration of these schools. One of which was the hiring of teachers not of the denomination's faith.
It was not in one big step that this would occur.
It was first softening the church's requirement that teachers be not only Christian, but of their faith. More than that, the teacher would have to teach in harmony with church doctrine.
Over time this requirement was relaxed so that it would be satisfactory if they were just church members.
Then the requirements were further relaxed to allow for members of other Christian churches.
Then, it would be relaxed even further to allow non-believers if they were of good character and would carry out the church mission.
Then the last step would be removing all religious requirements for teachers.
The world was in the school.
Burtchaell saw that "Access to independent funding often provided the first inspiration to the colleges that they might stand on their own. The patronage of the churches was often stingy, and their chosen trustees were sometimes there more to be humored than to help. As the colleges gained in sophistication and financial stability, they naturally suffered church fools less gladly." There were many ways the schools gained independent monies. Once they were financially independent, then there was no need to comply with burdensome church requirements.
The story of the American Baptists' Linfield College reveals the failure of legally binding contracts to a confession of faith. In 1921 President Leonard Riley identified “careful selection of trustees and of faculty” as key: teachers were to “know Jesus Christ and to do His will;” their theological views were to be scrutinized carefully.There were also restrictions on campus activities. The original grant of land for the school stipulates “title would revert to the local school district if alcohol were ever sold or served there.” Today the college “does not ask and does not know” the religious affiliation of its faculty. The college maintains its American Baptist tradition, although faculty, students and staff are bound by no religious requirements.(3)
In regards to the alcohol ban, it is very sad to note that "The charming campus of Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon has been the venue of the IPNC since the first annual event in 1987." IPNC? International Pinot Noir Celebration.(4)
In 1906, the board of the school agreed to prohibit football indefinitely at the request of the president. For the next sixteen years, students frequently pleaded for the reversal of the decision; however, in 1915 President Riley went as far as recommending to the Association of Independent Colleges of Oregon that all intercollegiate football programs be abolished. But, in the spring of 1921, a group of athletic directors and student representatives petitioned the college's Board of Trustees for a reversal of the ban. In 1922 we see a "little" step when the president announced the reversal of the ban on football. On that very same day he announced a gift of $250,000 to further Christian education at the school. (5)
I want to conclude by sharing what was happening at the local First Baptist Church associated with Linfield. "Toward the middle of the next century, the whole body of Oregon Baptists was shaken up by a theological argument: were we 'Conservative' or 'Liberal'? Specifically, do we or do we not read the Scriptures literally? Linfield College was attacked as a stronghold of liberalism; our church tended to line up with the college. More than half the Baptist churches of the state, including some of the largest, formally withdrew from the state body ...... "
The spiritual condition of the church was not any better than the spiritual condition of the school. Today, the school is in the world, how about the church? It now not only recognizes homosexual relations, but "the Official Board authorized present and future pastors to bless such unions as their conscience allows, but not in the church sanctuary." (6)
"While the college has changed much from the early days, its mission has remained constant – to teach undergraduates in an atmosphere of academic freedom that fosters intellectual rigor, creativity, and a sense of personal and social responsibility."(7)
In closing James Burtchaell leaves us with a challenge that cannot be misunderstood. "The failures of the past, so clearly patterned, so foolishly ignored, and so lethally repeated, emerge pretty clearly from these stories. Anyone who requires further imagination to recognize and remedy them is not up to the task of trying again....." In other words, if we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Many of our scholars have studied the works of James Burtchaell and other "experts" from the fallen churches but have failed to see the connection between the lack of piety in the schools and the lack of piety in the churches from which they come. By the way, James Burtchaell is Roman Catholic and a practicing homosexual. While his research is helpful, it is not complete. We can learn from the mistakes of others, but we would do better to look to the counsel we have within our own church regarding Seventh-day Adventist education. Looking to the world has resulted in the fall of Babylon and her schools. Let us look to Christ.
Can this disengagement between university and church happen to us? We will look at this further when we continue this series.
1 The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches, James Burtchaell, Eerdmans
America the beautiful, God shed His grace on thee! Yes, God abundantly blessed the United States of America. In Bible prophecy she is the lamb-like beast with two horns. America was a Protestant nation, not a "Christian" nation as is customary when describing a nation which upholds "Christian" values. A Protestant nation is one which values religious liberty while building a system of government based on Biblical morality. An individual is left with freedom to worship God as he sees fit. The laws of the land deal with relationships between man and man, not man and God.
In order that the union might be successful, it was understood that a republic would need an educated and moral society. Therefore, education was an important goal of the founders of the nation. Even before there was a United States the colonies had already established such institutions. It may surprise many today to know that some of the most prestigious universities in the world were founded as Christian schools. Two in particular come to mind, Yale and Harvard. Actually, of the "Ivy League" schools, seven of the eight were established as Christian institutions or by Protestant churches. Of these seven, all were founded in the 1700s except Harvard which began in 1636. It is the oldest of the universities in the U.S.
It is interesting to note that each of these schools has gained prominence in the world, but none are Christian in any sense of the word. Some, contrary to being Christian, are turning out rabidly anti-God students that are leading the world in opposition to morality. One such prominent graduate of Harvard Law School is U.S. President Barrack Obama. This year he established a national day to honor homosexuals. Yes, the Ivy League schools once a bastion of Bible truth, now will crucify any professor who dares to use the Bible to argue in favor of creation. Higher education in the world is anything but "higher education". It has fallen to the level where Satan smiles as he sees his success in perverting truth.
Today on the Harvard campus, there are no debates about the existence of God, but the important issue is that of coed habitation, and not for married couples. "From Stanford to Harvard, more than 30 colleges offer coed dorm rooms or gender neutral housing. Male and female friends can room together by request. The option was first designed to accommodate lesbian, gay and transgender students who felt more comfortable rooming with someone of the opposite gender, but it was later expanded to include anyone who requested it." (1)
The Yale University seal carries with it proof of the fall from grace of this once Christian school of higher education.
Notice the Hebrew words inscribed therein: Urim Thummim The two stones through which God communicated with Israel. Yes, these once great institutions were lights in a dark world. Today, they are no longer communicating light, but darkness.
We ask the question: How is it that a Christian university could end up as they are today completely separated from Christ? In a series of articles we will examine how it happened and ask the question: Can it happen to our institutions of "higher education"?
"The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one: I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." John 17:22,23
