We arrived at Glacier View Camp outside Boulder, Colo. late in the afternoon, Wednesday evening, August 13, in time for the first event of the 2003 Faith and Science Conference: supper. Watching the participants come into the dining room, I was struck by the "family" nature of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Many of these people have known each other for decades. They went to school together. They were students and teachers of each other. They've been attending professional conventions together for years. Many of them have participated in church-sponsored discussions of this nature for years. The debates at this conference are truly occurring "within the family."

There are over 120 participants listed in the official program. I have not counted how many people are actually here. My rough estimate is about 100. I'll give a more accurate number in a future report.

The first formal presentation was by Angel Rodriguez, Director of the Biblical Research Institute (BRI). BRI serves as the theological counsel and watchdog for the General Conference. In his paper, Dr. Rodriguez emphatically declared that in any area where it speaks, the Bible holds absolute priority as an authority. Biblical statements regarding history or science as well as theology are infallible and cannot be corrected or meaningfully challenged by science. "Adventists find certainty only in the message of the Scripture, and that determines the way they read and interpret all other experiences."

Following the formal presentation, I joined a group of geologists in conversation. One of them was expounding on new discoveries in structural geology that he believes could have potentially significant implications for geochronology (and support a recent creation). The next morning in the bathhouse, I listened to conversations about putative new discoveries in radiocarbon dating which could point to a shorter earth history.

Thursday's formal presentations began with a masterful sermon that called the participants to respect each other even as they argued. The preacher urged people to hold their own convictions passionately, to argue for their truthfulness passionately, and even to argue strongly against the positions of their ideological opponents. But, he cautioned, if we begin to assign personal motives to those we disagree with, we are transgressing the command not to judge. If we say that someone believes something because they are afraid to honestly examine the evidence or because they are unwilling to yield to God's authority, at that point we have moved into sin.

Several teachers talked about the challenges of teaching origins to academy and college students. All of them talked about the importance of exposing their students to the best of evolutionary thought so that they would not be overwhelmed when they first encountered these ideas in a secular setting where there would be no support for their faith. The need for this kind of preparation was highlighted by a report that indicated that two thirds of Adventist college students are in non-Adventist schools.

To illustrate the difficulty of the conversations here: Two college professors, both advocates of a recent creation, described how they help their students cope with the preponderance of scientific evidence that points to a very ancient origin for life. Their shared testimonies from students who spoke of their creationist convictions after taking these professors' classes. Later, in the hall during a break, a friend complained that the professors had mentioned the preponderance of scientific evidence that supports an ancient origin of life without also detailing some of the counter evidence for a young creation.

A geologist told his personal story. He grew up Adventist, attended Adventist academy and college and remained a committed "young creationist" through his graduate work and a decade or so of his career. But the more he looked at the rocks, the more he found himself compelled to acknowledge their age. He finally reached the point where he simply accepted what he saw. The rocks were old. He could not fit the geological features he studied into a 6,000 year chronology. But he treasured the Bible, the Adventist Church and God. He remains an active church member even though he accepts conventional geologic ages for fossils and rocks.

In the afternoon there were a couple more presentations on the absolute priority of the Bible for determining earth history. According to these papers, science simply must bow to the superior wisdom God has given in the Bible, no matter what the evidence.

In the formal presentations, the issues are being sharply drawn. Based on the public presentations I've heard so far, either you allow the Bible (according to our traditional "literal and historical" understanding) to be the unchallenged source of information about earth history or you trust the consensus of science. If you believe science, you will believe that life is very old. If you believe the Bible and the Bible only, you will believe that all of life appeared in a single week about 6,000 years ago. In the question and answer sessions one respondent asked how theologians could be sure that their interpretations of the Bible were correct. Wasn't it possible for people to misread the Bible in a way similar to the misreading of the rocks that they accuse the scientists of? Another questioner wondered just how pessimistic the theologians were about the ability of people to learn things through their own study. He asked, "Can a human go into the world that God has created and use the mind that God gave them and actually learn anything?" The theologians answered, "Yes."

So far, none of the presenters has argued for a young universe, solar system or earth. They appear to all accept an age of billions of years for the basic material the earth is composed of. (This may change as the conference progresses.) The controversy is over when terrestrial life first appeared.

In coming days there will be arguments about what science really says. Scientists will give papers that detail scientific evidence for a recent creation. Other scientists will focus on the scientific evidence for an ancient origin of life. There will be some discussion of the history of stars and galaxies. There will presentations exploring the theological implications of various views of earth history. A major topic will be how revelation/ inspiration works.