The Seventh-day Adventist General Conference-sponsored International Faith and Science conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel Tech Center in Denver, Colo., Aug. 20-26, 2004. This is the second international conference convened by the GC to deal with this topic. The first was held in Ogden, Utah, in August 2002. Between the Ogden and upcoming Denver conferences, six divisions of the General Conference (GC) held their own separate faith and science conferences (see accompanying table).

According to Lowell Cooper, the GC vice president responsible for the organization of both international conferences, 135 invitees have indicated their intention to attend the Denver conference. Five other individuals will attend as observers, including representatives of Adventist Today. According to informed sources, 90 attendees will come from the United States and Canada, while 45 will come from outside the North American Division. The expected attendees include 46 administrators, 36 theologians, and 50 scientists (though some individuals could be assigned to more than one such category). Fifteen to 17 commissioned papers are to be presented at Denver. The papers apparently will not be made available to attendees prior to the opening of the conference. According to a recent announcement, an evening poster session will provide a means by which attendees "can share ideas and/or pertinent research with colleagues in an informal manner".

Optimists, Pessimists and Pragmatists
In discussions over the last six months with a number of Seventh-day Adventist scientists and theologians, we have sensed a guarded and restrained optimism about the outcome of this conference. To this mildly optimistic group, the Denver meeting offers the potential to bring some reasonable, positive resolution to the long-festering discord and conflict that this topic has generated, particularly over the last three decades in centers of Adventist higher education.

It is expected that the conference will draft some type of concluding summary or statement of what has and what has not been accomplished as a result of this very expensive three-year experiment in theological conflict resolution in a highly conservative faith community. To many with scientific and theological credentials, how our church leadership pursues resolution of the conflict over the interpretation of the Genesis narratives will demonstrate their maturity and their resourcefulness for managing the wide diversity of views prevalent among its most-educated members.

From several individuals with views tending toward the optimistic has come the suggestion that, by organizing this series of unprecedented conferences, moderates currently in positions of leadership at the GC may be seeking to move the church toward a new approach to resolving contentious and divisive theological issues. According to this perspective, the goal is to address a substantive theological problem without creating increased hostility and acrimony such as characterized the disputes over 1844 and the investigative judgment.

These individuals point out that in other matters where there are contrasting points of view, the current GC president, Jan Paulsen, indicates we might as a church family have to live with various differences of opinion and not attempt to impose one set of views on every member of the community. On the other hand, Dr. Paulsen has publicly stated he will not support any change in the church's traditional authoritative statements on creation. One assumes that he knows it was not until 1980 that a specific reference to a creation doctrine was added as one of the current list of 27 Seventh-day Adventist fundamental beliefs. He must also know that the controversial statement that creation took place 'in six days' was added to the text more as a political code phrase indicating support for traditional Adventism than as the result of any deep theological reflection on Genesis.

The current most senior General Conference leadership is, if nothing else, pragmatic. It certainly understands that outside the first-world Adventist church, the subject of the Denver conference is not yet a pressing issue. However, within one or two generations, it may well become a matter of concern, even in the third-world Adventist church, as the level of formal education among its members is raised. Here in North America, the simple fact of openly considering the wide spectrum of views on this topic has raised fears. Conservative pastors are already warning their congregations about the erosion of our faith caused by these kinds of open dialogs. Some progressives fear that conservative activists, such as those belonging to the Adventist Theological Society, will exploit the Denver conference as a means of enhancing their reputation as defenders of the purity of the church and advancing their agenda among traditional and reactionary segments of the general laity. One sitting GC vice president is reported to have already made comments and delivered sermons that give credence to this fear. There are also some among the senior leadership of the GC, especially from Latin America, who wish to press for statements that would express unequivocal support for the traditional Adventist fundamentalist stance concerning Earth history including support for a recent, literal six-day creation and literal worldwide flood.

These last points are emphasized by some who are more pessimistic about a potential for a positive outcome for the Denver conference. They report that a meeting entitled "Modeling a Universal Flood: A Working Conference" held at Southern Adventist University (SAU) in late April included informal discussions of strategies to influence the outcome of the Denver meeting in a reactionary direction. Interestingly, the only Geoscience Research Institute (GRI) staff member who attended the SAU meeting refused to comment on the substance of what was discussed at that conference. This reaction to questions is in marked contrast to the openness of the current GRI director, Dr. James Gibson, and several other current members of the GRI.

Clearly, the efforts of the GRI over the last 40 years to increase support among the majority of Seventh-day Adventist scientists and theologians in the first world for the traditional Adventist view of a recent creation and worldwide flood appears to have been largely a failure. Two surveys undertaken by Adventist Today in 1994 and 2001 have revealed that less than half of the science faculties in North American Adventist institutions of higher education support the traditional church teachings concerning Earth history, and support for that position is waning over time. One observer remarked that the GRI appears to have largely given up on attempts to change the opinions of most scientists in North America and is currently focusing its attention largely on third-world Adventism.

Division Faith and Science Conferences
Although all of the 13 current divisions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were invited to organize their own faith and science conferences during the two years between the first and second international conferences sponsored by the GC, only six did so. Neither of the divisions of Latin America nor any of those in Asia elected to hold their own sessions. One knowledgeable observer of Adventist church affairs in Latin America commented that the topics being considered by the faith and science conference are of concern primarily to the church's scholars, scientists and other interested professionals. Currently, the majority of these individuals are located almost entirely in North America, England, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. According to this observer, since the overwhelming majority of Adventist laity and national leaders in the third world are converts, they simply do not understand what the fuss is all about. "We say we have the truth. All we have to do is believe it and disfellowship anyone who does not". Only a small fraction of these individuals currently possess the background and perspective to appreciate the scientific and theological problems confronting traditional Adventist interpretations of Genesis 1-11. There are clearly exceptions to this generalization at various Adventist educational centers outside of the first world, but much of third-world Adventism is at a relatively early stage in the development of an educated, professional class of theologians.

In the conferences held in the sub-Saharan African Divisions, the discussions lasted, at most, two days and most of the formal presentations were made by members of the GRI staff or GC officers. It appears that many of these papers had already been presented in one form or another in other venues, including the 2003 North American Division session.

One interesting exception was a paper by Brempong Owusu-Antwi of Valley View University in Accra, Ghana, entitled, "Faith, Black Magic and Science". After reviewing a wide range of theological (Thomas Aquinas, for example), philosophical (Kant) and anthropological (Frazer and Malinowski) literature, the author notes that "magic seems to thrive where there is lack of empirical knowledge¡­there is an inverse relationship between magic and science: as science gets better the need for magic diminishes". The relationship between faith and science, he insists, is "a bit more complex: ­the world view of science is materialistic and physical, a closed natural system without the supernatural [while] faith looks beyond what is seen and reaches out to the supernatural".

The Euro-Africa Division session held in Germany and the South Pacific session held in Australia were on a smaller scale but roughly comparable to the North American Division conference in terms of the scope and extent of the discussion (see Adventist Today, Sept/Oct 2003). Both the Euro-Africa and South Pacific Division conferences included a significant number of papers from North American attendees. In the case of the Euro-Africa meetings, of the 16 papers presented on science or theology, more than half (nine) were contributed from individuals from the United States, with four of these papers presented by GRI staff members. Of the 17 papers presented in the South Pacific session, seven were presented by United States visitors, four by a North American scientist with close ties to the GRI and two by the GRI director.

A disinterested observer would probably conclude that, with few exceptions, the presentations from U.S. attendees could be characterized as supporting the traditional Adventist understanding of Earth history which assumes a relatively recent creation of living forms in six literal days and the reality of an even more recent worldwide flood.

However, this does not mean that these individuals do not understand and appreciate the monumental amount of scientific data that directly contradicts their views. Some are intellectually honest enough to state that they have no compelling explanation for the glaring discrepancy between what they think Genesis is saying and the scientific evidence for great age for life on this planet. For example, in a paper titled "The Challenge of Chronology: Radioisotope Dating", Dr. James Gibson, the GRI director, notes that all radioisotope dating methods yield dates far in excess of the "expected 6,000 years". He admits that proposals by creationists to try to find an explanation for why the dates are so much older than the expected age "have not been compelling". His conclusion is that he does not currently "know a good creationist explanation of the pattern of radioisotope dates".

The traditional Adventist understanding of Earth history was challenged in minor and major ways by a number of English, European, Australian or New Zealand scientists and scholars. We can comment on only a few. For example, Laurence Turner of Newbold College, in a paper titled "A Theological Reading of Genesis 1-2", noted that most Adventist scholarship dealing with Genesis has been apologetic in nature. (Several other presentations also made this point.) Our church, he insists, "should be doing more than merely utilizing [a particular interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis] to inform established SDA beliefs".

Lynden Rogers of Avondale College reviewed events associated with Galileo's "17th century brush with ecclesiastical authority" and noted that this incident "fires shots across the bow of those embroiled in current conflicts involving scripture and science". Dr. Rogers notes that contemporaries recognized that the heliocentric theory raised important theological challenges to both Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy of the time, and this included questioning "the nature of inspiration and the authority of scripture". The Galileo incident illustrated an aspect of modern science in that, when faced with two competing theories scientists will choose the one which offers the most comprehensive, coherent, cohesive and consistent explanation with the least special pleading. This is not well understood by some creation scientists, who seek to challenge evolutionary origins by presenting apparent exceptions to the accepted paradigm ­while ignoring the enormously persuasive mass of concordant data on which the [evolutionary] paradigm is based. He concludes by noting that the "Copernican revolution demonstrated that there is much about the universe which is not explicitly spelled out in scripture".

In a paper titled "What Have Volcanoes and Soils Told Me", Graham Will, a retired soil chemist from New Zealand, offered his view that, based on his studies of soil formation and chemical processes in New Zealand, he cannot "reconcile what I see, and what careful scientific studies have shown, with a 'Short Chronology' for the history of the Earth".­ His study of the sequence of climate changes in New Zealand and the multiple soils that developed as part of those changes "is not compatible with a recent worldwide flood". Dr. Will concludes by suggesting that "it is absolutely essential for there to be an ongoing and regular dialogue" within the church family on Earth history issues.

Conclusion
Moderates and progressives attending the Denver conference who are mildly optimistic about the outcome hope the openness to the expression of a diversity of views and respect for minority positions that has characterized several previous conferences will prove to be a harbinger of how the final report on the three years of consultations will be constructed. There is widespread agreement that most progressives would probably welcome an outcome where diversity is recognized and the emphasis is on how we treat each other when there are serious and substantive disagreements about fundamental theological issues.

It is essentially universally agreed that progressives should particularly respect the concerns voiced by those representing the traditional Adventist views. For example, in the view of Dr. Gibson, the "long-chronology models introduce hermeneutical and theological problems that would undermine the integrity of the Seventh-day Adventist message and mission. We would lose much and gain little if we were to abandon our faith in the biblical record of origins", by which he apparently means abandonment of the "biblical six-day creation". Dialog on this point provides a critical issue that many hope will be taken up squarely at the Denver conference.

Progressives would most certainly cooperate with church leadership in implementing reasonable proposals for how the pluralism that is now a reality on this topic in the first-world church might be handled responsibly in Adventist institutions of higher education. What is not clear is whether traditionalists and conservatives will be able to accept a new model that includes some open recognition and acceptance of the legitimacy of the wide diversity of views on origins currently present in the Adventist church.

In preparing this preview, Adventist Today wishes to acknowledge and express its sincere appreciation to Dr. L. James Gibson, director, Geoscience Research Institute, for the programs and other information concerning the faith and science conferences held outside North America, including providing copies of a selection of papers presented at these conferences.