The final Faith and Science conference sponsored by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists met in the mile-high city of Denver during the week of August 20 to 26. The official invitees were primarily church administrators and theologians and scientists working in Adventist schools. Other participants included representatives from the White Estate, a couple of pastors, a lawyer, a public college administrator, and an archeologist from the University of California.

The earlier conferences, an international conference held in Ogden, Utah, in 2002, and the division conferences in 2003, were convened to bring a better understanding of the biblical, theological and scientific issues surrounding the question of origins and to clarify the church's stance in relationship to these issues.

The person charged with the overall management of the meetings was Elder Lowell Cooper, vice president of the General Conference. In his opening statement he said participants had been invited to "become conversant with the issues and their effect on our collective life and witness, and to collaborate in developing appropriate responses that will be of value to the church". The sum of this experience would be conveyed in a report to the fall council meeting of the General Conference.

On the first day of deliberations, a series of papers were read summarizing presentations made at earlier conferences. Most Adventist theologians and Bible scholars, and many liberal Christian and secular Bible scholars, insist the Genesis account is clear: Life on earth first appeared as a result of God's direct commands during a week of six literal 24-hour days. This week happened about 6,000 years ago.

On the other hand, Adventist scientists and theologians acknowledge there is abundant evidence in nature that a much longer period is required to accommodate the formation of the rocks and fossils we find on the earth. To sum up the issue in its simplest, starkest form: Given our understanding of the biblical teaching about a "young" creation and the evidence in nature of an "old" creation, can these views be reconciled?

One Adventist theologian has proposed these facts be accepted as antinomies, that is, they are both irreconcilable and irrefutable. We have to honestly acknowledge the evidence points in two different directions and that there is no single, coherent explanation. Most of the theologians who spoke at this conference, however, believe the Bible tells us all we need to know, and any questioning of this biblical "evidence" is wrong.

Faced with this tension, the primary question for church leadership is: To what extent should the church accommodate dissent in its beliefs on Creation? At the conference, many argued that straying from the church's belief in Creation would undermine many, if not all, of the church's doctrinal positions on the Sabbath, salvation, the bodily resurrection, the Second Coming and the Bible as the word of God. Others take a much less forceful position. In addition, papers dealing with authority, dissent, and academic freedom and responsibility specifically addressed the question of how the church should respond to diversity of thought among its teachers.

There was time for interaction both in small group breakout sessions and plenary Q & A sessions. It was in the latter where sharp disagreement was expressed. Those who might be labeled as "conservative" wished to tighten the language of the Fundamental Belief No. 6, which deals with Creation. Their objective was to create a mechanism or process that would require anyone not in agreement with their interpretation to either deny their convictions or lose their job.

Interestingly, college administrators, as a group, indicated quite strongly that while teachers needed to demonstrate their adherence to church beliefs, academic freedom was an essential part of a healthy teaching institution.

Conference Dynamics

The preponderance of individuals invited to this conference were conservatives. Those chosen as presenters were again, by and large, clearly people holding conservative views; that is, they gave less credence to conventional science and wanted the church actively to suppress the expression of any novel views. The first day's presenters were assigned the task of summarizing papers presented at earlier conferences. These presenters included people from the moderate or progressive wing of Adventism as well as conservatives. Most of these presentations were evenhanded in their summaries, whether the presenter agreed or disagreed with the content of the papers he was summarizing. However, one conservative reviewer was pointedly called to task during the Q & A session for misrepresenting the original author's views and for making his summary a platform for attacking his opponents and advocating his own point of view.

Progressives were largely ignored by the organizers of this conference. Inasmuch as all papers were assigned by the organizing committee (and none of the papers submitted by progressives were accepted), poster presentations offered the only unfiltered access to those in attendance. Posters included a variety of topics and viewpoints, ranging from surveys of the views of origins held by college students and faculty in a South American college to a presentation on the challenge to evolution presented by the phenomenon of consciousness.

Progressive posters included ones by John McLarty ("Will the Church Pastor All Its Children?" published in AT), Brian Bull and Fritz Guy ("A Taxonomy of Adventist Approaches to Science and Religion"), Erv Taylor and Richard Bottomley ("Lines of Evidence for an Ancient Earth"), and this author's reprise of Spectrum's 1984 issue on Creationism in connection with the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Geoscience Research Institute. My poster pointed out that the material covered and conclusions drawn in 1984 were no different from those of the present Faith and Science Conference.

It appeared to me that some conservatives came to this conference prepared to serve as the "Taliban" of Adventism, as upholders of the faith. Anyone who was not with them should not be part of the whole. Several, who felt impelled to come to the microphones frequently, labeled those holding contrary views heretics.

There were contrary voices, especially among school and church administrators. There was general agreement that our schools should represent the best in Adventism, upholding our church's traditional beliefs while providing a safe place for the free interchange of ideas. Seventh-day Adventist education is just that¡ªlearning and practicing Adventist ideals while preparing our young people to enter a world largely made up of non-Adventists. To do this well, views and ideas propounded by those outside our faith tradition need to be part of any curriculum, but presented to inquiring minds with understanding and in the context of a foundation of Christian belief.

One of the dichotomies faced was what we expect of our educators, in contrast to what we expect of pastors or members in the pew. We want a "safe place" for the education of our young people, where they will "get it right". At the same time nearly everyone affirmed the need for our congregations to be inclusive enough to welcome into fellowship those who may not totally agree with every single one of our "fundamentals".

The future

Some of those present felt it quite important that a formal statement be delivered directly to the world church affirming the church's traditional view of Creation and the Flood. This, in spite of the clear statements by Elder Cooper that the General Conference plan was for any recommendations coming from this group to be directed to the General Conference Committee for any further action.

It is to be hoped that church leadership will have the wisdom to grant our schools and their educators the freedom to responsibly educate, while at the same time find a way for the average pastor and member in the pew to relate to the world we all live in.