Living With Ambiguity

Some personalities (usually theologians} are comfortable enough and can live with ambiguity and uncertainty (AT May/June 2004) while others want or need "Assurance". I can accept "We don't know for sure", or cannot prove. Why not simply admit it in preambles and statements of beliefs? I can even say, "This is our explanation...our theory" that we choose to believe.

Robert Lee Marsh, M.D.
Via the Internet

Experts and Untried Schemes

I appreciate Adventist Today and have been a subscriber almost since the beginning. I especially appreciated your editorial in the March /April edition which I just received. I too get very tired of "experts" who sit in an office and dream up untried schemes and then try to tell me what to do. I make my living selling concrete forming systems. ?In 2000, after 33 years of full-time ministry, I retired but still pastor on a volunteer basis the group at Elm Haven Fellowship.

John R. Martin
Littleton, Colo.

Trust the Bible

I picked up a copy of Adventist Today (March/April 2004) and was struck by your editorial, "Earning the Right to Speak". I could not agree with you more. Your advice about listening to lectures (that includes sermons) needs to be on the basis of right, truth, and demonstration. (We can be reminded of the Jewish questioning of Christ, by whose authority do you do and say these things?) It seems to me that almost everyone wants to "influence" others in some way or form these days. The only way I know of to check out these things is by the Word of God (Scripture) in any and preferably all translations. Yet extremely few desire to read and study the Bible; at least in the way that has, many times, been suggested by a very trustworthy author. Read from start to finish and relate all its parts to the central theme, which is "salvation" ­not only of man but of the universe.

Gene Schroeder
Sequim, Wash.

Faith and Science Concluding Report (by E-mail)

I just read your "first world" preview of the 2004 International Faith and Science Conference put out by Adventist Today (AT May/June 2004). Not only

do your pseudoscientific opinions of origins and the flood prove that the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is not with you but more importantly, your bigoted comments regarding the "uneducated converts" of the third world show me that you have "professional" pride and lack perspective on the realities of spiritual things. I guess Jesus' obvious recognition of the biblical accounts of creation and flood would categorize Him as third world, unenlightened, and nonscientific, too. You cry for diversity, yet you demean and criticize those who disagree with you publicly. Your ilk represent the worst form of bigotry in the church yet.

Owen Bandy, Pastor
Calistoga, Calif.

Thanks for the Reports

Abundant thanks to John McLarty and Ervin Taylor for the reports (e-mail) on the 2004 International Faith and Science Conference and to Ms. [Sadek] for sending them. It was great to find out what was happening without having to wait. I'm curious whether the attendees were able to agree on the approval of any summary statement at the close of the event.

Robert Visser
Via the Internet

Evenhanded Reporting

Your reporting has been evenhanded. May the continued conversations become a collegial habit. Nobody gains by closing off honest discussion. Was puzzled by the reference to Galileo which I found to be a flawed analogy. The Bible never taught that the earth was either flat or the center of the universe; solar? tradition rested on such novelties. Galileo was not contesting biblical thought but Catholic tradition. Or have I missed something?

Herbert E. Douglass
Lincoln, Calif.

The Gospel of Mary found?

Ron Corson wrote an interesting article on the best-selling book, "The DaVinci Code" in the January-February issue of Adventist Today. In the article, he states the "Gospel of Mary" was discovered in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, which were found in Egypt in 1945. I believe additional research will reveal that the first manuscript of said Gospel became known, in modern times, in 1896 when purchased by a Dr. Carl Reinhardt in Cairo. This was a Coptic fragment of the gospel. One or two older fragments in Greek script were found in Egypt in 1917.

The Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945, did not reveal any new copies of the Gospel of Mary.

John Hughes
Fresno, Calif.

Goldstein's Fundamental Views

As a reader of Adventist Review as well as Adventist Today, regardless of Erv Taylor's statement to the contrary (AT Sept/Oct 2003), I do instinctively (and biblically) second Brother Goldstein's fundamental views. In these theological wars (I prefer discussions), there will be winners! Regardless of the wise among us with their insights and protestations, I choose the Bible. The Scriptures are ?God-breathed for us (2 Timothy 3:16). Jesus rebuked the Jews for setting aside the authority of the Scriptures (Mark 7:7-9). Jesus said the Scriptures testified of Him and if the church believed in Moses, it should believe in Jesus, for Moses wrote about Him (John 5:39,46). Finally, to this country boy from Michigan, instruction from Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 is priceless: "Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness" and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile". I like Brother Goldstein's credentials: The Word of God!

Richard Lane
Livonia, Mich.

Linda Shelton and the 3ABN

The articles about 3ABN (AT May/June 2004) mentioned the dismissal of Mrs. Shelton. I had been in contact with them via mail. I made an inquiry about their financial status and received a reply that was indicative that he [Dan] was above board and not a profiteer. Further questioning about Mrs. Shelton and her net worth was not answered. These questions are not irrelevant. What will be the source of her livelihood?

Paul W. Jackson, M.D.
Wallingford, Penn.

The Church Needs Its Scientists

Thank you for reporting on the Faith and Science Conference and for making that report so readily accessible. I am one of those Adventist biology teachers who must try to balance the opposing conclusions based on evidence and tradition. My integrity as a scientist is in constant struggle with my desire for belonging to the community of believers. Therefore, this has long been a painful quest. When I read your quote of Jan Paulsen, "The church needs you. Please do not walk away", I sobbed. I thought that I had put it all in perspective, but the constant awareness that I could lose my job and position as a youth leader in the church because of honest inquiry apparently does take its toll. Thank you for your courage in speaking honestly. [My honest inquiry] carries with it the responsibility of not destroying the faith of my students that may be built more on evangelistic rhetoric than on a relationship with God. I have not yet found the most effective way of dealing with this volcanic issue but continue to modify day by day.

Gail Redberg
Walla Walla, Wash.

Ellen White's Hermeneutic

In her discussion of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Ellen White demonstrates a hermeneutical approach to passages with theological content at odds with the rest of Scripture.

"In this parable Christ was meeting the people on their own ground. The doctrine of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection was held by many of those who were listening to Christ's words. The Saviour knew of their ideas, and He framed his parable so as to inculcate important truths through these preconceived opinions. He held up before His hearers a mirror wherein they might see themselves in their true relation to God. He used the prevailing opinion to convey the idea He wished to make prominent to all, that no man is valued for his possessions, for all he has belongs to him only as lent by the Lord" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 263).

This hermeneutic could have an interesting application to the first chapters of Genesis. Can it apply to theological content at odds with scientific thought?

The main idea in the first two chapters of Genesis is that God created. We are creatures, stewards, subject to the laws of God's universe. God is qualified to redeem and restore his creation.

Certainly, an omnipotent God is sufficiently powerful to create our universe in seven 24-hour days by fiat. But this belief is not necessary to my faith. God's act of creation could have entailed another process entirely, working with physical and biological laws that I do not yet have the capacity to understand. Eternity will be a great adventure in learning! God has equipped us to begin learning now, just as an appetizer.

Meanwhile, I am grateful for the message of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. As we're scratching our heads over the "nuts and bolts", God is probably chuckling. The message of God's creation cuts to our hearts, humbling our humanistic pride with news that we are creatures in an orderly universe of Divine design. The story of creation also ennobles us, reminding us that, male and female, we are made in the image of God. This is "the backstory" to Calvary, explaining why we are worth redeeming. It also adds the weight of motive and right to some of Jesus' last words: "I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also".

Jerilyn Webb Burtch
Palmer, Alaska