2004 Discussions
Date: February 21, 2004
Speaker: Dr. Andrea Luxton
Position: Associate Director, GC Department of Education
Topic: “The Future of SDA Higher Education”
Venue: Physics Amphitheater (HYH 133)
Attendance: 80
Presentation: Using colorful power-point tables and graphs, Dr. Luxton spoke for an hour on the challenges facing SDA colleges and universities in Europe, North America, and Asia , emphasizing particularly those institutions facing political, financial, and academic problems, but also sharing many success stories. Her remarkably frank disclosures were followed by a vigorous question and answer period.
Date: April 24, 2004
Speaker: Terri Calkins
Position: Officer manager, History and Political Science Department at AU; published author of biblical biographies (Joseph, Ruth, David, etc.)
Topic: “Cultural Connections: The Forgotten Importance of History in the Bible”
Venue: Physics Amphitheater (HYH 133)
Attendance: 10 (scheduling problems, no publicity)
Presentation: Terri talked about putting the historical context back into Bible stories. This makes them come alive, helps us today to understand what God wanted the Bible characters to know, and brings home to us the lessons He has to teach us.
Date: May 15, 2004
Speakers: Dr. Jon Paulien and Dr. Gary Land
Positions: Professor of New Testament Theology, SDA Seminary, AU and Chair, History Department, AU respectively
Topic: “Rethinking Ellen White: Australia Strikes Again”
Venue: Biology Amphitheater
Attendance: 170
Presentation: Jon and Gary shared their papers given at a recent Ellen G. White Conference at Avondale College , Australia . They also reported on other papers given at that conference as well dealing with the latest research into the life and times of Ellen White.
Date: July 24, 2004
Speaker: Dr. Graeme Bradford
Position: Lecturer, Avondale College , Australia ; writer and editor.
Topic: “Prophets Old and New, True and False: Do True Prophets Sometimes Get It Wrong While False Prophets Sometimes Get It Right?”
Venue: Biology Amphitheater
Attendance: 99
Presentation: Using colorful power point charts and tables, Dr. Bradford compared Ellen White’s statements (mostly on health-related topics) to those made by other health reformers (such as Jackson, Graham, and Kellogg), showing the percentages of correct and incorrect conclusions each had come to in relation to modern science, medicine and nutrition, demonstrating that Ellen White, while sometimes in error, was the most nearly correct of all 19th century commentators on diet, health, and medical science.
Date: November 6, 2004
Speaker: Dr. Dick Osborn
Position: President of Pacific Union College
Topic: “The Case Against Galileo: Its Implications for the Church Today”
Venue: Garber Auditorium, Chan Shun Hall
Attendance: 100
Presentation: Dick drew several lessons from Galileo’s clash with the papacy, including the need for openness, humility, respecting the notion of the “priesthood of all believers,” encouraging diversity within unity, and preserving old truth while welcoming “new light.” The Church should foster original research, anticipate challenges from science, trust in God and provide support systems for inquiring scholars.
Date: November 20, 2004
Speakers: Roger Dudley and Edwin Hernandez
Position: Retired AU Seminary professor, AU ombudsman; Notre Dame professor,
director for the Study of Latino Religion
Topic: “The SDA Voter: Religion, Politics, and the 2004 Election”
Venue: Garber Auditorium, Chan Shun Hall
Attendance: 130
Presentation: From a detailed examination of race, gender, social, and religious perspectives, Roger and Ed examined the voting patterns of a limited sample of 860 mostly white, well-educated, conservative, financially well off SDAs in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Using dozens of power point color slides, they focused on correlations of political orientation, gender breakdowns, religiosity scales, “hot button” issues, sermon emphases, and voting patterns. See their autumn 2004 article in Spectrum.
Date: December 4, 2004
Speaker: Dr. George Knight
Position: Professor of Church History, Andrews University Theological Seminary; editor & annotator of new edition of Questions on Doctrine (2003)
Topic: “Questions on Doctrine: The Most Divisive Book in Adventist History”
Venue: Physics Amphitheatre
Attendance: 210
Presentation: George presented the background for the publication of SDAs Answer Questions on Doctrine (1957), sharing controversial letters and conversations between Evangelical leaders Barnhouse and Martin with SDA leaders Unruh, Froom, Reid, and Anderson. While QOD persuaded the former that SDAs were orthodox mainstream Christians, it antagonized theologian M. L. Andreasen who taught Christ’s fallen human nature and a “final generation” vindication of God and defeat of Satan by perfect saints.
Michiana Adventist Forum 