The Spectrum Blog

Vessels of Divine Love and Compassion: Adventism & the Dalai Lama

By Raymond Roccograndi, a student at Southern Adventist University & a Spectrum collegiate correspondent

"Let us cultivate love and compassion, both of which give true meaning to life. This is the religion I preach, more so than Buddhism itself. It is simple. Its temple is the heart. Its teaching is love and compassion. Its moral values are loving and respecting others, whoever they may be. Whether one is a layperson or a monastic, we have no other option if we wish to survive in this world" – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

On Monday, October 22, 2007 along with ten-thousand plus other people twenty students from Southern Adventist University (SAU) attended the “public talk” of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These twenty students were members of SAU Amnesty International and College Democrats of Southern. I am their leader. It was my idea to attend the Emory University hosted event. I thought that Southern’s students might gain some insight from this humble Buddhist monk that has advocated so vehemently the causes of world peace and nonviolent resistance to the oppression of Communist China on the people of Tibet.

After all, the Dalai Lama is a Nobel Peace Laureate, recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, and a Distinguished Presidential Professor at Emory University. I naïvely thought that no one could possibly be against a message of tolerance, understanding, compassion, and peace. I knew from history that Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth all had their “protesters,” but this was the twenty-first century, an age that claims to understand the harvest of hate. Harvests chillingly exemplified in the horrors of the Holocaust, tragedy of the Armenian Genocide, terrors of Rwanda, tragic aftermath of the War in Iraq, and the current Genocide in Darfur.

It had been my belief that this generation was going to hold themselves to the exclamation of the previous generation of “never again.” Never again will genocide go unchallenged - as can be seen in the support around the globe for the immediate deployment of U.N. and African Union peace-keepers into Darfur, Sudan and northern Chad due to the efforts of student-led movements and organizations; never again will war be a solution to our diplomatic problems - as can be seen in the unprecedented world-wide protests to the war in Iraq; never again will our society be complacent in the affairs of the world but become involved and concerned about the interconnectedness of the world around us. This is the zeitgeist of my generation and I believed of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Imagine then how surprised I was when members of my generation as well as professors told me that the Dalai Lama was an agent of the devil. I was completely shocked and almost baffled – I write "almost," because after all this is a church that has yet to accept scientific research in the area of human sexuality or which openly refuses to fully value women by barring them from ordained ministry, but I digress. Still I had hoped that in the matter of world peace and nonviolence resistance that the Adventist Church might find a fellow-traveler in the Dalai Lama. That our church, having advocated for healthy living practices of wholeness, having open conscientious objection to war, having had prominent Adventists involved in the American antislavery movement, would suggest that the ethos of Adventism was more in tune with my generation than other denominations. Instead I found that there was a majority at Southern who viewed the Dalai Lama as an agent of evil.

It has been my experience that when such convoluted statements as “he is an agent of the devil” or “one driven by evil forces” are the product of ignorance or intolerance. When pressed on their knowledge of Buddhism most of those who had stated the Dalai Lama’s allegiances to Satan were, indeed, ignorant of what Buddhism was and what it is not. This is not atypical of mainstream Adventists.

There is this fear in the Adventist Church that some of my friends' expressed. They said that it is best typified as a strong caution and willful ignorance of other faith traditions other than our own. This worries me greatly as we are a growing church. The notion that at an institution of “higher learning” one would be dissuaded from attending a lecture on peace by someone no affiliated with the Adventist Church is astounding. It is my sincere belief that this incident is indicative of a greater insecurity that these Adventists have with respect to other faiths.

I cannot help but imagine: would that our church be those “peculiar people” written about in the Spirit of Prophecy; would that our membership was so filled with the love of God for man that we had such a Godly-driven desire for the nourishment of mankind through interpersonal relationships.    

As for me, I can read the words of the Dalai Lama, "let us cultivate love and compassion,” - what I believe is the very essence of God - and connect instantly on a spiritual level. Those who attended the public talk expressed that, “It is such an awesome feeling to be able to put aside religious differences - labels, whether they be Christian, Buddhist - I like to put it this way when discussing my faith, "I'm a believer in a Higher Power - greater than my existence, yet interconnected with my being - and a follower of 'The Way,' manifested in many faith traditions.”

I fully understand that this comes off as "New Age" to some and I'm, quite frankly, openly and unabashedly alright with that. I believe that our understanding of God must grow and constantly evolve. Living life with a stagnant view of God only produces, at best, bitter Christians or, at worst, broken atheists. God inspired the biblical author to write, "My ways are not your ways." It is interesting to recall that Christ continually challenged the contemporary view of God and the "religious community" in his day.

With respect to the Adventist Church and the greater Christian Community, I have observed that, too often, it is unfortunately the so-called “religious” that typifies a faith tradition; this is an unfortunate axiom because it limits the expression of a particular faith to its most conservative and fundamentalist elements - our religious communities are much more diverse than that, Adventism emphatically included. I asked members of our Southern Democrats and Amnesty group attending the Dalai Lama’s lecture to ask themselves, “what does it mean to be an Adventist?” It is important to have these questions in the back of our mind and to have an answer should a question arise within ourselves or be provoked by others. 

Yet the answer to that quest must be different for everyone. For me, it means "cultivating love and compassion." I let my temple be my heart - welcoming the Spirit of the Lord to dwell within me and God to work through me, i.e. having and upholding "moral values [of] loving and respecting others, whoever they may be." This includes the "outcasts" of society - homosexuals, women, nonbelievers, believers of other faiths, AIDS victims, the poor, those who have a different "non-orthodox theology" than ours, etc. When Jesus ministered to the people, he widened the inclusion of his ministry and outreach.

Christ included the outcasts of society - his moral values were centered on loving and respecting others. His life dramatically portrayed the Divine Love and Compassion that God has for humanity. May we as a church community learn to respect and love the "outcasts of Adventism." May we cherish the spiritual wisdom of other faith traditions and may we strive to be vessels that express the Divine Love and Compassion that our Lord has for all of humanity.

Oakwood president dives as enrollment soars

By Alexander Carpenter

The Huntsville Times reports: "Dr. Delbert Baker, president of Huntsville's Oakwood College, this morning fulfills his promise to dive into the college's swimming pool dressed in his suit when the Seventh Day Adventist school's enrollment hit 1,800. This semester's enrollment was 1,824. He promised to jump off the high-dive fully clothed when enrollment reaches 2,000."

Adventist Worship: A Critical View from the Pew*

*with suggestions for improvement

By Gordon Short, MD, president of Brevis Corporation.

Adventists claim to go to church to worship God. Judging by what happens during the “11:00 o’clock hour,” I think it might be just as reasonable to say that they go to church to perform some ritual of masochistic penance.

Before continuing with my critique, in the interest of full disclosure I should state that I am an Adventist and have been attending Adventist churches for three quarters of a century. Whether that makes me highly qualified to comment by virtue of great wisdom and experience or just superannuated and fossilized is for you, Dear Reader, to decide.

There is something about worship that suggests that it is, or is attempting to be, a form of entertainment. That is, there is typically an auditorium, an audience, a stage and performers. Oh, sure, we use a change of vocabulary: sanctuary, congregation, platform, elders, pastor, etc., but that is a distinction without a difference. Preachers will insist that we bring our offerings to God -- music, prayers, Scripture readings, monetary gifts, children’s stories, sermons, whatever. That it is not what we go to church to get, but what we go to church to give. And that may well be. But it would be a strange form of worship indeed without an audience. What if the musicians played and sang regardless of whether there was an audience? What if the preacher preached a sermon to God but there was no audience to listen? What if members dropped their money in a night depository and then went home? Would that still be worship?

“Entertainment” in the context of “worship” appears to be a loaded, perhaps naughty, word. So let me clarify what it is I am talking about when I use that word. In my dictionaries entertainment means to provide amusement or enjoyment or pleasure. To provide joy and pleasure seems appropriate to me because worship, I think, should involve the telling of the “Gospel” and Gospel is supposed to mean “Good News.” Is there not joy, is there not pleasure in hearing the Good News? (Although I don’t see worship as a form of “amusement,” it has been thus characterized by Will Rogers who is reported to have said that “a good preacher is just an actor gone bad.”) The problem with Adventist worship is not whether it is or is not “entertainment.” It is that Adventist worship is typically bad entertainment. Or to use the antonym, it is a bore.

My experience with worship (not in an Adventist ghetto) is that it is typically poorly planned, sloppily executed, uninspiring, irrelevant to the problems of daily living and in brief not really worth attending. Is this unfair criticism by a disillusioned senior citizen who needs to vent his spleen because his standards of what constitutes entertainment have been corrupted by Hollywood? Perhaps. But from what I hear and observe, at least 70% of the young Adventist alumni of our colleges and universities leave the church. If 30% is a passing grade for church effectiveness, then I beg forgiveness for speaking out of turn.

So specifically, what is wrong with the way most churches construct worship services? Why is worship dull and uninteresting? My experience generates these observations:

 

1. The pastor has low standards for excellence. Perhaps it would be more charitable to say that the pastor wears so many hats, has so many people trying to get a piece of him, that he simple doesn’t have the time to spend on planning excellent worship and writing great sermons. What seems certain is that as captain of the ship, the pastor must demand excellence or excellence is unlikely to happen on its own.

2. Worship is typically planned by a committee in which there is no interaction. A musician is assigned to pick the prelude, offertory, hymns and postlude without ever being clued in to what the pastor is planning to preach about. Ditto for the children’s story. Ditto for the prayers. Ditto for any “special music.” With luck the Scripture reading is suggested by the pastor to relate to his sermon.

3. The “Worship Committee” consists of people whose only assignment seems to be to be sure that someone is designated each Sabbath to do the announcements, take the offering, tell the children’s story, lead the hymns, offer the prayer, play the piano, etc.  When all the blanks are filled in, the “Worship Committee” has fulfilled its obligation.

4. No one seems to be concerned about platform setup -- placement of microphones, music stands, flowers, banners (what’s that?), etc. Nor does anyone seemed concerned with coaching participants on where and when to go to their designated places. Participants seem to have a fear of encroaching on the prior person’s space and wait till that person has left the platform before getting up to go on stage. The lethargy of “dead air” seems not to bother anyone. Low energy is the antithesis of effective worship.

5. No theme is developed for the service. The pastor seems to be concerned only that he has at least his full half hour once the “preliminaries” are disposed of. He seems to operate on the premise that it is difficult to get lost if you have no destination in mind.

6. In short, the audience (what’s left of it) seems to be a flock of sheep without a shepherd. In one church that I visited a year or so ago, the pastor was gone to the conference headquarters for some meetings. The flock that remained had someone who did his/her duty of preparing a bulletin which listed all the standard components of announcements, prayer, hymns, offering, etc. On the right side of the page where one typically sees the participant’s name were the cryptic initials “GOK.” As the service progressed, someone got up and asked if anybody knew who was supposed to be next and if not, were there any volunteers. It appeared that “GOK” was not any person’s initials. The only explanation I could come up with from previous experience was that the letters stood for “God Only Knows.” In that day and in that church, if any worship occurred, God must have worshiped Himself.

The Practice of Church Community

The practice of church community involves much more than the development of excellent worship. There are many elements. Worship. Bible study. Children’s activities both social and educational. Looking inward -- to make sure that all members of the community are cared for. Looking outward -- in service to the non-Adventist community and in care of this beautiful world God has given us. Youth evangelism. Student missionary programs. Learning to deal with the problems of everyday living, etc. Community is like a diamond -- in order to sparkle, it must have many facets. But if worship is not first in importance, it is at least first in the sense that it tends to be the gatekeeper -- if visitors do not like the worship services of a church community, they are unlikely to wait around to see if there is anything else worthwhile happening.

If worship is so important, can anything be done to revitalize it? I believe that there is a golden opportunity here to engage young people in a way that will energize the church and keep our young people coming back for more -- and with enthusiasm. Here is the plan:

Worship Worthy of Attendance

Goal

To create excellent worship for everyone but that will especially give young adults an excuse to attend church.

Assumption

SDA universities feel it is worth their while to help to assure that their Adventist alumni will remain active, lifetime members of the SDA church community.  

Premises

1. Active participation in the activities of the local church after graduation should have its gestation before graduation.

2. Excellence in worship is necessary to attract continued participation of young adults in the life of the church.

3. In order for young people to develop a sense of intellectual ownership in the activities of their local church, they should have a part in creating the worship services.

4. Most local churches do not have the wherewithal to develop creative and excellent worship services.

Proposal

Have SDA universities develop Creative Worship kits with which local churches may structure their own excellent worship services.

Structure of the Creative Worship kit

Each kit will contain a variety of components such that the worship team of the local church may choose and use those components that it needs according to their resources of talents and desires.

Components

1. Script: The script will be detailed in showing all elements of the worship service including subject, introduction, invocation, hymns, scriptures, children’s story, prayer, sermon, illustrations, dismissal, benediction, etc. The sermon would be printed in its entirety and could be read by a local reader or used as the basis for a sermon developed by the local elder or pastor. The script would also contain detailed suggestions for placement of microphones and prompts for when performers need to be in their positions.

2. DVD:

 a. The DVD will contain all music needed for the service. For example, if the service requires an organ prelude, that would be on the DVD. If the congregation likes to sing but does not have an adequate keyboardist, an accompaniment track would be on the DVD. If the congregation would like to sing along with a vocal sound track, that would be possible. If professional-level vocalists are needed in the service, that track would be available. The musicians would be, for example, senior music majors. Also there would be alternative tracks so that a church could structure its service to be traditional or contemporary or blended.

 b. The DVD will contain the sermon as presented by an excellent preacher (e.g., Barry Black or Randy Roberts). Many sermons are already available from Adventist Preaching (www.acn.info). These could be used as a starting point for developing this creative worship series. 

 c. The DVD will contain visuals for projection to enhance the sermon presentation. These could be photographs, graphs, cartoons, verses, texts, etc.

 

3. Visuals: The kit will contain scrolls to be used for stage decoration. The scrolls would have artistically rendered words like Peace or Love or Faith or other graphic designs or images to enhance the theme of the service. The script would also contain explicit instructions on how to make scrolls and make an inexpensive PVC pipe frame for hanging them.

4. Summary: A Creative Worship kit will contain all components of an excellent worship service so arranged that a local congregation may choose anything from a totally passive, projected service to a totally active service using the talents of the local congregation including the pastor.

5. Technical requirements: The kit will require the congregation to have a respectable sound system and a video projector and screen.

Development

The Creative Worship kits would be developed primarily by students at Adventist universities under the supervision of appropriate faculty members. Ideally this work would be performed as part of course work for which the student would receive academic credit.

Academic disciplines

1. Theology: Students majoring in theology would be primarily responsible for developing the thematic material under the supervision of Theology professors.

2. Music: Students majoring in music would be primarily responsible for developing the musical content under the supervision of Music professors. Students would have the opportunity to perform using their unique talents as appropriate.

3. Art: Students majoring in art especially including graphic design would be primarily responsible for developing the artistic and graphical material under the supervision of the Art faculty.

4. English: Students majoring in English would be primarily responsible for developing the literary material surrounding the main theme under the supervision of English professors.

5. Communications/IT: Students majoring in communications technology would be primarily responsible for developing the DVDs under the supervision of the Communications/IT faculty.

6. Business: Students majoring in business would be primarily responsible for developing the Business Plan under the supervision of the Business faculty.

7. Drama: Students majoring in drama would be primarily responsible for developing dramas under the supervision of the Performing Arts faculty. These might be for the traditional Children’s Story part of the service.

8. Science: Students majoring in science would be primarily responsible for developing appropriate chemical, physical or biological demonstrations to illustrate the theme of the worship service under the supervision of the Science faculty. These might be useful for the traditional Children’s Story part of the service.

9. Coordination: Supervision and coordination for the development process would be the job of the Campus Chaplain(?).

Advantages and Expected Results

Students who help to develop these kits would:

1. Receive academic credit toward graduation.

2. Receive a stipend or royalty for their published work if possible.

3. Be able to add to their portfolio of accomplishments as an aid to entering graduate school or acquiring a job.

4. Feel that they have a vested interest in the worship activities of Adventist churches in general and their own local church in particular.

5. Be a feedback source of criticism after they see the acceptance and use of the kits when they are in their home church.

6. Mainly become an integral part of a local church community rather than becoming an attrition statistic. (The next generation of these alumni will become the future students of our colleges.)

To add zest to this creative project, there might develop some competition among the various Adventist universities to produce the most effective kits.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing and order fulfillment for the kits could be done either by the individual universities or perhaps better by the publishing company for Spectrum and Adventist Today magazines. The kits, except for the banners and science demonstration materials, could be downloadable on the Internet.

Marketing

1. Advertising the availability and content of the kits would be done primarily through denominational channels such as the Adventist Review family of publications and Union publications. Other publications would include Alumni magazines, Spectrum, Adventist Today, etc. The kits could be sold through ABCs. They could be rented on a subscription basis.

2. Hopefully the price of a kit would be in the $50 range perhaps with a rental fee of around $15. (If advertising costs are very high, these figures might have to be adjusted upwards.)

3. Since the kits would have been developed by denominationally owned or subsidized institutions, acceptance by the hierarchy should not be a problem.

Finance

Seed money is always a problem when launching any new project. Development of the initial plan could be done on a volunteer basis of which this paper could be considered the first small step. Students could perhaps be charged a minimal fee for participation which they could earn back by royalties depending on the success of what they produce. Donors will probably be necessary. The business students should have some ideas on how to finance a startup.

Summary of Worship Worthy of Attendance

A plan is presented that would involve many Adventist university students in developing a program to improve the quality of worship in local churches (especially small churches) so that the hemorrhage of membership by young intellectuals would be diminished. While worship is not the only important activity of a local church community, it may be the first, because members who do not attend are not available for community service, etc.

Summary of Adventist Worship

There seems to be a sense among preachers that “entertainment” is intrinsically evil and should be shunned. If indeed we have this idea, we need to get over it. Certainly there is good entertainment and there is bad entertainment both inside and outside the church. The problem inside the church is that most of what is supposed to pass for worship is bad entertainment. First we need to get over the psychological hurdle of believing that some words -- pastor, elder, platform, sanctuary, congregation -- are sanctified while other words with parallel meanings -- performer, stage, auditorium, audience -- are secular and therefore must be evil.

Yes, worship is what we bring to God. But we are God’s children. What we bring to God is as the imperfect birthday card that a child scribbles for his/her parent. To the parent it is a “divine” gift. But what the parent gives back to the child -- love, security, a home, food, toys, vacations, education -- is in reality a much greater gift. What God gives back to us -- a beautiful world, health, family and friends, security, hope for a future of eternal life, the gift of His Son -- is incomparably greater. And it is this story, the Gospel in all its glory and wonder, that it is our privilege and duty to tell through the program we call “worship.” Let’s get on with it and do the very best job that we can!

To me “the very best job that we can” means that our minds are open to learn how best to tell a story -- the story, the Good News story. And if the premier storytellers in this world happen to work in Hollywood, so be it. Everybody likes to hear a good story which is why Hollywood is such a hugely successful industry. They have the budget. They have the experience. They have the best brains. They know how to tell a story. If we can overcome our sanctimonious attitude that we can’t learn anything from “the devil,” we might find that there is much we can learn that will make our ministry more effective.

And it need not be expensive. I once saw a woman (non SDA) want to project herself into the time of Christ and step into the role of Mary Magdalene. She pulled out a white handkerchief and draped it over her head. Simple? Yes. Expensive? No. Effective? Surprisingly, Yes. Supposedly we are made in the image of God. I submit that this means at least that we have a measure of creativity  Let’s use it!

Appendix

Here are some additional random thoughts.

1. It has been suggested to me that there is a paucity of high quality ministerial students in our colleges. Therefore it might be useful to see if it is possible to appropriate existing material from sources such as Voice of Prophecy, Faith for Today, It Is Written, etc. It might be easier to rework these messages into worship service format than to start entirely from scratch. There was a time when Gary Patterson said that he was hoping to develop a repository of creative worship services. I believe this was when he was at Walla Walla College. What, if anything, he has done with this concept, I do not know. Another source of material might be the Creative Worship group in Lincoln, NE.

2. Crucial to the successful development of these kits would be a local coordinator at each participating campus. If this is not the Campus Chaplain, then who is it? If all the critical actors, such as the chaplain and professors and church pastor are too “maxed out” already, then it is hardly worth trying to start this enterprise. There must be a local champion who is fully committed to the success of the program.

3. It is also unknown at this time what the acceptability of these kits would be to local churches. Would they see the kits as a godsend or as an expensive doodad that would require too much effort to utilize? In order for this to work at the local church level, there would have to be a pastor or layman (or hopefully both) who would execute. I have a sense that in some (many?) churches the only people still attending are those members who will go to church regularly regardless of the quality of the worship service (Do they go to church to do penance?) and that all the people who care about quality have already left.

4. If it is possible to encourage a merger between Spectrum and Adventist Today, then it might also be possible to develop a publishing association for them that would  oversee their book publishing, website oversight, Creative Worship kit manufacturing and marketing, etc. These two magazines are both of excellent quality, but have no trained business person managing the store. By combining enough revenue-producing activities, it might be possible to have enough financial strength to have a business-trained CEO to manage the operations.

5. Chuck Scriven has suggested that our colleges might want to consider the addition of a course to be called The Practice of Church Community (also thanks to Leo Ranzolin). Since the development of a college curriculum is a process that makes the speed of glaciers seem like race cars, I suggest an experimental program with the following structure:

 a. An experimental course would be offered for seniors with the title The Practice of Christian Community.

 b. The course would give no credit and would require no tuition.

 c. But -- the students would already be taking courses in their areas of major interest. Hopefully these courses would require senior projects of some sort -- papers, performances, artwork, whatever. If these senior projects could be combined with the PCC course, then the contributions of the students to the Creative Worship kits could be in partial fulfillment for the other, major course.

Ivory Tower Overhaul

By Alexander Carpenter

In light of the spirited response to Jonathan Pichot's provocative essay on Adventist higher education, I am posting this recent Cato Institute discussion by the U.S. Secretary of Education's panel to inspect and renovate American higher education. I think might be especially informative as the panel includes the president of St. John's College (which has come up in the comment section and is a school on which both Pacific Union College and Andrews University have modeled their honors programs). The other reason that this might be helpful is that, included on the panel is the author of Generation Debt, a book (and growing movement) addressing the often-cruel reality of the government subsidized, for-profit student loan industry.

Two things everyone seems to know about higher education are that it's extremely expensive and that it gets more so every year. That, however, is about the extent of our collective certainty, because many critical questions never seem to get answered: Why does tuition rise relentlessly? What are students actually learning? What's the payoff of higher education? In light of all the open questions, it's no surprise that Americans are getting increasingly uneasy about the prices that colleges and universities are asking them to pay.

Last year, the U.S. secretary of education established a commission to inspect America's ivory tower and formulate a "national strategy" for its renovation. With the commission's final report now out, we invite you to join our diverse panel of experts for a lively debate of higher education's problems, and the best ways to fix them - The Cato Institute

Featuring Charles Miller, Chairman, the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education; Christopher Nelson, President, St. John's College; Anya Kamenetz, Author, Generation Debt; Neal McCluskey, Policy Analyst, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute; and moderated by Doug Lederman, Editor, Inside Higher Ed.

Rethinking Adventist (humanities) education

By Jonathan Pichot

A year ago I graduated from Andrews Academy, the Adventist secondary school associated with Andrews University. Having grown up in Adventist education, I had planned to attend a non-Adventist college in an attempt to both prove to myself that I could survive outside the Adventist "bubble" and because I took for granted that the academics at top secular schools were far superior to those at any Adventist university. I applied to two secular schools: one of the top two public universities in the nation as well as a top ten private university. I was accepted at both. Yet, because of a combination of finances, reflection, and a genuine impression that God preferred me elsewhere, I turned them down, and registered at Pacific Union College (PUC) in the Fall of 2006. What had attracted me to the school above all other Adventist colleges was its honors program whose curriculum surveys original texts, most considered "classics" or "great books" in a wide variety of fields. The classes were small and discussion based, and students were encouraged to participate in a more open dialogue with faculty than in a typical class. So, when September arrived, I left with my father and drove for three days from Michigan to California to a school I had never visited and where I knew no one.

Historically, as I understand it, most Adventist young people who attended non-Adventist colleges did so because of finances and location, not because of academics. Up until the past couple of decades, the priority of the vast majority of Adventist students pursuing college was to attend an Adventist school, usually whichever school was nearest them. Yet over time, Adventist students have become more discerning of their college choices. They are beginning to demand not only an Adventist community, but strong academics, internship and research opportunities, study abroad programs, and stimulating classmates. This new sophistication has led to a growth of Adventist students at many of the nations top schools. (The Spectrum Blog recently reported on three Adventist sisters graduating from Dartmouth). This trend is marked by a growing number of active Adventist student groups at many top universities including Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan, Princeton, and Columbia. Adventists attending these schools could have very likely afforded Adventist education but instead chose these more prestigious institutions.

When I first arrived at PUC, I was ready to make the most of the courses available. I studied the class bulletin, highlighting course titles that intrigued me. Yet by the end of my winter quarter, I was disappointed. Of all the classes I had taken, the honors classes felt most like what a college education should be, yet even they were occasionally underwhelming. Perhaps I had idealized college too much, but was it really unfair to expect better? I had hoped for a rigorous education with small classes, challenging reading, and stimulating discussion. I had found inconsistency. Some classes were good, with a brilliant professor and enough engaged students to make it worthwhile. Yet other classes never rose above a high school level and with more than a few students who didn't either. There were extraordinary professors and others less gifted. But too often, a class that had sounded fascinating in the course bulletin, in the end, disappointed.

I was not alone in my disenchantment. Several of my friends, most of them honors students, also complained about the lack of academically challenging courses. At least the honors program gave the most intellectually curious students a community in which they could find other students with similar desires. In the conversations and friendships that I developed with these classmates I discovered a fundamental aspect of education outside the classroom: my peers. It was my interaction with them–our discussions, our dreams, our projects–that most excited me. The classroom, sadly, was too often dull and uninspiring. My peers, at least, were interesting. I began to realize what had most often limited the quality of discussion in class, and along with it the professors academic expectations, was the quality of students available. The most brilliant professors were often limited by the students in front of them. With these concerns, some friends and I began to search for a solution. We decided we needed a new school, one that would attract the best Adventist students from across the country and so create a vibrant intellectual community.

Though honors programs like the one at PUC do a good job of fostering a small but serious intellectual community on campus, there is the need for a larger commitment. In my mind, the ideal scenario would be the creation of an Adventist college dedicated to a rigorous liberal education the likes of which is found at the best schools in the country. Whether this school would be created from scratch or rise out of one of our existing schools does not matter. Regardless, such a school would attempt to offer something that is currently not found at any existing Adventist college: a rigorous and unabashedly intellectual community, regardless of discipline, dedicated to the highest standards of teaching and learning. I believe the landscape of higher education in the church is now large enough and well enough established to support such a school. Speaking informally about such a college to Adventist students across the country, I've always received a positive response. I know several Adventist students at top schools who would have preferred an Adventist community, but because of the competitive nature of their chosen fields, decided on academic quality. There is a demand amongst top Adventist students for such a school. What is needed is a new commitment.

As has been discussed on The Spectrum Blog before, the Adventist community takes pride in the reputation of its top school, Loma Linda University. Medicine has always played a large role in our church, as it should. Yet this emphasis, as well as certain tendencies with the church, has often detracted from other fields of study, particularly the humanities. I believe the Adventist church now needs a flagship liberal arts college if it is going to attract and engage its most promising young people. The best students in Adventism, those at the Ivies and in the honors classrooms of Adventist schools, are the future of the church and its best hope to prosper and remain relevant in the 21st century. Let's create a college worthy of them.

Adventist triplets, first to graduate from Dartmouth

By Alexander Carpenter

    "Olivia Willis-Henry will occupy a seat of honor at the June 10 Dartmouth College commencement: at the side of Susan Wright, wife of Dartmouth's President James Wright. It isn't every parent that gets to view commencement from such a choice spot; but, then, it isn't every parent who has three children graduating at the same time.
    Willis-Henry is the mother of Ashley, Brittany and Courtney Henry, 21, of San Diego, Ca., the first set of triplets to attend Dartmouth College. While numerous sets of twins and individual members of triplets have attended the college, Dartmouth history records no other full set of triplet students before the Henry sisters.
    The girls, who are identical siblings, came to Dartmouth after an education at a small, Seventh Day Adventist (sic) parochial school, including a 200 student-high school with a senior class of 60 students from which they graduated as co-valedictorians."

    Read the story here.

    And I like this quote from one of those scary Ivy League Religion Professors."The sisters said they have tried to follow the advice given them in their freshman year by Religion Professor Ronald Green, who was Brittany's adviser, officially, but became a friend to the girls and their mother. 'He encouraged us to take advantage of what Dartmouth has to offer and, at the same time, not to stray too far from what we know,' Brittany said."

Congratulations.

Discussing Sabbath School qua Sabbath. School.

By Alexander Carpenter

Several discussions erupted over at Johnny's Justice post. Let's let ethics stay there and open up a discussion below about improving Sabbath School.

Cliff, what exactly is the purpose of the quarterly?

At least here's the Church Manual on Sabbath School in general:

The Sabbath School is the primary religious education system of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and has four purposes: study of the Scripture, fellowship, community outreach, and world mission emphasis.

Wouldn't it be interesting if a new SS guide incorporated all of these, say, connecting scripture to taking care of God's "global warming" creation? And then helping people realize that how we treat our environment impacts our witness around the world. And doing it as a community creates fellowship.

In cooperation with world divisions, the specific mission of the General Conference Sabbath School Department is to distribute the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide for all age levels, provide designs for Sabbath School programming within the context of the various world division cultures, provide resources and training systems for Sabbath School teachers, and promote world mission Sabbath School offerings.

I wonder what "provide designs for Sabbath School programming within the context of the various world division cultures" means.

Does it include a culture of affluence, culture of epistemological uncertainty, a culture of apathy toward the suffering of other, a culture that increasingly misunderstands what "religious liberty" means, a culture at war, perhaps even creating peace in the so-called "culture wars".

I'd love to see a SS lesson that compared research and analysis from Adventist literature, sociology, religion profs, et al and the head of ADRA, BRI. Why not compare our various viewpoints on contemporary issues.

There are a couple of churches that do denomination-wide bible studies on the issues of the day and it seems to really get people engaged. Especially in this age of cheap video and YouTube, the NAD could send out teams of young two person camera teams from SAU and PUC media program to local churches interviewing real live people on their views and then at the beginning of SS each week, everyone could check in to see what other average, lay, church-and-SS-attending Adventists think. (Just another radically liberal idea from Spectrum.)

The SS time is slipping away from our church culture and it has so much potential to increase the sense of Adventist community and commitment to discovering present/eternal truth.

I wonder if separation of church and state is an eternal truth, what about civil rights, caring for creation, helping the least of these, Jan Paulsen recently brought up AIDS in Africa, issues of spirituality. Could we have a church-wide study on the issue of women's ordination?

As the Church Manual says, this is our community's primary religious education system. It appears that many Adventists feel that we're more kindergarten than primary these days. . .who has ideas about changing that?

College Spirituality

By Alexander Carpenter

At Pacific Union College (Angwin, CA), like at many Adventist colleges, there exists a debate about the role and relevance of weekly chapels and vespers. Few doubt that people should come together in spiritual community, but problems arise when students feel that the worships don't work and administrators notice that the students aren't participating properly. Here is a video cast of students and a chaplain discussing ways to understand how best to mix spirituality and today's fragmented academic experience.