It’s a struggle for the survival of the fittest — the fittest science for Seventh-day Adventist education, that is. Most SDA educational institutions (K–university) have taught, and presumably still teach, a literal six-day creation of life as taught in Genesis 1. However, over the last couple decades or so, some teachers at SDA universities have allegedly endorsed the historical interpretations of mainstream science, but while retaining some measure of divine oversight. This view is sometimes called theistic evolution.

Over the years I’ve heard reports of problems in our school science departments, but had always assumed it was a single rogue teacher here and there. From all that I’ve personally seen, the church leadership and its official publications have remained firm on the traditional Adventist view of origins.

Recently the well-respected, young pastor-evangelist David Asscherick of ARISE dropped a bombshell when he wrote a letter to church leadership, drawing attention to the teaching of evolution at a particular SDA school, La Sierra University (LSU). Somehow the letter slipped from one of several people he had sent it to for review, into general circulation. It was forwarded as an “open letter,” and spread like wildfire.

Subsequently, the president of LSU responded with an open letter of his own. Unfortunately this letter did little to stop the rising tide of indignation. No doubt this is partially because he did not deny Asscherick’s basic accusation. His letter could be summarized like this: “We are not atheists. We are a Christian school, we do mission projects, we are engaged with the SDA church. Students get baptized here. We believe in diversity and not telling our students what to believe.” (My very loose paraphrase.) No word in defense of Genesis 1.

Shortly thereafter, others responded openly to the president’s letter, and noted its shortcomings in owning up to the alleged endorsement of the Darwinian worldview given by members of its biology and religion departments. A website, lasierrauniversity.net, sprang up to discuss the matter (not affiliated in any way with LSU — quite to the contrary!). [Update: LSU subsequently took ownership of the lasierrauniversity.net domain; the former website is now hosted at educatetruth.com.]

I was very surprised when the board of Adventist Laymen’s Services and Industries (ASI) decided to weigh in with a letter. ASI is the strongest network of officially recognized ministries and independent but supporting entities within the church. It’s a very influential and deeply respected organization within the church. Usually ASI seems to shy away from any controversial topics. But now they boldly called the church’s leadership to account over the drift of various unnamed educational institutions towards Darwinism.

On the heels of all this, while attending 3ABN’s Ten Commandments Weekend, I heard Nathan Renner pound a nail or two on this subject. He was talking about the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” and in his hour-long talk spent a few minutes saying explicitly that someone teaching evolution at an Adventist educational institution is stealing, in the same sense that an employee who promotes the interests of a competitor on his company’s dime is stealing from his employer. There was a hearty wave of “amens” in response, indicating that quite a number in the audience understood what he was getting at. Renner is a close friend of Asscherick.

I’m glad to say I have never personally heard a fellow Seventh-day Adventist advocate the view of evolution over millions of years. I attended Adventist schools all the way through college; but the high school and college I attended were private, “self-supporting” schools. I certainly heard about evolution, both in my classes and in other venues (popular TV, magazines, museums, etc.). Some of the biological aspects (heredity, genetic variation, survival of the fittest, etc.) were clearly taught as scientific facts in my classes. But these were always moderated by class instruction about the limitations of evolution to account for all the diversity in life, and about the weaknesses in data used to support the evolutionary paradigm (how we interpret carbon dating, rock strata, fossils, etc.), and about the Bible’s plain teaching on the subject. I firmly believe there is no way to blend Darwinism into the Adventist theological package — or with Christianity, for that matter.

It will be interesting to see how all this shakes down. To be honest, I cannot see any possible win-win outcome.