wfn.org | Meaningful Discussion About Creation Essential

[APD <APD_Info_Schweiz@compuserve.com>]

July 8, 2001
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD

The Inside Look into the Adventist Church: 
Meaningful Discussion About Creation Essential, 
Say Church Leaders

Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. (ANN/APD)   The Seventh-day 
Adventist Church must recognize and respond to current 
debates about creation and other theories of origins, 
according to a group of leaders who met June 11 and 12 at 
the church's world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, 
United States. The eight-member committee, made up of 
Adventist scientists, theologians and church leaders, 
is a preliminary planning group. Its role is to consider 
ways of encouraging greater communication between the 
church's academics, leaders and members about theological 
and scientific questions relating to the Biblical teaching 
of creation.

"Explanations of origins, as expressed either by science 
or Christian faith, are areas of frequent debate and 
controversy," says Lowell Cooper, a general vice 
president of the Adventist world church and chair of the 
planning group.  "This is not just an academic or 
theoretical debate," he adds. "Even people without a 
scholarly interest in the matter find themselves wrestling 
with how a person can live in the realm of faith, while 
also in a world so dominated by the disciplines of science. 
Conflicts between science and faith are not new and are 
not likely to disappear."

It is important "to work together to face the challenges 
to our faith that come from both secular and Christian 
thought leaders," says Dr. James Gibson, secretary of the 
committee. Gibson heads up the Geoscience Research 
Institute, an Adventist organization located in southern 
California that examines issues of origins from the 
perspective of both science and faith. He says he is glad 
the Adventist Church is working to encourage 
communication about these issues.

"This is a topic of great significance to every church 
member," Gibson says. "The concept of creation is crucial 
to our understanding of God's character and is interwoven 
with many other major Biblical teachings." 

The Adventist Church teaches that God created the earth 
in six days, resting on the seventh day and setting it 
aside as a Sabbath, or memorial to creation. 

Competing theories of origins sometimes raise questions 
for which there are no easy answers, says Cooper. "Even 
so, it is not the time for the Church to be silent and 
have nothing to say about the tensions that exist."

The creation study planning committee was convened at 
the request of Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist 
Church worldwide. The next meeting of the group will be 
later this month. Its recommendations will be considered 
at a meeting of the Church's international leaders in  
September.