Andrews University has a new president, and hopefully a new direction. Over time, the school became liberalized, especially under the direction of the previous administration. The board realized last year that in order to preserve the Adventist Message in the university that fundamental changes needed to occur.
Some of these changes were the elimination of the Diversity Inclusion and Equity (DIE) position (cultural Marxism and wokeness), and now the elimination of the position of Provost (formerly occupied by Christon Arthur). The new position is called Chief Academic Officer and eliminates at least five positions, making the University more efficient.
Christon Arthur will become the president of La Sierra, an institution more in line with political and theological leftism. In a recent interview, he stated that one of his goals for La Sierra is inclusivity. Among the left, this is code for LGBTQ acceptance and affirmation. Look for increased capitulation of La Sierra to this moral revolution.
He also hinted that La Sierra would become a center for critical (theological) thought. Among the left, this is code for ‘higher’ criticism of the Bible, an approach that reduces the Bible’s authority to mere suggestion. This approach has dominated liberal mainline denominations over the last 200 years, and will take liberal Adventism over the same ideological cliff as the Anglican Church, Episcopalians, Lutherans and mainline Methodism.
Arthur said that La Sierra will demonstrate a “progressive, prophetic voice.” It isn’t often that we hear the words ‘progressive’ (wokeness, leftism) and ‘prophetic’ tossed together in a socialist word salad, but that is where this wing of Adventism is headed. It is the intentional melding of leftism and SDA eschatology in a manner that cannibalizes any Adventist connection to the Bible as the authoritative Word of God.
Goodbye Remnant (Rev. 12:17), hello Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-22).
Andrews University is doing the necessary reconstruction after a trifecta of leftism moved the school from its biblical moorings over the last twenty years. Pray for John Wesley Taylor, that he receives strength and wisdom from God to radically prune this vine in Adventism.
Andrews should also completely eliminate the cultural Marxist DEI/DIE position, and not capitulate to culture. Simply renaming it is not enough, if you hope to turn Andrews back towards a biblical path.
Friends and fellow believers, as to Academic AdLeftism, have nothing to do with them. They will fall off the cliff of their own devising, and you don’t want your children to fall with them.
****
“Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch” (Matthew 15:14).