Adventist Media Response and Conversation

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Alarmist Adventist Blogs

Sometimes I stumble upon really foolish Adventist blogs. Today I found a real case for remedial reading. The Blog entitled Theirmanygods which seems to have articles praising David Asscherick and Walter Veith has an article on Southern Adventist University. Here is what they say:

Southern Accent’s” issue for February 12 contained an article titled “Jesus is dead” which claimed to show that the teaching of the physical and tangible resurrection of Jesus was a rather late addition to Christian belief, one which was not shared by the earliest witnesses of Christianity, whose (possibly hallucinatory) belief was only of a spiritual and insubstantial resurrection." (Donn Leatherman School of Religion, Letters To Editor, Southern Accent, http://accent.cs.southern.edu/?p=587)

Wow! The Adventist university's student paper put out a "proclamation" that "Jesus is dead".

When I first read this I thought they were saying that Donn Leatherman of the School of Theology was the one who wrote the article. In fact he wrote the article in response which pointed out several flaws in the Jesus is dead article. When we look at the Jesus is dead article in the online archives we see the following disclaimer.

Jesus is dead

Filed Under Religion

DISCLAIMER: This is not the official view of Southern Adventist University or The Southern Accent.
Look for the School of Religion’s response in next week’s Accent.

Shane Akerman | Contributor

The following submission is simply an expression of my personal views.

The intention is not to offend but to provoke thought and discussion. My hope is that this campus can be a safe place for tough questions and the sharing of ideas.

The link that was included in the Theirmanygods blog is the link to the School of religion’s response to the Shane Akerman article. Yet that somehow to the apparently unbalanced or at least severely prejudiced mind became a proclamation that Jesus is dead by the Adventist University’s student paper.

There is a serious question here besides the obvious one about alarmists blogs and that is how could anyone take Shane Akerman seriously when he spends that much money to go to a private Christian school when he believes Christianity is a based upon a lie (e.g. all the New Testament books hold to the idea of the resurrection and continued life of Christ). It does appear that the article did stimulate some thought which is important because some of these issues don’t get enough attention even at Christian schools and students should know what the arguments and presuppositions of atheist and agnostics are. Having an article written by someone who actually believes what he is saying is often more memorable than just reciting the standard atheist and agnostic objections. I don’t think we have to believe everything the Bible says, but if the religion’s core is false, if there is no resurrection, if there is no Jesus Christ who is God than Christianity has nothing.

1 comment:

alle said...

Comments to Shane's article sound very typically conservative Christian. I attend a loosely still-Baptist oriented college in Nashville and when required to post on religion class forums, got much the same type replies...testimonials mostly and offers of prayer, very little intellectual content. It appeared this type heretical thought rarely crossed the minds of the standard, run of the mill, cookie cutter believer. At least Shane is interesting but his propositions are far from original. They are actually quite mainstream secular. One does wonder why Shane is paying out the nose for an (IMHO inferior) education. Why am I? I just want to be a nurse and this particular college will take your $$$ and teach you with no waiting lists and interviews. I expect SAU does the same. As a supervisor there once told my best friend, "I know you think this is a religion; actually, it's a business." :)