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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

The Rise and End Time Role of Science in Education

Let's pray and ask the Lord to bless us as we study out part 2 kind of of our educational series.

Last week we looked at part 1 of an educational series and part 2 at our early morning services.

Father in heaven, thank you today for this vigorous cool air, which is a great blessing to me personally, and I hope corporately as well here.

We do ask that your presence could be with us here this morning as we speak about educare, the changing of the character through education.

And so bless us this morning to that end.

Last week we looked at this book, The Soul of the American University, from Protestant establishment to established non-belief, and we saw the steps down and how multiple schools that started out with religious bearings lost their bearings and drifted into non-sectarianism and actually then abandoning Christianity whatsoever.

And we looked at what happened and 1 of the things we looked at was that theology became more liberal and turned by degrees into moral science.

And research-oriented German university with its ideology of empirical and value-free science became the norm for most expanding American institutions.

So moving to supposedly just the data with no dogma was the idea, the notion that was foisted upon these schools.

The concept of academic freedom was widened so as to be understood as scientific competence and was felt to be incompatible with dogmatic beliefs.

So, essentially what that means is there was a switch from God's law to social science laws.

And of course, Kellogg got caught up into this.

There's nothing in the regular courses of study on the rules and practice of discipline that is of the least denominational or sectarian, he said of Battle Creek College, the biblical lectures are before a class of only those who attend them from choice.

The managers of this college have no disposition to urge upon student sectarian views or to give such views any prominence in their schoolwork.

Only problem was he was teaching at a denominational school and 1 of the stakeholders was Ellen White who said, the Lord never designed that our college should imitate other institutions of learning.

The religious element should be the controlling power.

If unbelievers choose this influence, he also has choice in her statement, it is well.

If those who are in darkness choose to come to the light, it is as God would have it.

So, but to relax our vigilance, to let the worldly element take the lead in order to secure students is contrary to the will of God.

The strength of our college is in keeping the religious element in the ascendancy." So anytime you hear somebody saying, we're not just a Bible college, get very worried.

If we're going to be anything, it should be a Bible college.

Make sure to keep the religious element in its ascendancy.

If a worldly influence is to bear sway in our school, then sell it out to the world and let them take entire control.

Those who have invested their means in that institution will establish another school to be conducted, not upon the plan of popular schools nor according to the desires of principal and teachers, but upon the plan which God has specified." So does that mean we don't study science?

We need to study the truths of God's word for this time, and also science.

God's purpose has been made known that our people should have the opportunity to study the sciences and at the same time learn the requirements of his word.

So it's not either or, it's both and, right?

And it's with that in mind that I want to develop now a new theme this morning from this text, 1 Timothy 6.20.

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane.

Pro means before, fonum, the sanctuary, something that gets in the way of the sanctuary message, which is basically the foundation of our sciences.

I don't have time to explain that right now.

In vain do they worship me teaching as for doctrine the commandments of men.

So profanu, sitting in front of the sanctuary, the sanctuary, the big thing in the sanctuary is the 10 Commandments, and choosing something other than God's moral law to lead, and oppositions of science, falsely so called.

So vain babblings and profane things actually masquerade as science, falsely so called.

Keep that which is committed to thy trust.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.

That's how he started his letter to Timothy, saying, look, I'm led by the commandments of God.

By the way, after that, he actually goes through all the 10 Commandments.

And that provides the foundation for the entire book.

So the moral identity of God's law is the foundation for that entire book.

And it's to lead people to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

It is the grace of God that was revealed to Paul when he was a blasphemer and a persecutor who was injurious towards others.

And the revelation of God, which was full of faith and love, was revealed to Paul as he beheld no other than Christ Jesus, and then his body, the church.

And as a result, Paul had been enabled by Christ, and he was counted faithful by Christ, and he was put into the ministry by Christ.

This is actually the desire of Christian education, for each person to be called by Christ, to be counted faithful by Christ, and to be put into the ministry by Christ.

And every degree that we earn is actually a means to that end.

We have a lot of science teachers and a lot of science graduates.

But the warning is to watch out for fake science.

There's fake news, there's fake science, there's fake theology, and that's the call.

Now 1 of our capstone projects last year, 1 of our graduates, the prophet Elijah here, did as his capstone a study of Adventist schools.

There was a 43% drop-off between the teen and early adult years in terms of church engagement as he looked at his research.

And people stopped attending the Adventist church usually in the age category of 18 to 29, which is the college age.

And the reasons they dropped out were these.

Elitist in its relationships, they said of the church.

So these were the 6 things those people leaving were talking about.

Every week I'm contacted by young Christians who tell me their faith cannot survive their interest in science.

If all the churches force them into an either-or decision, they can either stay true to the Christian faith or become an intellectually honest scientist.

So this is why we have classes here on origins, issues and origins.

1 of the threshold concepts is, is evolution true or is creation true?

And we have some brilliant teachers that actually cover that.

And there's other basic threshold concepts that we cover here.

Because if you're not careful, you can slip into science falsely so-called.

I remember talking to 1 of the physicians that was here during the time of Desmond Ford crisis, where he was taking a bunch of people out of the church.

He said, the only thing that kept me at Seventh-day Adventist was working at New Start.

And I knew the principles of Ellen White and the Bible were true, because I saw it every day.

I saw people getting well every single day.

And I knew it was true, even though we had that erroneous teacher, Desmond Ford, down at Newcastle Church, right, living in Newcastle and going to the Auburn Church.

So what saved the people was the actual reality of true science.

And that's another reason we rotate our students through the Depressed and Recovery Program.

They see people get better from depression and anxiety.

That's another reason we rotate people through the New Start Program.

They see people get better in real time, healed by principles that are consistent with true science, but also with God's word.

By the way, we wouldn't have science without scripture anyway.

This will come to you a little bit later.

So, anti-science, and by the way in our culture, science, and I hope the sound works here, let's see if it does.

Science is something that America and many others really tout.

Look at this almost hilarious, not hilarious, sobering, it's kind of the opposite, clip.

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The Rise and End Time Role of Science in Education

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