The Final Coffin Nail for Adventist Education

 by Arnie Suntag

The Bible admonishes us that a time will come when we forsake our foundational principles for the approval of worldly authorities and powers: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). As unpalatable as my perspective may be to some, this is the story of Adventist education. While many in our church recognize that our schools and universities are no longer the bastion of Seventh-day Adventist theology that they used to be, few realize just how far they have wandered from the blueprint. Undoubtedly, this has been fostered by the same paradigm that for decades has unraveled public education by implanting the ideologies of liberal extremism into the curricula of schools throughout the nation. Now it is Adventist education’s turn.

What I am about to reveal is not based on the opinion of a neophyte or an outsider. My wife and I have been intricately involved in Adventist education for a number of years. She has served as the principal of a Seventh-day Adventist school nationally recognized for its unique approach to education and its outreach to the community. I have served on the board of several of our institutions as part of my ministry. Recently, my wife announced plans to retire from her position, and I have been in the process of cutting ties with all Conference-related entanglements, much to the chagrin of some colleagues. While this departure has been framed as retirement, my wife and I know full well that there is no retirement from ministry. Indeed, far be it from us to rest on our laurels as the last day events delineated in the Bible and amply depicted in The Great Controversy unfold before our eyes. The real truth of the matter is that due to the trend in Adventist education and in the church at large, we cannot in good conscience continue to be involved in what has become a headlong submersion into apostasy. The church has failed disastrously to live up to its commission and the result is the turmoil and sheer pandemonium that we are witnessing throughout our society today.

In the wake of my wife’s announced departure from Adventist education we have learned that there are more than two hundred teaching positions open throughout NAD. This is an unprecedented number of openings. While one may tend to attribute this apparent anomaly to the impact of the pandemic and the unwieldy restrictions the Conference has so unhesitatingly joined the world in embracing, it is more likely to those who have awakened that it is time to abandon a sinking ship. Instead of playing the game by supporting principles that originate from worldly idealogues rather than the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, these individuals are choosing to extricate themselves from Babylon.

If there is one particularly glaring example of how far Adventist education has wandered from its roots, it is embodied in a recent Pacific Union educator conference where a book entitled Resilient, by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., was distributed for all administrators to read and to potentially utilize its concepts in their respective schools. The marketing hype used to promote the book is as follows:

“Learn how to develop key inner strengths – like grit, gratitude, and compassion – to stay calm, confident, and happy no matter what life throws at you.”

The opening sentence of the book references the author’s experience in the Human Potential Movement of the 1970s. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Human Potential Movement arose out of the 1960s counterculture. It focused on the development of the individual to his or her fullest potential using an eclectic combination of so-called therapeutic methods and disciplines. In some circles this included altered states of consciousness, past-life regression hypnosis, and other rather offbeat processes that encouraged individuals to “create their own reality” or, more pragmatically, to control their own destiny. The movement, with its various methodologies, was based loosely on the humanistic psychological approach of psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. It is spiritualism in the truest sense of the word.

Rick Hanson is a senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 29 languages. One of his most highly regarded literary works is Buddha’s Brain, which utilizes the fundamentals of neuroscience and “thousands of years of contemplative practice” to provide a means to shape one’s brain for “greater happiness, love, and wisdom.” On his website, he refers to Jesus and Buddha as “great teachers” and places them on a par with one another. Hanson is also the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, has been a trustee of Saybrook University, and has served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Even the most cursory study of these organizations reveals that Hanson’s colleagues are Jesuits, some of whom profess former careers as Jesuit priests. The philosophy and associated practices of these organizations are rooted in the teachings of Buddha and the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola. Hanson’s book is the epitome of what Ellen White refers to in Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, as the work of infidel authors. She aptly points out the obvious paradox that Conference leadership has ignored:

“The molding and fashioning of minds should not be left to men who have not comprehended the importance of a preparation for that life which measures with the life of God” {CT 401.1}.

This is what Hanson’s book is all about – reshaping the mind. It is nothing new, by any means. In teaching Protestant children centuries ago, the Jesuits, who held quite an illustrious position as educators, implanted in their minds the tenets of the Counter-Reformation, ultimately leading to the modern-day shift away from the teachings of the apostolic church. Now, via Conference leadership, it is happening again with Resilient and other similar publications, seminars, and lectures from unconverted and free-thinking icons invited to speak at our institutions. These irresponsibly introduced teaching modalities, along with instructional materials and methods that are gradually predominating in Adventist education and in the church itself, are quicky eroding Biblical truth and derailing the best efforts by faithful Seventh-day Adventists to “train up a child in the way he should go” so that “when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The result of yielding to societal conventions has done irreparable damage to our youth and represents perhaps the primary reason why so many have left the church.

The fall of Adventist education began with the process of accreditation way back in 1929. The Board of Regents of the General Conference Department of Education along with qualifying SDA educational institutions and a whole host of other leaders within Adventist education, formed the Association of Seventh-day Adventist Colleges and Secondary Schools. This effort to emulate the world’s methods of addressing issues and uniformity in the educational arena, ultimately led to an affiliation with external accrediting organizations in the 1930s. It represented a departure from the admonishment to avoid entanglements with human authorities and worldly agencies. By seeking approval through organizations such as the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA) and others, Adventist education joined hands with secularism and opened the door to intrusion by irreligious and extremist ideologies. Despite dire warnings from the Spirit of Prophecy and many in the education arena, the trend continued and apostasy began to take root.

In October of 1978, after announcing his retirement, Elder Robert H. Pierson, the General Conference president, made a poignant appeal to appointed leaders throughout the Conference to not allow God’s remnant church to slip into secularism and modernism the way so many other churches have done. Despite his earnest and heartfelt appeal and its obvious implications, there has been a litany of examples over the decades illustrating the persistent drive to permeate Adventist education with secular, Jesuit-inspired ideology. In 1985, Lou Tice, co-founder and Chairman of the Pacific Institute and a motivational speaker considered to be a guru in the New Age movement, was invited to speak at Loma Linda University. His perspective on the cognitive sciences and leadership are actually akin to that of Rick Hanson and Resilient. His appearance at our premier educational institution is analogous to the appearance of Pope Francis before Congress. It was a substantial event for Adventism that cannot be understated, but apparently forgotten by many. It opened the door to ongoing intrusion into Adventist education. In more recent years, Rick Warren’s books, The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church, have made the rounds through our institutions. Hailed by many as revolutionary, they insidiously hammered another coffin nail into Adventist education.

Since that time, the immersion into worldly philosophy and beliefs in our schools and churches has accelerated considerably. This is one of the reasons we have seen such a radical departure from our founding principles in recent years. Nowadays, you can scarcely tell the difference between one of our schools and the public school down the road. The impact on our youth has led to an outright rebellion against the doctrines and principles that we have historically embraced in our church. Some may recall from just a few short years ago the emergence of a rather bizarre dance called the Harlem Shake that made the rounds through our universities. This pagan-like meme, while considered by many to be completely harmless, represented one of the earlier manifestations of engaging in mainstream customs that defy God. It introduced the idea that we can blend even the most raucous worldly practices with those that are sacred.

The merger of worldly conventions with the sacred could not be more pronounced than in a graduation held last year at Thunderbird Academy, arguably one of the leading Seventh-day Adventist academies in the country. The music performed by the students came directly from the Beatles, the speakers hardly mentioned God, and the interviews with students glorified worldly pursuits – both in terms of career choice and materialistic goals. There was virtually no mention of ministry work or the like. The graduation was aired on Good News TV for all to witness the sellout of what we as Seventh-day Adventists claim to believe. Those watching the event would have barely been able to discern the difference between this graduation and that of any public high school. The supposed disparity between what the world promotes and what we believe as Seventh-day Adventists was simply not evident and, unfortunately this paradox was widely publicized for other schools and students to emulate. The saddest part of it all is the pride that Conference leadership and administrators exhibit over such events. Just as many considered the Harlem Shake to be a harmless manifestation of youthful fun, so too do they gloss over the inherent danger of incorporating worldly beliefs, principles, and practices into our institutions through literature and music. Many genuinely believe that by utilizing widely acclaimed non-SDA publications and educational principles, that they are on the cutting edge.

Rather than relying on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy and teaching our children the fundamentals that founded our church, we are shifting gears toward worldliness — ultimately encouraging sublimation into the philosophies and teachings of secularism and radical liberal extremism. This is exactly what happened to public education more than a century ago when the oligarchy discovered that partisan ideologies could be grafted into school curricula to indoctrinate children so that they would be compliant with government policies while at the same time unable to think for themselves. It is the very reason why so many in our schools and churches have sympathized with the rhetoric created by Black Lives Matter and have adopted their battle cry for racial justice.

Meetings held by Conference leadership for teachers and administrators alike are now rife with terms such as diversity, inclusion, and safe space – buzzwords promoted by professed Marxists to create division and foment revolutionary inclinations. Little do the unwitting proponents of this contrivance realize that these terms do not mean what they once did. Their definitions have been altered, even in many of our dictionaries, in order to accommodate a long-standing political agenda. And while many may scoff at such an assertion, it is nonetheless historical. Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB informant and Soviet defector years ago, spoke of the strategy to bring America to the brink of a revolution in order to install a communist regime. He demonstrably pointed out that it would rely on our educational system and an implanted distortion of commonly recognized terminology, among other things. Today, this methodology is embodied in “critical theory” and taught at our universities in one form or another, as Conrad Vine, President of Adventist Frontier Missions, has aptly pointed out in some of his presentations. This rather convoluted theory has held sway with those throughout our church – most notably our youth. One would only hope that the real-life consequences of this theory’s backward reasoning would serve as a wakeup call for Conference leadership hell-bent on bringing Marxist agendas, infidel writings, and blasphemous behavioral concepts such as transgenderism and the LGBT movement into our schools and churches. But alas, the Conference has betrayed our founding principles. Those who have unwittingly participated in these renegade movements have been duped. They believe they are doing God a service – but there is blood on their hands.

If the literature being embraced by Conference leadership for use in our schools does not represent the final coffin nail for Adventist education, then its faith-defying reaction to the pandemic restrictions surely does. It is another programmed response to decades of subliminal indoctrination through education and the media. In response to a provable exaggeration of scientific fact and overwhelming government overreach, the Conference compliantly embraced the authoritarian mandates going so far as to close schools and churches. They have incessantly demanded that all SDA institutions obey the mandates of public health authorities, even though these may be in complete defiance of the health message – one of the pillars upon which our church was founded. It is without a doubt highly illustrative of a feigned faith in the Almighty God to whom we profess allegiance.

It has been an egregious repudiation of our beliefs as Seventh-day Adventists. And, after accepting substantial Covid money from the government, Conference leaders are now collusively promoting an experimental vaccine that will ultimately cause injury or death to countless numbers of adherents. Undoubtedly, the next step will be to embrace the “Green Sunday”, because the same reasoning that spawned the pandemic lockdowns will be the coercive tool used to gain compliance and appease the forces that be. Thus, the reality of the mark of the beast, a concept that has become almost two-dimensional for many in our church, will be brought to fruition by the very same people who are supposed to lead the flock by promoting the Three Angels’ Message.

While some may scornfully denounce the likelihood of the aforementioned and the contradiction it would pose in relation to our faith, they will soon realize the mistake they have made by placing their trust in human agencies instead of Almighty God. What they fail to realize is that the Conference is not the church. The true church is “the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,” (Hebrews 12:23). It is composed of those who are on the Advent path. It does not consist of brick and mortar buildings, and it is certainly not a 501c3 IRS-approved organization. We must put this in perspective. Ellen White was never in favor of a hierarchical organization such as the Conference, and while we have done our best until now to make the “church militant” our home, it will be the “church triumphant” that overcomes. Many are surprised by the comments that Ellen White made a long time ago in relation to the Conference. This most significant and yet poignant statement is what she penned in 1901:

“It is working upon wrong principles that has brought the cause of God into its present embarrassment. The people have lost confidence in those who have the management of the work. Yet we hear that the voice of the Conference is the voice of God. Every time I have heard this, I thought it was almost blasphemy. The voice of the Conference ought to be the voice of God, but it is not, because some in connection with it are not men of faith and prayer, they are not men of elevated principle. There is not a seeking of God with the whole heart; there is not a realization of the terrible responsibility that rests upon those in this institution to mold and fashion minds after the divine similitude.” April 1, 1901, Ms. 37-1901.”

Therein lies the entire point of the foregoing – it is about what we do to influence the minds of our children, whom we are now losing in droves. It is time for us to take action through prayer and earnest commitment to God’s principles. We must pray earnestly for those involved in the Conference who do truly desire to do what is right — and I know they are there. Nonetheless, it is at the same time incumbent upon all of us to do whatever we can to offset the deleterious effect our leadership has had, particularly upon our children and those involved in Adventist education. The only way this will happen is if we stand together in solidarity. If the leadership will not commit to what God has called them to do, then we must assume that responsibility ourselves. It is time for the laity to finish the work.

About the author: Arnie Suntag is the founder and president of Walk of Faith, an organization that conducts seminars and educational series on health and disease prevention and provides outreach services to the community. For inquiries or comments call (866) 359-2640 or email Arnie Suntag at arniesuntag@walkoffaithmedia.org