Andrews University is the flagship institution of higher learning for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is the place where all the young men and women aspiring to be future pastors, administrations, theologians, leaders, etc. go to get “higher education” so that they can acquire a list of approved letters behind their name such as M. Div., Ph.D., Th.D., etc. that entitles them to qualify for positions of trust within the church hierarchy. Laymen with no formal “higher education” would never be allowed to guide the church since they have no formal training so the argument goes. One might ask why is all this necessary to run God’s remnant church and what is the fruit of all this training, is it of God or is it of the world? The Bible says by their fruit ye shall know them so let us test the fruit of some of the things that are going on at Andrews University as of late and see if it passes the divine standard.
Recently Andrews University popped up on the worldly news cycle due to a seminar that was given by a certain Adventist lawyer and guest speaker at an event hosted on campus that is eligible for seminar credit for students. According to a report by Campus Reform, James Standish encouraged American churches to hide illegal immigrants. Standish even went as far as to compare ICE deportations to conditions under Nazi Germany.
Standish told students that American churches should open their doors to illegal immigrants because ICE policy allegedly restricts their ability to raid religious buildings.
“A church entity asked me to look into this [immigration policy] because of our members being deported…” Standish explained, “today, except in unusual circumstances, ICE will not raid a church.”
On the surface this is a rather outrageous proposal to encourage Seventh-day Adventist churches to defy the immigration laws of a sovereign nation while claiming to be doing God’s work. Predictably there was some rather vigorous objections to Mr. Standish’s suggestions based on legal, moral, and ethical grounds as evidenced in the comment sections from a report posted on Breitbart News (link here).
In another shocking reveal a student who attended the event was interviewed afterwards and stated “Plain and simple, if you voted for Trump, if you stand with Trump, you’re not a Christian.” Really? I wonder how that idea got into this student’s head?
Who is James Standish?
According to Wikipeidia “James D. Standish [a lawyer trained at Jesuit Georgetown University, see picture above] was the communications director for the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as well as head of news and editorial for RECORD, the official news magazine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. James left this role in May 2016 on a leave of absence from denominational employment.” [bracket added]
Standish has not been without controversy in church circles since he is pro women’s ordination and not afraid to criticize the church organization.
Which begs the question why is James Standish, former disgruntled church administrator and publisher, being allowed to corrupt the minds of Adventist youth without any retort or explanation from the administration of Andrews University? It must be that they are in agreement with his principles or they are to afraid to speak out against them lest they fear being labeled by the politically correct social justice warrior mob as “racist”, “xenophobic”, “white supremacist”, etc.
One may think this is perhaps only an isolated incident of apostasy taking place on the campus of Andrews University, but the record details other serious spiritual and theological deviations from scripture. For example, the open teaching of spiritual formation (non-biblical eastern spiritual exercises) has been well documented. For more complete details and analysis please visit this link.
Spiritual Formation that is taught at Andrews University:
What a shame that social justice warriors (SJW’s) have infiltrated and taken over the Adventist institutions of “higher learning”. What a reproach to the beliefs of the pioneers who founded this church. It is sad that some of the young folks who attend seminars endorsed by University officials call Trump supporters racists and bigots without cause. Little do these leaders realize that God is about to judge and overturn these institutions who claim to represent His name. The poor children who are indoctrinated with such folly and madness don’t read or know about these things which are plainly revealed in the writings of Ellen White, one of the co-founders of the denomination. Take for example these two quotes from her writings.
“I am filled with sadness when I think of our condition as a people. The Lord has not closed heaven to us, but our own course of continual backsliding has separated us from God. Pride, covetousness, and love of the world have lived in the heart without fear of banishment or condemnation. Grievous and presumptuous sins have dwelt among us. And yet the general opinion is that the church is flourishing and that peace and spiritual prosperity are in all her borders.” – Testimonies to the Church, Vol. 5, p. 217
“Page after page might be written in regard to these things. Whole conferences are becoming leavened with the same perverted principles. “For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.” The Lord will work to purify His church. I tell you in truth, the Lord is about to turn and overturn in the institutions called by His name.” — Testimonies to Ministers, p. 372
In conclusion we have to side with the wise counsel of Ellen who years ago warned parents against sending their children to Battle Creek College because of the errors that we being taught there. Do you thinks and have gotten any better today? We think not. Act accordingly and home school your children as much as possible and teach them all things which God has commanded us.
“Students are sent from a great distance to attend the college at Battle Creek for the very purpose of receiving instruction from the lectures on Bible subjects. But for one or two years past there has been an effort to mold our school after other colleges. When this is done, we can give no encouragement to parents to send their children to Battle Creek College. The moral and religious influences should not be put in the background.” — Testimonies Vol. 5, p. 21.3
“It is a terrible fact, and one which should make the hearts of parents tremble, that the colleges to which the youth of our day are sent for the cultivation of the mind endanger their morals. As innocent youth when placed with hardened criminals learn lessons of crime they never before dreamed of, so pure-minded young people, through association with college companions of corrupt habits, lose their purity of character and become vicious and debased. Parents should awake to their responsibilities and understand what they are doing in sending their children from home to colleges where they can expect nothing else but that they will become demoralized. The college at Battle Creek should stand higher in moral tone than any other college in the land, that the safety of the children entrusted to her keeping may not be endangered. If teachers do their work in the fear of God, working with the spirit of Christ for the salvation of the souls of the students, God will crown their efforts with success. God-fearing parents will be more concerned in regard to the characters their children bring home with them from college than in regard to the success and advancement made in their studies.” — Testimonies Vol. 4, p. 426.3
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On James Standish teaching to help the so called illegal immigrants , I will on this point support him. And this does not make him a law breaker in my opinion. In our country in South Africa ,we have many people defined as “illegal” , whereby the government has played a big role in making them illegal. The Home Affairs has stopped issuing asylum and refugee documents whilst at the same time receiving all monetary advantages from United Nations for supposedly giving protection and keeping these people. We worship with some , who are well rounded Christians and law abiding but have been forced to leave their home countries due to war, famine and simply seeking to provide a decent life. Now if I a present truth believer help these brothers though our so called law makers steal from the purse given by UN and later mistreat these people, am I to be condemned by God. God forbid , let’s not only view life from our comfort zones .Let’s be in their shoes also (so called illegal immigrants) and have a heart. I 100% support this man if he is advocating protection to all non law breaking immigrants so that they live a normal human quite lives.
Your position is misguided and being drawn from an emotional appeal rather than the facts of the matter. James Standish is stating lies about the immigration controversy in the United States comparing it to the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany. By encouraging SDA churches to open their doors and harbor illegal aliens against the immigration laws of the United States is in direct violation of Romans 13:1-7. You also fail to recognize that Standish is virtue signaling for the political left and the political correct social justice warriors (SJW’s) who have infiltrated the leadership of the NAD and the SDA Universities. You should step back and analyze what is happening on a global scale here. It is the dark forces of the globalists who are pushing the open border and flooding European nations and now the US with hordes of illegal immigrants for the express purpose of destroying the sovereign nation state and Western civilization which is rooted in Christianity. Those illegal immigrants that Standish is recommending SDA Church to hide from ICE agents are not Christians by and large but come from cultures that are antithetical to American values and culture which is based on Christianity, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Study your history man. When immigrants enter into a nation and become about 30% of the population then there is only one proven end result, war and chaos. That is how the Roman empire fell when they allowed the Visgoths to settle in their realms. The United States is under siege by the globalists and this is their Trojan horse strategy, flood the country with illegals and then get the US churches to illegally harbor them to circumvent immigration law.
The situation in South Africa is about to go bad to worse soon. There are already reports of widespread violence in Johannesburg with locals going after illegals from neighboring countries as they compete for limited resource and black market activities escalate. Look what happened in Zimbabwe, that murdering tyrant Mugabe destroyed the country that was once considered the bread basket of southern Africa and now you have full blown communists running South Africa (ANC) calling for the theft of land from the white farmers and even their executions. The situation in the US is about to explode into civil war over the immigration issue and the bill of rights. If you feel impressed to help out some brethren who are displaced from their homeland then by all means do so but don’t call for the SDA church to engage in open rebellion against the laws of the state. Standish is such a hypocrite along with all these feigned leftists who cry out for the poor immigrants but do nothing to bring them into their own homes or actually do something to help them back in their native countries. The main reason all those illegals flood into the US and South Africa is because they are seeking economic benefits. Why not help them get their situation improved back home rather that encourage them to be law breakers?