Hi--
I'm the Editor of the Believer's Weekly, a weekly review of Christian
web sites done for WorldVillage.com. We have an email circulation of
over 8250 and the reviews are posted at http://www.worldvillage.com/sitereviews/believers.html.
This week, coincidentally, I reviewed the site of SDA Outreach at
http://www.sdaoutreach.org. I just went back to see if there was
anything specific on the site regarding SDA teachings on creation but
found nothing explicit. I did, however, find the Numbers book listed in
their references. Here is the info in case anyone wants to look it up.
Numbers, Ronald L., Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (New
York: Harper & Row, 1976)
--Bill Yates
Ted Davis wrote:
>
> I will post just this one message concerning Ron Numbers and his objectivity
> as an historian--and I am not using scare quotes around that word. Allen or
> others may have their say, but except to correct any factual errors (should
> there be any) I will not belabor the issue and confine myself to the points
> below.
>
> Those interested in Ron's personal history can read some of it for
> themselves, in the very revealing introduction to The Creationists. His
> father was a leading SDA evangelist, and Ron was himself an SDA believer
> until some years after his graduation from an SDA college. As he reports,
> his lectures on the history of creationism have led people in the audience
> to castigate him for being a creationist himself, since he doesn't engage in
> debunking the ideas he presents. In the final paragraph of the
> introduction, he writes, "Although I no longer believe in creationism of any
> kind, I am strongly committed to treating its advocates with the same
> respect I might accord evolutionists." Everything I know--and I've known
> Ron for nearly 20 years--is consistent with this statement. I know
> personally at least a dozen people treated in his book, and none of them
> believes that Ron did him wrong, including John C. Whitcomb, Jr., who told
> me that both he and Henry Morris believe that Ron treated them fairly in his
> account. Indeed, Whitcomb gave Ron a pile of correspondence about
> creationism that Ron drew on carefully in the book.
>
> Ron is presently President of the History of Science Society, a signal
> honor that one ordinarily does not attain in this day and age without being
> known for a general absence of bias, in the pejorative sense of that word.
> Bias, of course, can also mean that one has a point of view--and we all do,
> and Ron bends over backward in his book to tell the readers what it is.
>
> There are circles, however, in which Ron's work is simply not appreciated.
> One of his first books was a scholarly biography of Ellen White (she is
> mentioned in various posts lately), a book that some viewed as an "expose"
> of this SDA prophetess, and a book that helped get Ron sacked from his
> teaching job at Loma Linda University.
>
> If Ron's not an historian, the real thing, then I'm not one either.
>
> Ted Davis
-- --Bill Yates --mailto:billyates@billyates.com --mailto:wtyates@aol.com --http://www.billyates.com/ --Moderator, Writer's Club Christian Writer's Workshop --Editor, WorldVillage.com's Believer's Weekly --Theron Services: Web Design, Editing, Writing
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