Talk:Pacific Union College Church

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To-do list:
edit history watch purge Expand "Glacier View Controversy" section, to include more background, history, theological issues, and details of the Glacier View meeting itself Add to "Adventist Responses to Criticisms" section, ideally with material from Adventist scholars etc.

Sources

Sources for improvement...

ViewPoint article (starts at page six)
Info about Organ on website
Organ 25th birthday celebration on PUC.edu
Napa Valley Register article about humanitarian efforts
article about pastor

The Pacific Union College Church while in Healdsburg before 1909

Students Painted the Church

Brother J. A. Dolson, who was for a number of years connected with the Helping Hand Mission, is now the preceptor at Healdsburg" College. He also has charge of one of the industrial lines of work. Just now he is, with a crew of eight students, spending two hours a day painting the Healdsburg Seventh-day Adventist Church. We believe there will be some practical painters from the college this year, as a year's work is ahead of the students, and Brother Dolson is a practical painter.

http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/PUR/PUR19011024-V01-07__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=16

A class of ten students is en- gaged in the work of painting", and in two or three weeks they will have completed painting our large church. After this they will take up the work of painting the college buildings.

http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/PUR/PUR19011121-V01-09__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=11

Church took over the operation of the primary school

Some years the attendance has been quite small, and other years quite large. We are glad to re- port the present enrolment of the college the largest in its history. The school has now been in prog- ress nearly six weeks, and has as large an enrolment as it had dur- ing last year. The total enrolment of the school is two hundred fifty. One hundred fifty-eight of these meet in the college chapel, while ninety-two meet in the rooms in the rear of the church building.

Seven teachers are employed in the college deparment, and two in the primary department. This year the Healdsburg church has. taken the responsibility of looking after the financial phase of the pri- mary department. By the raising of a church-school fund all the chil- dren of the church are free to at- tend the school.

http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/PUR/PUR19011121-V01-09__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=11

CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE

HEALDSBURG CHURCH-SCHOOL

PRIMARY DEPARTMENT

January 31 closed the first term, or first four months, of our school, and found us with an enrolment of fifty-eight members, ranging in age from six to fifteen years, and embracing the first four grades, besides a chart class.

Probably this department has never before been so large; and for two months at the beginning of the year a real struggle was passed through in organizing, disciplining, and properly dispos- ing of this little army, called in from the back yards and from the public school by the action of the church, which 'this year, for the first time, has most gener- ously and graciously taken upon its shoulders the burden of edu- cating the lambs of its flock, mak- ing it possible for all to take advantage of the privileges of- fered.

http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/PUR/PUR19020313-V01-16__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=11

Sunday-evening meetings are held in the church, and the students are asked to- assist in carrvinsr on these meetings by visiting the peo- pie and inviting them to the serv- ices. In this way they will find op- portunities for medical missionary work and for holding Bible-read- ings. Some of the young men who are preparing for the ministry will go out into the rural districts to hold meetings as the way may open.

http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/PUR/PUR19011121-V01-09__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=11

PUC Church a reasonable church

Recently this statement was made on the Project page. I added the citation needed tag.

The church is one of the more reasonable churches in the denomination. 
This was evident when Desmond Ford continued to hold membership there after being defrocked
following a witch hunt orchestrated by conservative Adventists.

I added the tag because of the opinion words/phrases: defrocked and witch hunt. When we speak of Des Ford being defrocked, do we mean that he lost his teaching position at PUC. When we use the "witch hunt" phrase is that the most accurate term. If we were going to use power terms would "Inquisition" be more appropriate. Of course, both "witch hunt" and "inquisition" are opinion terms. Either term cannot be proven empirically.

Let's try to restate the above quote from the progress page so that factual terms replace the opinion terms:

The PUC church is known for its reasonable responses to serious church crises. 
This was evident when Desmond Ford continued to hold membership there even after the church  
leaders, following the Glacier View meetings, voted to remove his posititon at PUC.

(I am not quite sure how they went about accomplishing their work against Ford, but I think that should be known and properly cited.) Witch Hunt and Defrocked is not accurate enough or verifiabable. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 02:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The "witch-hunt" phrase is cited to a Spectrum article written by its editors, when they listed the actions against Ford in a serious of what they called "witch hunts" directed against colleges. That term is reliably sourced. Defrock, according to the dictionary on my mac, means:

deprive (a person in holy orders) of ecclesiastical status.
• [usu. as adj. ] ( defrocked) deprive (someone) of professional status or membership in a prestigious group : a defrocked psychiatrist.

I think the term is appropriate. He lost his ministerial credentials and his tenured position at PUC. Thoughts? bW 03:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think both these assertion need careful documentation. Also, the ideal is to not use inflammatory terminology on an encyclopedia site such as wikipedia. Perhaps defrocked is not so inflammatory. It happened. Verifiability/Citation is very important for this. For Witch Hunt, the Spectrum statement need specific citatiion. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why did Ford request for his name to be dropped?

Why did Desmond Ford request for his name to be dropped? I have not read the Spectrum article but I do vaguely recall some time ago reading that he was considering employment or membership that called for his membership to be discontinued in the Adventist church. I mention this mainly to show that what seems a simple fact may have complications of motives. An encyclopedia article is better served by careful, less inflammatory wording. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 03:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bah. Hell if I know. I can't even figure out why anyone cared about the Investigative Judgement, or whatever it was. bW 03:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Witch Hunt citation is a Spectrum Article about La Sierra

In checking our verification/citations, I cannot find where what happened to Des Ford at PUC was referred to as a witch hunt. The Witch Hunt article is about La Sierra and the Creation controversy. Des Ford and his wife could have remained members of the PUC Church up to the present time, it seems. This shows even more so the reasonableness of the PUC Church. There is no evidence that Des and wife requested their membership to be dropped because of a past, or then present, controversy. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 12:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's look over again the citations hyperlinked:

ref name = "witch hunt" cite news|last=Editors|title=Unraveling a Witch Hunt: La Sierra Under Siege|url=http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/05/29/unraveling-witch-hunt-la-sierra-under-seige%7Caccessdate=29 May 2011|newspaper=Spectrum Magazine|date=29 May 2009 /ref orchestrated by conservative Adventists, until -- > Many years later, in 2001, he voluntarily requested to have his name dropped from membership for reasons which seem to be unrelated to the 1980s controversy. ref cite news|last=Stanley|first=Daisy|title=Good News Bursting Forth|url=http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/22-1ford.pdf%7Caccessdate=29 May 2011|newspaper=Spectrum Magazine /ref ref name = "witch hunt" - > ref cite web|last=Paulson|first=Kevin|title=In Defense of the Biblical Judgment|url=http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/pau-reallyijferris.php%7Cpublisher=GreatControversy.org%7Caccessdate=29 May 2011 /ref

Actually, it does:

Debates about the teaching of evolution in Adventist institutions of higher education have ignited the 
Web. Sensing that administrators would not intervene, a very small number took matters into their own 
hands, launching a full-scale vigilante-style public relations offensive on the Internet.

Including La Sierra science syllabi, statements from David Asscherick and Clifford Goldstein, video 
from Sean Pitman’s creationist presentation, and links to several university board members, the 
LaSierraUniversity.net web site clearly aims at bullying La Sierra’s board and leadership into taking 
action, and the implied action is removal of teachers in question. Spectrum’s queries about the 
ownership of the web site have gone unanswered. Pitman and Asscherick both deny any involvement
with the site.

Emotion-based witch hunts are nothing new in Adventist higher education. “One of the first great 
Adventist academic purges occurred at Walla Walla College in 1938,” according to historian Terrie 
Dopp Aamodt. The President of the College William Landeen and three of the college’s theology
faculty lost their jobs. The General Conference President James McElhany, and Malcolm Campbell,
vice president of the General Conference for the North American Division, played key roles.

Every ten years or so another witch hunt occurs. In the seventies, it was at Andrews University
with key Seminary faculty being pushed about.

The presidents of Southern Missionary College and Pacific Union College were granted leaves
of absence at the end of the 1982-83 school year as their campuses came under siege.
Walla Walla had another witch hunt in the 1990s.

As the bolded portions show, there is a specific section in the article titled "The Witch Hunt Spreads" which introduces other previous witch hunts in higher education. One of which was the PUC one referencing the Desmond Ford controversy. bW 03:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Wikipedia:SDA/PUCChurch → Pacific Union College Church – Kenatipo ^speak! 19:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:SDA/PUCChurch → Pacific Union College Church –

uncontroversial; disruptive editor has been "retired" Kenatipo ^speak! 06:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]