On September 19, 2001, the recently created International Board of Ministerial and Theological Education (IBMTE) of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, adopted policies that have important consequences for Loma Linda University. Among other things, the newly approved Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Ministerial and Theological Education provides that the IBMTE will:

• Conduct periodic examinations of each religion/theology faculty member with respect to "the candidate’s commitment to the church’s fundamental beliefs, with particular emphasis on Seventh-day Adventist distinctive teachings" (p. 13).
• Require that the faculty member under review submit to the committee an autobiographical essay that focuses on his or her spiritual journey, their published and unpublished writings, student and peer evaluations, and a written "statement of his/her commitment to the church’s fundamental beliefs, with particular emphasis on Seventh-day Adventist distinctive teachings" (p. 15).
• Screen new religion faculty candidates for theological correctness.
• Require new religion faculty to "have a minimum of 5 years of pastoral experience" and to "have been ordained/commissioned to the gospel ministry" (p. 54).
• Have the authority to demand the termination of current religion faculty members that fail to win "ecclesiastical endorsement" by the IBMTE (p. 16).
• Require that for Loma Linda University to continue "to operate as a Seventh-day Adventist institution accredited by the Adventist Accrediting Association, all faculty teaching at least half-time religion/theology courses must hold current ecclesiastical endorsement or ’under review’ status" (p. 16).

In my view, adoption of this Handbook has unfortunate implications for Loma Linda University:

• It is a vote of no confidence by the General Conference in the ability of our deans, chancellor, president, and board to hire and maintain a qualified faculty.
• It casts a chill on theological discussion and scholarship, both on this campus and in the Church as a whole.
• It represents a radical and frightening departure from the historic Adventist tradition of theological diversity and debate, which avoids credalism and refuses to concentrate ecclesiastical or doctrinal control in the hands of a few.
• It tramples on the dynamic Adventist understanding of "present truth"; instead, it makes normative current doctrinal understandings as interpreted by a small group of church administrators.
• It is an open invitation for witch hunting, establishing a precedent for nonpeer review of university faculty by church administrators that could easily be extended to other university schools and departments. Upsetting the denomination’s delicate balance of centralized versus decentralized control, it gives General Conference administrators for the first time the power to directly tinker with personnel decisions at the individual institutional level.
• It will make it difficult to recruit high quality professional candidates for religion faculty positions, since the candidates will know that church administrators will be scrutinizing them, with their jobs on the line at each periodic ecclesiastical review. Would you take such a job?
• It will exclude new religion faculty applicants with an academic rather than pastoral background. Had the pastoral experience provision of the Handbook already been in place, it would have prevented the hiring of such notable Loma Linda University faculty as A. Graham Maxwell, Ivan Blazen, Carla Gober, and Gerald Winslow, to name a few. This provision will make it difficult to maintain a strong, academic theological faculty.
• It poisons the congenial working relationship that now exists between the University and the General Conference in ways that could easily lead to a break between the two entities, ironically making more likely the very outcome that the writers of the Handbook thought they were preventing.
• It will distract the faculty, administration, and board of Loma Linda University from the mission into involvement in prolonged, ugly, and divisive conflicts that will seriously damage our ability to carry out the mission.
• Finally, it endangers the institution’s accreditation with Western Association of Schools and Colleges and the Liaison Committee for Medical Education, because it allows an external entity to interfere in established institutional processes for hiring, evaluating, and firing faculty. It usurps the authority and prerogatives of the deans, chancellor, president, and board, and bypasses faculty handbook provisions that provide guidelines and due process for faculty termination.

My friends and colleagues, this Handbook will create incredible mischief. It is depressing to see this happening to a church and institution I have gladly served for many decades of my life. I hope you will join me in opposing the implementation of these provisions at Loma Linda University and elsewhere.

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