Church President Says He Won’t “Flinch” on Creation Issue
The Seventh-day Adventist Church will stand firm for the things that we have understood to be the pillars of faith. We will not flinch. We will not be deterred,” world church president Ted Wilson stated July 1 during the session’s “Yes, Creation!” lecture series. Wilson’s Thursday presentation, titled “God’s Literal, Six-Day, Recent Creation—The Church’s Position,” drew a standing-room-only crowd, with many people turned away at the door because of lack of space.
Wilson’s presentation was one of several of the series held during the 10-day international event and sponsored by the Geoscience Research Institute.
Although Wilson’s new responsibilities as world church president will prevent him from continuing in many of his previous roles, he shared his intent to remain chair of the Geoscience Research Institute board, a position he’s held since 1999.
FOCUSING ON CREATION: GC president Ted Wilson spoke to a standing-room-only crowd during his presentation for the “Yes, Creation!” lectures.
“I am so proud of our Geoscience Research Institute and Faith and Science Council,” Wilson said at the beginning of his presentation. “These organizations, along with the Biblical Research Institute, form the core defense for God’s great Word—the Word of God.”
“What an incredible Creator; what an incredible God,” Wilson noted, after reading Revelation 4:1-11. “Praise God for the intellectuals who presented their faith during the ‘Yes, Creation!’ [lecture] series right here at General Conference session. You learn many wonderful things, including the strong evidence for God as the Creator.
“Unfortunately, there are those who dismiss Genesis 1–11 as allegorical, [as] nice stories but only symbolic,” he added. “I want to tell you . . . that God created this world in six literal, consecutive, contiguous, 24-hour days of recent origin.”
Wilson allowed that “we don’t have all the answers,” but that evidence does exist for a biblical creation and a global flood; evidence, he said, of “a loving God who created us in His image rather than a God . . . [who devolves] into a meaningless process . . . called theistic evolution.”
Wilson described Adventists as having the unique responsibility of proclaiming the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14, including a call to proclaim God as the Creator of the universe. “This is why we are Seventh-day Adventists,” he said.
“The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s position’s on a global flood [is] clear and forthright,” he said. “These positions are based on a literal reading of the Word of God and demonstrations in nature.”
Wilson took several questions from the floor. Chris Chan of Parksville, British Columbia, asked the president how he intended to address this issue during his administration since it’s an “open sore” in the church.
“[It’s] a delicate issue, one that many of us are concerned about,” Wilson responded. “I want to see that all Seventh-day Adventist teachers, whether they are theologians or science teachers, believe and accept the biblical creation as the church has voted and understood it. That is our goal, and that is what we need to move toward.”
