Truly Adventist: Celebrating our Andrews Story

The third in a series of messages from our president, Andrea Luxton

To access the entire series of letters from President Andrea Luxton, click here.

March 1, 2023

Dear campus community and friends of the University,

Over the next several days, I will be speaking to you personally, directly from my heart, on a number of important issues relevant to the Andrews University community. Why now? It seems that at a time of change for the University, rumors and questions about the University increase. My intent then is to share with you as a way of clearly Celebrating Our Andrews University Story.

I have developed this series of messages prayerfully, keeping in mind our Sharing the Heart of God values that inspire the work of our dedicated University family of employees.

In this third message, I want to talk about whether Andrews University truly is Adventist.

I remember clearly still at age 18 making a decision that would change the trajectory of my life. I chose to leave public university and move to Newbold College solely for one reason. I had brilliant lecturers, I was doing academically very well, but I was “starving” for something else that at the time was hard to define. Only later could I define what that was: a perspective, a worldview, a biblical frame through which to view my learning and indeed my whole university experience.

Now I can’t say that after moving to Newbold College and later to Andrews University that everything then became perfect. But I do know this: I had professors and administrators and staff who consistently sought to show through their lives and teaching how to be a consummate professional as well as a vibrant Christian and how to be a thoughtful and perceptive graduate within a biblical and Adventist worldview. That started my journey of a lifetime of commitment to Adventist education.

So it is not surprising that I am frustrated and disappointed when critics make uninformed comments such as, “Andrews University is not even Adventist anymore” or “I am going to send my son/daughter to a public university because Adventist universities have lost their way.” As I work and share my life daily with 600+ employees who are at Andrews University only because they are committed to its mission, I can tell you these accusations are absolutely not accurate. While students at Andrews succeed extremely well academically (and that is for another time), there is nothing that fully compensates in a public setting with the lens of faith and belief through which our professors teach their disciplines. There is nothing equal to the opportunities for worship and exploration of faith in the supportive Adventist and Christian environment of this campus in a public setting. My heart is filled with joy when I consider the number of student-led vespers services each Friday evening around campus, and the variety of church services every Sabbath—both on campus and throughout the community—that attract and engage our students in praising God!

We are unapologetically Seventh-day Adventist. We live and breathe our faith into all that we do. Our faculty use their disciplines, whether mathematics, psychology, business or physical therapy to, both in the classrooms and without, find ways of showing how we can grow as much or more in our faith and commitment as we delve increasingly deeply into our disciplines. Learning never takes place in a vacuum. I instinctively sensed that at 19; now I know, have lived and still live that difference.

So yes our unique Adventist doctrines are taught on an Adventist campus (that is the important “head knowledge”); they are also lived. Our worship and valuing of community and communion on Sabbath, our commitment to living our lives recognizing the immanence of Christ in our lives now and the soon Second Coming, our understanding of the value and sanctity of all who are created in God’s image: all that and more changes the way we live, as Adventists, as Christians. As one graduate put it, “I loved the energy and spiritual focus” and another, “God is in everything.” Other letters in this week-long sequence will speak further to the vitality of faith at Andrews University and how it is seen in our deep commitment to service.

Are we truly Adventist? Oh yes, we truly are. We are also humans, but that does not stop us striving to be the best representatives of the gospel and the unique message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that we can be. Please let nobody tell you otherwise.

“If you abide in my word, truly you are my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).

And tomorrow: Faithful & Compassionate: Celebrating Our Andrews University Story.

Andrea Luxton
President