GLORIETA BAPTIST CENTER

            One of the places we have loved to visit in our travels is the Glorieta Baptist Conference Center near Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It is a beautiful campus on 2,100 acres with a lake in the middle. It is owned by Lifeway Christian Resources (i.e. the former Sunday School Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention. We’ve been there as a family and have taken youth groups and others there. I never taught in any of the sessions, as I did at the Ridgecrest Center, but we loved our visits there.

            It’s been a couple of decades since we were there, and evidently that is true of a lot of people. In 24 of the last 25 years the center has lost money, draining resources from Lifeway.  As a result, Lifeway decided to get rid of the center, a move that saddened me, but which I certainly understand. First Lifeway sought to sell the conference center for $1 to the Baptist Convention of New Mexico. That body, however, decided the cost of upgrading the facilities and potential environmental liabilities made such an acquisition unattractive.

           Others, like us, hate to see the end of an era, but through Isaiah God says, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare.” (Isaiah 42:9)  Time moves on. Former successes and glories are past. All need to hear the new things God will declare to us and follow the new paths in which He will lead us.

           There were nibbles by others to buy the property but none of them were able to accomplish it. Then came an offer from Olivet University in San Francisco (which has no connection to Olivet Nazarene in Illinois). The school has both the desire and the money to buy the property. But a problem exists. Many believe this OlivetUniversity is related to a cult like group after the order of the Moonies of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s. Olivet University, is related to Korean pastor David Jang. Jang hasn’t had much publicity. Until this story arose, I personally was not aware of him or his followers. Evidently Jang has a multitude of worldwide organizations related to his ministry. Although he and his followers deny it, Jang is considered by his followers to be the “Second Coming Christ,” the same as followers of Sun Myung Moon in the Unification Church consider him. The theology of the “Second Coming Christ” is that the first coming of Jesus (Christ) was a failure, ending on the cross and that there will be a “Second Coming Christ,” not Jesus, but pastor Jang, who will complete the work that Jesus started.

          I haven’t done a thorough study of this movement, but on the surface it is gross heresy. In his sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), Peter declares that “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God….God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” Promised through the prophets and fulfilled in Jesus, God accomplished what He intended to accomplish through His Son. As Jesus declared on the cross,"it is finished."

          Personally, I would hate to see the beautiful campus of Glorieta Baptist Center in the hands of a University related to a group with such a dubious theology. 
 

Gace and peace.