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The Adventist Jazz Band CrazeWM

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We do not know where it got started, but our col-lege presidents and faculty must have been con-cerned about devising ways to increase enrollmentand tuition.

So they decided to start on-campus “JazzBands”—using that very name! They seem to havelost all shame. But God is writing it all in His book.

Why do not our college and university boards stopthis? High-placed church leaders (including Union, NorthAmerican Division, and General Conference personnel)are on those boards. They have tremendous influence!

I keep hearing reports of new ones. Previously, theywere only to be found in our “celebration” and “planted”churches.

Here is an article and a letter which clearly showthat this trend is rather quickly spreading throughoutour U.S. Adventist colleges.

The first is from a city newspaper in Eastern Wash-ington. The public is astounded that Adventists are sodegrading themselves, as to instruct their youth in thismusic.

NEWS CLIPWALLA-WALLA UNION BULLETIN

APRIL 8, 2007

“Church and Jazz—There’s a passage in the Biblewhich Music Educator, Ken Parsons of Southern AdventistUniversity, likes to refer to. [As stated later in this newsarticle, Parsons is the Jazz Band Instructor at SAU.]

“ ‘In First Corinthians, Paul is talking about food that’sbeen offered to idols,’ he said.

“What Parsons refers to is Paul’s advice to the Corin-thian community to avoid whatever things—in this par-ticular passage he mentions food—that might cause oneto stumble on the path toward God, while recognizingthe food itself is neither evil nor holy.”

[This is Parson’s way of excusing jazz music as some-thing inherently good, as something which can only helphis students.]

“This Walla Walla College graduate [Parsons] was chim-ing in on the Walla Walla College Jazz Band, new this yearto the academic curriculum, and tuning up for its firstpublic concert Wednesday.

“The college joins only a handful of other Adventistuniversities with institution-affiliated jazz bands, said[Ken] Parsons, who graduated locally in 1983 and nowteaches at Southern, in Tennessee.

“Historically, ‘jazz’ and ‘Adventist’ haven’t coexistedin the same sentence, agreed Ginger Ketting-Weller, vicepresident of academic administration at Walla Walla Col-lege. ‘Generally, there has been a sense that modern cul-ture draws people away from spiritual life.’

“Jazz was considered something to be avoided, shesaid.

“But the [WW] college recognizes the genre as a body ofmusical literature, representative of the decades spannedin the history of jazz, beginning in the 1920s, Ketting-Weller

said. A hands-on band is a way to include important com-ponents in the music department curriculum in a way mostuseful and alive to students, to know it experientially, shesaid—‘not just in a class.’ ”

[She is saying that it is important that our schools teachevery aspect of modern worldliness to the students, tobroaden their education, so they can better enjoy adult life.]

“As a student here in the early 1980s, Parsons and othermusicians met in the music building at night for impromptujam sessions, he remembered with a laugh. ‘The night re-ceptionist was an older lady and hard of hearing. She hadno idea what we were doing in there.’

“It was necessary then to go underground, he explained.‘Years ago, when jazz was first attaining prominence, it wastypical of conservative Christians in general—and not lim-ited to Adventists—to avoid the places where jazz could befound.’

“That included brothels and saloons, venues open toblack musicians in the 1920s, Parson said. ‘And this wasthe music of black society.’

“Then ‘it was the music of the whorehouse,’ he said.Today the uniquely American sound is recognized as a validart form, one that contains important components of his-tory and timeline of society’s ideas.

“But it has taken a while for the Adventist society torecognize the evolution, Parsons said.

“He’s excited to see the breaking of this particular mu-sic like dawn at his alma mater [WWC] and credits the mu-sic department for responding to what will best serve stu-dents, he adds.

“Parson’s own jazz band at Southern [Adventist Uni-versity] is seven years old. Although he gets the occasionalnegative comment from ‘very’ conservative church mem-bers, concerts are well attended, he said.

“ ‘I hear from older Adventists, and they are almostgiddy [with happiness at now having jazz bands on our col-lege campuses]. This is the stuff they had to sneak offcampus to listen to.’ ”

LETTER REVEALING A DISCOVERY

“About a week ago I talked with the principal of LomaLinda Academy about the fact that they have started a JazzBand which has brought a lot of negative publicity to them.He feels uncomfortable with this type of music.

“What he next told me really causes me great concern.He stated that this Jazz Band phenomena started with ourSDA colleges.

“He next said that Southern Adventist University justrecently sent their Jazz Band to Loma Linda Academy sothey could recruit Loma Linda Jazz Band members to cometo Southern Adventist University and become a part of theirJazz Band.

“My question is, why does Southern Adventist Univer-sity have such a program and why are they permitted tobring reproach to you and all of us?”—West Coast, April,2007.

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“God sees that which the blind eyes of the educators do not discern—that immoralityof every kind and degree is striving for the mastery, working against the manifestationsof the power of the Holy Spirit. The commonest of conversation, and low, pervertedideas are woven into the texture of character and defile the soul.

“The low, common pleasure parties, gatherings for eating and drinking, singingand playing on instruments of music, are inspired by a spirit that is from beneath.They are an oblation unto Satan.”—Counsels to Parents and Teacher, 367.

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Do you want your children attending these worldly schools - where, having leftthe protection of your home and personal presence, they are, without yourknowledge, introduced to, and taught to love, the lowest forms of worldliness?

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Mile High Academy, located in Denver,is one of two Adventist secondaryschools in Colorado. (The other is Cam-pion Academy, in Loveland.) Noticethat, like all the other jazz concertsmentioned in this report, this one en-courages the general public to comelisten to its wild music and singing.

What a tragedy: 105 of our youth are listed here, whopracticed for weeks, being corrupted by this one pre-sentation, plus all the church members and outsiderswho attended the gathering. Why is this permitted?

Continued from the preceding tract in this series

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PILPILPILPILPILGRIMS RESGRIMS RESGRIMS RESGRIMS RESGRIMS RESTTTTTContinued on the next tract


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PART ONEOF TWO

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PART ONE OF THREE

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