Avondale College

In 1891 the leadership of the Adventist Church was getting a lot of grief from Ellen G. White, who was critical of the denomination brass. She felt that the theology of the church was not paying a sufficient amount of attention to He who was central to Christian theology: Christ Himself. A Wikipedia article on Ellen White (doubtless prepared under the auspices of the denomination) states that the leaders “sent” her to Australia (a former penal colony of Great Britain, the reader will recall) as a missionary in order to keep her at arm’s length. She spent nearly nine years “down under.” One of the least perishable fruits of her Australian work was the founding of Avondale College. This had been preceded in 1892 by the creation of a small Bible school in Melbourne. Ellen White preferred a rural location, as opposed to relatively populous Melbourne, so she scouted locations and decided on a patch of “poor, sandy, and hungry” land 75 miles north of Sydney (near Cooranbong). The Australian mission had practically no funds at their disposal, so the low price of this remote, barren parcel ($3 an acre) was a determining factor in its acquisition. This site was bought in 1895, and two years later Avondale School for Christian Workers was ready to accept students. In 1911 it was renamed Australasian Missionary College, and in 1964 it assumed the name by which it is currently designated. The rural institution now has a more urban branch located near the Sydney Adventist Hospital. Education, theology, and healthcare are the primary fields of study at Avondale. It is currently applying for “university” status from the Australian government. While the Australian branches of the Adventist faith are thriving, there exists some unofficial animosity toward the denomination among the citizenry. The college was intended to supplant that former bedrock of higher learning, the “classics,” with a far superior bedrock: the Holy Bible. PhD’s have been offered since receiving government approval to award these advanced degrees. The official name of the institution was changed again in 2010 to Avondale College of Higher Education. It is interesting to note that until 2008 that college had a branch that taught aviation. Missionaries to the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean are much more productive if they know how to fly an airplane.