Harvey Alférez
Professor’s Message Impacts Students in Africa
Harvey Alférez, Ph.D., professor and director of the Center for Innovation and Research in Computing (CIRC) in the School of Computing at Southern Adventist University, spoke at the Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA) in Rwanda for the University’s colloquium this past August. Centered around artificial intelligence in higher education, some students traveled hundreds of miles from as far away as Kenya to hear Alférez speak. His insights even enabled one group of students to compellingly minister to their secular peers.
Invited to share the sermon at the AUCA Church on Sabbath, Alférez had planned to speak about service, but felt impressed to change his topic to AI as it relates to Christianity. Alférez’s sermon highlighted three prominent world-views: theism, which prioritizes God’s divine reality; humanism, which prioritizes human intellect above all else; and transhumanism, which uses technology to surpass human limitations. Alférez cautioned against taking AI usage too far and developing transhumanist ideas.
After the sermon, interim AUCA University president Eustace Penniecook, M.D., introduced Alférez to a group of 16 engineering and pharmacology students from Kenya who were in town to share their faith as Creationists in a secular context.
“They told me that my sermon had key information that they needed to defend their faith!” said Alférez. “That’s when we recognized that the Holy Spirit conducted me to speak about transhumanism and the importance of having a strong biblical worldview. It was specifically for the benefit of these young people.”
Southern Adventist University | January 2025
Comments are closed.