Just recently, on another website that professes to be Seventh-day Adventist, an article appeared which follows the site’s pattern in heaping unqualified adulation on one of the two leading candidates for the Presidency of the United States in the current (2024) election cycle. We will sidestep the mention of the many alleged outcomes cited by the article as proof of the political and cultural “salvation” this candidate will supposedly bring to America if elected, for the simple reason that nearly all the outcomes and issues mentioned are unworthy of being points of public division among God’s remnant people.
The website in question has veered even more dramatically into outright political rhetoric with another recent article attacking the other principal candidate for the American Presidency in the 2024 election. Those in the Adventist Church who differ with the aforesaid website’s political agenda are denounced as “polilibs”—an obvious epithet for political liberals. For those who write for this particular website, political conservatism is seen as the natural soulmate of Biblical Christianity, and any who embrace opposing political views are seen as walking and working at variance with the Christian message.
Reasons abound, to be sure, as to why unqualified and public identification of Christians with a secular political agenda is contrary to the Biblical gospel, in particular the gospel according to Seventh-day Adventism. But for any Seventh-day Adventist to sympathize with, much less support, the theocratic vision of America as a religio-political “city on a hill” is to betray much of what constitutes both classic Adventist eschatology and the Biblical teaching of church/state separation.
City on a Hill
The concept of America as a "City on a Hill" goes back to its Puritan founders in the 17th century [1]. Basically, the Puritans were postmillennialists. That is, they believed the kingdom of God was to be established on earth before Christ's second coming [2]. When they arrived on America's shores, they were convinced that America was to be God's tool for achieving this. This thought is also believed to be the foundation of American exceptionalism [3].
This post-millennial view contrasts sharply with the Seventh-day Adventist premillennial view. The Puritan postmillennial view was that the church was to establish a "heaven on Earth" before Christ would come. By contrast, the Seventh-day Adventist view would be that a "hell on Earth" will occur in the end times, to be terminated by the second advent of Christ. Books such as The Great Controversy by Ellen G White certainly support the latter view. Why then should any Seventh-day Adventist embrace the Puritan view?
Nonetheless, I can understand why some Adventists living in these times might be tempted to adopt the Puritan view.
National Pride
It is natural to be proud of one's country and think it is the greatest in the world. I do so of New Zealand, and I am sure most Americans think the same about the United States.
Thus, conservative American Adventists (and conservatives generally tend to be more patriotic) could be tempted to follow a political/theological scheme that would presumably “make America great again” and restore the prosperity and prestige it had as a nation in the years immediately following the Second World War.
The problem occurs when such pride takes on a theological bent and sees one's country as having a special destination with God. The general themes of the New Testament are that God's people no longer constitute a civic national identity, but rather, a people spread throughout the world.
It is also clear from Scripture that God's kingdom is spiritual, not earthly, and thus not tied to any particular race or nation.
But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God (Rom. 2:29, ESV).
Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence (John 18:36).
The “Good Old Days”
For older Seventh-day Adventists, those born in what is known as the Baby Boomer era (1946 to 1964), the “good old days” are often perceived to be the 1950s and ‘60s, at least up till the time U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. There has been much debate about whether the 1950s and 60s really were the good old days [4].
None the less, from my perspective as a New Zealand native, I remember those years as a time of upward mobility for the lower classes. I know of working-class children in that era making their way up into comfortable middle-class jobs. There was full employment in New Zealand at the time [5]. I remember my mother leaving the windows of the house open for airing when she went out to shop. Crime was definitely much lower during that era. I never saw any drugs or criminal gangs in high school during those years.
Of course, conditions in America in the '50s and '60s were somewhat different. For American children born into middle class homes in middle class suburbs in that era, life was much like it was in New Zealand. However, I understand that for American children, life was substantially different if you grew up in a poorer class in a poorer class area. Many older conservative Seventh-day Adventists come from comfortable middle class backgrounds.
Thus, for cultural conservatives in America and elsewhere, the temptation to dream of a return to the supposedly better times of their earlier years is very strong. They dream of a return to safety, to cultural homogeneity, and temporal prosperity.
The problem is that we as Seventh-day Adventists should not be concerned with recreating such a dream world. Ellen White offers the following warning:
Here is a lesson which professed Christians at the present day may study with profit. God's displeasure rests upon those who seek only their own ease and temporal prosperity, leaving their brethren to endure hardship and privation and to bear heavy responsibilities in the church. There is an unceasing conflict between the cause of truth and holiness and that of error and ungodliness. All who claim to be children of God must be armed for the battle. God has not left this warfare upon a few soldiers, while the others rest at ease. Said the great apostle, to his Corinthian brethren, "I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened." All who profess any interest in the cause of God, the advancement of truth, and the conversion of sinners, should be soldiers in the Lord's army. They should have one interest, one motive, one object, as long as life shall last. The great reason why so little is accomplished in the cause of God is indolence and indifference of his professed people [##6|Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, May 5, 1881.##].
In addition, the book The Great Controversy makes clear that at the time of the end, only false Christians will be looking for divine favor in the form of temporal prosperity.
It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday-sabbath, that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity [##7|——The Great Controversy, p. 590.##].
Despair Over the State of the Church
For some time there has been a tendency among some theological conservatives in First World Adventism to doubt that the Seventh-day Adventist church will remain God's remnant church. Conditions in First World Adventism cause them to despair. It is difficult if not impossible to acquire any reliable statistical information as to how many Seventh-day Adventist churches in the North American Division, for example, could be counted as theologically “progressive,” or liberal.
Those who wear these labels claim to have won over certain local Conferences to their way of thinking [8]. Anecdotal evidence can be cited that such liberalism is widespread in the North American Division, with similar evidence suggesting that similar thinking is even more widespread in other First World Divisions within the denomination.
Regardless of how deep or widespread theological liberalism might be in contemporary Adventism, a certain segment of conservatives see so many of our churches moving in the liberal direction that in their view, the denomination runs the risk of becoming a part of apostate Babylon. Their concern for issues such as homosexuality and abortion bring them more into alignment with the conservative evangelical churches than into alignment with a Seventh-day Adventist church that they see as dominated by the “progressive” element. Thus they are tempted to now look to those outside churches as being nearer to being God's true church. Currently they remain in the SDA church because it keeps the Sabbath, but they harbor doubts as to its ultimate destiny because of the growing power of the "progressives" within it.
It is contentious, at the moment, to comment on how far fallen the organized Seventh-day Adventist Church may be, but Ellen White assures us that in the end times it will undergo a fall that brings it within a "gnat's whisker" of becoming a part of Babylon. Thus a lot of what these people perceive is in fact a reality.
Satan will work his miracles to deceive; he will set up his power as supreme. The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains, while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out--the chaff separated from the precious wheat. This is a terrible ordeal, but nevertheless it must take place [##9|White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.##].
This conservative group's overlooking of Ellen White's assurance of our ultimate destination being to finish the work is probably based on a strong focus on the here and now, rather than on the promises of God given through Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy. The tendency to do this among God's people has a long history.
The Church: Salt or Rescue Ship?
At the heart of the millennialist movement that the American evangelicals tend to follow is an unbalanced view of what is meant for the church to be salt [10]
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid (Matt. 5:13-14).
Considerable discussion has flourished in Adventism as to whether we are meant to be the salt of the earth or a rescue ship for abandoning earth. The salt/city on a hill concept is that Christians are to be an influence for good upon the earth, thus making it a better place to live. The rescue ship concept is that we are near the end of the time of the end. Everything will, as the saying goes, "go to hell in a hand basket" and we are to look forward to the soon coming of Jesus. At His coming the earth will be destroyed, so why bother trying to improve life on it? Focus on getting people ready for His coming instead.
Both concepts are Biblical. The question is, how do we relate to two seemingly opposing concepts that run in parallel? This would be a whole topic by itself, so at this stage I will only make the following comment:
The balance between the salt or rescue-ship paradigms seems to be affected by perceptions of how soon His coming will be with respect to our time. Adventists have always understood that the sign of any immediacy of Jesus’ coming is a national Sunday Law in the United States. Nearly 160 years have passed since we as a denomination have understood that. In the 1860s the church's focus was very much on the “rescue ship” model, as our pioneers believed Jesus' coming to be well within their lifetimes. But in the wake of those 160 years, the focus has very much become salt, as many modern Adventists perceive His coming to be a long way off.
This focus on salt has affected the thinking of the liberals and conservatives in the church, in that the liberals are focusing on being salt by embracing a social-gospel agenda that abandons end-time doctrines, while some conservatives believe we should be supporting theocratic political movements in government in order to stop the rot happening in our society. But whatever role we believe Christians should play in the secular political process, the church must ever stand aloof from placing its trust in the arm of flesh as distinct from the power of God. In the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord (Jer. 17:5).
Salt and Rescue Ship
The Seventh-day Adventist church was given the three angels’ messages to give to the world. Satan has, for most of our history, succeeded in taking our focus off of these and distracting us with side issues. The three angels’ messages could best be summed up as "Jesus saves us from sin (here and now), not in sin," as was stated by the angel Gabriel regarding the mission of our Lord (Matt. 1:21). If we had only united and given these messages powerfully many years ago, we would have covered both bases. That is, we would have both made society a better place and prepared a people for the coming of Jesus.
Never more than now has there been a time when Seventh-day Adventists need to study, understand, and believe the truths given us from Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy writings regarding the events to be anticipated before the end of time. When this happens, both the salt and rescue ship models will be realized, and God’s promise through Ellen White will at last be fulfilled:
Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own [##11|White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69.##].
REFERENCES
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/millennialism/Millennialism-from-the-Renaissance-to-the-modern-world
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill
4. https://www.curiosityu.com/videos/the-fabulous-fifties-or-were-they/
5. https://berl.co.nz/economic-insights/snapshot-new-zealand-1950s#:~:text=The%20economy,rate%20of%20only%20one%20percent.
6. Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, May 5, 1881.
7. ----The Great Controversy, p. 590.
8. https://web.archive.org/web/20090629041434/http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/spectrum_interview/2009/06/25/innovative_adventism
9. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill
11. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69.
Tony Rigden, a former atheist/deist, came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980 as the result of a miraculous conversion and the reading of the book The Great Controversy by Ellen G White. He has since been a regular Sabbath School teacher, very part-time lay preacher, elder and briefly head elder. Formerly an electronics technician and computer programmer, Tony is currently still part-time programming but mostly retired. Former hobbies included diving and private flying. Currently he is a volunteer guard (train conductor) for one of New Zealand's leading vintage railways.