The 2022 U.S. midterm elections are upon us. Indeed, the actual voting has been in progress for a number of weeks. As of this writing, more than 30 million votes have already been cast in as many as 46 states [1]. This turnout may prove a record for off-year elections; before all the votes are tabulated the total may equal the numbers seen in presidential election years. Which means many in the United States who read this article might have already cast their ballots.
Those familiar with our website are aware that we try diligently not to endorse or promote political parties, ideologies, or candidates here. At the same time, we do not embrace the popular but erroneous belief of some that Seventh-day Adventist Christians shouldn’t vote or otherwise participate in the secular political process. The right to choose one’s civic leaders is among the most sacred of liberties granted to the public by a representative government, and neither misguided apathy nor preoccupation with the daily cares of life constitutes a valid reason for non-involvement.
Five Principles
Principle should always stand supreme in the political choices of the Christian. On this basis I would like to identify five (5) principles which, among others, should guide Seventh-day Adventists in America who have yet to participate in the pending midterm elections in our country:
1. Freedom is more important than money. Surveys show the economy, inflation especially, to figure most prominently in the decisions American voters are making relative to the upcoming election. This is understandable, of course; many in the United States aren't old enough to remember when prices were ever this high. It isn’t our wish to invite a debate here as to how this phenomenon started in the current scene and why it’s gotten so bad. But the price of gas and groceries is by no means the most important issue faced by Americans as they decide who should lead them.
At perhaps no time in the history of the American Republic has there been such a dangerous, open threat to the institutions which undergird our liberty as a people. The violent insurrection on January 6, 2021, with the intent of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election, was one of the most fearful acts of terror witnessed on the soil of this country. Deranged, unproved conspiracy theories about allegedly illegal voting have led scores of candidates to run for office in the current election cycle, with the intent of giving to election officials and local legislators the right to decide what only a majority of voters have the right to decide in a free state. The prospect that some of these extremists might actually get elected and thus be empowered to upend the chosen wishes of the people, is fearful beyond imagining.
In addition, recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have brought to the forefront the question of who should make intimate choices relative to a woman’s reproductive care. Whatever one’s opinion so far as this controversy is concerned, I suspect a great many on both sides could agree that the question of who should render such decisions is more important than the size of one’s grocery or travel budget.
Many years ago, a prominent religious liberty leader in the Seventh-day Adventist Church spoke at a meeting I attended, in which he stated that if people vote their pocketbooks over their freedom, then you know who their god is. Americans especially suffer from gross ignorance when it comes to history, especially its more unpleasant chapters. Dictatorships have been known to tame inflation beautifully, and to facilitate flourishing economies (witness Germany during the 1930s). But at what cost?
America has endured hard economic times before—indeed, much harder times than it is presently experiencing. And the country has survived them all, emerging stronger as a result. But neither America nor any other society cannot endure the subversion of civic, conscientious, and consensual liberties. Those putting the economy ahead of these indispensable liberties are fools, pure and simple.
2. The continuing fall of Protestant Babylon has never been more evident in the American experience. Evangelical Christians once prided themselves on the slogan that “character counts” so far as the choice of political leaders was concerned. No longer. Now, so long as a candidate for office espouses the coercive agenda endorsed by so-called Christian conservatives, that candidate can practice the most brazen hypocrisy and spout the most outrageous of lies. I won’t give examples here, but anyone who has followed the current election cycle with even a modicum of discernment will recognize the relevance of this warning.
The lesson of history is clear: hypocrisy is the twin sister of intolerance. “Rules for thee but not for me,” is how it works. Times haven’t changed since our Lord issued the denunciations found in Matthew 23.
This is what happens when carnal power becomes more important than principled character. This is the reason the book of Revelation identifies apostate Babylon as in a fallen state—“because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14:8). Jesus forbade the uniting of church and state when He declared to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), which is why this illegitimate blending of civil force with the Christian message is labeled fornication by the Bible’s closing book. This fornication, the apostle declares, is committed by the apostate church with “the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:2). Because the power of the gospel has been denied for so long by evangelical Christians and their once-saved-always-saved, behavior-is-non-salvational theology, Western society has collapsed into uncurtailed self-indulgence. Thus, to regain its credibility before the world, Christians who ought to know better have made coercion a substitute for conversion.
3. Giving others the right to make a sinful choice is not the same as endorsing that choice. Even some in contemporary Adventism have come to believe that the granting of free choice relative to issues of sin and righteousness is the same as declaring sin to be righteous. But the conduct of the Lord in the controversy between good and evil clearly demolishes this notion. After all, God put both the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9). Was God therefore responsible for the choice of our first parents to transgress the divine law and thus lead their posterity into sin?
The final saving appeal in Holy Scripture underscores God’s reverence for spiritual liberty: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). Unlike the harlot woman portrayed in the same book (Rev. 14:8; 17:2), the bride of Christ offers her Lord’s gospel message as free to the receiver. The apostate church compels all nations to consume her wine (Rev. 14:8); Jesus’ bride offers the water of life to all on the basis of free choice.
In other words, voting to give others the freedom to make a consensual choice with which we might not morally agree is not the same as declaring that choice to be morally acceptable. In free America, Sunday observance is protected just as surely as the observance of the Bible Sabbath. The worship of pagan deities is protected just as surely as the worship of the God of Scripture. Issues of personal intimacy are just as surely issues of conscience as questions of worship. And in the words of Ellen White:
To protect liberty of conscience is the duty of the state, and this is the limit of its authority in matters of religion [##2|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 201.##].
4. No true Christian should keep company with lies. The Bible is clear that “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). The question as to the legitimacy of the last U.S. presidential election is not a matter of opinion, irrespective of whether one supported the victor in that contest or not. Neither partisan bias nor varying political philosophies have anything to do with this. Whether one likes it or not, the current occupant of the American presidency was duly elected by the voters. For anyone claiming to be a Christian to parrot the lie that the last presidential election was stolen, in particular Seventh-day Adventists for whom truth is the ultimate imperative, is to invite the eternal damnation promised in the final chapters of the Bible.
Certain candidates for office in the current election cycle have said they will not accept the results of the election unless they win. This is a recipe for chaos, something to which no Christian—much less a Seventh-day Adventist—should lend support.
Because so many, Christians included, have embraced the falsehood that all politics and politicians are crooked, they may find themselves less outraged than they should be when overt dishonesty is fostered or endorsed in the political process. Especially is this so when the dishonest ones are thought to be on their side. But all who participate in politics can no more be written off as dishonest than can members of any other class in society. I believe it is fair to say the great majority of those serving in public office, across the partisan/philosophical divide, are doing their best according to their lights to make life better for those they lead. Those who step out of line need to be held accountable, not tolerated as inevitable products of a supposedly rotten system.
5. Seventh-day Adventists should rise to their role as peacemakers in society. What we see happening today is not the first time in American history when violence has become an arm of politics. The assassinations of the 1960s certainly come to mind, and the more in-depth students of history will recall such incidents as the near-deadly beating with a cane of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Congressman Preston Brooks following the former’s delivery of an anti-slavery speech [3]. But in the world of 24-hour news, social media, and the speed with which information travels in our day, crimes against political leaders and their families can exert an impact more potent and divisive than ever before.
Seventh-day Adventists should become notable voices of peace in the United States and throughout the world at this time. We know that times aren’t going to get better, but that shouldn’t prevent us from urging calm and reconciliation among society’s hostile factions, even among those who strongly disagree. In our electoral decisions, this should become a particular priority for those to whom God has committed “the ministry of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:18), and whose consummate task remains the proclamation of the everlasting gospel to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6).
Conclusion
Political decisions by Seventh-day Adventists should focus first and foremost on the furtherance and prosperity of the church’s mission to humanity, in particular the holding back of the winds of strife until God’s servants are sealed (Rev. 7:1-3). Despite what some have lately claimed, secularism and so-called “godless global elites” (whoever these may be) are not the big problem. Inspired prophecy predicts religion, not secularism, as the ultimate force behind the anti-God coalition of the last days. Indeed, the ubiquitous presence of miracles and supernatural wonders on both sides of the final controversy will essentially obliterate the premises and credibility of any secular ideology [##4|White, The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589,612.##].
The contemporary forces of what has come to be called “Christian nationalism” in the United States give every evidence of congruence with the forces foretold in the inspired writings as ultimately establishing the image to the beast and persecuting God’s end-time remnant. The following inspired prediction must ever be borne in mind by Seventh-day Adventists, especially as they go to the polls:
Let the principle once be established in the United States that the church may employ or control the power of the state, that religious observances may be enforced by secular laws; in short, that the authority of church and state is to dominate the conscience, and the triumph of Rome in this country is assured [##5|——The Great Controversy, p. 581.##].
REFERENCES
1. Christopher Hickey and Nicholas Anastacio, “Three charts that show the state of pre-election voting in this year’s key states,” CNN, Nov. 4, 2022 https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/midterm-election-early-voting-data-dg/index.html
2. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 201.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner
4. White, The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589,612.
5. Ibid, p. 581.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan