A recent article on a leading liberal Adventist website makes the thoughtful reader wonder whether those so long inclined to criticize Ellen White’s eschatological worldview might soon be persuaded that her predictions are quite credible after all.

Reviewing a forthcoming book on what politically active evangelicals in America have lately termed the “Seven Mountains Mandate” [1], an author on the aforementioned liberal website describes the alleged divine mandate for conservative American Christians to dominate what are alleged to be the “seven mountains of society”—religion, family, government, education, media, arts/entertainment, and business [2]. The article notes that in January 2024, one survey reported that 41 percent of American Christians (55 percent of evangelicals) believe in this “seven mountains mandate” [3].

The book under review, The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy, authored by one Matthew Boedy, is schedule for release in September 2025 [4].

Boedy, a professor of rhetoric at the University of North Georgia, traces in his forthcoming book the history of the conservative Christian crusade to dominate these “seven mountains” of American culture, together with how this crusade is now being pursued by conservative American Christians and their political allies [5]. Prominent in Boedy’s book is the role of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, perhaps the most prominent conservative youth organization in contemporary America [6].

The book review writes as follows regarding the role of Charlie Kirk and his organization in this movement:

Broedy contends that TPUSA is “the indispensable organization for the seven mountains movement” even if it does not specifically invoke the phrase. The 2024 presidential campaign made this connection visible. Wallnau, hailed by a leading scholar as the “the father of American Dominionism” and Kirk, whom Wallnau referred to as “the face of Christian Nationalism,” campaigned together for Trump in the Courage tour, holding swing-state events in which religious revival and political rally became indistinguishable [7].

Ellen White Quoted Favorably

Remarkably, the book review in question includes one of the rare occasions—in the words of the late historian Barbara Tuchman, “rare as rubies in a backyard” [8]—where the website in question actually quotes Ellen G. White without criticism or ridicule:

In The Great Controversy(1911), Ellen G. White reminded readers of “the evil results, so often witnessed in the history of the church from the days of Constantine to the present, of attempting to build up the church by the aid of the state, of appealing to the secular power in support of the gospel of Him who declared: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ John 18:36” (pg. 297) [9].

Earlier in the book review, the Adventist record relative to the issue of church-state separation is likewise affirmed positively:

Though a 21st century formulation, 7MM, in essence, represents the latest iteration of an ideology that Adventists have been challenging since 1843. It was then that Charles Fitch, an American pastor and leading figure in the Millerite Movement, called those eager to live under the Messiah’s reign to come out of “Protestant Christendom”—the evangelical empire of collective powerful denominations that preferred to be shapers of culture in Jesus’ name.

Seventh-day Adventists opposed the legal privileging of Christianity in the 1880s amid growing support for a constitutional amendment that would declare the U.S. a “Christian nation” [10].

Liberal Adventism and Ellen White’s Eschatology

Several years ago, the present website published an article titled, “A New Challenge to Classic Adventist Eschatology” [11], which traced the recent history of doubts voiced by theologically liberal Adventists relative to Ellen White’s end-time scenario, the prophesied Sunday law crisis, and the resulting persecution of Sabbath-keepers. Perhaps the first (or at least the most notable) attack on the alleged “irrelevance” of Ellen White’s eschatology was an article published on the same liberal Adventist website as the book review in question.

This article claimed, among other things, that the focus of classic Adventist eschatology on an end-time Sunday law crisis and resulting religious persecution was no longer credible, supposedly because of widespread secularization and cultural pluralism in the United States [12]. The author then suggested that if Ellen White were alive today, she would probably view such a power as the Soviet Union as fulfilling the Antichrist prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, rather than the papacy [13]. He went on to suggest that, “in her (Ellen White’s) spirit,” we should proceed to develop a more relevant and up-to-date perspective on the events of the last days [14].

Exactly one decade and three months after the publication of the above article, the Berlin Wall was pulverized into a million souvenirs, while the Roman papacy wielded power not seen since the days of Innocent III.

Now, with the Christian nationalist movement gaining unprecedented prominence, with attacks on the institutions of the American republic gaining unprecedented momentum, and with alarm being raised concerning these attacks by a growing number of credible voices throughout the United States, perhaps Adventism’s theological liberals are being constrained to admit that Ellen White’s warnings about church-state togetherness with the church supreme, and persecution as the invariable result of this harlot union [15], can no longer be dismissed as some anachronism of the nineteenth century.

Speaking further of the efforts in the 1880s to pass a religious amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the book review in question states:

This Christian amendment movement fell short, as did periodic attempts to revive it. Yet, the notion that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and that its government must be brought back from its secularist deviance and re-aligned with its true Christian identity has persisted. Indeed, given the widespread appeal of 7MM and its sweeping agenda for Christian dominion over all facets of the nation’s public life, its influence may be stronger than ever [16].

Conclusion

Inevitably, of course, as we say repeatedly on this site, God isn’t waiting on world events so that Jesus can come, but rather, on the spiritual preparedness of His people (II Peter 3:10-14; I John 3:2-3; Rev. 7:1-3). But Jesus told His disciples that events in the larger world will offer cause for rejoicing to His waiting, striving church (Luke 21:28). It is certainly no time for any Seventh-day Adventist to be forming alliances with those seeking to demolish the wall between church and state and thus fabricate a man-made theocracy on earth. When we see those who once scorned the classic Adventist end-time scenario as outdated and irrelevant, constrained to publish articles and book reviews affirming the credibility of Ellen White’s prophecies of long ago, we see some of the most compelling reasons to “look up, and lift up [our] heads, for [our] redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

REFERENCES

1. Douglas Morgan, “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Christian Dominionism’s Playbook” Spectrum, March 25, 2025 https://spectrummagazine.org/culture/books-film/the-seven-mountains-mandate-christian-dominionisms-playbook/

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 383.

9. Morgan, “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Christian Dominionism’s Playbook” Spectrum, March 25, 2025 https://spectrummagazine.org/culture/books-film/the-seven-mountains-mandate-christian-dominionisms-playbook/

10. Ibid.

11. Kevin D. Paulson, “A New Challenge to Classic Adventist Eschatology,” ADvindicate, May 1, 2020 https://advindicate.com/articles/2019/9/20/paulson-draft-1-s88fl-6mlnf-tyf95-y3hyg-9n5tj-8pwk6-td6yw-3bj83

12. Jonathan Butler, “The World of E.G. White and the End of the World,” Spectrum, August 1979, pp. 2-13.

13. Ibid, p. 13.

14. Ibid.

15. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, pp. 442,581.

16. Morgan, “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Christian Dominionism’s Playbook” Spectrum, March 25, 2025 https://spectrummagazine.org/culture/books-film/the-seven-mountains-mandate-christian-dominionisms-playbook/

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