AT THE RUBICON? OR WATERLOO?

A new article from a liberal Adventist website—one to whose errors and misguidance we often respond here, as our readers have likely noticed—revives the old “progressive” canard that the classic Adventist perspective on end-time events is the product of a bygone era, and that the church now stands at a spiritual “Rubicon” whose crossing will presumably “re-cast Ellen White’s writings in ways that unshackle Adventism from its notoriously Americanized eschatology” [1].

The Rubicon reference recalls a decisive moment in the history of ancient Rome, when Julius Caesar made the pivotal choice to challenge the law of the world’s first republic by entering Italy with his legions and establishing himself as Rome’s dictator for life—a move which, eventually, brought an end to the Roman Republic and paved the way for the imperial tyranny which followed.  (A rather strange allusion, one can’t help noticing, to find in a publication which claims to urge the church toward egalitarianism.)

Like an article written decades ago in the same publication [##2|Jonathan Butler, “The World of E.G. White and the End of the World,” Spectrum, August 1979, pp. 2-13.##], the article in question sees classic Adventist eschatology in general and The Great Controversy in particular as saturated with a nineteenth-century, United States-focused perspective that lacks relevance to our contemporary world.  The author writes, regarding Ellen White’s view of last-day events:

Her perspective on the major issues and events of her time and place is increasingly difficult to simply “copy/paste” into a world whose conditions are glaringly different.  21st century Adventists, unlike the church of 100 or more years ago, are asked to simply take Ellen White’s word for it, by faith [3].

Even more dogmatically, the article insists: “The world Ellen White depicted in The Great Controversy no longer exists.  It has ended” [4].

Reversing Reality

Several years ago our website published another article affirming the contemporary relevance of classic Adventist eschatology [5]; thus some of our readers may find redundant a good deal of what follows in the present article.  But while one wishes to respect the integrity and scholarship of those holding views different from one’s own, the notion that Ellen White’s end-time scenario as depicted in books like The Great Controversy was more plausible in her day than now, is nothing short of incredible to anyone with a substantive knowledge of American history, whether distant or recent.

In Ellen White’s day, the idea of Catholic/Protestant harmony as foretold by the classic Adventist end-time forecast was simply laughable.  That was, after all, the era in which such slogans as “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” were dominant in the American political process [6].  Indeed, the term “Romanism” was negatively and frequently used against one of America’s major political parties throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries [7].  Steven Waldman’s recent book on religious freedom in America traces in graphic detail the ostracism and persecution of Roman Catholics in the United States during the time when Seventh-day Adventism was coming into being [##8|Steven Waldman, Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2019), pp. 65-79.##].

But by the late twentieth century—in the immediate wake, no less, of the aforementioned article which declared Adventist mark-of-the-beast eschatology to be culturally obsolete—political cooperation between Protestants and Catholics became a cultural and political fixture of the American scene [##9|Lisa Cannon Green, “From Antichrist to Brother in Christ: How Protestant Pastors View the Pope,” Christianity Today, September 2015.##].  Perhaps most embarrassing for those Adventists touting the views of the above article was that at the very time the article was published, the Religious Right (now often called the Christian nationalist movement)—with its unprecedented Catholic-Protestant togetherness [##10|Stephen D. Mumford, American Democracy and the Vatican: Population Growth and National Security (Amherst, NY: The Humanist Press, 1984), pp. 44-45.##]—was making its debut on the American political stage, where its role remains prominent to this day.                                                                                                               

Only last evening, former U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Tennessee, promising a cheering crowd, “We have to bring back religion; we have to bring back Christianity in this country” [11].  In the past few days American political dialogue has been roiled by the recent decision by the Alabama State Supreme Court declaring frozen embryos to be full-fledged human beings.  The chief justice of this court insisted, in a brazen affront to the wall between church and state, that even embryonic human life “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God” [12].  A prominent advocate of church-state separation denounced this ruling as “just the latest example . . . of government officials advocating for Christian nationalism, a movement that seeks to privilege Christianity and fuse Christian and American identity” [13].

Whatever one’s perspective on the above issue, political discourse like this makes it obvious that efforts to impose a Christian theocracy on the United States remain alive and well.  If developments such as these don’t offer credence to the end-time scenario depicted in The Great Controversy, it is hard to imagine what would!

Moreover, the idea that religious persecution of the sort predicted by Ellen White and classic Adventism couldn’t possibly occur in our “enlightened” contemporary age, has become untenable to the point of absurdity at a time when secret trials of suspected terrorists have occurred [##14|”Secret Trials: Justice vs. Terror: How Far Should We Go?” Newsweek, Dec. 10, 2001 (cover).##], when rage to the point of violence is publicly stoked against ethnic and religious minorities, and a U.S. president publicly applauds the use of torture [##15|Rebecca Gordon, “Donald Trump Has a Passionate Desire to Bring Back Torture,” The Nation, April 6, 2017; Jonathan Swan, “Trump said CIA director Gina Haspel agreed with him 100% on torture,” Axios, Nov. 17, 2019.##]. 

In other words, a very strong case can be made that, far from being a reflection of what was culturally and politically plausible in her day, Ellen White’s eschatology was truly prophetic, foretelling a time when open hostility between Protestants and Catholics would be replaced by open harmony.  The article under review is correct in saying that conditions in America now are “glaringly different” from conditions in Ellen White’s day [16].  But this is true in exactly the opposite way from what the article purports.  The fact is that it took far more faith to endorse the prophetic credibility of The Great Controversy when it was first published than it does now, when millions of Adventists are rightly distributing this book to the global public.

In short, the allegation of irrelevance directed at classic Adventist eschatology is the exact reverse of historical and contemporary reality.  Such a claim would have made far more sense in Ellen White’s day than in our own.  The century that has elapsed since The Great Controversy was first published has seen the original faith of early Adventists in our classic end-time scenario give way dramatically to sight.

Two Issues

One marvels at the extent to which two issues raised by the article in question give greater credibility to Ellen White’s eschatology than raise doubts regarding either its relevance or adherence to other Christian principles, such as racial tolerance.  The article in question states:

In 1840 Catholics made up about 5% of the U. S. population. By the mid-1880s, due to massive immigration from places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, Catholics made up 17% of the U. S. population and Catholicism was flexing its political muscles in the U. S. for the first time. This alarmed both Protestants and Adventists. The love for bars and carnivals that Catholics brought with them from Europe caused many to feel that the social order was being undermined [17]. 

But whether or not Adventists in general were alarmed by the growth of Roman Catholic immigration to America—and the article gives no documentation for such an attitude in Adventist circles—Ellen White (to the present writer’s knowledge) makes no mention of Catholic immigration to America being a threat either to morality or religious liberty.  When she does speak of millions seeking the shores of the United States, it is in a most positive tone.  Speaking in The Great Controversy of the promise of America, she writes:

The oppressed and downtrodden throughout Christendom have turned to this land with interest and hope.  Millions have sought its shores, and the United States has risen to a place among the most powerful nations of the earth [##18|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 441.##].

Such a statement hardly qualifies as a reflection of either resentment or unease at the flow of foreign immigrants (Catholic and otherwise) to America, at that time or any other.  This statement by Ellen White reminds us of a later statement by former Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, a devout Catholic who in 1928 served as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.  Just before he died, Smith spoke of how he understood God’s purpose for the United States:

He (God) made it a haven of repose and a harbor of refuge for the downtrodden and poor and the oppressed of every land [##19|Christopher M. Finan, Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), p. 344.##].

Again, to the present writer’s knowledge, no statements can be found in Ellen White’s writings warning Adventists or anyone else of the danger allegedly posed by Roman Catholic immigration to the United States.  No evidence can be found that she partook of the knee-jerk anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant spirit so prevalent in America during her lifetime.

Another issue where prophetic discernment is evident in Ellen White’s writings relative to end-time issues is the question of temperance.  The article in question notes—correctly, to be sure—the tie between the Sunday-law movement in Ellen White’s day and the movement to legally prohibit the use of alcohol in the United States [20].  But one is most interested to note that Ellen White (to my knowledge) makes only one reference to the temperance movement in connection with the pursuit of Sunday legislation [##21|White, The Great Controversy, p. 587.##].  And while she speaks of the temperance issue as attendant to the Sunday movement in her time, nowhere does she predict that this issue will be prominent in the enforcement of Sunday observance when it in fact takes place.  This is significant when one considers that alcohol prohibition is no longer an issue in the United States, even though—as we shall see—Sunday-law agitation continues quietly in America and elsewhere.

American Exceptionalism and Revelation’s Lamb-like Beast

The article in question states the following:

Adventism cannot gloss over the American exceptionalism embedded in its eschatology, and the church needs to appreciate efforts by its pioneers to contextualize apocalyptic texts. Identifying the United States as a unique embodiment of liberty in a world overrun by oppression exposes how Americanism poisons Adventist eschatology [22]. 

Certainly no honest observer or historian can doubt that what has come to be known as American exceptionalism has often been the source of arrogance, misperception, and even exploitation on the part of the United States and its leaders.  But despite these excesses, the perception of America as a “unique embodiment of liberty” is difficult to dispute in the light of the historical record. 

Many years ago, one of the most esteemed political historians in the United States wrote the following in his provocative, highly acclaimed book on the Watergate scandal and the fall of Richard Nixon.  “All civilizations rest on myths,” he said—the term “myth” in this context not referring necessarily to something that isn’t true, but as “a way of pulling together the raw and contradictory evidence of life as it is known in any age” [##23|Thedore H. White, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1975), p. 322.##].  He went on to say, contrasting America with other nations:

Other states may fall or endure; they may change or refresh their governing myths.  But Frenchmen will always remain Frenchmen, Russians will be Russians, Germans remain Germans, and Englishmen—Englishmen.  Nationhood descends from ancestral loins. . . . But America is different.  It is the only peaceful multi-racial civilization in the world.  Its people come from such diverse heritages of religion, tongue, habit, fatherhood, color and folk song that if America did not exist it would be impossible to imagine that such a gathering of alien strains could ever behave like a nation.  Such a stewpot civilization might be possible for city-states—a Tangier, a Singapore, a Trieste.  But for so mixed a society to extend over a continent, to master the most complicated industrial structure the world has ever known, to create a state that has spread its power all around the globe—that would be possible unless its people were bound together by a common faith [##24|Theodore White, Breach of Faith, pp. 322-323.##].

That faith, according to White, is not religious but political:

Politics in America is the binding secular religion; and that religion begins with the founding faith of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

These words were written by men who had taken the best ideas of their English-speaking heritage and made them universal.  Such language was almost incomprehensible to the non-English-speaking peoples who were drawn to America in ever-growing numbers seeking the promise.  But the ideas were compelling, and still compel.  The ideas could be couched in inflammatory political phrases: “No taxation without representation” or “Give me liberty or give me death.”  They could be robed in legal phrases, or judicial admonitions against illegal search and seizure; guarantees of right to trial; guarantees of freedom of assembly, free speech, free press and, for the first time in history, the guarantee that the state would support no “establishment of religion” [##25|Theodore White, Breach of Faith, p. 323.##].

The author of the article under review is not an American by birth, but despite the countless historical and contemporary failings on the part of the United States relative to these ideals, I challenge him or anyone else to find another society on this planet that has ever offered such a promise of liberty and justice to its citizens as the above. 

We noted earlier Ellen White’s statement as to how “the oppressed and downtrodden throughout Christendom have turned to this land with interest and hope,” and how as a result “millions have sought its shores” [##26|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 441.##].  And it’s still happening.  Is it merely coincidence that regulating the flow of migrants into this country remains one of the most pressing issues of our day, as it has been in times past?  In his famous speech at the Berlin Wall in 1963, President Kennedy perhaps said it best:

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we (Americans) have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in [27].

Some in America today may argue the merits of pulling a wall up to keep people out.  But the very fact that controlling the flow inward, rather than outward, has been—and continues to be—such a great challenge to the United States, illustrates how the hope and promise of this land remains as compelling as Theodore White said over four decades ago.

The uniqueness of America’s ideals and the exceptional drawing power of its promise underscores, perhaps more than anything else, why no other nation in human history fits the symbol of the second beast in Revelation 13 like the United States of America.  Theodore White’s statement that Americans, unlike citizens of other countries for whom nationhood is ancestral, are “bound together by a common faith” [##28|Theodore White, Breach of Faith, p. 323.##], reminds us of Jesus’ statement that His disciples constitute a community of choice, like sheep who follow their shepherd’s voice (John 10:3-5).  No other national or political power in the history of the world is compared by Biblical symbolism to a lamb.

The article under review insists that “Adventists in a multipolar world need to ensure that their unique reading of Revelation 13 and the Sunday law schema they see there will not be used to confirm American exceptionalism but to challenge it” [29].  I would rephrase this statement to say that instead of challenging American exceptionalism (a historical fact quite beyond reasonable challenge), Seventh-day Adventists are obligated to challenge the extent to which America has adhered to its exceptional ideals, and to warn the world of the coming betrayal of those ideals which the inspired pen declares to be in America’s future.

Sunday’s Coming

The article in question asks, “How can Adventists continue to peddle outdated 19th century American religious liberty concerns as a contemporary global problem?” [30].   It would seem the author of this article needs to pay closer attention to developments which may be less visible at the moment, but whose presence is still notable in modern and contemporary America, as well as beyond.

The following references—not often cited, surprisingly, by Adventist current events watchers—indicate that while Sunday laws have not perhaps been at the fore of the Religious Right’s consciousness in the United States during recent decades, they have not been far from the thinking of its leaders and key activists.

For example, back in 1987, the Portland Oregonian reported the following regarding a Republican Party retreat in the state of Oregon while Bob Packwood was still a senator:

He (Packwood) charged that the New Right wants to impose its rigid ideas of theocracy and statism on the party and on this country.

Packwood says this includes a legal ban on abortion, organized prayer in the public schools, and laws attempting to further the belief that the “sabbath is on Sunday” [##31|Jeff Napes, “Packwood attacks New Right: uproar erupts at retreat,” Portland Oregonian, March 8, 1987.##].

The late televangelist Pat Robertson, in his 1991 book The New World Order, wrote as follows regarding Sunday laws:

Laws in America that mandated a day of rest from incessant commerce have been nullified as a violation of the separation of church and state.  In modern America, shopping centers, malls, and stores of every description carry on their frantic pace seven days a week.  Before our eyes we watch the increase of chronic burnout, stress breakdown, nervous disorders, and mental and spiritual exhaustion cauterizing the souls of our people [##32|Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991, p. 236.##].

Twice in his 1994 book Politically Incorrect: The Emerging Faith Factor in American Politics, Religious Right activist and Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed spoke favorably of Sunday laws [##33|Ralph Reed, Politically Incorrect: The Emerging Faith Factor in American Politics (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994), pp. 75,132.##].

David Barton, a prominent Religious Right devotee who has served as vice chair of the Texas Republican Party and more recently headed the political action committee Keep the Promise, which supported the 2016 presidential campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz [34], wrote the following positive statement in 1992 regarding Sunday laws in nineteenth-century America, describing these as proof of the country’s “Christian” values at the time:

The court, in addressing the seventh-day sabbath of the Jewish religion vs. the first-day sabbath of the Christian religion, . . . emphasized the importance of a uniform national sabbath; in this, a Christian nation, Sunday was to be that day [##35|David Barton, The Myth of Separation: What is the correct relationship between Church and State? (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1992), p. 76.##].

In the same book Barton writes favorably of the following declaration by the 1853 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee:

Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, is recognized and respected by all the departments of the Government. . . . Here is a recognition by law, and by universal usage, not only of a Sabbath, but of the Christian Sabbath, in exclusion of the Jewish or Mohammedan Sabbath [##36|Barton, The Myth of Separation, p. 183.##].

And who can forget the apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II on July 30, 1998, titled, Dies Domini (the Day of the Lord), in which he praised the Roman Emperor Constantine’s “legislation of the rhythm of the week” [37]?  What is more, many didn’t seem to notice how this same pope declared that one violating the sanctity of Sunday should be “punished as a heretic” [##38|Detroit News, July 7, 1998, p. A1.##].  Anyone familiar with church history can certainly recall the delightful ways in which such punishment was meted out!

More recently, the following statement promoting Sunday laws was written by one Dale Kuehne, who presently serves as director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in Nashua, New Hampshire, and also serves as senior pastor of the Emanuel Covenant Church in the same town [39].  In his 2009 book Sex and the iWorld, describing how intimate relationships are being trivialized by the immoral onslaught of our day, he offers the following as a solution whereby marital intimacy and family togetherness might be restored in America:

There is a public policy remedy that can be made with no financial cost and that will likely boost profits for businesses and provide all of us with more time for one another: reenact the prohibitions on Sunday shopping and many publicly scheduled activities.  The most important reason to do this, apart from any potential financial benefits, is relational.  But it will be virtually impossible to achieve this without governmental intervention.  As long as Sunday is unregulated, there is an incentive for all stores to stay open so they do not lose their market share.  This single change in public policy would do more at less cost to create relational time than anything else we might consider.

There may be those who agree on the importance of a shared day off but would prefer a day other than Sunday.  The cultural and political reality, however, is that there will be less resistance to re-regulating Sunday shopping than regulating any other day of the week.  If consensus could be built around another day, it would be worth considering, but in the United States, at least, it is hard to imagine any day other than Sunday being protected [##40|Dale Kuehne, Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationships Beyond an Age of Individualism (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2009), p. 196.##].

What is more, Sunday law agitation in recent years has by no means been confined to the United States.  Members of the European Parliament seeking to protect a “work-free Sunday” have been notably active at least since 2009 [41], most recently in 2019 at the behest of such ecumenical groups as the European Sunday Alliance [42] and the World Youth Alliance [43].  Observers will note that the above groups include both liberal and conservative elements so far as theological and political leanings, respectively, are concerned. 

Again, all will recognize that this issue hasn’t been out front in the legislative agenda of politically active Christians during recent decades, the way issues like school prayer, abortion, and gay marriage have been.  But this too is a fulfillment of inspired predictions, as Ellen White declares in her writings that “the Sunday movement is now making its way in darkness” [##44|Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 452.##].  The headlines relative to the Religious Right and its political goals during the past forty years most assuredly attest to the accuracy of the above statement.  But even though the Sunday issue is making its way in darkness, it is still there.  The references cited above from credible sources over the past several decades confirm this beyond any reasonable doubt.

Spiritualism Alive and Well

As with other end-time harbingers listed in The Great Controversy, the article in question seeks to confine spiritualism within the time context of Ellen White’s era:

The third major threat was the rise of spiritualism as a major influence in the political discourse of the time. Ellen White’s famous statement about “reaching hands across the gulf” names all three of these threats (Great Controversy, pg. 588). A union of these three forces was seen as the greatest threat to both Adventism and the American Republic [45].

But far from being merely “a major influence in the political discourse of the time,” spiritualism continues to draw adherents in the America of today.  Readers of this site will recall a recent article [46] documenting the existence of a thriving spiritualist community in central Florida, one tracing its roots to Ellen White’s own time and containing both the trappings and the professed Christian messaging Ellen White warns against in The Great Controversy [47]. 

What is more, spiritualism isn’t just about claiming to talk with the dead.  More fundamentally, it represents an approach to religion in which the written Word of God is set aside by the perceived imperatives of experience.  This is what got Mother Eve in trouble at the forbidden tree.  In Ellen White’s words:

Eve was beguiled by the serpent and made to believe that God would not do as He had said. She ate, and, thinking she felt the sensation of a new and more exalted life, she bore the fruit to her husband. The serpent had said that she should not die, and she felt no ill effects from eating the fruit, nothing which could be interpreted to mean death, but, instead, a pleasurable sensation, which she imagined was as the angels felt. Her experience stood arrayed against the positive command of Jehovah, yet Adam permitted himself to be seduced by it [##48|Ellen G. White, Counsels on Health, p. 108.##].

She continues, in the context of the above statement:

In the face of the most positive commands of God, men and women will follow their own inclinations, and then dare to pray over the matter, to prevail upon God to allow them to go contrary to His expressed will. Satan comes to the side of such persons, as he did to Eve in Eden, and impresses them. They have an exercise of mind, and this they relate as a most wonderful experience which the Lord has given them. But true experience will be in harmony with natural and divine law; false experience arrays itself against the laws of nature and the precepts of Jehovah [##49|——Counsels on Health, p. 109.##].

According to both Scripture (Matt. 24:24; II Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:13-14; 16:14) and Ellen White [##50|——The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589,612,624-625.##], miraculous signs and the promise of long-desired Christian unity will sweep “all the world into the ranks of spiritualism” [##51|——The Great Controversy, p. 588.##}, causing Catholics and Protestants alike to “see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium” [##52|——The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589.##]. 

When today we see, among other things, Christians overlooking the vilest character traits in an aspiring dictator who promises to do their political bidding, it should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of discernment that the core principles of spiritualism are alive and well in the United States of America and throughout the world.

Conclusion: At the Rubicon? Or Waterloo?

The argument of the article under review that Adventist eschatology has been “Americanized,” and is thus presumably irrelevant to the rest of the world, makes no more sense than to claim the religion of the Bible is essentially Hebraic and Palestinian and thus irrelevant to the rest of the world.  What is perhaps most ironic about the article’s message is its claim that “Seventh-day Adventists can no longer ignore the pervasive Americanness of their eschatology as church membership continues shifting away from North America” [53].  Like the reversion of reality seen in the article’s comparison of Ellen White’s and today’s America so far as the plausibility of Adventist eschatology is concerned, the author seems unaware of the fact that Adventism in the Global South is far more committed to the church’s classic teachings—concerning eschatology and much more—than is the church in North America, Europe, and other Western territories. 

Regardless of the author’s African roots, his theological paradigm is vastly different from that of most Adventists who hail from that part of the world.  It is First World, Western Adventism, not Global South Adventism, where such thinking as this author’s is most common.  (Having ministered in the territory where this author presently resides, it seems clear to me that most Adventists from his background adhere far more strictly to our distinctive faith than he does.)

When the article in question falsely insists that Adventism’s remnant theology is “itself a product of exegetical errors” [54], the author’s fundamental hostility to the classic Adventist worldview becomes painfully evident.  But this fact becomes clearer still when he writes as follows:

If Ellen White was a student of current affairs in her day, and used that knowledge to warn the world of imminent threats, then why should we not do the same? Our faithfulness to her legacy should no longer lie in regurgitating the scenarios she predicted but in contextualizing present truth the way she did [55].

From the above, it would seem this author doesn’t view Ellen White’s prophetic insights as supernatural in origin, but rather, as the product of her own finite perception of developments in her time and a future she deemed most likely to arise from them.  This is higher criticism, pure and simple.  Its assumption that naturalistic explanations can be found for Adventist theology and Ellen White’s prophetic gift is no more credible than efforts to find similar explanations for God’s dealings with Old Testament Israel, the miraculous life of Christ, or the birth of the Christian movement. 

To cross this “Rubicon,” as the author of this article wants the church to do, is in fact to replicate another historical vignette—that of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, thus inviting a similar defeat for the great Advent movement.  Neither Biblical, historical, nor contemporary evidence constrains a re-examination of our classic eschatology.  Indeed, overwhelming evidence both past and present bears witness that resistance to distinctive Adventism (eschatological and otherwise) from within the church is neither Biblical nor historical, but rather, experiential—the chafing of self-indulgent hearts at the moral seriousness demanded by our distinctive faith.  By contrast, the witness of Scripture, history, and our present world constrains us to reaffirm our classic teachings like never before, and to focus with our entire being on that preparation of heart and life that will enable us to meet our Lord in peace when He comes in the clouds of heaven.

REFERENCES

1.  Admiral Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

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

3.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 (italics original) https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

4.  Ibid.

5.  Kevin 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

6.  See “United States presidential election, 1884,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1884_United_States_presidential_election#Campaign

7.  “Romanism” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanism

8.  Steven Waldman, Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2019), pp. 65-79.

9.  See “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicals_and_Catholics_Together

Lisa Cannon Green, “From Antichrist to Brother in Christ: How Protestant Pastors View the Pope,” Christianity Today, September 2015 http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/

10.  See Stephen D. Mumford, American Democracy and the Vatican: Population Growth and National Security (Amherst, NY: The Humanist Press, 1984), pp. 44-45; “Moral Majority” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority

11.  Adam Mintzer, Ethan Illers, “Donald Trump speaks at NRB convention in Nashville,” WKRN.com, Feb. 22, 2024 https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/donald-trump-in-nashville-to-speak-at-nrb-convention/

12.  Peter Smith and Tiffany Stanley, “Bible-quoting Alabama chief justice sparks church-state debate in embryo ruling,” Associated Press, Feb. 23, 2024 https://apnews.com/article/alabama-frozen-embryos-conservative-christian-views-ruling-d9b7f720b5ef865ab35205ad36061f2d

13.  Ibid.

14.  “Secret Trials: Justice vs. Terror: How Far Should We Go?” Newsweek, Dec. 10, 2001 (cover).

15.  James Masters, “Donald Trump says torture ‘absolutely works’—but does it?” CNN, Jan. 26, 2017 https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/donald-trump-torture-waterboarding/index.html; Rebecca Gordon, “Donald Trump Has a Passionate Desire to Bring Back Torture,” The Nation, April 6, 2017 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/donald-trump-has-a-passionate-desire-to-bring-back-torture/; Jonathan Swan, “Trump said CIA director Gina Haspel agreed with him ‘100%’ on torture,” Axios Nov. 17, 2019 https://www.axios.com/trump-gina-haspel-cia-torture-waterboarding-f8c4b63b-7825-4cc9-9ff3-128c759f5eee.html

16.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

17.  Ibid.

18.  Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 441.

19.  Christopher M. Finan, Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), p. 344.

20.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

21.  White, The Great Controversy, p. 587.

22.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

23.  Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1975), p. 322.

24.  Ibid, pp. 322-323.

25.  Ibid, p. 323.

26.  Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 441.

27.  “Remarks of President John F. Kennedy at the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963” https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/berlin-w-germany-rudolph-wilde-platz-19630626

28.  Theodore White, Breach of Faith, p. 323.

29.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

30.  Ibid.

31.  Jeff Napes, “Packwood attacks New Right, uproar erupts at retreat,” Portland Oregonian, March 8, 1987.

32.  Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991), p. 236.

33.  Ralph Reed, Politically Incorrect: The Emerging Faith Factor in American Politics (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994), pp. 75,132.

34.  “David Barton (author)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barton_(author)

35.  David Barton, The Myth of Separation: What is the correct relationship between Church and State? (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1992), p. 76.

36.  Ibid, p. 183.

37.  “Apostolic Letter Dies Domini of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy, and Faithful of the Catholic Church On Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy,” p. 21. http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini.html

38.  Detroit News, July 7, 1998, p. A1.

39.  https://www.anselm.edu/faculty-directory/dale-kuehne

40.  Dale S. Kuehne, Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationships beyond an Age of Individualism (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2009), p. 196.

41.  http://www.comece.eu/site/en/ourwork/pressreleases/2009/article/7655.html

42.  “Ahead of EU elections: what is next for work-free Sunday? European Sunday Alliance, Feb. 18, 2019 http://www.europeansundayalliance.eu/

43.  “Work-Free Sunday and Decent Working Hours in Europe: Which way forward?” World Youth Alliance, Feb. 18, 2019 https://www.wya.net/op-ed/work-free-sunday-and-decent-working-hours-in-europe-which-way-forward/

44.  Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 452.

45.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

46.  Paulson, “Is Spiritualism ‘Fake Supernaturalism?’” ADvindicate, November 9, 2023 https://advindicate.com/articles/draft2-jhlaf-6jegm

47.  Terry Ward, “This Florida town full of mediums has been luring believers, the curious and the skeptical for more than a century,” CNN, Oct. 30, 2023 https://www.cnn.com/travel/cassadaga-florida-spiritualist-camp-mediums/index.html

48.  Ellen G. White, Counsels on Health, p. 108.

49.  Ibid, pp. 108-109.

50.  ----The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589,612,624-625.

51.  Ibid, p. 588.

52.  Ibid, pp. 588-589.

53.  Ncube, “Adventism at the Rubicon: Dismantling the Americanization of Adventist Eschatology,” Spectrum, February 17, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/adventism-at-the-rubicon-dismantling-the-americanization-of-adventist-eschatology/

54.  Ibid.

55.  Ibid.

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