A recent series of sermons, delivered by the president of a prominent supporting ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, seek to prepare the denomination for what the speaker holds to be the imminent rise of totalitarianism in the United States, which he thinks will be characterized by anti-Christian atheism, Marxism, and socialism.
But if we permit the inspired teachings of Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy writings to be our guide, together with the facts of history and contemporary American life, the speaker in question—sincere though he may be—is anticipating the wrong tyranny.
A Quick Summary
In a three-part sermon series [1], the speaker in question insists that the United States of America is sliding toward totalitarian government of the kind found in Communist societies during the past century. He believes we are now in the midst of what he calls “soft” totalitarianism, which he holds to be characterized by a postmodern worldview that eliminates the reality of shared truth, condemns science and mathematics as inherently racist, destroys privacy (private property in particular), obliterates community through loneliness and social media, and is inherently Marxist and post-Christian [2].
The current social justice movement, and what the speaker identifies as “Critical Race Theory,” are noted as principal features of this “soft” totalitarianism of which he warns his audience. These elements are what the speaker holds to be preparing America for the “hard” totalitarianism of a Marxist superstate, as in the former Soviet Union and today’s People’s Republic of China [3]. References abound in these sermons to the experience of the late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who suffered internment in the gulags (labor camps) of the Soviet regime [4].
Some Initial Observations
No one with even a cursory knowledge of totalitarian regimes during the past century, and today also, will dispute the fact that societies thus governed are characterized by brutality and control of the worst kind. Few would dispute the spiritual, cultural, and political failure that has attended atheistic ideologies and the Marxist-Leninist model of statecraft. Our purpose in this article, however, is to address the following three questions—among others—raised by the sermons under review:
1. Does the speaker’s identification of certain progressive political constructs in our day (e.g. the social justice movement, increased racial sensitivity) with atheism and Marxism match the facts of both history and contemporary thought?
2. Does the left-wing totalitarian control anticipated by the speaker truly possess the momentum and power in American society that he fears?
3. Most of all, is this the sort of tyranny anticipated by the classic Adventist prophetic scenario relative to last-day events? Or is a very different variety of intolerance depicted in the prophetic writings of Scripture and Ellen G. White?
One very important disclaimer should be included before we begin. The article to follow does not wish to invite or engage in public conversation as to the merits or lack thereof in any human philosophical system relative to the role of government in economic or other civic affairs. Arguments about the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism, socialism, or varied versions of the same should not consume the public energies of Seventh-day Adventists. The inspired counsel of Ellen White relative to political involvement on the part of church members, though not as sweepingly negative as some at times have alleged, specifically discouraged the public participation of believers in controversies relative to economic issues in America at the time. Ellen White’s strongly negative statements on political involvement by Seventh-day Adventists [5] were penned at the time when the gold-silver debate relative to U.S. currency was sharply dividing the American body politic [6]. Whatever opinions church members might have held regarding these issues, Ellen White was unequivocal that such debates were not to divide our people [7].
This remains good and positive counsel for the church today. The heedless blending of secular political ideologies with the spiritual agenda of God’s people has become a major problem in contemporary American Adventism. While this blending has not occurred solely on one or another side of the secular political spectrum in the church, such politicizing of the church’s public witness is especially disturbing when it is indulged by persons with a professedly high view of the authority of the inspired writings—those specifically who wear the conservative label in their spiritual and theological lives, and who mistakenly see those who wear the same label in secular politics as their natural allies.
Another point to keep in mind as we consider the claims of the speaker in question is that in the world of free media, online and otherwise, bad news always makes the best copy. Negative news, whether true or false, always travels faster than positive news. A political or other prominent public figure can celebrate his or her 30th wedding anniversary, and it won’t even make the small print. But let that same person get caught in an adulterous affair, and it will be breaking news on all the networks, regardless of political or cultural bias.
This principle needs to be remembered when we consider the alleged reach of extreme philosophical constructs, the alleged frequency of speakers or other communicators getting ousted from college or social media platforms, reports of violence at protest rallies, and similar events. Hundreds of peaceful protests can occur with little if any media coverage, but let a protest turn violent and its coverage will be vast and ubiquitous, simply because it’s more exciting and likely to increase ratings. But this doesn’t mean such violence necessarily represents the philosophy or agenda of the movement for which such persons presume to speak.
Sparse Documentation
A major problem in this sermon series is the extremely sparse use of inspired as well as historical and contemporary sources as evidence for the arguments made by the speaker. Bible and Spirit of Prophecy references relative to the crisis of the last days and the threats to liberty envisioned by the inspired writings as occurring in the context of that crisis, are almost entirely non-existent, despite the speaker’s exhortation to give out copies of The Great Controversy. We will address in greater depth, as this article proceeds, the contrast between the end-time expectations found in Scripture and the writings of Ellen White and the expectations set forth in the series under review.
What is more, the speaker’s claims relative to the ideologies he roundly condemns are based almost entirely on his own opinions, with few and very selective references given to credible sources. His insistence, for example, that the contemporary social justice movement and similar causes are rooted in atheism and Marxism is given almost entirely on his own authority. No reference to any major cultural or political figure in our times, nor any credible survey data, is offered as proof that progressive political convictions in our time are based on Marxist theory or a denial of faith in the God of Scripture.
Historical and Contemporary Misperceptions
The broad-brush, slap-dash use of such labels as atheism, Marxism, and socialism represents a major flaw in this series of presentations. Perhaps the most glaring of these errors is the generalized association drawn by the speaker between Adolf Hitler’s Nazism and the socialism of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the latter more commonly known as Communism.
But the mere fact that the Nazi Party’s official name was the National Socialist German Workers Party hardly proves a philosophical connection or harmony between the respective Soviet and Nazi brands of socialism. Ian Kershaw, in his monumental biography of Hitler, writes of how a key goal of the Nazis was “to lift the terms nationalism and socialism out of their previous meaning” [8]. The following statement by the same author of one primary reason for the broad popularity of the Nazi movement following Hitler’s accession to power, sounds eerily familiar to the theme and methodology of the sermon series here in focus:
The long-standing hatred of Socialism and Communism—both bracketed together as “Marxism”—was played upon by Nazi propaganda and turned into outright anti-Communist paranoia. Pumped up by the Nazis, fear of a Communist rising was in the air. . . . The full-scale assault on the Left was, therefore, sure of massive popular support. One characteristic report from a Catholic area, where “Marxists” were seen as the enemies of religion, order, and the nation, lauded the strong-arm tactics in Prussia, and gave direct credit for them to Hitler himself [9].
The fact is that in the political realm, the constructs known respectively as liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and Communism all represent different ideologies, with no broad-brush generalization possible so far as their philosophical and practical meanings are concerned. The respective ideologies of progressivism (often called liberalism) and democratic socialism, not to mention the widely variant systems of autocratic and democratic socialism, can in no way be identified as harmonious or synonymous. (Democratic socialist states like Norway and Sweden can in no way be equated with leftist totalitarian societies like Cuba or Venezuela.). Generalized labeling of this sort is no more truthful than it would be to equate such corrupt constructs as “crony capitalism” with the free market economic model in general.
In short, the attempt by the speaker in question to lump today’s movements for racial and social justice together with atheism, socialism, Marxism, and communism is based on a narrative that is truncated at best and downright misleading at worst. Socialism, whatever one may think of it, has long included devout Christian adherents [10], including the author of the American Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag [11].
One is equally hard pressed to justify a connection between Marxism and today’s movements for LGBT rights—a connection the speaker in question makes repeatedly throughout his three-part series [12]. To the present writer’s knowledge, Marx never wrote about sexuality issues, and the record of Marxist states on LGBT tolerance—like that of the Nazis across the spectrum [13]—was largely negative during the Soviet era, even brutally so. In 1933 Joseph Stalin added Article 121 to the Soviet criminal code, which made male homosexuality a crime punishable by up to five years of hard labor [14]. This law remained intact until after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1993, at which time it was repealed [15].
It has to be remembered that for totalitarian states, making as many babies as possible is a priority, as military adventurism is often basic to the agenda of such governments, and any activity not intrinsic to the providing of maximum bodies for use by the state is likely to be disapproved. Non-heterosexual intimacy thus comes easily under the condemnation of such regimes, as noted above.
But in a broader sense, the history of progressive politics in Western countries very strongly belies the notion that such views of economic and social justice owe their origin exclusively or even primarily to atheist and Marxist roots. Both recent and not-so-recent histories have traced the origin of left-leaning politics in America and elsewhere to the Protestant Reformation [16], long before such forces as the French Revolution and Marxism came on the scene. More than likely, whether he knew it or not, Marx’s passion for the oppressed and the redress of grievances by the downtrodden arose from the culture of Protestant Europe in which he had himself been raised, however misguided his ultimate solutions to these problems turned out to be.
The historical record gives no credence to the assumption that atheism is primarily the refuge of persons on the political Left. Indeed, one of the most prominent voices of conservative economics in the twentieth century, the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand, was a thoroughgoing atheist [17].
According to the speaker in question, Marxism and Darwinian evolution are joined at the hip, as in his view, Marxism sees the universe as a self-originating machine “heading toward a classless society” [18]. None will deny, to be sure, that Marx and his acolytes across the decades have found much in the theory of evolution and its assumptions that pleases them. But one couldn’t guess, listening to the speaker in question, that in fact Western capitalism also found much of its rationale in Darwin’s theory of natural selection and the “survival of the fittest.” Thus the term “social Darwinism,” and its belief that social progress would be achieved by the strong in society subjugating the weak, became a popular justification for the exploitation of the poor by the rich during the Gilded Age a century ago [19]. Indeed, it was this popular use of the theory of evolution that caused liberal activist William Jennings Bryan, a Biblical fundamentalist who ran for the U.S. presidency three times as the Democratic Party’s nominee, to oppose the teaching of evolution in the famous Scopes Trial of 1925 [20].
Following Bryan’s logic, the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo, in his keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, criticized the embrace of social Darwinism by the economic policies of then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan [21].
Again, the point of this essay is not to endorse or condemn any particular political ideology. Rather, the point is to demonstrate that the sermon series under review has presented a very truncated history of progressive political thinking, as well as but a partial tracing of the connection between Darwinian evolution and the various philosophies of government in the Western world. To associate atheism and Darwinism exclusively with the political Left is to ignore vast reaches of social, intellectual, and economic history, especially in the United States.
A Long and Negative History
The effort to establish a generalized, broad-brush association in the public mind between atheism, liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and Communism, particularly as a means of reversing initiatives for racial and social reform, has a long, discredited, and toxic history in the United States of America. James Henley Thornwell, a leading apologist for slavery during the American Civil War and founder of the Southern Presbyterian Review [22], condemned the abolitionist movement in language hauntingly familiar to what many are saying today about movements seeking to improve the lot of racial minorities:
The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity at stake [23].
And that’s just the beginning. The present writer has traced a long and sordid history of such allegations in the American story in a recent online article [24]. The infamous “Red Scare” of the 1920s witnessed additional paranoia against socialists and Communists in the United States, much of it exaggerated and fabricated by baseless fears [25]. Hundreds were deported because of these charges, many of them without merit; some were even sent to concentration camps [26]. Thirty years later, the Joe McCarthy scare wrecked hundreds more lives and reputations on the basis of similarly groundless and inflated charges [27].
No segment of the American political spectrum, to be sure, can be exempted from wrongdoing in this respect. Lies have been told, false accusations alleged, by cultural and political leaders of every ideological stripe. But the historical record gives every evidence that the number of persons whose lives and careers have been destroyed by the tarring of such labels as “socialist,” “Marxist,” and “Communist” is far greater than the number destroyed by epithets from the opposite corner. The Seventh-day Adventist message can have no fellowship with the ruinous lies and vilification employed by either extreme.
The Totalitarian Left: Myth and Reality: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Race
Let me again clarify that what follows is not intended as a carte blanche endorsement of any partisan or ideological persuasion in America or elsewhere. But it behooves the messengers of the gospel to be as strictly factual as possible in representing the beliefs and convictions of others, whether inside or outside the faith community.
The speaker in question claims at one point that the Democratic Party of the United States pledged during the recent presidential campaign to abolish religious freedom in America [28]. Quoting the 2020 Democratic Party platform, the speaker cites the words: “We uphold religious freedom as long as it is not used as a cover for bigotry or discrimination” [29].
But it is the speaker’s own interpretation of these words which leads him to conclude that the political party in question is seeking to destroy religious liberty on the basis of opinions which might define certain beliefs as bigoted or discriminatory. Had the speaker in question followed the recent campaign more closely, he might have observed the extent to which respect for religious choice and theologically conservative Christianity played a very decisive role in the outcome of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Some may remember when former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, as he saw his poll numbers falling in the Democratic presidential race, tried to distinguish himself from his opponents by proposing that religious organizations refusing to perform gay weddings should have their tax exempt status revoked [30]. In reply, two of the most progressive candidates in the race—then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana (now U.S. Secretary of Transportation and himself openly gay), and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—both came out immediately against O’Rourke’s proposal. In a subsequent appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Buttigieg responded:
I’m not sure [O’Rourke] understood the implications of what he was saying. That policy means going to war not only with churches, but I would think, with mosques and a lot of organizations that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do.
So if we want to talk about anti-discrimination law for a school or an organization, absolutely they should not be able to discriminate. But going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centers, or other religious facilities in this country, I think that’s just going to deepen the divisions that we’re already experiencing [31].
In a statement to Religious News Service at the same time, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign also pushed back on O’Rourke’s proposal:
Religious institutions in America have long been free to determine their own beliefs and practices, and she (Senator Warren) does not think we should require them to conduct same-sex marriages in order to maintain their tax exempt status [32].
Far from bolstering his campaign among fellow Democrats, O’Rourke’s proposal was followed soon thereafter by his withdrawal from the presidential race [33].
The speaker in question claimed at one point that according to what some call Critical Race Theory, a black person isn’t authentically black if he or she believes in the nuclear family and other Biblical values [34]. However, during the 2020 South Carolina presidential primary on the Democratic side, the pervasiveness of conservative Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality was notably responsible for Joe Biden’s decisive win, particularly his defeat of Pete Buttigieg [35]. Putting the lie to the stereotype many have promoted of political progressives being basically secular in their outlook, the fact is that the African-American community has long demonstrated the highest church attendance of any ethnic group in the United States [36], while simultaneously proving consistently and overwhelmingly loyal—by margins approximating between 80 and 95 percent—to the national Democratic Party [37].
The Totalitarian Left: Myth and Reality: Gay Rights and the Equality Act
The speaker in question, like others with an inordinate fear of left-wing extremism, attacks the Equality Act as approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019, which adds sexual orientation to the list of categories against which discrimination would be disallowed. The speaker insists that this law, if enacted, would mean “the elimination of the Christian worldview in America” [38], that under this Act religious organizations would be forbidden to make gender distinctions relative to issues like ordination to ministry [39], and that church members could no longer—should this law be passed—be forbidden by the church to engage in same-gender sexual intimacy [40]. If this Act passes Congress and is signed by the president, the speaker warns, its enforcement would be “vindictive” and “vengeful” [41]. “This,” he insists, “is where we’re going as a nation” [42].
It is true, to be sure, that some among both conservatives [43] and liberals [44], even some members of the gay community [45], have voiced concerns as to the extent to which the Equality Act of 2019 might threaten religious freedom if enacted. But others with conservative religious convictions, after reading the text of the bill itself, have offered a calmer and more reasoned response, such as the following statement from a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons:
Both the Constitution and most federal civil rights laws already contain explicit religious exemptions in their provisions—and these religious exemptions have been endorsed and robustly applied by the U.S. Supreme Court—starting in a 1987 employment case won by the [Mormon] Church. The U.S. Department of Education has never denied a religious exemption, including exemptions claimed by BYU (Brigham Young University) to discriminate in admissions, housing, hiring, student discipline, etc. on the basis of sex, gender, dress code, chastity, marital status, pregnancy, birth control use, and other actions not in accordance with the BYU Honor Code and teachings of the Church.
The Equality Act affects none of that [46].
What is more, recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have upheld by overwhelming, even unanimous margins the right of religious organizations to hire and fire personnel based on the organization’s religious tenets. The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the Hosanna-Tabor case of 2012 [47] and the Zubik vs. Burwell case of 2016 [48]—allowing religious institutions, respectively, to hire and fire employees based on compliance with the institution’s doctrine and to maintain policies for employees and students based on the same—would seem to imply the strength of settled law in favor of religious organizations maintaining their particular beliefs for those voluntarily choosing to be part of such entities.
For those who fear the loss of government assistance—in particular student aid—by conservative religious institutions that oppose the LGBT lifestyle, for example, the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case involving a Lutheran church school in St. Louis, Missouri [49], may prove instructive. The church school in question belongs to the Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod, whose doctrines include the affirmation that marriage is to take place solely between one man and one woman [50]. The doctrines taught by the denomination in question form a key part of the curriculum of the church school in this case [51]. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court, by the lopsided margin of 7 to 2, honored the request of this church school that the state of Missouri provide them with taxpayer dollars to fix their playground [52].
It should be noted that each of the above U.S. Supreme Court decisions were rendered while former Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate, and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a progressive, were members of the High Court. The fear of an imminent left-wing totalitarian takeover in America, stoked so passionately by the speaker in question in the sermons under review, makes even less sense now with a Supreme Court presently dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority.
The fear of the speaker in question that if the Equality Act were to be passed by the current U.S. Congress, that its application to American life would be “vindictive” and “vengeful,” is belied by the fact that the present Congress is nearly evenly divided between the two parties, with moderates on both sides who would likely insist on significant modifications were the Act to be approved by both houses. Moreover, the almost-certain threat of a conservative filibuster in the Senate would make imperative such modifications if the bill were ever to be passed. And even in the unlikely event that the Act were to be passed by Congress and signed by the president in the precise form in which it passed the House of Representatives in 2019, any substantive threat to the free exercise of religion posed by the Act wouldn’t have a snowflake’s chance of surviving scrutiny by the current federal judiciary, in particular the Supreme Court.
The speaker in question expresses grave concern at one point that so many in the North American Division “support the political agenda of [the LGBTQ] community” [53]. The word political is key here. If the speaker’s expressed concern here was about the growing support in certain NAD circles for acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle within the church, I and every other Biblical conservative in the denomination would agree with him. Moreover, no credible voice of theological conservatism in contemporary Adventism would disagree with the speaker in his deploring of the exclusion experienced by groups like Coming Out Ministries relative to many of our North American Adventist campuses and other facilities [54].
But when this speaker condemns the political agenda of the LGBTQ movement in America, and those within Adventism who support it, what specifically does he mean? Does he mean they should be forbidden to marry? Does he mean they should be denied equal protection under the law? Would he like to see erstwhile laws criminalizing such behavior re-enacted in America? Perhaps he needs reminding that the United States of America is not a theocracy like Old Testament Israel, and that such an earthly construct was disavowed by our Lord in His statement to Pontius Pilate that “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
It is imperative, when discussing this and similar issues, for religious and other cultural conservatives to understand that to allow certain intimate and reproductive choices in a free country is not at all the same as endorsing such choices. To grant religious liberty to a Unitarian or Episcopal pastor who chooses to perform a gay wedding in no way negates that same liberty when exercised by a Bible-believing pastor choosing not to perform such a ceremony. Too many conservative Christians, when speaking of religious liberty these days, define this phrase in a manner that applies only to themselves and other religious and cultural conservatives.
This is very wrong, as the freedom of choice God bequeaths to His intelligent creatures allowed from the very beginning the choice to transgress the divine law. Without such freedom, the controversy between good and evil would never have gotten started. God granted such liberty to Adam and Eve in Eden, when He placed both the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden (Gen. 2:9). The final invitation to the human heart in the Bible story affirms this same liberty, when it declares, “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).
Ellen White, writing of this same divine principle, declares:
The Lord Jesus came to our world full of mercy, life, and light, ready to save those who should come unto Him. But He can save no one against his will. God does not force the conscience. . . . All this work is after the order of Satan [55].
Elder Ted Wilson, writing some years ago in the Huffington Post regarding the gay marriage issue, affirmed this same principle:
Like many other faiths, the Seventh-day Adventist church subscribes to the Biblical definition of marriage is being between a man and a woman, for example. But where we difer from some of our peers is that we acknowledge that there’s a difference between government allowing certain actions with which we might disagree on moral grounds, . . . as opposed to compelling them. That is the fine line that is religious liberty [56].
The Totalitarian Left: Myth and Reality: Freedom of Speech
A major theme in the sermon series under review is that freedom of speech is under wide attack in the America of today. “We are moving toward totalitarianism in America, and it’s starting with the elimination of freedom of speech,” he insists [57]. “Freedom of speech is evaporating before our eyes,” he says at another point [58]. He predicts, “Soon we’ll be off the Internet” [59]. Speakers not in accord with the “totalitarian Left” are being “deplatformed,” in the speaker’s words, on social media as well as higher educational campuses [60]. Soon the Bible itself, he claims, will be condemned as “hate speech” [61].
None will deny, of course, that speakers whose opinions happen to be unpopular in one setting or another have at times found their invitations blocked or cancelled. But we should also remember that if an institution (educational or otherwise) is privately owned, those in authority have the right to select and prohibit lecturers as their chosen beliefs and values may determine. Freedom of speech is not necessarily the freedom to use someone else’s platform.
Conservative religious educational facilities, such as those operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, have the right under the U.S. Constitution to invite or disinvite speakers in accordance with their convictions. Despite the protest frequently offered by theological liberals in such settings when teachers and lecturers of their liking are fired or banned from campus because of divergence from the church’s teachings, such prohibition is no more a violation of free speech than for the Democratic or Republican National Conventions to invite to their quadrennial gatherings only those speakers who adhere to their respective agendas.
However, listening to the sermon series under review, one could hardly guess that a recent survey at Yale University, reported in the Wall Street Journal, showed that 84 percent of the student body on that very progressive campus believed that speakers promoting controversial views relative to race, gender, politics, and religion should be allowed to speak on campus, regardless of whether their views might offend certain people [62]. Nor could one guess, listening to the speaker in question, that such a prominent progressive thinker as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who went on to become a professor at Berkeley, would publicly defend the right of conservative icon Ann Coulter to speak on the Berkeley campus in the face of opposition from school administrators [63]. Reich observed in his conversation with Coulter on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that he couldn’t remember the last time he agreed with Ann Coulter on anything, but that, at the bottom line, “there are no asterisks by the First Amendment” [64].
A cluster of other prominent progressive voices in the mainstream media have in recent years echoed grave concern over efforts on certain campuses to exclude conservative and other controversial speakers [65]. But one could hardly imagine such progressive angst when listening to the sermon series in question.
Far from being the monstrous, tsunami-like threat to free speech portrayed in the sermon series under review, the fact is that the so-called “speech codes” recently enacted or attempted on various American college and university campuses have fared very badly when tested in the courts. Surveying a variety of such cases during the past several decades, one news outlet has reported:
In case after case, courts across the country have unequivocally and uniformly held speech codes at public universities to be unconstitutional. Public institutions of higher learning attempting to regulate the content of speech on campus are held to the most exacting level of judicial scrutiny. Typically, courts find speech codes to violate the First Amendment because they are vague and overbroad. This means that because the speech code is written in a way that (a) insufficiently specifies what type of speech is prohibited or (b) would prohibit constitutionally protected speech, it cannot be reconciled with the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech [66].
A very recent case addressing offensive speech involved a rock band based in Portland, Oregon, whose members call themselves “The Slants” [67]. The band members, being of Asian descent, chose this title in order to transform the meaning of what many Asians consider to be a racial slur [68]. But the United States Patent Office, which forbids the use of offensive language in incorporated titles, challenged the band’s right to use this name, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June of 2017, the High Court sided with the band and against the U.S. Patent Office, insisting that speech held by some to be offensive—racially or otherwise—is in fact protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [69]. Like the Hosanna-Tabor case of 2012 and the Zubik vs. Burwell case of 2016 noted earlier, the case involving the Asian rock band was decided unanimously [70].
Again it should be noted that this case was decided when the High Court still had moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy and the late progressive Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is beyond credible to imagine that the new conservative-dominated Court would take any less of a negative view of laws seeking to enforce what the Right so often derides as “politically correct” speech.
Alarm-filled discourses as to the supposedly imminent obliteration of certain freedoms may inflame ideological passions and stir listeners to flourishes of written and spoken rage. But if they aren’t based on sound research, they end up discrediting the cause of religious liberty and similar calls to serious observation of the times in which we live.
The Totalitarian Left: Myth and Reality: Diversity and Inclusion
The speaker in question offers a strange internal contradiction as to the strength brought to a community or organization through diversity. Responding to the statement made by many advocates of diversity and inclusion that “in diversity is our strength,” he asks: “Has there been any institution in history whose strength arose from what little its people had in common?” [71]. He goes on to say that “there is no institution in human history where the less its people have in common, the more successful they will be” [72].
But in the very same sermon, the speaker goes on to praise the ethnic diversity present in the Seventh-day Adventist Church on account of the overwhelming presence in the denomination of members from the global South [73]. Unfortunately for his case, he offers little reasoning as to why and how diversity makes the Seventh-day Adventist movement strong, yet supposedly makes other, unspecified entities weak.
The speaker in question spends considerable time in his series attacking what is known as Critical Race Theory [74], attacking this construct—without any documented proof—as atheistic and Marxist [75]. The term “systemic racism” is repeatedly scorned [76], and the Black Lives Matter movement denounced [77].
Frankly, considering my own background as a white male, I believe it would have been wiser for those sponsoring this sermon series to have invited one or more African-American scholars, pastors, and/or church leaders to address the theory in question. Such a person or persons could have analyzed this construct from both a Christian and an African-American perspective, and likely indicated the extent to which the extreme thinking identified by the speaker in question truly represents either the African-American or civil rights communities, what variances of understanding exist within the umbrella of what is being called Critical Race Theory, and much more.
Again, bad news and extreme perspectives tend to acquire much more publicity and online buzz than more nuanced and balanced versions of the same. The speaker in question, being white and male and harshly critical of any number of prominent and contemporary African-American thinkers, very likely opened himself to allegations of white-grievance rhetoric.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church possesses a unique claim to diversity and inclusion, as our divine charter and designated mission extends to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6). Though the speaker in question tries to speak compassionately of persons who have suffered exclusion and mistreatment because of their race [78], the lion’s share of his series is spent warning the church against the alleged onslaught of aggrieved minorities, ethnic and otherwise. Considering his own racial background, it is doubtful he has contributed much by his sermons to needful and long-overdue racial reconciliation within the church.
Other Issues
While the speaker in question denies that he is advocating “any partisan political perspective” [79], it is clear from other of his remarks that he is advocating an ideological political perspective—that of hard-right political conservatism. And while it is his privilege to hold such views privately, to use the Sabbath pulpit to proclaim them is as much a violation of the counsel of Ellen White as the public advocacy of a political party would be.
In one of his sermons he laments that “government expenditure is out of control” [80], and in another he extolls the virtues of “limited government” [81]—a popular conservative political catch-phrase. Elsewhere he condemns efforts by government to promote equality of income and economic status as the promotion of “atheist equality” [82].
It is difficult for the present writer to see any daylight between this kind of overt political agitation and the sort of divisive controversy against which Ellen White warned our people during the 1890s, when the gold-silver debate relative to U.S. currency was splitting the country [83]. What is more, to use a phrase like “atheist equality” to characterize political efforts to correct inequality of income is to deny the plainest facts of American history during the Progressive Era, which began in this country over a century ago. Irrespective of the opinions we may separately hold regarding such policies and their alternatives, it is a boldfaced lie to label progressive policies as the peculiar product of atheism. The vast majority of American leaders who have promoted such policies have been devout religionists of the Judeo-Christian stripe.
Negative references to what the speaker in question attacks as “cancel culture” abound in his sermon series [84]. But like numerous other phrases in current cultural and political discourse, this one generally takes on whatever meaning its user desires. But if he thinks that either theologically conservative Christianity or politically conservative ideology—not at all the same, by the way—stand in danger of being “cancelled” in our present context, he is profoundly mistaken.
Despite all the alarms being sounded of a “secular onslaught” in contemporary America, the fact remains that theologically conservative denominations continue to grow in both the United States and other Western nations, while theologically liberal denominations continue to decline and die [85]. Moreover, the intense ideological and cultural polarization in contemporary America offers no credence to the idea that either side in the conflict is anywhere close to overwhelming, much less obliterating, the other. Certainly the present conservative composition of the federal judiciary, going all the way up to the Supreme Court, gives no credibility to the fear that the extreme Left (however it is defined) is about to take over everything.
The speaker in question states at one point, “Every time a statue is toppled or a monument is renamed,” he says, “we lose the chance to learn from the mistakes of the past” [86]. The removal of such memorials relative to controversial historical figures (e.g. leaders and generals from the Confederate States during the Civil War) has become, of course, a hot debate in the country just now, such removal often being lumped under the label of “cancel culture.”
Speaking as both a lifelong historian and a believer in orderly change, I don’t believe that such removal should be undertaken outside of the law, as has happened in certain places in America during recent months. I believe the orderly transfer of such memorials from public property to museums, as Joe Biden called for during the recent presidential campaign [87], to be the wisest course, though I also consider it dangerous to remove memorials to any past figure who might today be deemed less than perfect so far as issues of justice and equality are concerned. (In that case we might end up with no statues or memorials to anyone!)
At the bottom line, to put negative history and questionable historical characters out of one’s mind is the first step toward denial that such history ever happened. Americans have sadly become very adept at forgetting their own history [88]—something the speaker in question rightly and wisely warns against in the sermon series under review [89]. Whether in the sacred or the secular realm, remembering the past—whether negative or positive—is imperative. George Santayana’s warning that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” remains as relevant as ever, as does the following admonition by Ellen White:
We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history [90].
The speaker in question denounces “online mobs” as well as physical mobs, but speaks of these almost entirely in terms of the “totalitarian Left” he fears so passionately [91]. But no one familiar with either the past year in America or the content of online discourse could ascribe exclusive blame to one side or the other when it comes to such activities.
Finally, the speaker in question spoke of how Bibles are being publicly burned in the America of today [92]. From my perspective as a devout Bible believer, the burning of even one Bible is horrific and despicable, though one recent report of Bibles being burned which gained considerable publicity appears to have been a gross exaggeration [93]. But the United States is still a free country, and so long as someone mutilates a text held by many to be sacred which he or she happens to own, that is a perfectly legal act.
But regrettable and tragic as the physical mutilation of God’s Word surely is, can we truly believe such an act to be more offensive to God than the spiritual mutilation of that same Word through political brandishing, as took place in another setting during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign [94]?
Anticipating the Wrong Tyranny
The sermon series in question is suffused with warnings against what the speaker denounces as “Christ-hating socialist ideology” [95]. which he believes to be laying the groundwork for a “post-Christian America” [96]. At one point he quotes Nancy Pearcey—a devout Calvinist theocrat and disciple of the late Francis Schaeffer [97], perhaps the premier ideological godfather of the American Religious Right [98]—as saying that Marxism is the principal alternative to Christianity [99].
But what the speaker in question and his evangelical mentors anticipate is not the tyranny anticipated by Scripture and the writings of Ellen White. All other mistakes and missteps by the sermon series under review shrink to insignificance when compared to this one.
There is no anticipation in the inspired writings of a “post-Christian America,” nor of the destruction of American influence or power by atheistic forces. The lamblike beast of Revelation 13:11-17, representing the United States of America [100], is predicted to duplicate the intolerance exercised by the medieval papacy [101], not the atheism of the French Revolution or Marxism. The tyranny prophesied for America is never depicted as secular in nature, but deeply religious, as the following inspired statements bear witness:
When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result [102].
By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with Spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its constitution as a Protestant and Republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near [103].
Far from predicting an overtly godless takeover of America and the oppression of the churches by some “Marxist superstate,” the inspired forecast of persecution in our land is one in which the churches will dominate the government, not the other way around. Ellen White speaks of how just such a tyranny was feared by the founders of the American Republic:
The founders of the nation wisely sought to guard against the employment of secular power on the part of the church, with its inevitable result—intolerance and persecution. The Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under the United States.” Only in flagrant violation of these safeguards to the nation’s liberty, can any religious observance be enforced by civil authority [104].
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 [105].
In another statement Ellen White is even clearer that the image to the beast will be set up in the United States through the church controlling the government, not—in Marxist-Leninist fashion—by the government controlling the church:
In order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends [106].
What is especially significant about the above statements is not only that they pinpoint the uppermost concern of America’s founders relative to the compromise of American liberties—namely, by the church taking over the government rather than the other way around—but that they also indicate that once the principle is established that religion can control the American state, the triumph of the papacy in our land is assured.
What is more, it is clear that “any religious observance” [107] is in focus here, not just Sunday legislation, and that the principle will be established “that religious observances (plural) may be enforced by secular laws” [108]. It should be remembered that for most people, marriage is a religious observance. Thus any effort by government in a non-theocratic state to dictate who can and cannot get married would involve the establishment of the papal principle against which the inspired pen warns. The same would apply to laws seeking to regulate other intimate or reproductive choices on the part of citizens.
We noted earlier how the speaker in question repeatedly lauds the courage and writings of the late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn [109]. Few, to be sure, could fairly harbor any doubts as to this man’s courage and integrity. But perhaps some have forgotten that Solzhenitsyn was not an advocate of American democracy or freedom. In a speech at Harvard during the 1970s, Solzhenitsyn denounced “the way of Western pluralistic democracy” [110], and wrote in 1973 that people had lived for centuries without democracy, “and were not always worse off” [111]. He argued that authoritarian regimes “as such are not frightening—only those which are answerable to no one and nothing” [112]. By contrast, he insisted that the autocrats of religious ages “felt themselves responsible before God” [113]. (Perhaps he had forgotten how Pope Innocent III, the most powerful pontiff of the medieval era, described himself as “below God but beyond man, less than God but more than man, who shall judge all and be judged by no one” [114].)
Summarizing the Solzhenitsyn model of the ideal state, the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr, described it as “a Christian authoritarianism governed by God-fearing despots without benefit of politics, parties, undue intellectual freedom and undue concern for popular happiness” [115]. This, in fact, is the very tyranny anticipated by Scripture and the writings of Ellen White for both America and the world at the end of time.
The speaker in question recalls in horror the 100 million slain in the past century by “Christ-hating socialists” [116]. He would do well to remember the “fifty to one hundred millions of martyrs during the Dark Ages” [117] put to death by Christian theocrats. Ellen White speaks of how, during the centuries of papal supremacy, “millions were slain without mercy” [118. In another statement, describing the same period of history, she writes:
For more than a thousand years such persecution as the world had never before known was to come upon Christ’s followers. Millions upon millions of His faithful witnesses were to be slain [119].
This, unfortunately, is the kind of regime the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn viewed as “ideal.” Noble and brave he truly was, but he seems to have suffered from a selective historical memory. Considering all he endured, perhaps he can be forgiven for this. But the speaker whose sermons we’ve been reviewing is very much without excuse in this regard, as he has access to both Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy writings and the prophetic scenario they espouse. Persecution and martyrdom will indeed stain America’s future, but the inspired pen is clear that professed Christians, not “Christ-hating socialists,” will be responsible.
Some have tried to vaguely connect today’s secularism with Ellen White’s prophecies concerning end-time spiritualism. But Ellen White’s description of the forces of spiritualism in the last days makes such a connection all but impossible. Consider how Ellen White depicts the activities of spiritualism during the final crisis:
Church members love what the world loves and are ready to join with them, and Satan determines to unite them in one body and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of spiritualism. Papists, who boast of miracles as a certain sign of the true church, will be readily deceived by this wonder-working power, and Protestants, having cast away the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists, Protestants, and worldlings alike will accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium [120].
In other words, the spiritualism Ellen White describes as part of the end-time threefold union is not some secular, non-religious spirituality, but rather, a phenomenon that includes the ubiquitous presence of miracles and supernatural signs. Atheists, secularists, and Marxists don’t believe in such manifestations, viewing reports of such occurrences as based on fantasy and superstition. And when one compares the above statement with Ellen White’s affirmation of miracle-working as taking place both in the end-time ministry of God’s people and in the workings of Satan [121], it becomes clear that the skepticism regarding such events inherent in secular thinking will find itself all but suffocated by the atmosphere of earth’s final crisis.
Some have drawn our attention to the following Ellen White statement as alleged proof that a secular, French Revolution-style onslaught against God and Christianity may in fact be part of America’s and the world’s future:
Anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human. The centralizing of wealth and power, the vast combinations for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many; the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests and claims; the spirit of unrest, of riot and bloodshed; the worldwide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France [122].
This prediction, made just prior to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia which led to similar uprisings throughout the world in the decades which followed, gives every evidence of having already been fulfilled in the worldwide struggle with Communism throughout much of the last century. What is especially significant about the above statement is its apparent uniqueness. Unless someone can show me otherwise, I do not find it repeated elsewhere in the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy relative to the last days. The end-time chapters in The Great Controversy, Early Writings, etc. make no reference to French Revolution principles being notably operative during the final conflict. Interestingly, not even the chapter, “The Bible and the French Revolution” in The Great Controversy [123] speaks of a revival of these principles playing any significant role in the events just before Jesus returns.
The apparent uniqueness of Ellen White’s prediction regarding the teachings that led to the French Revolution causes me to believe that what Ellen White was here predicting was a passing phenomenon, not one that would play a key role in the final events. The “two or three witnesses” principle relative to inspired self-interpretation (Deut. 17:6; 19:15; Matt. 18:16; I Cor. 14:29; II Cor. 13:1; I Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28) is one that I regard as decisive in determining doctrinal, prophetic, and behavioral tenets and expectations.
In accord with his prediction of a Marxist totalitarian state as characterizing America’s looming future, the speaker in question speaks of the pending confiscation of private property in this country, declaring that “the very concept of my home is to be rejected by the new world order that is coming our way” [124]. But if in fact this is true, the following inspired counsels to our people regarding the acquisition of country property in preparation for the last days would make little sense:
Again and again the Lord has instructed that our people are to take their families away from the cities, into the country, where they can raise their own provisions, for in the future the problem of buying and selling will be a very serious one. We should now begin to heed the instruction given us over and over again: Get out of the cities into rural districts, where the houses are not crowded closely together, and where you will be free from the interference of enemies [125].
Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land, where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing, and learn from them lessons of simplicity and purity [126].
The Lord desires His people to move into the country, where they can settle on the land, and raise their own fruits and vegetables, and where their children can be brought into direct contact with the works of God in nature [127].
The above counsels don’t harmonize with an America headed for Marxist totalitarianism and the wholesale confiscation of private property. It should be clarified, of course, that when probation closes and it becomes necessary to abandon all our earthly possessions, the inspired pen instructs us to not attempt to make provision for our temporal wants [128]. Prior to that point, however, we are counseled to purchase land in the country where we can raise our own provisions. That wouldn’t be possible in a Marxist-style totalitarian state.
Following a YouTube recording of one of the sermons by the speaker in question, one commenter offered an understandable response: “I guess the papacy doesn’t exist” [129]. Indeed, the series goes almost entirely, if not entirely, without any mention of the end-time threefold union anticipated by classic Adventist eschatology, which will consist of Catholicism, apostate Protestantism, and spiritualism. The speaker appears to have permitted our classic understanding of last-day events, based on the Bible and the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy, to be almost wholly eclipsed by the worldview of the evangelical Right. Ironically, he advises his listeners to “read The Great Controversy and give it out to others” [130]. It would appear that at least the first portion of this counsel he would do well to heed himself.
Yes, we may indeed find ourselves “off the Internet” and social media one of these days [131]. But it won’t be because of atheism, Marxism, Critical Race Theory, or the Black Lives Matter movement. Rather, it will be at the behest of the papacy and its apostate Protestant (mostly conservative) allies.
In short, the sermon series and speaker in question anticipate the wrong tyranny. Not only do the facts of contemporary American life reviewed in this article make the likelihood of an atheist/Marxist takeover remote to the point of absurd, the inspired counsel available to Seventh-day Adventists points our expectations in an entirely different direction.
Conclusion
During arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter found himself quite surprised to hear then-Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev, supposedly an atheist, declare of himself and his nation, “God will not forgive us if we fail” [132]. But then, as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes—whether on actual battlefields or in palatial government offices!
It wasn’t the first such acknowledgement, tacit or otherwise, by a leader of the Soviet state. During World War II, as the Soviet Union tottered under the German blitzkrieg, Joseph Stalin re-opened the churches as a way of boosting civilian morale [133]. After all, atheism and its consequent denial of an afterlife offer little incentive for sacrifice and perseverance with suffering and death raging all around.
The Bible spends little time refuting the claims of overt secularism, other than to call the one denying God’s existence a fool (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Jesus didn’t speak of confronting explicit deniers of His or His Father’s existence in the final judgment, but He did speak of those who will use His name as a cover for transgressing His Father’s law (Matt. 7:21-23). The apostle Paul writes to Timothy of the perilous times coming in the last days, and speaks of self-love, pride, disobedience to parents, the lack of natural affection, and many more behaviors easy to recognize in our present world (II Tim. 3:1-4). Those looking for a secular Antichrist would have no problem acknowledging the ubiquitous presence of the above evils in our present day. But then the apostle introduces a new element in the above passage when he writes of last-day evils:
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof (verse 5).
It would be difficult to allege even a form of godliness among atheists and Marxists, who deny—at least outwardly—God’s very existence. But the above description most assuredly applies to today’s evangelical Christians, many of whose leaders have excused some of the vilest evils in their chosen political champions on account of the distorted teaching that forgiveness is all that is needed for salvation and that sin will forever persist in the Christian’s earthly life. The recent moral fall of yet another prominent evangelical leader in the United States only underscores this profound spiritual tragedy [134], which no one can fairly blame on atheism or Karl Marx.
The speaker in question laments at length the loss of absolute truth in today’s American culture, blaming this loss almost solely on what he calls the totalitarian Left [135]. Yet while no segment of secular politics has a corner on denying the reality of truth, the speaker in question seems quite oblivious to the blatant disregard of truth that in recent years has manifested itself on the opposite end of the American political spectrum. If today’s conservative Christians in the United States were anywhere near as diligent in demanding accountability from their political allies, relative to truth and moral consistency, as they are from those with whom they politically differ, the credibility of the Christian witness in our land would likely be much greater.
Finally, Seventh-day Adventists must again make the inspired writings and their prophetic worldview the unerring lodestar of spiritual reality and end-time expectation. The speaker in question gives every evidence of having immersed himself in the writings and worldview of conservative evangelicalism, permitting this worldview to overshadow the message of Revelation 13 and The Great Controversy. Jumping the borders of the remnant church in pursuit of spiritual and cultural wisdom has as long and toxic a track record in Adventist history as the use of the Marxist, socialist, and communist labels in the American experience. The message of the speaker in question represents perhaps the most coherent expression in recent years of forecasting a coming tyranny not anticipated by the inspired writings. Such speculation will only lead to further disregard of the inspired worldview in Seventh-day Adventist ranks. It deserves, therefore, gracious yet vigorous opposition.
REFERENCES
1. Conrad Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism in the United States,” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
2. ----“Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
3. ----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
4. ----“Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
5. Ellen G. White, Fundamentals of Christian Education, pp. 475-486; Gospel Workers, pp. 391-396.
6. ----Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 331-333.
7. Ibid, pp. 331-332.
8. Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1998), p. 305.
9. Ibid, p. 456.
10. “Christian socialism,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism
11. Ibid.
12. ----“Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
13. “Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany
14. “Communism and LGBT rights,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_and_LGBT_rights
15. Ibid.
16. See John P. Diggins, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism (New York: Basic Books Inc, 1984); James Simpson, Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019); Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), pp. 16-18,60,79.
17. Ayn Rand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand#Philosophy
18. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
19. “Social Darwinism,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
20. Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), pp. 294-295.
21. A Tale of Two Cities (speech), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities_(speech)
22. Kevin D. Paulson, “Guilt By Association: Past and Present,” http://advindicate.com/articles/2019/9/20/paulson-draft-1-s88fl-6mlnf-49y4n-dkr69-dcwee-sxa65-f8e9m-enjcf-bkzn7
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. “First Red Scare,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare#Deportations
26. “McCarthyism,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
27. Ibid.
28. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
29. Ibid.
30. Jack Jenkins, “Buttigieg, Warren reject O’Rourke plan to link church tax status, LGBT policy," National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 14, 2019 https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/buttigieg-warren-reject-orourke-plan-link-church-tax-status-lgbt-policy
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Alexander Burns, “Beto O’Rourke Drops Out of the Presidential Race,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/beto-orourke-drops-out.html
34. Vine, “Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
35. Thomas Beaumont and Tom Foreman Jr, “In SC, Buttigieg faces black voters wary of a gay candidate,” ABC News, Feb. 25, 2020 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/sc-buttigieg-faces-black-voters-wary-gay-candidate-69192344
36. “Attendance at religious services by race/ethnicity,” Pew Research Center (2014) https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/attendance-at-religious-services/by/racial-and-ethnic-composition/
37. Ruth Igielnik and Abby Budman, “The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the U.S. Electorate,” Pew Research Center, Sept. 23, 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/2020/09/23/the-changing-racial-and-ethnic-composition-of-the-u-s-electorate/
38. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Samuel Smith, “21 Christian leaders: Equality Act would gut religious freedom protections,” The Christian Post, May 16, 2019 https://www.christianpost.com/news/21-christian-leaders-say-the-equality-act-is-incompatible-with-gods-word.html
44. John McCormack, “A Liberal Law Professor Explains Why the Equality Act Would ‘Crush’ Religious Dissenters,” National Review, May 17, 2019 https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/law-professor-explains-why-the-equality-act-would-crush-religious-dissenters/
45. Brad Polumbo, “Gay conservative: Equality Act would crush religious freedom. Trump is right to oppose it” USA Today, May 20, 2019 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/20/lgbtq-equality-act-fails-fair-religious-freedom-provisions-accommodation-column/3731197002/
46. Carolyn, “The Equality Act and Religious Freedom Exemptions,” By Common Consent, May 13, 2019 https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/05/13/the-equality-act-and-religious-freedom-exemptions/
48. http://www.becketfund.org/etbuhbu/
49. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Lutheran_Church_of_Columbia,_Inc._v._Comer
50. https://www.lcms.org/social-issues/marriage
51. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Lutheran_Church_of_Columbia,_Inc._v._Comer
52. Ibid.
53. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
54. ----Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
55. White, Sons and Daughters of God, p. 182.
56. Ted N.C. Wilson, “Keeping Church at Arm’s Length from the State,” Huffington Post, Nov. 6, 2013 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/keeping-church-at-arms-le_b_4226809
57. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism;
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
-----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
61. ----“Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
62. James Freeman, “Yale’s Quiet Majority,” The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/yales-quiet-majority-1493835628
63. Tim Harris, “Berkeley Professor Robert Reich and Ann Coulter Agree on First Amendment,” Real Clear Politics, April 30, 2017 (Discussion on ABC’s “This Week,” April 30, 2017 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/04/30/berkeley_professor_robert_reich_and_ann_coulter_agree_on_first_amendment.html
64. Ibid.
65. Nina Burleigh, “The Battle Against ‘Hate Speech’ on College Campuses Gives Rise to a Generation That Hates Speech,” Newsweek, May 26, 2016 http://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/03/college-campus-free-speech-thought-police-463536.html; Frank Bruni, “These Campus Inquisitions Must Stop,” New York Times, June 3, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/opinion/sunday/bruni-campus-inquisitions-evergreen-state.html?ref=opinion&_r=1; Bari Weiss, “When the Left Turns On Its Own,” New York Times, June 3, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/when-the-left-turns-on-its-own.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article; Thomas Healy, “Who’s Afraid of Free Speech?” The Atlantic, June 2017 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/whos-afraid-of-free-speech/530094/;
Michelle Goldberg, “The Worst Time for the Left to Give Up on Free Speech,” New York Times, Oct. 6, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/liberals-free-speech.html;
Bob Brown, “Editorial: A bunch of punks attacked free speech at UVA. The school responded well,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, Feb. 26, 2018 http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/editorial-a-bunch-of-punks-attacked-free-speech-at-uva/article_0b2a09c6-915a-5994-aeff-3de07ad23803.html; Fareed Zakaria, “The Threat to Democracy—From the Left,” Washington Post, Sept. 13, 2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-new-threat-to-democracy--from-the-left/2018/09/13/7e3fbb72-b790-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.3b3aff1f1fd0
66. “State of the Law: Speech Codes” https://www.thefire.org/legal/state-of-the-law-speech-codes/#:~:text=Public%20institutions%20of%20higher%20learning,are%20vague%20and%2For%20overbroad; see also David L. Hudson, “Free Speech on Public College Campuses Overview,” Freedom Forum Institute, March 2018 https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/free-speech-on-public-college-campuses-overview/
67. “Supreme Court decision sides with Portland-based rock band, the Slants, in name trademark case,” Seattle Times, June 19, 2017 http://www.seattletimes.com/news/supreme-court-decision-sides-with-portland-based-rock-band-the-slants-in-name-trademark-case/
68. Paulson, “Speaking Freely,” Liberty, November-December 2017 https://www.libertymagazine.org/article/speaking-freely
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Vine, “Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. ----“Wrong Think #1: The Rise of Soft Totalitarianism in the United States,” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/17/wrongthink-1-racing-towards-marxism
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
75. Ibid.
76. ----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. ----“Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
81. ----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
82. Ibid.
83. White, Fundamentals of Christian Education, pp. 475-486; Gospel Workers, pp. 391-396; Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 331-332.
84. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
85. See Paulson, “Why Conservative Denominations Are Still Growing,” ADvindicate, Feb. 2, 2017 http://advindicate.com/articles/2017/2/2/why-conservative-denominations-are-still-growing
----“The Trend Continues,” ADvindicate, July 26, 2019 http://advindicate.com/articles/2019/7/17/paulson-draft-1-atack-kn4n4-n82ly
86. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
87. Trevor Hunnicutt, “Biden: Confederate monuments belong in museums, not public squares,” Reuters, June 30, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-statues/biden-confederate-monuments-belong-in-museums-not-public-squares-idUSKBN2413DQ
88. “Survey: Half of Americans Don’t Know When the Civil War Took Place,” American Council of Trustees and Alumni, April 14, 2015 https://www.goacta.org/2015/04/survey_half_of_americans_dont_know_when_the_civil_war_took_place/
89. Vine, Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
90. White, Life Sketches, p. 196.
91. Vine, “Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
92. Ibid.
93. “Analysis: Was a stack of Bibles burned in Portland, or was it fake news?” Catholic Sentinel, Aug. 13, 2020 https://catholicsentinel.org/Content/News/Nation-and-World/Article/Analysis-Was-a-stack-of-Bibles-burned-in-Portland-or-was-it-fake-news-/2/34/40587
94. Elizabeth Bruenig, “The Last Temptation of Trump,” New York Times, June 2, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/opinion/trump-bible-speech-st-johns-church.html
95. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-americ
96. ----“Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
97. “Nancy Pearcey,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pearcey
98. Rick Perlstein, Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), pp. 89-90.
99. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
l00. White, The Great Controversy, p. 440.
101. Ibid, pp. 443-445.
102. Ibid, p. 445.
103. ----Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 451.
104. ----The Great Controversy, p. 442.
105. Ibid, p. 581.
106. Ibid, p. 443.
107. Ibid, p. 442.
108. Ibid, p. 581.
109. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1986), p. 114.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. Quoted by T. Walter Wallbank & Alastair M. Taylor, Civilization: Past and Present, vol. 1 (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Co, 1954), p. 404.
115. Schlesinger, The Cycles of American History, p. 114.
116. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
117. E.J. Waggoner, The Present Truth, Jan. 18, 1894, p. 40. https://m.egwwritings.org/search?query=Millions+martyrs+Dark+Ages&lang=en
118. White, Early Writings, p. 211.
119. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 631.
120. ----The Great Controversy, pp. 588-589.
121. Ibid, p. 612.
122. ----Education, p. 228.
123. ----The Great Controversy, pp. 265-288.
124. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
125. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 141.
126. Ibid, p. 356.
127. Ibid, pp. 357-358.
128. ----Early Writings, p. 56.
129. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIY1EkvMd90
130. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
131. Ibid.
132. Martin Schram, “Reference to God By Brezhnev Hits A Chord in Carter,” Washington Post, June 17, 1979 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/06/17/reference-to-god-by-brezhnev-hits-a-chord-in-carter/3fb09aae-103a-4936-bfc7-8782d8b237f7/
133. Alexander Werth, Russia at War: 1941-1945 (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, Inc, 1964), pp. 429-438.
134. Paulson, “Whited Sepulchers,” ADvindicate, Aug. 28, 2020 http://advindicate.com/articles/2019/9/20/paulson-draft-1-s88fl-6mlnf-49y4n-dkr69-dcwee-sxa65-f8e9m
135. Vine, “Wrong Think #1: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #2: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
----“Wrong Think #3: What is Happening to America?” http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2021/1/21/wrongthink-2-amp-3-what-is-happening-to-america
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