Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your
program, bringing news, views,
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and information on
religious liberty in the US
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and of course around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on this
program is Professor John Reeve
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from Andrews University,
Church History Department.
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Let's talk about church history,
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your church and my church,
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the Seventh-day
Adventist church,
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and the church
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that in many
ways lies behind 3ABN,
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the assumption of the
Three Angels' Messages
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for an end-time scenario.
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The Seventh-day Adventist church
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is an interesting movement
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that arose first
in the United States.
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And as you and I were even
talking before the program,
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it arose at a
very critical time,
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in the mid 1800s,
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when the United
States was barely a country.
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I'm very aware
that in the war of 1812,
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which foolishly the US began,
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England didn't even accept
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that it was a
separate country by then.
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Right.
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And just a little
detachment of English redcoats
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disembarked from about,
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went up to
Washington and took it by storm,
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burned the Whitehouse
and went back to the ships.
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It was that easy.
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I mean, it's not
to diminish America
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or whatsoever, it's
done incredible progress.
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But the point is,
it was a slow start.
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And so, in those very beginnings
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of Americana
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or the American
society, here, this movement,
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the Millerite
Movement developed,
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studying prophecies,
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convinced that
the end was upon us,
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and America was
to play a key role.
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Didn't happen as
William Miller thought.
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And then out of
that disappointment,
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developed the
Seventh-day Adventist movement
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and the idea of a remnant
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final message to
give to the world.
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Correct.
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That's the bigger backdrop.
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But of course,
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something unique
happened with this group
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that gave them a
particular impetus
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for religious freedom.
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Let me hear your analysis of it,
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but it happened very,
very early on, didn't it?
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Well, one of the
reasons that had happened
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to the
Seventh-day Adventist group
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before they were even a
Seventh-day Adventist group,
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they were just, what
they called themselves,
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the little flock.
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It was a group of about
100 of the 50,000 Millerites
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that continue on together,
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seeking to find
a biblical reason
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for the disappointment
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and how it all fit
into biblical prophecy
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and ended up, eventually,
about 20 years later,
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becoming the
Seventh-day Adventist church.
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But early on, same as...
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By the way, the
church was formed
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almost just a year or
two before the Civil War,
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so it was in the...
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Correct.
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The time of great
upheaval within the country.
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Correct.
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So the early proto-Adventists,
if we can call them that,
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we're very aware
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that they have been
trying to evangelize
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while being ignored
for their differences.
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Well, ignored at
first, and then kicked out.
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Yeah, of course.
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It was
harassment and persecution.
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Yes, they get kicked out.
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First, out of the churches
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that they were part of
during the Millerite Movement,
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and then they get kicked out
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of the post
Millerite Movement itself.
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It's true.
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So they've had a
lot of rejection.
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And then having
a lot of rejection,
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they were
trying to come to terms
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with how to provide rationally
for their understanding
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as we have the right
to do what we're doing
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to study the
scripture for ourselves
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and to understand
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where God is
leading us, etcetera.
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And so that mentality
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becomes part of the identity
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that people should be
able to study the scriptures
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for themselves
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and follow the
dictates of their conscience.
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And I believe they
picked up a lot of it
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very self
consciously from the reformation
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because they,
early on, decided that
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they were in the
tradition of the reformation
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and the continuation of it.
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And so it came with package.
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But it's a time when the
church organizes into a church.
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The Seventh-day Adventist group,
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proto-Seventh-day
Adventist group,
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whatever we're
going to call them,
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organizes
themselves into a church
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during the Civil War.
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And during the Civil War,
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one of the things
that was very part
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and parcel with the
dynamic of this new group was,
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"Should we fight
or should we not?"
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Yeah.
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And if they are
not going to fight,
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then suddenly,
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they're going to up and
against the conscriptions
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and the laws that are saying,
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"You must fight if
you are conscripted."
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Well, you could buy your
way out of that conscription.
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Yeah, but not
all of us were rich.
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No.
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Yes, not too many of the
early Adventist group were.
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That's correct.
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So then, the idea that,
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"I should be forced to
fight even though my conscience
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does not allow me to
fight," was part and parcel
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with the early
Adventist understanding of,
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"We must maintain
religious liberty."
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Yeah.
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You're right.
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There's a connection between it.
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What's interesting
to me is Ellen White
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who was recognized
from the very beginning,
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having a, you know,
Spiritual role to play
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in the messages that
she gave to that group,
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she said that God's
punishment rested on the South
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for their embrace of slavery.
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So if there was ever a
just war or a moral cause
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for the Civil
War, she'd given it.
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And yet they decided,
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consistent with Bible truth,
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that a Christian really
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shouldn't be part of these wars.
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Yeah.
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And yet past the
muster of a just war.
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Well, to be
fair, she also said...
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On the whole scenario.
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She also said
that God's judgment
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had fallen on the North
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for their toleration
of slavery first of all.
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Well, that's true.
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But there's no question
that, in general comments,
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you know, she saw a
great problem in the South,
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and she and many of
the original pioneers
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were quite sympathetic to
the anti-slavery movements.
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That's correct.
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And some of them were involved
in the Underground Railroad.
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That's correct.
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And Ellen White comes across,
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as did Joseph
Bates and James White
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as far as that ended.
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And the three of
them are often called
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the three founders of
Seventh-day Adventism.
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Together, one of the things
that they strongly agreed on
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was that there
should not be slaves.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And to be fair
to American history,
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a lot of the founding
fathers were of the same view.
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They just didn't have
the moxie to back the system.
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Yeah. Well,
George Washington was...
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Well, no. He's
not one of the ones.
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Well, he's a
case in point though
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in that he freed his
slaves at the death of his wife.
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Which almost sounds like
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he didn't like
his wife too much.
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I wouldn't have
wanted to be a slave earner
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who slaves knew that
depended upon the death
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of the owner for their freedom.
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I mean, she's needed
food taster, I would think.
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Yeah.
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No, but George, I
don't think George Washington
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is as easily exonerated
as some of the others.
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No.
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In fact, he even went as far
as when he was up in the North,
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he would rotate his
slaves back on regular intervals
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to keep them in the servitude.
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Because if they
stayed too long in the North,
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what was it,
Philadelphia or whatever,
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they could
technically be allowed to free.
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And so he...
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I've read his biography
in great little depth on it.
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And on excuses that
need to be sent home
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to visit their
relative or whatever.
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And then one escaped, a woman,
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and he had
authorities chase her down.
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But in the end,
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she was
supported by the community,
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and he couldn't extract her.
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So he was not just ambivalent,
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he was rather actively engaged
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in keeping his
slave system going.
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But Jefferson and
others, I think, had...
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In fact, Jefferson said
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it was going to cause
trouble sooner or later.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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But indeed, it
did cause trouble.
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And when it did cause trouble,
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many of the early Adventists
were blatantly anti slavery.
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And therefore,
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the Civil War had the
smackings of a just war
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and yet they argued
that they should not kill.
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It proves to me,
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it was a more reasoned response.
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That's really my point.
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Yeah.
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They had personal
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and even
immediately moral reasons
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for getting involved in it
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because there was a
great wrong at work,
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but they saw
evidence from the Bible
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and they were not to
enter into these civil feuds
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and violence
against other human beings.
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And the conscription of soldiers
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from the
communities of the North
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were the law
that they were bucking
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when they started to articulate,
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clearly, a religious freedom.
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Yes.
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And then the other thing
that was a clear reality.
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I think when they were
only about 25,000 Adventists,
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as many as 900 to 1000
of them was severely fined
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and some
imprisoned over the blue laws.
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Yeah.
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So they saw the consequence
of being a little different.
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And, of course, the blue
laws were having to do with laws
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enforcing Sunday keeping
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and the absence
of working on Sunday
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was what the
Adventist would get in trouble.
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Well, they'd get in trouble
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for plowing
their fields on Sunday.
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Yeah, it's correct.
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Not going working somewhere else
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and not even working for
money, just keeping your fields.
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Yeah.
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It was an interesting era.
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But though it is at the point
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where they were
getting in trouble
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for breaking laws of the land
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that they turned their attention
00:11:02.16\00:11:03.86
to the need for
religious liberty.
00:11:03.89\00:11:06.19
Yeah.
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And how did that
first get articulated?
00:11:07.60\00:11:10.23
Religious liberty?
00:11:10.27\00:11:11.60
Within the Adventist community.
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Well, this was the point
that I was going to make.
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You know, the record is
hard to find in great detail,
00:11:16.74\00:11:21.34
but it's very plain that
religious within Adventism
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came to the fore
with the editorship
00:11:25.38\00:11:27.12
of AT Jones, Alonzo T Jones
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who ironically or
interestingly had joined
00:11:30.49\00:11:34.49
the Adventist church
as left the military.
00:11:34.52\00:11:37.46
He was an ex-soldier.
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Yeah, yes.
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And I'm great on parallelism.
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It's interesting
that Ignatius Loyola
00:11:42.80\00:11:45.17
of the radical catholic
reform, foot soldier movement.
00:11:45.20\00:11:51.64
He came from the military.
00:11:51.67\00:11:53.21
And with an Adventism,
it took a military man.
00:11:53.24\00:11:55.24
Although he was not an Adventist
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when he's in the military,
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but I think he brought
the military sensibility.
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He was, "Go, go, go,"
and one battle after another.
00:11:59.85\00:12:04.02
But from all that I read,
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his emphasis on
religious liberty
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came not directly
from the persecutions
00:12:08.56\00:12:10.99
they were undergoing.
00:12:11.03\00:12:12.36
They spoke a bit
about laws and all the rest,
00:12:12.39\00:12:14.63
but it was end-time oriented.
00:12:14.66\00:12:16.97
They believe that going into,
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you know, the final
events that they thought were,
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you know, months
and most years away
00:12:22.07\00:12:26.21
that they would be
forced by persecuting powers
00:12:26.24\00:12:29.01
to give up their faith.
00:12:29.04\00:12:30.38
So it was an end-time direct,
00:12:30.41\00:12:33.72
you know, like a Diocletian type
00:12:33.75\00:12:35.58
persecution they expected.
00:12:35.62\00:12:36.99
And so they were proclaiming
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the principle in
an end-time concept,
00:12:38.89\00:12:42.06
prophetic, it can't
be separated from it.
00:12:42.09\00:12:43.59
That's correct.
00:12:43.63\00:12:44.96
So it's reading the
scripture that brought them...
00:12:44.99\00:12:47.73
Right.
00:12:47.76\00:12:49.10
In the AT Jones era,
00:12:49.13\00:12:50.47
it was reading the
scripture that brought them
00:12:50.50\00:12:51.83
to the understanding
00:12:51.87\00:12:53.20
that we must
provide religious freedom
00:12:53.23\00:12:54.94
because it's
going to be taken away.
00:12:54.97\00:12:56.30
And then of course, in 1888,
00:12:56.34\00:12:58.44
they believed
with a major proposal
00:12:58.47\00:13:03.68
for Sunday bill, the Blair bill,
00:13:03.71\00:13:06.82
Senator Blair had brought
00:13:06.85\00:13:08.18
in a piece of Sunday legislation
00:13:08.22\00:13:10.65
that went
beyond normal blue laws
00:13:10.69\00:13:12.85
that would have mandated
00:13:12.89\00:13:15.49
no work of any kind
in the whole country
00:13:15.52\00:13:18.43
and with the
recommendation of hers
00:13:18.46\00:13:20.26
but probably enforcement later
that you had to go to church.
00:13:20.30\00:13:23.57
So it was an overtly
religious Sunday law.
00:13:23.60\00:13:26.43
And they saw
this as the final law
00:13:26.47\00:13:27.97
that was
predicted in Revelation.
00:13:28.00\00:13:32.24
And AT Jones
trumpeted this big time,
00:13:32.27\00:13:35.88
and of course, some
Adventists remember,
00:13:35.91\00:13:38.68
he then called for revival
00:13:38.71\00:13:40.92
so that they could
be spiritually prepared
00:13:40.95\00:13:42.65
for the final push.
00:13:42.68\00:13:44.29
And so religious
liberty for Adventists
00:13:44.32\00:13:45.99
was all about prophecy.
00:13:46.02\00:13:49.49
It always included using the law
00:13:49.52\00:13:52.09
to defend your
situation in the workplace.
00:13:52.13\00:13:54.20
And today, many people think
that that's our main emphasis,
00:13:54.23\00:13:58.43
but it never was
and should never be.
00:13:58.47\00:14:00.74
We're looking at
the larger picture of,
00:14:00.77\00:14:05.07
really, where we are in
time and what's at stake
00:14:05.11\00:14:08.58
that this is cosmic
battle between good and evil
00:14:08.61\00:14:11.55
and between freedom and
those who would restrict
00:14:11.58\00:14:14.62
your right before God.
00:14:14.65\00:14:16.69
But it's not just
restrict your right.
00:14:16.72\00:14:18.52
Anyone's right.
00:14:18.55\00:14:19.89
It's restricting anyone's right.
00:14:19.92\00:14:21.26
Oh. And thank you for reminding.
00:14:21.29\00:14:22.62
You know, we say it constantly,
00:14:22.66\00:14:24.09
and it's worth
repeating on this program
00:14:24.13\00:14:25.96
as often as we can.
00:14:25.99\00:14:27.86
For us, as we read the Bible,
00:14:27.90\00:14:29.60
and with the
Adventist history in mind,
00:14:29.63\00:14:32.23
when we promote
religious liberty,
00:14:32.27\00:14:33.94
of course, it's for us.
00:14:33.97\00:14:35.44
But it's for
everybody at the same time,
00:14:35.47\00:14:37.74
and it's for your
right to be wrong.
00:14:37.77\00:14:40.58
We would hope you
would get it straight.
00:14:40.61\00:14:43.31
But if you get it wrong
and are convicted on it, fine.
00:14:43.35\00:14:47.18
You have as much right to
believe that as anyone else.
00:14:47.22\00:14:50.02
You know, God gave Adam and Eve
00:14:50.05\00:14:52.25
the ability to
make a wrong choice.
00:14:52.29\00:14:54.82
There were consequences.
00:14:54.86\00:14:57.26
There will always be
natural consequences,
00:14:57.29\00:14:59.03
but we're not called
upon to punish people
00:14:59.06\00:15:02.13
as the consequence
of their bad choice.
00:15:02.16\00:15:04.50
They have to live
before God on that.
00:15:04.53\00:15:07.20
And at root, what our
view of religious liberty
00:15:07.24\00:15:09.80
that came from the reformation
00:15:09.84\00:15:11.94
and, of course,
way back to Eden,
00:15:11.97\00:15:14.31
is that we recognize
we're all creatures of a God
00:15:14.34\00:15:16.95
who gave us free choice
00:15:16.98\00:15:18.91
and we exercise that before God,
00:15:18.95\00:15:22.02
nobody else has a
right to interfere in that,
00:15:22.05\00:15:25.25
not governments,
not churches, nobody.
00:15:25.29\00:15:28.89
But historically then,
even though Adventists,
00:15:28.92\00:15:31.83
like many other groups
00:15:31.86\00:15:33.70
address their first
concerns about religious liberty
00:15:33.73\00:15:37.27
with their own
restriction of it.
00:15:37.30\00:15:39.33
And they're feeling that
they are being restricted.
00:15:39.37\00:15:40.70
Yeah, there's no question
that it was personalized
00:15:40.74\00:15:42.30
by the group, yeah.
00:15:42.34\00:15:43.67
But the core of the teaching
00:15:43.71\00:15:46.37
comes from interpreting
prophecy from scripture
00:15:46.41\00:15:49.78
and understanding the
cosmic dynamics of this
00:15:49.81\00:15:53.25
and it is a good versus evil,
00:15:53.28\00:15:55.85
therefore, it must be for all
00:15:55.88\00:15:58.12
or it isn't for any
becomes the concentration
00:15:58.15\00:16:01.59
of the
Adventists and understanding
00:16:01.62\00:16:03.06
that they must provide
religious freedom for others.
00:16:03.09\00:16:05.49
Absolutely.
00:16:05.53\00:16:06.86
Let's take a break
before we come back
00:16:06.90\00:16:08.33
and continue this
discussion of religious liberty
00:16:08.36\00:16:11.10
from an Adventist perspective,
00:16:11.13\00:16:12.73
its own beginnings,
00:16:12.77\00:16:14.10
and how it's to be
seen in the larger sense
00:16:14.14\00:16:16.71
for all men and
women and all peoples.
00:16:16.74\00:16:19.87
Stay with us.
00:16:19.91\00:16:21.24