Religious Liberty Message for 2003

ADVENTISTS  MAKING  A  DIFFERENCE

     By  Douglas  Morgan

    As  J. S. Washburn  surveyed  the  United  States  Capitol  dome,  its magnificence evoked, as it must for any thoughtful observer, reflection on the noble ideals the structure represents. Washburn’s musings, though, took him beyond merely patriotic admiration.

    The Seventh-day Adventist church, energized by the prophetic guidance of Ellen White, was in the midst of a bold transition:  relocating its headquarters from Battle Creek, Michigan, to the vicinity of the nations’ capital. Washburn’s vantage point on that late winter day in 1904 was the “Washington House” at 222 North Capital Street, which then housed the Review and Herald Publishing Association.  The Capitol, symbolizing human history’s highest attainment of political liberty, stood only a “stone’s throw” away from the headquarters of a movement commissioned to proclaim the “eternal liberty” of God’s kingdom.

   Yet Washburn’s view also took in the sobering presence of the International Reform Bureau headquarters, headed by Reverend W. F. Crafts, across from the Capital and Library of Congress grounds.  The “reform” foremost on the organization’s agenda was a constitutional amendment declaring the United States officially a “Christian nation.”  By putting government coercion on the side of religion, such a measure would compromise the religious freedom promised by the First Amendment, providing a constitutional basis for laws enforcing tenets deemed “Christian” by the majority – tenets such as Sunday rest. While people of other persuasions and backgrounds might be tolerated, they would not be as equal as the Anglo-Protestant majority. No wonder Washburn declared that Craft’s bureau was out to “destroy American liberty” (J. S. Washburn, “A Glorious Opportunity,” Review and Herald, March 10, 1904).

   Adventist early positioned themselves to make a difference on behalf of the liberties that constitute the core of the American republic.  But they do so – and this cannot be missed – in the name of a higher liberty. And that commitment thrusts them into the public arena, contending with those who, by merging their version of Christianity with American national identity, promote a very different vision of what both the nation and the Christian faith are about.

   Adventists make a difference for liberty precisely because they do not wrap their faith in the flag. Engaged in the struggle for human rights shared equally in a pluralistic nation – peopled with astonishing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity – they have taken care not to ensnare the church in partisan politics. Involved in the political arena to serve human need, they avoid entanglement in drives to dominate the culture.

   Let’s look at some examples, taken mainly from the 25 or so years preceding the move to Washington, DC, of how Adventist involvement in the political, legislative, and judicial spheres made a difference. Adventists in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s made a difference by helping the nation clarify its concept of liberty as something beyond the dominant group (white Protestants) merely tolerating everyone else. The nation gradually came to the greater realization that true freedom means laws acknowledging the equal rights of every citizen based on their intrinsic worth as human beings. The Adventist witness in this period also makes a difference by illuminating the repressive potential of unguarded patriotic enthusiasm, particularly when blurred with religious fervor.

   In the decades following the gold rush of 1849, the bustling new state of California became an arena for contesting the shape of American Liberty. Protestant leaders from the East strove mightily to implement their “Christian nation” model of America in the Golden State. The state legislature passed a law in 1859 forbidding businesses to be open on Sundays. A Home Protection Society was formed to promote legal reinforcement for traditional “family values” in a society that boomed with vice as well as commerce.

   California, however, was rapidly becoming home to an exceptionally diverse spectrum of peoples with whom legislation of a one-version Christianity did not sit well. In addition to the Native Americas and Californios already living there, Chinese and Mexican immigrants, Jews, Mormons, and other varieties of humanity poured into the state. Would any Protestant establishment gain a legal dominance in the State? Or would California be a genuinely open and diverse society, with each person enjoying on an equal footing the rights affirmed in the U.S. Constitution?

   When Adventists added their presence to the mix in the 1870’s, their forthright public witness for the seventh-day Sabbath and opposition to the Sunday law stirred the traditional Protestant leadership to zealous reaction. Feeling increasingly besieged from all sides, they pressured the state government to rigorous enforcement of the Sunday law. In the ensuing crackdown during the spring of 1882, some 1,600 Sunday law violators were arrested, most of them Jewish, Chinese, or Adventist. The Pacific Press Publishing Association in Oakland was forced to close, and Adventist leaders Joseph H. Waggoner and Willie C. White (Ellen’s son) were among those prosecuted. Fortunately, few if any of those arrested were sentenced to prison, because juries throughout the state simply refused to convict otherwise upright citizens charged only with violating the Sunday law.

   The crackdown, however, made the Sunday law a heated issue in the election of 1882. Adventists could easily have stayed on the sidelines of this bitterly-fought electoral contest. After all, many in the early years of the movement had abstained from voting, not wishing to use their influence to support the corruption of either political party. And, after all, wouldn’t the Lord be returning soon to make everything right?

   Or, they could have concluded that since it was their Christian duty to be good citizens, they should vote to support the party they generally preferred. In their case that was, overwhelmingly, the Republican Party, mainly because it had been the anti-slavery party in the recent Civil War and the party that – at least in its radical wing – sought to secure equal rights for the newly freed slaves after the war.  They could have reasoned that even if the Republican platform was wrong on the Sunday law issue, it was better in the long haul to remain loyal to their party. After all, the Republican Party then was seen as generally favoring the interests of people most like themselves – white, middle-class practitioners of respectable Christian morality.

   Instead, they chose a different course. Under the leadership of Joseph Waggoner, they went to the conventions of both parties, urging both to take a stand against the Sunday law.  The Democrats then indeed went on to place a demand for repeal of the Sunday law in their party platform. The Republican convention, however, refused to incorporate in its plank an “exemption clause” for observers of a different day, supporting instead a rigorous Sunday law.

   Adventists also mounted a challenge to Sunday laws in states where they were most oppressively implemented. When five Adventists were arrested in Arkansas in 1885 for working on Sundays, they courageously followed the recommendation of General Conference president George Butler to go to jail rather than pay their sentenced fines. “We know of no sermon so eloquent as suffering for the truth’s sake,”  he declared, urging that such a dramatic public witness would stir up a public outcry, causing their persecution to boomerang against their opponents. The strategy paid off in early 1887 when the Arkansas legislature restored an exemption to the Sunday law for seventh-day observers (George Butler, “The Sunday Crisis Approaching”  Review and Herald, July 6, 1886). Click here for entire article

    The national Religious Liberty Association, which Adventists formed in 1889 to organize their activism more effectively, sponsored a direct judicial test of the Tennessee law under which Rufus King, a recent convert to Adventism, was arrested for Sunday labor. The State Supreme Court and the U.S. Circuit Court both upheld King’s conviction on appeal. While King passed away before the intention of carrying the case to the US Supreme Court could be implemented, the case received considerable coverage, mostly favorable to King, in leading newspapers, throughout the nation. The New York World, for example, editorialized that Tennessee should “re-arrange its laws in conformity with the principle of individual liberty which lies at the foundation of American institutions” (cites in M. S. Olsen, Origin and Progress of Seventh-day Adventists, page 469).

   In all, between 1878 and 1896 approximately 100 Adventists went to jail for violating Sunday laws, several of them sentenced to hard labor in chain gangs. By taking a stand for their faith to the point of imprisonment and even chain-gang labor with hardened criminals, and by pressing the injustice of their treatment in court, Adventists made a difference in raising the consciousness of the nation about the all-too-frequent discrepancies between the national ideals of liberty and actual practice.

   Capital Hill also became a focal point for Adventist activism in 1888 and 1889 as they responded to two bills introduced in the Senate by Senator H. W. Blair of New Hampshire. The first bill called for promotion of Sunday, referred to as “the Lord’s day,” as a national day of rest. The second  proposed a constitutional amendment requiring the nation’s public schools to teach “the principles of the Christian religion.”  A broad coalition formed in favor of the Sunday rest measure: Adventists went to work gathering petitions in opposition. They amassed 250,000 signatures (about 10 times total church membership), which they sent in two stacks – one for the House and one for the Senate – each three feet high and bound with red, white and blue fastenings.

   Alonzo T. Jones, Editor of the American Sentinel (predecessor to Liberty Magazine, led an Adventist delegation to testify before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in December, 1888.  Click here for transcript   In these hearings, Jones took issue with an ally on most matters, the learned Dr. A. H. Lewis, who represented the Seventh Day Baptists.  Dr. Lewis proposed that an exception for Saturday observers added to Blair's legislation would resolve the problem.  In previous struggles, Adventists, too, had been willing to settle for an exemption clause as better than nothing.  Jones, however, adamantly opposed such a solution.  Exemptions, he insisted, reflected mere toleration - a concession from the state that could be revoked at the government's whim (as had just happened in Arkansas).  Laws in the United States, he argued, must meet the much higher standard of liberty as a God-given right for each individual, recognized but not conferred by the Constitution.  "The vocabulary of American ideas knows no such word as 'toleration'" he declared to the Senate Committee.  "It asserts rights." See transcript for full context.

   Jones’s eloquence and dedication received notice both in the press and from opponents. Adventists thus made a difference not only helping the defeat the proposed national Sunday law, but also broadening public understanding of the true basis of constitutional liberty. The advocates of Sunday laws and “Christian nation” amendments acted for the most part from laudable motives, with no conscious intent to persecute. However, the limitations and dangers of the conception of liberty upon which such well-intentioned measures were based needed to be exposed, and Adventists accomplished that through vigorous action in the electoral, judicial, and legislative realms.  Through such action they advanced the cause of liberty – not only helping to defeat threatening measures but also by broadening public understanding of liberty as a sacred right, not, a favor of toleration granted by the powers that be when they are in a good mood.

   Such an understanding also led thoughtful Adventists to grasp that religious liberty is indivisible with the full range of liberties for all oppressed peoples. When the National Religious Liberty Association organized in 1889, it pledged “to aid persecuted people of any race, color, or creed” (General Conference Daily Bulletin, October 1889). The American Sentinel magazine declared its mission to encompass “the maintenance of human rights, both civil and religious” (January 1889).

In keeping with this realization, A. T. Jones spoke out with equal vigor on Senator Blair’s second bill – one dealing with religion in the public schools. Blair’s proposal for a constitutional amendment requiring the nation’s public schools to teach “the principles of the Christian religion” posed no direct problem for Seventh-day Adventists. At that time Bible reading, prayer, and moral teaching – all loosely Protestant in nature – were already part of the program at most public schools. Besides, Adventists were beginning to develop their own school system.

   Nevertheless, Jones returned to Washington in February 1889 for congressional hearings on the proposed amendment. In his testimony, which clashed with that of several clergy representing the Protestant establishment, Jones pointed out that the amendment would “turn public schools into seminaries for the dissemination of Protestant ideas, and thus violate the equal rights of Catholics, Jews and infidels” (A.T. Jones, “Religion and the Public Schools,”  Sentinel Library 17, 1889).  Our forebears recognized that taking a stand for freedom meant defending the rights of people very different from ourselves.

   Right from the beginning of the movement, Adventists recognized that religious and civil liberties are bound together. John N. Andrews made the link vivid in demonstrating the gap between the promise of American freedom and the nation’s actual performance in the 1850’s. Andrews cited both departures from the Protestant principle of liberty in matters of conscience and that enormous betrayal of republican liberty by which 3 million human beings were “reduced to the rank of chattels personal, and bought and sold like brute beasts” (“Thoughts on Revelation XIII and XIV”  Review and Herald, May 19, 1851).

   As a tiny movement struggling to get off the ground, the Adventists of the 1850s and 1860s lacked resources and time for direct political activism.  Nonetheless, they raised their voices unsparingly against the sins of the  “slaveocracy” (as they now sometimes called the government), and were emphatic that resistance to slavery was an essential principle of Christian faith that must be held by those preparing for the return of Christ.  As Andrews put it in 1864, no one could expect that the “ingenious device” of calling slavery a matter of “politics” and therefore outside the scope of Christian responsibility would pass muster on judgment day (“Slavery, Review and Herald, October 25, 1864).

    Ellen White was foremost among Adventist leaders in applying the “indivisibility” principle to the circumstances faced by African-Americans. In the mid-1890s, when, after some brief glimmers of hope during the Reconstruction period, racial repression was rapidly hardening into systematic, entrenched, and legal form, Mrs. White urged Adventists to defy the prevailing currents with a multifaceted mission for black freedom. At the very time much of the white South was becoming increasingly intentional about restricting black employment to sharecropping or some other form of perpetual debt peonage, she insisted that the cotton field not be “the only source for a livelihood to the colored people.”  She called for a cadre of farmers, financiers, builders, and craftsmen to join ministers and teachers in liberating Southern blacks from the shackles constricting their economic and educational opportunities, as well as their liberty to follow their own conscience in religious matters.

   Mrs. White clearly saw a strong connection between religious freedom and freedom in the economic and societal dimensions of life.  For in the same article in which she deplored the oppression keeping blacks impoverished and undereducated, she protested the enactment of laws “that bind the consciences of those whom God has made free,” and the fact that blacks were “taught that they must not think or judge for themselves.”  Because of such attitudes, she observed, Southern blacks had been “slow to learn what is their right in religious liberty.”  Nevertheless, “many will learn aright from Jesus Christ, and will maintain their God-given freedom at any cost” (see the articles “Spirit and Life for the Colored People.” And “Lift Up Your Eyes and Look on the Field” in Review and Herald, January 14 and 28, 1896;  reprinted in The Southern Work, pp. 51-53, 58-62).

   The church never rose as fully to this challenge, as Mrs. White had hoped, but many of both races, including her son Edson, did undertake courageous ventures, risking the violent reaction of white supremacists in order to make a difference for liberty in all its dimensions. By 1909 results could be seen in the 55 primary schools with 1,800 pupils in 10 Southern states, medical facilities in Atlanta and Nashville, and the establishment of Oakwood Industrial School (see Richard Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf, Light Bearers, page 234).

   Sadly, American Adventists throughout much of the twentieth century failed miserably to keep the link between religious and racial liberty. But the legacy of the founders reminds us that any true commitment to liberty must be grounded in recognition of what Ellen White called the great “web of humanity” and the consequent truth that the “evil that befalls any part of the great human brotherhood brings peril to all” (The Ministry of Healing, page 345).

    And Adventists have made a difference for liberty through the great proclamation that citizenship in God’s eternal kingdom makes loyalties to any earthly powers secondary at best.  Witness to this truth, borne with power, keeps the idolatrous and repressive potential of religious nationalism ever in view. The fundamental problem underlying the endeavors of evangelical activists to insert Christianity into the Constitution and make Sunday observance a matter of law was that it constituted an effort to “nationalize Christianity,” as J. H. Waggoner put it in 1890 (From Eden to Eden, pp 174, 175).  As appealing as the idea of a nation dedicated to Christian principles might sound, a moment’s reflection makes obvious the ominous implications for non-Christians – Jewish people for starters – and anyone else who doesn’t share a state-sanctioned definition of Christianity.

   Beyond that, Adventist voices around the turn of the previous century eloquently pressed the truth that homogenizing the military security and international “interests” of America, or any other nation, with Christianity makes for toxic spiritual milk.  The temptation to wrap the cross in the flag become particularly acute during wartime. Historian Sydney Ahlstrom points out that,  during the period of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Filipino-American conflict, “patriotism, imperialism, and the religion of American Protestantism”  stood in more “fervent coalescence than ever before” (A Religious History of the American People, pp 879, 880).

   Dr. Frank Bristol, pastor of the Metropolitan Methodist Church in Washington, President William McKinley’s place of worship, gave voice to this spiritually dangerous coalescence:  “Were the guns of Dewey and Sampson less providential than the ram’s horns of Joshua, the lamps and pitchers of Gideon, or the rod of Moses? Were Manila and Santiago less providential in the history of freedom that Jericho and Ai?  Is Christian civilization less providential than was Jewish barbarism?

   Responding unambiguously to his own rhetorical questions, Rev. Bristol went on to declare, “If God ever had a peculiar people, He has them now” – namely, the American soldiers at Santiago, who “represent a manhood that has climbed century by century up the steps of light and liberty, and now stands in sight of the glorified summits of the universal freedom and brotherhood of men.” (Robert Lindner and Richard Pierard, Biblical Christianity and Civil Religion in America, pp. 147, 148).

   While the majority of churches joined a consensus that converted the war into a crusade for Christian civilization, Adventists spoke out against the “spirit of militarism” being fostered “right within the bosom of the church” (“The Gospel of War” Review and Herald, May 31, 1898).  Preaching at the Battle Creek Tabernacle, General Conference President George Irwin declared, “We have no business whatever to become aroused and stirred by the spirit [of war] that is abroad in the land.”  He cited several passages from the Sermon on the Mount, affirming that these scriptures “show what I believe is the position of the Christian in this conflict, and what are the teachings of our Lord and Master in regard to war and the spirit that comes with war” (“The Present Crisis” supplement to the Review and Herald, May 3, 1898).

   Adventist publications during this period repeatedly stressed that the intertwining of nationalistic fervor with Christianity produces a false loyalty. The Christian’s citizenship is in heaven, they reiterated, and thus “Christian patriotism” could only mean loyalty to the heavenly kingdom, not any earthly nation.  The depth, genuineness, and consistency with which we make a difference for liberty in a changing world depend on our continued recognition, that our action flows from a distinct identity – kingdom citizenship – from which we take marching orders for the cause of “eternal liberty.”  On the basis of that higher loyalty, we seek to hold the nations of this earth to their promises about liberty and human rights, as part of our higher agenda for widening the circle of that “colony of heaven” we represent.

   But why, really, should Adventists care so much about liberty?  Why devote significant time, energy, and funds to it when priorities such as evangelism and Christian education are so great?

   Valid, important reasons abound. We have the right and duty to take full advantage of the freedoms we enjoy to remove the obstacles to the unfettered practice of our beliefs; be such obstacles in the workplace, education, or government.  When we provide the generous support needed for publications, attorneys, and legislative advocacy to advance that goal, we both uphold our own liberty as well as expand the liberty of all who adhere to minority beliefs and practices.  By the same token, by using those same resources to defend the rights of others whose ways of life and beliefs might differ from and even be offensive to our, we strengthen out own freedom.

   Additionally, the greater the religious freedom the greater the opportunity for the mission of the church is all its facets – evangelism, education, health care, relief, and development – to accomplish as much good as possible while there is time.

   Even more basic: we should act for liberty simply because we care about our neighbors and our nation and want to make it a better place. This can be a winsome witness to our faith and promote good public relations.

   All these reasons and others are important, at times urgent. None, however, is the central, primary reason Adventists try to make a difference for liberty. Adventists advance the cause of liberty, first and foremost, simply as a consequence of being a church commissioned to be a prophetic minority, preparing the way for the Lord’s return. Liberty is at the core of our identity, beliefs, and mission.

   The salvation story we believe and live by is a story of liberty from start to finish. God saw His people enslaved in Egypt and sent Moses to be the instrument of their liberation. Then God put the theme of Sabbath and jubilee liberty at the heart of the law.  The weekly Sabbath would remind them of the One who created them and set them free and prompt them to treat others with the same liberating justice and mercy.

   The prophet Isaiah proclaimed a word of hope (Isaiah 61: 1-3), and Jesus the Messiah declared it a present reality: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has send me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4: 18, 19 NRSV)

   The good news that Paul proclaimed throughout the Greco-Roman world was a message of freedom: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3: 17, NRSV).  Even “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage of decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8: 21, NRSV).

   And then, at the culmination of the story, John the revelator depicts “Babylon,” which has trafficked in “slaves – and human lives” (Revelation 18: 13, NRSV), linking up with an axis of evil consisting of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to keep humanity in subservience. But God’s countermove comes in the form of three angel’s messages, which invite individuals from “every nation and tribe and language and people” (Revelation 14: 6, NRSV) into a new humanity; released from the chains of oppression, bigotry, greed, malice, abuse, and all else that would inhibit perfect freedom.

   That’s the story that shapes us, and that’s the main reason Adventists make a difference for liberty.

Why Now?

   The third of those three angel’s messages warns us of the coming conflict. Opposition will be fierce at times, subtle at others – and the issue often deceptively manipulated by evil powers.  We don’t know exactly how or when that opposition will coalesce for a final attack.  But prophetic Scripture clues us in on trends to watch for, so that we can be in a stance of readiness.

    The trend toward putting the power of government on the side of religion – specifically a particular interpretation of conservative Christianity – has waxed and waned throughout the past 150 years. But despite slight dips and changes in the cast of characters, it has been on the upsurge for 25 years now, with no signs of abating.  Even the National Reform Association has regrouped, openly declaring theocracy in America as its ultimate goal. While it is a somewhat marginal group, the fact that it has gained a hearing from leading members of Congress and figures in the executive branch of the federal government is telling.

   The  penchant for some to turn America’s conflict with Islamic extremists into a crusade between Christian civilization and world Islam carries ominous potential for the horrors that can result when the sword (or the bomb, the B-52, the cruise missile) is put in the service of a cause of institution even loosely identified with Christianity. The potential for suppression of liberty in the name of national security has rarely been greater.

    Exactly where these developments will lead we do not know. But they more than suffice to indicate that the cause of liberty – always a vital dimension of the public witness of Seventh-day Adventists – presses us with as great an urgency as it ever has.  Support for Liberty Magazine is a tangible, specific, and effective way in which you can put your faith in action in support of that great cause.

   Let us prayerfully seek the Lord’s guidance as to how we might use this and other means to shine the light of liberty in a world still darkened by oppression in so many forms. As Christ’s followers we are called to meet need with involvement, challenge with engagement, and conflict with commitment; keeping our focus continually on Him as our guide.

   Let’s join our forebears in making a difference for freedom in changing the world. Let’s live the saving story of liberty.

   Support the work of Religious Liberty with a tax deductible donation, contact digging4truth@rcn.com  for instructions on how to make your contribution.

About the author:

Douglas Morgan  is professor of History and Political Studies at Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, Maryland. He is the author of Adventism and the American Republic: the public Involvement of a Major Apocalyptic Movement, University of Tennessee Press, 2001

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