Christian Nation Notions

A man whom I greatly respected, a wealthy entrepreneur, had just entered politics because he wanted to bring Christian principles into the public square.

“Be warned, brother,” I said. “You will be forced to compromise those principles. I guarantee it.”

This point was, for me, a no-brainer. From 1984 to 1999 I had been involved in religious liberty work, including about seven years as editor of Liberty. This was the heyday of the Religious Right in America, when millions of Christians, riding on the coattails of former president Ronald Reagan, decided that Christians needed to bring godly values back to America. This, however, compromises everyone and—no matter how well-meaning—these Christians played just as nasty and just as dirty as did their political foes, and they did so in the name of “Jesus.” And though not succeeding, the Religious Right set the foundation for what is happening now in the United States.

And what is happening now, with Christian nationalism, is the Religious Right on steroids. Drag queens reading to kindergartners; trans men destroying women’s sports; states allowing kids to transition from one gender to another . . . ? None of this was imaginable back then. The United States has gone surreally sick in many areas—and so it is no wonder that millions of Christians believe something must be done, and what better way than to take over the political system?

In the last days a spiritually impotent and corrupt church in America will make an image to the beast.

Yet it never works. In The Great Controversy Ellen White wrote about how when the early church “lost the spirit and power of God,”[*] it resorted to the arm of the state to enforce its teaching, resulting in the Papacy—the beast of Revelation 13 and 14. In the last days a spiritually impotent and corrupt church in America will make an image to the beast; that is, it will use the power of the state to enforce its teaching, as did the first beast. If this isn’t Christian nationalism, what is?

Of course, every few years the left-wing Adventist blogosphere posts another clownish piece stating that our eschatology has failed; that Ellen White wrote for her time, not ours; that we need to rethink our end-time scenario; or that Rome has changed . . . blah, blah, blah. What these show is gross ignorance of how scripturally grounded our prophetic message is.

On the other hand, many Adventists, concerned about the moral decline in their countries and governments, must be careful not to get caught up in the mentality driving Christian nationalism. However valid the concerns, we are Seventh-day Adventists, and we proclaim the three angels’ messages, and central to that message is the role of the United States in enforcing the mark of the beast—not just in the United States, but around the world, too: “telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast” (Rev. 13:14). And though we don’t know when it will all happen, right now who but Christian nationalists are likely to bring it about?

And, please, with one side in America’s culture war having 200 million guns, and the other not knowing which bathroom to use—we don’t need a prophet to know who is going to prevail.

When, after a year or two, I asked my friend who entered politics if he was pressured to compromise the Christian values that he had hoped to bring into the public square, he answered: “From the first day onward.”

Precisely.

[*] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 443.