Here’s a magazine—published by people who believe in Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and the talking snake in Eden—that has taken a stand against Bible readings in public schools. Here’s a magazine published by one of the few church bodies left who believe in a literal six-(24-hour) day creation, yet the magazine remains ambivalent about, if not opposed to, the teaching of creationism in public schools. Liberty is financially supported by people who take the Ten Commandments so seriously that some have been killed or imprisoned or fired from their jobs because of their refusal to violate those commandments, yet they have stated in Liberty opposition to posting the Ten Commandments on public property. Liberty is published by strong believers in the power of prayer, yet Liberty opposes legislated prayer in public school. Liberty, though published by a theologically conservative church, stands for “separation of church and state,” in sometimes sharp contradiction to the stance taken by many conservative Christians in the United States today.
Why does Liberty sometimes stand with people who—with the exception of a few narrow church-state issues—are opposed to almost all that Liberty’s publishers believe in, while just as often Liberty fights those who in almost every area except certain church-state issues would be in harmony with many of the core values of the publishers?
The answer is simple. Liberty is published by Seventh-day Adventists—and only by understanding who Adventists are, where they have come from, and what they believe can one begin to understand the riddle of Liberty.
Chain Gangs
As the name Seventh-day Adventist suggests, Seventh-day Adventists not only keep the seventh-day Sabbath, they do it unabashedly. It’s so much a part of their identity that it’s in their name itself. It also helps explain their strong commitment to religious liberty (hence Liberty magazine).
The Adventist Church was born in mid-nineteenth-century America, at a time when many states had strictly enforced Sunday-closing laws. As a small religious group (fewer than 16,000 members by 1880; now nearly 11 million worldwide, 1 million of them in North America) with negligible political clout, Adventists found themselves at the mercy of a system that often showed little sympathy to those who, in contrast to most of the Christian world, kept “the old Jewish Sabbath.” The problem Adventists faced wasn’t direct official persecution for keeping another day holy (this was America, after all); instead, problems arose because many felt compelled to work on Sunday, often in defiance of state laws. Because their religion commanded that they keep the seventh day holy, which meant (among other things) refraining from work (see Exodus 20:8-11), many Adventists faced severe economic pressure. Whether farmers or small business owners, these people often couldn’t afford to be closed two days a week, on the one day demanded by their God and on the other demanded by their government. For most of these Sabbath keepers the words of Peter were definitive: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).* The result of following God instead of human beings was for many jail, fines, confiscation of property, even chain gangs. Hard as it might be for us today to imagine people imprisoned on chain gangs because of Sunday-law violation, that’s what some Seventh-day Adventists faced.
“Four Seventh-day Adventists,” writes Warren L. Johns of one incident, “were tried on May 27, 1892, at Paris, Tennessee, on charges ranging from chopping wood and hauling firewood to plowing a strawberry field. After being fined $25 apiece, three of the defendants were marched through the street of Paris in the chain gang and forced to perform street labor.”
Adventists, particularly in the Southern states, faced legal wrath for, even if indirectly, following their religious convictions (again, trouble came not so much because of keeping the seventh day holy, but for working on Sunday). Samuel Mitchell of Brooks Country, Georgia, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for plowing his field on Sunday (he served the sentence rather than pay the fine). In Arkansas, J. W. Scoles was arrested for painting the back of a church on Sunday; William Gentry was arrested for plowing his field. American State Papers depicted the account of one Adventist family that fell afoul of Sunday laws: “But they were observed [working on Sunday], and reported to the grand jury—indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, fined; and having no money to pay the fine, these moral Christian citizens were dragged to the county jail and imprisoned like felons for twenty-five days . . . and the old man’s horse, his sole reliance to make bread for his children; was levied on to pay the fine and costs, amounting to thirty-eight dollars.”
Thus Seventh-day Adventists have, from their earliest days, been sensitive to religious liberty issues. And that sensitivity continues today. Though Sunday laws themselves have, at least for now, gone the way of segregated toilets (despite some U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s that upheld the constitutionality of such measures as Sunday “blue” laws), the Adventist commitment to the principles of religious liberty has not diminished. As one of the most obvious expressions of the Adventist faith —the biblical injunction to keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy—has decidedly put them out of the social and cultural mainstream, Adventists don’t take their religious freedom for granted. For now, while governmental threats to freedom (in the form of Sunday laws) have abated in the United States, there’s still the problem from the private sector, in which Sabbath keepers face discrimination on the job because of Sabbath keeping. Every year in the United States about 900 Adventists face workplace problems because of their faith, usually related to Sabbath observance. Clearly, then, the Adventist struggle isn’t over.
Great Controversy
No question, Seventh-day Adventist concern about religious liberty began in self-interest; no question too, considering the continuing challenges, self-interest remains a factor in its continued involvement. However, the issue involves far more than mere Sunday laws or employment discrimination of Sabbath keepers.
Instead, for Adventists, religious liberty helps form the background of their own theology; it helps form their entire worldview, their understanding of why the world is the way it is, and where all things will ultimately lead. Often called the great controversy theme, this theology centers on what they understand as a cosmic battle between Christ and Satan, a battle that began in heaven (Revelation 12:7-10), a battle whose outcome was assured at the cross (John 12:31), a battle that will be consummated at the end of the age (1 Thessalonians 4:17), culminating in the second advent of Jesus Christ (hence the noun Adventist that Seventh-day modifies in the name). An official church publication states that “all humanity is now involved in a great controversy between Christ and Satan regarding the character of God, His law, and His sovereignty over the universe.”
A key component of this great controversy theme is religious freedom. The fall of Satan, the fall of this humankind, the introduction of sin—none of these tragedies could have happened without freedom. Had God not given these intelligent beings moral freedom, moral autonomy—but forced them to obey His will and His law—then sin, evil, violence, and death would never have arisen.
Yet aberrations did arise, but only because God didn’t force His creatures to obey His will or His commandments. He allowed this freedom, even at a terrible cost to Himself. In Adventist theology, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, paid the penalty for the sins of the fallen world, sins that could never have appeared had not God allowed moral freedom. Had God not permitted this freedom, then Satan would not have fallen, humanity would not have fallen, and Jesus Christ would not have had to give Himself as a ransom for the human race (1 Timothy 2:6). Instead, viewing human freedom as something too sacred, too fundamental to the moral metaphysics of His government, God chose to go the way of the cross rather than force people to obey His will. That’s how important religious freedom is to God, which helps explain why it’s important to Seventh-day Adventists as well.
Separation of Church and State
Believing in religious freedom is one thing; believing in separation of church and state is another. They are not necessarily synonymous. Nevertheless, Liberty’s statement of principles begins with this concise statement: “The God-given right of religious liberty is best exercised when church and state are separate.” That statement explains the Adventist position and, in its own way, explains the riddle of Liberty magazine.
As just stated, Adventists believe that God has given humanity religious freedom as a right, a right that has come at a terrible price not just for humanity (whose abuse of the right brought sin, suffering, and death) but for God (whose Son died on the cross to solve the problem caused by abuse of that right). This freedom is essential because the essence of God’s relationship with humankind is based on love: God’s love for humanity, humanity’s love for God.
Yet love, to be love, must be freely given. God asks human beings to love Him (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” [Matthew 22:37], but humans can do that only if they are free. Forced love is not love, nor can it ever be love.
“The exercise of force,” wrote one of the early Adventist pioneers, “is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened.” In Adventist theology God can force the entire world to fear Him, to obey Him, and to worship Him, but He can’t make even one person love Him. Love has to come freely, or it can’t come at all.
In contrast, the state of necessity rules by force—not by love. It would be wonderful if all people obeyed the state out of love for its ideals and leaders, but that’s not generally the paradigm. Instead, the basis of all earthly governments is law, and laws are of no value unless force, power, coercion rest behind them. Even the most benevolent of governments wouldn’t last a day did it not carry the power to enforce its laws, no matter how good or bad those laws were, no matter what process (either by referendum, plebiscite, or executive fiat) those laws were formulated.
God’s kingdom works only by love, by voluntary obedience; the state works by force, by mandatory compliance. God doesn’t force people to obey Him, not the way the state forces people to obey, for example, traffic laws or tax laws (imagine if federal income tax were voluntary). In one, the element of freedom is foundational; in the other, the element of coercion is foundational. Both can work fine in their own sphere, when people render (freely) to God what’s God’s, and when they render (under coercion, to some degree or another) to Caesar what’s Caesar’s. Trouble starts, however, when these two foundational principles clash, particularly when Caesar, with the muscle behind him, starts to infringe upon turf that belongs only to God.
Here, in this contrast, rests the heart of the Seventh-day Adventist support of church-state separation principles. They believe in separation of church and state, not as an end itself, but as a means to an end—and that end is religious freedom. As much as possible, the things that belong to God, and hence need to be freely offered, must be kept out of the realm of the state, which by nature carries a big stick. The moment the state gets involved it automatically wields the stick it carries. And that’s fine when it’s dealing with speed limits, taxes, and crime, but not when it’s dealing with things such as prayer, Bible readings, and religious symbolism.
Hence the Adventist position on many of these controversial issues (prayer in school, creationism in school, the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property, etc.) stems not from any hostility to these various expressions of faith, but from hostility to any form of government coercion behind these expressions, no matter how subtle or supposedly benign that coercion.
This is a position that many conservative Christians, for various reasons, no longer understand, which is why Adventist find themselves at odds with them over these specific issues. At the same time, many other groups, often from a secular perspective, support the concept of separation of church and state. That explains why Adventists find themselves with some strange bedfellows when it comes to church-state separation issues and at times feel uncomfortable with groups who might otherwise be radically opposed to most of what they stand for.
But however much Seventh-day Adventists believe in separation of church and state, it’s not a dogma, a theological doctrine akin to the divinity of Christ or blood atonement. Adventists in North America represent less than 10 percent of the world Adventist Church. The majority of members live in nations in which separation of church and state is not the ruling paradigm. What the church seeks to do, then, in all these nations is ensure as much as possible that the principles of religious freedom are respected, whatever the existing political structure.
Last Days
Finally, Adventists are concerned about religious liberty issues because of their understanding of the Bible and the events that precede the second coming of Christ.
The book of Revelation clearly teaches that religious intolerance will increase in the last days of earth’s history, and that some sort of church-state amalgam (known in Revelation as the “beast”) will seek to enforce some form of apostate worship upon the world. Though the church doesn’t claim to understand fully how or when these events will unfold, because of these beliefs Adventist tend to view with suspicion any attempts to break down the protections ensured by church-state separation principles. Though careful not to view every church-state challenge as a sure sign of the end-times, they can’t afford to be naive, either. The concept that a small breach can open the way for greater, more blatant ones later explains their diligent concern for any encroachment of these principles. Adventists learned long ago that one doesn’t need the trials of the end-times to face religious persecution. They still remember the chain gangs.
Gaston Lefevre is a widely experienced editor, author, and champion of religious liberty who lives in Maryland
*Scripture references in this article are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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