A Legacy of Liberty
Christelle Agboka September/October 2026The political and religious diversity represented at this year’s Religious Liberty Dinner in Washington, D.C., was a fitting reflection of the event’s purpose: to celebrate America’s commitment to protecting freedom of belief, or nonbelief, for all people.
Each year, the dinner brings together religious freedom advocates, along with faith leaders and elected officials, to honor outstanding contributions to religious liberty advocacy. The event, now in its nineteenth year, is cosponsored by Liberty magazine and the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.
This year’s gala, held April 14 in the James Madison Memorial Building in the Library of Congress, marked a significant milestone for Liberty magazine. The very first issue of Liberty rolled off the press in April 1906, and today, 120 years later, it is the world’s oldest continuously published religious freedom journal.
Representative Jamie Raskin, from Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District, spoke at the event, praising Liberty for helping keep alive what he called “the most revolutionary principle of our Constitution”—separation of church and state. Raskin has a special connection to Liberty magazine, which was founded in Takoma Park, Maryland, Raskin’s hometown and part of his congressional district.
Raskin presented Bettina Krause, editor of Liberty, with a citation honoring the magazine’s “120 years of zealously championing the separation of church and state, the precondition for freedom and progress in American life.”
Accepting the citation on behalf of the Liberty team, Krause shared that when she came into the role in 2021, she had “made a rash and naive vow” to read every issue of the magazine ever published. She admitted to making it only as far as 1940, but said that she had found a statement of lasting significance on the first page of the first issue of the magazine. In explaining the purpose of Liberty magazine, its first editor had written that “there is no power but the power of love” that can rightly “compel the human conscience.”
More than a century later, Krause said, those words still reflected the shared commitment to freedom of conscience and human dignity that had brought the group together that night. “We are proud to continue this legacy,” she said, “as together with you, we defend and promote religious freedom for all people, no matter what they believe or don’t believe.”
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents the Eighth Congressional District of New York, gave the keynote address, thanking the Adventist Church for its “tremendous tradition of protecting religious freedom and liberty for people of every faith and for the secular community.” He encouraged those present to continue to work together—despite differences in political or religious beliefs—to support what he called one of our nation’s fundamental values.
Article Author: Christelle Agboka
Christelle Agboka is a news writer and news producer at the Communication Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.