On December 21, 2024 Mark Howard from the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department of the Michigan Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists released a video on his brand new Youtube channel For the Record.
His video was a response to the recent controversy in the Michigan Conference relative to Conrad Vine, Ron Kelly, and the Village SDA Church. The video in question is titled Is the Michigan Conference in Apostasy and in it Pastor Howard lays out his personal defense of the actions of the Conference. I agree with pastor Howard on some points, and disagree on others. The largest disagreement is where he starts the conversation, as I’ll explain later.
But before I get into the meat of the disagreement, I first want to say that I believe Mark Howard is a faithful gospel centric Adventist minister. He is my former local church pastor, and someone who I respect. A personal anecdote, when I was having some questions on Last Generation Theology and the Righteousness by Faith doctrine Pastor Mark took the time to send me a package of books on the subject on his own dime. I share this because it has been an object of consternation for me that in the recent controversy it has been portrayed as a friend-enemy distinction: you are either team Kelly/Vine or Team Micheff/Conference. I don’t want to be on any team but the truth, and I want to recognize that both sides of this debate are my Adventist brothers and sisters. I believe that Ron Kelly, Conrad Vine, Jim Micheff, Mark Howard, and many of the others involved all WANT to do what they believe to be right.
Church Statements Harmed Church Members
That being said, the first place I think Pastor Howard is misreading the controversy is in brushing aside the degree to which official Church policy and actions during the Covid pandemic years harmed Seventh-Day Adventist members throughout the world.
This fact explains MOST of the current state of alienation many Adventists feel from their leaders. And even statements that Conrad Vine has made that I disagree with, regarding tithe and the Church becoming a papal system, cannot be truly understood without recognizing what led to these statements. Often, good people can be pushed to their limit, like Moses striking the rock sinfully against God’s order, because he was pushed to his limit by the people of Israel.
Or, think of the populist political uprisings we are seeing all across the western world, including the United States which are often overreactions to bureaucratic mismanagement and encroachments of human freedom. You can’t explain or begin to solve the error without understanding what prompted it.
Voices of Liberty
Early on in the pandemic, certain Adventist voices clearly positioned themselves on the side of liberty of conscience and religious liberty. Village Church in Berrien Springs was the hub of this stand. People like Scott Ritsema, Conrad Vine, Ron Kelly, Jonathan Zirkle and others gained notoriety both inside and outside of Adventistism because of their stand for liberty of conscience.
Just think of how many anxious souls in the world became familiar with the Adventist Church and our prophetic message because they were attracted to this defense of liberty in our society’s dark hour. Religious liberty has long been a strength of Adventist evangelism, and it was no exception during the pandemic— these corners of the church made that their focus.
But while many Adventists rallied around the banner of religious liberty and liberty of conscience, it became increasingly clear that certain official statements of the church posed problems in the real world for liberty of conscience.
A 2015 Statement on vaccines in a generic sense made Adventist leadership skeptical of claims of conscience against Covid vaccinations in specific. Statements were made that Adventists should not claim a religious liberty exception to vaccine mandates, because our Church has no problem with vaccines.
Employers and government officials across the western world took these statements from the church and used them against their Adventist employees who requested exemptions to the mandates. Real harm affected our people.
Conrad Vine was the most vocal critic of these policies, and hurting and oppressed people flocked to him when their cause was met with derision and/or silence from church leadership. I have yet to see an humble and sincere effort to admit any wrongdoing on the part of church leadership and I believe this would go a long way toward healing the rifts in our church.
It is true that this humility should go both ways. Elder Vine should have the humility to admit that he may have crossed a line at the end of this summer at the Maine Camp Meeting by suggesting things contrary to inspired counsel: redirecting of tithe money and the parachurch idea.
But also Conference leadership should approach both discipline and correction of specific errors with the humility to acknowledge the ways in which a lack of leadership and clarity on matters of liberty of conscience motivated the recent opposition.
Everyone makes mistakes, and approaching each other in the right spirit could greatly help ease tensions and restore unity in the Body of Christ.
For almost four years there were efforts to oppose Elder Vine and Village Church in their liberty of conscience ministry during the pandemic and post pandemic years. Various levels of church leadership derided their message, and wanted to shut it down. It is only human to react against such suppression, and sadly that can provoke the human heart to go too far in reaction.
Spiritual Israel
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is spiritual Israel, not Babylon. No one should leave the Adventist Church. But recognizing the church as part of spiritual Israel is a rebuke and caution in and of itself. Unlike Babylon, Israel was God’s official representative body on this earth. But Israel was still constantly cycling between faithfulness and apostasy, righteousness and sacrificing their children to false gods.
Likewise the Adventist Church waxes and wanes in its faithfulness, while remaining God’s endtime church. For close to several decades the church officially supported the murder of the unborn in abortion, how many precious souls had their lives snuffed out in supposedly Adventist institutions?
Read 2 Kings 21:6 and you will see that wicked king of Israel of old, Manasseh, also engaged in this wicked practice of killing his child. At the end of his life Manasseh came back to God, and thankfully in 2019 the church in regular order chose to move our doctrine in a more pro life direction. So to respond to the title of Pastor Howard’s video, on various points or issues the conference could be in apostasy or error while yet remaining a vehicle of legitimate Church authority.
Let us take the challenges of the present crisis both in the world around us and in our church to mutually grow in humility, charity, and Christlikeness. As laity, let us have the humility to show respect to our leadership, even when we perceive grave errors.
And to the leadership, it’s ok to recognize wrongdoing on your part, you don’t have to hold yourselves up to a standard of infallibility (how stressful that must be). God is seeking to use our challenges to grow our characters, and fit us to stand in the fires of the final crisis. Let us press together, stand for liberty of conscience, and finish the work. Maranatha!
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
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Joey Carrion is a political science student at Andrews University, and is very interested in the interaction of political conservatism and religious liberty. He is a co-host on the Gio and Joey Show, which analyzes political and cultural news and events from an authentically Protestant and Adventist worldview. In his spare time he enjoys basically anything outdoors, country music, studying prophecy and theology, reading, and volunteering with his church family in Gobles, MI.
You can follow him on X at the handle @AdventistCowboy.
