In life, there are battles to be fought, challenges to be overcome, and a faith to earnestly contend for. Yet, amidst the clamor of these struggles, there are those who choose to retreat, to avoid confrontation, and to remain on the sidelines. Instead of taking a stand for the truth, they simply bury their heads in the sand, hoping that the battles will resolve on their own without active involvement on their part.
This reluctance to engage in the fray, this cowardice of not being where the battle is at, represents a failure of courage and a betrayal of their calling to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3) and to fight the good fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12).
The above sums up how I have come to view the leadership of the Adventist Church in recent times. As a church, it appears to me that we have been herded into a corner where if whatever issue at stake is not directly related to the Sabbath, we just turn a blind eye and pretend it does not matter.
On almost every moral issue of the day, the leadership of the Adventist Church seems to be abdicating his responsibility of being a “watchman on the wall” (Ezekiel 3:17–19, Isaiah 62:6). From radical feminism and LGBTQ threatening the very foundation of our church to the issues of cultural Marxism in our colleges (and other institutions) and the rapid erosion of religious liberty in our society, it appears that the default response of the church is to react by issuing warnings that almost always go ignored and unenforced. Our leadership seems to have taken to the habit of issuing merely symbolic statements and warnings in place of firm disciplinary actions.
This is beginning to look like cowardice, an attempt to play safe and curry the favours of the culture, or at least not offend it. In our push to be liked by the culture and not pick a fight with it, we have surrendered our weapons and avoided the battlefield altogether.
A typical example of this is COVID-19. The church leadership failed woefully to let its light shine and warn people of the danger of surrendering their consciences to the state. Rather than standing in the breach (Ezekiel:30), the leadership overwhelmingly took the position that COVID-19 was not an issue of religious liberty, possibly because it did not directly threaten the Sabbath and no national Sunday law was at play. So instead of standing up for members who were being persecuted and losing their means of livelihood because they would not bow down to tyranny and allow their liberty to be violated, the leadership of the church simply threw them under the bus and sided with the state.
But the reality is that COVID-19 was a religious liberty issue. It was also an issue of allegiance and worship. Right before our eyes, we had a miniature, a mock of “666”, but we missed it altogether because it did not particularly fit the pet eschatological idea of the Religious Liberty Department of the church, i.e., it was not heralded by a push for National Sunday Law from the so-called fiendish Religious Right. But Covid had most of, if not, all the elements of the Mark of the Beast, e.g., violation of religious and personal liberty, forcing the conscience, shutting people out of the economy and restricting their movements unless they have been vaccinated, vaccine passports, and all the mandates. However, the leadership of the church did not deem it an issue important enough to take a stand on.
I fear that if the church leadership could miss something like COVID-19, which was essentially a global experimentation with the principles of the Mark of the Beast, what is the guarantee that they would not miss it when the real Mark of the Beast comes along, especially if it is not ushered in by the Religious Right (whatever that means), but by the leftist cultural Marxists, a group they appear to have a soft spot for.
If you think my fear is unfounded, then you need to read the Gospels. The Jewish leadership completely missed the first Advent because they were blinded by their pet ideas about what the Messiah should look like and because their desire to be liked by the people was greater than their desire to please God and follow His leading.
The other reason I believe my fear is not without some basis is that Jesus says if we are faithful in little things, we will be faithful in large ones (Luke 16:10). It is in the little things of life that we get the training required to shine when the big issues come along. We see this all over Scripture. David was first faithful as a shepherd before he was a faithful king over Israel, and Joseph was a faithful steward over Potiphar’s house before he was a faithful prime minister over the nation of Egypt. The principle is simple: it is in the small spiritual battles of life that we gain the skills and experience required to win the big ones. In other words, those who falter and fail to take a stand on minor spiritual issues will inevitably find themselves on the back foot when they are faced with more significant issues.
We are at War
As Christians living in 2024, we are at war with the wider culture. We are at war, not over the Sabbath or the state of the dead, but over the institutions of marriage and family as contained in the household code of Ephesians 5 and 6. We are at war over human sexuality and the role of women in the house and the church. We are at war against the relentless onslaught of cultural Marxism, critical race theory, gender equality, abortion, LGBT, and feminism, issues that are threatening the very life of Western Christianity and civilization. These are the issues currently at the heart of the battle.
Western civilization, as it stands today, is on the path of self-destruction. And the issues currently at stake are not the Sabbath or the Sanctuary. Those are not at the heart of the battle at the moment. Practically speaking, at the moment, those issues are not even relevant to the wider culture in any meaningful way. This is not to diminish the centrality of the Sabbath in the Great Controversy theme. As I understand it, the Great Controversy is the overarching theme of life on earth. But within this overarching theme, I believe there are several plots. These plots are like mini controversies within the Great Controversy. These mini controversies are also tests of allegiance that we must pass if we want to be the faithful servant of Mathew 25:23.
While I believe the Sabbath will be the final plot and the final test of allegiance in the Great Controversy, we are not there yet. Today, the plot at play is the controversy over the institutions of marriage and the family. That’s where the battle is at, and sitting on the fence on this issue is nothing short of spiritual desertion. To stay neutral and refuse to stand and be counted on this polarising issue amounts to a repudiation of our calling to be watchmen on the wall.
Throughout history, the institutions of marriage and family have been the cornerstone of Western society — and all societies for that matter — reflecting Christian norms, values, and expectations. However, today, we are witnessing a massive and destructive shift towards perversion within these institutions, marked by the embrace of sexual diversity and gender equality, values that are antithetical to Christianity.
Gone are the days when the nuclear family was the sole representation of a household. Instead, society now celebrates a multitude of arrangements, including single-parent families, blended families, same-sex families, and cohabiting couples. Now the pursuit of gender equality has reshaped traditional roles within marriages and families, leading to a cacophony of deviant orientations. The marriage and family institutions established by God Himself are being shredded into pieces, and our leaders dare to feign ignorance. The fires of women ordination and LGBT are raging in our church, but our leaders are fiddling while the church burns.
Conclusion
At its core, the cowardice of avoiding the battlefield stems from the fear of discomfort, failure, or conflict. It is the instinctual response to seek safety and security, to preserve one’s own well-being at the expense of taking a stand for what is right or just.
However, as Christians, we cannot go down this path for we have been called to combat by our Captain. We have been given the charge to pull down every stronghold of error, to cast down every imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:4–5). This is our sworn duty. If the leadership of the church would not stay faithful to it, it would inevitably relinquish its agency, its voice, and its power to witness with unflinching courage and steadfastness in the face of unrighteousness and evil, now or in the future.
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Ayodeji Michael Olumofe lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and two children.
