As Seventh-Day Adventists we are set into the world for its closing chapters to act as watchmen and lightbearers and to proclaim the character of God in our lives, words, and actions. We are called to bear this witness in opposition to the false Babylonian oppressive system that has set itself up in the name of God.
This oppressive system is the antichrist beast power of Bible prophecy. The most full manifestation of this power to date was unleashed on the world in the form of the Dark Ages Roman Catholic Church, the papal power in those days combined theological error with the power of the state and persecuted dissenters: both God’s faithful believers and other dissenters from their orthodoxies.
Many Adventists today myopically look to Catholic doctrine as the antichrist power, but Catholic doctrine apart from the power, will, and actuality of persecution of dissenters is just bad doctrine. Don’t get me wrong, the dark ages spirit is on the cusp of being released into the world once again, I firmly believe that. While many individual Catholic Christians today support religious freedom and constitutional government a beastly spirit is arising in certain academic corners of the Catholic world in a movement called Catholic Integralism which seeks to merge the government back with Catholic political leadership. Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen are two of the most popular Catholic thinkers pushing in that direction, and Vice President JD Vance has a very close relationship with these men. On the Protestant side of the aisle a parallel Christian Nationalist movement is also fomenting rage against religious freedom, democracy, and toleration with figures like Stephen Wolfe, Douglas Wilson, and outlets like American Reformer. So the Image to the Beast we have warned is coming is taking shape.
But in viewing the antichrist spirit as something somehow tied to Catholic doctrine, and by extension apostate Protestant doctrine, I believe we Adventists have missed how the spirit of antichrist is a temptation to every human heart-including ours. The fundamental essential element for antichrist is opposition to religious liberty and the embrace of coercive force against dissenters. If you embrace those things you are no longer following Jesus, but have veered into the worship of the enemy. If the only thing stopping you from actually politically persecuting dissenters from your beliefs is a lack of political power then you have embraced antichrist in your heart.
And THIS is why the recent months and years of controversy in the Adventist Church from the onset of the Covid crisis through the firing of pastor Ron Kelly matter so much. In our church we have lost the full picture of what religious liberty means. Religious liberty means that every single Image Bearer of God has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his or her conscience. Religious liberty is not fundamentally an ecclesial right to be granted to religious bodies, but an individual right granted to every person. When the General Conference issued a statement saying that claims of religious liberty over the vaccine issue are not rightly used they were speaking blasphemously, no ecclesial authority has the right to say such a thing. When the conference put pressure on the Village Church not to have their religious liberty weekends, another line was crossed.
A recent interview that pastor Dennis Page did on YouTube further highlighted the coercive means that were embraced by our Church. It is well known that force was applied on Dr. Conrad Vine after his comments on tithe and on Adventists acting popish during Covid. But Page made clear that force was also applied on Ron Kelly to write a statement that he did not believe regarding Vine’s “heresy.” It reminded me of the event that catapulted Dr. Jordan Peterson, the mild-mannered center-left Canadian psychologist, into international fame. The Canadian parliament was debating the passage of a bill that would require him as a professor to use pronouns that did not match students’ biological sex to satisfy their emotional desires. Peterson took a brave stand because as he said, “No one controls my tongue.” Such force is to be expected by reprobate governing authorities as we grow closer to the end, but it has no place in God’s church.
As we get further and further from the Village Church crisis the temptation is going to be to just forget about it and sweep it under the rug, but we cannot do this. We must come together as the Body of Christ-on both sides of the debate and pray for the Holy Spirit to soften hearts and then we must make changes to our policies and procedures to ensure that we STOP using a mechanism of coercion, antichrist spirit, in God’s church. When the next crisis comes we must be known as the liberty people, the health people, and the people of the Book. We must actually stand opposed to the Babylonian system of false doctrine AND beastly coercion.
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“Only by love is love awakened” (Ellen White).
Author Bio: Joey Carrion: Political Science student at Andrews University, cohost of the Gio and Joey Show and Wire and Faith, regular guest on the Re:Wire podcast on YouTube/Rumble/X, and lover of country music, good books, and meaningful political and theological discourse.