Adventists Hobnob with MAGA Christian Nationalists and Science Deniers
by Loren Seibold | 1 April 2025 |
The Berrien Village church saga has continued, with the congregation requesting from the Michigan Conference a special constituency meeting. One of their suggested agenda items is voting out conference president Jim Micheff and his team.
Church members are understandably hurt by the firing of their pastor. But if Ron Kelly wanted to convince the church that he’s still a middle-of-the-road Seventh-day Adventist, the latest conference Kelly promoted didn’t help. The “Will You Be Made Whole?” Conference on March 27-29 was held at the Dream City Church, a pentecostal Christian Nationalist church, in Phoenix, Arizona. It was sponsored by Wisdom Pearl, an organization run by two Adventist-associated right wing activists, Ivan Raj and Eva Tompkins.
The event was covered by the Religion News Service with the title, “Can MAGA, MAHA and Adventists make America healthy again?” Author Bob Smietana wrote,
Long before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was on the scene — much less overseeing health and human services for the United States — Seventh-day Adventists were trying to make Americans healthy again, promoting a plant-based diet and exercise as keys to physical and spiritual wellness.
“Let the diet reform be progressive,” wrote Ellen G. White, a 19th-century Adventist leader, in Testimonies for the Church.” … Tell them that the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the increase of wickedness among men. … God will give His people ability and tact to prepare wholesome food without these things.”
Now a group of Adventists hopes to take advantage of the rise of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement to show how the Bible can solve America’s health problems. “We believe we have a voice,” said Brian Beavers, an Adventist teacher and pastor. “And we can contribute to making America healthy.”
Making American Healthy Again is a laudable goal. Yet it’s notable that some of the people invited to this conference were well-known Christian nationalists and deniers of accepted medical science.
What has happened to the simple message of the gospel?
The Christian Nationalist elite
Kelly said that the event is “faith-based.” Yet when you study the program the title “Will You Be Made Whole?” seems more ironic than descriptive: it’s not wholeness that best describes this conference, but a faith granulated into highly questionable conspiracies.
Near the top of the bill—and of particular concern—was speaker Charlie Kirk. Kirk is a fan of the anti-semitic cultural Marxism conspiracy, a catch-all ideology that claims Jewish intellectuals and Democrats are trying to replace Christian values with Marxist ones.
Kirk’s racism doesn’t stop there. Kirk says that white privilege is a myth, that Martin Luther King was “awful…not a good person,” and he condemns the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kirk blames inclusion programs for aviation accidents, saying “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
Kirk denies climate change, and like most everyone else on this bill, alleges that vaccines are harmful, that the World Health Organization hid information about COVID-19, and that hydroxychloroquine was “100% effective in treating the virus.” He was also a vocal supporter of the 2020 stolen election conspiracy theory. Kirk is a major figure in the New Apostolic Reformation, which is a MAGA (Make America Great Again) organization aligned with people such as Mike Johnson, Doug Mastriano, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert.
Kirk has warmed the hearts of Adventists lately by saying that he is a Saturday Sabbath keeper—which would have been more encouraging if he’d not added that he advocates for blue laws.
Also of concern is Artur Pawlowski, a Canadian evangelical street preacher and political activist based in Calgary. Pawlowski is another strong advocate for bringing faith into the political sphere. He is particularly strident on the subject of homosexuality. Pawlowski has a rap sheet with the city (Calgary) and province (Alberta) too long to enumerate here, including unlawful protests and defying the government’s COVID-19 guidelines designed to protect others from infection.
The anti-vaccinators
You shouldn’t be surprised that some on the dais were focused primarily on opposing vaccinations. Peter McCollough isn’t new to Berrien Village events. He’s gained a reputation as a major spreader of COVID-19 misinformation, testifying that people under 50 years of age and COVID-19 survivors do not need the vaccine. He advocates the discredited drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Del Bigtree, a staff member of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign, is another of the most prominent voices in the anti-vaccination movement. He is a follower of Andrew Wakefield, whom Wikipedia calls a “fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and disgraced former physician on the unproven connection between vaccines and autism.”
Other teachers
- Michael Carducci says that he’s overcome transgenderism and homosexuality, and insists that others can do the same.
- Danny Shelton, the off-again on-again leader of 3ABN (Three Angels Broadcasting Network) appeared with his fourth wife, Yvonne.
- Larren Cole has built a ministry on his observation that beavers in the wild quit working every Sabbath.
- Graham Hood was a professional pilot who lost his job with Qantas because he refused to be vaccinated in order to protect those who flew with him. He has made the spurious claim that 800 Australians have died from the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Megan Basham is a conservative columnist who is a strident voice for traditional families, and opposes pastors whom she claims support a left-wing agenda.
- Ben Carson is a well-known Adventist surgeon who served in the first Trump administration and continues to promote MAGA ideas.
- Ivan Raj is, along with Eva Tompkins, the founder of The Wisdom Pearl organization, which has taken an active role in conferences in the Berrien Village Church and organized the Arizona event. Tompkins is an attorney in New York who calls herself “a strong and passionate advocate for freedom of conscience and for every individual to be afforded their inalienable rights bestowed upon them by God.”
- Ron Kelly, recently fired pastor of Berrien Village Church, promoted the conference and was on the schedule to participate, but according to reports was prevented by illness.
Odd & dangerous bedfellows
I was tempted to review “Will You Be Made Whole?” with the words of 19th-century writer Artemus Ward: “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.”
But there’s so much here that shouldn’t be left without comment. When authority figures give medical information that is scientifically indefensible, people die. Furthermore, hobnobbing with the MAGA elite is an odd place to find Seventh-day Adventists, who have normally shied away from those like Charlie Kirk and the New Apostolic Reformation, but now appear willing to meet them at the troublesome junction of faith and politics.
There were some teachers here who were simply giving good advice about common sense preventive health measures—the sort of thing we’re accustomed to hearing in Adventist circles. But not all. Some, like Del Bigtree, advocate the odd and dangerous theories of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and defend his anti-science stances.
That includes Ron Kelly. Religion News Service writes,
Some say linking Adventists and RFK Jr., a fan of beef tallow who despises Fruit Loops and is critical of vaccines, is an odd fit for Adventists, but Ron Kelly, the popular former pastor of the Village Seventh-day Adventist Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, who is helping promote the conference, hailed RFK’s appointment to HHS [Health & Human Services] as an opportunity for Adventists. “This man has a goal,” Kelly said in a video promoting the conference. “He’s very passionate about his goal, and that is to get this country out of its bad habits and onto solid ground for healthy, vibrant living.”
Adventists, we who sometimes feel like the red-headed stepchild of the Christian community, love when we can move into the spotlight—even if for the wrong reasons. Perhaps Kelly hoped to raise his profile with this event, and reestablish his ministry. But he’s taken his stand at the eroding barriers between faith and politics—something Ellen White warned against.
While I’m reluctant to throw an Ellen White quote at anyone, this one from the Testimonies might be applicable here:
“And at that time the superficial, conservative class, whose influence has steadily retarded the progress of the work, will renounce the faith and take their stand with its avowed enemies, toward whom their sympathies have long been tending.” Testimonies, Volume 5, p. 463
Loren Seibold is the Executive Editor of Adventist Today.
