Adventist Doctor Leaves the Race for United States President

March 2, 2016: Dr. Ben Carson, the Adventist physician who has been seeking the nomination of the Republican Party for president of the United States, told supporters today that he does not see a “path forward” and will not participate in the television debate scheduled tomorrow in Detroit.
Carson did not say that he was ending his campaign, but announced that he would make a speech about his political future on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. “I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results,” the statement said. “However, this grassroots movement on behalf of ‘We the People’ will continue. Along with millions of patriots who have supported my campaign for President, I remain committed to Saving America for Future Generations.”
“The announcement served as an acknowledgment that Carson’s candidacy is all but over following a disappointing showing in the 11 states that held contests on Tuesday,” reported the Washington Post. Carson was briefly among the front runners in the Republican presidential race before his campaign began an extended public implosion.
“The decision follows months of candidate stumbles, staff infighting and strategy shifts derailing what had once appeared to be an unstoppable journey to conservative superstardom.” Carson became a political figure in 2013 when he was asked to speak at the nonpartisan National Prayer Breakfast and took the opportunity to criticize the program introduced by President Barack Obama to extend health insurance to all Americans while Obama sat near him.
A few days later the Wall Street Journal published an editorial headlined “Ben Carson for President.” A campaign committee was organized and before he officially launched his campaign in May 2015, it had raised about $16 million and recruited 30,000 volunteers, according to its reports.
He had published a widely-distributed book about his rise out of inner city poverty to a high-profile neurosurgery career. At age 33 he was the youngest head of a service at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center and the first pediatric neurosurgeon to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head. The book also became a television movie.
Some Americans liked his bluntness and right-wing opinions about a flat tax and against “political correctness.” Others were angered by his comments that the Affordable Health Care Act was “worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery” and that the United States now is “very much like Nazi Germany.”
It is likely that the same outsider status that made Carson appealing to many of the angry voters in the Republican Party led to the decline of his prospects. His support dropped in the weeks after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino taking him down from being in the lead with Donald Trump to fourth or fifth place in most national polls.
As Carson fell from top-tier status, he blamed campaign aides for his drop in the polls and said there would be staff changes. Although he backed off from this announcement, a number of his most experienced campaign workers resigned a few days later.
The Carson campaign war chest, which had been flush with cash after solid fundraising quarters earlier in the race, began shrinking dramatically amid questions about how the money was being spent. Carson made changes last month, cutting staff salaries and shrinking his travel team.
The mild-mannered candidate lashed out at people he said were sabotaging his campaign, including Senator Ted Cruz, who later admitted that his campaign falsely circulated the idea that Carson was going to quit the race on the night of the Iowa caucuses. Carson had fourth-place showing in Iowa and then last place in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He again had poor results in the 11 Republican primary elections and caucuses yesterday.
Carson’s campaign did bring unprecedented attention to the Adventist denomination, including explanations of Adventist doctrines and discussions of whether the Adventist faith is truly in the conservative Protestant category. Although it now appears unlikely that Carson will be the first Adventist to hold the highest office in the United States government, he told reporters that he “will not disappear” and indicated that he still has opinions on public policy that he will share with the American people. What issues he will pursue, what his opinions will be and how they may affect the Adventist denomination remains to be seen.
Apparently there was no cascade of votes for Carson after he received “unprecedented attention” as an SDA. Did the American public not like what they heard about Adventist doctrine? Were they unconvinced about the claim that SDAs are genuine Protestants? Were the public spooked by his claim that he had a conversation with God about his candidacy? I would be nervous of a man who has access to the nuclear war button and and the same time believes God is sending him messages.
Perhaps Carson could now do better by raising money for a charity like Doctors Without Borders.
“candidate stumbles, staff infighting and strategy shifts derailing what had once appeared to be an unstoppable journey to conservative superstardom.”
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Staff infighting??– Reminds me of Adventist forums and churches.
So I go to a large (100+) attendee, 50 minute Sabbath school yesterday and hear warped doctrine as usual, very little bible verses read and the SOP had duct tape across her mouth again.
Great that a Christian/Adventist was running for president of the U.S.A. He seemed to stumble along the way several times bending his image out of shape.
Those of us to are not U.S. citizens nor in the U.S.A. CANNOT fathom the amount of money that is being DUMPED rather than PUMPED into the political system. IT IS A SIN!!!!!!!!
Dr. Carson — many thanks for your witness as a Christian/Adventist, but now help direct those monies into HUMANITARIAN good.
Carson was woefully unprepared to throw his hat into the bull ring of politics today. It was not his religion, but his inability to give cogent answers and his stumbling over foreign nations and policy that undid him. He seemed to believe that his amazing medical experience gave him equal authority in politics. They are not transferable.
I salute Dr. Carson for his courage in running and the reasoned, civil tone he took in addressing issues.
America has never been the same since “All in the Family” with Archie Bunker
I’d like to second William’s comment. One can hardly accuse Dr. Carson of being “so heavenly-minded as to be no earthly good”.
That doesn’t mean that I agree with Dr. Carson’s political philosophy. He made some very good points but failed to temper some of them with reality. If he believes, for example, that we, as a nation, should not penalize people for their success, I think that needs to be balanced with some mechanism for replacing the horribly inefficient government programs currently in place with something better. (You can bet I have a suggestion, if anyone is interested.)
Dr. Carson also failed (so far as I know) to address the issue of religious liberty. That might have been a delicate balancing act for someone who employed the venue of a “national prayer breakfast” to deliver an audacious and overtly political speech.
I hope may members of our denomination took the occasion of Dr. Carson’s campaign to deliver the message that our organization is not dogmatic and that this is especially true when it comes to political issues.
Hi Roger, Religious Liberty was no “balancing act” for SDA’s to get Sec. 116 into our Australian Constitution, it was all out war!
I quote from one of 73 comments made early in Carson’s campaign 8th Nov. 2015 on the Religion and Ethics Report ABC web site. (Google: carson-standish and look under heading Faith of Ben Carson: What SDA’s Believe.)
Uncledon :
08 Nov 2015 12:53:57pm
Credit where credit is due. It is largely because of SDA’s tenacity we have the Religious Liberty section 116 in our Australian Constitution. Most other Denominations wanted their Christian ‘god’ recognized in the Constitution, and despite their far superior numbers they lost!
It was not because of keeping Saturday as the Sabbath, or their diet, or belief in the Second Coming of Jesus etc. as is being discussed in most of the comments here, that upset others, it was their belief that when the Fourth Commandment says “Six days shalt thou labour” Exodus 20:9 thats exactly what it means.
I quote from a book-UNTO GOD AND CAESAR (Religious issues in the emerging Commonwealth) 1891-1906 by Richard Ely, Melbourne University Press 1976 Dealing with the Constitution page 26
“The Adventists dietary views and their belief that God, at some broadly identified time, although probably not in the near future, would wind up human history troubled few people. The former, because of its essential privacy, hurt nobody; the latter was a view often held by Catholics and Protestants. However the…
Carson would have us believe he talks to God and God talks to him. I can’t believe for a minute that God told him to accept the invitation offered up by “The Family or The Fellowship,” a secretive fundamentalist Christian association led by Douglas Coe to speak at the now infamous prayer breakfast.
Surely, Carson knew full-well the audience he was addressing; knew exactly what they wanted to hear. Be assured, he wasn’t invited to talk about his prayer life or that of his mother’s; a more reasonable topic to be presented at a “prayer breakfast.”
With the ignorance that might be babbled by an uneducated, illiterate, plowboy, Carson in mellow tone chose a much lower road; although loudly applauded by his audience… both there and abroad by those who, simply but accurately stated, hated the country’s first black president.
John Fea’s published remarks entitled, “Some Thoughts on Dr. Ben Carson’s Prayer Breakfast Speech” can be easily researched. To his points, I’ll list three troubling reasons why, for many of us, Carson completely blew his great opportunity.
1. To talk about health-care and other highly controversial topics that tend to divide rather than unite. Totally inappropriate on such an occasion.
2. He disrespected the office of the President of the United States with his speech. Of course there is a time and place to criticize the president’s policies; a prayer breakfast is not one of them. (An apology is in order; ‘t would be the Christian thing to…
. (An apology is in order; ‘t would be the Christian thing to do.)
3. With his concluding patriotic story about the War of 1812 and the bombing of Fort McHenry, one might wonder if he didn’t nearly duplicate the evangelical pastor Dudley Rutherford’s erroneous account of the incident.
To the observant, one could expect more convoluted babble from the famous pediatric neurosurgeon; babble that even the most evangelical, apolitical among us would be puzzled; concluding Carson’s adept surgical hands and acuity didn’t necessarily qualify him for the presidency.
I am so surprised by the positive support for Dr. Carson. His entire campaign included Sabbath as any other day for appearances. Prior to that he was appearing on FOX NEWS as a contributor on Fri nite and Sabbath.
He said he attends church worship services on Sunday’s as many times they are traveling on Sabbath, I saw him make the comments.
This in atypical of SDA custom as well as belief.
I agree with Elaine that the problem here was not Dr. Carson’s faith (though that could eventually have become a problem had he gotten closer to candidacy) but his naïveté about what it takes to run for office. He believed the hype that being a good, honest man who’d worked hard and achieved success was what America would go for. He thought he could pick up what he needed to know as he went along. Politics is a knock-down sport, little room for error, and he seemed not to know that.
Loren,
Thank you for your reasonable reply among so many that aren’t. (Including the person who doesn’t think we talk to God in prayer and that He leads us.)
I saw Ben grow in his understanding and learn from his first awkward steps into politics. He really needed to experience the journey first on a lower level. But he was a witness for his Savior in refusing to become part of the circus.
I know absolutely nothing about what Dr. Carson was taught, either as a child or as an adult, about sabbath keeping.
I do know something, however, about some general trends in our denomination. In the 1940s and ’50s, the emphasis was on rest. More recently, the emphasis has shifted to “worship”.
It is true, of course, that resting on the day the Lord rested IS a form of worship. But when people get the impression that “worship” consists of attending “worship” services, the concept of rest can get lost in the translation.
I agree it’s all about a relationship and resting in Him for our salvation. Worship can be done any where any time; public or private. Sabbath is a symbol of His rest. Ben has always been part of a church family and fellowship. My prayers are with him and for his youth foundation. May his voice not be silenced.
It seems that Dr. Carson had much more support from non-Adventist. Many people praised him for being humble, honest and respectful. But no prophet is accepted in his own country. That tells much more about us than him.
You are correct, Brandy.
Ben Carson, while admitting that he no longer identifies as SDA, was closer to us than any other candidate. That seems to make many of us SDAs anxious. It seems that most of us would rather have an abortion-supporting, liberal leader than a mostly God-fearing, conservative one.
When will God spue us out?
Daniel,
It has already taken place. Many Adventists have made the transition from Laodicea (lukewarm) to Sardis (spiritually dead). They starved their new nature and let thorns (competing interests) choke out their consecration.
Daniel,
Please, I beg of you, don’t use the word, “us”, when referring to people whose views you oppose.
I vote Dr. Carson as the new Surgeon General.
Dr.Carson tried to avoid denigrating Republican candidates. Maybe he dropped out in order to remove the temptation to do so. One or more of the current front runners in that party would have a better chance of winning in the general election if Dr. Carson were named as his running mate.
It is difficult for me to imagine being Dr. Carson right now, however, because I don’t know of a presidential candidate from ANY political party (U.S.) who could offer me enough money to accept the title of vice president under his administration.
From “Gifted Hands” by Dr. Ben Carson, to “Large Hands” by Donald Trump and “Small Hands” by Marco Rubio” It’s all about the hands!
The ancients made a careful distinction of the respective values of the two hands. This is perhaps best seen from Genesis 48:13-19, where the imposition of the hands of aged Israel upon the heads of Joseph’s sons seems unfair to their father, because the left hand is being placed upon the elder, the right hand upon the younger son. The very word euonumos proves the same from the Greek point of view. This word is a euphemistic synonym of aristera, and is used to avoid the unlucky omen the common word may have for the person spoken to. Thus the goats, i.e. the godless, are placed at the left hand of the great Judge, while the righteous appear at His right (Matthew 25:33). We read in Ecclesiastes 10:2, “A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left,” i.e. is inclined to evil. As the Jews orientated themselves by looking toward the rising of the sun (Latin oriens, the east), the left hand represented the north, and the right hand the south (1 Samuel 23:19,24; 2 Samuel 24:5). The right hand was considered the more honorable (1 Kings 2:19; Psalms 45:9); therefore it was given to seal a contract, a federation or fellowship (Galatians 2:9). It is the more valuable in battle; a friend or protector will therefore take his place at the right to guard it (Psalms 16:8; 73:23; 109:31; 110:5; 121:5).
I hope his departure won’t make it easier for Donolf Trumpler to win the nomination. He will “make Amerika hate again.”
I share some of the same concerns as Dr. Carson does. I share some of the same concerns as Mr. Trump does. I wish we could be talking about better (and more politically feasible) ways to solve some of the problems they are trying to address.
But breathes there a man who fails to understand that in our political system (U.S.), when that 50% of the voters who are in “the middle” of the ideological spectrum perceive that a candidate is “radical”, he either doesn’t get elected or, if he does get elected, his election elicits a reaction that, sooner or later, takes the country way too far the other direction?
Who can ask Dr. Carson whether he understands how the average United States citizen understands his statements about the value of family? How many people think that is code for using government to interfere in our choices with regard to marriage, reproduction and who-knows what else?
It is almost certain that there were some Republicans who realized that Dr. Carson would have been more likely to win a general election than Mr. Trump is but it seems easier to get Republicans to cheer at the top of their lungs at any language about how evil the “liberals” are.