Are Adventists Anti-Catholic Bigots? Officially, Yes!
by Loren Seibold | 22 August 2024 |
Let’s imagine—purely hypothetically—that one day you picked up the Adventist Review and saw, featured on the cover, an article entitled “The Truth About the Jews.” Suppose the article said that Jews had a secret conspiracy for global domination; that, because they’re in banking, they will soon take over the economy and prevent Christians from doing business; they’re actually in league with the devil; they are carnal creatures who pretend to be pure, but are terribly immoral; they have secret ceremonies that effectively indoctrinate their followers; and their plan is ultimately to torture and destroy us Christians.
You might recognize, had you studied the history of bigotry, that all of these accusations against Jews have been advanced for centuries in books such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They are the justifications that hateful people used for persecuting Jews.
And because you knew this history, you would be infuriated that our church was expressing such ideas. You would fear that journalists outside the church would get hold of it. We would be embarrassed.
Now, let’s be clear: such an article has not, to my knowledge, been printed in the Review.[1]
But we Adventists hold views that are just as prejudicial. Seventh-day Adventists, if we are faithful to our founding documents and doctrines, are officially anti-Catholic bigots.
Time to come clean
We do not merely believe that our church is the one we think is right, nor even that ours is the only true church. At the very heart of our eschatology is the teaching that the Roman Catholic Church is almost-supernaturally powerful and irredeemably evil, the enemy of God and in league with the devil. Some of the same things that anti-Semites said about Jews, we Adventists say in books we hold dear about Roman Catholics.
- They seek global domination. “The Roman Church…is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world….” (Great Controversy (GC), p.565)
- They want to take over the economy, making it impossible for us to do business. “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:16-17).
- The papacy is in league with Satan. “‘These have one mind.’ There will be a universal bond of union, one great harmony, a confederacy of Satan’s forces. ‘And shall give their power and strength unto the beast.’ Thus is manifested the same arbitrary, oppressive power against religious liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, as was manifested by the papacy, when in the past it persecuted those who dared to refuse to conform with the religious rites and ceremonies of Romanism.” (SDA Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White on Revelation 17, emphasis added)
- They have beautiful and complex ceremonies that manipulate people. “The pomp and ceremony of the Catholic worship has a seductive, bewitching power, by which many are deceived; and they come to look upon the Roman Church as the very gate of heaven.” (GC, p.567)
- They—or at least their clergy—are immoral. “In unfolding the sins of his life to a priest,—an erring, sinful mortal, and too often corrupted with wine and licentiousness,—his standard of character is lowered, and he is defiled in consequence.” (GC, p.567)
- They plan to persecute us. “She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated.” (GC, p.581)
Does Adventist anti-Catholicism appear in a different light when you realize that it parallels what the persecutors of the Jews said to justify the holocaust?
A shameful history
Anti-Catholicism began with the Reformation. Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, Knox, Isaac Newton, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, and John Wesley all identified Rome as the antichrist of John’s epistles.
Anti-Catholicism in Ellen White’s day is sometimes ascribed to nativism, another name for WASPy Americans’ fear of the Italian, Irish, and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who filled the big cities, had big families, and used alcohol. (It’s no coincidence that Ellen White disapproved not just of Catholics and alcohol, but also cities and, weirdly, big families.)
Prominent American Protestant leaders accused the Roman church of being not just theologically unsound, but the enemy of democracy. Popular preacher Lyman Beecher, notorious for his outspoken anti-Catholicism, went so far as to suggest—freedom of religion be damned!—that Roman Catholics should be banned from the newly-opened American West.
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (1836), which detailed (what most historians now agree were fictional) abuses in a convent, was a huge seller. It circulated widely among Adventists, along with The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop (1853), which purported to show that the Bible prophecies about Babylon were really about the Roman Catholic Church.
As late as the 1960s, criticizing Roman Catholicism was fair game for Protestants in most cities in the United States. (The exceptions were St. Louis and New Orleans, both of which were considered Catholic cities.)
Adventist conspiracists often confuse correlation with causation. So here’s a correlation you can cogitate on. You know who we share anti-Catholicism with? The Ku Klux Klan, who were (and, to the extent that they still exist, are) proudly anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic.
There were periodical flare-ups of anti-Catholicism in the 20th century, but John F. Kennedy’s popularity after 1960 softened public prejudices. Some commentators say that Kennedy’s election was the spark for the religious right, though after a few decades it embraced Roman Catholics as fellow conservatives on issues such as abortion and family.
Adventists, though, haven’t moved on from raw, simple anti-Catholicism, mostly because we can’t get past one major roadblock: Ellen White. We are preaching anti-Catholicism from The Great Controversy as though we’re still living in 1870.
Because, you know, nothing endears people to your church like telling them that their church is the veritable basilica of Beelzebub.
What? Not us!
Here are the things you’re going to hear in response.
First, “This all comes straight from the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. We’re just telling the truth.”
Yes, there are prophecies about evil rulers and nations, going all the way back to Babylon. Evil and powerful figures who usurp God’s role are described. But the assignment of the Roman Catholic Church in particular to the harlot of Revelation 17 (and the little horn of Daniel 7, and the antichrist in 1 John, and the first beast of Revelation 13, and “the man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians) is purely gratuitous on our part.
Look for the principles, people. When we Adventists manipulate people, we too fulfill these prophecies!
Second, you’ll hear, “We’re not anti-Catholic. We’re against the system of Catholicism,” or “It’s the Vatican and the pope we fear.” Or, “It’s Roman Catholic theology that is evil.”
What a mess of overcooked glop! If someone said, “We don’t hate Seventh-day Adventists. We only hate Adventist teachings. We regard your belief that your General Conference is the highest authority of God on earth as arrogant and dangerous. We fear your authoritative president. In short, we only hate what Adventists stand for”—would you be just fine with that?
And then, “We can’t be anti-Catholic. Ellen White said ‘Among the Catholics there are many who are most conscientious Christians, and who walk in all the light that shines upon them’ (Testimonies, vol. 9, p.243). We just love those good Catholics and want them to find the truth that we have.”
Of course we welcome anyone from any church into ours! I don’t blame anyone for being loyal to their church, and recommending it to others.
But this sweetly voiced reasoning is an evasion. Because behind it is a judgment on one particular group of people just because of the Christian tribe they belong to. You can think another religion is wrong and yours right without saying that their whole religion is a plot by the Prince of Darkness, and that they are gearing up to persecute you.
That’s what is camouflaged behind these tepid excuses.
Wait a minute, Loren!
You might be saying, “But some of this stuff is true! The Roman Catholics priests do have a history of abusing children. The pope does have worldwide influence. In fact, six SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) justices are Roman Catholics. And there is a mixing of religion and politics in the United States in a big way right now.”
All true. And frightening.
But the problem is that a careful and nuanced understanding of the principles within these prophecies still eludes us. Back in the 1800s we got stuck on the dangerous Roman Catholics, and we’ve never moved on.
Prime example: the critical and controlling Christian nationalism of the evangelical and fundamentalist churches doesn’t seem to alarm some Adventists. From what I read in the conservative Adventist press, it appears that some think it’s great!
As for Roman Catholic clergy pedophilia, the statistics show that there’s a great deal of that among Protestants, too[2]—but it’s easy to blame those weird freaky priests for all of it.
The SCOTUS justices bother me, not because they’re Roman Catholics, but because some appear to have been specifically selected as acolytes of Christian nationalism.
Now, about the pope’s worldwide influence: do you think Ted Wilson would turn down any worldwide influence he could get? Would he shyly retire to the back row, not wanting to be too high profile? Ha! Have you seen the pictures of him walking a red carpet to a limousine sent by an African nation’s leader, or riding in silver-and-gold chariots in India?
I’ll go farther: frequently the pope sounds a lot more Christian than some of our church leaders. The pope has spoken acceptingly of both other Christians and LGBTQ people—neither of which our General Conference can bring itself to do.
In fact, Elder Wilson appears eager to shake many of us lifelong members out of the church.
I’m embarrassed.
Fellow Adventists, it is downright embarrassing to continue our campaign against Roman Catholics, much less to lead with that in our evangelism, just because a Victorian woman copied those prejudices from someone 150-some years ago. As someone said in a comment, “Passing out The Great Controversy is hate speech!”
So an emphatic “yes!” to principles of religious liberty, no matter who is trying to take it away.
But a hard “no!” to those sending out The Great Controversy under the name of my church. Stop it! Enough Adventist bigotry! It’s time for us to grow up and act like fellow Christians—even to Roman Catholics!
- Yet Ellen White flies very close to anti-Semitism. In the first chapter of The Great Controversy she makes much of the “blood curse” on the people of Israel. Building on “Let his blood be upon us and our children,” she concludes, “Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in every land, ‘like wrecks on a desert shore.’” See also chapter 77 in The Desire of Ages, where the blood curse is expounded in detail. ↑
- “Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant….” ↑
Loren Seibold is the Executive Editor of Adventist Today.To join the discussion, click/tap here.
