Has Our Time Come? Our Conspiracies & Theirs
by Loren Seibold | 13 February 2025 |
A commenter on Facebook recently wrote this:
Here in Australia during the pandemic, some local Adventists were passing out Adventist literature at anti-vaxx, anti-government, anti-lockdown protests in town. Result: anti-vaxx, anti-government, anti-lockdown converts with little or no motivation or guidance to moderate their views, and a ready-made circle of fellow contrarians and conspiracy-theory-lovers in the church to fellowship with.
Her comment got me thinking. For decades, we’ve tried to attract people to our church. We’ve grown in membership, but not to the extent that we should for a movement that believes its apocalyptic message is meant to transform the world; we’re still only about one quarter of one percent of the world population.
A magical book
Last month I read that a group of Adventists had planned to pass out The Great Controversy (TGC) at the presidential inauguration. I’m not sure if they were able to: the expected outdoor inauguration was thwarted by the weather.
(A theological question: Was bad weather a result of Satan’s trying to thwart the effort, or God’s saying passing TGC out wasn’t the right thing to do? It could be interpreted either way, I suppose, but we Adventists often credit Satan with doing more to shape events than God—and then insist that it is we who must oppose Satan, as though God can’t handle Satan alone.)
New campaigns to spread The Great Controversy break out monthly. Many believe this book is the key to the future of the church—an idea endorsed by the author herself.
“The Lord impressed me to write this book in order that without delay it might be circulated in every part of the world, because the warnings it contains are necessary for preparing a people to stand in the day of the Lord.” (Ellen G. White, Manuscript 24, 1891)
TGC has come to be regarded by some of us as a sort of magic talisman. Though all the evidence is against its being an effective evangelistic tool—it is thick, hard to read (I’d be shocked if one in twenty Adventists has actually finished it), filled with stories of persecution and suffering, and is blatantly anti-Catholic—some Adventists still believe that cold-mailing it to millions of people will bring a tipping point that will force Jesus to return.
If there were even a single convert as a result of these cold mailings, he or she would be the most famous Adventist in the world. I have yet to hear of even one. Have you? So far it has occasioned more complaints than compliments.
Still, argue its proponents, even if the church doesn’t grow, just having handed someone TGC removes his or her excuse, thus bringing Jesus’ return a few minutes closer.
Has our time come?
As I’ve watched how quickly some of us have adapted to the present political moment, it has occurred to me that perhaps our time has come: Adventist conspiracies and the world’s might be aligning—or at least overlapping sufficiently that some in the conspiratorial right might find common ground with us.
That’s why Adventists are passing out The Great Controversy at conservative political events: they’ve correctly identified the kind of people that book would attract. TGC pictures an unjust and overreaching government, secret enemies, threats against Christians’ rights, great catastrophes for which we must prepare, hidden truths that only the insiders know, and a thoroughly fed-up God who is interested in saving just a handful of the right kind of people.
We have long regarded our knowledge of end-time plots as our peculiar superpower. We started our existence with a doomsday prediction, and TGC defines those early fears and keeps them alive. There is a parallel dark pessimism in the right-wing political movement, and although we and they disagree on the outcome—our eschatology and theirs don’t have the same arc—we share with them an infatuation with conspiracies and imaginary enemies.
Suggested changes
We might need to shape our message a little to take full advantage of this opportunity. We’re already anti-labor unions, but we should become officially and loudly pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, anti-welfare, and unashamedly Republican. A cautious nod toward antisemitism wouldn’t go amiss. Our biggest challenge will be to swap out the traditional meaning of religious liberty for all, in favor of liberty for our religion but not necessarily yours.
Which leads me to add that a broad liberal education, such as we have in our colleges, is probably to our detriment. Science-based medical care, too, should be minimized in favor of anti-science conspiracies like those at Berrien Springs Village Church. Much that characterized Jesus’ ministry, such as helping the poor and welcoming the outcasts, should be quietly moved to the back burner; it’s the dark, angry part of the Bible, the judgments and the apocalypses, the black-and-white choices—for us or against us—that we should emphasize.
Most of this could fit into The Great Controversy scenario, though we may have to do some editing. (That shouldn’t be a problem: many Adventists don’t realize that book has been edited several times before.) With a few changes, we could create a home for those enthusiastic about authoritarianism, conspiracies, and right-wing politics, and fearful of immigrants and everyone who isn’t quite like us. It might not be Christian in the sense of Jesus’ teachings in the gospels, but we could downplay Jesus’ kinder sentiments in favor of a fearful and angry message that will appeal to a fearful and angry world.
Seriously?
Some will undoubtedly object that I’m being facetious. Perhaps—but only a little. Because it is a fact that more and more Adventists are buying in to the right wing worldview. The leaders of the Berrien Springs Village Church redefined religious liberty such that the congregation found itself immersed in Christian nationalism and anti-science propaganda. Many American Adventists have applauded Donald Trump’s empowerment of evangelicals, and suppose that because he favors the Southern Baptists and those like them, that he’s on our side, too.
But what if that doesn’t prove true? What if all of American Christianity gets discredited by a too-close embrace with a chaotic political leader? A Turkish proverb goes, “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them.”
Perhaps the current conspiratorial, authoritarian climate will be fortuitous for us. But we may not, in the end, like the result.
Loren Seibold is a retired pastor, and the Executive Editor of Adventist Today.
