James D. Standish[1]

 

As I write this piece, the confirmation hearings for the next Chief Justice of the United States are in process. Many Adventists will have noted with interest that John Roberts is reported to be a conservative Roman Catholic. Some will speculate that this could be the Justice who brings in the Sunday law. In this, Roberts is not new. For generations now, some Adventists have seen everyone from John F. Kennedy to Jimmy Carter, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, as possible harbingers of imminent Sunday legislation. And yet, here we are, well over a hundred years since the Great Controversy was penned, and there is no national Sunday law in sight.

 

Adventists have responded to this situation primarily in three ways.[2]

 

The first reaction is to believe Sunday laws are imminent. Periodically speculation about secret efforts to pass Sunday laws sweeps through our ranks generating corresponding excitement for short periods of time, and generating cynicism when the predicted Sunday law fails to materialize.

 

A second group of Adventists have become convinced that Sunday laws are a thing of the past. They do not necessary doubt the prophetic interpretation presented in the Great Controversy, but they believe it to be a conditional prophetic interpretation. When the conditions failed to be fulfilled, they argue, the prophetic interpretation became obsolete in the way that many Biblical prophecies concerning Israel failed due to unmet conditions.

 

They argue that if Christ could have come in Ellen White’s lifetime,[3] but if He did not due to a failure of His people,[4] then maybe the end time events scenario that would have played out in the late 1800’s is also conditional.[5] Christ certainly will come again, it is argued, and the prophesies of Daniel and the Revelation will certainly be fulfilled, but maybe in a different way than they would have if God’s people would have met the necessary prerequisites in the 1800’s. Those who take this position, which for convenience this paper will refer to as “reinterpreters,” frequently rely on numerous factors that make the enactment of a national Sunday law unlikely under present conditions.

 

A third group of Adventists believe that the prophetic scenario laid out most clearly in the Great Controversy remains current, but that certain prerequisites are necessary before Sunday laws are passed. They agree that it would be most unlikely for a national Sunday law to be passed through the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President under current conditions. However, they believe that prophecy has mapped out preconditions for the passage of the national Sunday law, and that once these preconditions are met is not unlikely but rather is a prophetic inevitability that Sunday laws will be enacted.

 

The author of this paper argues that the position adopted by the third group of Adventists is the appropriate approach in light of what we know of prophecy, and the current state of the law, religion and politics.

 

The Adventist message at its purist, has always been one that combines the rigorous intellectual investigation of a broad array of academic disciplines with in-depth study of scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our findings, at their best, are expressed with unflinching honesty as we strive towards the goal of discovering and understanding ultimate Truth. The author endeavors to follow in this tradition.

 

 

Rumors about secret movements toward the imminent enactment of national Sunday laws have swept through the Adventist Church for generations. There are three problems with these rumors. The first is that all rumors to date have been without adequate documentation. The second is that if a Sunday law were passed in secret through stealth movements, such a passage would not confirm prophecy, but rather would contradict it as we are explicitly told that Sunday laws will be enacted through an open democratic process driven by public calls from the nation’s clergy.[6] Finally, all these rumors have been untrue. Here we are in 2005 without a serious movement of any kind to pass a national Sunday law since the seminal events of 1888.

 

This final fact has created a growing culture of skepticism within the church. If our pastors, our academy teachers, for some even their parents, and if other pillars of authority within the Adventist Church were repeatedly wrong in their speculative Sunday law scenarios, maybe they are simply wrong about their entire religious understanding. Hence, the speculation some Adventists have engaged in over generations not only ignores important elements of the Adventist prophetic scenario, not only has proven untrue, but also has had a serious negative impact on the faith of many associated with Adventism.[7]

 

 

The group of Adventists who call for the reinterpretation of the prophetic scenario described in Great Controversy, tend to do so in a quiet, more reasoned manner than those who engage in speculation, but their analysis is equally flawed. This is for three reasons.

 

The first is that some who adopt this position do so in reaction to the speculative excesses within the Church. As noted above, the speculative excesses themselves violate the Adventist prophetic scenario. Reacting against statements that violate the elements in the scenario by abandoning the scenario in total is a misguided over-reaction. One can well reject wanton speculation without simultaneously rejecting the studied interpretation of prophecy that, in fact, discredits the speculators’ scenarios.

 

The second is that many who adopt this position claim simultaneously to accept the inspiration of the writings of Ellen White. Unless one resorts to tortured reasoning, these two positions are mutually exclusive.

 

Precisely what inspiration means is, of course, a debate within the debate, but at the very least it must mean that when a prophet is talking of prophecy that he or she can be relied upon. In the case of the Adventist prophetic scenario, Ellen White continued to reiterate the prophetic scenario outlined in the Great Controversy until her death in 1915. This is 27 years after Senator Blair’s effort to pass a national Sunday law in 1888.  

 

If the prophetic scenario was built around events leading up to, and culminating in 1888, and if subsequent to that time the scenario was ripe for reinterpretation, Ellen White had almost three decades to communicate this. She did not. Indeed, late in her life, Ellen White continued to predict that a Sunday law would be enacted in the future.[8]

 

It is true that the Bible has many conditional prophecies that were never fulfilled due to a failure to meet the conditions. But there are two hallmarks to the conditional prophecies in the Bible. First, they provide conditional language in the text or imply conditions in the context. Second, at the time of conditions going unmet, God provided explicit guidance.  

 

The example of the failed prophecies regarding Israel well illustrate this pattern. Not only were the conditions for fulfillment explicit, [9] but the time for conditions to be met were mapped out in Daniel centuries in advance,[10] at the end of the prophetic period Christ gave clear indication of the end of Israel’s prophetic period,[11] and after the period had ended, Paul wrote extensively explaining how the prophecies of the Old Testament related to the new Christian Church.[12] In short, a student of God’s word could not be in doubt over the conditional nature of the prophecies.

 

In contrast, the prophetic scenario laid out in the Great Controversy provides no conditions relating to if the prophecy will be fulfilled; the only conditional factor related to the prophecy is when it will be fulfilled. Further, God did not provide an indication of a change through Ellen White as He did, for example, through Jonah.[13] Further, there is no time period provided for the prophetic fulfillment, nor has any other prophet risen up to provide an alternate explanation.

 

In summary, when prophecies are conditional, and when the conditions fail, God has expressed this to His people explicitly in times past. There has been no similar expression regarding the prophetic scenario provided by Ellen White. Therefore, if her prophetic scenario was inspired by God it is still in effect. Alternatively, the prophetic scenario is wrong, and if so, Ellen White was not a true prophet of God. It is impossible, however, to reconcile Ellen White’s prophetic gift if we are to believe that she was fundamentally wrong on her central interpretation of prophecy.

 

The third reason that reinterpretation is unnecessary is that while the passage of a national Sunday law is unlikely under current circumstances, these circumstances will change. When conditions change, there are societal, legal and political foundations that could make the way for a national Sunday law movement.

 

It is likely that most Adventists who have come to doubt the prophetic scenario in the Great Controversy have done so because it appears so entirely unlikely in our current social, economic, political and legal climate. Yes, it is true that there may be some indicators that reflect the prophetic scenario, it is argued. But it is also true that we have developed into a 24 hour, seven day a week economy, that we have become a much more religiously diverse society, that Sunday keeping Christians don’t revere Sunday as they once did and even if they did, they don’t have the power some ascribe to them, that a large number of Americans have a religious faith expressed in a very different manner than the traditional Christian denomination, and that religious minorities enjoy broad rights today under American law that they did not in the 1800’s. Each of these observations has merit.

 

To illustrate the difficulty of passing a national law that requires rest on Sunday, one only has to consider the economic implications of such a law. How would the manufacturing, retail and entertainment sectors of the economy react to such a law? What would General Motors’ reaction be to a proposed law that requires shutting down its assembly plants 1/7^th of year, how would Wal-Mart react to closing its stores 14% of the week, how would the National Football League respond to a ban on Super Bowl Sunday?

 

We can’t say for sure, because no serious effort has been mounted in well over a hundred years to enact a national Sunday law, but we do have indications. There is a bill currently pending in Congress that would make it easier for individual workers to take off time for religious observance,[14] including a weekly Sabbath. Industry has not responded positively to the proposal, and their opposition has made passage of the bill – which is supported overwhelming by a broad cross section of America’s religious community – very difficult to pass.[15]

 

The demographics of America are also much different today than in the 1880’s, and this is reflected in our power structure. One of the two congressional chaplains is a Seventh-day Adventist minister; there are two Jews on the U.S. Supreme Court, 37 Jews in Congress (11 in the U.S. Senate and 26 in the U.S. House of Representatives), two Seventh-day Adventists in the House.[16] Put another way, 50% of the congressional chaplains are Seventh-day Adventists, 22% of the Supreme Court are Jews, 11% of the U.S. Senate are Jews, 6% of the U.S. House of Representatives are Jews and Seventh-day Adventists combined. The impact of this is profound. For example, in 2004 the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear cases on a Jewish holy day in respect of its two Jewish members, and Congress now doesn’t schedule votes on the first days of Rosh Hashanah and Passover, and on Yom Kippur.[17]

 

Seventh-day Adventists joined with commercial interests to successfully oppose a national Sunday law in the 1880’s when we were small marginalized minority. Today we are a significant presence with a million members, over a thousand schools and 52 hospitals in the United States. It is asked, couldn’t Adventists, working with other Sabbath keepers, secularists and commercial interests, defeat a national Sunday law under current circumstances?

 

Not only have the barriers to the passage of Sunday laws risen since the Great Controversy was penned, but the support for such laws have waned. Most Christians don’t revere Sunday as they once did. They routinely work on Sunday without complaint, they participate in sports, entertainment, and wide range of other activities that their forbears not only abstained from, but vigorously prosecuted those who did not conform. Not surprisingly, today’s Sunday keeping Christians have not proven keen to enact a national law that would prevent many of them from engaging in activities on Sunday that they have done all their lives.

 

Some have pointed to the Pope John Paul II’s letter on Sunday and its call for civil legislation to protect Sunday sacredness[18] as proof of a growing movement for a Sunday law. An alternate explanation that has been put forth is that the letter is a reaction to the weakness of observance among those the Catholic Church claims as its adherents. If today virtually no predominantly Christian nations have comprehensive Sunday laws, it is asked, isn’t this a sign that the Pope’s letter was written from a position of weakness rather than of strength?

 

In addition, the political power of the Christians can be overstated. Since 1973 the full force of conservative Christians from Baptists through to Catholics has been focused on abortion. And yet, if polls are to be believed,[19] even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it is likely that most state legislatures would still vote to uphold legalized abortions. It is asked, if conservative Christians can’t prevail on abortion in today’s environment, what chances are there of bringing the economy to a grinding holt one day out of seven?

 

Some also believe America is becoming a more secular nation. It is true that it remains an unusually religious nation vis-à-vis other western nations, it is noted, but it is also true that there is a growing trend away from identification with a particular denomination towards a more ambiguous spirituality, and that, with immigration, America has become a spectacularly spiritually diverse country. Both of these trends auger poorly, it is suggested, for a successful effort to pass a national law enforcing one groups holy day orthodoxy.

 

Finally, those in favor of revising the Adventist prophetic position often point to freedom that a broad range of faiths enjoy in this nation; freedom that is guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions and by a relatively large body of statutory and case law.

 

Even if we accept all the above observations of society, religion, politics and the law, it does not necessary result in the acceptance of a need to reinterpret the Adventist prophetic scenario. This is for three reasons: the above observations are only a partial view of society today, the Adventist prophetic scenario is predicated on society changing radically before the passage of a national Sunday law, and finally, prophets have insights beyond what is available through reason and observation.

 

Those ascribing to the need to reassess our prophetic vision sometimes appeal to the Constitutional protections as evidence that the passage of a national Sunday law is exceedingly unlikely. It is surprising to many reinterpreters to learn, however, that the Constitution is no bar to the passage of Sunday laws.

 

In 1961, the Supreme Court decided two cases that challenged the constitutionality of Sunday closing laws.[20] The Supreme Court went through a lengthy analysis of the origins and the nature of Sunday laws at the time of the cases. It acknowledged that Sunday laws have a religious origin, quoting from various state and colonial laws that contained reference to the “Lord’s Day,” prohibitions against “profaning the Sabbath” and other similar overt religious language.[21] Nevertheless, the Court found that by the 1960’s the motivation behind Sunday laws was the protection of workers rights.[22] Thus, as Sunday laws now protect worker’s rights rather than enforcing religious doctrine, the Court found that they do not establish a religious belief and therefore they do not violate the Constitution’s ban on laws regarding an establishment of religion.[23] In addition, the Court also found that Sunday laws do not violate the Equal Protection Clause[24] or the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the Constitution.[25]

 

Justice Stewart joined with Justice Brennan in dissent, stating that Sunday laws when applied to those who keep the seventh-day holy unconstitutionally violates their religious freedom. He noted in his dissenting opinion in Braunfeld v. Brown that: “I think the impact of this [Sunday] law upon these appellants grossly violates their constitutional right to the free exercise of their religion.” [26]

 

Similarly, Justice Douglas dissented in McGowan v. Maryland, stating: “The Court picks and chooses language from various decisions to bolster its conclusion that these Sunday laws in the modern setting are ‘civil regulations.’ No matter how much is written, no matter what is said, the parentage of these laws is the Fourth Commandment; and they serve and satisfy the religious predispositions of our Christian communities… It seems to me plain that by these laws the States compel one, under sanction of law, to refrain from work or recreation on Sunday because of the majority's religious views about that day.”[27]

 

While these dissents are eloquent and will resonate with many Adventists, they are however just that, dissents. The majority opinion that Sunday laws do not violate the Constitution is the law.

 

It is over forty years since these cases were decided. This raises the question whether the Court’s analysis of Sunday laws has changed. It has not. Rather, the Supreme Court has confirmed the concept that Sunday laws are constitutional relatively recently. In 1990 the Supreme Court decided Employment Division v. Smith.[28] In this case Justice Scalia writing for the majority of the Court used Sunday laws as an example of the types of laws that impact on people’s ability to practice their faith but that are nevertheless constitutional. He stated:

 

            Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does  not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law           of general applicability…’ In Braunfeld v. Brown,… [for example] we upheld         Sunday-closing laws against the claim that they burdened the religious practices of persons whose religions compelled them to refrain from work on other days.[29]

 

A recent review of state law found that 49 states and the District of Columbia have at least one form of Sunday law currently on the books.[30] These laws range from requirements to close certain businesses on Sunday to prohibitions on engaging in certain activities on Sunday.[31] Some of these laws have been challenged, but overwhelmingly they have been upheld as constitutional even if they may no longer be enforced rigorously in many jurisdictions.[32]

 

Of course, the fact that Sunday laws are considered constitution by the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t mean that a Sunday law must be enacted by Congress, it merely means that there is no constitutional bar to Congress should it choose to enact a Sunday law. So is there any evidence that Congress is headed in that direction?

 

Under today’s circumstances, there is little if any evidence that a national Sunday law is imminent. But the Adventist prophetic scenario is contingent on today’s circumstances changing dramatically. Talking about Sunday laws, Ellen White stated repeatedly that they would only be enacted following a catastrophic series of disasters:

            Satan puts his interpretation upon events, and they think, as he would have them,           that the calamities which fill the land are a result of Sunday breaking. Thinking to appease the wrath of God these influential men make laws enforcing Sunday          observance. (emphasis added).[33]

            When the angel of mercy folds her wings and departs Satan will do the evil deeds          he has long wished to do. Storm and tempest, war and bloodshed--in these things             he delights, and thus he gathers in his harvest. And so completely will men be deceived by him that they will declare that these calamities are the result of the  desecration of the first day of the week. From the pulpits of the popular churches  will be heard the statement that the world is being punished because Sunday is not  honored as it should be.[34]

While it is impossible to prove that the American people will pressure Congress to pass a national Sunday law if faced with national a series of unprecedented national calamities, it is certainly not inconceivable. In the face of enormous loss, people tend to examine why God has allowed the tragedy. This happened after 9/11, after the tsunami and is happening today in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is not remarkable to come to the conclusion, that God permitted great destruction because society has wandered from His principles.

But what principles would these be? Many Adventists believe that Christians as a whole have forgotten the Ten Commandments. The recent national focus on the Ten Commandments court cases,[35] however, demonstrates precisely the opposite. Many Sunday keeping Christians like their spiritual forbears, speak with passion and conviction of the need for society to reflect the Ten Commandments in its society and in its laws.[36] This is not a dead concept of a bygone era, but a concept that has been remarkably resilient against many predictions to the contrary. Further, the reemphasis on Sunday sacredness among the Catholic tradition, including the Pope’s call for civil legislation to enforce Sunday sacredness[37] is hard to ignore in the face of the reemergence of the papacy as arguably the most prominent spiritual voice in the world, including the United States.[38]

It is also worth noting that the growth of the conservative Protestant/Catholic political union in the United States is not as easily dismissed as inconsequential as some might wish. The power of this union arguably made the difference necessary to elect the current President, a majority in the Senate and the House,[39] by the end of this year will have been influential in the choice of over half the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, and will have contributed to the Republican control of a majority of state legislatures and a majority of state governorships. This is not to suggest that these individuals are suspect because they are supported by conservative people of faith. Nor is it to suggest that candidates supported by the secular and religious left would be preferable. It is, however, to note that the political power of conservative religion is immense in America today, and to ignore this fact is to ignore political reality.

The increased power and prominence of Sabbath keeping minorities in America, and non-Christian religions, while significant, should not be overstated. Firstly, many non-Christian faiths don’t stress a weekly holy day observance as do the Jewish/Christian traditions, and many non-Christian faiths meet on Sunday as a matter of convenience.[40] Further, while a majority of Jews may observe the high holy days, those that refrain from secular work on Sabbath are a minority of a minority.[41] It is therefore hard to imagine non Adventists reacting to a proposed Sunday law – particularly in times of unprecedented crisis – in the way Seventh-day Adventists would.

Further, the crisis the Bible predicts for the end times will undoubtedly cause havoc among commercial interests.[42] It is unlikely that a commercial sector on the verge of collapse would be in the position to block Sunday legislation, even if it wanted to (in a time of unprecedented turmoil, business leaders may well want to appease the same God as society as a whole).

It is also difficult to ignore that there are significant developments that make the Great Controversy scenario much more likely today than when the book was penned. For example, the intense anti-Catholicism that characterized American society for much of its history has, thankfully, largely ceased. This permits Catholics and Protestants to work closely together, a prediction that must have been hard to conceive of in the 1800’s. In addition, America is in a position to influence the nations of the world today in a manner that was inconceivable in the 1800’s when it was rebuilding from the Civil War and during which other world powers, particularly Great Britain, were far more influential on the global stage.

Finally, even if there were no contra-indicators to the observations relied upon by the reinterpreters, the role of the prophet is to give insight beyond what we can come through human observation and reason. When Daniel predicted the powers to dominate in years to come,[43] there was no objective evidence to the veracity of the vision. Similarly, if we believe that Ellen White’s prophetic vision derived from God, we can be assured of its fulfillment.

To summarize, we can reject wanton speculation without rejecting the prophetic scenario. There is no textual or subsequent prophetic message that would indicate that the prophetic scenario is conditional. While there are many indicators that the enactment of Sunday laws under current conditions would not be possible, there are significant legal and political trends that prepare the way for such an enactment. Further, the Adventist prophetic scenario assumes an unprecedented series of crisis’s in America that radically alters society in a fundamental manner. Finally, if we accept Ellen White to be a true prophet, her prophetic vision supersedes the conclusions we can draw through our observations alone.

 

 

It has become fashionable in Adventism to display one’s intellectual openness by questioning the doctrines, practices and interpretations of the past. While pushing knowledge forward is a hallmark of a follower of God, before we abandon the insights of those before us, we must look long and hard at the scholarship and inspiration that lead us to those insights.

 

In the case of the Adventist prophetic scenario, and particularly the Sunday law, increasing numbers of Adventists are erring on both sides. Speculators have got it wrong, because they have separated one aspect from its prophetic whole. Reinterpreters have got it wrong because they assume continuation of current circumstances, focus on the veneer of society, and by necessity they degrade or deny the inspiration of Ellen White. Those who stay a steady course of faith in the validity of our prophetic understanding in its whole have it right because it is the only consistent position with continued faith in God’s continuing revelation, the foundation for the scenario is set in law and society, and the scenario is predicated on unprecedented events that will transform society.

 

Accepting the third approach has at least three very practical ramifications.

 

Firstly, while we must remain vigilant for Sunday laws, we should not be preoccupied in searching for signs on their imminence. We have been told that they will be enacted through the democratic process preceded by an open public debate. In short, we will know when Sunday laws return to the national agenda.

 

Second, if the history of speculation has taught us anything, it must be that pre-judging a candidate based on their personal faith commitment is not only substantively misguided but it is wrong. From John F. Kennedy through to Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, there have been and continue to be many powerful Catholics who have had a positive impact on religious freedom. In nations where there are majority Catholic populations[44] Seventh-day Adventists and other religious minorities routinely experience broad religious freedom. An individual’s religious affiliation is a poor indicator of an individual’s heart, and assuming otherwise can lead us to acts and opinions that are not merely unfair, but bigoted. We have to look far deeper than religious affiliation to determine an individual’s disposition towards liberty of conscience.

 

Finally, until Sunday laws become an issue once again in the United States, there is much work to be done in the area of religious liberty. For example:

 

 

And religious freedom is only a part of our public work. Other issues we are engaged on include:

 

 

These lists only begin to scratch the surface of public issues on which there should be a Seventh-day Adventist voice. And yet, many Seventh-day Adventists today are completely disengaged on these critical issues; choosing instead to spend their time and energy chasing phantom Sunday laws and financially supporting those with the most spectacular speculative scenarios. This is not what Adventism is all about.

 

Our spiritual forbears targeted their activism on issues in the public square as they arose, from slavery to Sunday laws, from dress reform to temperance reforms. As Seventh-day Adventist Christians with a dedication to the gospel, a firm belief in prophecy, a love for humanity and a commitment to the liberty granted by God to His creation, we can and we must do the same.

 

Sunday laws will come and when the movement for their passage begins we will be there to counter them as we are instructed to do.[52] Until the movement reemerges, we have more than enough in the public square to challenge our intellects, utilize our talents, and engage our resources. It is the author’s prayer that as a people we follow the example of early Adventists and become engaged in the issues of today, today, while remaining vigilant for the issues of tomorrow – knowing that tomorrow may arrive sooner than any of us imagine.

 

[For more on how to support and become actively engaged on public issues close to the hearts of Seventh-day Adventist Christians, visit www.religiousliberty.info]

 

---