Notes on Last Generation Theology

Historical Background
1.    1700s
 1.1.    John Wesley and Methodism: Holiness, experience, community
  1.1.1.    Wesley: The Holy Spirit’s "second work of grace" is called "entire sanctification."
  1.1.2.    It is character perfection: “purity of intention” and “love excluding sin.”
  1.1.3.    No more intentional sin, but mistakes and other kinds of growth are still possible.
 1.2.    American Methodism: Revivalism, corporate enthusiastic experience
 1.3.    Early Adventism was revivalistic: shouting, singing, and speaking in unknown tongues to receive the Holy Spirit.

2.    1800s
 2.1.    Oberlin College: Christian perfection by receiving the Holy Spirit through an act of the will
 2.2.    Phoebe Palmer: a "shorter way" to "higher life," immediate entire sanctification, which means one cannot be lost
 2.3.    Higher Life movement: The “second blessing” of the Holy Spirit can confer even sinless perfection, a state in which one cannot sin.
  2.3.1.    Quietist slogan: “Let go and let God.”
  2.3.2.    Keswick (KEZ-ick) Conventions influenced D.L. Moody (a Calvinist) such that higher life became the most popular view of perfection in non-confessional, American Protestantism
  2.3.3.    A.B. Simpson starts the Alliance Church out of this movement
 2.4.    In Adventism, Ellen G. White sticks closer to Wesley on this subject and ecstatic revivalism and immediate entire sanctification while interpreting perfection as a corporate, end-time experience (e.g., the Holy Flesh movement in Adventism influenced by Hannah Whitall Smith; see AA 560).
  2.4.1.    For Ellen White, the end-time remnant will experience Christian perfection but can never claim sinlessness (ST 23 Mar 1888; COL, 62–69; 2SM, 32–33).

3.    1900–1930
 3.1.    Victorious Life movement: Fundamentalist influence on Higher Life, opposes anything worldly, reduces sinlessness to following rules and regulations in order to eliminate ambiguity in the conflict with Modernists ("New Theology")
 3.2.    Pentecostalism arose from Higher Life’s emphasis on healings and miracles: The sign of the second blessing is speaking in unknown tongues.
 3.3.    Adventists influenced by Higher Life/Victorious Life literature—esp. E. J. Waggoner (1901 GC Sermon) and Meade McGuire (His Cross and Mine)—interpreted sinless perfection—never breaking God’s rules—as a condition we must meet for the end-times to commence.

4.    1930–1980
 4.1.    Neo-Evangelicals (now, simply Evangelicals) emerge from the Fundamentalist movement with an emphasis on engaging with the world and grace vs. works.
 4.2.    Fundamentalist Adventism, leveraging end-times anxiety to produce performance, slowly collapses under the weight of its expectations.
  4.2.1.    Adventist evangelistic ministries like Voice of Prophecy and It Is Written break with Fundamentalist strictures about the worldliness of mass media before the Neo-Evangelicals do.
  4.2.2.    Robert Brinsmead’s phases: perfectionist (1960s), evangelical (1970s), secular humanist (1980s–present)
  4.2.3.    Desmond Ford taps into a well of dissatisfaction in the church fed by a spring of spiritual anxiety.
 4.3.    Fundamentalist Adventism adopts a posture of fighting retreat.
  4.3.1.    Post-war period of Adventist missions: most active in our history
   4.3.1.1.    Those who viewed Adventism as a program for rule-following spread that vision of perfection around the world.
   4.3.1.2.    Robert J. Wieland and Donald K. Short return from the mission field and attempt to reinstate that vision in America, arguing that the Keswick Conventions and Victorious Life movement didn’t go far enough and that Adventists needed to corporately repent for rejecting Waggoner’s view of perfection, which they believed Ellen White endorsed as part of the 1888 message of righteousness by faith.
  4.3.2.    Fight for control of the General Conference: Robert H. Pierson’s 1978 farewell address
  4.3.3.    Independent ministries begin to advance Fundamentalist critiques of mainstream North American Adventism and the denomination (e.g, Creeping Compromise by Joe Crews), believing that a return to rigorous rule-following is necessary for Jesus to return according to Last Generation Theology.

Definition of Last Generation Theology
Last Generation Theology is the proposition that the sinless perfection of the end-time remnant will make the second coming possible because it will finally vindicate God’s character by demonstrating that human beings born into sin can live according to God’s law.

1.    “Last Generation Theology” (LGT) is an exonym defined by a critic, the “dean of Adventist studies” George R. Knight (A Search for Identity, I Used to Be Perfect).
 1.1.    The endonym? Something like “Victorious Adventism” (coined by Adventist historian Michael Campbell in a 2023 presentation), but in its time it didn’t need to be named because it was the default Adventist view of perfection.

2.    LGT explains two big questions for Adventists:
 2.1.    Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?
 2.2.    Why does the last generation need to be perfectly holy?

3.    LGT offers one simple answer: We have a climactic part to play in the Great Controversy by vindicating God’s character by following his rules down to the smallest detail so that humanity’s probation can close and Jesus can come back.
 3.1.    In other words, the second coming depends on you not wearing high heels, eating cheese, watching sports, etc.

Theological Evaluation
The only problem with LGT is that it implies heresy. Why? Protestantism broke with Catholicism because we should not put the church in a place that only Christ can occupy.

1.    Professor M.L. Andreasen, who synthesized the early-twentieth-century Adventist view of perfection in a chapter on “The Last Generation” in his magnum opus on The Sanctuary Service (1937), considered the vindication of God’s character by the end-time remnant to be a stage of atonement.
 1.1.    This construes the end-time remnant as standing between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity, making it possible for God to save all humanity because of the sinless perfection God has accomplished in their human nature.
 1.2.    Therefore, LGT implies that humanity has another ‘mediator’ in the end-time atonement after Christ’s advocacy for us in the pre-Advent, investigative judgment is finished: the end-time remnant (contra 1 Tim 2:5).
 1.3.    That the perfection of the end-time remnant after the close of probation is necessary for all humanity to be saved makes it a sort of ‘co-redemptrix’ in LGT.

2.    The cross was the sufficient demonstration that vindicated God’s character before the onlooking universe, so there is no need for a second such demonstration for God to close the Great Controversy (Rom 3:26; John 12:30–31).
 2.1.    Because of what Christ has done, God would still be seen as being in the right even if every human being were to reject his offer of salvation (Rom 3:4).

3.    The pre-Advent, investigative judgment settles the questions Heaven’s residents might have about the fitness of the saved to join them there (Zech 3, esp. v7).

4.    Ellen White used the word "vindicate" in three distinct ways that accord with the three detentions of "vindication" in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.
 4.1.    To proclaim vindication—those who keep God's law during the final crisis "vindicate" his "honor" by "pronouncing it holy, just, and good" (4T, 593; RH, 16 April 1901; compare Eze 36:26).
 4.2.    To prove vindication—Jesus's life of obedience and sacrifice vindicated God's character by providing the necessary evidence (8T 207; PP 68; compare John 12:27–33).
  4.2.1.    This is where LGT inserts the end-time remnant alongside Christ.
 4.3.    To provide vindication—God will ultimately vindicate his character by destroying sin and sinners forever (DA, 764; compare Rev 19:1–4).

Theological Possibilities
How then can Adventists answer the end-time questions that LGT explains?

Question 1: Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?

Answer:
1.    God in his foreknowledge (and, arguably, middle knowledge) accounts for the future, free decisions of all his creatures in order to predestine a plan of salvation that gives everyone a good-faith opportunity to accept salvation (Rom 8:28–30).

2.    There is a pattern in salvation history of God delaying his judgments, including the end-time judgment, to ensure that everyone will receive that opportunity (Matt 24:14; 2 Pet 3:9).

3.    We can hasten Jesus’s coming by deciding to surrender to the Holy Spirit so that we will rightly represent his character to the world by overcoming sin and living loving lives that invite others to join God’s kingdom (2 Pet 3:10–12; Rom 2:19–24; 1 John 4:19; John 13:35).
 3.1.    But that being the case, the decisions of those who are ultimately lost also delay the second coming.

4.    The end-time harvest must first mature as the final crisis (Rev 13:11–18) and three angels’ messages (Rev 14:6–11) bring everyone alive to the point of making their decision for or against God (Matt 13:24–30; Rev 14:14–20).
 4.1.    Therefore, we should not discourage people who are still maturing with criticism of their spiritual state as if this will hasten the Second Coming.

5.    While we retroactively influence God’s plan by our present choices that he foreknew, God has already determined when Jesus will come back (Mark 13:32).

Question 2: Why does the last generation need Christian perfection?

Answer 1:
1.    The mature (not sinless, 1 John 1:8) perfection of the remnant (and not individuals only, Eph 4:13–16) in loving character will call humanity to repentance in the final crisis by proclaiming the love of God in Christ (John 13:35).

2.    Christian perfection cannot be reduced to a program of scrupulous rule-following because those who try to eliminate moral ambiguity as far as possible by identifying as many rules as possible are not attractive but rather the robotic slaves that Satan accuses God of trying to create through reward/punishment (Job 1:9–11).
 2.1.    In the first crisis, Satan tried to make God appear more restrictive than he truly is (Gen 3:1), so also in the final crisis (1 Tim 4:1–5).
 2.2.    From the beginning, God’s rule(s) bounded a much wider field of actions open to interpretation, which provides for sort of moral judgment calls necessary for character development (cf. Gen 2:16 and 2:17; Rom 14:12–13, 22–23).
 2.3.    The Bible defines perfection in terms of grand character qualities, not Pharisaic attention to ethical minutiae (cf. Matt 5:48 and Luke 6:36; Jas 1:4; Rev 14:4).
  2.3.1.    We follow God’s rules because we are developing his character, which also gives us the freedom to make good judgment-calls in non-rule-governed domains of morality (cf. Matt 23:23 and Luke 11:42).

Answer 2:
1.    The last plagues that will harden the unrepentant in their rejection of God (Rev 16:9, 11) will also serve to sever our attachments to the passing things of this world and strengthen our attachment to God (Eph 5:27, cf. the maturation of the end-time harvest).
 1.1.    The plagues that fell on Egypt not only hardened Pharoah in his rejection of God but inspired other Egyptians to leave Egypt (Exod 12:38).

2.    The intensity of God’s last judgments on sin before the second coming will call for him to give the faithful an equally intense experience of dependence on him (Rev 7:3, 14:1).

Conclusion
Therefore, providing a second round of evidence that vindicates God’s character is not necessary to explain the end-time significance of Christian perfection.

1.    It is false to claim that rejecting LGT means rejecting the Christian perfection of the end-time remnant.

2.    It is false to claim that believing in the Christian perfection of the end-time remnant means accepting LGT.

Recommended for further study:

• 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism's Struggle with Fundamentalism by Michael W. Campbell
• "Holiness Adventism: The Victorious Life Movement, Seventh-day Adventism, and Last Generation Theology" by Michael W. Campbell (paper presented at the 2022 Evangelical Theological Society National Meeting)
• "Pardoned and Perfect: A Comparative Study of the Soteriology of John Wesley and Ellen White" by Esther Louw (Andrews University MA Thesis)
• God's Character and the Last Generation edited by Jiří Moskala and John C. Peckham
• "Living Without an Intercessor" by Ángel Manuel Rodriguez in Adventist World
• The Judgment and Assurance: The Dynamics of Personal Salvation by Woodrow W. Whidden

"Judgments of God?" in the 2024 United States Presidential Elections

Early in 2020, I published a 2017 paper in the Brazilian theological journal Kerygma arguing that the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency was a divine judgment that exposed the hypocrisy of the right, center, and left of American politics. I found that this judgment was not a national catastrophe but rather one that had sifted Americans by how we responded to the immorality that had resulted in our preferred factions acting as if God does not intervene in human history.

Then, four years ago to the day of this writing, I published an article in the now sadly defunct Compass Magazine assessing how well my providential interpretation had held up over the intervening years. I found that only the center seemed chastened, while the right and left had plunged even further into their hypocritical immorality.

In the sketch that follows, I will bring my thesis up to date without going into detail and without rehearsing arguments I made in my previous publications. So I suggest that you familiarize yourself with them if you've not done so already.

The Left

Musa Al-Gharbi's We Have Never Been Woke came out this year, and he nails down my thesis about the hypocrisy of the left better than I ever could. I recommend this review in Front Porch Republic. It is also possible that we have passed so-called "peak woke," but all this means is that the left's agenda has become institutionalized to the extent that it is no longer noteworthy or cutting-edge.

The Center

The hypocrisy of the center was exposed in the first presidential debate when it became obvious that the faction of competence was attempting to foist a manifestly incompetent incumbent on the nation. At least the centrists in the press did not let the centrists in the Democratic White House get away with Jill Biden's turn as Edith Wilson. Then, the champions of democracy did not allow an open primary to select Joe Biden's replacement, selected by Mr. Biden himself, not for her competence, much less her character, but for her identity. The Hillary Clinton-esque ideological makeover Democratic party operatives have given Kamala Harris, leaves no doubt that the center is not so chastened after all.

The Right

The surprising events of January 6 came close to turning this sifting judgment into a national catastrophe, but America retained its form of government under constitutional procedure despite Donald Trump breaking with the US tradition of peaceful transfer of presidential power begun by George Washington. With prominent Republican figures endorsing his opponent and his former chief of staff calling him, in broad terms, "a fascist," the putative defenders of freedom continue to stand condemned of hypocrisy by their own side's admission.

Providence

Despite all his legal woes, including a felony conviction, and several attempts on his life, including a grazed ear, Mr. Trump is neck and neck in the polls with Mrs. Harris. Even unbelievers are astonished at how many close calls he has avoided. This surprise is consistent with the divine judgment thesis because God does not allow his judgments to be preempted by human efforts.

The Stakes

As I see it, regardless of who is elected, we will have a president who governs as if God doesn't intervene in human history and, therefore, our immoral hypocrisy is justified because it's all up to us. Mrs. Harris will continue to offer symbolic victories to minority groups while ensuring that the elites are secure in their positions of power regardless of the indignities that this requires everyone else to suffer, and she will be open to whatever pragmatic compromises are necessary to get her a second term. Under a Harris presidency, the sifting will likely continue. On the other hand, a second Trump term is unlikely to be like his first because the plans are in place to remove those who restrained his unconstitutional impulses. If he is elected, we may experience the national catastrophe of having our democratic republic replaced by the majoritarian White, Christian nationalism that many warned about eight years ago.

Conclusion

The purpose of a divine sifting judgment is not to cause us to pursue our preferred outcomes in the world but to test our characters to see whether our interpretation of our situation aligns with loyalty to God or has been compromised by other loyalties. How you choose to vote (or abstain from voting) will show whether your hope is in a political faction that represents your identity attaining worldly power for you and yours or whether your hope is the God who intervenes in human history and will eventually return to destroy America for its sins and set up his eternal kingdom.

The Modern State of Israel: An Adventist Interpretation

The modern, liberal-democratic Jewish nation-state of Israel does not resume the covenantal status God established with the ancient Davidic dynasty of the theocratic United Monarchy of Israel for three reasons:

1. Israel’s post-exilic, geopolitical mission of bringing about the messianic age was accomplished in the events surrounding the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth (Daniel 9:24–27).

2. There is no inspired revelation of God renewing his covenant with any modern nation, including Israel, nor would God need to because

3. Between the first and second comings of the Messiah, God’s kingdom is not geopolitical but spiritual-only (John 18:36), and his temple is not earthly but heavenly (Hebrews 9:11–12).

Yet because God continues and will continue to have a particular love for the people of Israel (Romans 11:2, 28–29), how much more has God providentially guided the subsequent history of the Jews given that he does so for every other nation (Acts 17:26)?

In the providential interpretation of human history, we recognize that God has accomplished his goals through past or current events based on patterns in the prophetic record of his previous interactions with groups of humans, his enduring characteristics, and his revealed plans. While discerning divine action in history is necessarily speculative, it is, I argue, necessary for us to align our approach to changing circumstances with divine action in history. The study and experience of history is one way God pushes back on our wrongly cherished views of reality, reforming our character. In the wake of recent events, let us briefly consider the history of Jews after the ascension of Jesus with an eye toward discerning God’s purposes for the State of Israel today.
 
A series of Jewish revolts against Roman imperium based on messianic expectation of a restored geopolitical kingdom resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple (AD 70) and the eventual complete expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem (AD 135). These disasters caused the Jews to turn away from messianic expectation altogether and allowed the politically ascendent Christians in the Roman Empire to distinguish themselves from the Jews via antisemitism. God then allowed the Jews to suffer persecution in Europe under the rule of the established churches and divided kingdoms that oppressed Jewish and Christian Sabbath-keepers in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. (The Jews who remained in Judea, Galilee, and elsewhere in the Middle East suffered dhimmitude under Muslim rule during roughly the same period.) After Martin Luther’s religious antisemitism was secularized in the philosophy of the German Enlightenment, this antisemitic strain in Christendom culminated in the Shoah under the Nazis. Then, in his mercy, God raised up and protected the State of Israel where persecuted Jews may seek shelter on their ancestral lands.

This does not imply that we ought to reflexively side with the Jewish State of Israel and in its conflicts any more than we ought to reflexively side with the United States just because we recognize that God raised it up to provide a bastion of religious liberty with separation of church and state for his church (more on that here). The interests of God cannot be wholly identified with one side of a human conflict (Joshua 5:13–14). For example, as Ellen White saw in a vision and Abraham Lincoln later understood, although the Union's war against the Confederacy was just, God was also judging the Union states for compromising too long with the sin of slavery. Thus, to seek a swift victory for the Union because it was on ‘God's side’ would have been to oppose another purpose of God in the US Civil War.

The rise and fall of nations and the shifting of their borders are determined by God so that we might seek him and be saved (Acts 17:27). It follows that according to God’s particular purpose of saving all Israel (Romans 11:26), God raised up the modern State of Israel. But Israel, like every other human polity, is on probation to determine what it will do with the blessings God has given it. Will it govern so that Jews, Muslims, and Christians can shelter in it together in peace (Daniel 4:21)? Will it be a nation of which it is said that Jews love Arabs as much they love themselves (Leviticus 19:34)? Will it be a nation where the stranger, the widow, and the orphan can find justice, or will it be cursed for unnecessarily making more and more of the strangers who dwell in its land widows and orphans (Deuteronomy 27:19)? If the State of Israel, or any other nation, does what is just, its prosperity may be prolonged (Daniel 4:27).

Along with the other kingdoms of this world, the State of Israel will eventually be judged for its sins and destroyed, if not before, then at the Second Advent of Israel’s Messiah, who alone can rescue Israel from its enemies and sins. Jesus will then set up God’s everlasting kingdom (Daniel 2:44), and, together with the saved and all creation, Israel will receive its ultimate geopolitical inheritance, its never-ending Promised Land and eternal dwelling place with God (Acts 13:32–39; Romans 8:21; Hebrews 11:13–16, 39–40; Revelation 21:3).

How to Use Digital Bibles

The Word of God has been recorded in a variety of media: tablets (Exodus 32:15–16), scrolls (Deuteronomy 17:18), papyrus sheets (2 John 12), and, last but not least, human memory (Psalm 119:11). The codex—pages made from sheets that have been bound together, in other words, the object we think of when we think of a book—was adopted soon after the last Bible books were written. More than a thousand years later, the printing press made it possible to mass-produce books, spurring the Protestant Reformation.

Likewise, in our time five-hundred years after the Reformation, the electronic digital medium (through which you are reading these words) has changed the way we record, study, and distribute God's Word.

By electronic, I mean Bibles that are recorded on a media device that requires a source of electric power to access. And by digital, I mean Bibles that are recorded in a numeric code that makes their words subject to computer manipulation, as opposed to, say, the popular Gospel According to Matthew film (though speech-to-text technology is changing that).

One advantage of studying the Bible digitally is that the code allows easy access to the original languages. Similar to how I have linked the following text to a website, Blue Letter Bible and similar websites link the original Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words of the biblical text to the English words that are used to translate them. No more lugging around heavy interlinear Bibles and concordances!

This also means that there is no excuse for relying on English dictionaries for the meaning of Bible words when at the click of a mouse or tap of a finger we have free access to lexicons—dictionaries of the original languages of the Bible—along with all the occurrences of a given word in Scripture. My favorite website for this sort of study is the Bible Study Tools interlinear Bible search.

But beware: The meaning of a word is not determined by its dictionary definition but by the textual and historical settings in which it is used. Unless you have studied the grammar and syntax of the original languages and the historical backgrounds of the Bible, a list of lexical possibilities can take you only so far towards the meaning. So always consult translations and commentaries, which are only a click or tap away in many digital Bibles, to get a sense of which sector of a word's semantic range is being selected by the text in its context.

Also, beware that certain free Bible apps and websites are known to sell information about your searches and other activity to internet advertisers. Even publishers of digital Bibles have to pay the bills. And on the internet, as the saying goes, if you're not a paying customer, you're likely the product being sold.

There are many free Bible apps available for smartphones and tablets, but I prefer those that download the Bible to my device for offline use. Again, Blue Letter Bible has a quality app, and I have successfully used Olive Tree and e-Sword in the past, as well. Beware of apps that ask for unnecessary permissions like contacts or location (if you're not the customer, ...).

These days I use only paid Bible study platforms. They are more or less expensive depending on the resources you want to get with them but are only worth it if you are prepared to use their extra features. Prices range from just over a hundred to thousands of dollars for a full library of resources. Accordance has the fastest and most powerful searches, but they charge you for the software in addition to the resource packages. Logos is slower but free and has the most resources available. Both platforms have resources specifically for Seventh-day Adventists.

The great, irreplaceable advantage of digital Bibles is that you can quickly find what you are looking for along with lots of other information about it. The inevitable disadvantage that goes along with that: Easy come; easy go. The human mind, which is where God's Word ultimately needs to be written (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10, 10:16), is best activated by sustained bodily contact with physical objects. We remember best what we have a sensory experience with.

So how will we know what to search for in our digital Bibles in the first place? By regularly interacting with our good, old codex Bibles.

If you're wondering How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time, click here. 

Wondering What Bible Should I Read? See my recommendations here.

What Bible Should I Read?

Short answer: Any Bible that you read is the right Bible for you to read.

All Bibles—regardless of which translation or what supplementary notes—convey the written Word of God. The Gospel is a translated message from its inception (Acts 2:6) and therefore always comes to us as an already interpreted message. This means that there is no one-and-only, given-for-all-time version of the Bible. To have a Bible that you regularly read is what matters most.

On the other hand, we are blessed with so wide a variety of English translations and study Bibles that many people don't know where to start or how to build a well-rounded collection for personal or family use.

The English Bible most first-time readers consider is the

King James Version (KJV or Authorized Version, AV): Authorized by King James in 1611, what set this Bible apart from previously published English translations was the fact that it did not come with interpretive notes in the margins. So, it was able to be used in churches of all doctrinal persuasions. The KJV is also an artistic achievement whose beautiful language, along with that of the works of Shakespeare, standardized Modern English.

A linguistic quirk of the KJV is its thee-s and thou-s. These second-person pronouns had already fallen out of ordinary use, but the translation committee brought them back from Middle English because they took a word-for-word approach to translation. Even if the point is lost on most readers, the KJV makes the same distinction between singular (thee/thou) and plural (ye/you) found in the original Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament and New Testament Greek.

While the KJV's spelling has been revised many times, some words have changed in meaning over the last 400 years, which can result in misunderstandings. Over that time, our knowledge of the original languages has also significantly improved, so I do not recommend the KJV for in-depth Bible study.

New King James Version (NKJV): It retains the KJV's commitment to word-for-word translation and elegance of language, but uses words according to their current meanings and incorporates discoveries about the original languages made up to the early 1980s. This results in a formal-sounding translation that, while understandable, has some difficult turns of phrase that do not always clearly convey the intent of the original.

Because the NKJV sounds the way many English speakers feel that a Bible should, I like to use it for preaching.

Andrews Study Bible (NKJV/New International Version, NIV): For notes to help you understand difficult passages in the NKJV and clarify many points of interpretation from a Seventh-day Adventist perspective, I recommend the Andrews Study Bible.

It is also available in the NIV, another popular translation that attempts to balance word-for-word translation with a thought-for-thought approach, which affords an easier and often clearer reading experience. But thought-for-thought translations make it harder to understand how they translated English expressions from the original languages, and sometimes clarify things wrongly.

Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: (NIV/NKJV/New Revised Standard Version, NRSV): For a study Bible from a broader Christian perspective, I recommend the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. It has a wealth of notes and illustrations that will give you the latest scholarly understandings of the historical contexts of the biblical texts (not that I would endorse all of them). I recommend this Bible for in-depth study.

It is also available in the NRSV, which leans more toward a word-for-word approach than the NIV, but with less regard for harmonizing the texts of the Bible.

New English Translation: (NET): As its acronym suggests, this translation was meant to be presented on the internet as well as in hard copy.

The NET has a full complement of translation and study notes that explain almost every interpretive decision in detail. These notes can be clicked and expanded when reading online, so they don't take up too much space on the page. But they are also available in the thick, hardcopy Full Notes Edition of the NET.

The notes lean toward Reformed Evangelical interpretation but typically give both sides of the various arguments. I recommend this Bible for in-depth study.

ESV Reader's Bible (English Standard Version): The visual opposite of study Bibles, reader's editions remove even the chapter and verse numbers, leaving only the biblical text on the page just as you would find it in any other book. It is a liberating way to read the Bible, and I recommend it to other experienced readers.

One affordable reader's edition uses the ESV, a good word-for-word translation, but one that is controversial for translating certain passages as excluding women from church leadership in a time when it was well understood that the original pronouns could have referred to both men and women.

Bibliotheca (American Literary Version): This is a more expensive, but, in my opinion, better reader's edition. It began as a solo, passion project that received so much support on the crowd-investment platform, Kickstarter, that the founder was able to form a committee of scholars to revise the American Standard Version, resulting in an elegant, word-for-word translation that incorporates current insights into the original languages.

The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter: While translation committees guard against individual idiosyncrasies, they also tend to make the biblical books all sound the same. But the biblical authors wrote with distinct voices. Individual translators have proven more willing to take risks in translation that allow the style of the different books to come through.

I don't endorse everything he says in his notes, but Robert Alter's literary sensitivity is second to none, and his translation of the Old Testament highlights the strange beauty of ancient expression without being impenetrable.

The Kingdom New Testament by N. T. Wright: The New Testament books were not written in the elevated Greek of the Homeric epics but in the simplified Greek spoken on the streets by people who had often learned it as their second language.

In his translation, which does reflect his theological interpretations, N. T. Wright moves away from elegant, formal-sounding English and instead uses plain-spoken, simple English to better give a sense of how accessible the original language of the New Testament was.

Common English Bible (CEB): For a translation that even young children can understand, I recommend the CEB. It will also challenge experienced readers to overcome clichés with its thought-for-thought translations of common biblical expressions (like "Human One" for "Son of Man"). Also, it is the only Bible I know of that had Seventh-day Adventist scholars working on its translation committee.

Final Thought: The farther I have gone in biblical studies—especially of the original languages—the less opinionated I have become about translations. Translation is really hard. And even where I disagree with a translation decision, I have learned not to criticize until I understand the case that can be made for it. Translators have their reasons, and they usually illuminate something in the text.

If you're wondering How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time, click here.

If you want to know How to Use Digital Bibles, click here.

How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time

 

The Bible can be intimidating if you've never read something like it before. It's very long, and some of its texts are more easily understood—or misunderstood!—than others.

It's become a cliché that many who attempt to read the Bible straight through crash out around Leviticus.

I recommend the following sequence of biblical books for your first read-through:

1. Mark. The shortest account of the life of Jesus (New Testament).

2. Genesis. The first book of instruction, which is the account of origins (Old Testament).

3. John and Matthew. The last of account of the life of Jesus and then another that is more similar to Mark (NT).

4. Luke and Acts. A two-part account, first of Jesus's life and then of how God founded his church (NT).

5. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The other books of instruction, which are the account of how God founded his nation, Israel (OT).

6. Hebrews. A letter to the church about how the instruction relates to Jesus (NT).

7. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The history God's nation, Israel, and stories of people who played a part in it (OT).

8. Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. Letters to the church about how Jesus helps us (NT).

9. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom about how to deal with evil and suffering (OT).

10. 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Letters to the church about the end times and life together (NT).

11. Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations. A love poem and then longer writings warning and encouraging Israel along with some accounts of visions from God (OT).

12. James, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude. Letters to the church about how to follow Jesus (NT).

13. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Shorter writings warning and encouraging Israel along with some accounts of visions from God (OT).

14. 1, 2 & 3 John. Letters to the church about God's love (NT).

15. Ezekiel and Daniel. Accounts of visions about God's plans for history and the end times along with some stories about how to deal with powerful people (OT).

16. Revelation. A letter warning and encouraging the church along with accounts of visions about God's plans for history and the end times (NT).

Tips:

1. Set a consistent time for reading the Bible every day and set up reminders for yourself.

2. Plan to read for a minimum of five to ten minutes at a time and increase it as your attention span grows.

3. Pray before you start; ask God's Spirit to help you find something that lets you know Jesus better.

4. The Bible rewards a lifetime of reading, so don't try to understand everything the first time.

5. When you feel like you don't understand all of what you're reading, keep reading until you find something you do understand.

6. If you get bored with what you are reading, you can either pray and try again, skim ahead until you find something more interesting, or stop and come back to it tomorrow.

7. If you feel like you understood less than half of what you read or didn't understand anything at all, ask someone more experienced to help you with its meaning.
   

Wondering What Bible Should I Read? See my recommendations here.

If you want to know How to Use Digital Bibles, click here. 

Annual Observances for Seventh-day Adventists

In Seventh-day Adventism, some families and communities feel called to observe something like a festal or liturgical year to rehearse the story of salvation rather than enjoy merely secular holidays or take the extreme position of observing none at all. Ellen G. White also recognized that there are certain times of the year that, like Christmas Day, may be observed as a "sacred event" (Review and Herald, 17 Dec 1889), yet one on which, unlike Sabbath, "there is no divine sanctity resting" (Review and Herald, 9 Dec 1884). Therefore, we have the Christian liberty to observe them or not as is most meaningful to us. But Ellen White counseled us to not neglect the opportunity to make much of Christ on occasions when people, especially young people, expect a celebration (9 Dec 1884).

Introduction

What follows is a framework within which Seventh-day Adventists can develop a rhythm of annual observances for individual, familial, or communal devotional practice. I do not present it as a program to which nothing may be added and from which nothing may be subtracted; the Sabbath is the only day we are to keep holy without exception.

This annual cycle incorporates observances from Adventism's deep Jewish, broadly Christian, and specifically Protestant backgrounds:

• Three festivals that Gentiles can celebrate with Jews—the Feast of Lots (Esth 9:27), Passover (Exod 12:48, Num 9:14), and the Festival of Tabernacles (Deut 16:13–14, Zech 14:16) 
  
• The Five Evangelical Feasts recognized by Reformed Christian communions—Good Friday, Resurrection Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Christmas—along with two Western Christian seasons included in the mainline Protestants' Revised Common Lectionary—Advent and Christmastide
• Reformation Day
• Three holidays recommended by Ellen White—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's

These combine to present the story of Jesus Christ and his church:

The Five Spring Observances tell the story of Christ's death, burial, resurrection (1 Cor 15:3–4), and ascension to Heaven (Acts 2:33–35) and heavenly sanctuary ministry (Eph 4:7–8) in the context of the great controversy.

The Five Autumn Observances tell the story of the end-time events in Revelation 13–14 in the context of Christ's Second Coming, concluding with the hope of Immanuel, God with us, at "the restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21) when the great controversy is resolved (Rev 21:1–22:5).

Spring Observances 

1. Feast of Lots
Old Testament feast day commemorating the victory of the Jews over Haman's plot
Date: (movable) February 26–March 26
Salvation Story Theme: the great controversy between Christ and Satan
Suggested Activity and Scripture Reading: Put on an Esther play while reading the Book of Esther.
Suggested Scripture Reading: Job 1–2
Suggested Psalms: The Lord's My Shepherd, Send Out Your Light, Psalm 46, Psalm 121

2. Passover
Old Testament feast day commemorating Israel's exodus out of Egypt
Date: (movable) March 28–April 25
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's sacrificial death
Suggested Activity: Hold a Passover feast with traditions that Jesus followed.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Exodus 11–12; John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:6–8, 10:1–13
Suggested Psalms: God Be Merciful to Me, Psalm 51, Psalm 130, Psalm 136

3. Easter
Evangelical feast days, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, commemorating Christ's death and resurrection
Date of Good Friday: (movable) March 25–April 25
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's burial and resurrection
Suggested Activities: Have a sundown worship service (Good Friday); have a sunrise worship service (Resurrection Day).
Suggested Scripture Readings: (Good Friday) Matthew 26–27, Mark 14–15, Luke 22-23, John 18–19; (Resurrection Day) Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20
Suggested Hymns: (Good Friday) He Never Said a Mumblin' Word, Lead Me to Calvary, In Christ Alone, God Rested; (Resurrection Day) Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Now the Green Blade Rises, Because He Lives, Easter Song

4. Ascension Day
Evangelical feast day commemorating Christ's ascension
Date: (movable) May 3–June 3
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's ascension to the right hand of the Father and the inauguration of the heavenly sanctuary
Suggested Activity: Feast on food that rises like fluffy pastries or (plant-based) poultry.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Acts 1; Ephesians 1:20–21, 4:7–8; Revelation 4–5
Suggested Hymns: A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing, Alleluia! Sing to Jesus, Arise, My Soul, Arise, Is He Worthy?

5. Pentecost
Evangelical feast day commemorating the beginning of the church
Date: (movable) May 13–June 9
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's heavenly sanctuary ministry and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
Suggested Activity: Feast on first fruits and/or food that looks like or is cooked with fire.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Joel 2:28–29, John 14:15–31, Acts 2, Galatians 5:13–26
Suggested Hymns: O for That Flame of Living Fire, Baptize Us Anew, Come Holy Spirit, Build Your Kingdom Here

Autumn Observances

6. Festival of Tabernacles
Old Testament seven-day harvest festival
Date of the first day: (movable) September 21–October 19
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's Second Coming as the ingathering of God's harvest
Suggested Activity: Sleep in an outdoor shelter or as if you were in one.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Matthew 13, Matthew 24–25, Revelation 14.
Suggested Psalms: Psalm 34, All People That on Earth Do Dwell, Flourishing, Psalm 126

7. Reformation Day
Protestant commemoration celebrating Reformation heritage (Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on All Saints' Eve) and memorializing martyrs on All Saints' Eve and/or All Saints' Day
Date of All Saints' Eve: (fixed) October 31
Salvation Story Theme: the beast from the sea and the Protestant Reformation
Suggested Activities: Dress up like reformers; post the 95 Theses on a door; read the testimonies of martyrs.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Daniel 7; Revelation 6:9–11, chs. 12–13
Suggested Hymns: Faith of Our Fathers, For All the Saints, When the Saints Go Marchin' In, By Faith

8. Thanksgiving Day
American holiday instituted during the US Civil War and recommended by Ellen White
Date: (movable) third Thursday in November (USA) or second Monday in October (Canada)
Salvation Story Theme: the beast from the land and religious liberty
Suggested Activities: Share testimonies of gratitude and feast on locally harvested food.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Psalm 95, Psalm 100, John 18:36, Revelation 13:11–15
Suggested Hymns: Now Thank We All Our God, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Thank You Lord, 10,000 Reasons

9. Advent
Christian season that anticipates the coming of Christ
Dates: (movable) November 27–December 3 to (fixed) December 24
Salvation Story Theme: preparation for the Second Coming and the Three Angels' Messages
Suggested Activities: Give Advent calendar treats; have an Advent theme for family or group worship every week: (week 1) the second coming, (week 2) the messianic prophecies, (week 3) John the Baptist, (week 4) Mary and Joseph.
Suggested Scripture Readings: (week 1) John 14:1–14, (week 2) Isaiah 52:13–53:12, (week 3) Luke 3:1–20, and (week 4) Luke 1
Suggested Hymns: (week 1) O Come, O Come Emmanuel, (week 2) Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming, (week 3) On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry, (week 4) Magnificat

10. Christmastide
Christian season that includes (1) Christmas Day, an evangelical feast day commemorating the birth of Christ, which Ellen White recommended, and (2a) New Years Day, another holiday that Ellen White recommended as a time of reflection and re-commitment, and which coincides with (2b) the commemoration of Christ's circumcision eight days after his birth; and concludes at (3) the commemoration of the visit of the Magi (Epiphany)
Dates: (fixed) December 25 to January 6
Salvation Story Theme: God dwelling with us and the great controversy ended
Suggested Activities: Give gifts to those in need (Christmas); renew your covenant with God (New Year's); sing Christmas carols during the twelve days of Christmastide (December 25 to January 5); and give gifts to the needy (Epiphany).
Suggested Scripture Readings: (Christmas) Luke 2:1–21; (New Year's) Psalm 139, Luke 2:22–40; (Epiphany) Isaiah 60, Matthew 2, Romans 9:30–11:36, Revelation 21–22
Suggested Hymns: (Christmas) Once in Royal David's City, Go Tell It on the Mountain; (New Year's) Lord God, Now Let Your Servant Depart in Peace, Wake the Song; (Epiphany) We Three Kings

Application

Traditional elements for this cycle of annual observances may be found in the Scriptures and the other foundational texts of the background traditions, or in their popular interpreters. If unfamiliar, Google, Wikipedia, and your local library can resolve that.

"Tradition is an argument extended through time" (Alasdair MacIntyre), but enter into these arguments with due regard for the faith in God expressed by the contemporary practitioners of Adventism's background traditions. Jewish-Christian relations are fraught with a history of persecution by Christians aimed at erasing Jewish identity. Thus, many Jews take offense at Christians observing their traditions, including Shabbat rituals for keeping the seventh day.

Because we should use our Christian liberty to serve others (Gal 5:13) and not to cause them offense (1 Cor 8:9), I recommend the following limits for non-Jewish Adventists who choose to observe Old Testament festivals: Don't hold public-facing meetings involving extra-biblical Jewish traditions and make it clear to participants that you are observing such events only insofar as they build up faith in Jesus and not attempting to keep them for the sake of the covenant God made with Israel. People who convert to Christianity offer certain of their traditions to other Christians so that all believers can better express faith in Jesus, and so, out of respect for the integrity of Christian and Jewish identity, seek out resources that are offered by Jewish Christians to other Christians for the purpose of building up Christian faith. Just because it is something most Jews do does not necessarily mean it is beneficial for a Seventh-day Adventist to do it.

Regardless of the background tradition involved, these observances require Adventists to interpret or modify these elements of the contemporary expressions of the background traditions in ways that accord with our faith. Where expedient, we can also create new elements that make them more meaningful for our families or communities. This may include moving the dates of observances to coincide with Sabbath, achieve the desired order in the cycle, or align with a minority calendar, like that of the Karaite Jews or Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Even for those who had to keep feasts and festivals, God clarified making adjustments based on circumstances and limitations was preferable to not receiving the benefit of them at all (Num 9:10–11). These observances have benefited me spiritually whether I, my family, or my small group did a lot or a little. Do not let others judge which, if any, annual observances are beneficial to you, nor how maximally or minimally you observe them (Col 2:16).

My Associationalist Manifesto

People sometimes ask me how I identify politically. In recent years I haven't had a ready answer, but I think that now I am prepared to take on at least one political label. I am an associationalist.

What I mean by that is I think would be better off if Americans were to take the energy we expend on winning the culture wars and invest it in revitalizing civil society and empowering it to do in a pluralistic way what we currently rely on big business, big government, and big charity to do for us in a one-size-fits-all way. The latter approach is making it impossible to live and let live together with others who aspire to different visions of the good life.

Relying more on smaller free associations would get us something else we need to get along with material benefits but can't get from organizations to which we are numbers, not people: affirmation of our way of life from those we respect. The generation of wealth for a common pursuit of the good life makes people feel they are free to flourish; the provision of wealth for its own sake is meaningless to most people. So to attain that sense of meaning as things currently stand, we are offering empower and expand those governments, businesses, and charities that are supposed to benefit all kinds of people, on the condition that they embrace our discrete values and exclude those who don't share them.

Trying to sweep into the dustbin of history those whose ways of life we can't support yet ought to be able to tolerate, and who likewise can tolerate but can't support us, will result in insincere recognition for the victors at best (see Hegel's master-slave dialectic and Havel's greengrocer illustration) or the destruction of the nation at worst. The challenge of liberty for twentieth-century America was making the material benefits of the industrial revolution through big business, big charity, and big government available to all and not just the wealthy, white men who control them. The challenge of liberty for twenty-first-century America will be providing those same material benefits in ways that are meaningful to all and not just whichever group of populists or elites win the culture war for a given slice of the American pie.

Evade, resist, and escape zero-sum competitions that aren't games; in real life, seek the win-win.

A Different Kind of Beast: Evaluating America in View of the Kingdom of God

September 11 happened for me on September 12, 2001. I had taken a year off from college to serve as a volunteer youth pastor in Melbourne, Australia, so, in my time zone, the attacks occurred during the late-night hours of Tuesday, the 11th, and the early morning of Wednesday, the 12th. Instead of letting me sleep in (as youth pastors are wont to do), the father of my host family knocked on my door sometime before 6:00 a.m. As I opened my bedroom door, he told me, “They brought down the Twin Towers!”

All my sleep-deprived brain could muster was: “They finally did it.”

I was a relatively well-informed young adult, and my mind immediately went to the previous attempt on the Twin Towers and the ambitions of al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, the event shook me emotionally. I spent the day watching the replays of events resembling the fantastic climax to Tom Clancy’s thriller, Debt of Honor, which I had read as a teenager. I have never been so grateful to turn off the TV and go to a Wednesday evening prayer meeting.

A Mixed Record

Many of the youth I served were the children of Central and South Americans who were forced to relocate to Australia due to the political instability and human rights abuses of the Cold War. Some apparently had socialist associations and had to flee right-wing governments that would ‘disappear’ such people. Others may have had connections to rural land ownership that made them a target of communist guerillas.

As it became clear the United States would invade Afghanistan, the reactions of my Latin American co-religionists to me as a young Anglo-American abroad who shared their passion for discussing current events shifted from sympathy to concern bordering on outrage. To them, the United States was not the country I grew up in that had brought religious freedom to Eastern Europe without firing a shot and ousted Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from Kuwait. It was the United States that trained the death squads of right-wing dictators but nevertheless was unable to end the communist insurgencies that terrorized the countryside.

It would be easy to attribute their skepticism of the ability of American power to remake Afghanistan to having observed failures of the same in its own hemisphere. The US military’s botched withdrawal from Kabul weeks before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 can be taken as a vindication of those predictions that my country’s valor was about to exceed its discretion. But that was not the only perspective informing their reluctance to welcome, in the words of President George W. Bush, “this crusade, this war on terrorism.”

A Prophetic Perspective

I remember one older gentleman, who had likely come to Australia when his country was ruled by a ruthless, CIA-installed dictator. He asked me how American Adventists could justify serving their country’s armed forces, given the Seventh-day Adventist historic teaching that the United States would become an eschatological enemy of God’s people. I told him about the conscientious cooperation of men like my grandfather and Desmond Doss. I explained that American Adventists had come to see that the US military could do some good in the world and had left the matter of killing in war to conscience. But he wasn’t convinced. To him, the United States was still the land beast of Revelation 13. “What communion has light with darkness?” (2 Cor 6:14).

Despite the rise of China, the United States of America remains the pre-eminent geopolitical power on earth. Like the Roman Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων; lit., “Kingdom of the Romans”) in the time of Christ, it competes for our affections and threatens to eclipse our quest for the kingdom of God (Matt 6:33; Greek: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ; also, “empire of God”). And like the Roman Empire, it can distract us by seeming to be a powerful enemy we must overthrow to prepare the way for the kingdom of God (John 6:15, compare with 18:36 and 19:15).

I submit that the identification of the United States of America as the beast of Revelation 13:11 that “had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon” can give us a prophetic perspective that we need to arrive at an evaluation of America in the twenty-first century that is consistent with full commitment to the kingdom of God. I will do so by explaining how that interpretation allowed Ellen G. White, the spiritual founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to arrive at such an evaluation in the nineteenth century. (I will not address the exegetical and historical basis for this interpretation.) For the political challenges of that time were not qualitatively different than those we face today.

Ellen G. White’s Evaluation of America

Ellen White believed that the United States is a blessed nation because God had raised it up to provide and protect religious liberty as expressed in the democratic-republican and dissenting Protestant ideals written into the US Constitution. The freedom of the believer’s conscience before God taught by (1) Protestantism and the protection of civil liberties afforded by the limited government of (2) republicanism were the two horns that constituted the lamb-like nature of the United States: the political upshot of the self-sacrificing lamb of God, whose kingdom is not of this world, who draws with love rather than coercing by force (John 18:36). Ellen White believed that God had granted the US its material advantages because it had realized more religious freedom than any other nation.

She also believed that the US had not been faithful to God's purposes from its inception when the Puritans, who came to America seeking religious freedom, enforced worship and doctrinal conformity in Plymouth colony. She believed that the Civil War was God's judgment on America for denying liberty to African-Americans. These are the dragon-speech: the legislative expressions that “give the lie to those liberal and peaceful principles which it has put forth as the foundation of its policy” (Great Controversy, 442)

This seems to me to be a clear-eyed view of the character of the United States that holds up in broad-strokes and even seems prescient today. America is a different kind of beast. No other power represented in Revelation combines the character of the lamb, Christ, with that of the dragon, Satan. As the largest of the world's wealthy, free nations and the guarantor of their security, it is a nation of extremes: at once extremely good and extremely bad. Its boosters and its critics are both generally correct, and many of the best and the worst things that people believe about the United States are true at the same time. But it takes a theological perspective that regards America in light of a broader divine purpose to see that one doesn't have to take a side on the question of American greatness to evaluate its contradictory character.


Evaluating America on September 12, 2021

On September 12, 2001, members of the US Congress stood on the Capitol steps and sang “God Bless America.” The following Sunday, the future President Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright recited a litany of American atrocities and declared that “America's chickens are coming home to roost. On April 13, 2003, he preached a sermon with a similar point in which he proclaimed, “Not God Bless America. God damn America.”

Ellen White's evaluation of the United States can be appealed to in half by both ‘God-bless-‘ and ‘God-damn-America’ Christians to support their views on how to maintain/attain God's blessing on the nation. This divide has been exacerbated by the first US president to practice the politics of demagoguery that the founders and framers feared would come and past presidents have sought to avoid because of what they read in the histories of the classical and medieval European republics. I have observed that this kind of politics drives Christians to seek shelter in their cultural identity group by sending increasingly extreme signals of ideological loyalty. For the God-bless-America Christians, this escalating loyalty signaling fosters hyper-patriotism—American traditions, in general, are necessary to achieve the highest human goods—and Christian nationalism—what is good for America brings about God's good purposes for the world. And among the God-damn-America Christians there are corresponding extremes of anti-Americanism—American traditions, in general, must be overturned to achieve the highest human goods—and cosmopolitan internationalism—an open-border federation of the nations is necessary to bring about economic justice.

Apart from more specific critiques, what Ellen White might have to teach both groups is that their contest over the meaning of America is not the quest for the kingdom of God. Contrary to prevailing opinion in nineteenth-century American Protestantism, Ellen White believed that the United States was not God's agent to usher in the millennium of worldwide peace and prosperity, according to their interpretation of Revelation. Rather, America would finally succumb to its hypocritical nature, revoke religious liberty in favor of an explicitly Christian national identity, and provoke an end-time crisis over the Sabbath that would result in a thousand years of worldwide desolation before the re-creation of the New Earth. In Ellen White's telling, America's continued probation as a recipient of God's blessings was dependent on a national willingness to humbly bracket questions of ultimate human destiny relative to human governance in favor of working for social reforms (abolition and later temperance) that would allow individuals and groups freedom to pursue those questions for themselves without being burdened by various forms of coercion, exploitation, sickness, and death.

Again, it seems to me that this is a prudent interpretation of prophecy and politics. The American experiment with liberty is not so exceptional that it will not fail, like all human attempts at government before it. Therefore, in the way we evaluate the United States, Christians should seek to center the meaning of the Kingdom of God as something qualitatively beyond what we achieve in this age.

God is not waiting for us to bring about the reign of America over the earth or the reformation America from all its sins before he can usher in everlasting righteousness. The United States is a different kind of beast, but it is still a beast, a man-made geopolitical power. It is a steward that will turn usurper and be put to death at the return of the King. In the meantime, we can be grateful for the blessings we receive through it while working to reform it where we can, for both point us and others to the realities that will be fully manifest in the eternal kingdom of God.