In spite of itself, the Adventist Church is a political institution. It aspires, for both its members and all societies, to have a certain type of presence in the world. Adventism promotes a specific vision of history and announces a particular destiny of strong political-cultural power, which will become hegemonic in the world. However, a legitimate aspiration must also be to justify itself, not only at the level of one's identity but also in what it tries to objectively say about the world. Historically, Adventism has articulated an a priori view of world history, which it tries to enunciate with firmness and conviction, in a typically top-down strategy. The church actually makes constant use of this top-down model, not only when it speaks of the world, politics, or history, but also when it speaks of ethics, anthropology, and internal institutional policy. A top-down model is legitimate, but that's not where the anomaly lies. When the parallel and necessary bottom-up gaze occurs, which must balance and sometimes improve the top-down view, such a perspective is not taken into consideration or is subordinated.
The last thing I need is another reason to take issue with Adventism.
Until such time as any SDA-or Christian, for that matter-can provide even a shred of NT evidence that Jesus good news was a political rather than spiritual message, I’ll continue to persist in my opinion that he would have agreed with my basic assumption that participation in any political competition is a game which no one has any chance of winning.
Great article with significant insights for the Adventist institution. It would be amazing and fantastic if the Church could begin to venture along such a path of healthy self awareness. This type of thinking is light years ahead of where traditional and current top level administration is functioning.
Yes “my kingdom is not of this world” but having operated within church administration I can affirm the church is political nonetheless and woefully its politics tend to direct it to spiritual unhealthiness rather than the values of the kingdom holding the focus.
My dad was a conference worker for over twenty five years.
That was more than enough time for me to learn that trying to make a living from one’s religion often involves political maneuverings which would have made Machiavelli say, “Mio Dio!”
While optimistic and well-intended this statement is desperately naïve and unattainable. Politics has already chosen a third option not mentioned in this essay, which is almost certainly irreversible as confirmed by the majority of world political systems having embraced it and being well on their way to achieving. This option instead of motivating people through historical perspective has chosen to erase history where needed and possible, and instead it has selectively used history’s negative perspectives to divide and pit humanity against itself.
This third political option does not feel the need to purposefully engage or motivate its’ constituency but rather it uses mass media to ideologize and re-interpret sociopolitical viewpoints towards achieving total control over them – it is called: Totalitarianism. To achieve its’ purpose it has partnered with corporatism, which is the subordination of the economy to the state, and the state adopting favorite corporations to promote its power. This model was first implemented during the 1920s and 1930s by Mussolini and Hitler and soon after exported to the United States under the name “Planned Capitalism”.
Long past is the unique experiment in the history of the world that attempted to form a self-governing political system with the purpose for its’ citizens to pursue happiness on the basis of religious freedom, self-expression, and inalienable rights.
Now this political system ((Fascist Socialism) today uses deceptive methodologies at the corporate and educational levels such as Environment and Social Governance (ESG) to insidiously insert the deceitful ideologies of “Stakeholder (woke) Capitalism”, Is there any hope for Adventism to insert itself into the current political paradigm and succeed at improving outcomes? If not, what would be the purpose, goals and potential benefits? What exactly are the touted reasons above? Would we not be making the same mistake Catholicism made almost two thousand years ago?
