One of the best-known Adventists in American politics says our end-time trouble may come from his own side of the aisle.
In a September 18 interview with Heritage & Hope Ministries, Ben Carson, former HUD secretary and now vice chair of the White House Religious Liberty Commission, was reminded of his earlier words: “more than likely, any persecution, particularly of the Sabbath, will come from the right, not from the left.” Did he still hold that view? “Yeah, I still believe that.”
He also said anyone trying to impose a Sunday law today would meet “extreme resistance.”
Our tradition gives his worry a shape. In The Great Controversy, Ellen White wrote that “even in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance.”
Some of today’s news fits that frame. Texas now requires a Ten Commandments poster in every public school classroom, and a federal appeals court upheld the law 9 to 8 this April. A few Christian nationalist voices argue openly for religious tests for public office. Carson said Christians should oppose that.
There is another side. Adventists felt the same alarm in 1888, when Senator Henry Blair introduced a national Sunday rest bill. It never passed. Generations of us have read the headlines as the last chapter, and so far the book keeps going.
So do we agree with Carson? Maybe the better question is where our eyes are fixed. Jesus never asked His followers to scan the headlines for villains. He asked them to love their enemies, stay awake and trust Him. Whatever comes from the right or the left, He is the one we are watching for.
Photo: Ben Carson official portrait, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2017, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_Carson_official_portrait.jpg (cropped, text added)
Head over to Adventist Today for current events, analysis, and opinion on all things Adventist.
