For years, Adventists have been dismissed for our warnings about America’s role in prophecy.

We’ve been called alarmists, conspiracy theorists, even a cult—not just by outsiders, but by our own.

We’ve been accused of fearmongering, of clinging to an outdated paranoia that doesn’t match the modern world.

And to be fair, some of that criticism is earned.

Well… a lot if it really.

A fundamentalist, hyper-critical, conspiracy-laden doom-and-gloom, high-control apocalypticism has poisoned much of conservative Adventism for decades, leaving a trail of wounded sojourners and traumatized seekers in its wake.

I have no camaraderie with such a harmful religious expression, and neither do I endorse it.

And yet, I want to be clear about something else —I don’t apologize for Adventism’s prophetic vision either.

Here’s why.

The Only Prophetic Vision That Holds Space for the Oppressed

Before I go on, allow me to honor the many justice-centered Christian voices that have given voice to the suffering throughout history.

Liberation theologians have long called for solidarity with the oppressed. The Nazarene Church, the Quakers, and others see the unity of God’s kingdom and the call for justice. (In fact, The Quakers were among the most highly involved in helping Jewish refugees escape Germany during the Nazi era.)

But when it comes to end-time prophecy?

Every other Christian tradition ultimately leaves the oppressed out of the eschatological story.

Dispensationalists turn America into God’s sidekick. Dominionists see empire as the vehicle of Christ’s return. Postmillennialists envision a church so powerful it dominates the world, reconstructing American laws and governance through Christian values. Preterists don’t care either way. All that prophecy stuff was for “way back then,” so… whatevs.

Not to mention, none of these denominations are comfortable leveling a social critique against the church itself. Some protestants might be happy to point the finger at Rome and its crusades, but refuse to admit their own sins which include the endorsement of slavery, the brually violent persecution and murder of Anabaptists, and their complicity in colonialism, witch hunts (often more brutal than those led by their Catholic counterparts), segregation, anti-semitism, and forced sterilization (to name a few).

Only Adventism speaks truth to church-empire. Only Adventism speaks truth to the power that is America.

And here’s why that matters to me as both a human being and a descendant of the colonized peoples of the carribean.

Because when indigenous folk think about our history and what we’ve had to endure at the hands of western Christianity and empire we see the evil tucked beneath the pretty speech. We see what’s hidden beneath the surface.

But the church cannot take our voices seriously. It cannot hold space for us and our stories. Its vision of America is a modern day Israel, God’s chosen nation.

However, there is one theological system that has room for our stories and the suffering of our ancestors. There is one prophetic vision that validates our distrust of empire.

Adventism.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Adventist culture or institutions are good at this. In fact, over the years, we have lost this vision, and our prophetic voice has been morphed into an insipid lecture over dates, charts, and religio-centric concerns that bypass advocacy on behalf of the marginalized. So much so that our institutions complied with Jim Crow laws in America, maintaining segregated schools, hospitals, and churches well into the 20th century, despite internal debates over racial justice.¹ Our leaders in Nazi Germany aligned with Hitler’s government, expelling Jewish members and endorsing state policies that contradicted Adventist principles of religious liberty.² In Apartheid-era South Africa, Adventist institutions mirrored the racial segregation of the state, keeping white and Black congregations separate while largely avoiding direct resistance to the oppressive system.³ And when the dust of the Rwandan genocide settled, the first clergy member to be convicted of crimes against humanity was an Adventist pastor and regional leader, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who facilitated massacres at his own church compound.⁴

So I’m not talking about the institution or its fundamentalized culture. What I am saying is that if there is one prophetic vision in the landscape of Christian eschatology, one apocalyptic story where the maginalized can find themselves within its pages, it’s this one, and this one only.

How Other End-Time Theologies Frame Church-Empire & America

• Dispensationalism (Evangelical / Premillennialism) sees America as a faithful ally of Israel. Their end-time enemies are globalists, the UN, and the European Union—not America itself. As to the church itself, Dispensationalists see it as a temporary, parenthetical period in God’s plan, distinct from Israel. It will eventually be raptured before the final crisis begins, so it plays no role in end-time events.

• Preterism (Catholic & Some Protestant Views) believes Revelation already happened in the first century. America isn’t even in the conversation. As to the church—it offers no substantial critique.

• Postmillennialism (Some Reformed & Theonomic Views) sees America (or Christian nations like it) as agents of God’s kingdom, meant to establish dominion on earth. (Also known as “Dominionism.”) The church has gone through corruption and decline at times, but it is not fundamentally "apostate" or "Babylonian." Its end time role is to Christianize society.

Notice the similarities between all these eschatologies? Every single one of them either aligns with church-empire and Americas role in its oppression, or ignores it.

Adventism alone said:

"Watch out. The empire plays lamb, but its a dragon through and through."

So, while every other prophetic tradition left my native ancestors nameless. In Adventism, there is room for our voice. While every other prophetic tradition missed the plight of the enslaved. Adventism put them in the prophetic timeline. While every other prophetic tradition turns America into the good guy (or a non-issue), Adventism saw the “lamblike beast” for what it was—a nation built on the backs of the trafficked, the displaced, the forgotten.

Perhaps this is why John Byington, the first General Conference president, chaired anti-slavery meetings and “actively assisted fugitive slaves along the famous Underground Railroad”.⁵ Joseph Bates passionately circulated petitions to abolish slavery and block new slave states.⁶ William Still, an Underground Railroad conductor, worked with the Anti-Slavery Society and embraced Millerite teachings in 1843.⁷ Elias and Henrietta Platt aided abolitionist efforts in Bath, New York, with Elias distributing The North Star and running a free-produce store that rejected goods made by enslaved labor.⁸ John W. West, born into slavery, became a minister and preached against its evils.⁹ And when the fugitive slave law was passed, Ellen White called Adventists to engage in civil disobedience.

“The law of our land requiring us to deliver a slave to his master,” she wrote, “we are not to obey.” (TC, Vol. 1, p. 201.)

But this isn’t just a historical perspective. The early Adventists believed that the two-horned beast was not a temporary glitch in the imperial interests of the US. It was in its very DNA. Thus, Ellen White, speaking of the future of America and the church could also write:

“When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.” (GC p. 445)

And if there was ever a day where we could ridicule such a notion as the ramblings of a victorian lunatic… those days have passed.

Why This Matters Now

We’ve had a period of relative calm—an era where America’s religious power took a backseat, where the iron grip of Christian hegemony loosened, where pluralism seemed to win the day.

But empire is making a comeback. The language of dominion is returning. The push for a Christian nationalist state is growing. And while we may not be at the final crisis today or tomorrow, its way more obvious than ever before that this thing is around the corner.

So No, I won’t apologize for our prophetic vision.

I won’t soften the warning. I won’t pretend Adventism’s end-time story is outdated, irrelevant, or fearmongering. And I definitely won’t act as though the fundamentalists own this story, as if they alone have possession of it to do whatever toxic nonsense they want to do with it.

This prophetic vision doesn’t belong to a few emotionally unstable religious narcissists.

It belongs to humanity.

Because it’s not about fear, or conspiracies, or doom and gloom. It’s about standing in radical solidarity with those empire crushes.

At its core, Adventism is a movement of cosmic justice. A voice echoing the cry of the colonized and shackled: There is only one kingdom where all find rest. And America is not it.

But here’s the thing.

It’s not enough to just warn about empire.

It’s not enough to shake our heads at Christian nationalism and say, “See? We told you so.”

We must be the alternative community—a foretaste of the world we long to see.

If empire thrives on hierarchy, let the church be a place of radical equality. If empire exploits, let the church be a place of justice and restoration. If empire crushes the poor, let the church be a place where the poor are empowered and uplifted. If empire silences the oppressed, let the church honor their voices.

Because in the end, Jesus is the antidote to empire.

And Jesus is our message.

Footnotes

1. Rock, C. (2018). Protest & Progress: Black Seventh-day Adventist Leadership and the Push for Parity. Andrews University Press.

2. Schroder, C. (n.d.). Seventh-day Adventists. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved from https://holocaust.projects.history.ucsb.edu/Research/Proseminar/corrieschroder.htm

3. Lawson, R. (2000). In the Wake of the State: Seventh-day Adventism and Apartheid in South Africa. Paper presented at the American Sociological Association, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://ronaldlawson.net/2019/08/06/in-the-wake-of-the-state-seventh-day-adventism-and-apartheid-in-south-africa

4. British Broadcasting Corporation. (2003, February 19). Rwandan pastor jailed for genocide. https://news.un.org/en/story/2006/12/202172

5. Strayer, B. E. (2017). John Byington: First General Conference President, Circuit-Riding Preacher, and Radical Reformer.

6. Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. “The Seventh-day Adventist Pioneers and Their Protest Against Systemic Racism.” https://www.rmcsda.org/the-seventh-day-adventist-pioneers-and-their-protest-against-systemic-racism

7. Black SDA History. “Black Adventist Timeline (1800-1864).” https://www.blacksdahistory.org/black-adventist-timeline-1800-1864

8. EUD News. “Seventh-day Adventist Pioneers and Their Protest Against Systemic Racism.” https://relaunch-news.eud.adventist.org/all-news/seventh-day-adventist-pioneers-and-their-protest-against-systemic-racism-1

9. Adventist Review. “Born a Slave, Died a Freeman.” https://adventistreview.org/magazine-article/born-a-slave-died-a-freeman