GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

Joe Reeves

01 What Will Cause the Next Civil War?

02 Are Adventists Wrong about Revelation 13?

03 How Not to Debate a Christian Nationalist?

04 Should Adventists Accept Government Money?

05 Should There be Free Speech in the Church?

In 1997, Rosaria Butterfield was a tenured professor at Syracuse University.

A committed lesbian and a vocal activist for LGBTQ rights.

She was researching the religious right for a book she intended to write, viewing Christians as anti-intellectual and hateful.

After publishing a critique of the Christian men's group Promise Keepers in the local newspaper, Her inbox flooded with hate mail and angry diatribes from Christians confirming her bias that they were her enemies But 1 letter stood out It came from Ken Smith a local Reformed Presbyterian pastor.

He simply asked Genuine questions about how she had arrived at her conclusions and how she defined her worldview The letter ended with an invitation to dinner Rosaria initially discarded it but later retrieved it compelled by its challenge to her presuppositions.

She published a book, which you can see on the screen, with her story, and she has a website which you can explore with her story as well.

Her book is called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, an English professor's journey into Christian faith.

She accepted the invitation to dinner by Pastor Ken Smith.

She arrived with her researcher's eye ready to dissect his bigotry, But at the Smith home there was no trap, there was no sermon, there was just a warm meal and a couple who seemed genuinely interested in her life.

They asked her questions and they actually listened to her answers.

He didn't share the gospel with me, she writes, that night.

Rosaria, or he didn't invite me to church.

Over time, Ken and his wife, Floyd, became true friends.

They entered her world, met her friends, exchanged books, discussed sexuality and politics openly without judgment.

Ken's prayers during meals were intimate and vulnerable, revealing a God who was holy yet merciful.

For those 2 years, Ken and Floyd practiced the art of inquiry.

They created a safe space where Rosaria could belong before she believed.

By taking the time to diagnose her heart, understanding her deep desire for community and truth, they earned the right to speak into her life.

Eventually, Rosaria began reading the Bible to critique it.

"'I read the way a glutton devours, ' she wrote, but the text began to dismantle her defenses The crisis point came in her own kitchen when a transgender friend Jay warned her this Bible reading is changing you with tremors Rosaria whispered back Jay what if it is true?

What if Jesus is real and the risen Lord?

The result was a total collapse of her previous worldview leading to her conversion in 1999.

The voice of God she continued saying, a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world.

The radical activist who once marched in pride parades eventually became a pastor's wife, a homeschooling mother, and a conservative author.

Years later, she noted that It wasn't a debate that changed her mind.

It was a pastor who was willing to listen long enough for her to hear the voice of God.

So whether it's a MAGA Republican or whether it's a transgender activist, How to debate?

And that's why Ellen White would write things such as this.

And I have been seeing people comment on these quotes by Ellen White lately.

There's more debate coming into the American culture lately, right?

And so time and place, whatever, people are really dismissing this counsel.

But this is what Ellen White wrote in a number of places, Evangelism 163, the spirit of debate, of controversy, is a device of Satan to stir up combativeness and thus eclipse the truth as it is in Jesus.

Many have thus been repulsed instead of being 1 to Christ." So where debate will never win, listening, inquiring, sharing, friendship, belonging, those things can set the stage first.

So Ellen White writes 3 chapters on religious liberty that are found in Testimonies for the Church Volume 9.

And if you go to Section 7, there's 3 chapters on religious liberty.

And there's there's just amazing, amazing counsel in there about religious liberty.

She talks about things you might be surprised.

She mentions in connection with religious liberty, but check them out for sure.

And in there, she says on page 239, Let everyone bear in mind that in no case we are in no case to invite what?

Persecution so we can debate and we can engage in a way that invites persecution.

But don't worry, Adventists would never do that.

We are not to use harsh and cutting words.

Let the Word of God do the cutting, the rebuking.

Let finite men hide and abide in Jesus Christ.

And that's counsel given in connection to religious liberty.

If you're going to be involved in religious liberty you have to check yourself and your attitude constantly because there's a lot of things in religious liberty that get you stirred up real fast.

Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, page 396 says, the Lord's agent should have a sanctified zeal a zeal that is wholly under his control stormy times will come rapidly enough upon us and we should take no course of our own that will hasten them." So this was a theme or a concern that was on her mind a lot.

She writes about it repeatedly that Adventists would check ourselves and not bring persecution upon ourselves by the way that we engage those that we disagree with.

In the chapter on the time of trouble from the great controversy she writes about, Ellen G.

White writes about Jacob's time of trouble.

This story is from the book of Genesis and Jacob is returning to his homeland but he's greatly endangered because of his brother Esau.

He fears that he's going to die that night, that Esau is going to confront him And he's not going to be able to withstand his strong brother because he had wronged him 27 years before.

In the middle of the night he's wrestling with a stranger, which turns out to be God.

And Jacob is in turmoil because he realizes that it is, to a large degree, his own sin that has brought this time of trouble upon him.

White applies that to the time of trouble that God's people go through at the end.

Do you think that there's any chance that when Adventists experience some time of trouble in the future that we realized that to some degree we brought it upon ourselves.

That's why what we do now, how we speak now, what we publish now, what we record now, put on YouTube, everything else needs to be greatly filtered because we don't we don't always filter ourselves very well check out what she says about Jacob's time trouble and to the burden of anxiety and fear was added the crushing weight of self-reproach it was his own fault For it was his own sin that had brought this danger.

So should the followers of Christ, as they approach the time of trouble, make every exertion to place themselves in a proper light before the people, to disarm prejudice and to avert the danger which threatens liberty of conscience.

Now this is talking about right now if you believe we're in the time when we're approaching the time of trouble.

In that time when there's still liberty we are to do everything possible to disarm prejudice and put ourselves in the right light before the people.

So it's not just what we say, it's how we say it and it's how we represent ourselves.

PR is a big deal, public relations, because if you don't have credibility you don't have much and perceptions is everything.

So how does the world perceive Seventh-day Adventists?

Of course there were a lot of false accusations against Jesus and there will be against us too, but let's not enhance those by giving them good reasons.

Selected Messages, Volume 2, page 379 says, Let us as a people, as far as possible, and here she's talking about Jacob's time of trouble, as far as possible, cleanse the camp of moral defilement and aggravating sins.

So when she's talking about Jacob's time of trouble, why would she use this word aggravating sins?

Because during this time, just like Jacob experienced, God's people are going to realize that they have committed aggravating sins.

They have aggravated the people of the world.

They have stirred them up and triggered, in some cases, persecution.

So as our nation, our world becomes more polarized as we examine this morning, Adventists really need to know how to restrain ourselves and to have discernment and be filled with the Spirit of Christ so that we don't bring persecution on ourselves as Jacob did.

So how to debate a Christian nationalist?

But for the rest of my presentation I'm going to go through the top 8 arguments that I've heard from Christian nationalists that believe that Christians now, you heard them this morning from the clips if you were here, Christians that believe America or Christians need to rise up in America and take political power and control and they believe that the Bible has commissioned us to take political power and control and that we make America a Christian nation.

And there's a lot of very sincere people that believe this.

By the way, Paul, before he was Paul, he was Saul.

Okay, and there's a lot of people like that today.

And he was persecuting the Christians and he realized he was making a mistake and he was converted.

Series

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

03 How Not to Debate a Christian Nationalist?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Defending Religious Liberty in an Age of Deception

01 The Messy History of Religious Liberty in America

39m

Ron duPreez ~ No Matter What: How morality impacts your mortality

Military and Morality

56m

Religious Liberty 2022

Adventists and Religious Liberty Go to the Fair

58m

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

02 Are Adventists Wrong about Revelation 13?

55m

Religious Liberty Under Pressure

The American Experiment

57m

Religious Liberty

A Breach in the Wall? The Separation of Church and State Today

54m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Most Important Book Outside of the Bible - A Deeper Look at The Great Controversy

03-Adventism’s Prophetic Message in the Great Controversy

1h

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

05 Should There be Free Speech in the Church?

50m

GYC 2013 Seminar: Daniel: Defining Adventism's Role in the Great Controversy

02-Daniel 7: The Investigative Judgment, Men Before Angels

57m

Defending Religious Liberty in an Age of Deception

03 The Truth Behind Christian Nationalism

50m

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

03 From Questions on Doctrine to Desmond Ford

56m

Religious Liberty Under Pressure

Eyes on Adventism

1h

Sound Doctrine