Adventist History: Protestantism & Abolitionism

so we're gonna do that this morning we're going to kind of look at the history of what Adventists have done in the past during times like this and just see what God says in his word and really reason together to see what we're supposed to be doing as Adventist at this time yeah I just want to add I think it is really important I think there's a lot of people that don't really understand our history and in not understanding our history I think that causes a lot of confusion especially on the time like this what should we be doing as a church right what does it mean to be relevant in a society in the midst of different things that may be going on socially how are we supposed to respond and I know you know just being a public figure I get emails all the time Facebook messages all the time and I'm seeing all kinds of responses like you know this is what we need to be doing no no no we shouldn't be doing this at all and it's just all over the maps so I think having a really good understanding of our foundation is crucial for us to know how we should move forward and that's what we're gonna hit today's that's right I I know that I personally I've heard things that say we should not be talking about these things maybe just praying but not talking about these things publicly and getting involved and things that are going on I've heard things like you're being divisive I've heard things like this is political so with these are some people believe and think this way so we want to actually go back in history like we said and we want to welcome our guests we want to welcome Benjamin and Kevin are you there can you hear us welcome yeah okay thank you okay and we want you to take us back in history we want to travel to take us back travel to help us to travel back to maybe 1863 time and the adventist church was just officially forming an official church what was the state of and what was their involvement and things like we're dealing with right now with race relations in America either one of you can take that one well why don't we can we go back a little further than I and that's one of the very beginning yes okay so all I'll start off by talking about the millah right movement and something I don't remember if I shared this with light-bearer's or elsewhere but I'll lead off by saying that I I'm convinced now in my research that the seventh-day Adventist Church would not have existed without the abolitionist movement that's now closely intertwined they work with one another and that is true from the moments almost from the very moment that William Miller starts preaching that Christ is going to return about the Year 1843 he starts to preach in 1831 the same year that white people for the first time are really gonna start to coalesce around William Lloyd Garrison and launched the abolitionist movement and so black protests had been strong before that but finally it took someone like Garrison to wake up and to amplify their voice into echo black protest for people and so that starts on January 1 1831 in memory of the Haitian Revolution that happened earlier the only successful slave revolt in history and Miller starts to preach a few months later and then he publishes for the first time in 1832 and within a few months of that starting to publish in May 1832 he becomes an abolitionist and so he starts to incorporate really black protest arguments into his apocalyptic system and so he makes it very clear throughout his career that if you hold pro-slavery sympathies you were going to be damned in the judgement and so that was a form of moral suasion to try to persuade you that you need to change your ways so that you will be right with God when he comes and the judgment takes place he also adds an argument to his system which i think is very very rarely ever stated I've only ever seen it stated by black abolitionists like Maria W Stewart and Miller argues that just like in Egypt God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians because they were slaveholders and William Miller says God has seven last plagues described in the book of Revelation chapter 16 and those are going to be poured out on slaveholding Babylon as well and so what William Miller makes and and understands the plagues in Egypt that sin plagues of Egypt to be the sort of type that will have their fulfillment in an anti-type and his own day his own era and so beginning with that everything just gets wrapped up with abolitionism very very quickly hey can i pause before a second so just to clarify William Miller was equating Babylon with the connection of slavery oh yeah definitely okay definitely and he at this point in 1830 you know the 18 33 34 35 when he's making this argument for the first time he is basically brought in on a concept before his time most Protestants in America who were not willing to admit that Protestants could be part of the babylon okay the catholic church was babel and that was clear to them that was it but what william miller is doing is he's saying that people who are participating in the slavery system even if they're protestant they are also babylon later on in the Miller right movement by the time you'd say like the early 1840s for sure the majority of Millerites will start to say it's not just people who are supporting slavery Allah by actually holding slaves but anyone and everyone in these Protestant churches who is not willing to come out and completely disassociate themselves with slaveholding they are Babylon - Wow and so it gets to the point where all even because almost all these angelical North and South are supporting slavery at this time Wow I mean we're talking about almost all of them and so Millerites say we've got to come out of Babylon how do we know that the Protestant churches are Babylon because they support slavery people who hold blades or who are pro-slavery they will go in and they will communit the same communion table with you and maybe they'll even be the minister and minister at the altar of God and so they say we cannot associate with that whatsoever um they also state because of the fact that they reject the admin doctrine we've got to come out for that reason too but those are the two main reasons that they do and we usually in history only talk about the one they come out because if they reject the admin it's not true they come up because of slavery and the advent Wow Wow Wow so that was the mindset of the millerite movement definitely and it grows stronger and stronger throughout the 1840s and you can see like I mean I could I won't go into too many details because perhaps it's too much but I think people are tuning if people are tuning in because they need you to go into this much detail it's needed okay so please do all right well one of the one of the things I found out is that something an organization central to the rise of the millerite movement was the Vermont anti-slavery society so one of the first ministers who accepts william miller's theory was henry jones he was a Congregationalist minister he was not an abolitionist at the time he was a temperance advocate and an anti Mason and I I could go into details about that as well but that that was a those are big reform movements in that era and he comes into contact with Miller by reading his first articles which were published in a paper called the Vermont telegraph directly next to an article on the immediate abolition of slavery and so William Miller and abolition are linked as separate entities and they're brought together on a sheet of a newspaper and and Henry Jones reads that newspaper and it becomes convinced that William Miller is right and a cup becomes convinced that this other author named Orson Murray was also right and he converts to both Miller ISM and abolitionism and he along with Orson Murray Orson Murray starts to dialogue a lot with William Miller to he's deeply affected they are the main two men who are preaching in the state of Vermont and gathering and rallying up the cause and we're talking about just a couple of hundred abolitionists at this point 18:31 there are only 50 white people who are willing to actually subscribe to Garrison's Liberator almost everyone who subscribed to that paper black Wow and so there's a few white people in Vermont who are saying we're gonna do it and so Henry Jones and Orson Murray they start preaching around travelling around Vermont and they start to help organize anti-slavery societies throughout and they've got six or eight of them by the time May 1 1834 comes around and so Henry Jones and Orson Murray today are the primary movers and shakers that form and organized the Vermont anti-slavery society and Henry Jones is a thorough Miller right and in Orson Murray at this time is in heavy dialog with Miller sleeping in his home talking about the apocalypse Miller goes to Orson Murray's home is sleeping in his home and they're talking about the apocalypse I mean Bible studies etc and then William Miller's first publisher his name was war ham Walker who publishes his stuff in the Vermont Telegraph that I mentioned he also had not been an abolitionist but he converts to both Miller ISM and abolitionism and he's also one of the founding members of the raw anti-slavery society I started tracing this Vermont of slavery Society and they've got hundred members maybe at least 20 or more I know for a fact where Miller writes so we're talking about about 20 percent at minimum loss of their Vermont anti-slavery society is our are members of it that society are and there Miller writes and so this is this is huge and so you see from this moment on I can say that this is this is also an interesting fact every single one of William Miller's publishers was an abolitionist every single one of them Wow because the second publisher was Isaac Westcott Isaac Westcott publishes his first full book he was also a founding member of the Vermont anti-slavery society and so thoroughly entrenched were these ideas that Willy Miller's very first critics were also members of the Vermont anti-slavery society and that's important because critics are gonna only spend the time critiquing an idea if it's close enough to feel threatening mm-hmm and so this is the point and so what I mean what I mean here is that from that very GetGo William Miller is such a thorough radical abolitionist that William Lloyd Garrison in 1840 will embrace tell his tell his readers that he is a thorough abolitionist he's also proud of him as a temperance advocate also proud of him for being a non resistance pacifist and so Garrison will promote William Miller in 1840 he tells everyone in Boston he's coming to speak here at this church come hear him at the Marbella Chapel and Joshua Hynes he arises on the scene in late 1839 and he becomes sort of the architect at Miller ISM and he's the first to publish papers all this kind of stuff he will convince garrison to to advertise the signs of the times in the in the Liberator for a full month and so you are gathering more people through this kind of a process who are going to join the Miller right movement as with an abolitionist background another interesting factor here is that the very first publishing Association that publishes the garrisons deliberated which in essence launches the abolitionist movement they change ownership and they change name but that exact same organization that exact same business is the same one that launches the millerite movement because they are the publishers of the signs at the times they publish they tell Josh Ohioans we will publish this if you will agree to edit it for free and they do and so the headquarters of denilla right movement are literally an abolitionist headquarters as well it's a printing shop that does many publications for abolitionists things for garrison for other people and so if you're going to walk into the second advent depot in Boston you're walking into an abolitionist space there shared one in the same and so like I could go on and on about these kinds of things but the point is this you cannot separate Miller ISM Adventism from the abolitionist movement they are thoroughly thoroughly intertwined okay so I'm seeing so many comments coming up people are just like amazed and they're just excited to be able to hear this history because this is history that I mean I was raised Adventist and I went to all of our Adventist schools and I even I mean I went applying for a dick Adam and I took african-american history as it pertains to the Adventist Church but even in that history class I didn't learn all of this what you're beginning to share with us and so we can see very clearly that within the millerite movement that they were very involved in the racial issues at that time which were obviously slavery and so as we're moving forward and the Adventist Church is beginning to be formed take us a little bit closer and I don't know if Benjamin wants to pick up on this at this point even I want to come back to you to your cabin but Benjamin do you want to pick up there and Benjamin before before you jump in I want to just ask a question of both of you and maybe Benjamin might want to take a stab at this first but was there opposition especially within the Christian realm to what Miller and these others were doing and that's my question so let's talk about that go ahead Benjamin he could pick up and then we'll we'll see where it goes well since I see Kevin is excited he can take that word I would good I would like to say a word on Black Miller rates mm-hmm because we've been discovering more black Miller aids and there were a greater number of blacks who embraced that movement then we heretofore thought hmm and interestingly and this is something that Doug Doug Morgan Samuel London and other avenues historians have picked up on and they've been exploring and that is what is it about Adventism and for that for that matter what is it about Miller ISM that attracted blacks who were active in social justice hmm what is it about Miller ISM what is about Adventism that has always attracted blacks who are interested and who are social justice active activists when we look at adventism we know that some of the greatest civil rights figures were at one time associated with Adventism hmm Mike's eternal truth so enjoy the truth with Miller ISM of course with adventism we have people like Mary britain aren't a bon temps of the Harlem Renaissance Malcolm X was at one time a Seventh day Adventist and of course his mother she magnificent civil rights activist and within her own right have trm Howard William Paterson some of the Tuskegee Airmen were seventh-day Adventist we have Frederick Douglass's daughter Rosetta Douglas Frank was a seventh-day Adventist hmm holds true for the Miller a movement as well atonte mentioned Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth attended Miller right camp meetings and she spoke at Miller academies and she was counted among the Miller writes there is some confusion on that because after 1844 there was a great embarrassment with with Miller ISM obviously mm-hmm because Jesus did not come and so people mocked Miller I mean they were a byword and so when Sojourner Truth published her first autobiography her first biography she wanted to some be somewhat distance herself from a movement that didn't pan out but she still has a rather lengthy chapter for that book hmm is it among among the Adventists I think among the second Adventist soon and so she she talks extensively about her time with the Miller writes and her biographer Nell Irvin painter points out that it was among the adventist and that's what they recall the Millerites were called Adventists Vanessa Miller rates but she says it was among the second gists that Sojourner Truth found her calling in life hmm it was where she became actualized hmm well the Adventists may she was already a Christian preacher it was already Christian preacher and when you look at the experience of blacks whether whether free or slaves and the 1830s and 40s they want already apocalyptic hmm relaxed had a built-in apocalypticism or built-in eschatology in kind of a last day thinking we recall Frederick Douglass in the Leonid meteor shower of 1833 when the stars fell Frederick Douglass was enslaves but he still said I took this as an omen mmm a coming of Jesus mm-hmm with the stones and he said I welcomed him as my savior and black saw the second coming of Jesus as a remediation as a correction of the failed American political system hmm in other words American the American promise that all men are created equal and guaranteed you know these rights life liberty pursuit of happiness would have you that has failed blacks and they're seeing all of you know there's this movement that is arising give them freedom but you know in the 1830s and 40s that's still a long way off yeah but even that movement is failing so Jesus was tempted Jesus we end this dark period of captivity and suppression and so even in 1833 Frederick Douglass realized that when he was enslaved of course nat turner in his rebellion it was speak and apocalypticism yes yeah yeah no he he almost seemed to think of his rebellion as the as the last days and as as the beginning of the Apocalypse that would bring on the apocalypse and this was rife later in seventh-day adventists thinking when you read Ellen White's comments on the Civil War it's almost like she's saying that the Civil War would end and the second coming of Jesus you should her statements it you know she she almost thought like this is it probably like some of us think that it Kove it and some of the current race words well uh sure in the second coming mmm but that is that is rife in early Abbas literature that the second the second that racial issues will usher in the parousia the second coming of Jesus yeah we have more black activists who besides Sojourner Truth we had William still the so called forefather be the father of the Underground Railroad hmm still was a Miller right even after 1844 of course we know we know that Miller ISM that adventism continued after 1844 and I'm not talking about sabbatarian adventism I'm not talking about what became 2 semanas Church I'm saying Miller ISM mm-hmm um continued on in many forms of course Joshua Hynes how many how many uh periodicals did he keep going keV hubby - something like that yeah yeah and so William still the the father of the Underground Railroad he remained an adventist a Miller rate for the rest of his life and he was donating to Miller 8 causes and he says very clearly listen to this he says very clearly that the belief in the near Advent the soon advent of Jesus has informed my work with the Underground Railroad it has powered my work with the Underground Railroad now many Adventists even today seventh-day Adventist act like we can't chew gum and walk at the same time it's a very extremely disingenuous argument because they say we shouldn't we can't do both we can't our witness for Jesus you know give our message and be involved in you know anti black racism anti black racism at the same time and and you know many people who are saying this aren't even witnessing you mean they're not they're not witnessing months for the admin let's be honest I mean sort of like the arms are you know they're keyboard warriors yeah I mean they're in front of their computers you know making these comments so they're not doing either the Adventist faith or or you know doing racial activism they're not doing either but evidence have always been able to walk and chew gum at the same time and we have some prominent black millerite ministers like John W Lewis and William Watkins of course William still and others who were Miller right ministers they were Miller right ministers and they were activists they were social justice activists at the same time Wow often times they would have millerite periodical seen a millwright literature and Garrison Liberator Wow abolitionist anti-slavery lectured at the same said that you know they're passing out both mmm and so they things are are intertwined there imbecile Yubel and the the blacks and Millerites one thing that you need to understand about blacks and Millerites is that blacks were not just millwrights they created miller is mmm all with others we have a black miller right prophet named william 40 miller right leaders like I just mentioned John W Lewis and Wayne still so they were and they they donated fire to the comments and expanded the racial parameters of the cause so they weren't a part of the whooping wolf of Miller ISM and they created Miller ISM one other thing we need to realize is that at times and this is rather rare what I'm gonna use the term rare but at times Miller ISM did penetrate the south or largely persona non grata in the south because they were anti-slavery and abolitionist and because you know already there was a there was a gulf forming between sort of the northern mindset the northern culture and the southern mindset in culture mm-hm but when Miller ISM did into the south whether through publication whether through Miller right preachers there were black enslaved Millerites who preached and interestingly the Miller right message always equated to a proclamation of freedom hmm so black slaves always embraced it as a message of liberation there were a couple of instances in which I think it was Louisville Kentucky the one I'm thinking of when melanism was preached and a white slave owner heard the message and emancipated his black slaves Wow and so it's almost like you hear the middle-right message and you immediately you you do the most work thing you can do from the time yeah yeah yeah Benjamin free you've raised your slick yeah I'm gonna ask I'm gonna put this question to you and not already have a question on the table but Kevin but you know go back to French America no no for both so I have often equated the Adventist movement with Moses going into Egypt to deliver the children of Israel out of bondage they had gone through 400 years of of captivity and in a prophetic sense I look at that 1260 years of Babylon Dominion after which God brings a man on the scene who like Moses is like I can't talk right don't send me I can't and this movement rises that is based upon setting people free out of Babylon right come out of Babylon and the fact that you guys are saying that that movement was not because here's the thing as Adventists as you as you stated we have typically only attributed false doctrine right come out of the false teaching and we have to a large degree just totally forgot about or have been unaware of the fact that this was also literally setting a people free so my question to you is what is the significance of God bringing this movement on the scene at the exact time that he's about to move to free slaves is there a corresponding do you think there's a connection with I mean where what other churches where the slaves gonna go to if as you said both both the North and the South Christianity they're all supporting slavery where are these slaves going to go once they get their freedom they they have a few options um I mean since at least around the time of the revolution that's when you start to see the rise of black churches yeah that split from white churches because of racist things racist practices very violent racetrack racist practices and so there's like the AME Zion you know there's there's these kinds of churches that are there they are the ones who are going to do the best on black white race issues of course at this time there's no question there right but Millerites were not the only group to come out of Babylon because of slavery you can read the book by John are McKibben called the war against pro-slavery religion and he identified six groups that were that he calls come out or sex and so every single Protestant denomination split during the war well I'm the only religion in America that didn't was the Catholic Church because they had a you know like very hierarchical structure not because they didn't have issues with slavery they very much mostly supported slavery north and south but the Baptists Methodists Presbyterians Congregationalists even the Quakers who were much better than most they all split they all split on this on these issues and so when you when you add up all of the numbers together of all of these so-called come out or sects and you include the one that megive again overlooked which is Miller ISM you probably have in the neighborhood of like maybe 50 thousand people in the north so that's a small group and so you had it you had a few options but the way I will sort of answer your question is is this I I really don't think that there was a better option than seventh-day Adventism at the time when it came to the issues of race you really couldn't do better if you didn't believe in the seventh-day Sabbath and maybe you would go off and join the Wesleyan Methodist or say I like that if you were like super into what the Quakers did maybe you would join the the radical Quakers who were totally against slavery you know but nevertheless Abba nests had a really appealing message to blacks and been can share on this as well as me but one of the things that's really important to point out too is one of the things that Adventist do from the from the very beginning that they actually borrow this from seventh-day Baptists who many of them by the way we're also abolitionist [Music] almost everyone in America North and South is saying that Africa is a land of darkness it's a place of hedonism no Christianity all this kind of stuff it's it's a dark dark land and of course the metaphor there is stark because they're applying it to human bodies as well as religion but seventh-day adventists following the lead of Baptists seventh day Baptists they say no Africa is a land of light because they kept the Sabbath throughout the Middle Ages when everyone else does acquiesce in to what the Pope said and one of my favorite sermons of all time is a Cleveland sermon that stubborn day and if you haven't seen that sermon it's on YouTube and you got it you got to watch that service because Cleveland lays it down he says what are you black people doing keeping Sunday it's a white day and and I love that and it's just like men he gets it like no no evidence we're making it that explicit at that time yeah but they had all the fabric in material to do that yeah and so and you see that happening and so these are some of the reasons it's not just the fact that we are abolitionists but well actually it probably is because this is something that a blizzard do they would say yeah let's actually defend Africa and so that that's huge I mean those kinds of things make I think helped make Adventism really attractive to blacks our here's here's my question here's my question for you and maybe it's the question you can't answer were they doing this out of a sense of guilt or were they doing this out of a sense of this is the gospel I mean what do you think that maybe we can't read hearts obviously but because understanding the time like it's not like now where you could actually get involved in a movement and you're not risking your life or maybe your job or even your wealth or whatever but at that time we were literally risking their lives so yeah and then this is a very minuscule response to to a fairly broad question Ellen White in the 1890s speaks of whether you make all gospel reparations hmm and this is just one of a myriad of quotes that she makes about reparation repaying blacks for slavery and and a lot of Adventists today may share Ellen White quotes that seem to be derogatory of what about blacks but Ellen White is very clear when she says that if the blacks are degraded mm-hmm character it's because White's made the melon hmm it's because they were enslaved and so that's a very interpretive lens I mean that's a very important lens of interpretation but Ellen White's idea of gospel reparations Adventism at the time was still a very very tiny movement hmm have any political power to speak of there wasn't what wasn't much money and so she said we need to do all in our power to reparatory pay the blacks for the great Finn that White's committed to wear them mmm and she always include she always included Adventists and northerners in the great sin of slavery hmm she never differentiated hmm even ostensibly no Adventists ever had slaves they made that claim several times that nobody who holds the prison truth had possessed asleep yeah they never Lily had sleeves she always groups and lumps adventists Wow a actists as the guilty party Wow and we would do well to think about it because she says ad nauseam about how the northerners were they want just as culpable in slavery as southerners but they were culpable they were profiting from it they were fueling it and so she said that during the Civil War God is repaying the North and the South it seems to say well she does say that God protracted the war mm-hmm that there will be more casualties because he was wreaking his judgment and interestingly he's he's uh retributive the guilty parties through other human beings we still to this day we think that God's vengeance his retribution is something that only he administers but he was administering his retribution through soldiers and through circumstances very interesting I'm speaking to avenues here interested the UM the the retribution of God is not some you know Thunderbolt that comes from heaven um it is done through is done through him ins but anyhow so here so Adventists in the 1890s didn't have much to speak of so she said let's repay blacks back for slavery by giving them the gospel hmm she says went when the church sort of bulked up their their educational arm she said let's pay black spec for slavery by going down south and educating and starting schools Oakwood you know and and a lot of feeder schools in Mississippi and other places you know let's pay blacks back by offering them medical care they started an entire movement of self help me out Kevin itself I can't believe I can't remember this morning support II know supporting nonono was enough supporting the little the little boxes that they had that you put your extra pennies in oh systematic benevolence no no for some reason I can't think of it self same thing something boxes not sure why I can't think of it but they started giving money to the to the you know the quote-unquote Southern cause and the monies were misappropriated and diverted to other places one light speaks extensively and she had visions about this this is from God and she said it is racist it is prejudiced is discriminatory that you have funneled the monies particularly for the needy blacks of the south for Avengers alone among way Wow my point is this her her idea of reparations to blacks was broad but for those who couldn't do anything else she considered teaching literacy other skills health care and preaching the gospel as a type of reparation for what Adventist did by enslaving blacks mm-hmm I want to say something right here there's a comment here that it's something that we actually talked about last night when we were discussing the this program that was gonna come on like one of the comments was we should be teaching our youth and our young people this history because this is exciting this is something that somebody else said I I'm so proud of my church like they just didn't know this history but hearing this history that you've shared just so far has made them even more proud of their church to hear that they were so involved in these issues at that time and if our young people understood this is really who we are or who we're supposed to be as we can see young people get involved in movements the current things that are going on you go out there there's so many there's young people like high schoolers I went to to an event a couple of weeks ago and it was high schoolers who put on this whole social social justice rally locally and there was like almost 3,000 people there and they had never done anything like that before but when young people grabbed hold of something and are passionate and believe this is something worth fighting for and they can see that there the history of their church they're the forefathers of their church we're actually doing this same type of thing I mean this is this is what is not shared and I think it needs to be shared and I think the enemy has a plan of why this is not shared as often as it should be so I'm still so excited about this program yeah cuz it's bringing away is there is there can you guys speak to we're in a different place now than we were at the beginning of our church right we are we are not where we were that I'm talking about the spirit the the whole mentality so how did that happen yeah yeah in other words where do we get to the place where we started separating the gospel from you know being connected with the community fighting for cause like how did how did we get to the place and I don't know if you have an answer for this I'm just throwing it out there where now we're like hey we shouldn't be doing that we should be focusing on the gospel I think it's a very complex question but an extremely important question one that I get asked a lot I think Ben gets asked it a lot too and one that I ultimately wanted to really thoroughly explore but I'll give you my short answer shortage answer it'll be a little bit extended but then may want to chime in and say something to add to that or even critique it I don't know but go ahead Ben but I think it's very clear from multiple sources that seventh-day adventists were thoroughly abolitionists and that means that they're not just wanting to abolish slavery but they're also advocating for equal rights and we could talk about how they are doing that and etc in a variety of ways but that is very that is very clear that we do start there and yes when you look at 20th century Adventism it is different that is not the way it was going down yeah and so I think the first part of that shift happens the moment seventh-day adventists go down to the south okay and so I start to see this whenever we open up our first mission in Texas in seventeen excuse me 1878 mm-hmm we send a couple of radical abolitionists named Joseph and Sarah Clark down there and the Clarks are adamant that they are not going to segregate or bow down to what they call the Great Goddess caste however the situation is so violent down there the KKK is active death threat starts to be lobby to Adventist etc seventh-day Adventist leaders apparently started to butt heads with one another so the Clarkes who are not wanting to bow down to segregation and racism etc RM Kilgore is saying hey we basically need to go ahead and do this because of safety apparently even that the black people they're ministering to are saying yes let's just let's just segregate to say save our skin literally type of thing and so the Clarkes are refusing to do that and they end up leaving after 16 months mmm and Joseph Clarke was convinced that whenever white Adventist from the North went down to the south he says they quote get tinctured by Southern deference privilege you know and they think they're gentlemen you know gentlemanly womanly whatever and like really respectable and then they start to see things through the lens former slave-owners Wow and so they leave the south and they go well actually they don't leave it entirely they go to Missouri and they open up a mission there but they leave that that minish that the mission that they started to the free people in Texas and you start to see segregation arise in the seventh-day Adventist Church at this time in the south it will eventually creep up north and that will take time and decades but to get to some of the shift I think we see a clearer in the 1880s especially 1890s and especially the early 20th century where you start to see these ideas getting brought in more and more and in a nutshell I'll say it this way seventh-day Adventists were intentional about quote-unquote coming out of babylon babylon meant the protestant evangelical churches mmm slavery so there was no such thing as the adventist evangelical i don't think there should be a i'd say identifies the image i'm just saying there was no such thing as an adventist evangelical right right right yeah and that's because of how I define evangelical I don't think you can simply define it theologically I think you also have to consider social the a political aspects to that and so when you do that evangelicals from the very beginning have always been socially and politically conservative mm-hm and the abolitionist movement shows that and illustrates that so seventh-day Adventist they came out of Babylon they came out of evangelical churches but but they start to get closer and closer and closer throughout the the 1800s and especially the 20th century and they started wanting to become evangelicals again mm-hmm and that's because of the world that's changing evangelicals change avenues change and so for example where as a banais had disagreed theological II on the advent doctrine this the eschatology ok Avenue said Christ is coming before a thousand years of peace premillennialism evangelicals are saying no it's post-millennial the crisis coming after a millennium of peace and so there was a disagreement there but in the 1870s a doctrine called premillennial dispensationalism started to catch on like wildfire among evangelicals and so they come in closer and closer to a Venus hmm they disagree over the fine points but nevertheless they agree in some of the basic parameters now where they had not before yeah along these lines you also have after the Civil War the threat of evolution and other sort of modernist theologies and doctrines that are going to creep in and in liberalism or whatever is going to arise and so avenues are unwilling to throw the Bible out and I'm thankful for that underly but in this process they start to come closer and closer than evangelicals because because they are now looking at a united enemy yes Wow yes Wow yes and the problem is is when it whenever you see a penis getting closer and closer with evangelicals Adventist are more and more willing to accept those social and political conservativeness the evangelicals had and they don't fight against it actively enough and so let me give you the clearest example of that that I can think of so something I've uncovered in my research that hey guess who most people don't not heaven yes I'd like to stop you oh please go ahead yeah yeah he wants that to marinate in the minds we don't want you to rush over that because that's a very huge thing okay not actually you know I mean I just want you to know that what you just said is a very dangerous thing you know it I just want you to pray before you decide whether you want to continue speaking or just cuz I love you and I care about you I appreciate that yeah I'll share this last night and I had some hateful comments I don't mind okay all right go ahead it's truth so I I speak as historian so I'll share what I believe is true yeah and I'm not ashamed so or in World War one one thing that we have forgotten about our history as well as that the federal government they have they formed the the so called Federal Bureau of Investigation it was called the Bureau of Investigation they formed that in 1908 and during World War one they had the first chance to really actively do their work in America and they heavily targeted religions and one of the religions that they targeted was seventh-day Adventism and why aren't they targeting seventh-day Adventism they're targeting seventh-day Adventism because they are targeting all groups that they perceived to be liberal and so the federal government during World War one was convinced that a bonus for socialists communists and everything we were publishing was quote red Wow and I mean re D so like not I mean the color yeah and so they're doing this and they're saying this and they're they're infiltrating our camp meetings are infiltrating our churches they are confiscating our mails they are intercepting our telegrams they are doing all sorts of stuff to block what we do I could go on and on about that but the point in the thing I want to stress is this can you slip I'm sorry can you go back over there I've never heard that before not not anything close to that so don't feel don't feel like time is an issue right now can you talk about that a little bit more I mean they were like intercepting our mail and Telegraph's oh yeah this is a time when the First Amendment rights in this country had never been defended in courts and so America the American federal government rode roughshod over all First Amendment rights during the First World War and it was only going to be later and they did throughout the 20th century but this is the clearest time that they did so this is not this is not conspiracy theory stuff this is my word know I have over 2,300 pages of Declassified FBI files yeah I found Wow and and no we didn't know about this before so we just simply did not know about yeah so it's no surprise that you're hearing it for the first time mmm I have shared this in a couple of academic papers and there is a podcast would be Adventist peace dealership where I talk about this some that's online but yeah we were not the only group at that the government was seeking out but we were intentionally targeted mmm and they they came to us and they said either you change which you're publishing or you're gonna go to prison for a long time I've seen it too our leaders Wow and here's the here's the important factor the reason they're saying that one of the main reasons they're saying that is because of this doctrine that we have called the two horn beast okay and before the Civil War we are consistent Kevin Kevin Kevin I can't a Mormon I can't I just can't I'm going too fast yeah you're not I just need some time man just okay just give me a few moments please I don't want to miss anything else you have to say but just give me a moment for myself okay all right you tell me when I can come all right alright go ahead good all right so the two on beast doctrine the it's from Revelation 13 and what we're saying before the Civil War is that America is this - horned beasts of Revelation because it looks like a lamb but it speaks like a dragon and that that beast has two horns one is supposed to represent religious liberty the other one is supposed to represent social or civil liberty and so America claims in its a First Amendment declaration etc Constitution that all men are created free and equal and entitled to equality life liberty pursuit of happiness etcetera and so those sound like great things we're all supposed to be able to worship however we want we're supposed to be able to get along and and vote and and and and be considered an equal in society all those kinds of things that's what America is claiming and avenues are saying that lamb like beast looks and speaks like a dragon because it claims those liberties but it denies them to religious minorities and civil social minority racial minorities specifically the number one thing that they that they talked about the most was oppression to black people and so avenues continue to preach this doctrine saying that Aven that America is currently right now the two horn beasts not not Ettinger not in the future not when they enact in national Sunday law at some point but they are the Beast now because they are oppressing racial minorities and to a degree but not as significantly also religious groups who are trying to observe Saturday Sabbath's and other things it's not just that issue alone we in the early period we were never single-mindedly focused on the National Sunday law yeah and so it was reaching this doctrine it wasn't out african-americans I'm sorry to cut you off but it was also good of Americans to birth wasn't that kind of clumped in there as well as like why we would look at America the way America treated the Native Americans was that that was also talked about some never to the degree of blacks but yes it was it was also included we honestly haven't had as good of a history when it comes to Native Americans but nevertheless that was still there yeah but slavery was the biggest shoe of the time so it primarily focused on that and then also lack of equal rights for blacks but they do they do include Native Americans and so abacus are preaching this doctrine and claiming that America is this beast now and they're continuing to preach this all the way up until World War one and the government gets a hold of our literature and as it turns out they don't like to be identified as this - horn beast of Revelation 13 they find that offensive they find it subversive they find it dangerous they find unpatriotic on 100% American which was a huge phrase and everyone's throwing around during world war one area you got to be 100% American and so they come to us and they say guys this can't happen Wow and so one of the most popular books in avid US history for call portering and other things was a book called Bible readings for the home circle yeah we were preaching and printing that doctrine in that book in 1918 when the government comes knocking at our door they say change it or go to prison and we say okay we'll change it and they didn't tell other avenues but they changed it anyways and what they did essentially is this they said okay America is not the - is not the - horned beast now it's going to become that in Wow Wow and also it's not really America that's not any one beast it's really just liberal Protestants with an America that we've got to worry about and they are going to try they're going to end up taking control of the government it's gonna be like a coup I can't breathe because this is I mean and I heard you say this because you said this on the light-bearer meeting a couple of nights ago at our the zoom and I I heard it then but just hearing you say it now well you didn't say quite that - not three nights ago you didn't say that they came to the Adventist Church and said you have to stop preaching this and we actually changed it I just I were and I spoke together about it and said you know you go you add an evangelistic series that's how its taught it's that in the future this is what will happen but it's not the current my husband has a sermon called beast mode he's pre-tests yeah well these note that he preached well recently but several years ago originally and it kind of was saying the same thing but we did not have this history behind it yeah for sure well this is the genesis of that moment when we start to really clearly start making this a future prophecy and so this yeah this is what's going on and they change it you can look I mean I can show you the 19 I think it's 1916 edition that came out during just before the world war 1 yeah and then you look at the 1918 edition you compare those chapters the titles have changed the way they're talking about these things are totally different I mean I'm not making it up and actually Douglas Morgan pointed this out for the first time in his book Adventism and the American Republic but he did not know about the surveillance issue at least to the extent that I have found out and so this happens and so Adventists Adventist do a lot to shift at this point and so after World War 1 is over I mean world on one ended a couple of months after they're doing this to us and we agree to change and in the wake of that we say ok we've got to change the way we do ministry and evangelism in America and so the church starts to hold Bible conferences the first one was in 1919 which we talk about all the time at least right now because the ass went through the hundredth anniversary yeah we only talk about what happens with Ellen White yeah we don't talk about what happens did 1919 1919 as a as a conference meant to control and train our evangelists so that they are no longer preaching quote a sensationalist message and so Adventist SAR starting to do that in ministerial conferences as well as Bible conferences and they're telling Adventist don't start running out of the gate in your sermons with teaching Adventist distinctives draw them in with the gospel draw them in with whatever evangelicals are gonna believe and then later eventually you can talk about things like the two horn beats but don't talk about it publicly in your evangelistic meetings please and so they're teaching them to do this it's kind of stuff and they're training them to do this kind of stuff and I'm not coming up with this on my own so a historian named Howard B weeks wrote wrote about this stuff in the 1960s and he too he knew nothing about the government surveillance nothing about what was a major motivating factor and prompt in the Adventist Church to make these shifts he just saw this happening thought it was just sensationalism during World War one and said the church realized hey we've got to change so he writes his doctoral dissertation on this and actually the review and Herald publishes it and so this stuff all ties in together and you can see there was intentional calculated maneuvers that our church made to do this and I think that in this process a vendetta started wanting to draw closer and closer to evangelicalism so that they can be aligned against a common enemy like I ever just mentioned and there's several other factors going on as we are getting we're getting closer it's during World War one that that evangelicals start to refer to us as a cult we want to overcome that stigma so bad yes and that's how we're gonna do whatever we can to prove that they're wrong and this leads to our the you know 1950's questions on doctrine which we talked about and in so many other ways but this is also hugely significant in the fact that we are trying to prove that we really are evangelicals hmm and that's all well and good I don't have anything against evangelicals and and we do share many things theologically with them however these things come at a cost and I think that they really need to be explored in more depth because I don't think we realized currently how deep that cost was but I think one of the casualties was race I think another casualty was gender hmm but we're not talking about gender today hmm Wow Benjamin yeah what did I get wrong Ben correct me fix up my mistakes after that I had nothing to say begs me if you could can you tell us about the history of the two horn beasts are we calling on go ahead okay and then you're still I'm you you're really literally on it are you really talking you're not no no no I'm talking now yeah this is for you and Kevin and yeah then you can pick up with with what you're gonna say this is inaudible and I need to make sure that our producer director knows which is our son we we feel like I just feel like the Holy Spirit is moving and informations being shared and we're at our Sabbath school time usually ends like in 10 minutes and we don't want that we don't want that to happen so when I say call it audible we're wanting to go into our divine worship service which my husband has graciously said that we can continue with our discussion here and if you guys are available thank you and if so he'll table his sermon for next week okay let's see if everybody goes crazy over that this is I've retained like a sermon this is we're really learning here I'm muted right now man I'm speechless right now like preach for what and but but I'm wondering and I was hoping our director producer or son would come and tell me but I still would like to take a break in ten minutes not there where everyone leaves but just a break just a short break so that we can welcome them into the church service and just say another prayer over okay our son says we can do that so go ahead answer timers question now veteran no I'm I'm fine let's go ahead and take the break you want to know I mean okay well we have 10 minutes yes 10 minutes for you to yes but so everybody says we vote to continue so everyone's excited to learn because they've never heard this before yeah just say I would need to answer Ivor's question I will retire I can't remember who asked it but to answer it in a couple of different ways the first way is that some Adventists many Adventist s-- never stopped social justice activists yet they stopped speaking truth to power and giving a really sophisticated and spiritual critique of the United States I said on light-bearer's that black Adventist s-- have never had the luxury of dissecting politics from it from anything else it has always been at our very door it's always been in our community I have several instances say hey Benjamin pause you're saying that we have not had the luxury of separating politics from something else from an issue it has been politics for us slavery was politics well we were we were literally enslaved so you can enslave you can call it a tomato you know but I mean my goodness is this is dominating my entire lights and so I think that it is a matter of privilege to compartmentalize aspects of your life and indeed I think that the younger generations are now realizing that things cannot be compartmentalized the role that you drive on the laws you live under your mail your job everything is quote unquote politics I mean see I mean it's a it is an artificial distinction yeah and when you read the writings of Ellen G white which I did my dissertation on elegy white and black people it was a 900-page dissertation hmm and I didn't even cover a fraction of Ellen White never separates racism from spirituality she never separate listen to this listen to this and and I'm you know Kevin grew up in Arkansas I lived in the south for a while so we we love our southern Adventist brethren but I've seen southern Adventist who have had Confederate flags in their trucks mm-hmm I've seen southern Adventists who have had Confederate flags in their houses listen to this quote of Ellen White's on the Confederacy hmm right she said this an eighteen year old this in 1864 she said Satan was the first great leader in rebellion God is punishing the north that they have so long suffered the accursed sin of slavery to exist for in the sight of heaven it is a sin of the darkest died God is not with the South now this is during the Civil War mm-hmm is not with the South and he will punish them dreadfully in the end Satan is the instigator of all rebellion hmm I saw that you brother a had permitted your political principles to destroy your judgment and your love for the truth Wow to godliness from your heart you have never looked upon slavery in the right light and your abusers matter have thrown you on the side of the rebellion which was stirred up by Satan and his hosts Wow your views of slavery cannot harmonize they great important truths for this time did you hear that now we would be in our day some might say that that's a political statement she was saying that what is the instigator was the creator of the Confederacy mm-hmm let let that sink in when we're talking of Adventist and race and exactly what race is she saw it as a spiritual issue yeah not a political one not a not a political one she said Satan was the who is the instigator of the Confederacy hmm it's here you know the modern Confederate say that this is not about slavery this is this is about our culture this is about you know individualization or whatever it is it's about standing for our rights she says that Satan was the instigator of the Confederacy okay so to give that to my main point there is a whole stream of Adventists both black and white who have continually been been been engaging in social justice civil rights and this is worldwide yeah we have in you know of course Nelson Mandela's kids went to an Adventist whole you had Advan fighter fighters in South Africa you had added Adventist freedom fighters in Nazi Germany but there was often a difference and that is they were acting as individuals hmm they weren't you know the conference could be saying one thing you know for political reasons that in many ways politics has been our greatest enemy mm-hmm because we have often succumbed to political currents yeah and you know we've made state you know we said Hitler was a vegetarian literally we said bits literally just pastors and the Adventist Conference said that Hitler was a vegetarian happy have you guys seen that statement with the with I don't remember what magazine or what periodical that was in where we were basically praising Hitler I don't know I can't remember that where it was found but it shocked me when I saw for the first time I was like this is an Adventist Journal praising we have a visual wonder who were that heavily engaged in the in the Hutu in the Tutsi Wars I mean throughout throughout our history yeah and there's there's one point when it comes to world war two a different historian has published this so you can I can send anyone who wants the article but it was our connections with Nazism were so fraught with difficulties that before World War one two breaks out there is an Adventist health worker who's really involved in eugenics so a race medic betterment movement that drove the Nazi Party was really popular in America and she is sponsored her name is holy ghost she was sponsored to come to America to preach eugenics and I think it's like it's sometime in the early 1930s or mid 1930s before the war breaks out she is sponsored by two entities to administer a Ministry of propaganda for the Nazi Party and the General Conference of seventh-day adventists we were in league with the Nazis and bringing someone to preach eugenics in America in the 1930s that is sobering sobering thought I'm just glad you stopped there because I'm working on something and that's all I'm gonna say yeah something something's cooking something's cooking okay something's cooking in the other Benjamin can we pause can we just we're not gonna stop and take our break we're just going to pray over what we've done welcome and let people know this is what we're doing because it's 11:30 so people normally are tuning in for church and by majority nobody wants us to stop they don't even want us to take a break and officially so we're just gonna pray and continue on so Ben zona will pick up with you after the prayer so you can finish your point okay is that okay do you want pray okay dear Heavenly Father Lord just thank you we thank you for this information that we're we're learning Lord it's it's teaching Lord all of us just how we need to to study more Lord and just understand the past and the history Lord and just get a better understanding lord I thank you for just all that how you have led our church in the past how you led the founders to do what was right during that time that they were they were living in and taking the risk and being courageous Lord and we thank you for this time that we can just all come together and listen and pray and learn and we just pray that your Holy Spirit would continue to bless bless us as we're moving forward into our church service and we just thank you in Jesus name Amen amen with that I know most of you have been here since the beginning of Sabbath school and this is the first time we're doing this but we're just going to continue on through our worship service if you tuned in after the beginning of the Sabbath school time I just want to reintroduce who is with us we have Kevin Burton who is who is with us and he is an instructor at Southern Adventist University he is also working on a dissertation that deals with Miller writes and Adventists as abolitionists and so if you've been listening you can tell that he's done has done a lot of study and so he is currently working on that dissertation and we can't wait wait until it turns into a book because what he shared already has been a blessing we also have Benjamin Baker who has a doctorate in history and he operates the black seventh-day Adventist history dot org and I should also say that I did say that Kevin is a is an instructor at Southern University but he works in the history department so we're just happy to have both of them here they have been a blessing and we are talking about these issues because the current situation that we find ourselves in and then specifically as seventh-day adventists you know what what is our role what should we be doing at this time because you've heard a lot of people I know I've personally heard it just have a lot of confusion about what we're supposed to be doing and so what we're trying to do is look backwards to our history as seventh-day adventists look at the Word of God as well and see how God has led us in the past oh yeah to see what we could be doing currently at this time there and it's been just what they have shared so far has been tremendous the technical term is fire and it's just yes the technical term is father the social media term yeah so it's a lot of this just has me has me speechless and you know it's just some good stuff that we're that we're hearing here so we're just gonna go ahead right before I go right back and we just were taking a taking a short break we're not this is our break but I just want to remind I know some of our local church members and other people are just signing in now because this is normally where our Sabbath school zoom from church for the other classes are ending and people are cut are tuning in for church just want to remind you those who are members of our church but also everyone who's listening you can give to the Campbell seventh-day Adventist Church if you're wanting to give and donate there you can go to Campbell SDA church comm forward slash online giving that's Campbell SD a.com forward slash online giving and so with that we want to continue on with our guests and we're gonna have Benjamin pick it up and continue where he was sharing before we took our break yes I believe that your question was how did how did Adventism kind of drop the ball on their original social justice activism and outspokenness and I was saying at times maybe the Adventist structure maybe the Adventist administrative structure or abacus as a whole dropped the ball but individuals have always been individual Adventist have always been leaders I would say leaders in the civil rights movement we have James child's he was a Kentucky lawyer and he was one of the first black star argue against a racist law in front of the US Supreme Court hmm we have Mary Britton who was a tireless um activist and and this is all in the spirit and vain not only of Ellen White when she said disobey the Fugitive Slave Act and because we know just because something is a law doesn't make it right but at one time slavery was a law yeah one time slavery was legal yes in the United States and so it's not just Ellen White saying disobey the Fugitive Slave Act to advocate for this leader to adventist ensured behind duty just to disobey the Fugitive Slave Act and of course we know that many Adventists were involved in the Underground Railroad we don't know how many because it was illegal so you kept it quiet hmm now the kid just is not like you know just finding something on the ground it's just there's part no here the dig into it because people were literally suppressing the documents and the evidence that they were involved in the Underground Railroad Wow because it was illegal yeah so at least we were always flouting the law we were in every because slavery was wrong so we were involved in illegal activity Oh certainly because he's propounded what is it acts 5:20 we all took it God rather than that's right that's right so this is one of our one of the early early pioneers is Maine attended in terms of the American laws we will obey the of America as long as they are just in righteous and in line with God's principles and so we see Adventists all throughout history Irene Morden in 1943 some 10 years before Rosa Parks she's on a she's on a Greyhound bus and she is told to to vacate her seat you know she just had a miscarriage and she's told to vacate her seat because um a white man needed okay she's under bus this is in Virginia and she refused because it was an unjust law and the police offers them this is a seventh-day adventists and the police officers came in and and physically dragged her you know police brutality's nothing new we have a rich heritage of Adventist black evidence in particular decrying and protesting against the police brutality from Owen Troy to trm Howard you name it there's a rich history this was happening in the hurry his hands I know the Miller Lite black man who was abused by but by cops by but police so this is nothing new I really made it as a result of not only her refusing to get up we call it her seated stand and you know what I mean personated stand not only by refusing to give up but by refusing to admit that she did anything wrong and refusing to pay the court fine for resisting arrest and getting up for mercy and not did he see there was there was a Supreme Court decision Morgan V I believe the state of Virginia which outlawed which illegalized segregation racial segregation an interstate busing we have a Terrence Roberts who was a part of the Little Rock Nine this is 1953 segregate the Little Rock schools and the cool as you know as an extension American schools he was a Seventh day Adventist we have seventh-day Adventist who were involved with you know Vincent Harding who was one of Martin Luther King Junior's his main speechwriters was a seventh-day adventist we have on the march on washington 1963 directly behind martin luther king to his right there was an Adventist woman who was the daughter of any Wellington Clarke a you know an early black avenues minister real name was Yolanda Clarke and he performed for Martin Luther King at the march on Washington hmm we have Adventist all throughout the civil rights movement and so black and white there was a a straining many members of our church who never stopped that um that activist spirit that actuated the early Adventists and the Miller aims were they were they how would you answer the argument that they were being political when they would do when they would participate in these things they were not focused on the three angels messages they were getting sidetracked by side issues I would say that the Adventist witness from the very beginning is that racism is a spiritual issue yeah I just read the Ellen White quote where she says that Satan instigated the rebellion Satan was behind the Confederacy and she says that he Satan actuated Satan animated a masters when they were enslaving blacks and whipping them that that was Satan who was actually in them along the way takes it out of any so-called political realm and she ever makes it a spiritual issue for us yeah that's that's vital she forever divorces those two artificial and meaningless constructs now for those who say that it's only a political issue many Adventists had social justice jobs then were lawyers and we know Ellen White's and I'm talking a lot about all the white because you know we hold her to be a prophet mm-hmm it was a co-founder leader of the church she says that we know that the famous quote in education do you have dreams that you can make laws that will impact the nation and that you can sit on the highest political boards 17 is a 20 what is it education something help me out and so she only saw Adventist as helping to create just laws for the naiton we know of we know of her encouragement of 80 Jones's extensive political you know speeches in front of Congress and the Senate these are the religious liberty hmm so she was all these four Adventists creating a just and righteous a mission but I can't stress it strongly enough that early advocates as well as on white Saul racism at its core as a spiritual issue and then we look at it dared Shelvin the man who had his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds we know that Ellen White would say something like I mean even even in our only thinking it's like this is publish I mean this is this is there's something supernatural going on here not just many you know he this is this is not humanity and this is indeed what she says about slavery racism that you're losing your humanity and the devil is actually actual eating you your maintenance of God every see made in the image of God but you are literally there facing his image and you are becoming a brute beasts gravely racist harm on fellow human beings in the image of God hmm and that's Sheldon is doing when he's you know putting his knee on George Floyd for eight minutes and 46 seconds and so we air I think gravely when we divorce this from spirituality and say oh you know it's something else adventist are very clear early Adventists were very clear that racism was a spiritual issue that manifested itself in that it was direct directly positioned in the great controversy it was directly positioned in prophecy as we've already said with a lame likeness of Revelation 13 11 through 18 as we already said in terms of the identification of Babylon but also in terms of the second coming they often believed that the Civil War you can read the writings the Civil War and and other race-based events with Usher and the second coming so it's always been it's always been tied up with with Adventist I think to illustrate that though it's also true that in the 20th century there is that duplicitous nasai n I mean you stress if this is individ baños acting primarily as individuals which is mm-hmm part of it part of the troubling factor of it and so for example in the civil rights era where Ben has just shared what's true like we had a lot of so many adventist who were not just in the civil rights movement but leaders in the civil rights movement a hundred years after slavery was abolished and you see at the same time the editor of the review and Herald the Adventist review FD nickel ok he's white guy and he's telling Adventist white Adventist a particular of course he's saying don't get involved with the civil rights even because it's political the three angels message has nothing to do with politics I want to show you a picture of something that's going on at the exact same time that nickel is saying these words can you see that Wow what is that that is as it says in the caption a thousand avenues college students speaking out against tobacco Wow in a big way with a seven mile march complete with placards banners and yeah they see ban the but stop cancer now now don't want you don't want it you know all this guys I mean they're holding signs just like people are now just like they were in the civil rights movement and our leaders are saying our white leaders are saying don't get in politic what is this what is this I mean give me that is so hypocritical so duplicitous and that's what adventism became in the 20th century and we created this argument don't get involved in politics well I agree with that to a point I mean I I don't think that you should get super involved in partisanship and then have things a challenge in your loyalty to God we can go into that but let's not talk about saying this is you know you can't get into March because that's political we were doing it mm-hmm we were doing it yeah it was literally a race thing white Adventist were not wanting to get involved because it was about uplifting a human race that if you can excuse my language is damnable that idea is diabolical that is the kind of thing that Ellen White is speaking out against in her lifetime and have we forgotten our prophet hmm have we forgotten her I think that we have and that makes me very upset hmm and to see people even today you guys have probably all seen it people putting videos up and say look here's a white officer kneeling on a white man's neck and he died - this isn't about race give me a break guys I'm speaking as a white male and I can tell you this I have never and you have never if you're white been attacked or assaulted or killed for centuries because you're white black people have so this is a race issue whether or not you want to admit it doesn't matter it is a race issue and seventh-day adventists are pioneers said we have to speak down against that injustice this is a problem uplifting humanity is part of the gospel we must do so yeah yeah you know you said something you have we forgotten our prophet and I think that for this generation and probably even my generation because she's not viewed the things that you've shared today you and Benjamin it gives such a different look for Ellen White and even our founders like again I I will say that if our young people understood and heard this and were taught this they would have a different view of our prophet and they and they wouldn't want her to be forgotten or just think that you know as they say now she was very welcome yeah all right I would say that you know I think one of the problems that we are facing as a church and you're given some of the history and some things that I have not heard before and I'm so glad I'm hearing them right now because as I said I am I am cooking something in the kitchen and it's not ready yet but it will be ready very soon and what I'm seeing is there's an undercurrent that most people are not aware of in our church and some of these things you're you know you're mentioning and that you've both shared just are helping me to see the the dots are connecting as to why we are where we are right now and I think to a large degree mmm I want you know I'm a peacemaker and I'd like to see the best in everybody and that's just personalities hey yeah it's my personality type so you know and here's a day man like over these last few weeks I've been getting some some emails you know I used to like you now I hate you I mean just stuff like I don't you know I'm not mad I'm like man I get it you know you're that's actually why I was gonna preach about today I'm gonna share a little bit about what I was going to preach about today which is really simply this guy and I may still preach it at another time because the entire sermon no no no not the entire sermon do you remember you guys may know of a statement I'll shut up and dribble okay look you have Gibran J yeah shut up and dribble right like hey you're here to entertain us we don't want to hear about your concerns now forget about the black-white issue in the political issues surrounding that but to a certain degree I believe Satan is basically trying to tell the Adventist Church shut up and dribble right don't get involved in this cop just just go preacher three angels messages just go you know they keep hearing good sermons you know I want to hear good my highlight is Sabbath because I get to sit down and hear a great sermon and as long as I can hear a great sermon I'm good to go but when God's like hey no I need you to open your mouth on behalf of the oppressed I need you to actually be about action no no no no no no no we don't want to hear that I don't want to hear that I just want to hear a good sermon please just give me just be quiet and preach a good sermon and I think we've gotten to that place not where we have mistaken good sermons for gospel life right Jesus came into this world the Bible tells us the word became flesh so what happens when the word became flesh they killed him when the word became actionable they killed them before that oh yeah you know we're God's people the word the word the word the word when the word manifests itself in the flesh yeah we don't like you and I think to a - to a great degree we are fine with the word as long as we're as long as we don't have to make it flesh as long as we don't have to make it practical and go out there and be a part of the community and speak to the ills of society you know we're good when it's time for action yeah you know we don't want to hear that but I think there's an undercurrent that has been leading to the place where we are now and I think people have to a certain degree ignorant ly gotten there they don't understand the undercurrent and so they're in a place where they don't even realize where they are they think they're being genuine and this is the Laodicean Kadesh condition right you're rich and increased with Goods and you don't know you don't realize that you're sick you don't realize you have an issue so you know the Bible says search your well people have said hey you know I've searched my heart and I know that I don't have this issue you know I'm good to go I'm clean but the issue is probably that you're the one that's searching your heart because the Bible says search me Oh God right search me Oh God when God looks he's gonna show you stuff that you don't like when you look hey you know I searched and I'm good to go me I'm not you fill in the blank bowing I just show something very quickly yeah and I know that the cardinal rule is to never interrupt a preacher no no go ahead man but what you just said reminded me of Ellen White's statement she gave a talk to a portion of constituency of the General Conference in 1891 and she had I would encourage all of your listeners to Google councils on Black's L&G white councils on Black's L&G white compilation that put together of all of her statements on black people and it's 1,500 pages Wow there's only people this is for the people that say that we you know we shouldn't care about race and this is not an important issue okay fifteen hundred pages on I'm speaking on black and just read the sort of the sorts of things that that she says anyway in 1891 the famous our duty to the colored people nama threats I'm sure all of you all of you have heard about this this is March 21 1891 to a General Conference constituents the the main leaders of the seven eight minutes church she's after my severe illness one year ago many things which the Lord had presented to me seemed lost to my mind but they have since been repeated listen to this I've work I know that which I now speak will bring me into conflict this I do not covet for the conflict has seemed to be continuous of late years but I do not mean to live a coward or a die accountant leaving my work undone this she goes on I must follow in my Master's footsteps capital in I must follow in my Master's footsteps she says it has become fashionable to look down upon the poor and upon the colored race in particular but Jesus the master was poor and he sympathizes with the poor that has started the oppressed and the clues that every insult shown to them is as if showed to himself this is good after 1888 and we talk a lot about righteousness by faith and however I believe that it's true application was how you treat the least of these among us often links righteousness by thank the 1888 message with the treatment of black people some believe that that's why she was sent to Australia in 1891 they said you know we got to get rid of her and so they shipped her there I'm not confirming or denying man but she started speaking a lot about black people and the next thing you know she was waiting down under on the other side by the word Wow okay but Kevin smiley we go she was sitting for a number of reasons yeah unless thing it was only this yeah he says I know what's gonna I know what I'm gonna say is going to bring me into conflict but she says I must follow in Jesus's steps in Jesus's steps she says I am more more supplies as I see those who claim to be changing of God possessed a little of the sympathy tenderness and love which actually had Christ but that every church know themself or imbued with the spirit of our Lord's teachings while at st. Louis a year ago as I knelt in prayer these words were presented to me as if written with a pen of fire all ye are brethren now when you look at the the LMI compilation tells us on Black's she had married she had manifold a plethora of visions on race study that in which she said God showed me this and it was about race for those of you who don't think this is important who don't think this is a spiritual issue the Spirit of God rested upon me in a wonderful manner and matters were open to me in regard to the church st. Louis and in other places now what happened at st. Louis is that Charles M Kinney one of the earliest black Baptist ministers had brought in a black blacks to the to the Adventist Church there was only one Adventist Church there folks there's a reason now why in many cities still in many places there are there's a black Adventist Church and a white edna's church there is a reason there is a reason because in st. Louis when Charles kitty a black ABA's man when he brought in blacks to the right out of his church they treated the blacks so bad that many of them blessed the church they were converts to Adventism they believed the message but they were treated so bad by the white Adventists in the st. Louis Church that they left they said how how is this the truth when they treat us like this and they left and Ellen White was traumatized she would say later that I can't think of what happened to me I'm in st. Louis without having dread become when it was like PTSD Wow because these were precious Souls a believers who who embraced the message and they left because the church men which treated them so harshly based on the color of their skin hmm and the situation was so bad that she had a vision in the st. Mary's Church and their vision simply echo went accent what Jesus said all ye are brethren and so this was the occasion for the she says the matters are open to me regarding the church Saint Rose in other places the spirit in the words of some Ammar guard the members of the church or an offense to God they were closing the door of their hearts to Jesus no how is racism how is how you treat others and the person of Christ how is this not present truth is this not an employment issue for us to attend you right now how is this not she said that when they were racist when they discriminate against his black believers they were closing the doors of their heart to Jesus so is this how is this not a spiritual issue when you're closing your heart to Jesus by being racist okay she goes on among those in st. Louis who believe the truth there are colored people who are true and faithful precious in the sight of the God of heaven and they should have just as much respect as any other of God's children those who have spoken harshly to them or have despised them have despised the purchase of the blood of Christ and they need the transforming grace of Christ in their own hearts that they may have the pitying tenors of Jesus toward those who love God with all their fervor a which they themselves they're capable the skin does not determine character in the heavenly I know that this is going to bring me encanta a conflict I'm going to say it anyway and she squarely places racism how you treat others who are made in the image of God she squarely places it as a spiritual issue as a determiner if Christ is in your heart or not as a determiner as if you will be in heaven or not hmm let me let me ask this first of all just real quick the Protestants protest either why don't you can answer that should should they protest so Protestants protest I mean what does the name Protestant mean oh I see I see take a second I mean if we if we told ourselves Protestant go ahead go ahead Benjamin there was the first one with the UM went with the size of the placard in the right the 95 composition to the 95 theses and it would the 95 thesis a lot of those it was not only quote unquote spiritual issues but they were they were justice issues yeah there was there was robbery going on you know people who barely had enough you know they were giving money for giving the term the indulgences indulgences and nuances and it was Lobby mimicked and there was there was a lot of issues about the humanity of people yeah in fairness and justice so the very nature of Protestantism and of course how Adventist came about is is a protest if other than justice as Kevin pointed out it wasn't just some you know esoteric doctrines or no it was Babylon was originally identified over slavery yeah so it's our naturists is to is to protest and add I've read that when you look at the early Adventists their patriotism is it's very intriguing looking at depth to the lens of patriotism because while they believe that America was indeed exceptional they also believe that America America was very unexceptional so you would have them saying that there's no other nation upon which God has blessed so richly but at the same time they said it was cursed yeah ok Ellen listen said that slavery um Chris the very soul of America and said that there's going to have to be great atonement for the way blacks had treated in fact she believed at the 70,000 approximately men who died in the Civil War and the great ravage that a crave from that was God's judgment near the end of her life she says I fear that the color line is always going to be a problem there's gonna be a revival of slavery and that we know that Tulsa the great race or pulse' the Tulsa riot happened shortly after her death you may use that every death yeah and there were more in the nineteen sixties etc and even today and so she knew that this was never going to stop and in fact the founders believe that America the very nature was gigantic was was a dragon and will not stop it will not end slavery was not an aberration it was a it was a foundation it was a sense joseph bates who was particularly virulent and outspoken against America one time he went it's almost like he just burst into a screen he said oh this boasted land of liberty this heavy dairy saw destroying slaveholding neighbor murdering country real critique of America that I think many Adventists today would Sutter you know would shudder it and as kept putting out with the rise of the FBI and the FBI has been one of the greatest enemies of black people I mean II horrid horrid enemy I'm just you know Jay Edgar who history mm-hmm the rise of the FBI has said we need to tone down this anti-american rhetoric because it is detrimental to our respectability to our life in the suburbs to our social standing it is detrimental so it has been it has been toned down so would you guys agree or are you saying then that people today who who deny the that the lamb is currently speaking like a dragon never took a break from speaking like a dragon that it is partially partially due to this transition of okay that is future it will speak as a dragon in the future so it spoke as a dragon in the past yeah we could probably agree to that taking a dragon break but it's taking a dragon break it's no longer speaking as a dragon things are good now what's everybody complaining about I get it if I was in those days I would have been an abolitionist with them rah rah rah but the Beast has gotten better what are you guys talking about that you know if if people if people are gonna say and this is probably white people white mostly white people are gonna say that they would have been an abolitionist back then if they say that and they are not speaking out against racial and Justices now I'm calling their bluff yeah there's no way that that that would be true it sounds nice I'd like to think of myself as the most unrighteous most awesome white person in the world but if I'm not speaking out now against truth like for truth against racial injustice give me a break yeah so definitely you're saying definitely I'm sorry you're saying that because it was riskier then than it is now it was it was more risky back then definitely it certainly is still risky now but it was even more risky back then mm-hmm with for a variety of reasons and so I do to get back to your question I do think to be a Venice to be Protestant but particularly the Adventist variety of products isn't Protestantism you must be protesting against these things I mean after showing you the picture of protesting against cigarette smoke and cigarettes etc how can you tell me that that is okay and speaking out and protesting against racism is not okay that makes no sense in any way shape or form no matter how you want to slice it or dice it and so I can tell you like he wanted a quote here's one from Ellen White I'm getting this I don't I could get you the source I don't remember exactly where she said this but she's writing a letter to a banais who were going to Africa as missionaries and she tells him this remember you are to be reformers not bigots hmm and she says so much over and over again adventist are to be reformers reform was so thoroughly intertwined in every kind of way with what it meant to be a bad ism that we have definitely dropped the ball and so you're kind of asking the question is it okay to sort of creature on the two horn beasts and say that it's gonna be it's it kind of stopped being a dragon for a while and etc and and you know was it dragon back at one point but it's not anymore you know I this is of course up to interpretation but as a historian I think absolutely not I don't think there's any way that you can defend an answer from our from Ellen White from the Bible from our understanding our heritage to defend and say that America has not always been speaking like a dragon yeah well he's been doing that yeah I think a lot of people thought thought that you know the dragon voice stopped in the 1860s okay well maybe not the 1860s but definitely the 1960s because now black people could vote so you know what racism what are you talk thing about and to me when I try to say listen forget forget about you know just think prophetically just think prophetically we're in the prophecy does it say it will speak like a dragon where is the future tense of that word it's not there right horns of a lamb speaks like a dragon and and and yes it is an it it will speak as a dragon in the sense of we know something's coming but it's not saying that before that it was just a LAN and so I think there's a very you know and I'm finding this like I'm finding it becoming increasingly difficult to speak without being told that I'm being political right when I'm just like hey look if I'm a prophecy Oh have you read I'm like you guys prophecy above politics and we're getting to a place now where I'm beginning to fear honestly like today I was like what what do I preach and why why am i go I'm not an entertainer so I'm not here to entertain you if you're not gonna listen to things that are like the Word of God is saying do this thing what is the purpose of preaching you know what I'm saying like I think it's it's getting to a place where it's like look if the preaching of the word is not going to actually transform you and actually transform hearts and transform societies then I'm not I am NOT LeBron James you know I'm not a basketball player I'm not here I'm not an entertainer so nothing against entertainers but God has not called pastors to be entertainers and to please people's ears and hey don't don't say something is going to be offensive to us or challenge us and this is the thing the word of god is never meant to like bash anyone over the head the word of god is meant to bash Satan over the head so if you get in the way because I'm trying to bash Satan and you're like why'd you hit me I wasn't trying to hit you I was going after Satan why are you standing in the way this is not against you you're under something this the Word of God is not meant to like beat people down and make people feel you know bad and whatever it's like like we're trying to win souls you see what I'm saying and then people begin to take stuff so personally like oh you're preaching against me and and the left or you're preaching against me and the right and the Word of God is just getting lost just lost just just a word here and I've heard some of your messages particularly you want the good samaritan mmm jesus' statements or Jesus's teachings about race and and if you will the last days Matthew 24 mark 13 to 21 earth most shall rise against ethnos mmm-hmm that's it he again submissive mm-hmm well you mentioned getting hit I I want to share something from Ellen White's life I'm like I said I'm talking about about Alan Wake because I think that her activism her involvement in anti racism is very instructive for us you recall that when she was a girl I believe nine years old she was hit in the face with a rock yeah and it disfigure disfigured her disfigured excuse me her parents some say that it caused some some brain damage I can't verify or deny that but whatever it did it sunk her into a terrible depression and when she had to grapple with you know a young girl she's grappling with having to drop out of school obviously her physical appearances is greatly marred and she sort of talks like it was the end of her world because she couldn't be a scholar she couldn't be a student anymore and there was some ostracism based on her appearance from her from her contemporaries from her classmates and from her friends but during that time she we know that she was haunted by the notion of an eternally burning hell and that was you know she was continually ruminating on that and so all of these all of these things converge you know her dad comes from a long trip and he doesn't recognize her because her her her appearance is so is so marred from the from the from the stone phone this experience she develops this tremendous and profound understanding of the compassion of God for the marginalized for those who aren't accepted for those who aren't beautiful for those who don't reach a certain standard and I believe that it's from led from there that she developed her sort of a perspective of yet true empathy of pathos of ministry yeah he the least of these like I said Google counts as counters on blacks Ellen White 1500 pages she wrote on on blacks and throughout her entire life I believe that she identified with the underdog and those who were oppressed they're they're touching scenes in which you know she's you know her husband James gives money to poor black people he gives money to you know just poor people in general of course her son went down south and I took to minister to Black's during the Reconstruction period and I don't think that this is incidental um because her entire life I believed that she was and she says that if you're a parent you focus and give more attention and more love on the child that has disadvantaged that needs it more always had that profound empathy and I also want to appeal to said there that just I have called the n-word of Christendom they may be any word a Protestant pride as Protestants because the way that Protestants often related to them was the way that the American Republic often related to black people hmm they lifted them as not true Christians and adness is not true Christians they looked at Adventist as others they look just as a cult they discriminate against Adventist because of who they were who they inherently were you know a Buddhist went to church in the Sabbath and things like this so our he um much of our existence we've really understood when it was about one is what it was like being an outcast being marginalized mm-hmm yet too often we see Adventist reflecting the world mm-hmm thinks about racing about black people and instead of us experiencing the marginalization so being leaders in how Christians shouldn't make a trace and should treat the least of these instead we just echoed society's views and so when you asked earlier how did our church how do we end up with ripp with regional conferences not only that was separate race-based conferences how did we end up simply reflecting the mores of broader society and not being prophetic as we once were the way that the way that that happened was that when Adventist when adventism expanded to the south in order for evangelist in order for our evangelism for our mission to operate smoothly and successfully we started reflecting the social constructs of the South you know the southern Missionary Society as in white will Palmer and they could not operate let's say with a white to let's say Emma white is teaching blacks on the Morningstar then were vilified in the newspapers of yozma city in latonia the Vicksburg these places as they said they're arranged leaper mischievous hmm racially mix it and so literally white started attacking the members of the southern Missionary Society I mean frequently attacking one person they may open he was shot he was he was he was whipped you know I mean they kind of rolled out on his house and so as a result the southern Missionary Society had to leave Yasu said he had to leave Vicksburg and they had to kind of disperse and it was at that time where they say it's best for blacks to work for blacks mm-hmm it is best for whites to work for whites because otherwise we will be so vilified so persecuted not only by the KKK but by other white terrorists yet we can't fulfill our mission of evangelism right right you can le white succumb to this thinking mm-hmm she said in order for our miss geological advantage you know in order for us to do missions the best and smoothly and to get the gospel out to everybody and she of course she was looking out for her son mm-hmm or something of course her daughter ended up dying of malaria which she got miss else yeah her daughter was a martyr to the cause and her daughter but she's looking out as a mother for her son and as the denominational leader she's saying I want to preserve rights mm-hmm she made statements that as a temporary measure right we want you to observe the the mohrís of the cells of Jeb the Jim Crow South mm-hmm in order so that we could preach the gospel mm-hmm all right that's that's where it came from Vanessa's in you let's say you know 19 1990 hos okay then when she died we never got rid of that GLaDOS right we never got rid of that Sensibility and that's when I believe I've heard atonte that racism started taking over like she would say in 1899 and to a black man and a white woman don't don't get married you know in interracial marriages is not best right now mm-hmm and we had into the 70s and 80s people still calling Ellen White on that yeah an interesting dynamic emerges we start using her to reinforce our racism yeah okay not when she was prophetic but when she was responding to Jim Crow and we really wanted to grow the church and we the kind of he or Missy ology has always been about adapting to the situation in the country yeah okay in the region where I think we know whatever sort of Missy ologist you are it's about adaptation but we took that and we used it to as an echo of our own racism mm and so blacks kept working for blacks and whites kept working for whites and in fact if you look in the nineteen arts in the 1900s they had a Scandinavian Department they had a German Department they had because of course you know immigrants were coming to America yeah and so it was about you working for your own ethnic group not basically because no ethnic groups were still the Germans were speaking German and Noah cetera right but mentality color ethnicity and so that never stopped the blacks working for blacks the whites are working for whites and black churches were established only black people white churches were established and that became embedded into the structure and into their thinking and so really the you know the regional conferences and and the other racial expedience I could say are indeed a product of Jim Crow mm-hmm and it was never by manases desire black adventist always wanted inclusion with weddings right right because they got better facilities mm-hmm rights pictures with the white fountain and the colored fountain however families wickety it doesn't work it's you know it's the pipes are broken if anything they just had better facilities and something blacks were always into integration but there was many times you know the whites who said no you know it's best for you to work you know for your cell phones and so regional conferences were really developed upon that experience and you saw an evangelistic explosion because hitherto the the tithes and the offerings and the monies were fully away from the black work and to evangelize among whites and others and so black evangelism wasn't getting the attention and of course Ellen White would be just heavily because people were getting money to the southern work to the work among blacks and she said because of racism I mean she writes a rose on this racism those funds were being diverted to other things to other you know white white ministries because the blacks couldn't paid much time cuz blacks in the south will put the time you wouldn't see any return on the tithe and offering monies that you sent down south okay so with the regional conferences what we see is an explosion of the black membership because now blacks can focus on mission izing under venture lysing among blacks and monies can go to that yeah and the energy and the leadership can go to that been a tremendous blessing yeah showing you that hey blacks worked for blacks whites work for whites we worship separately separately that is a legacy of the Jim Crow the nadir of race relations in America never changed it never stopped and with the call to dissolve regional conferences what have you um you have to ask yourself has our thinking changed right because the churches on the local level and such will still be black and white right if we just not fences right Jim cold thinking still there yeah that is the question that whole Jim Crow mindset it has dominated our denomination the story of race relations in our church yeah I think I feel like all we can say is wow that was heavy I have to cuz I there's been tons of questions but something I wanted to ask Kevin since you brought it out and mentioned it probably in our Sabbath school our actually people wanted a reference for the nineteen six 1916 and the 1919 intervention or the or the or the government coming down think you need to change this message do you have references for that because people's um that was this is the first time they've heard it so they're just wanting sure type oh yeah the by the way by the way by the way okay you didn't you mention that in Sabbath school yes some people who are getting on now or who are now did not yeah like hear that anymore okay so be was a quick recap quick recap okay so what what I've Arun atonte are talking about is that during World War one the Federal Bureau of Investigation it was actually called just the Bureau of Investigation at the time they took the name Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1930s but it's the same same organization they they heavily targeted religious groups and one of those groups that they targeted was the 7th avenues Church and the reason that I haven't covered this and it's something that historians had not known about before I uncovered it a couple of years ago the reason I uncovered it is because one of my professors at Florida State University where I'm doing my PhD he's one of the very few who is really interested in the intersections between religion and surveillance and so in taking class from him I realized that this is becoming a thing about scholars right now it's like wow that's interesting and for my for my comprehensive examinations for my program I read I read the book FBI and religion ok came out a couple years ago edited by Sylvester Johnson and Steven starts with the W so I'm gonna drop that last name and so I'm reading the chapter in there it's on a black denomination of black Pentecostal denomination called the Church of God in Christ and as I'm reading that chapter I see a sentence one sentence where the this FBI agent is convinced that this black Pentecostal denomination I mean you can't get much lower than that and they're also in the South mm-hmm he says that they are not as dangerous as the seventh-day adventists and I read that and I'm just like whoa whoa whoa whoa what are you saying here and I looked up a source and he had it there and it's it's from a file of group of files called the old German files and they are Declassified now and thankfully they were not redacted so none of the information is blotted out with black ink or whatever and so those are online if you have if you have a subscription and I went online and I started searching and in the the searching is really really bad because these things were originally typed on old typewriters and so you search for the word ABBA to see only get like thirty two hits but I started filling in like all of those sorts of avenues words and I brought this up to over twenty five hundred pages of Declassified FBI files on seventh-day adventists and and well over a hundred different case files and I know that there are many many many more that it's going to be incredibly hard to find we will never know the full extent of it because you look at Adventist archives and you see over and over and over and over again that the the Federal Bureau of Investigation was convinced that our call porters and ministers were German spies Wow and so I started analyzing these documents that I found and realized that they are in we'll trade in our camp meeting secretly our church services they are confiscating our mail intercepting our telegrams they are holding missionaries who have been overseas and come back they're holding them in jail for a period of time to investigate their cases they do jail several of our call quarters they throw some of our Adventist hsihu were conscious as objectors into an insane asylum I mean I could go on and on and on and so they're doing this to us and it comes to the point where they say hey we don't like what you're publishing we believe you guys are socialists everything you're publishing is read and so they said basically you need to change or you need to go to prison for a long time and this was no idle threat the group that we now call Jehovah's Witnesses they existed at that time under a different name okay and people throughout America regularly confused 7th avenues with the International Bible Student Association what we now call Jehovah's Witnesses uh-huh and the federal government goes to them goes through their top leaders they they arrest them for the same reasons that they're going to come hunting for us and they prosecute them and they sentenced their top leaders to 80 years in prison to serve four consecutive terms of twenty years so really effectively only twenty years in prison but that's a long time four days later they come knocking at our door and they say look are you in or out are you gonna change what you published or are you going to or go to prison an abacus decided to change and so here's the really tough thing this is major stuff for Avenues history I found it a couple of years ago I have written two or three different scholarly papers on the subject that I've presented and read in a boring scholarly kind of convention that nerds like Ben and I love to attend and that's basically all okay so I've done that so I've done some preliminary analysis and work on this however I haven't published it yet because it takes a lot of time and so and you've got to do lots of other work to help contextualize and do lots of other things to get something like that published but for those of you who want to know more about it right now if you go to the abacus peace fellowship website I don't know exactly what the website is name but you google happiness peace fellowship you'll find bit and they have a podcast called a bonus piece radio and so one of those papers that I have presented I have recorded for them and they've put it on a podcast and you can get that information so there really isn't a source like a book or an article that I can give you it doesn't exist I haven't no I haven't written it no one else has written it it just it's one of those things there's many things like this in our history simply that we have forgotten and don't know but there is a way to sort of get the information and so go to that podcast and then check that out Kevin yes what did they change specifically yes yeah I need to repeat that part of it for people who weren't here in the morning so among the things that they change and they changed several things like they go through and and they cut out a lot of like condemnatory language that sounds unpatriotic so anything that sounds anti 100% American they're changing all of this kind of stuff anything that's critical of the United States of America and Adventist were very critical of the United States and one of the most ways that they were was this so-called doctrine of the two horn beasts what they called the - horned beast at that time and most people know now as the lamb-like beast and there are reasons you know it as a lamb like beasts not the - horned beasts and I'll get into that in a second make sure I don't drop it this man yeah I didn't mention this in Sabbath school okay okay and so what we're doing is we're saying that America is this beast because it claims to protect religious liberty and civil liberty or social Liberty and so it looks it's it looks like a lamb but it speaks like a dragon because it denies religious liberty and civil liberty to religious and racial minorities and so we're preaching this we're teaching it we're holding up pictures before people and let me show you one okay let me just show you what I'll have to take you to the door of my office okay does this show up you see that - horn beast there yeah it's depicted it's depicted as a comped a lion with a lion head a leopards body in the feet of a bear okay and if anyone is a really good student of prophecy they're going to say hey wait a second that's how the seat the beast from the sea in the first part of revelation 13 that's how that beast is supposed to look yeah you were indeed correct seventh-day Adventist are depicting the to Lorne Beast the second beast that comes out of the earth and that chapter because they believe that that beast is made in the image of the first beast and what Adventist and who Davin is to say the first beast is PC that's right and so they're claiming that Protestant America has become just as oppressive as the papacy was during the Middle Ages okay and that's why they're depicting this beast as a lion leopard bear combination okay and so they are going to change all of this in world one because America the American government does not like being identified with this nasty beast that seems so unpatriotic and so unacceptable and as I mentioned table this is yeah communist this is the this is a time where First Amendment rights had never been tested and proven in courts and so the government rode roughshod over all of the First Amendment or right Amendment rights freedom of speech freedom of religion they coalesced very clearly in this moment for Adventist history and so Aven has changed this and so what they what they were doing before is they're saying America is this beast now that preaching is so thoroughly in the 19th century America is currently this beast it's oppressing people now and starting the World War one you see more and more frequently and you see clearly in a book called Bible readings from the home circle where they say now America is that the two on beast now but it will become so in the future when it passes a national Sunday law okay and they also say it's not really America that will become the two armies it's just liberal Protestantism that's going to somehow take over the government and then and then and then become make America that's two horned beasts and so they shift things there they shift the emphasis in focus and what I didn't share in Sabbath school is that they shift and their depictions of the beasts at the same time so whereas worth depict in it before as a leopard lion bear combination gnarly-looking thing sometimes explicitly stating this is about Creed's and slavery all this kind of stuff America is oppressing we start to depict it as a benign Buffalo a cute little Buffalo two horns around the same time that the buffalo nickel comes out for those of you who are aware of that coin collecting and all that so America and the Buffalo are becoming symbolic apparently they've forgotten everything they've done to the Buffalo and Native Americans you know and they're trying to maybe ever come their pasture Buffalo's are in and around World War one and Avenues start depicting this beast as not just a angry Buffalo but a cute Buffalo hmm it looks nice it looks like somebody need want to go visit it at the zoo and then shortly after that around World War two they shifted again and then they just started picking the thing is too cute little lamb and at least they made it a little bit more biblically accurate this time but nevertheless they're not even putting a dragon forked tongue and nothing they're not even saying that speaks like a dragon so they're they're domesticating mmm we domesticated our understanding of prophecy not just in how we're saying about how we're also depicting it visually and this is changing in World War one and I'm not the first person to discover this I am connecting it with FBI surveillance of a band ISM and it wasn't just the FBI there were other see institutions the military and other things they were also a surveilling Adventism and it was a very impressive period of art of our history I'm connecting that in there but the first person to bring that up was Ronald gray bill he wrote it at an article published in insight magazine which I believe is now defunct and has been defunct for a while and then Douglas Morgan points that out too in his book Adventism in the american republic which was published in 2001 and if you read Doug's book Doug very briefly and like part of a paragraph mentions that at the 1919 Bible Conference seventh-day Adventist administrators were having to explain to Pasteur's why had they changed Bible readings for the home circle and so they explained to the ministers there that the Department of Justice who oversaw the FBI that they had come and said that they had to change things they actually admitted it but only to a couple of dozen ministers that were there I mean most people never knew this yeah you look at other avenues tracts and they will say and in books they'll say that this past the the chief military since are on a certain day so they actually owned up to the fact that they revised their stuff yeah they never did that for Bible readings from the home circle yeah they never did it when it came to changing our actual doctrine are some part of our fundamental beliefs part of the three angels message so they didn't accept that they sold up to them so what what happens from that point forward is we're hearing less and less about this beast currently speaking like a dragon it's future that provides the the platform for an increase in patriotism you know in oh man it happened oh what happened take a look at our history you're gonna find hardly any books on seventh-day Adventist involvement in World War in the Civil War even though there were soldiers there or World War one mmm next to nothing is written on that you go to World War two huge explosion we're writing book after book after book saying how awesomely patriotic Adventists were whereas our non-combatants stance that we took as officially as a church had been a reluctant thing that you did only if he were drafted because you didn't want to take a bullet or become a martyr for your pacifism that was a reluctant stopgap measure hmm by the time of World War two we have made non-combatants II the way that we are patriotic and we hold up Desmond das is this amazing awesome hero in the church I'm not denying that what he did was amazing I don't wanna bash his legacy right but what I'm saying is it's implement of a shift where America I mean Adventist in America are no longer looking at America as a an oppressive beast because of what it does to religious and ethnic and racial minorities mm-hmm you're upholding it with such firm patriotism mmm so much so that shortly after and this is something most people may not know either shortly after World War two the army and the federal government is so impressed by and large to people like Desmond Oz he became a huge national hero the first Adventist - and first consciousness objective to get the Medal of Honor is a medal you can achieve because of this because of his publicity they come knocking at her door and say hey now there's this thing called the Cold War going on and biological and chemical warfare is a big problem we're really worried about Russia dropping some sort of chemical bomb on America and hurting us and so they said how about this how about we give you Sabbath privileges and noncombatant roles and you come in and you serve as what we call white coats for a project we call operation white coat so what we'll do to you well tell you what we're gonna do first but we're gonna give you we're gonna inject biological chemicals into your body see how you react so that we can try to find an antidote for it and so they they made Adventist and almost all of the white coats like over 3,000 of them almost all of them were were American were Adventist Wow and so they pumped them with these chemicals and stuff or give them something to breathe like the West Nile fly virus or whatever and then they try to see how they'll behave out of they'll react and then they try to come up with a vaccine so they made avenues human test subjects and evidence we're very proud to do this and I and I'm not trying to say they were wrong or whatever I'm just saying this is what happens yeah way to be patriotic to support our nation and yeah there's some good that happened a lot of the vaccines we have four major things like hepatitis A hepatitis B typhoid several things it come from this guys yeah Adventist were also responsible for putting us on a moon on the moon because they were not going to send astronauts to space unless they knew that they could work that they can navigate that space shuttle under the absolutely worst conditions possible so they pumped at they trained Adventist how to operate a space shuttle they went through the flight simulator and they pump them full all these horrible diseases so much so that like the panel lights underneath the buttons in the space shuttle burn their eyes like it was blinding their eyes Wow but nevertheless evidence are able to navigate that thing in a sim simulation mode back to earth that they said okay we'll send our astronauts down a space and so they do Wow great in bringing this back to back people by the way black people by the way men can tell you about the Adventist inventor who worked for NASA who was black um what's his name Ben I'm dropping it right now um shoot well that's an aside but he was an awesome guy but he speaking of racism in America he invented so many things like the tires that they used on the balloon rubbers he invented the toilet that could be used in weightless conditions and he never got patent rights for these things everyone else for NASA is patenting things and he never got credit for any of the inventions he made until historians later found out oh my word Robert shurni right yeah Robert shurni Wow oh wow he invented that was in a side but yeah I could just if I could just say something real quickly Kevin that with this with this rise of Adventist patriotism that you very eloquently just spoke on this was why well one of the reasons why adness didn't want to be associated with the civil rights movement oh yeah communism : : Kapernick was when he was kneeling he was seen as anti-patriotic hmm as not big of course this was debunked because people were pointing out that patriotism in protest is quintessentially American and quintessentially patriotic so that's that's been debunked but as the dish were distancing themselves from the civil rights movement because some believe that the sort of protests that they were doing Martin Luther King and others that it was not American enough peace the peaceful from the peaceful protests yes producing advocates were still trying to prove their patriotism to the American government or trying to treat to prove their Christianity to evangelicals so we're just doing a lot of proven during that time but I still see it now that there's this stigma against the racial protest the anti racial anti racism tests because it's perceived as not being American enough and so the Adventist because of this really patriotic jag that they were going on you know since we were wanted before they wanted to distance themselves from the civil rights movement oh yeah speaking of the FBI and religion been to piggyback off of you piggyback off into me off of me speaking of that behind religion most people do not do not realize that Martin Luther King was put on the FBI's top ten most wanted list and they did that because they were convinced that he and everyone else in the civil rights movement were communists and of course this is during the Red Scare the Cold War and so to be quote-unquote red was the most fun American thing you could possibly be and this was entire poppycock okay but nevertheless some of these people had attended at one point in time may be a socialist meeting or a communist meeting and so just for their a fact that they were there and maybe got a picture taken there they're like oh they're all red and so the FBI put MLK on the top ten most wanted list and it gets even worse so this is another thing that bothers me now is that so many added like so many avenues white Americans generally are throwing down stuff like what MLK yeah but he why hold him up like is such a great guide when he was you know having all of these affairs that's what we were made to believe why you know the FBI was trying to find things on him yeah you know we don't know why we know that you want to know why we know that information about MLK it's not illegal in the twentieth century to be having an affair the FBI had no legal right to be wiretapping in his hotel room when he's doing this and I'm not excusing the fact that he had affairs right they knew that they had no legal right for this but you know what they leaked that wiretap recordings and you know why they leaked the wiretap recordings because Martin Luther King jr. had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and white Americans did not want him to receive it and so they mailed a copy of that to his wife and then they leaked it to the press mm-hmm because they did not want him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize no I'm I'm grateful the king got it anyways mm-hmm but nevertheless that's why we even know that and it wasn't an illegal thing I'm not excusing it yeah but just for the fact that he made mistakes that doesn't mean he didn't do some really really importantly awesome and wonderful things and so I hope that people understand that kind of history because it it does put a different light on on the way that King was treated he was incredibly incredibly abused by the federal government by white Americas North and South I mean it's just amazing and he's not although I don't so basically basically when we began to care more about what other people think so we're trying to please America hey look we're not we're trying to please the evangelicals hey look what we forgot about our message and basically created a vacuum that now when the message is preached when the message is live it's it seems so like is this new is this new theology is this like is this the movement going off the rails we're supposed to be preaching the three angels messages what in the world is going on Wow yeah and this is this is why most people almost everybody including some of our adventist historians this is entirely new information for them they didn't know about the extent of the abolitionism before the civil war they didn't know that we were targeted by the FBI they didn't know any of that kind of stuff and you start to put all these things together I mean there's so much that was known but nevertheless look this is new to most people because we've always assumed just like religions tend to do their religions don't change we've always been true to our heritage always been true to our past we've always been preaching the same message same three angles message we have not focus we have not before the Civil War you could not preach the three endows message and not condemn slavery and and no injustice we treated the blacks Wow you couldn't and no one did there's not a single shred of evidence that they ever divorced it I mean you can look at a banais sources you can also look at non-adventist sources and newspapers where Americans are hearing this information coming out and they don't like it they don't like it so they they attack adventist in the press before the Civil War it did happen and it was so virulent that this is another important point that I haven't shared yet when Adventist are doing this talking about politics we tend to distinguish between preaching and teaching religion and politics they're not always seen as separate things and really it's really hard to divorce them because when Adventist are doing this it becomes illegal in the South for abacus to mail their literature down there now why is it why is it so after NAT Turner's rebellion in 1831 and a few other things go down in the south it becomes illegal to send abolitionist material through the post office Wow in what happens in the late 1850s is that seventh-day Adventist were seen so much against slavery that the southern post offices are not just withholding and saying this is illegal they're throwing all of our mail away and James White says it was impossible to send any of our literature to the south we actually had a few ministers that went to some of the border states like Missouri and Kentucky and they were threatened with imprisonment and like $3,000 fine in $3,000 in 1859 folks that is a lot of money that's probably well over a year's wages okay and so they're threatening our ministers in every kind of way because of the fact that they recognize we are abolitionists and so that's a political thing guys preaching and teaching the word people can and the state has over again in our past history they have seen our preaching as political and so I don't we don't need to debate politics whatever their that's Paul I don't care what you call it like bin sig call it a tomato okay but you know you know you know you know it's what I'm just I'm just like oh wow like this is Satan's way to water down our message yes so the more we the more oh that's political oh that's political you stop saying that because you know man that is just it creates a mask yeah creates a mask just like there's all these arguments about you know like the color blind race i don't see color you know a lot of white people say i don't see I'm not racist I don't see color that is a mask for their racism what you're saying in those statements is that black people aren't beautiful that you that looking at their blackness is somehow a thing that you should ignore and that you can't accept it I mean there is so much and we always like we do suck this is Satan's work it is Satan's work we just create some sort of label and we say oh we can't do that we can't do that and it's just a mask for our racism a mask for the devil's own agenda you're right when you say that absolutely question Meyers I think you're dead all you say that we talked about this too before that I think just understanding what you've just shared and I think when we look at America is turning into the dragon in the future and it takes it kind of takes away big when I say excitement I just mean like for Adventist to be right now they're just so married to nationalism or America or kind of putting that above the Bible and religion so I I've always told when I think it's gonna be very difficult to pull away from that and now say this thing that I loved so much and defended so much will be very difficult to turn against it and say okay now you're the dragon I'm gonna how many yeah I mean let me just jump in here real quick because I think we robbed our message of power when we water it down like you know when people hear I mean just think about how many people and this is not a beat up America thing but when you're able to show you know the typical person out there on the street hey listen you know all this stuff is gonna right now it's in the Bible look look at revelation 13 verse 11 onward what other nation do you know that has the appearance or that you have the appearance of the Lamb but it's speaking like a dragon and four and I mentioned this a few few weeks ago there are many of our black men who are leaving Adventism to join pro-black movements Hebrew Israelites this is happening a lot in places like England in major cities and the reason is because young black men are like what does this church have for me they they don't care about my plight they are not addressing and I'm not saying it across the board but this is the message I mean think about that that word that could not have been possible in the 1860s and no black people knew because of what happened to stood for back then they were like oh yeah this is home for us you know unfortunately they would come into the church and start being treated a certain way by you know by white Adventists not all of them but you know whatever percentage or whatever but the point is that we had a message that could draw the oppressed the message right that we have that a lot of people are pushing right now is very simply hey just focus on salvation Jesus will fix everything and you know we'll be good to go we don't have to address these issues just preach the gospel even even despite that now in fact you had an interesting dynamic in the she from tide a memorial in Adventist history mm-hmm the black leaders the black ministers I'm thinking particularly of ministers like William Hawkins Greene and GE Peters in the 1920s 30s and 40s they are hiding the discrimination that's going on in the church from the efforts member now from the average black member because they know that if the average member knew that it may shake their faith yeah so they wanted them to keep their eyes on Jesus mm-hmm as I'm the truth on the message as opposed to how they were treated yes and so you know when we talk about regional conferences and and how I said that Jim Crow has been proposed in advocacy in a way it has been to Black's advantage because many people when they're treated despicably in a racist way as they were out in the world in the world to see separate bathrooms they see separate water fountains they can't eat at certain restaurants and then they go in the church and it's the same thing they say it had the truth yeah we've been treated like this the churches became segregated the average black member was not experiencing white racism mm-hmm police in the church at least in a church right in the church and so one of the things that Lucy buyer did when she was rejected or denied treatment at Washington Avenue sanitary tell that story very quickly please okay right no I'm just kidding you you set the record straight then I'm still making a main point yeah despite all of this adventism is now majority black mm-hmm the 22 million advocates around the world there are what nine million in sub-saharan Africa and then you have the MIT the blacks and blacks in North America which is about Oh meow three hundred thousand 350 thousand blacks tour of the Caribbean and Central America blacks throughout blacks anodized fur in South America I would say blacks are about 50% of the work the globe will have his church so despite come on please preach this for me it's still drawing blacks to the message yeah yeah can you just share that story and I'm forgetting the name right now but Lucy prior yes yes she was a saintly woman who resided in New York City and she really helped we've uncovered some some aspects of her life that we didn't know she really helped pioneer Adventism in New York City because she converted in the early 1900's and she was a Bible worker and a gospel worker in in New York City during that time where there were almost no black Adventist at all by all accounts she was a wonderful woman and I'm talking about her humanity because often she's to become just a symbol the high conscious ecologist but she was actually a warm and wonderful human human being a warming wonderful Adventist she was an organist at her church in Queens Jamaica Queens the longest she was known to cook some Maine vegetarian food and just just a sweet sweet lady anyhow she um she developed liver cancer and from that something called cachexia which is wasting away because of you know issues related to her liver cancer and she wanted to go to an Adventist Hospital to be treated because she was a deeply advocate this woman this is an you know 1943 um so she's been an Adventist for over 40 years and she was as she loved the cars she loved AB his people and she really subscribed to the avenues health message and at the time Adventist hospitals held to a holistic view of health as first propounded by or you know really instituted by John Harvey Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium mm-hmm a holistic view so it's not just you know we're going to throw a lot of medications or treatments yeah you know at your condition there's going to be a holistic treatment and so the sanitarium in into coma Park you know Washington DC right there you know I'm know most of the general conference in the review and Herald publishing Association in the early 1940s they still did that holistic treatment for their patients and so there was a heavy social aspect to the treatment because one of the I mean you guys know new start or the is called creation now you know nutrition fresh air all this stuff but one of the aspects was a social aspect and so this becomes important because at one time the sanitarium didn't MIT black patients on sort of like a subpar basis or you could be admitted but she would be in the basement being able to feminize with the other patients out of the law and during the summer in the spring in the autumn so you could be admitted but he was on a subpar basis because they said we have to cater to our clientele and some of them were from the south so they kid said they said we can't have racial mixing at the Washington sanitary and so Lucy buyer didn't know Wallis she just had liver cancer and she wanted to be treated so to make a long story short a minister in New York City his name EGR Cox and he had preview had previously been the director of the color department for the Columbia Union where the Washington Adventist sanitarium was found and at the time they had admitted blacks to the sanitarium but Gina Cox didn't know that that had changed they had they were supposed to have admitted Black's previously on a one-off say how big will it be you go to this side of the of the you know you go to this wing or you go to the basement of the sanitary but Jeter Cox didn't know that they had had abort action to stop admitting blacks and so jr. Cox was in dialogue he was writing letters to the you know to the sanitarium to the registrar what have you and so they were going to admit Lucy buyer and they didn't know she was black hmm and so she and her husband took the train down this is this is during World War World War two so because gas prices were prohibitive Gina Cox was going to drive them down but they ended up taking the train from New York City to to come apart Washington DC and they arrived at the sanitarium this is September of 1943 it was still hot in Maryland so you know she didn't die of a flu or anything like that she didn't catch a cold it was still hot you know end of summer kind of beginning of early fall and to make a long story short she and her husband James Lucy Byard and her husband James Byard when they came to check into the Washington Adventist sanitarium this is where the story start to diverge James Byard said that it was made clear to them that they were not admitted they were not welcome there whereas the Robert hare the medical director for the sanitarium and another man named Pierre Baker he said that they did they did say that Lucy berry could be admitted but that she would have to you know stay out of sight and a certain part of the wing because of Maryland logs you know they put it on Maryland Hall and I said that doing this you know they've been attributing their racism to something else you know it's not us it's it's the laws it's about the hospital policies of the state of Maryland whatever happened James and Lucy Byard got the point Washington Ave sanitarium did not want them there as black people and they were not confused by Lucy Byron's color you know this is there's a lot of lore has grown up with the story and you know that she's like so they don't really know if she was black or not and no she they knew she was black from the very start they didn't know she was black during the during the um then negotiates rest right for her to be a minute they knew like when she showed up the woman is like with the pictures of mm-hmm and so it was very clear to Lucy and her husband James and they did not want her as a patient and so they say the the the man pale Baker he said will even pay for your pay for your taxi cab to Friedman's hospital which is how would University Hospital now Austin in DC and so you know this sadness lady all she wanted was to go to Adventist sanitary and treated for liver cancer this sick lady was denied entrance to an evidence Anna Terry and he's a pioneer of a big ISM suit she's a human being okay and she was essentially refused treatment at the Washington Adventist Hospital and so she went to the Freedmen's Hospital in in Washington DC and in fact there was a black intern there named Jada mark Cox and he becomes a big figure in black adventism and she got good treatment there now the Lord that has caught up with the story says that she died from pneumonia on the way to Friedman's Hospital died away because her heart was broken and James Byard makes us clear in a letter he wrote to GE Peters that she was just devastated that her health had improved because the time that negotiations were made when she was in New York City at the time when she and when she icing when to the hospital inspired said that her health had improved upon the the anticipation that she would be in day adventist scanner and with artists I mean I mean we know that now that there's there's a there's a mental connection to you know disease and illness in your body but he says that she regrets and are helped to return for the worst when she was rejected at the Washington admin Center and so in Freedmen's hospital she actually got good care cuz she was the hands of a black Adventist and she lived a month longer okay after she was rejected the Washington Avenue senator but she died from liver cancer at from cachexia which is wasting away mm-hmm and it's a very I think an apt cause of death appropriate cause of death because she had been neglected by Atmos she had wasted the way and her her being turned away was actually the catalyst that caused that they gave birth to many grassroots movements among them which is called the canoe the committee of 43 which we have some black adventist probably one of the most effective grassroots movements and adventism and they protested that she was turned away even before she died or protesting that she was turned away and they were essentially saying she's a human being made in the image of guy um she's a black advocacy bid regular standing and we are paying tithes and offerings that fund they Washington Avenue sanitarium and we can't get treatment in in the in the sanitary and they expanded it they said you know we um we fund Adventist schools and we can't be admitted into Adventist schools we fund administered ministration and we can't eat in the GC cafeteria now the GC cafeteria was segregated or excuse me blacks couldn't eat in the GCC cafeteria they had to eat in the basement excuse me the floor up another room so they said we're paying all of these tithes and offerings we support the church and every way we can but we are still being turned away from evidence institutions because of the color of our skin it was the Lucy buyer situation that was the real catalyst for regional conferences and like George Florida and police brutality in the United States they're saying we're literally being murdered because of racism what because of racism it's the same song it's just a different album mm-hmm okay the the dynamic has not changed we're dying because of racism and so it would be best for us to separate only because of that because I mean we can't get screens and we can't be admitted to Adventist schools we can't start our own because our tithes are going to white enterprises you know something we need our own conferences that we will speak to our own needs and treat us like human being he even up to that point blacks were divided on regional conferences we believe in the harmony of the three of those message messages we believe in the harmony of the truth that we are all one you know your John 17 you know we are all one in Christ so we cannot have this but the white leaders said you will be able to get parity you won't be able to get equity and adventism as is unless you break off and do your own thing I mean you know unless you have your own churches schools conferences Adventist hospitals so UC Riverside's planetarium you know admins have they're all in hospital you see excuse me black evidence and who see black Adventist having their own element you know pine forge Academy of course Oakwood and others so you see the rise of black Abbas institutions because they literally could not be seen they could not be admit they will not be admitted into white Adventist institutions so it was institutional and it was it was systemic we said the birth of albinism was sort of like the birth of the United States um pretty soon systemic racism was was grafted into the warp and woof of the system of the structure and it literally became policy that you can either that you will either not admit let's say a college you either not admit blacks to this college or there's a corner not a corner what's the opposite of a quota you can only admit this much a limit yeah yeah so you can only have two or three so that we will end up being overwhelmed by the Negroes apostate Protestantism is of failure to protest it's giving up the protest and we often talk about apostate Protestantism and we point the finger yeah you know that's apostate Protestantism but we can actually exercise that principle individually in the church where we refuse to protest we say we're not you know we're not gonna open our mouth we're not gonna speak and it doesn't have to be to just this issue it can be to you know there are there are a lot of issues this is a huge one in America but there are there a lot of issues when we cease to protest we're following suit of that lamb like beast that speaks like a dragon worshipping it yeah yeah yeah which is exactly what the scriptures say it's going to force people to do yeah and that's why there will be a shaking in Adventism that's why there would be a shakin in Adventism you know we but this has been so informative I I hope you guys go back and look at all the comments and because people were just blown away by the information they want more I want to give Benjamin's website that he operates black SDA history org so Benjamin is that where they can follow up on some of the information that you you expressed a lot of this and there's also a black sta history org YouTube channel there is Google Adventist archives which is the General Conference archives they have a wealth of material there Google advanced digital library which is an initiative of Andrews University North American division and the General Conference as a bonus digital library the encyclopedia of seventh-day adventists is coming out July 1 so look out for that look up Andrews University digital Commons get all sorts of universe dissertations and thesis on seventh-day Adventism look up Auckland University Archives Loma Linda University Archives there is now a wealth of Adventist materials and sources out there free books periodicals you can do this stuff yourself you can read original sources all of it's out there but it's there so I would that's very I'm glad that it's so accessible for we'll put some of those links and we'll put some of those sources in the description of this video a lot of people were asking is this gonna be saved and so of course this is a Facebook live and on YouTube so it's gonna be on power the web I'm reminds channel on YouTube so you can go back and watch it for those of you who missed the beginning from Sabbath school you can definitely go back and watch it and then Kevin I just will say very quickly that Benjamin and Kevin will be starting a podcast now that's prophecy on my part they haven't talked about this Wow oh man I mean just the the amount of information and knowledge between you guys is just it's and I could have just been quiet and just listen the whole time it's it's good stuff guys you to be able to share if there's any place that people want to website or I don't know what you do going on is there anything we're going to get in contact with you guys because people are asking all kinds of things on here yeah that's that's good I I'm writing my dissertation now which is where all of this stuff is going to be and then I will publish it as a book okay I have written and published three articles on the subject of abolition and sympathy adventism if you google for example my name Kevin Burton and Joseph Bates one of the first things that will pop up if not the first thing is going to be the article I wrote explaining joseph bates activities as abolitionists where I point out actually what he does historians had never bothered to look and ask hey you know we know from joseph bates autobiography that he was an abolitionist but what did he do no one actually ever thought to check that and so I discovered that Joseph Bates was really really radical involving himself and campaigns to abolish Jim Crow laws in the North which were segregating train cars to abolish the interracial marriage law that said white and black people couldn't get married Joseph Bates has not only involved these actually circulating petitions he actually helps the massive massive state of Massachusetts abolish those laws in 1843 so like I put that stuff in there but there's two forms of that article number the first one was published and printed shorter less interesting the other one came out on March 3 2020 this year it's on line two that one has more details four times as long the second article will came out April 2019 or something like that it's on a second black Adventist minister that we had in the 1850s and 60s that we had forgotten about a former slave named John West and so if you and he was an abolitionist as well if you want to look up that article google my name and Google probably John West or John the Domini West as he was known and revered as the domine which is a Latin term for minister and he would and that guy was not only a former slave the guy when he when you know his story man he had ketosis and I can't avoid saying the unpolitical correct term he was a hunchback okay and a former slave and this guy is is preaching and it he's just his story moves my soul and it's not just me because a painter who had no idea that he was a seventh-day Adventist painted a painting of abolitionists in Peterborough New York it's a stronger things hide you oh yeah it's on my wall okay yeah okay so here is the painting right there can you see it yeah yeah okay so right here yeah can you see that yeah that's that's Domini West Seventh day Adventist minister and he's depicted in that painting and he's depicted in the very very front because the artist knowing nothing about his face was so impressed with him that he has the whole painting story the story that inspired the painting revolving around him so domine West is calling you come join the abolitionists and dominate dominates the narrative that story because he is he's a minister and so he's calling you to come in several speakers speak there on that day Domini starts the the whole day by calling you in their offering prayer and then he speaks and preaches the last sermon now this is all fiction but this is what's going on the artists mind when he painted this painting a few years ago Wow it no idea was a seventh-day Adventist minister you just found him so touching and so inspiring and so I wrote an article on him published in the Adventist review as well so you can google that my name doesn't really your name all these come up I think I mean they do for me I don't maybe that's because I'm narcissistic no I don't think so I think they I think that's just because if you google my name and you google the name of John West it'll it'll pop up okay and then I also had one that was published yesterday for June teen in the North American division newsletter and I tried to give a very very very broad overview of some of the things that seventh-day Adventist did and their activism and I I give some glosses there in the introductory paragraph then I have a paragraph on black seventh-day adventists and there abolitionism and so I talked about Domini West a little bit again I also mention a couple of other black Adventist in a town called Bath New York Eliza I mean Elias and Henrietta Platte who are very close friends of Frederick Douglass and I mentioned them and a little bit about I mean this is so lost there's so much more to say about all of this but they're there then I have a paragraph about seventh-day Adventist petitioners and I mentioned some of that I go beyond joseph bates a little bit there and then I have another final paragraph in very cursory form showing how trying to explain in just like sentences how seventh-day Adventist incorporated anti-racism into the three angels messages instead of that I don't even remember I wrote that like they asked me a couple days ago to write I had to write it in a fury and I don't even remember remember what I called it yeah I don't know the title of it but it's in the nad newsletter minused what's it called ministerial I don't know but if you googled that I mean a lot of people have been sharing that around today on Facebook Google your name as you've been talking okay they're on it they're doing it yeah and then you can find the podcast that has the stuff about FBI surveillance it's evaporite ism as well if you google that but before we close I'm just gonna say this very quickly there's kind of some everything up of all the people that have something to say and what's going on right now of all the people of all the people that's all I'm gonna say why are we not with our history why are we not on the forefront of this issue that the whole world the whole world is focused on right now what sense does that make it makes no it makes none to me and the fact that we we were so closely tied with the abolitionist movement and the message that I preached a few weeks back the hidden agenda behind racism I'm talking about visit of everything God is calling for ant on abolitionists to help deliver these slaves off Satan's plantation and when I say slaves I mean people who are still slaves to racism that was the whole point of that message there are people who are slaves to this way of thinking they're slaves to the Jim Crow mentality and God has raised up an anti movement to be abolitionists to help set captives free and you know what an opportunity for us to finish off the way we started and I just pray that those listening today and those that will watch us in the future will just see and kind of read reframe you know yeah just take those lenses off that have been put on you by outside forces and start seeing the gospel for what it is the three angels messages for what it is so I'm done ask because we had quite probably the most we've ever had on Facebook I never I don't know how many were on YouTube it's usually more on YouTube and so I'm just because there's so much history here and we're just asking that you just share and share away share with as many people as you can it is a little long so tell them if they have like three hour drive or something to listen but it was good it didn't feel like that our numbers did not drop it kept growing and growing and growing I was like well they're not bored so yeah amen yeah and I'm gonna ask you guys to stay on a little bit afterward because we still have some more talking to do just a little bit just a little yeah anyway let's pray Heavenly Father thank you for um just thank you for the wealth of information we received today Lord Lord helped us me about your business forgive us Lord where we have strayed from your message strayed from your calling and help us Lord again help us to be about your business we thank you Lord for speaking to us remind us that we are the light of the world and we thank you again in Jesus name we pray amen happy sigh with guys god bless you you

Channel: Power of the Lamb

Views: 80,801

Rating: 4.8200226 out of 5

Keywords: ivor myers, pastor ivor myers, ivor myers 2020, sermons about jesus, sda sermons, seventh day adventist sermons, ivor myers sermons, pastor ivor myers 2020, sermons about social justice, social justice, racism, racist, black lives matter, george floyd, police brutality, black sda preachers, black sda, sermons for black lives, luke 10, luke 10 explained, luke 10 sermon, the good samaritan, levites, moses

Id: xoOQkwjZiDE

Length: 184min 30sec (11070 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 20 2020