Messenger of the Lord

Danger in Muting the Adventist Identification

One of the chief concerns addressed in the Salamanca vision, November 4, 1890, ³⁵ and visions in the weeks to follow was the pending danger of muting Adventist distinctiveness, especially in denominational periodicals. The immediate focus evoking Ellen White’s admonition was the plan put forth by “influential men to the effect that if The American Sentinel would drop the words ‘Seventh-day Adventist’ from its columns, and would say nothing about the Sabbath, the great men of the world would patronize it.... This policy is the first step in a succession of wrong steps.” ³⁶ MOL 188.2

As reported by Uriah Smith, Ellen White spoke at the General Conference session in Battle Creek, Michigan, March 7, 1891, on “the danger of covering up, and keeping in the background, the distinctive features of our faith, under the impression that prejudice will thereby be avoided. If there is committed to us a special message, as we believe, that message must go, without reference to the customs or prejudices of the world, not governed by a policy of fear or favor.... The discourse was a timely one, and made a profound impression upon the large congregation.” ³⁷ MOL 188.3

The argument set forth by the National Religious Liberty Association (not yet under the umbrella of the General Conference) seemed plausible: (1) religious liberty was a vital part of the third angel’s message; (2) current religious liberty issues opened many doors before large audiences; (3) these principles would get a much broader and more favorable response if they were not associated with such doctrines as the Sabbath and the Second Coming; (4) if the Sentinel’s policies could not be changed, another journal would be established to further their interests. ³⁸ MOL 188.4

After Ellen White’s early Sunday morning exposé of their late Saturday night deliberations, the Association leaders, including A. F. Ballenger, freely acknowledged the error of their thinking. That Sunday morning saw the reversal of a strong course of action, voted only hours before. ³⁹ MOL 188.5

However, those committed to a nonsectarian religious liberty magazine eventually had their way. In “seeking ‘a wider sphere of influence,’ the Sentinel lost ... its vitality, its circulation, and at last, its life. It ceased publication ... in 1904.” ⁴⁰ MOL 188.6

But the need for a religious liberty journal remained, a magazine committed to the full-orbed message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1906, the Sentinel was reincarnated as Liberty. But strange as it may seem, the same philosophy that energized the Sentinel eventually molded the new Liberty! By the 1950s, the editors of Liberty were working under the policy that the journal “has only one basic teaching, that of soul liberty.... It is nonsectarian in scope and subject matter.” ⁴¹ MOL 188.7

With the change of editors in 1959, a decided shift was eventually made so that the principles advocated by Ellen White in 1891 would again distinguish the church’s journal of religious liberty. The wisdom of divine counsel and the courage of its new editor were validated in that the subscription list jumped from 160,000 in 1959 as a quarterly to more than half a million as a bi-monthly! “The Salamanca vision has now become part of the preamble to the editorial policy.” ⁴² MOL 189.1