\n\tWhen I was informed by family members that Elder John V. Stevens had passed away on Friday evening, November 30, 2015, I sat down, took in a deep breath,
\n\tand reflected on the many years I had listened to him preach and teach, the many times he had helped and trained me to mediate workplace discrimination
\n\tissues involving the seventh-day Sabbath, and the time he had made a special trip to attend my ordination to the gospel ministry at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in
\n\t1992.<\/p>\n
\n\tJohn was a father-like mentor to me. He will live on in my memory as one of the most competent and powerful spokesmen for religious freedom and human
\n\trights I have ever known. In my estimation, only two other individuals stand out so distinctly in the annals of religious freedom advocacy in the
\n\tSeventh-day Adventist Church—Alonzo T. Jones, the first editor of a religious liberty journal, and Bert Beach, who pioneered interchurch dialogue.<\/p>\n
\n\tJohn Stevens was a man of unwavering conviction, and his philosophical rationale was pioneering in nature and bold for his era, particularly within
\n\tAdventist Church settings and Evangelical circles, where his messages were extremely challenging, and often counterintuitive and controversial. For
\n\texample, John held strongly to what he believed was biblical truth. The Bible and Bible prophecy shaped and guided his worldview, but he did not use his
\n\twell-founded beliefs in a way that forced others, through law, to believe those same truths. In other words, he could discuss the pros and cons of
\n\tabortion; he could personally oppose honoring Sunday as the day of Christian worship because of its pagan origins; and he could oppose same-sex unions; and
\n\tyet at the same time oppose all constitutional amendments that sought to make religion, or any aspect of it, the law of the land. Freedom of choice and
\n\tfreedom of conscience was the most sacred of rights that both God and the Constitution bestowed to humanity, and it was not humanity\u2019s or government\u2019s
\n\tjurisdiction to impose both acts of worship and religious beliefs on society.<\/p>\n
\n\tTo John, this meant essentially that in order for the free exercise of religion to thrive, it was best for both church and state to know and respect their
\n\tboundaries. The constitutional separation of church and state must be championed and preserved at all times, or the free exercise of religion as we know it
\n\ttoday would become compromised. This is because, in terms of understanding America\u2019s natural bent toward Puritan views of \u201cexceptionalism,\u201d religious
\n\tpowers—during an extreme time of world unrest—would eventually find success in dictating its religious demands to the state and thus all of its citizens.
\n\tThis was never the constitutional Founders\u2019 intent, and yet so many Evangelical Christians believe that it was. For Christians to demand an end to the
\n\tconstitutional separation of church and state—as many have during the past 45 years—was a prophetic sign for John and others of us that the end of
\n\tAmerica\u2019s beloved constitutional system is close at hand, and that Christ is soon to come. It deeply pained John to see so many Evangelical Christians buy
\n\tinto a historical revisionism that emphasized an actual intent to have a Christian nation government.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn regard to those concerned that irreligion and irreligious forces would pose a much greater threat through government sanction, as with the U.S. Supreme
\n\tCourt\u2019s legalization of same-sex marriage, John frequently responded by saying that the Bible indicated that in the last days religious powers would claim
\n\tthe ascendancy over the state as both a premeditated endeavor on their part and not just a reaction to secularism run amok, and that this would merely fuel
\n\tthem further in achieving their ultimate utopian aim of establishing a Christian nation by law, even in the midst of a nation of vast religious pluralism.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut his views went even deeper. John believed that Vatican II\u2019s inclusion of religious freedom for the first time in Catholic Church history—in the
\n\tdocument written and pioneered by Jesuit priest and theologian John Courtney Murray known as Dignitatis Humanae—paved the way for a Catholic definition of
\n\treligious freedom that conservative Protestant Evangelicals in the United States found convincing, and led the way forward in revising U.S. constitutional
\n\thistory. Dignitatis Humanae championed the free exercise of religion but rejected, through purposeful silence, the Western constitutional doctrine of the
\n\tseparation of church and state found in Europe and more specifically in the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
\n\tJohn believed that this was the basis for much of the historical revisionism that emerged from the pens and voices of Francis Schaeffer, Christian
\n\tdominionist R. J. Rushdoony, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and David Barton in the 1970s until now.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile serving as the director of the public affairs and religious liberty department of the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (1974-1993),
\n\tJohn published a quarterly newsletter called Undercurrent, in which he would compile a list of key news pieces and quotes that warned against this kind of
\n\thistorical revisionism. It was an extremely controversial publication, but it found its way into church bulletins all across a five-state region in the
\n\tPacific Southwest.<\/p>\n
\n\tJohn would transfer this same zeal for religious freedom to the international arena of several Communist countries. His church-state diplomatic efforts
\n\twere focused, in his words, \u201cin the interest of fostering greater liberties for all religious persuasions.\u201d Early in his pastoral ministry years he served
\n\tas Arizona\u2019s senate chaplain, and as president of the Arizona Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, where the number of new believers and new churches
\n\testablished, nearly doubled.<\/p>\n
\n\tHis other professional experiences included helping to found the Council on Religious Freedom (CRF) and to vigorously oppose, on First Amendment grounds,
\n\tPresident Ronald Reagan\u2019s appointment of the first permanent ambassador to the Vatican\u2019s Holy See in 1984.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are many other accomplishments, but John\u2019s signature achievement was in introducing, shepherding, and helping to pass California Assembly Bill 2744
\n\t(AB 2744) in 1974. Claude Morgan and John Stevens stood on either side of Governor Jerry Brown as the governor signed this public employee\u2019s collective
\n\tbargaining bill that contained a conscience amendment provision for religious objectors.<\/p>\n
\n\tRest in peace, John. Job well done, thou good and faithful servant of Christ. Jesus is coming soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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