{"id":6715,"date":"2024-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2024\/09\/01\/a-warning-from-the-past\/"},"modified":"2024-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"a-warning-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2024\/09\/01\/a-warning-from-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A Warning From the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventh-day Adventist editor Joseph Waggoner was a firsthand witness to the threats to civil and religious liberties in America from the 1850s to the 1880s. He was not blind to the faults he saw in a Southern-controlled Congress. In 1858 he condemned the federal government for its \u201cslaveocratic <\/i>practices\u201d and declared that in Congress, the army, the navy, the executive and judicial branches, \u201ccorruption stalks through the National Capitol with shameless front, and eagerly plies her trade with scarcely a rebuke.\u201d Government officials were guilty of \u201cintrigue or double-dealing\u201d; city governments were \u201cproverbially corrupt,\u201d with bribery, dishonesty, and demagoguery the order of the day. Speaking in a prophetic tone, Waggoner saw nothing but \u201cthe flames of civil war and anarchy,\u201d for \u201cwe are certainly near the perilous abyss.\u201d1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Waggoner was concerned that the Religious Amendment Association (RAA) would make the United States \u201ca Christian nation\u201d by enforcing \u201cChristian laws\u201d (including Sunday blue laws). In 1874 he penned several articles against this movement. He also expressed shock that at the fifth National RAA Convention in Pittsburgh, 54,000 people had signed a petition asking Congress to pass a religious amendment. He admitted that \u201cwe have underestimated, rather than overestimated, the rapid growth and power of this movement.\u201d Waggoner wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Daily Post <\/i>outlining Adventists\u2019 objections to Sunday laws. He argued that government had no right to enforce Christian institutions; that the amendment would be \u201csubversive of . . . freedom of conscience\u201d; that \u201cpure morality by force is also an impossibility\u201d; and that Adventists protested all religious laws and tests as de facto uniting civil and religious power. Waggoner feared that in a future \u201cInquisition,\u201d Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists would be denied their right to worship on the Sabbath.2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Waggoner believed that a \u201cspirit of intolerance\u201d and \u201creligious bigotry\u201d existed everywhere. Protestants attacked Adventists for opposing the religious amendment.3<\/sup><\/span> A vice president of the RAA declared that if he had his way, he would imprison Adventists who distributed their literature on the trains. A \u201cDoctor of Divinity\u201d called Adventists \u201catheists\u201d for opposing the amendment, and expressed a desire to send them to lunatic asylums \u201cwhere they could not disturb the peace of their neighbors.\u201d4<\/sup><\/span> Waggoner also felt that the Christian Statesman <\/i>was stirring up religious bigotry that would lead to \u201ca religious struggle which must be as disastrous in its results to the piety <\/i>of the conquering party as it will be to the rights <\/i>of the conquered.\u201d5<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite amendment advocates\u2019 promises of religious \u201ctoleration,\u201d Waggoner feared that their real intentions would lead only to fines, imprisonment, and death for nonconformists.6<\/sup><\/span> He highlighted their hypocrisy in preaching that the world was growing morally better while calling for a religious amendment;7<\/sup><\/span> in proclaiming religious toleration while fining or jailing those who worked on Sunday; and in claiming to uphold the Constitution while working to merge church and state.8<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

As editor of the American Sentinel,<\/i> Waggoner used this paper to vindicate the rights of American citizens; to explain the true relation of morality and religion; to oppose Sunday laws and \u201creligious oppression\u201d; to defend liberty of conscience and separation of church and state; and to expose the hypocrisy of Protestants and politicians at all levels.9<\/sup><\/span> His bugbears included secularized Christianity,10<\/sup><\/span> \u201ccorrupted religionists,\u201d11<\/sup><\/span> and the National Reform Association.12<\/sup><\/span> He warned that the policies of the NRA would eventually unite church and state, cause \u201cendless religious disputes\u201d in Congress, establish ecclesiastical courts in America, and take the U.S. back to the Dark Ages when the Inquisition burned heretics at the stake.13<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, he predicted that the RAA and NRA advocates would attract \u201cpolitical hacks,\u201d \u201cdemagogues,\u201d and \u201chypocritical\u201d politicians who professed Christianity simply to gain public office, after which they would sell political offices like railroad stocks.14<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Waggoner\u2019s jabs raised the ire of the NRA and the editors of the Christian Statesman<\/i>. When the NRA\u2019s secretary, J. H. Leiper, wrote that the American Sentinel <\/i>had grown out of \u201cvoluntary darkness or willful infidelity,\u201d Waggoner called Leiper deceived, blind, and a \u201cself-styled\u201d reformer who was sadly ignorant of the truth and whose words exhibited \u201cmore arrogance than argument.\u201d15<\/sup><\/span> He feared that in following the Bible literally, the NRA would revive the witch hunts of Salem, Massachusetts, when \u201cbigoted\u201d church leaders committed \u201cfolly\u201d and \u201cwanton violence\u201d by hanging innocent women. Such \u201cbigotry and misguided zeal\u201d could arise again in America, he warned.16<\/sup><\/span> In a subsequent article he argued that government cannot enforce morals on a moral basis\u2014only on a civil basis, because \u201cit cannot reform the conscience; it cannot renew the heart.\u201d17<\/sup><\/span> But if the NRA achieved the power it coveted to enforce religious laws, \u201cthen we may well fear, for somebody will surely be crushed under the wheels of their modern Juggernaut.\u201d18<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

In the second volume of the Sentinel<\/i> he promised hard-hitting attacks on the NRA, whose proponents, he feared, would soon establish a \u201csecond papal system\u201d in America19<\/sup><\/span> that rivaled what the Mormons had accomplished in Utah, where the Latter-day Saints dominated the state government.20<\/sup><\/span> Even worse, they might copy the example of the crafty politician Constantine, a \u201cheathen ruler\u201d who enforced a \u201cheathen edict\u201d in A.D. 321 to support the \u201cheathen practice\u201d of worshiping Apollo, the sun god, on Sunday. As a result, \u201cluxury and pomp\u201d corrupted the church, and pure religion became \u201cforce or fraud.\u201d21<\/sup><\/span> If that happened, America would become like Catholic France, Spain, Italy, and the Latin American nations, where the state was subordinated to the church.22<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

To those who supported prayer and Bible reading in public schools, he warned: \u201cTo maintain them in the public schools is not only very difficult, but very hazardous.\u201d Instead, he promoted the value of religious liberty and freedom of conscience above the \u201cinquisitorial\u201d practices that would follow enforced worship in public schools. \u201cTo delegate the teaching of religion to the State,\u201d he declared, \u201cis as great an incongruity as to turn a church meeting into a political caucus.\u201d What was needed was a \u201chigher standard of religious instruction\u201d at home and in the church.23<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Defending religious liberty raised Waggoner\u2019s <\/span>blood pressure as he combated the efforts of the RAA and the NRA to make America Christian again. The \u201cstudied silence\u201d of these groups in ignoring his exposures of their \u201cerrors and sophistries\u201d and their ignorance of historical facts annoyed him. \u201cThe self-styled Reformers may rest assured,\u201d he thundered, \u201cthat . . . accusations of ignorance of history, of the Bible, and of government, in which they have freely indulged, are poor substitutes for argument.\u201d<\/span>24<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Repeatedly he emphasized that morality is not the same as religion; that the U.S. government is not a religious system; and that \u201cour government is not a remedial system,\u201d but a \u201ccivil, legal system.\u201d Even if the government were run by atheists, he declared, it would still enact laws against murder, theft, adultery, and perjury to protect human rights.25<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Waggoner occasionally indulged in name-calling: He labeled stockbrokers and speculators \u201canarchists\u201d for stealing the fruit of the labors of others that they had not earned. The NRA evinced \u201cthe spirit of Popery\u201d by denigrating all religions but their own.26<\/sup><\/span> The NRA was attempting to foist five major deceptions on the American people: closing saloons only on Sundays; enforcing Sunday as a day of rest; making Sunday worship a symbol of loyalty to the state; declaring that forced Sunday worship interfered with no one\u2019s rights of conscience; and denouncing Sabbathkeepers as \u201ctraitors to the laws of God and man.\u201d27<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Waggoner\u2019s two years in Europe (1887-1889) provided him with additional \u201cammunition\u201d to fight the \u201cdespotism\u201d he saw arising everywhere. In Russia, where the czar was the head of the Orthodox Church and the empire, no proselytizing was allowed; Adventist minister and American citizen Louis Conradi had been imprisoned 40 days for preaching the gospel. Great Britain, Germany, and Russia all had state-supported churches, and America, he feared, would do the same if ruled by the NRA. Dissenters would be seen as \u201crebels and traitors\u201d to the state, as well as \u201cheretics\u201d to the church.28<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

When religious leaders and government officials collaborated to \u201cChristianize\u201d the state, Waggoner averred, factions and heresies inevitably resulted, as after Constantine\u2019s Edict of A.D. 321. He feared that the rise of communism, socialism, nihilism, and anarchism indicated that the Protestant Reformation\u2019s contributions to European Christianity had been overthrown and that \u201cProtestantism is dead.\u201d29<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo church can maintain the vitality and spirituality of religion, where national religion exists,\u201d Waggoner asserted. Once the NRA established a national religion, people would be compelled to conform to the \u201cnational covenant.\u201d But this would make them neither Christians nor religious, but hypocrites. \u201cShall the sad history of the [medieval] church repeat itself in the United States?\u201d he asked.30<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

When Pope Leo XIII declared 1888 a Jubilee Year, Waggoner saw this as the beast of Revelation being restored to power. He listed the contents of many of the 500 boxes of expensive gifts sent to Leo by the various European nations, but predicted the pope\u2019s downfall based on Revelation 18.31<\/sup><\/span> He also saw the NRA and American Protestants \u201ccourting the favor of the Catholic Church.\u201d Waggoner declared that the NRA \u201ccarries in its bosom, inherent in its nature, all the evils that have cropped out in the history of the Papacy.\u201d The NRA will first deny Sabbathkeepers the vote, then take away their liberties, and finally their lives, he predicted. \u201cThe struggle for religious liberty in the United States,\u201d he said, \u201cis yet before us. . . . But signs and events are proving that it yet stands on a very slender footing.\u201d32<\/sup><\/span> He predicted in 1889 that if the NRA\u2019s program were carried out, it would create a nation of hypocritical citizens full of \u201cchurchly worldliness and worldly ambition\u201d; furthermore, it would undermine the republic.33<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

It is certainly tempting to interpret this hyperbolic prose as mere posturing or as an attempt to sell more copies of <\/span>Signs of the Times <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>American Sentinel<\/span><\/i>. But there are some facts you need to know. In 1882, by a vote of 4 to 3, the California Supreme Court ruled that the new state Sunday law was constitutional.<\/span>34<\/sup><\/span> Between March and June of 1882 approximately 1,600 Jews, Adventists, Seventh Day Baptists, and Chinese immigrants were arrested, fined, or jailed for breaking this Sunday law. When Joseph Waggoner and W. C. White were arrested and fined for operating the Pacific Press Publishing Company on Sundays, the press was forced to shut down.<\/span>35<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

In Sacramento, Waggoner asked the Republican-controlled legislature to repeal the Sunday law, but they refused.36<\/sup><\/span> So he and Uriah Smith (editor of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald<\/i>) organized a 10-week campaign to repeal the law. Soon one newspaper after another was opposing it; juries began refusing to convict those arrested for Sunday labor, forcing the courts to dismiss 2,000 cases.37<\/sup><\/span> Soon after the Democrats won the state elections in November, the Senate repealed the Sunday law on February 6, 1883, by a vote of 47 to 21. Quoting President James Garfield, Waggoner said: \u201cGod reigns, and the Nation still lives.\u201d38<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

However, across the United States in the 1880s, more than 100 Adventists were arrested for working on Sunday. They paid more than $2,200 in fines; they served more than 1,400 days in jails and prisons and more than 450 days on chain gangs (especially in the South).39<\/sup><\/span> After Joseph Waggoner\u2019s death in 1889, his son Ellet and Alonzo Jones, as coeditors of the Signs <\/i>and the Sentinel, <\/i>continued the fight against state Sunday blue laws and against U.S. senator Henry Blair\u2019s proposed national Sunday law. And they would win. And religious liberty advocates everywhere should be grateful that they did.<\/p>\n

1 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cNational Degeneracy,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Aug. 12, 1858, pp. 100, 101.<\/p>\n

2 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Religious Amendment,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Feb. 7, 1874, pp. 76, 77; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cAppeal and Protest,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Feb. 17, 1874, p. 79; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cReligious Amendment,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Mar. 24, 1874, pp. 113-115; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe \u2018Statesman\u2019 on the Stand,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Dec. 22, 1874, pp. 204, 205; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cDefective Reasoning,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Oct. 16, 1879, p. 308.<\/p>\n

3 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cSpirit of Persecution,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>May 27, 1875, p. 173.<\/p>\n

4 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Spirit of It,\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Aug. 2, 1877, p. 45.<\/p>\n

5 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cChristian Statesman <\/i>and the Jews,<\/i>\u201d Review and Herald, <\/i>Sept. 14, 1876, p. 92.<\/p>\n

6 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cConsistency of the Christian Statesman<\/i>,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Mar. 31, 1881, p. 150.<\/p>\n

7 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cLight of the World,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Sept. 8, 1881, p. 402.<\/p>\n

8 J. H.Waggoner, \u201cNo Power but of God,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>January 1886, p. 5.<\/i><\/p>\n

9 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe American Sentinel,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>January 1886, pp. 1, 2.<\/p>\n

10 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cSecularized Christianity,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>February 1886, pp. 9, 10.<\/p>\n

11 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cCatholic and Protestant,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>February 1886, p. 12.<\/p>\n

12 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cPolicy of the New Government Outlined,\u201d <\/span>American Sentinel, <\/span><\/i>March 1886, pp. 17-19; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cLegalizing Christianity,\u201d <\/span>American Sentinel, <\/span><\/i>April 1886, pp. 25, 26.<\/span><\/p>\n

13 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cLegalizing Christianity,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>April 1886, pp. 25, 26; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cA Christian Nation,\u201d American Sentinel<\/i>, April 1886, pp. 26, 27.<\/p>\n

14 J. H.Waggoner, \u201cA Characteristic Expression,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>July 1886, pp. 49, 50.<\/p>\n

15 J. H. Waggoner, \u201c\u2005\u2018Secretary Leiper\u2019 on the \u2018American Sentinel,\u2019\u2005\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>September 1886, pp. 65-67.<\/p>\n

16 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Salem Witchcraft: A Lesson for Our Times,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>October 1886, pp. 73, 74.<\/p>\n

17 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cReligious Legislation,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>November 1886, pp. 81, 82.<\/p>\n

18 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cIs It Blindness, or Duplicity?\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>December 1886, pp. 89, 90.<\/p>\n

19 J. H.Waggoner, \u201cThe \u2018American Sentinel,\u2019 Volume 2,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>January 1887, pp. 1, 2.<\/p>\n

20 J. H. Waggoner, \u201c\u2005\u2018National Reform\u2019 Principles Exemplified,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>February 1887, pp. 9, 10.<\/p>\n

21 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cFoundation in Usage,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>March 1887, pp. 17, 18.<\/p>\n

22 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cWhat Is the Harm?\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>April 1887, pp. 25-27.<\/i><\/p>\n

23 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cReligion in the Public Schools,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>June 1887, pp. 41, 42.<\/p>\n

24 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Question Met\u2014and Evaded!\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>July 1887, pp. 51, 52.<\/i><\/p>\n

25 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cSuperficial Criticisms,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>August 1887, pp. 59, 60.<\/p>\n

26 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cA Principle to Be Remembered,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>September 1887, pp. 65, 66.<\/p>\n

27 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cChristianity Means Honesty,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>December 1887, pp. 92, 93.<\/p>\n

28 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cReligious Despotism in Russia,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>January 1888, pp. 1, 2.<\/p>\n

29 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe \u2018Down-Grade\u2019 Controversy,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Mar. 16, 1888, p. 168.<\/p>\n

30 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Baptists and National Reform,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>April 1888, pp. 26, 27.<\/p>\n

31 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cThe Pope\u2019s Jubilee,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Apr. 6, 1888, p. 217.<\/p>\n

32 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cReligious Wickedness,\u201d American Sentinel, <\/i>September 1888, pp. 66, 67.<\/p>\n

33 J. H.Waggoner, \u201cEvils of Religious Legislation\u201d (Oakland, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Co., 1889), pp. 1-4.<\/p>\n

34 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cDecision of the Supreme Court\u2014The Sunday Law Sustained,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Mar. 16, 1882, p. 126.<\/p>\n

35 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cSunday in California,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Oct. 5, 1882, p. 456.<\/p>\n

36 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cNot a Politician,\u201d Signs of the Times Special Edition, <\/i>Sept. 14, 1882; J. H. Waggoner, \u201cHoping for More,\u201d Signs of the Times Special Edition, <\/i>Sept. 14, 1882, p. 7.<\/p>\n

37 J. H. Waggoner, \u201cFate of the California Sunday Law,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Dec. 7, 1882, pp. 546, 547.<\/i><\/p>\n

38 J. H. Waggoner, in Signs of the Times Special Edition #10, <\/i>Nov. 16, 1882; J. H.. Waggoner, \u201cThe Sunday Law,\u201d Signs of the Times, <\/i>Feb. 15, 1883, p. 78.<\/p>\n

39 Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf, Light Bearers <\/i>(Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 2000), p. 243.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seventh-day Adventist editor Joseph Waggoner was a firsthand witness to the threats to civil and religious liberties in America from the 1850s to the 1880s. He was not blind to the faults he saw in a Southern-controlled Congress. In 1858 he condemned the federal government for its \u201cslaveocratic practices\u201d and declared that in Congress, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[361],"tags":[193],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-september-october-2024","tag-september-october-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}