Seventh-day Adventists, on the other hand, have likewise been stalwart advocates of personal freedom. But our historic approach has been to fight against too much religious encroachment in places where we feel religion has no place––especially where government funding is involved. We’ve traditionally not favored prayer or Bible reading in public schools, for example. And we’ve not wanted state money to go to parochial schools. We too call our agenda "religious liberty."

Our denomination’s historic end-time understandings lie at the root of the Adventist approach. We believe, based on our interpretation of Revelation 13, that just before the second coming of Jesus, religious powers and state powers will combine to force religious compliance. With such understandings and concerns about imposed conformity, Adventist religious-liberty concerns have aligned more closely with the American Civil Liberties Union than with Whitehead’s Rutherford Institute.

But in the case described in last week’s Fine Print, Adventist religious-liberty specialists and those from the Rutherford Institute were all shaking their heads in disbelief. Why? Because the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, rendered a decision that looked as if they’d done nothing but read the playbook of political correctness and had obligingly done whatever it called for.

The case revolved around whether a conservative Christian student group at the University of California Hastings Law School could restrict its membership to individuals who share their Christian beliefs, particularly as they relate to sexual conduct, and still be granted access to campus resources and forums. The school argued that every student group on campus had to fully accept any persons who wanted to join, irrespective of whether they were subscribers to the ideology being propounded by the group.

While most of us recognize the legitimacy of not allowing race-based or gender-based exclusion from a campus club, the idea of not allowing exclusion based on ideology is another thing altogether. During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, one Justice asked if, at the Hastings Law School, Republicans would have to allow Democrats into their club and vice versa. The attorneys for the school said yes.

The implications of such an understanding are astounding. All the Democrats would have to do to totally neutralize the campus Republican Club would be to recruit enough non-Republicans that they could install non-Republican officers and then change the club’s constitution. And the same could happen with a campus club of conservative Christians. The club could quickly morph to an atheistic and hedonistic club because it was overrun by people who subscribed to such an ideology.

Believe it or not, the U.S. Supreme Court––where a majority of the Justices are conservative––upheld just such logic. They said the Christian club had to accept all members or they couldn’t have access to campus resources and forums. Their decision left the Rutherford Institute dumbstruck. And I think Adventist onlookers were no less stunned.

—Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor

Seeing Is Understanding

Recently, I observed a perfect illustration of Solomon’s ancient adage "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
As I stood at the counter of a Taco Bell waiting for my Seven-Layer Burrito to be delivered, I looked back into the kitchen, where I saw my burrito being "put together." It was a memorable experience.
Of course, you’re probably thinking that I’ll tell you how ingredients were dropped onto the floor and then thrown back into my burrito. Or you may expect to hear about bugs or rats or some lack of hygiene. But no, what I’m about to say is totally complimentary. Pure commendation.
As I watched, transfixed, a young man with the grace of a ballet dancer swept up a tortilla with his plastic-gloved right hand, throwing it into the air to land perfectly centered on his plastic-gloved left hand, all the while swaying to the rhythm of what his hands were doing.
Before the tortilla had even landed on his left hand, his right hand was scooping up the first ingredient to be placed onto the tortilla. He was clearly ambidextrous, because the tortilla found its way back to his right hand as his left swept up another ingredient, his body continuing to sway to the rhythm of his hand motions.
In a matter of only three or four seconds, the tortilla had passed from right to left and left to right to accommodate the inclusion of the first five of the burrito’s seven layers. Then, with the flare of a butler serving royalty, he gave a sweeping bow as his right hand slid a paper wrapper under the loaded tortilla, which he set on the counter with a deftness that a brain surgeon would envy.
Like a gunslinger from the Old West, he picked up the "guns" containing the guacamole and the sour cream, one in each hand, and simultaneously squirted their contents onto the other five ingredients, creating an overlapping figure-8 of white and green.
Quickly but gently returning the guns to their "holsters," he began a ritual folding the tortilla, encasing the seven layers. His body rocked forward and backward with each new fold, as if he were responding to the rhythms of a song that I couldn’t hear but that was definitely playing in his head and directing his every move.
With the same fluidity, he enclosed my supper in its paper wrapper. Then his left hand swept up a small plastic bag as his right gently slipped his recently completed objet d’art into it. As if propelled by the momentum of that final movement, he glided the four or five steps between his workstation and the customer counter, gracefully extending the bag to me. Giving me the most disarming and unassuming smile, he said, "Here, sir, is your burrito."
The entire drama hadn’t taken ten seconds. And before my "Thank you" had gotten past my teeth, he was back at his workstation, looking at the screen to see which works of art the next customer had ordered.
Clearly, he had grasped the concept Solomon was trying to get across.

—Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor