“A Counterfeit Kingdom”: Adventists Confront Christian Nationalism at Religious Liberty Summit

Natalie Bruzon| November 25, 2025| Reports

Just days after writing about Adventism and Christian nationalism, I was sitting in the newly-built Paradise Adventist church. The compound—completed this year after the congregation’s previous building was destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history—stands as a testament to the community’s resilience. Still, I doubted whether the large sanctuary would fill. Butte County, recently reshaped by California’s Prop 50 redistricting, is a traditionally Republican stronghold in an otherwise Democratic state; in 2024, it voted red on nearly every ballot measure, including for US President Donald Trump.

Yet on November 15, three Adventist scholars made the case not only that our theology still has something vital to say about religious liberty, but also that the current administration poses real dangers to the separation of church and state. The Religious Liberty Summit—hosted by the Church State Council—was less a political conference and more a return to basic Adventism, a reminder that our roots and prophetic identity were always meant to prepare us for precisely this moment.

Attendees fill the sanctuary for the Religious Liberty Summit on November 15 at the Paradise Adventist Church in Paradise, California. Image: Natalie Bruzon/Spectrum

Devon and Dawn Horning—local to Paradise since 2010—were the duo responsible for bringing the Religious Liberty Summit to the Paradise Church. Devon described his long-standing interest in religious liberty: “I have had this very big interest in separation of church and state and how that relates to current events,” he said, adding that studying “liberty of conscience and Roger Williams and the history of the Adventist Church” has shaped his convictions.

Pacific Union Conference Jewish Ministry Launches Beth Ohr: Urban Center of Influence

By: David Gardner | April 18, 2023




The dream of starting a Jewish-Adventist congregation began more than 20 years ago in the hearts of several Jewish Adventists. Alan Reinach, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Pacific Union Conference, has long shared that dream and held the conviction that a permanent ministry must be established for our 800,000 Jewish neighbors in the greater Los Angeles basin.

Reinach, who is Jewish, has long been an inspiration for this project. “For decades, some of us who are Jewish Adventists have prayed and dreamed of congregations where Jews can be part of the Advent hope without giving up our culture or way of worship,” Reinach shares. “Such congregations are necessary if we are to fulfill Paul’s admonition that the gospel belongs ‘to the Jew first.’”

The hearts of the founders are on fire and burn with a passion to share with others the light Reinach and others of have found in the Torah and the prophets, as Leon Brown, executive vice president of the Pacific Union Conference, spoke about in his devotional message at the ministry launch.

The name of the congregation officially planted in Glendale, Calif., on February 28, 2023, is Beth Ohr. That name is inspired by the words found in Isaiah 60:1, which reads: “Arise, shine, for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”

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