We have been confronted with appalling misbehavior on the part of Jim Micheff, president of the Michigan Conference. He has fired a splendid and totally innocent pastor, Ron Kelly, who was doing a great work as the senior pastor of the Village SDA Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He fired Kelly because Kelly would not strip Conrad Vine of his offices in the Village Church.
But neither pastor Kelly nor his church board have the power to discipline, censure, disfellowship, or strip church offices from Conrad Vine. According to the Church Manual, which is only modified at General Conference sessions, this type of action can only be taken by the entire church membership in a church-wide business meeting.
Worst of all, when the village SDA church purchased a property to be used as a free clinic, as a ministry of the church, they asked the Conference to arrange for (possibly through Adventist Risk Management) the liability insurance for the doctors and nurses who would be working in the free clinic. Micheff refused to do that unless and until Conrad Vine was stripped of his church offices. In other words, Micheff tried to leverage the insurance issue to harm Conrad Vine! This is sin, as Paul might have said, of a type not even seen among the pagan gentiles.
But the firing of Pastor Ron Kelly was merely the latest in a long list of outrages church leadership has engaged in in an effort to cancel and destroy Conrad Vine. The Michigan Conference put a ban on Conrad Vine, telling their churches not to allow him to speak. We recently discovered that the ban has also been imposed by the Atlantic Union, which covers the northeastern United States.
What has Conrad Vine done to merit such a coordinated attack? He has taken a different approach to the Covid “vaccines” than the GC took. In the process of doing so, he pointed out that the General Conference Administrative Committee (ADCOM) has no business issuing doctrinal and quasi-doctrinal statements on behalf of the SDA Church. Doctrinal statements have to be passed by a General Conference Session.
He has also pointed out that the vaccine statement issued in October, 2021, which stated, “Claims of religious liberty are not used appropriately in objecting to government mandates or employer programs designed to protect the health and safety of their communities,” has done a great deal of harm to a great many Seventh-day Adventists.
To my mind, there is no question that Conrad Vine’s complaints have been well founded and correct. I’ve written extensively on these issues. But instead of backing away from a contentious issue that is not central to Adventist doctrine, and that they might well be wrong about (and, in my mind, are certainly wrong about), the official church has decided to try its best to destroy Conrad Vine.
In doing so, they have ignored the very pointed counsel from Ellen White. She is quite clear in saying that men are not to try to control the consciences and opinions of other men:
In matters of conscience the soul must be left untrammeled. No one is to control another’s mind, to judge for another, or to prescribe his duty. God gives to every soul freedom to think, and to follow his own convictions. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” No one has a right to merge his own individuality in that of another. In all matters where principle is involved, “let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Romans 14:12, 5. In Christ’s kingdom there is no lordly oppression, no compulsion of manner. The angels of heaven do not come to the earth to rule, and to exact homage, but as messengers of mercy, to co-operate with men in uplifting humanity. {DA 550.6}
It was never up to the General Conference, much less an administrative committee therein, to tell other Christians what to think about the Covid “vaccine” (really an experimental gene therapy), and how to react to governmental over-reaching in the form of vaccine mandates. It should have been understood that this was a matter for every man’s conscience and his prudent judgment regarding the care of his own body, health, and fitness.
But sadly, the GC has not stopped with an ill-advised, non-authoritative statement about Covid and the vaccines. They are now trying to control Conrad Vine’s mind, in direct violation of the plainest statements of the Spirit of Prophecy. Appallingly, they are willing to destroy everyone who stands between them and Pastor Vine, most recently Pastor Ron Kelly, but he will not be the last person cancelled in this rampage.
Ellen White warns church officers against trying to “force the will of others” exactly as the Michigan Conference, very likely at the behest of Elder Ted Wilson, to force the will of Conrad Vine:
Those who are enjoined to represent the attributes of the Lord’s character step from the Bible platform and in their own human judgment devise rules and resolutions to force the will of others. The devisings for forcing men to follow the prescriptions of other men are instituting an order of things that overrides sympathy and tender compassion, that blinds the eyes to mercy, justice, and the love of God. Moral influence and personal responsibility are trodden underfoot. {TM 363.1}
We are seeing ever so plainly that, in his hunting of Conrad Vine and making collateral damage of Ron Kelly, Jim Micheff’s eyes have been blinded “to mercy, justice and the love of God.” And what moral influence can he ever hope to have in the future after such a mindless, destructive rampage?
The righteousness of Christ by faith has been ignored by some; for it is contrary to their spirit and their whole life experience. Rule, rule, has been their course of action. Satan has had an opportunity of representing himself. When one who professes to be a representative of Christ engages in sharp dealing and in pressing men into hard places, those who are thus oppressed will either break every fetter of restraint, or they will be led to regard God as a hard master. They cherish hard feelings against God, and the soul is alienated from Him, just as Satan planned it should be. {TM 363.2}
Yes, “rule, rule” has been Jim Micheff’s course of action, and in following this course, Micheff has made himself a representative of Satan, not God. But of course Micheff claims to represent God and the Seventh-day Adventist Church; hence, God and our church cannot but be damaged in the eyes of those who take that claim seriously.
This hardheartedness on the part of men who claim to believe the truth Satan charges to the influence of the truth itself, and thus men become disgusted and turn from the truth. For this reason no man should have a responsible connection with our institutions who thinks it no important matter whether he has a heart of flesh or a heart of steel. {TM 363.3}
Men think they are representing the justice of God, but they do not represent His tenderness and the great love wherewith He has loved us. Their human invention originating with the specious devices of Satan, appears fair enough to the blinded eyes of men, because it is inherent in their nature. A lie, believed, practiced, becomes a truth to them. Thus the purpose of the satanic agencies is accomplished, that men should reach these conclusions through the working of their own inventive minds. {TM 363.4}
We have a message for Jim Micheff and everyone who stands behind him: stop trying to force the conscience! Stop trying to control the minds and consciences of other men! Stop trying to impose ideological conformity! Stop acting like Satan and start acting like Christ!
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Cor. 3:17