That Title Probably Stings a Little
At least I hope it does.
I hope it challenges you to the same degree that it hurts me.
Trust me. It's not intended just to manufacture shock or generate clicks.
But I cannot adequately articulate how very real the sentiment is.
And I need you to sit with that for a minute.
Because many of us have been sitting with our own discomfort now for years.
And before some rush to say, "Why make this about race?" let me clarify something immediately:
The word "White" is struck through very intentionally.
Because this is not fundamentally about whiteness as some would suggest it to be.
It's struck through because it's bigger than that. Much bigger. And to acquiesce to the scripted minimization of it in such a way that continues to pit flesh and blood against flesh and blood will ultimately find us perpetually chained by self-imposed shackles forged by principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness in high places that revel in our banal myopic petty tribalism.
The unfortunate truth is there are Black MAGA voices.
Brown MAGA voices.
Even Adventist MAGA voices.
And honestly?
I don't trust them either.
But the truth is that right now we feel exposed. But not in the way that some of you will twist it to mean.
Many Black Adventists are looking around right now asking a very real question:
"When pressure and persecution really come… when civil liberties erode further… when injustice deepens… when dissent becomes dangerous… whose side will you actually be on?"
And for many of us, the answer no longer feels clear.
The MAGA movement is one that many of us have watched reshape the moral instincts of people we once trusted deeply.
People who taught us prophecy while slowly abandoning the very prophetic warnings they once preached.
People who warned us that when nationalism and religion merge, minorities suffer.
Conscience suffers.
Truth suffers.
That hurts.
Because these are not strangers.
These are people we worshipped beside.
Prayed beside.
Preached beside.
Went to school beside.
Served Communion beside.
As an African American, I need my MAGA friends to understand something that may sound a bit abstract:
I love you, in a very "Jesus saves" kinda way.
I just don't trust you anymore.
See, I can love someone and still recognize that their worldview has become dangerous.
I can pray with someone, or at least for someone while simultaneously acknowledging that the movement they support threatens people who look like me, threatens immigrants, threatens dissenters, threatens civil liberties, threatens democratic norms, and increasingly threatens the very prophetic principles Adventists once claimed to defend.
It's Bigger Than Politics
This is not fundamentally about Republicans versus Democrats.
Neither political party is the kingdom of God.
And Black Christians have our own necessary conversations to have about political captivity, selective outrage, tribalism, and moral inconsistency.
But this current moment feels different.
Because what many of us are witnessing is not merely conservatism.
It is the normalization of cruelty.
The glorification of dominance.
The mocking of empathy.
The suspicion of diversity.
The hostility toward historical truth.
The flirtation with authoritarianism.
The merging of Christian identity with nationalist identity.
And that last one especially deeply concerns Adventists who still remember what our prophetic framework actually taught.
For generations Adventists warned about the dangers of national power fused with religious fervor.
We have always warned that majoritarian Christianity could become oppressive.
We warned that liberty of conscience would eventually erode not under atheism, but under a form of politicized Christianity convinced it was saving the nation. This was always central and core to the Adventist prophetic caricature of the eschatological spector.
And now many Adventists suddenly act embarrassed by those warnings precisely when they appear increasingly relevant.
Your Response to Voting Rights
Some of us have also been watching the strange silence around voting rights, representation, and political fairness.
We watched Louisiana fight over Black congressional representation even after courts acknowledged the obvious reality that Black voters had been systemically diluted through gerrymandering.
We watched Alabama resist maps that fairly reflected the voting strength of Black citizens.
We watched Texas continue battles over district lines, voting access, and representation concerns that disproportionately impact minority communities.
We watched Tennessee expel elected representatives in ways that many Americans immediately recognized as historically loaded and symbolically dangerous.
And many of us kept wondering:
Where is the Adventist prophetic voice now?
For decades Adventists taught us that liberty mattered.
That conscience mattered.
That concentrated political power was dangerous.
That majorities should never be trusted to simply "do right" by minorities without accountability.
That was our language.
That was our prophetic posture.
But suddenly many believers became strangely comfortable looking away when the people being politically weakened, strategically fragmented, or systemically marginalized looked like us.
Like me.
And again… if that's you, I don't trust you.
Because if you can watch people manipulate systems of representation and still call that righteousness, patriotism, or "taking the country back," then somewhere along the way power became more important to you than principle.
Some of You Have Changed
And some of us noticed.
We noticed how quickly empathy disappeared once the victims became migrants, protesters, academics, journalists, Muslims, LGBTQ persons, Black activists, or political opponents.
We noticed how easily conspiracy theories replaced critical thought.
We noticed how "law and order" often seemed to mean order for some and force for others.
We noticed how many Christians became more passionate about culture wars than the character of Christ.
We noticed how some Adventists became more emotionally discipled by political influencers than by Jesus.
And we especially noticed the silence.
Silence when minorities were demonized.
Silence when history was distorted.
Silence when racism was minimized.
Silence when voting rights were retro fitted to 1963.
Silence when immigrants were dehumanized.
Silence when authoritarian language escalated to action.
Silence when truth itself became optional.
That silence preached louder than any of your sermons.
The Misleading Narrative
Contrary to what some nefarious voices convinced many of you to believe, most Black Adventists did not suddenly abandon historic Christian convictions.
Most of us still believe in biblical marriage between one man and one woman.
Most of us still believe life is sacred and that life begins at conception.
Many of us have spoken publicly about those convictions too, even when it was unpopular in other spaces.
But many of you chose to believe political caricatures about us instead of listening to us directly because those caricatures were simply more useful to the movement shaping you.
And here is what has been painful:
You were not really asked to march.
You were not really asked to protest.
You were not really asked to become activists.
You were not asked to donate money.
You were not even asked to agree with every organization or slogan attached to the moment.
And yet many of you still could not simply say that… "Black Lives Matter."
Not the organization.
Not the politics.
The statement.
The humanity.
Somehow you were convinced that affirming the dignity of Black people was itself suspicious.
Somehow you were taught that diversity—meaning us—was a threat to the nation and eventually even a threat to the church.
And in the process, some of you traded uniquely Adventist global prophetic ideals for nationalist political ones.
"Into all the world…"
"Every nation, kindred, tongue, and people…"
Those used to sound expansive.
Global.
Kingdom-centered.
But somewhere along the way, for many believers, those ideas got replaced with something smaller.
Something fearful.
Something tribal.
Make America Great Again.
And many of us watched that transformation happen in real time.
Which is why I keep coming back to the same painful conclusion:
If that is where your deepest loyalties now live, I don't trust you. I can't.
But…
I do not hate you.
I am not ready to write you off. But to be honest, you're not helping.
I am not calling all white Adventists racist.
But if you're MAGA, you kinda are.
I am not saying every Trump voter is evil.
But you've enabled a whole bunch of evil in a pretty prophetic eschatological kinda way.
I am not arguing that every conservative concern is illegitimate.
I probably actually agree with you on many of them.
Still, I'm doing my best not to become the mirror image of the very tribalism I am criticizing.
But friendship requires honesty.
And honesty means acknowledging that many African American Adventists no longer feel emotionally, socially, or even physically safe around any expression of MAGA "Christianity."
Not because we were told to feel that way by the media.
But because we watched the fruit.
Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
Not by slogans.
Not by flag pins.
Not by worship styles.
Not by claims of patriotism.
By fruit.
Prophecy Was Supposed to Prepare Us Better Than This
One of the great ironies of this moment is that Adventists should have been among the least susceptible to Christian nationalism.
Our theology should have inoculated us against it.
We were supposed to understand the danger of confusing America with Israel.
The danger of political messianism.
The danger of majoritarian religion.
The danger of coercive morality.
The danger of uncritical nationalism.
Instead, in many places, some Adventists absorbed the broader white evangelical culture.
And some Black Adventists now find themselves grieving not only America's polarization, but the loss of Adventism's prophetic distinctiveness.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
Whelp, if you have become intoxicated already by the Iraqi MAGA wine, I don't fully know where you go from here.
But I know where we have to go.
We have to go where our fore parents always went when institutions failed them.
Toward agency.
Toward self-determination.
Toward community.
Toward courage.
And yet not toward arrogance.
Because Black survival has never ultimately been built upon self-sufficiency alone, but upon a humble awareness of our insufficiency and our desperate dependence upon the everlasting arms.
So we move forward the way our ancestors did:
Through the corridors of courage and through the halls of hope.
Through the swamp of oppression and the wilderness of despair.
Through social and political systems that doubted us and structures that tried to diminish us.
Still believing.
Still building.
Still surviving.
Still singing.
Still praying.
Still resisting the temptation to surrender either our dignity or our humanity.
Final Word
To my white Adventist MAGA friends:
I still love you.
I still believe some of you are sincere.
I still believe God is working on all of us.
But I do not trust what many of you have become politically willing to excuse.
I don't trust the comfort with authoritarian rhetoric and action.
I don't trust the selective concern for liberty.
I don't trust the silence around injustice.
I don't trust the merging of nationalism and Christianity.
I don't trust a movement that taught many believers to see diversity itself as a threat.
And if you will not fight beside me…
If you will not speak for me…
If you will not even affirm my dignity when doing so costs you almost nothing…
Then eventually I am left to wonder whether, when pressure truly comes, you might ultimately fight against me instead.
And that is not a political observation.
That is not fear.
That is a deeply spiritual grief.