The conclave moved remarkably quickly, choosing a new prelate in less than two days. When the white smoke poured from the chimney, people who had been lingering near the Vatican began rushing toward St. Peter’s Square, eager to discover who the new pope would be. When the announcement was made, the response from the crowd was–at first–somewhat tepid. There were confused looks on faces and widespread murmurs before their enthusiasm resumed.
What was confusing? Leo XIV is the first American pope–a fact that is sure to stir Adventists’ prophetic imaginations. Back when John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic president in America, many suspected that the beginning of the end had arrived; after all, we know the moment is coming when the first and second beasts will join hands across the gulf and usher in a revival of the oppressive state of Christianity that dominated the West throughout the medieval period. When you have an American president who belongs to a global organization that aspires to global power, it’s not hard to see the potential for the rapid movements we’ve been told are coming.[1]
Certainly, pay attention to the times, but never prioritize prophetic speculation over the work we’ve been given to do.
That was more than a half century ago, a time frame that is merely a drop in the bucket when compared to the passage of two millennia. Some would certainly argue that since that time we have seen dents appear in the armor of the American nation–a nation Ellen White described as having a “Protestant and republican government.”[2]
Now, more than six decades after JFK’s assassination and after another Catholic president (Joe Biden), we live in a moment when a curious blend of Roman and American thinking has appeared on the other side of the ocean: Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. Just how American is he? That’s hard to tell; he was certainly born in the United States, but has spent most of his religious career in other places.
The brief collection of blank stares in St. Peter’s Square suggests that most of us really don’t know much about this new pontiff; he just wasn’t on most people’s lists of potential popes. However, the fact that he is the world’s first American pope certainly has prophetic potential. I just don’t know exactly what that might be.
I had questions when I saw him on the balcony, particularly as a naturalized American. When I became a citizen, I had to renounce all allegiance to any foreign head of state publicly. I’ve never been much of a monarchist, so that wasn’t difficult. But it does raise a question: Isn’t the pope the head of state for the Vatican? Does he get to keep his American passport?
Other questions: Just how American is Cardinal Prevost? The American Constitution and Canon Law have long been an uneasy mix. The United States professes an absolute commitment to religious liberty, and even though many Americans sense that commitment has been eroding in recent decades, we continue to profess it. Rome, on the other hand, appears to tolerate other faiths, but often, despite a seeming commitment to ecumenism, gives the distinct impression that she still believes Bishop Cyprian of Carthage’s dictum that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.[3] The ultimate goal of Rome really has not changed: all of Christianity reunited in her fold.
If prophecy continually scares you, you might just be reading it wrong.
That reunification, prophetically speaking, would involve a return to the blend of church and state that proved so problematic across the West in past centuries. This marriage of civil and religious power was one of the catalysts that drove many believers across the sea to America in the first place, and even though many of them failed to live up to their aspirations in the beginning (Mary Dyer was hung for being a Quaker, after all), the nation that was eventually crafted in the New World entrenched a commitment to liberty in her constitution.
So how do those two sets of values live together in an American pope’s head? I suppose time will tell–and it’s entirely possible that nothing will come of this. Remember: almost every time that we’ve attempted to forecast the details of the future outside of the broad sweep of what is actually said in the Bible, we’ve been wrong–and that’s because prophecy is not so much about predicting the future as it is about recognizing its fulfillment as it happens.
When Jesus predicted the coming persecution of His disciples, He punctuated His comments by saying, “But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you” (John 16:4, ESV).[4] You will search the disciples’ writings in vain for detailed predictions of how persecution would play out; instead, you find reports of what happened. The disciples, I suspect, were far too busy with the work of spreading the gospel to spend much time trying to divine the future in detail. When God did give them details, they shared it with the church. But apart from prophetic revelation, there is a decided lack of prognostication to be found in the New Testament.
That, I suspect, is the appropriate response for a twenty-first-century Adventist. Certainly, pay attention to the times, but never prioritize prophetic speculation over the work we’ve been given to do. Did we just witness a sudden lurch forward toward Revelation 13? Who really knows? Maybe. But whatever happens, our primary assignment does not change:
“In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the Word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.”[5]
One of the biggest side benefits to remaining concentrated on our mission is the mitigation of fear. Sometimes, when we become obsessed with interpreting current events, we begin to focus on the seemingly scary things that are predicted in Scripture. But if prophecy continually scares you, you might just be reading it wrong. Grab a concordance sometime and look up Jesus’ references to “fear.” Read Paul’s prediction in 2 Thessalonians 2 and note his commitment to calmness:
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess. 2:1, 2, ESV).
Another soothing passage, found in Jesus’ promise to return:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1, ESV).
Yes, pay attention to what’s happening, but take the signs of the times as God intended: evidence that He’s keeping His promise to redeem us, and that nothing that happens will catch heaven by surprise. There really is Someone watching what’s happening, and we can leave the worry entirely to Him.
Yes, something unprecedented happened at the conclave, and yes, it might mean something. But that’s it. Now get back to work, because your neighbors are still hopeless without Jesus.
[1] See Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 9, p. 11.
[2] Ibid., vol. 5, p. 451.
[3] See, for example: https://www.catholic.com/video/how-can-catholics-say-theres-no-salvation-outside-the-church.
[4] Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[5] E. G. White, Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 19.