Leoni Meadows provided a picturesque setting for October’s religious liberty retreat, themed “The Final Warning.” Participants were stirred with conviction that the religious liberty message is not only safeguarding individual conscience, but is also fundamental to the substance of the Three Angels’ Messages.

John and Debi Taylor turned the audience’s hearts to God in music as the Sabbath hours began Friday evening. Surrounded by the beauties of nature, Dr. Timothy Standish, research assistant for the Geoscience Research Institute, presented “Intelligent Design: Coming to a School Near You.” His comprehensive presentations linked creation, Sabbath and nature’s complexity with our appreciation for the God of liberty.

On Sabbath, David Lawrence framed the Three Angels’ Messages as God’s revelation of “The Truth, the Lie, and the Invitation to Choose.”

With this theological backdrop, the developments in state and national legislation and current legal challenges to religious liberty took on new meaning. Alan Reinach, Esq., Pacific Union PARL director; James Standish, Esq., General Conference Legislative Affairs director; and Dr. Bradford Newton, Pacific Union Government Affairs director presented new details.

Sunday, Larry Carter, Pacific Union literature ministries director, demonstrated how the printed word can be used to take the vital religious liberty message “to the streets” in door-to-door outreach or in daily chance encounters.

“We know that religious liberty is evangelism with deeply planted roots in the Three Angels’ Messages,” concluded Reinach. “Government may restrain evil, but it can never change hearts. It’s our job to advocate in the marketplace for the New Covenant experience of God’s Law written on the heart.”

By Dr. Bradford C. Newton, Government Relations Director for the Pacific Union