Evangelicals are Crying Out, “Enough is Enough,” the Sabbath Must Go “Beyond the Laws Governing the Weekly Day of Rest” and Include a “Society-wide Redress of Economic Injustice”

Christianity Today is a global evangelical media ministry founded by Billy Graham that reaches 4.5 million “leaders” each month. [1] On January 30, 2024, they published an article titled “Sabbath Is Not a Luxury Good” and argued that it was time to “enact ways” to make Sabbath beneficial to society as a whole, allowing it to “inhabit the whole world.”

The article stated, in part:

• “Everywhere we look we see people pushing themselves—their bodies, their minds, and their capacity for faithfulness and fruitfulness—to the limit. In some ways, society incentivizes this ‘to the limit’ way of life: If you want to get ahead, it’s the price to pay.” [2]

• “If you’ve ever thought, Enough is enough!—quietly protesting demands your body cannot meet—you certainly aren’t alone.” [2]

• “Sabbath is for the people. Sabbath was not designed by God for isolated individuals but as a reset for the community. Beyond the laws governing the weekly day of rest, scriptural Sabbath practice included a regular rhythm of society-wide redress of economic injustice.” [2]

• “Sabbath was God’s way of prioritizing freedom and restoration for everyone in society.” [2]

• “Unless our Sabbath practice stretches beyond the personal and imagines and then dares to enact ways of extending the abundance and restoration of God to the most economically vulnerable—and most easily exploited—in our communities, I fear we miss the fullness of God’s intentions for Sabbath.” [2]

• “The world Jesus is bringing to bear in the world is worth our wholehearted investment, and the returns are abundant. The economic invitation of Sabbath is an invitation to help fashion a community where everyone, especially the most vulnerable, can taste and see that abundance and can experience the restorative work of God.” [2]

• “The invitation of a weekly rest is not just to stop and rest ourselves but to inhabit the world with a Sabbath imagination, daring to build a world where, as Dorothy Bass says, “injustice would not occur.” Jesus intends for Sabbath to spill out from whatever rhythm of practice we put in place for ourselves, enlivening a moral lens that helps us say, along with God, Enough is enough.” [2]

Although Sunday is not mentioned by name in this article, it is obvious that Christianity Today propagates the myth that “Sunday is the special” and “universal day of rest” in Christendom. [3] [4] Christians are crying out the words “enough is enough,” meaning that it is past time to integrate a Sabbath rest for the world in order to improve community life and our collective prosperity. Here we see evangelicals outlining the financial and health benefits that the community would enjoy if there were some form of regular weekly rest for the people. They are promoting the observance of the Sabbath as a day of rest and renewal for everyone, even the underprivileged and overworked. Christianity Today claims that this will help our communities’ social and economic well-being, which has reached a breaking point.

A number of Bible verses were also cited in the Christianity Today article, including Genesis 1, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, Jeremiah 29, Luke 6, Matthew 5, Acts 2, and 1 Corinthians 11. Make no mistake: this is not just a call to enact a Sabbath for the community for secular reasons; they want this weekly day of rest for so-called biblical reasons. Christians are advocating for a Sabbath for all of society on the basis of wanting to align our culture with their religious teaching. And passing a Sunday law would fulfill their vision of a godly and healthy community. This is the exact same justification used in colonial America to support the adoption of Sunday laws. The Puritans advocated for the strict observance of Sunday as the day of worship, rest, and reflection.

This is exactly what we were told would take place:

“It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday-sabbath, that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity” (Great Controversy, p. 590).

Sources

[1] https://www.christianitytoday.org/who-we-are/our-ministry/

[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/january-web-only/sabbath-is-not-luxury-rest-poor.html

[3] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/140-22.0.html

[4] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1997/october27/7tc079.html