On June 5, 2025, the Methodist Church of Peru published a news report announcing the creation of the Interfaith Forest Initiative (IRI) Cusco. This ecumenical alliance was established in the historic city of Cusco, located in the Peruvian Andes and formerly the capital of the Inca Empire. Seventh-day Adventists in Peru are part of this organization that is openly calling for a “deep spiritual commitment and respect for Pachamama” and the need to come into harmony with nature.
There is a serious problem when Seventh-day Adventists unite with or join environmental groups that openly advocate for the reverence or respect of ancient pagan deities. It is one thing to want to care for the environment and quite another to align with movements that seek to merge ecological responsibility with spiritualism, pantheism, or the worship of nature. This violates the clear command to serve only the true and living God.
The Methodist Church of Peru published the following on June 5, 2025:
• “With a deep spiritual commitment and respect for Pachamama, the earth, the Interfaith Forest Initiative (IRI) Cusco was officially launched, an alliance between faith communities to protect the Amazon forests and the people who inhabit them. Excellent news on Environment Day!” [1]
• “This is a sacred moment that calls us to care for our common home. We have no other planet, so we must live in harmony with nature and stop damaging it.” [1]
• “IRI Cusco was created to confront this threat, bringing together representatives from the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church of Peru, the Southern Andean Inca District (SAI), the Adventist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Bahá’í community, Andean spiritualities, and the National University of San Antonio Abad, among other entities.” [1]
• “The mission of IRI Cusco is to promote care for creation, reforest rural areas, prevent fires, and foster a respectful relationship with nature.” [1]
• “Francesco Galiano, coordinator of IRI Cusco, emphasized that this union marks a key moment for integrating faith with environmental action. Congresswoman Ruth Luque also participated in this launch, expressing her hope that this space will inspire spiritual care for Mother Earth.” [1]
This is clearly an ecumenical effort aimed at promoting rituals and ideologies rooted in ancient pagan traditions, celebrating the Earth as a divine entity, and invoking Amazonian spirits—practices completely contrary to the teachings of Scripture. Such associations compromise the distinct message and witness of Adventists, whose faith is grounded in the worship of the Creator as revealed in the Bible and affirmed in the Three Angels’ Messages. All that we do must be done in the light of God’s Word, not in communion with beliefs that dishonor Him.
How much longer will leaders in the church continue to waste time, resources, and energy in the pursuit of unity with these religious organizations that have no intention of embracing the truth of the Three Angels’ Messages but, instead, promote Mother Earth worship, Sunday sanctity, pagan mysticism, eco-revolution, and ecumenism? Yet these ecumenical encounters continue endlessly, with no clear purpose and no lasting results—except for the repeated concessions and compromises made by Seventh-day Adventists, who, in the process, become increasingly indistinguishable from the world.
“Satan determines to unite them in one body, and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of Spiritualism … Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world” (Great Controversy, pp. 588, 589).
Far too many of our fellow believers have lost the vision and the mission. Our prophetic message is in a crisis. Why? Because some have chosen the darkness of this world, aligning themselves with Andean spiritual religions in an effort to spread that darkness across the globe while masquerading it as light. How can we be the light of the world when we participate in and unify with total darkness?
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It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy. – ST February 19, 1894
The church that holds to the word of God is irreconcilably separated from Rome. Protestants were once thus apart from this great church of apostasy, but they have approached more nearly to her, and are still in the path of reconciliation to the Church of Rome. Rome never changes. Her principles have not altered in the least. She has not lessened the breach between herself and Protestants; they have done all the advancing. But what does this argue for the Protestantism of this day? It is the rejection of Bible truth which makes men approach to infidelity. It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy. – ST February 19, 1894
It is souls like Luther, Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and the thousands of noble men who were martyrs for the truth’s sake, who are the true Protestants. They stood as faithful sentinels of truth, declaring that Protestantism is incapable of union with Romanism, but must be as far separated from the principles of the Papacy as is the east from the west. Such advocates of truth could no more harmonize with “the man of sin” than could Christ and his apostles. In earlier ages the righteous felt that it was impossible to affiliate with Rome, and, though their antagonism to this system of error was maintained at risk of property and life, yet they had courage to maintain their separation, and manfully struggled for the truth. Bible truth was dearer to them than wealth, honor, or even life itself. They could not endure to see the truth buried under a mass of superstition and lying sophistry. They took the word of God in their hands, and raised the standard of truth before the people, boldly declaring that which God had revealed unto them through diligent searching of the Bible. They died the cruelest of deaths for their fidelity to God, but by their blood they purchased for us liberties and privileges that many who claim to be Protestants are easily yielding up to the power of evil. But shall we yield up these dearly bought privileges? Shall we offer insult to the God of heaven, and, after he has freed us from the Romish yoke, again place ourselves in bondage to this antichristian power? Shall we prove our degeneracy by signing away our religious liberty, our right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience? – ST February 19, 1894
Many who imitate the customs and fashions of the world claim that they do this in order to have an influence with worldlings. But here they make a sad and fatal mistake. If they would have a true and saving influence, let them live out their profession, show their faith by their righteous works, and make wide the distinction between the Christian and the world. Our words, our dress, our actions, should tell for God. Then all will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. Unbelievers will see that the truth which we profess has a holy influence, that faith in Christ’s coming affects our character. If any wish to have their influence tell in favor of the truth, let them live it out, and thus imitate the humble Pattern. RH December 12, 1882, par. 11
Shameful, they need not attend such events, the message attendance sends isn’t how friendly you are, but that your faith is the same!!!