The Church That Could Not Host Its Own Religious Liberty Conference

On the morning of January 17, 2026, the Village Seventh-day Adventist Church sat mostly empty. Its doors were open. The building was functioning. But its platform, historically used for the denomination’s premier Religious Liberty Weekend, was unused. Down the road, however, a Methodist church was full—every pew packed with Adventists who had come from across the country to hear speakers no longer permitted to speak in their own church.

The reason for this quiet exodus? The Michigan Conference had declined to approve the appearance of Dr. Conrad Vine and Elder Ron Kelly, two longstanding figures in Adventist religious liberty circles. Without authorization, Village did not host the event. So the speakers moved. The people followed.

And the result was something far louder than any church service could have produced.

What unfolded in that borrowed sanctuary was not just a displaced Sabbath seminar. It was the launch of the Faithful Adventist initiative, a public and diplomatic effort to confront what its organizers claim is institutional compromise—specifically, the church’s cooperation with international bodies like the United Nations and the World Health Organization. (Note that we’ve disagreed with that position in this space recently, but that’s not the point of our concern in this piece.)