Spokane Adventists sound alarm over Heritage Foundation’s Sunday rest proposal

By Cassy Benefield | FāVS News Associate Editor

Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) in the United States took pause when the Heritage Foundation released its “Saving America by Saving the Family” policy report — a pro-family expansion of Project 2025 — early this year. The reason: it suggested that state governments tell Americans when they can worship, rest and do business.

The North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (NADSDA) swiftly responded with a statement on behalf of the nearly 1.2 million Adventists in the U.S., saying the Heritage Foundation’s proposal is a violation of their religious freedom.

“The new proposal for a ‘uniform day of rest’ is irreconcilable with America’s rich heritage of protecting religious freedom,” the statement read. “Sunday laws run counter to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which preserves religious freedom for all Americans by requiring the government to remain neutral between different religious faiths.”

The NADSDA goes on to say ideas like these represent “a dangerous desire to use state power to advance religious objectives.” 

A policy proposal raises alarms

Dustin Jones, communications director of the Upper Columbia Conference of SDAs (UCCSDA) in Spokane, said these policy suggestions from the Heritage Foundation are worrisome and not to be “underestimated or dismissed as [from] an irrelevant third party.”

“It would be easy to brush them off and say, ‘Ah it’s just a third party. What possible influence do they have?” Jones said. “However, we have seen over the past two years a number of instances where this specific entity influenced policy, and that’s very concerning.”

Analysts estimate roughly half (51% to 53%) of Project 2025’s original recommendations have been initiated or completed, primarily through Executive Orders. Several of the report’s authors now hold high-level positions in the Trump administration.

A minority of faith communities, including SDAs and Orthodox Jews, do not worship on Sunday. Saturdays are honored as their holy day of rest following the fourth of the Ten Commandments to “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” 

“No entity should determine for all of America what the day of worship should be,” Jones said.

Setting aside the secular for the sacred

For retired scientist and Adventist Jim Davidson, who attends the Spokane Valley Adventist Church, at the heart of God’s love for him is his choice to believe in God.

“The gospel is the bedrock foundation of why religious liberty is important,” Davidson said. “The character of God is rooted in love and love cannot be forced. If you force someone to love you, that’s not love.”

Growing up in an Adventist church family, Davidson said he didn’t choose to make his faith his own until he was just shy of 21. That faith included choosing to set aside sundown Friday evening to sundown Saturday to spend that time intentionally with God and his family.

Fighting for accommodation

The church is structured into local conferences, like the Upper Columbia Conference, which are then grouped into unions, and finally into larger geographic divisions (such as the North American Division in Columbia, Maryland.) It’s at the union level where religious liberty cases are defended.

André Wang, public affairs and religious liberty director at North Pacific Union Conference in Ridgefield, Washington, said in an email that his office’s role in advocating for religious freedom is both proactive and responsive in advocating for SDA members and staying “vigilant” in the courts and in the legislative process.

“We are directly engaged in advocacy for Sabbath workplace accommodations,” Wang said. “In 2025 alone, we handled more than 30 individual cases involving members seeking reasonable accommodation for Sabbath observance.”

Wang works through the courts. Davidson turns to Scripture.

For Davidson, the case for religious liberty begins with John 3:16 — and specifically its emphasis on “whoever” believes. The verse, he said, makes clear that faith is a matter of individual choice, not government mandate.

“These words should be enough to establish religious liberty as a foundational Biblical principle,” he said.

He said the government does have a God-ordained role to play, referencing passages like Romans 13, but it does not have the right to compel the conscience of a person in how they choose to believe or obey God. 

The language of Project 2025’s “Saving America by Saving the Family” sounds like a positive goal and might have started with “good intentions,” Davidson said, adding it’s also a slippery slope toward authoritarianism.

“Religious liberty is a treasure. We should not lightly let it go,” he said. “[God] gave us a choice. And it’s authoritarian regimes, North Korea for example, where they take all choice away and you have a nation of robots.”

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