SILVER SPRING - In a stunning announcement Wednesday that sent shockwaves through the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Washington DC, Ted Neal Clair Wilson announced that he will not seek re-election as president of the Adventist Church at the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas this July. Instead, Wilson said, he is making a bid for the White House in the 2016 presidential race.
"I have done what I set out to do within the Remnant Church," Wilson said at a press conference in Takoma Park. He cited success in preventing women's ordination, in tightening up the language on Fundamental Belief #6, which deals with Creation,
Wilson, who says he is running neither as a Republican or a Democrat, but as an Independent, makes the third presidential hopeful with connections to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Ben Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist neurosurgeon who has indicated that he will declare his candidacy in May, and Senator Ted Cruz, who recently announced his candidacy, is married to Heidi Cruz, a Seventh-day Adventist.
Wilson brings strong foreign policy experience to his bid to become president of the United States. During more than four years as president of the Adventist World Church, he traveled extensively throughout Africa and Southeast Asia. A recent Gallup poll reveals that if African nations were able to vote in US elections, Wilson would enjoy a double-digits lead over any other prospective candidate--Democrat or Republican.
In prepared remarks to reporters, Wilson said Wednesday with his wife Nancy at his side that he will focus on secondary education, seeking new ways to keep America's boarding schools open with a renewed emphasis on Creation education rooted in the biblical book of Genesis, focusing on a literal six-day Creation week. He will also focus on job creation, pointing to his recent successes in a literature distribution effort that created jobs for some 900 city workers tasked with disposing of discarded copies of Ellen White's "The Great Controversy" in San Francisco and New York City.
His candidacy for the highest office in the land is not without controversy. Critics point to his 2010-2011 dismantling of the leadership of ADRA International, which rendered the nonprofit aid organization a mere shell of its former self, and his hardline stances on women and LGBT individuals as reasons he should not occupy the White House.
"We need a president whose policies are based on a sound understanding of the Constitution, not a literal reading of the plain words of Scripture," said Huntin Dunker, a steelworker from Waterford, Connecticut, who was in Takoma Park visiting family.
Wilson hinted at his ultimate goal in seeking office: "It has been an important learning experience holding the keys to the Kingdom as General Conference president that will help me know what to do when I hold the keys to the Oval Office," he said.
"Don't be fooled," he said in his April 1 announcement, "because the Deceiver would deceive even the very elect. Ellen White might have called the United States one of the great beasts of Revelation, but I can assure the American people that there will be no Sunday Laws so long as I am in the White House."
