Residents of Nashville, Tennessee — the ones who still read a printed Sunday newspaper — received quite a shock when opening the June 21 edition of The Tennessean, a Gannett Co. newspaper not generally known for tabloid-style contents.
A full-page advertisement from a little-known outfit, “Future For America,” was clearly designed to stun readers.
“Dear Citizen of Nashville,” the ad’s text read. “We are under conviction to not only tell you but provide evidence that on July 18, 2020, Islam is going to detonate a nuclear device in Nashville, Tennessee.” The text went on to make a range of bizarre predictions, including an assertion that Donald Trump would be the “last” President of the United States.
Surprisingly — to this observer at least — the ensuing media coverage was, by and large, accurate, explanatory and helpful to readers. Journalists quickly put the fringe group in its context, and even though the advertisement mentioned the Seventh-day Adventist Church (a denomination of 21.4 million worldwide, whose membership includes this writer), the church was not associated with either the group or Jeff Pippenger, its “speaker.”
That’s largely because Pippenger had been disfellowshipped — expelled from Adventist membership — in 2015. The North American Division of the church disavowed the group, though not naming the individual in their statement.
“[T]here is no connection between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and this group and their teachings,” the statement read.
Also, the ad referred to “the backslidden Seventh-day Adventist Church,” which signals — to say the least — a kind of distancing from that larger faith community.
There was what had to be a mad scramble at The Tennessean to do damage control. Media reports indicated the switchboard lit up with subscription cancellations, and online comments on Facebook and Twitter were not positive.