As the Seventh-day Adventist Church expands its membership to cultures vastly different from its North American birthplace, how does a worldwide movement approach local issues and traditions while at the same time maintaining uniform standards?
As the Seventh-day Adventist Church expands its membership to cultures vastly different from its North American birthplace, how does a worldwide movement approach local issues and traditions while at the same time maintaining uniform standards?
The thousands of pioneers all over the world, sent by the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Global Mission, face this test on a continuing basis.
The variety of questions seems endless: May someone who isn’t an Adventist pastor baptize? What food and drink may be used during a communion service? And what about a polygamist who becomes a Seventh-day Adventist—what happens to their existing family relationships?
These issues and others were discussed during a recent two-day meeting at the church’s world headquarters. Attended by church administrators, regional presidents, missiologists, directors of Global Mission study centers, and church theologians, the committee tackled the underlying question of “What can we, as a church, do in these circumstances?”
“[We identified] theological and cultural issues that have the potential of significantly impacting the church’s approach to mission,” says Armando Miranda, committee co-chair and a vice president of the world church. “We are working as a Seventh-day Adventist institution all over the world and we need to be sensitive to the needs and cultural issues of the people. But at the same time, we need to maintain the unity of the church.”
Miranda says the committee works to find ways of helping the Global Mission pioneers—lay volunteers who work as missionaries within their own country or cultural group. They are facing challenges unique to their location, such as the unavailability of a pastor when baptismal candidates are ready.
“This is a very exciting conference because our church, for the first time, is going into many places we’ve never gone before, particularly into areas where world religions exist that we don’t have a lot of experience in,” says Mike Ryan, director of Global Mission and co-chair of the committee. “The issues are defining themselves. Mission always challenges methodology. It also challenges theology. As we are going to these new areas for the first time, we have to recognize the fact that whether we discuss this or not, it’s being defined out there. Do we want to guide that definition or do we just want to let it go and suddenly wake up someday and say, ‘What in the world is going on in the world church?’
“In trying to set a balance of what is contextually appropriate and what is not, I think the only guide to lean on would be the scripture,” Ryan continues. “As long as we’re looking at the scripture and taking a very honest attempt at interpreting and praying about it, really determining what it says, it serves as a very good guide. I do believe there’s some flexibility in the way we deliver our methodology as we come into the area of custom, culture and things that would be standing traditions in society. Many times, as the apostle Paul did, there’s flexibility there to approach things a little bit differently.”
Geoffrey Mbwana, president of the church in East Central Africa, says the question of contextualization was at the top of the Issues Committee agenda. Topics such as how to carry out the communion service in regions that don’t have access to the traditional grape juice and unleavened bread were discussed. “We have to wrestle with that and see what alternatives are,” he says.
Polygamy is another issue that was considered by the panel. The practice of polygamy is a concern in countries where the Adventist Church is growing and polygamy is common.
“I am comfortable with the [Adventist Church’s] current statement on polygamy,” says Luka Daniel, president of the Adventist Church in Western Africa. But, he adds, “Let’s keep educating our people on the evils of polygamy.”
Seventh-day Adventists do not accept polygamy. In an official statement on marriage, the church affirms, “The monogamous union in marriage of a man and a woman is affirmed as the divinely ordained foundation of the family.”
“I think the church will grow in terms of how to reach the different people groups, the results of which I believe will be more baptisms, more people joining the church, more people getting to understand the call of our message because we are communicating to them in their own language within their cultural setup,” Mbwana says. “It becomes easier for them to absorb and put into live practice the very principles of Christianity that we are passing on to them.”
The committee as a whole examined the issues presented, and then divided in small groups to write statements, or recommendations, for each topic. Ryan says that the Global Mission Issues Committee is not authorized to make definitive decisions, but offers proposals and recommendations to the church’s administrative council. From that council, the measures are delegated to various organizations within the church for further review. The process is designed to gain an authority that, at the end of the process, represents the voice of the world church.
“I am immensely proud of our church, our processes that allow us to put something on the table, to look at all sides of it, then to come to a consensus,” says Barry Oliver, secretary of the Adventist Church in the South Pacific. “No one of us would always see it exactly the same way—that’s healthy. That’s good. We’re all individuals, we’re different cultures. But we’re all on the same team here.
“[We] look at ways which we can do things better. We’ve always got to be doing that,” Oliver continues. “If we’re doing things the same year after year after year, in all situations, that may not be exactly healthy either. We don’t change for change’s sake, but we do change when we need to make changes appropriately to serve our mission—that’s the bottom line, to serve our mission. If we’re not serving our mission, we’re serving ourselves or someone else.”