Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in Kenya have called on the country’s constitutional review commission to protect religious freedom for all people. In their submission, Adventists express support for the government’s decision to undertake a comprehensive constitutional review, and say it is an opportunity to strengthen legal protection for people of faith.

In their first recommendation, Adventists urge the continued recognition of many different religious groups in Kenya. “To protect ... this freedom the Seventh-day Adventist Church recommends the constitutional re-establishment of the Republic of Kenya as a God-fearing nation without a state religion.” They have suggested a clause modeled on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Adventist submission also recommends the adoption of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

The document highlights special issues raised by the church’s teaching of a Sabbath, or Saturday, day of rest and worship. According to the Adventist submission, Kenya’s constitution should recognize the right of all residents “not to be compelled to work or to perform academic pursuits upon the seventh-day Sabbath, beginning at sunset Friday and ending at sunset Saturday every week.”

These recommendations have been prompted by what Adventists in Kenya call three decades of “discrimination and oppression in the private and public sectors of employment, [and in] public and private schools, colleges, universities and other institutions of learning. The repeated holding of by-elections on Sabbath days has also effectively disenfranchised the Seventh-day Adventist Church . . .”

The Adventist Church in Kenya also urged the constitutional commission to deal with a number of other issues, including: conservation of natural resources; provision of adequate government resources to make health and education services affordable; a drug-free environment; sanctity of the marriage institution; and provision for tax exemptions for relief and development programs.

For more information about this submission to Kenya’s Constitutional Commission, go to: www.adventist.org.zw.