Is
Move By The SDA Church in Samoa a Convenient Compromise?
"The Lord has a controversy with his
professed people in these last days. In this controversy men in responsible
positions will take a course directly opposite to that pursued by Nehemiah.
They will not only ignore and despise the Sabbath themselves, but they will
try to keep it from others by burying it beneath the rubbish of custom and
tradition. In churches and in large gatherings in the open
air, ministers, will urge upon the people the necessity of keeping the first
day of the week." E.G. White, Review and Herald, Vol. 1, p. 405, col. 3.
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Is
Move By The SDA Church in Samoa a Convenient Compromise?
10:40 January 19, 2012
Article Edwin Puni
Source: eventpolynesia.com The
controversial decision by the SDA church administration in Samoa to worship on
Sunday has drawn many letters on the issue from Seventh-day Adventists around
the world. Many are critical of the inconsistency in the position Source:
eventpolynesia.com
The controversial decision by the SDA church
administration in Samoa to worship on Sunday has drawn many letters on the
issue from Seventh-day Adventists around the world.
Many are critical of the inconsistency in the
position of the Samoa-Tokelau Mission by rejecting Saturday as the 7th day of
the week following the Governments decision for Samoa to align with Australia
and New Zealand (west of the IDL), hence the reason for now worshipping on
Sunday; and on the other hand accepting the new working week from Monday to
Friday.
Bloggers on WWW.SSnet.org
(Sabbath School Network site) and www.spectrummagazine.org
have also raised an observation regarding a convenient compromise by the SDA
church in Samoa should there be a Sunday Law.
Can I flee to Samoa to avoid persecution when
the worldwide Sunday law happens and at the same time keep my Sabbath with a
clear conscience?
I wonder indeed if we can move to Samoa when
the Sunday Laws come and keep Sabbath on Sunday?
Dr. Allen Sonter a
respected Seventh-day Adventist educator and missionary from Australia who
lived and worked in (Western) Samoa and Tonga for a number of years, and also
worked in the SDA (CPUM) office for 6 years highlighted the complexity of the
Samoa issue, My work then involved crossing the date line frequently. In fact,
I recall one 8-week period when I did not have two consecutive weeks of the
same length. My weeks would be 7-days 8-days, 7-days 6-days, 7 days, 8 days,
6-day, 7-days. Sometimes the only flight we could get
from Rarotonga to Auckland was on a Friday afternoon,
so we would take off late Friday afternoon, cross the date line in the evening,
and land in Auckland on Saturday night. Where did Sabbath go? I hated that
flight, because I missed a Sabbath! Incidentally, I also missed my birthday one
year, and Christmas day another year.
The Bible gives no instruction about how to
handle the date-line issue, and it also says nothing about where on the surface
of the earth the Sabbath begins and ends. Therefore, if God has not seen fit to
make that issue clear, it is obviously not a matter that is vital to our
salvation. Therefore, in seeking a solution to the issue we must look to
underlying principles that govern our relationship to God and to our fellow
believers.
The Sabbath is a sign of the fact that the
LORD is our God (Ezekiel 20, 12, 20). Therefore in handling the date-line issue
the basic principle that should guide our decision is that our keeping of the
Sabbath should mark us as being loyal to God, as opposed to following a
man-made day of rest. If the Adventist teaching about the mark of the beast
being the false Sunday / Sabbath is true, then to worship on the Sunday (even
though sunset to sunset instead of midnight to midnight) gives a mixed message
in regard to our loyalty to God. To argue that Sunday in Tonga, and in the
new-order (Western) Samoa, is really the seventh day of the week, is to mount
an argument to which there is no definitive answer, because, as I noted
earlier, the Bible is silent on the facts that are needed to prove ones point.
Which solution to the issue most clearly applies the principle that the Sabbath
of the fourth commandment is a sign of our loyalty to God? When I was
travelling frequently across the date-line, I took the view that the right
thing for me to do in being loyal to God, was to keep the day accepted as the
Sabbath wherever I happened to be. Applying the same principle to the (Western)
Samoa situation, the right thing to do might be to continue keeping Saturday in
the new-order (Western) Samoa.
I recall that on one occasion in Tonga I was
speaking with a delegation from the British government, and one senior officer
said, The Adventist church in Tonga has been very astute in getting around the
strong Sunday legislation in Tonga by arguing that in Tonga the seventh day of
the week is really Sunday. So from the point of view of an educated outsider
looking at the situation in Tonga, it appeared that the Adventist solution to
the moving date-line problem did not indicate loyalty to God, but rather the opposite
a convenient compromise, and a rather opportunistic one at that!
I realize that if the church in (Western)
Samoa were to change with the changing date-line, and worship on the new
Saturday, that would constitute a de-facto admission that the Tongan church had
made a mistake by deciding to keep Sunday in Tonga all these years, and that
would be an embarrassment to the Tongan church. We must also realize that the
church in American Samoa is affected by whatever decision is made.
Now, just to complicate things even further,
another underlying principle comes into the picture. That is the principle that
we are to consider the effects of our behavior on our fellow believers. Paul
tells us that we are not to behave in a way that offends our brother who is weak
in the faith (Romans 14: 13). If the church in (Western) Samoa were to change
to the Saturday Sabbath in the new-order (Western) Samoa, they may seriously
offend their fellow believers in Tonga, and will affect the members in American
Samoa. So should the church in Tonga also change and start worshipping on
Saturday? I do not know the answer to that, but what I do know is that the
churches in both (Western) Samoa and American Samoa, as well as in Tonga, are
in this together, and that the final decision should not be imposed by anyone
else. I believe there should be a combined meeting of a wide representation of
the Tongan and Samoan churches, with a small number of representatives from the
NZP Union, the SPD, and the General Conference present to give counsel, but not
to take part in the actual decision making process. The matter should be
prayerfully discussed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit until a clear
consensus among the believers is reached.
When consensus has been reached, the believers
in (Western) Samoa alone must make the final decision about the Sabbath in
(Western) Samoa. If a decision were to be reached to keep Saturday as the
Sabbath in (Western) Samoa, Tongan representatives may wish to make some
recommendation about the Sabbath in Tonga, which in turn would need to be
handled by the believers in Tonga. Any attempt from the outside to impose a
decision on the church in (Western) Samoa is likely to cause a split in the
church.
With the growing discontent, the SDA church
may need to go into damage control.