SDA Church in Samoa Sunday Worship a Convenient Compromise?
(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 Government’s decision for Samoa to align with Australia and New Zealand (west of the IDL), hence the reason for now worshiping on Sunday; and on the other hand accepting the new ‘working week’ from Monday to Friday.
Bloggers on http://www.ssnet.org (Sabbath School Network site) and http://www.spectrummagazine.org have also raised an interesting 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).
Moananu Okesene, Pastor Aitui Fanene and Lance Cutts
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 one’s 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 traveling 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.
The many 7th Day Adventist Churches in Samoa are not keeping the 7th day Sabbath on the day that is now called Sunday, because they are being expedient or afraid of persecution. Like Daniel they are standing up for the Truth, because they love the Lord and want to be obedient to Him.
The Lord commands we keep the 7th Day holy, so they are doing that even though the Govt. now calls it Sunday.
On the 1st day of Creation week the Lord created the first 24 hour day. He separated the day from the night. We get 12 hours of night and 12 hours of day in each 24 hr. day. There are 360 degrees in a circle. Divide it in half, it is 180 degrees for each half. That is where the 180 meridian was established by God on the 1st day of the week. It was God ordained! It runs in a straight line from Arctic to Antarctic, through mostly ocean. So to say it is manmade is an error and can be blown out of the water, so to speak.. It is Godmade, therefore we cannot change it. The islands on the left… or west are a day ahead of those on the right ..or east. It is better to obey God rather than man. May God bless His faithful followers who love Him & are keeping the 7th day holy according to His Commandments,
Dear Noeline,
Thank you for your thought-provoking observations.
Now I’m sure you know that the 180th meridian is where it is because an international conference in 1884 established the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England. The secular reason had something to do with Great Britain being the greatest naval power of the time.
Now you seem to be sure that the international agreement established the Prime Meridian exactly where God wanted it. And I’m wondering how you came to that conclusion. Is it perhaps because you have British background and are sure that it’s God’s very own country? 😉
(Others have argued that a Prime Meridian would have been better placed at Jerusalem or wherever Noah’s ark first landed or wherever the Garden of Eden might have been.)
I’m sure you also realize that there was never an international agreement on where the date line ought to run, with the decision being left to individual countries. Have you looked at a globe recently to check where the 180th meridian runs, through populated land masses?
(I’m guessing that it was for this reason — that the 180th runs through land masses — that the choice of where to draw the time zone line that divides one day from another was left up to individual countries.) See The International Meridian Conference.
Do you really believe it was part of God’s plan that next-door neighbours ought to be not only in different time zones, but also on different days?
I confess I’m having a bit of a problem with that idea. But I’m willing to look at your evidence that the 180th meridian was established by God as the dividing line between one day and another.
How can it be Sunday for me and Monday for my neighbor who lives across the street when we both see the sun rise and set at the same time. God never intended that there be an international dateline. Why was the dateline for the Samoa people changed on July 4 1892 giving them two Mondays July 4 and July 4. Any 7th day sabbath keeper who went to Samoa after July 4, 1892 and kept the sabbath on Saturday as they met it was in error then because Monday July 4, Monday July 4 was in fact the second day, and third day (as per pre July 4 1892 calendar)and the 7th day would have been Friday and not Saturday, so when the day has been now changed back to pre July 4, 1892, it is taken the days back to what it was then. So 7th day Sabbath Keepers in Samoa today should continue worshiping on Saturday because that is the correct day when calculated from July 3, 1892.
We will all be in error if we do not go back to the Bible’s teaching of using the Sun and Moon to calculate the days of the week. For the convenience of trade and business man wants a uniformed system and in this way we are not dependent on God. This is the devil’s way of changing time and laws. Dateline or no dateline we will continue to be in error when we ignore the teachings of the bible.
If the international date line runs in a straight line then it is not true for Samoa nor Alaska.
Phyllis, you ask, “How can it be Sunday for me and Monday for my neighbor who lives across the street when we both see the sun rise and set at the same time?” And your question as well as your concluding paragraph illustrate the problem of using a meridian (straight line) as a dateline. Since this line runs directly through some (not many) inhabited areas, it would literally put neighbours in different days! And that’s why it is left up to individual countries to decide where the dateline should be in relationship to their countries.
You rightly point out that an “unbroken 7-day cycle” argument inevitably has to point back to Saturday being the seventh day of the week, just as it was before 1892.
However, if God “God never intended that there be an international dateline,” He would not have made the world round! On a round world, it is necessary to designate a place where the day begins. Please take a look at this great Youtube video. “How the International Date Line Works” that illustrates why a dateline is necessary on a round world. Also see the Wikipedia article, “International Date Line.”
The dateline could be any place on the planet, but a line running through the Pacific Ocean is the most “natural” choice — partly because it avoids most populated areas and partly because that great ocean was a natural barrier between migrating people who brought their own time keeping with them. It also makes sense that this line should make jogs around inhabited areas, and that’s exactly what it does.
For those of us who have experienced crossing the date line, I think this matter should be a bit easier to understand. For the rest, I can only ask you to use your imagination. If you were to travel to some place on the other side of the IDL from your birth, would you keep a day other than Saturday as “your” Sabbath?
In fact, my wife and I got together by one of us having crossed the date line. As it turns out, I had crossed the IDL from my birthplace in North America, and was living in Korea. My wife’s birth had taken place over there, in Malaysia. A couple of years after we were married, we crossed the IDL together to our present location, near where I was born.
Had we been so strict about keeping our individual “unbroken 7-day cycles,” my Sabbath in Asia would have been Sunday, while my wife’s Sabbath would have been Saturday, since she was born there. Here in Canada, my Sabbath is Saturday, but my wife’s would have to be Friday in order to keep her 7-day cycle unbroken. The only way the two of us could worship together, on the same day, would be for one of us to travel around the world alone. My wife could travel westward, back across the IDL, to where her Sabbath would be Saturday, and then continue around the world, across Asia, Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and North America — back to British Columbia again. Then our two Sabbaths would be the same. On visits back to Malaysia, we’d have to travel the long way around the world in order to worship on Saturday with my wife’s family.
“That’s ridiculous!” someone might object, “Every person can’t have his or her own individual Sabbath. There’s only one Sabbath for everyone.”
Exactly! The same goes for individual countries or island groups. Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, and Wallis/Futuna can’t have one Sabbath, while American Samoa, New Zealand, and the rest of the world have another. There is only one Sabbath for everyone, and that is the 7th day, known in English as Saturday.
I believe the correct solution is simple and obvious, once we accept that there exists no “natural” date line. There is only the IDL formed by the collective decisions of the world’s legitimate civil authorities. Keep the Sabbath whenever the 7th day arrives, wherever you may happen to be, and (as I see it) the problem is solved.
How has our message become so contorted!