Browse Articles
Ancestral veneration in Tanzania cuts cross World Religions: Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion. Church programs on nurture and retention seek to teach new members how to abstain from forms of ancestral veneration present in their communities.
The Bakonzo are part of the Bantu people who are found in East, Central and Southern Africa. They predominantly live around and on the slopes of Mount Rwenzori in western Uganda. From the establishment of Mitandi mission station in 1948 and the opening of formal primary education in 1953, Adventism has steadily grown in the Rwenzori Mountains. Today, the Adventist Church operates more than 60 primary schools and five secondary schools in Rwenzori.
Practiced by more than 7 million people, indigenous religion burial services differ greatly among the tribes of Tanzania; however, in all tribes the dead are alive in a way that they hear, see, and are able to cause pain, suffering, or happiness to the bereaved. Faithful Adventists continue facing problems from the community because they reject the indigenous beliefs.
Circumcision among Kuria is rooted in ancestor veneration. It poses one of the most complex challenges in the Adventist Church's attempt to reach the Kuria people with the gospel message.
This article presents an account of the influence and witness of some remarkable martyred and persecuted European Adventists during the political and religious epochs of the Ottoman Empire, Soviet Communism, and German Fascism.
Building on different interpretative traditions, there have been two major views among Seventh-day Adventists on the number of the beast (the number 666) in Revelation 13:17, 18. While there are valid reasons to interpret it as the papal title Vicarius Filii Dei, as several Seventh-day Adventist writers have done over the years, others have viewed it as a triple six indicative of a Satanic trinity.
After initial organization as a denomination in 1863, the Seventh-day Adventist Church underwent a period of organizational reform between 1901 and 1903 which resulted in a modified Church structure.
The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in the South Pacific region has been fortunate that issues of military service have been relatively few and that national governments in the region have been prepared to work cooperatively with the Church on practical solutions that have met the needs of governments while respecting the SDA stand on noncombatancy.
The First World War was a serious trial both for all Russian people and for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Russia. The war greatly complicated interchurch relationships because at that time most of the leaders and members of the church were German, and the Russian people identified them with Germany. Due to the collapse of the transportation system, supervision of the congregations scattered all over the vast territory of the Russian Empire became difficult. Still, World War I with its trials and troubles increased the people’s religious feelings, pushing many of them to seek protection and refuge in God. Statistics show that, during the war, church membership numbers did not diminish.
The article uses extant sources to examine the almost undocumented travails of the SDA Church in the Soviet Union during the World War II (1939-1945).
A short overview of Bible translations in the USSR and Russia, including the translation prepared by the Zaoksky Bible Translation Institute, which took twenty-two years, from 1993 to 2015, to complete and the involvement of translators from many different Christian denominations.
Valuegenesis is the study of faith development and values formation in Seventh-day Adventist youth.
This article explores the Seventh-day Adventist perspective on the Vatican and focuses on aspects that are unique—especially the question of American government envoys.
The Vietnam War, perhaps the most controversial in American history, challenged Adventists to think anew about their position on military service and the implications of their faith for a wide range of social and political issues.
The Waldensians were a movement founded by Peter Waldo in Lyon around 1170. Seventh-day Adventists have historically connected Waldensians to fulfillment of eschatological prophecy.
Ellen White’s life-threatening accident at age 9 brought her formal education to an abrupt end. When in later life she was instructed to write out the messages given her through visions she keenly felt her literary deficiencies and relied upon her literary assistants to make necessary improvements, especially when preparing material for publication.
The First World War (1914-1918) radically affected New Zealand and Australian society, but its impact on the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the region was limited by its geographic remoteness from the theaters of conflict and the Church’s circumspection over participation in the war. While almost all other religious groups actively promoted the war and the enlistment of their young men, the denomination walked a largely successful but very fine line between loyalty to the government and opposition to a worldly war that conflicted with the Church’s global mission and vision.
The Second World War had a significant impact on the work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific, most notably in New Guinea, Papua, and the Solomon Islands, which were the scenes of bitter conflict between Japanese and Allied forces. In particular, the church had to negotiate its interaction with state authorities over support for the war effort and compulsory military service, and manage its work in war-affected regions.
Youth programs in the South Pacific Division train youth to be mission-minded and to give selfless service and also teach youth valuable life and outdoor skills.