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The Adventist-Evangelical Conferences of 1955-1956 initiated by Protestant polemicist Walter R. Martin constituted a watershed development in the history of interfaith relationships between Adventists and evangelical Christians.
Wherever the Adventist message has been preached in Tanzania, it has collided with African traditional practices. For Adventists, the Bible is the standard that guides their life practices of life, while traditional practices are the foundation of African life.
African Traditional Religion is the indigenous religion of the African people. It expresses the beliefs and practices that regulate the mentality and views of the African cosmology whose worldview locates an individual’s place in the wider universe. Further, it is the totality of the way people live life within the interaction of persons, events, objects, and natural phenomena.
Burials are cultural events with religious undertones among many tribes in Kenya, and traditions associated with these events present several issues for Adventist believers there.
Braid patterns and hairstyles are an indication of a person's tribe or community, age, and marital status in many African cultures. Some Christians question whether braiding is compatible with biblical Christian lifestyle.
Jita is a tribe located around Mount Masita in the eastern side of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The name Jita was adopted based on the location of Mount Masita. The colonial governors from Germany could not pronounce Masita; instead, they called it Majita. They put in writing the word Majita, and therefore it became the name for these people. Since then the whole area is called Majita.
The Kuria Tribe is among the Bantu ethnic groups. Adventism reached the Kurians in 1912. The missionaries soon discovered that the best way to introduce the gospel was, initially, to establish schools and, later, health services.
Levirate marriage is still practiced among the various African tribes in including, in Tanzania, the Luo, Pare, Hehe, Sukuma tribes. The unique struggles of the Adventist Church in its endeavors to evangelize these groups is discussed in this article.
The Luo are a Nilotic ethnic group that is spread out in East and Central Africa. Most of them inhabit the shores and the environs of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania. Adventism among the Luo of Kenya is over a century old, tracing its roots to the missionary activities of Arthur Carscallen and Peter Nyambo, who arrived at Kendu Bay in the eastern shores of Lake Victoria in November 1906.
The Maasai people live in the southern part of Kenya and northern part of Tanzania in east Africa. It is estimated that one million Maasai people live in Kenya and Tanzania, although most Maasai doubt these numbers. Many Maasai see the national census as government meddling and often miscount their numbers to census takers. This tribe is well known for being strong in preserving its culture.
The Adventist Church in Kenya survived numerous trials during the Mau Mau uprising (1952-1960).
Many Adventists in the Soviet Union, who were drafted into the army during World War II, refused to violate the fourth and sixth commandments of the Decalogue. For this reason, they were convicted, some of them being publicly executed by shooting.
Protestant Christians often disliked and mistrusted cities yet also sought to reform them and evangelize the people living within them. The relationship that Seventh-day Adventists have had and still have with urban environments can be characterized as being tidally linked, with some decades seeing Adventists advocate city work and other decades seeing other Adventists call for a return to the country. This push-and-pull between city and country is ongoing.
During the early decades of Seventh-day Adventist missions in the Caribbean, missionaries eschewed public service in the public arena. This stance was influenced by the views of early Adventist leaders and promoted among the laity reaching back to the Millerites. Among the earliest holders of government positions was Frank Bayne of Barbados, who was appointed a member of the colony’s legislative assembly in 1959. Since then, Adventists in the Caribbean have continued to step into the public square. One study shows that at least thirty-two Adventists have held public office in twelve Caribbean countries from 1959 to 2020.
Alfredo Aeschlimann, pastor, administrator, educator, served in the Austral Union Conference, Antillean Union, Mexico Union and Inter-American Division.
The Africa Herald Publishing House is a Seventh-day Adventist publishing house based in Kendu Bay on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya.
East-Central Africa Division Publishing House/Media Institution
The Afro-Mideast Division was a large unit of church organization in the Middle East and eastern Africa that existed from 1970 to 1981.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Church Administrative Unit
Afro-Mideast Division Impact was a periodical that served as the official organ of the Afro-Mideast Division from 1971 to 1981.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Periodicals/Book/Electronic Text
The Adventist message reached Burundi in 1925. As part of the Adventist Church’s efforts to reach all the regions in Burundi with the message of salvation, Agakiza Radio Station broadcasted its first program in 2007.
East-Central Africa Division Publishing House/Media Institution
Eugene Theodore Agard was a physicist and Seventh-day Adventist exemplar for creationism.