Jonathan: “Dad, where are we going?”
Father: “Son, we’re going to the Johnson’s house.”
Jonathan: “What? Why aren’t we going to church?”
Father: “We are, Jonathan. We’re going to church at the Johnson’s today.”1
Jonathan: “But why, Dad? Why aren’t we going to the same church where we’ve always gone?”
Father: “It’s closed today, Son. They will be having services there tomorrow, on Sunday.”
Could such a scenario actually happen to Adventist believers? Believe it or not, this is the very situation now confronting many Seventh-day Adventist believers in the independent state of Samoa. How did such a state of affairs ever come about? Well, it all revolves around an imaginary boundary commonly known as the “international date line.”
What is the international date line, and how does it affect Sabbath keepers?
Of course, most people are aware that there is such a line, roughly following 180 degrees longitude, where on one side of the line it is considered to be one day, while on the other side it is already the next day. When you really stop and think about it, you realize that some such line, though necessarily arbitrary in nature, must exist somewhere on the globe if there is to be any kind of uniformity in determining what day it is at any given time and place.
How is the “international date line” determined? Is there some kind of international treaty in place?
Interestingly enough, there is not. The “line,” as we call it, is the result of the collective decisions of the various governmental jurisdictions of the world. There is sufficient agreement among these various entities to form a somewhat convoluted line, but which can nevertheless be drawn on a map.
What theory or convention is being followed, in order to achieve this degree of uniformity?
Well, I find that it is commonly believed, among both the religious and the secular, that Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization. That’s also where the Garden of Eden is considered to have been. So, it would stand to reason that any date line should be somewhere close to halfway around the world from that location. However, the actual international convention for keeping time is a mean time based at an observatory in Greenwich, England. Apparently, this came about just because the English were the first to exert a sufficient global influence. This is what defines 180 degrees longitude, a line which the various governments may or may not follow exactly.
Sabbath keepers have generally not questioned such decisions made by government. However, things can get interesting when one government or another decides to make a change. One could say that the people of any given country used to consider themselves to be in the Far West of the world, but now they will be in the Far East – or vice versa. Independent Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa) is not the first country to make such a change. Many such revisions have been made, from time to time, among the islands of the Pacific. At one time, the date line ran to the east of Alaska. Again, it once ran to the west of the Philippines. In 1892, Samoa made a change. In 2011, the government of independent Samoa decided to reverse the previous move.
All of this begs the question: The Sabbath is holy time. Does any government really have the right to make a decision affecting the observance of God’s holy Sabbath day? We read the following in Genesis 2:3 (NKJV):
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
What is the meaning of the Sabbath blessing of Genesis 2:3?
Here, one is faced with a deeper question. In blessing the seventh day, was God infusing the day itself with a special quality, or was He rather promising to bless those who would observe the seventh day in obedience and sincerity of purpose? The former seems to be an appealing concept to many, but just how is one to picture this in one’s mind? Did this blessing commence in Mesopotamia, spreading at a uniform rate of speed around the circumference of the earth, until it bumped into itself at a line exactly equidistant from its origin? If this were the case, it seems to me that the Sabbath blessing could only be realized by celebrating the day according to an exact comparison of the distance from where one is to the longitude of where the Garden of Eden was, by going either eastward or westward.
What would be the implications of such an approach? Well, for one thing, all generally accepted ideas of what day it is, at any given location, would have to be ignored. From sunset to sunset, one would necessarily end up observing the Sabbath on what the general public is calling Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday! In addition, we Sabbath keepers would have to draw our own Sabbath-keeping “date line,” running straight north and south, and dividing continents, countries, states or provinces, and perhaps even local communities. I write from British Columbia, and I realize that this line would necessarily run somewhere between here and Alaska. Can anyone really believe that this is the way God wants us to honour His holy day? The world would think we were crazy!
Therefore, I cannot escape the conclusion that the promised Sabbath blessing is bestowed on the basis of our willingness to obey and our sincerity of purpose. Hence, I believe that we need to follow the principles of Romans 13, going along with the government as long as they are not asking us to do anything wrong. In a location roughly halfway around the world from the cradle of civilization, could anyone seriously suggest that there are any moral implications (of right and wrong) involved in the decision of whether to consider one’s country to be in the Far West verses the Far East? I think not.
The Samoan Sabbath Dilemma
So, what has actually happened in Samoa, anyway? Following Thursday, December 29, 2011, the independent state of Samoa skipped Friday the 30th and moved directly into Saturday, December 31. The result is that, in this location, what would have been called Saturday, had the change not been enacted, will now be called Sunday. The Samoan government has cited a number of economic and logistical reasons for making the change, but it seems to have thrown the local Sabbath keepers into confusion.
The Seventh-day Adventist church in most of Independent Samoa is administered by the Samoa Mission. However, the Samatau S.D.A. church is not under the Mission’s administration. The Mission administration, after considering the matter, had decided to begin observing Sunday (from sunset to sunset, of course) as the Sabbath. Their stated purpose was to continue observing every seventh day as the Sabbath, regardless of what the general public might call it.2 According to one news article, Samoan S.D.A. ministers were brought in from other countries. These visiting ministers made a presentation, advising the Samoa Mission administration against the decision which they had made – but to no avail. The local leaders were well-intentioned, no doubt, but they could not be persuaded to change their purpose.
The leadership of the Samatau S.D.A. church has decided to continue observing Saturday as the Sabbath, thus achieving unity in their ranks. Within the Samoa Mission, on the other hand, there are many families and individuals who cannot conscientiously go along with the decision of the church leadership to observe what is now Sunday. Thus, confusion has been the result.
It has been urged by some that there may be cultural issues involved, of which we may be unaware. It has been said that this problem needs to be sorted out locally. I can certainly agree that a local solution would be ideal, and I share the hope that this will be achieved over time. Meanwhile, can we leave our Samoan brothers and sisters, who find that they cannot go along with the decision of their church leaders, to struggle along as best they can without any indication of support from the rest of us in the world church?
I hope and pray that they will find this article here, and that they will know that there are others who understand their plight.
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This seems that it is serious dilemma in our church. Some thought the answer is simple. Some thought that it should not be simplified. If music genre and bible versions already divided many of Adventist churches, how much more this would be.
I think issues here are
1. Identity of Samoan church with the community in terms of the day of worship
2. extent of the influence of governments shifting the days especially those that are in the IDL in our sabbath keeping
3. Adventist Pioneers sabbath day legacy when they started the church in Samoa
4. Historical changes in the IDL in that region
5. Continuity of the 7-day cycle and whether God endowed holiness on the physical minutes of the sabbath day based on the original sabbath cycle on eden or it is endowed based on the human knowledge of time.
(i.e. we keep the sabbath not at the same time around the world, but when God rested and blessed that first sabbath during the first Friday sunset in eden, most likely opposite region of earth where the Samoa is still in early morning of Friday)
6. Technicalities regarding division of day in IDL (GMT, original location of Eden)
7. Validity/Acceptability of human sincerity when detailed explanation in the Scriptures are not explicitly stated
in this kind of modern issue
8. The authority of the local conference/union in their territory and the extent power of the worldwide body of believers to define rules for local members
There are many other issues but i think these ones are among prominent.Though its much convenient to stay neutral in this issue, it seems that there is no way one can compromise or be neutral in this kind of issue.
Some questions are needed arise in my mind when I heard this story:
1. Is it possible that the church (local, conference or world church) may decide (whatever decision it is)about this issue today and later found out that what they have made a mistake in that decision and later change it? (Our church leadership and official postions even those that are proclaimed by the highest levels are not infallible, as we can see from our history).
2. If the church leaders or individual are not infallible, must they be obeyed based on the divine Providence that appoint them in that position so that the unity and credibility of our church can be preserved? Or must we respect the freedom of conscience and risk a major division in our church in this issue? (Remember, if we are not careful to have a clearcut explanation in the official decision, opponents of our church can capitalize this issue as an example to prove our inconsistency regarding what we believe)
3. What could be the advised from out late messenger/prophet Ellen G. White had she had been alive she been alive during these days? (Though often times she delivered messages that is cuts our conscience which most of us do not like, how would be well if someone like her can say to us “Thus saith the Lord to the believers in Samoa and to the Adventist church as a whole…)
4. What if this scenario happened not only in Samoa but in the whole world when an international government association like UN or G20 decide to shift the day of the whole world based scientific fact (which obviously would be a fabrication of “scientific data”) or some economic reason? How would we stand?
5. Can I flee to Samoa to avoid persecution when worldwide Sunday law happens and at the same time keep my sabbath with a clear consience?
I admit that I do not know now what should be the correct position of our church in this issue. But what I believe is that God has the corrects answer for these problems and because He love us so much to the extent that He gave his life for us, he would not desire to leave us divided and confuse in this serious issue, especially if all we want is to follow His will. He may just want to show us that despite our century and a half long knowledge regarding the doctrine of Sabbath, we still have many things to learn and still needed to seek diligently again our Scriptures just like our pioneers before us. May God bless our church with the knowledge of God and presence of His spirit.
Dear Laodi,
Thank you for your valuable contribution to this discussion. Much has been said here already, in regard to your 8 points. By way of review, and in the interest of brevity, I’ll just touch on them.
1. On the need to identify with the community, frankly, this issue is huge in the view of a number of commentators.
2. Any government influence over our Sabbath keeping seems to be incidental in this case. The very worst possibility (according to the “official” opinion) would be our observing the 6th day as the Sabbath. Even then, that would not be the false papal Sabbath (i.e. Sunday) against which we must be on guard.
3. I can just imagine our pioneers rolling over in their metaphorical graves, to think that any effort to honour them should lead our people into “Sunday” observance now.
4. A focus on the historical changes in Samoa seems to lead only to confusion, with some saying that the Samoans must now observe “Sunday,” while most (unintentionally) imply that American Samoans should have been observing “Friday” ever since 1892. It appears the only way out of this confusion is to look beyond the history of Samoa and to develop a global perspective.
5, 6. If God has indeed endowed holiness on the physical minutes, we seem to lack any real basis for deciding just what minutes these might be, roughly halfway around the world from Eden. And it seems it may be just as well, as the implementation of our own technically correct “Sabbath-keeping Dateline” could only lead to some highly impractical results, including “Sunday” and/or “Friday” observance in various locations. The only way out of this problem appears to be acceptance of the International Dateline, even if it means adjusting to any changes.
7. Are we asking the right question? Rather than ask whether God will accept our sincerity, perhaps we should be asking how we can honour His name before the world. Even if the Scriptures offer no detailed explanations of Sabbath keeping on a round world, we still have the words of Christ that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Shouldn’t this settle the matter?
8. It appears that those who differ with the mission leadership on this issue are motivated by deep personal convictions, seemingly supported by the facts.
I like your 5 questions.
1) Many are praying for just such a change.
2) As I see it, we Adventists have always given freedom of conscience the highest priority. I guess we just never thought that it would come to this.
3) The inspired counsel of Ellen White (as I see it) was always of a practical nature. So, I think that we may safely assume that she would be against any impractical solutions.
4) Clearly, having the whole world’s day shifted would be a very different matter from what we are facing now. For our Samoan brothers and sisters, accepting the present change only means observing the Sabbath along with our New Zealand believers, in a cycle unbroken since creation, just as they have been doing heretofore with our believers in Hawaii and in American Samoa.
5) “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?”
Now, here’s a good question! Does anyone have an answer?
(Moderator, please add brevity to your rules. The comments are too long.)
LEAP YEAR! United States and others observe leap year every 4 years. One whole day is added to the end of February every 4 years. Are United States citizens in violation of the Sabbath?
Unfortunately, this has been made too difficult. Any country recognizing the Gregorian calendar should observe Saturday, the 7th day, as Sabbath.
I’m sorry [edited] but your leap year theory doesn’t hold water because you don’t have double days or skip a day. The weekly cycle stays intact and only the number of the day changes just like it does for all months whether they have 28, 29, 30 or 31 days. It doesn’t matter what the number is you still have 7 day weeks.
I am hoping to get a very clean,clear view on the Samoan Sabbath Sunday situation.
I do not understand the fact regarding the time factor. Can some one make it clear so I’ll be able to do same to others that are now in my position.
Dear Junior,
Yes, my article “The Samoan Sabbath Dilemma” is available here, with some 100 comments following, some of them mine.
In a nutshell, I’d have to say that there doesn’t seem to be any practical value in looking for some kind of “technically correct” solution that doesn’t make any common sense. The International Dateline is necessarily man-made and arbitrary anyway.
Why do we exist as a denomination? Are we here to live for ourselves, or to meet the arcane requirements that some might try to attach to God’s law? No, I believe that we must observe whatever the general public regards as the 7th day of the week, within reason, for the sake of our public testimony, if for nothing else. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
This would mean that our Samoan brothers and sisters need to make the adjustment, accepting a one-time 6-day week, and (yes) breaking their own local weekly cycle.
I believe that this should be no problem for them, because the global weekly cycle will remain unbroken, as it has since creation. They just need to begin celebrating the Sabbath day with their New Zealand brothers and sisters, instead of being on the same day as American Samoa, as heretofore.
I hope that this can be of help to you.
R. G. White,
Could you please refer me to the article that said “the Samatau S.D.A. church is not under the Mission’s administration?”
The Samatau church is under the Samoa Mission administration, but members of the Samatau church are led by Elders Puni Raea & Sioeli Puni. The second church group to support the Samatau stance are members from the Immanuel church, now worshiping on Mt. Vaea. They are well supported by ministers & church members in N. Z., Australia, the U. S. A. & other parts of the globe, who are now worshiping on Saturday (the Seventh Day of the week).
[edited by moderator]
Dear Jenkins,
I have reviewed the article in question, and it did not actually state that the Samatau church is not under the Mission administration. I had thought that this was implied in the article, so it was my misunderstanding. Thank you for clearing this up. I apologise for the error, and I shall try to be more careful next time.
Thank you for the valuable information. May God bless you in your endeavours.
RG White
No worries its just a typing error.
You are doing a great ministry.
I could explain it, but I think it’s far less important than it is made out to be. I have heard people labour under many misconceptions–but this is usually as a result of many things; not the least of which is a lack of basic knowledge about things like time zones, the international dateline, the definition of a day etc.
Basically, Samoa has jumped over the international dateline from the “American” side to the “Australian” side in order to align with Australia–their biggest trading partner.
Jesus kept the Sabbath in Israel on the correct day. On the approximate opposite side of earth at the dateline (imagine it was there then), those on the west side would have started sabbath a few hours before Jesus, while those on the east side, a few hours after. To cross the dateline requires a one off 6 or 8 day week depending on the direction travelled. Samoans who now keep sunday as the 7th day, if they could afford the airfare, could board a plane and travel east around the world and would arrive home and find Saturday as the 7th day. Please accept the one off 6 day week and keep the day before the sunday keepers.
{This comment has been moved from The Origin of the Sabbath and the 7-Day Week]
Thank you Sean Pitmen for the insight of this posting. I was wondering within the context of this subject of the 7day cycle, how the Samoa change of time zone should be considered. The Samoan government for economic reasons, aligned the Samoa timezone to regional countries, Australia, New Zealand etc. The change was made on the Friday that resulted with the Saturday being eliminated and the new 7day cycle starting on the Sunday. Some 7th Day Adventists chose to remain with the old 7day cycle, thus now worshiping on Sunday, along with all other Sunday worshipping religions and others aligned their week with the (new) time zone change and remained worshiping on the Saturday.
I travel frequently for my work and I am subject to time zone changes and wherever I am, I worship on the Sabbath according to the timezone I am in. In some instances, if I travel from the Southern to Northern Hemisphere, I am blessed to enjoy 2 Sabbaths back to back in the same week and if I am traveling from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, I will miss a Sabbath, leaving my destination on Friday and arriving on at the next point, on Sunday.
It is a dilemma for the Samoan 7th Day Adventists brethren, in that it has split the Church into two groups and in the case of those that have chosen to remain on the old 7day cycle and now worshipping on Sunday, the point of differentiation is now lost.
I would be grateful for your insight and point of view on this (unfortunate) situation that has impacted the Samoan 7th Day Adventist community.
Thank you, Ian Letele
Talofa Ian & All
Ian’s dad the late High Chief Leiataua Letele was an elder & great man of God in NZ & Australia who served together with my Dad ,his younger brothers Dave & Lei are true warriors for God at our local church Calvary Community church.
You are right our point of difference is now lost & our fathers who came from Sunday church families & have to endure so much becos of accepting the Seventh Day Sabbath witness has come to nothing as the church is now keeping Sunday.
I think that the way we have traditionally presented and sought to preserve the Sabbath has a lot to do with this current dilemma we face.
Interestingly enough, this is apparently the second time Samoa has jumped the Dateline, and thus, strictly speaking, they are back where they were when the dateline was originally set.
As long as the Sabbath’s purpose remains overwhelmingly a “test of obedience”, our relationship towards it will be marred. I think we have badly erred in this regard–and for this reason alone I am wary of another (well-meaning) article on this site which seeks to talk about “circaseptian” rhythms.
I think all this is badly misguided.
On a related note, I wonder indeed if we can move to Samoa when the Sunday Laws come–and keep Sabbath on Sunday? (Not trying to make a point, it was just an interesting observation.)
H’mm… Andrew, if the devil and his followers can’t tell the difference between a Sunday keeper and a Sabbath keeper, maybe Jesus won’t make a difference either?
After all, Jesus said, “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.” Matt. 10:32 NKJV
Food for thought, don’t you think?
Jerusalem’s longitude is 35 degrees east. If the date line were 180 degrees west of Jerusalem it would be at longitude 145 west. Samoa is at longitude 173 west so the recent change puts it on the correct side of the “Jerusalem date line”. The same argument holds if you use the Garden of Eden at longitude 45 east and a date line at 135 west. In any case it is better to worship on what the locals call Saturday.
Some readers seem to fear that the government (whichever one that might be) is going to change Sunday for the Sabbath. It is my understanding from past blue laws and other legislation dealing with Sunday that the intent of those laws was to stop non-religious activity on Sunday. Eventually I can see it extending to prohibiting worship on the Sabbath but that has not been the obvious intent up to this point in time.
As Seventh-day Adventists we do have a most valuable legacy that we inherited from our pioneers…
Our one creed – and none other – is this: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17
When that is our conviction, then we will soon realize that whenever we have an unsolved problem of any consequence, then we should know that “We Do Not Go Deep Enough…” {1 SM 415.3 – 416.2} That is, not deep enough in our individual and collective studies of the Holy Scriptures.
As the very sensible saying goes: “When everything else fails, read the instructions…”
Yes, I know, the word IDL etc. is not found within the Bible as such, now is it?
Yet, isn’t it true that God’s throne is very exactly defined in the Scriptures? Or isn’t it true that the Ark of the Covenant is the throne of God? Cf. Rev 7:15 & Ex 25:22? And isn’t God’s throne to be for ever our chief reference?!!!
God’s instructions to Moses re the Sanctuary and re all of its contents, that is, including also the Ark of the Covenant were clear: Those items were not to be fixed to one geographical location once and for all!
God Himself is to remain the One God at the head of His People. As Jesus said: “I Am, the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6.
Clearly we do not know how far, or in what direction, the ark of Noah traveled during the year of the Flood. It could have circumnavigated our planet… But it does not matter… We are not left without one certain reference of God’s own time: The ark of Noah is provided for us in the Holy Scriptures as our one and only reference of time and place throughout that gigantic world wide natural catastrophe.
The same pertain to the events tied to the Exodus and throughout the forty years in the desert before entering the Promised land. Our reference remains the one throne of God – a movable item not fixed to one geographical point.
Yet, there is one most important question: “Where is the Ark or the Covenant? Where is it located presently?”
The General Conference Research Committee of 1939 did a very valuable study from which we may retain many a valuable lesson. One thing that it taught me, was that without one certain location on Earth being used for a time reference, there can be no sensible lunar month reckoning, that is, such as constitutes Scriptural reckoning of time. The New Moon first becomes visible anywhere around the periphery of our planet, and in consequence of that fact, it is easy to see that the first visibility of the New Moon must be tied to one certain locality or there will soon be total confusion on a world wide scale. The 1939 committee made it clear also that a certain field near Jerusalem was being used for determining the stage of ripening of the barley and thus of Month #1 of the Scripture year.
Thus it seems clear to me that the Ark of the Covenant was designed for being a chief reference for our Creator’s own calendar, and for His reckoning of time.
I believe it is high time for God’s People to begin praying for God to reveal the true whereabouts of His chief reference. That is, so far as time upon this Earth is concerned…
Many are taking for granted that the the Ark of the Covenant is still located somewhere close to Jerusalem. Yet, the Jews in Ethiopia are claiming that it is being held at Axum in Eritrea and that it has been in Ethiopia for the last 1,600 years… (Cf. Graham Hancock’s book The Sign and the Seal. Besides that there are numerous claims from all around the Earth that the Ark of the Covenant has been moved to any number of other places…) To me the best available current evidence point to Axum, but Jerusalem is a close runner up. No matter, the two of them are located on much the same longitude.
Thus, to me, the recent move of the Samoan IDL is a move that finds support from the one Scripture reference re the reckoning of God’s time and calendar. Thus the pre-1892 and the post-2011 IDL finds the best Scriptural support currently available. To me, that constitutes ‘the present truth.’
Yet, I find it of utmost importance to emphasize also that neither am I, nor anyone else among men or nations, authorized to trespass upon the supreme authority of any other family unit. For what authority, besides God Himself, is ever designed or created by God, but the authority of the family unit. How else would ever any family have any reasonable chance to stay together? Or, isn’t it true that the basis of the family is the “male and female” created in the very image of our Creator? Cf. Gen 1:27 and Gen 3:16!
Thus, I believe the final decision must always be left to each family to make for themselves. We are to honor and respect one another in spite of our differences.
Indeed, how could we ever have a true and fruitful dialog, such as this one, leading us ever closer to the ultimate truth re the IDL of Samoa without being allowed the freedom to openly share each our various points of view?!!!
Think about it! Selah!