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Samoa’s decision to shift to the other side of the dateline at the beginning of 2012 has caused division in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Samoa.
The Seventh Day Adventist administrators in Samoa decided to keep an unbroken cycle of seven days with the seventh day being Sabbath.
The first week after the nation changed to the other side of the dateline led to a six day week. The church leaders judged that the following Sunday was, therefore the seventh day and so they decided keep the Sabbath on Sunday in the future.
However not everyone agrees with keeping the Sabbath on Sunday. More and more members in Samoa are now returning to keeping the Sabbath on Saturday. They say it is a theological issue, not an anthropological or sociological one and the change brought about by the issue of the dateline does not affect the theology.
Elder Ted Wilson, General Conference President of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church, has confirmed receiving a submission from members in Samoa against the the local church administrators’ decision to keep the Sabbath on Sunday.
The submission, including letters from Fasitootai, Leauva’a, Saleimoa, Kosena in Matatufu and Solaua, are all requesting the head office of the SDA church in the world to thoroughly study the Sabbath situation in Samoa, and reverse the action of the local administration so that members in Samoa continue to observe the seventh-day Sabbath on Saturday together with the rest of the Church globally.
Source
- Voxy.co.nz
- Scoop.co.nz
- Image: Record
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News category: Asia Pacific.
