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Revival, Caribbean Style: the Case of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Grenada, 1983–2004
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
In 1993, commenting on the changing proportion of Christians in the major regions of the world, John V. Taylor (1914–2001), a past General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society (1963–74) and later Anglican bishop of Winchester (1975–85), wrote:
The most striking fact to emerge … is the speed with which the number of Christian adherents in Latin America, Africa, and Asia has overtaken that of Europe, North America, and the former USSR. For the first time since the seventh century, when there were large Nestorian and Syrian churches in parts of Asia, the majority of Christians in the world are not of European origin Moreover, this swing to the ‘South’ has, it would seem, only just got going, since the birth rate in those regions is at present so much higher than in the developed ‘North’, and lapses from religion are almost negligible compared with Europe. By the middle of the next century, therefore, Christianity as a world religion will patently have its centre of gravity in the Equatorial and Southern latitudes, and every major denomination, except possibly the Orthodox Church, will be bound to regard those areas as its heartlands, and embody that fact in its administration.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 44: Revival and Resurgence in Christian History , 2008 , pp. 388 - 401
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2008
References
1 Taylor, John V., ‘The Future of Christianity’, in McManners, John, ed., The Oxford History of Christianity (Oxford, 1993), 651 and 653 Google Scholar.
2 Jenkins, , The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002), 89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See Aikman, David, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC, 2003)Google Scholar; Escobar, Samuel, A Time for Mission: the Challenge for Global Christianity (Leicester, 2003)Google Scholar; and Sanneh, Lamin O., Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003)Google Scholar.
4 The following are examples: ‘Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity’ in March 2004, sponsored by the Center for Free Inquiry at Hanover College, Indiana; the G. Arthur Keogh Lectures in April 2005, given by Jenkins at Columbia Union College, Maryland; the Pruit Symposium ‘Global Christianity: Challenging Modernity and the West’ in November 2005, held at Baylor University, Texas.
5 Jenkins, , Next Christendom, 220 Google Scholar.
6 Ibid., 172–5. See also Brian Murphy, ‘Christianity’s Second Wave? – Close Up’, The Seattle Times, 26 March 2006, A3 and A14.
7 Using David Bebbington’s definition, the Church is evangelical – Seventh-day Adventists emphasize conversion, Christ’s atonement is central to their theology, they respect the text of the Bible, and expect members to be active in evangelism – but, like Jenkins’s description of Southern Christianity, much of Seventh-day Adventist theology has an apocalyptic bent. See Bebbington, ‘Evangelicalism in Its Settings: the British and American Movements since 1940’, in Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk, eds, Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1900 (Oxford, 1994), 366–7 and 381 and Jenkins, 217–20. Useful sources on the early history and theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are: Numbers, Ronald L. and Butler, Jonathan M., eds, The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century (Indianapolis, IN, 1987)Google Scholar; Schwarz, Richard W. and Greenleaf, Floyd, Light Bearers: a History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (rev., Nampa, ID, 2000)Google Scholar; Bull, Malcolm and Lockhart, Keith, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (2nd edn, Bloomington, IN, 2006)Google Scholar; Francis, Keith A., ‘Adventists Discover the Seventh-day Sabbath: How to Deal with the Jewish “Problem”’, in Wood, Diana, ed., Christianity and Judaism, SCH 29 (Oxford, 1992), 373–8 Google Scholar.
8 See Hoekema, Anthony A., The Four Major Cults (Grand Rapids, MI, 1963), 89–169 Google Scholar; Talbot, Louis T., What’s Wrong with Seventh-day Adventism? (Findlay, OH, 1956)Google Scholar; Baalen, Jan K. Van, The Chaos of the Cults: a Study of Present-Day Isms (Grand Rapids, MI, 1956), 204–30 Google Scholar.
9 Noll, Mark A., A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, MI, 1992), 465–6 Google Scholar. For a list of characteristics which suggest the Seventh-day Adventist Church is part of mainstream Protestantism, see Marsden, George M., ‘Defining American Fundamentalism’, in Cohen, Norman J., ed., The Fundamentalist Phenomenon (Grand Rapids, MI, 1990), 22–37 Google Scholar.
10 See Table 1. There are more than a billion Catholics.
11 London is 620 square miles and Cardiff is 54 square miles.
12 See Table 2.
13 See Tables 2 and 3.
14 The term West Indian is generally used by peoples in the Caribbean islands to refer to those islands which were former British colonies. Cuba is not usually referred to as West Indian.
15 The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in April 1961 was not an official invasion by the United States.
16 Steele, Beverley A., Grenada: a History of Its People (Oxford, 1983), 342–4 Google Scholar.
17 Apart from Steele’s book, the best history of Grenada prior to 1983 is Brizan’s, George Grenada: bland of Conflict (London, 1998)Google Scholar. The best histories of Grenada in the years just prior and after 1983 include: Payne, Anthony, Sutton, Paul, and Thorndyke, Tony, Grenada – Revolution and Invasion (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Sandford, Gregory and Vigilante, Richard, Grenada: the Untold Story (London, 1984)Google Scholar; and Gentle, Eileen, Before the Sunset (Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que., 1989)Google Scholar.
18 The headquarters of the Church was in Washington, D.C. then and is in Silver Spring, Maryland now.
19 See Table 1.
20 Office of Archives and Statistics, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, Maryland, 142nd Annual Statistical Report – 2004, 18, 20 and 22. For Inter-America, the increase in membership represented the maintenance of same percentage of Seventh-day Adventists as compared to the Church in the rest of the world: 18.71% in 1983 and 18.12% in 2004. In North America the increase in membership reflected a drop in the percentage: 15.94% in 1983 and 7.22% in 2004.
21 Rogoziñski, Jan, A Brief History of the Caribbean: from the Arawak and Carib to the Present (rev. edn, New York, 2000), 359 Google Scholar; and Titus, Noel, ‘Our Caribbean Reality (1)’, in Gregory, Howard, ed., Caribbean Theology: Preparing for the Challenges Ahead (Kingston, Jamaica, 1995), 60 Google Scholar.
22 There is a strong strain of anti-Catholicism in Seventh-day Adventist theology; see Damsteegt, P. Gerard, Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI, 1977), 179–213 Google Scholar. Interestingly, in the oral interviews the author conducted, antipathy toward Catholicism was not mentioned as a motivating factor for new converts from the Roman Catholic Church nor by Seventh-day Adventists trying to convert Roman Catholics.
23 Elwell, Walter A., ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Basingstoke, 1985), 948 Google Scholar.
24 Telfer Garcia, interview by author, 5 January 2004, Mt Nesbit, Grenada, tape recording, Baylor University Oral History Institute, Waco, Texas (hereafter: BUOHI).
25 Clinton Lewis, President of the Grenada Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, interview by author, 5 January 2004, Grenville, Grenada, tape recording, BUOHI and Emmanuel Francis, interview by author, 6 January 2004, Mt Nesbit, Grenada.
26 See Seabury, Paul and McDougall, Walter A., The Grenada Papers (San Francisco, CA, 1984), 136 Google Scholar and Secretaria Status Rationarum Generale Ecclesiae, Statistical Yearbook of the Church 1996 (Città del Vaticano, 1998), 36 Google Scholar.
27 A mission is the smallest unit of administration in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A Mission can act independently of other administrative units in the Church – for example, institute policies specific to itself-but its officers are elected by the next largest administrative body, usually a Conference or a Division. See ‘Mission’, in Neufeld, Don F., ed., Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia (rev. edn, Washington, DC, 1976), 907 Google Scholar.
28 See Seabury and McDougall, Grenada Papers, 128–49 and Clinton Lewis, interview by author, 5 January 2004.
29 See Table 2.
30 Joseph Bowen, pastor, interview by author, 1 January 2004, Mt Granby, Grenada, tape recording, BUOHI.
31 Joan Britton, interview by author, 31 December 2003, Hermitage, Grenada, tape recording, BUOHI and Agnes Francis, interview by author, 6 January 2004, Mt Nesbit, Grenada.
32 See Table 2.
33 Fred Francis, interview by author, 6 January 2004, Industry, Grenada, tape recording, BUOHI.
34 Clinton Lewis, interview by author, 5 January 2004.
35 David Sinclair, interview by author, 4 January 2004, Mt. Nesbit, Grenada, tape recording, BUOHI.
36 Stark, , The Rise of Christianity: a Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, Nf, 1996), 177–9 Google Scholar.
37 Unless stated otherwise, statistical information in the tables is taken from: Office of Archives and Statistics, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Washington, DC, Annual Statistical Reports, 1983–1987 and Office of Archives and Statistics, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, Maryland, 126th-142nd Annual Statistical Reports, 1988–2004.
38 This figure includes members who died, were dropped from local church membership records, or sent letters asking for their membership to be removed. In the latter case, they might be attending another Seventh-day Adventist Church in Grenada or another country, or had left the Church entirely. Internal membership transfers are the reason why the membership at the end of a given year is not simply a combination of the additions and subtractions during the year plus the previous year’s membership.
39 Includes three companies.
40 Includes seventy-seven members added by letter; that is, transferring their membership from one church to another – probably another country in most cases.
41 Includes six companies.
42 Includes 162 members added by letter.
43 Includes three companies.
44 Includes four companies.
45 Includes two companies.
46 Includes four companies.
47 Includes three companies.
48 Includes four companies.
49 Population statistics taken from: Central Statistical Office, Ministry of Finance, Grenada, , Annual Abstract of Statistics 1991 (St George’s, Grenada, 1992), 10 Google Scholar; Statistics Division, Ministry of Finance, Grenada, , Vital Statistics Report 1998 (St George’s, Grenada, 1999), 8 Google Scholar; Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, 2000 Demographic Yearbook (New York, 2002), 144 Google Scholar; Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, Statistical Yearbook 2002–2004 (New York, 2005), 34 Google Scholar. Statistics based on mid-year population estimates except in the census years 1991 and 2001.