Seventh-day Adventist Church of Tonga
| Seventh-day Adventist Church of Tonga | |
|---|---|
Main church of Seventh-day Adventists in Nukuʻalofa, Tonga
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| 21°11′42″S 175°10′35″W / 21.195093°S 175.176341°WCoordinates: 21°11′42″S 175°10′35″W / 21.195093°S 175.176341°W | |
| Country | Tonga |
| Denomination | Seventh-day Adventist |
| History | |
| Founded | 1895 |
| Founder(s) | Edward Hilliard |
The Seventh-day Adventist Church of Tonga, or SDA of Tonga, (Tongan: Siasi ʻAhofitu) is one of the smaller religious groups in the South Pacific island state of Tonga, started by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries from the United States who visited in 1891 and settled in 1895. They set up schools but made very little progress in conversion, handicapped by dietary rules that prohibited popular local foods such as pork and shellfish, and that also banned tobacco, alcohol and kava.
The church was revitalized in 1912 with renewed emphasis on evangelism. In 1922 it resumed its strategy of providing education, which resulted in an increase in conversions. After keeping a low profile during World War II (1939–45), the church grew quickly from 1950 to the 1970s. However, membership subsequently declined due to emigration and competition with other churches. The SDA of Tonga is part of the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists. It operates several schools in Tonga, and provides opportunities for further studies at Adventist institutions abroad.
Tonga lies to the east of the 180° meridian but to the west of the International Date Line (IDL), in the time zone UTC+13:00. Seventh-day Adventists typically observe the Sabbath on Saturday. The SDA church in Tonga determines the Sabbath as if the IDL ran along the 180° meridian and the time zone were UTC−12:00, so observes the Sabbath on the day that is officially Sunday.
The Seventh-day Adventist church in Tonga took almost twenty years to become established. The SDA is against dancing, and smoking is grounds for being expelled from the church. The SDA is stricter than other churches in observing the Sabbath. In the early years the insistence on eating only "clean" foods and abstaining from tobacco and alcohol were obstacles to conversion. Their refusal to eat pork or shellfish meant they could not eat at feasts or in the presence of chiefs, and therefore could not actively evangelize. The use of kava was a double problem, since this widely used drug was seen as akin to alcohol, and also had ceremonial and traditional religious connotations, but to refuse a cup of kava is to insult the giver.
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