The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Military Service in the South Pacific

Abstract

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in the South Pacific region has been fortunate that issues of military service have been relatively few and that national governments in the region have been prepared to work cooperatively with the Church on practical solutions that have met the needs of governments while respecting the SDA stand on noncombatancy. Both Australia and New Zealand have had various forms of compulsory military training over a number of decades of the twentieth century, and even conscription at times. The Church’s regional governing body (initially the Australasian Union Conference [AUC], later the Australasian Division [AD], then South Pacific Division [SPD]), after initial problems in finding a consensus position among its members, was able to negotiate an understanding whereby SDAs served in noncombatant roles, which permitted SDA young men to serve their country in ways that did not violate the stance of the Church, even during the crises of wars. In more recent times governments of Pacific nations with military forces either have purely voluntary armed services or have also made provision for conscientious objectors. Perhaps the most difficult circumstances were for nationals of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands who were put to forced labor by Allied forces during World War II and who were most at risk of having their principles disregarded.