Unethical SDA Proselytization
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"[C]ontributors not only have no choice but quite generally do not even know they are contributing. It is sometimes urged that in a democracy taxpayers do have a choice, which restores the moral element to foreign aid. This objection is superficial. The taxpayer has to contribute to foreign aid whether he likes it or not and whether he has voted in its favor or against it." Sir Peter Bauer in Dissent on Development, 1972 In the past ten years, the bulk of the Seventh Day Adventist Church's Conversion Efforts in many developing regions overseas appears to be connected to offering material inducements in the form of US taxpayer-supported humanitarian AID to the local people found in these regions. Although the Seventh Day Adventist Church in many of its media organs has touted these mission efforts as the greatest achievement of its denomination as of late, the signs are that in many instances, these efforts are proving to be the greatest barrier to the spread of a genuine Christian Faith. When conversions to the Adventist Church are won in connection with material inducements to local peoples, how can one be sure if Adventist recruits are not in the Church for the material, economic, and political benefits they expect to derive from the church rather than due to a true, genuine conversion experience to Christianity? Does not the Seventh Day Adventist Church's primary means and methods of gaining the majority of its recruits breed a spirit of "insincerity", a spirit of "manipulation" and exploitation of others for one's own gain, within the Church? In addition to the matter of the Adventist Church's mixing its self- ascribed humanitarian relief efforts with proselytization, why does the Adventist Church focus the majority of its humanitarian efforts overseas at the expense of local North American communities in need in an "all or none" approach? Why does the Church encourage the paradigm that the essence of ethical living is for so-called humanitarians to neglect, ignore, sideline, and even belittlle the humanitarian needs and concerns of local communities here, in North America? The overseas emphasis of the Adventist Church's relief efforts does beg the question as to whether or not the Adventist Church has sought to be an "arm of American foreign policy" of recent previous presidential administrations.
