Immigration and Evangelism in the British Union of Seventh-day Adventists

Immigration and its influence upon host nations present many vexing questions with both positive and problematic consequences. This is applicable to the immigrants as well as the host population. It is a fitting subject for a detailed and objective analysis of how it has worked out in the British Isles and Ireland in the past fifty years. This period has seen a totally indigenous White church transformed into an almost wholly immigrant church. In the mid-1950s the British Union Conference membership was approximately 7,500 of which only a handful were non-indigenous. Incidentally, the worldwide membership of the church which also reached its one million mark in the mid-1950s was also largely composed of White members. The majority of these lived in the United States. Today, the Adventist Church worldwide and the British Church is mainly non-White. This development is a source of perplexity and joy to church leaders and members for a variety of reasons. Not the least of these is the lack of effective evangelism in the Western world. What follows relates to the situation of the church in the United Kingdom. The time provided to write this article did not allow for extended research. Nevertheless the following is factually relevant to the present time