St. Louis, We Have a Problem! Will denied visas and travel bans keep delegates away?
by Admiral Ncube | 5 June 2025 |
Sometime early this year, a friend of mine told me that he had been nominated to be a delegate at the 62nd General Conference Session in St Louis. He was excited!
However, a few days ago when I talked to him, he was distraught. He had done all the work to pull together the necessary documents, only to have the United States Embassy issue a blunt denial of his visa.
I checked with other friends across the African continent who were meant to be delegates, and heard similar stories.
Unfortunately, it appears that this time around, the General Conference hasn’t planned a hybrid format, with delegates able to join on video conference platforms. Out of desperation, the conference where I live in Botswana has circulated a letter inviting members who already have valid United States visas to be delegates. Other conferences have asked members who are already visiting or resident in the United States to take their places.
Then yesterday (Wednesday) the president of the United States signed an executive order banning travel from Afghanistan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, the Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Visa restrictions are in place for Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. And it appears that in some places, visas are being refused even without a specific executive order.
(Update: the latest report as of Friday evening is that of 2,809 delegates, 158 have yet to obtain a United States visa.)
In addition, a number of countries have issued various kinds of travel advisories or cautions to their citizens about traveling to the United States. These include Denmark, Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Norway, Portugal, and New Zealand. It isn’t yet clear if this will affect delegates’ willingness to attend.
An American church?
Despite increasing reports of visa denials and frightened travelers, the General Conference appears to think that the session will run as planned. This could mean a reduced number of delegates or leaders having to make do with poorly prepared or disengaged delegates.
Which brings to the fore the often-avoided discussion of the format and hosting of these sessions. Adventists on my continent are already expressing their dissatisfaction with the Americanness of Adventist theology, eschatology, and liturgy—and now their concern has extended to questions about the hosting of these sessions in the United States, a country that may no longer be accessible to us.
The arguments about not hosting the session outside the United States are usually centered on facilities and infrastructure to accommodate the delegates. But with improvements in technology, infrastructure, and flight connectivity, the cost of hosting has been reduced in many countries—and in some cases it might even be done more cheaply than in the United States.
Is it not time that delegates from the western world get to appreciate Adventism in areas where it is enjoying the largest following? What is so special about this meeting that it must be confined to one country, for a church with over 70% of her members in the global south?
It appears to many of us here that hosting the session in the United States is more of a political statement than a practical one. Among the younger generation here in Africa, there is a notion that what we call traditional Adventism is nothing more than gatekeeping for 19th-century American traditions and attitudes.
If reports of visa denials continue to worsen, then a decision should be made soon to have a hybrid session with a revised agenda. And perhaps this would provide the impetus for the General Conference implement a rotational format among divisions, prioritizing countries that are more accessible and with adequate infrastructure. If the Adventist Church belongs to everyone, then pragmatism should triumph over tradition.
The agenda
The agenda is, as usual, heavy with departmental reports, revisions to the Church Manual, the formal admission of new unions, and elections.
Interestingly, the agenda has an item on policy issues scheduled for a number of days—but with little detail (beyond some constitution and bylaws changes) about the actual issues under discussion. How do church judicatories select and prepare delegates for substantive input when the real issues in the agenda are so indistinct?
It’s no wonder that we see noticeable absenteeism—or disengagement—among delegates on some of the important policy level discussions. If there is nothing more substantial than wording changes, why are we doing an expensive 10-day meeting? Perhaps we are merely exposing our love for rules: refining existing rules, and creating new ones to protect the ones we have created already, all to disguise a lack of substance.
As for changing the wording of documents, it seems to me there are cost-effective ways to do revisions without dragging delegates to the other side of the world just to vote without much interest or engagement.
Strategic issues and strategic people
While it is important to celebrate Adventism in a gathering like this, I wish we could get more direct engagement on strategic issues affecting the church. I would suggest side groups of strategic topics, taking on issues such as urban mission, theology, stewardship, governance, health ministry, etc., whose recommendations can be offered to policy-making bodies of the church, and even to the session itself.
To leave such issues to structures dominated by church workers robs the church of the rich expertise and wisdom of the laity. If members only exist to vote and endorse an agenda that has been crafted by church executives, then why should we be interested? And where are the women and young people? How do we start engaging young people in decision-making processes in the church? Can we not simplify the parliamentary procedures to be able to accommodate a diversity of delegates?
Perhaps this also helps to explain why even in the elections of leaders, it seems like the nominees are preselected, with little room for surprise candidates. Then, when the General Conference president is elected, the first thing that happens is that he joins the nominating committee to start handpicking his preferred team. He seems to be saying that the same Holy Spirit that picked me now needs my assistance in selecting the rest of the team!
And with the nominating committee largely church workers, the whole election becomes performative: church workers selecting the best bosses for themselves.
Do lay people matter?
Let us confront church executives with this question: is there a space for educated lay members to contribute to the church they love, beyond parroting slogans and blindly oiling the bureaucratic machinery? Is there room for substantive discussions of a strategic nature? Can we do these meetings without moving everyone from the world into an American culture space?
My call is for a candid conversation on the location and format of the General Conference Session, to make the highest decision-making body of the Adventist Church better represent the global church. In a world where conditions have drastically changed, the current format is no longer fit for the purpose. It is expensive, increasingly impractical, and too complex.
We can do better.
Admiral Ncube (PhD) is from Zimbabwe. He is a development analyst based in Botswana. He is a father of three and husband to Margret.
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