British Court Protects Religious Right of an Adventist Couple to Abstain from Computers, Cell Phones
by Monte Sahlin
Adventist Today News Team, October 24, 2013
Graham and Abigail Blackburn are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the United Kingdom who believe that the Bible instructs them to refrain from contact with television, computers, cell phones and other high-tech media. They make their living as beekeepers in rural Cornwall.
The gathering and sale of honey involves certain taxes which Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) requires be conveyed to the government electronically. The Blackburn's appealed this requirement on the grounds of their religious beliefs which are protected by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They told the court that "the Bible, which provides their only creed, told them to shun contact with all [electronic] devices," according to The Independent, a newspaper in England. "Blackburn argued that screens 'blinded the minds of non-believers' and that people were so pre-occupied with gadgets that they did not have time for religion." And stated the couple wanted "to keep 'bad content' away from their children."
Blackburn stated that as a matter of conscience he could not go to a public library and enter his tax return from a computer there nor allow someone else to do it for him. He told the court that he was willing to close down his business if necessary.
Attorneys representing the government stated that "the decision not to use a computer was a personal preference rather than integrated into the [Adventist] religious faith, arguing that the Seventh-day Adventist Church maintained its own website." In fact, it would be difficult to find anything in Adventist theology to support such a practice.
Pastor Victor Hulbert, communication director for the denomination's British Union Conference, told the newspaper that church members do use the Internet and related technology. The Blackburn's "have a valid point of view although they are probably the exception within the Church," he stated. Adventists are taught to "live modestly, rejecting alcohol, tobacco and often meat," the newspaper reported.
"This is a belief that would be more akin to the Amish or very conservative types of Mennonites," an Adventist scholar who studies contemporary religions told Adventist Today. "Although, in the early decades of television there were many Adventist families in America who refused to have TV sets in their homes because of their fear of exposing their children to popular culture."
In what The Independent said was "a test case" that "could prove to be a landmark ruling," Judge Barbara Mosedale ruled that HMRC must exempt the Blackburns from the requirement to file their taxes on-line. "I find that, by entirely shunning computers, the Blackburns considered they were acting, as the Bible required them to do, in accordance with their religious conscience. They were manifesting their religious beliefs by refusing to use computers," and these are protected by law. Government lawyers are likely to appeal.
There are about 250 Seventh-day Adventist churches in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It is estimated that there are a total of 35,000 adherents. The offices of the Trans-European Division of the General Conference are located in England, as is Newbold College and Stanborough Press.
Good luck with keeping their children free from electronic media.
The Adventist church should not be involved in any lawsuit such as this. This is a very personal belief that should not be associated with Adventists and it would only tarnish the church's representation if they were to try to enter the suit.
What a wonderful witness!
Now the majority of Brits who have never heard of SDAs will know we do not believe in cell phones or computers or the Internet. Until they do a Google search and find Atoday – then they will know that liberal Adventists rebel by using the Internet 8-).
I am reminded of a colleague early in my career whose only previous knowledge of SDAs came from one prior encounter where said SDA did not eat chicken, leading my friend to assume that eating chicken was against our religion. He learned a lot about SDAs from me and I learned a lot about Catholics in general and about Jesuit scholars from him. We became very good friends. One time we invited him and his boys to our house for dinner. Being a good single dad he had coached them in advance to be polite even if they did not like our strange food. They were surprised that vegetarian lasagna (with real cheese) tasted so good that his teenage boys asked for seconds.
Seriously, I hope that Victor Hulbert's quote does not get edited from the BBC sound bites.
Sometimes decisions of personal concience take matters from the practical to the nonsensical, so I fear the decision of this family may cause the church to be viewed negatively and even with ridicule. At the same time, government needs to be tolerant of conscience and allow for variations such as the decision this family has made.
If you want an example of a faith group that has historically shunned modern conveniences and technologies, consider the Amish. Several years ago I was in northeastern Indiana in Amish country and found a rather surprising sight. As you drive through the area you will pass stately farms with expansive fields that are worked using horse-drawn equipment and homes lit using candles and kerosene lamps. Occasionally you will also find Amish-owned industries that have electric power and telephone lines running to them and a hitching rail outside the front door! When I inquired of an Amish merchant at the flea market in Shipshewanna, he told me thay had been given special permission because doing that allowed the industries to compete and be more profitable. When I checked, I found that you could order Amish-made custom cabinets and furniture on their websites!
So much for shunning technology.
Their beliefs are probably based in the command “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you” (1 John 2:15), along with EGW's book called “Country Living.”
One could observe that it is common to spend more time on the phone/internet then in prayer and worship, thus these things are obstructions to pure faith and simple living.
Prayer, worship, "pure faith," and simple living thrive in monasteries, so I hear. Adventism has always promoted a kind of home style monastic life, which has never caught on and never will. The theory behind this promotion, I think, assumes that a practitioner automatically will become more devoutly committed to Adventism since it is "The Truth." The actual fear driven assumption of Adventism is that it cannot withstand exposure to the real world, hence, church schools "(Christian Education") and the cloistering around SDA institutions.
As a hospital chaplain an SDA social worker and I had a running discussion, never resolved, as to whether Adventism attracts the nut jobs, or are they transformed after joining?
Performance Adventism definitely tends towards monasticism. It becomes easier to perform the more sinfule attractions/distractions one can exclude. Of course you can take spiritual pride and spiritual abuse with you wherever you go.