Seventh-day Adventist Church is the Third Largest in the Cayman Islands
by AT News Team
The latest census for the Cayman Islands was released April 18. It included data about the religious affiliations of residents which reveal that nine percent of the population report membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Only the Church of God and the Roman Catholic Church have more adherents, 22 percent and 14 percent.
Adventists were found much more often among citizens of the Cayman Islands than the expatriates. This contrasts with many places on the globe, including the United States, where the percentage of Adventists among immigrants is significantly higher than among native-born citizens.
The official government census report also includes the fact that eight percent of the residents identified themselves as Presbyterians, another eight percent as Baptists, seven percent as Pentecostals, and four percent as affiliated with the Anglican Church. Five percent are affiliated with nondenominational Christian congregations, eight percent report membership in a number of other, smaller denominations and less than three percent identified themselves as part of non-Christian faiths.
The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory in the western Caribbean where tourism is the largest industry. The country has a total population of about 54,000 and consists of three islands. It was first reported by a European in 1503 during the fourth and final voyage of Christopher Columbus and remained uninhabited until the 17th century. There is no archaeological evidence of indigenous people.
This is part of a larger sociological reality: Adventist membership tends to be relatively larger in island nations. No explanation of this reality has been published by social scientists.
Here in the Northwest, we enjoy the not infrequent visits from Caymanese vacationers who want to "experience the cool, wet greenery" of the popular ski-slope vicinity of Northwest Oregon's Mount Hood area. Young couples rent fine condominiums for several days to take a refreshing change of pace from Island life. Not a small percentage is Adventist and connected in some way with the Caymans' banking industry, and sometimes they arrive with no idea how to reach the nearest Adventist congregation, where they can spend the Sabbath and enjoy vegetarian/vegan meals. When we DO connect with them, our Sabbaths are indeed all the spiritually richer.
The question of why Adventism seems to thrive on islands suggests that at heart ours is a denomination that basks in the concept and reality of isolation (Time of Trouble in the caves, avoiding city life, separation from the world and worldliness, a Peculiar People), perhaps because of the audacious eccentricity of some of our beliefs. In bounded concentrations, we seem less peculiar to ourselves and to others. WE, the peculiar ones, can roll the drums and set the pace.
That an isolationist (perhaps I overstate, but for purposes of discussion indulge me) group feels called to permeate and indeed saturate the world with our peculiar take on an apocalyptically driven gospel suggests all kinds of contradictions. Ellen White seemed to become frustrated in her later years by the apparent glacial slowness of the little flock to propogate its spiritual descendants to the ends of the earth. Yet we must concede that by creating strong communities in island settings, we have built incredibly strong economic and social bases for sending out missionaries. Can it be that we will eventually reach the great unevangelized land masses by "stepping toward them" island by island? During World War II we noted the strategic importance of islands, in cases tens of thousands of defenders perishing to preserve just a few square yards of real estate. Perhaps we need to better understand why we seem so partial to islands, and why Adventism "works" less effectively on grand land masses such as Saudia Arabia, Mongolia, and North America's Dakotas—whereas Mormonism, another North American phenomenon of faith, seems almost "Islamic" in its preference for barren, open spaces.
The relative size of island nations as well as cosanguinity is also conducive to a larger percentage of a religion. Just as in the States where Adventists tend to isolate themselves because of lifestyle and common practices, in small communities that are more favorable (think all the large and small SDA institutions where parents for decades have chosen to live close to the school and their children).
In an island, news travel by word of mouth much faster and when your respected neighbor tells you of something new, you are more likely to want to check it out. Face-to-face communication surely must be greater than in the very isolated U.S.
Isn't Jamaica where the largest percentage of SDAs currently reside? Has that been studied by sociologists?