The Adventist Church in Africa, recognizing that a number of church members after their baptism still remained involved in ancestry worship, occultism, and magic, took the initiative to address this problem. Several years ago, BRI was invited to come to Africa to discuss with African scholars, theologians, a physician, and a counselor the problem of syncretism. After a time of listening to reports and papers addressing the issue, guidelines were drafted to help church members, elders, pastors, and administrators deal with and overcome this problem. Kwabena Donkor was asked to edit the papers for a book intended for wide distribution in Africa. As a result, just prior to the 2011 Annual Council, BRI published The Church, Culture, and Spirits: Adventism in Africa, providing a free copy to each delegate. The book was welcomed with gratefulness and enthusiasm. Because the problem of spiritualism is not limited to Africa, other divisions have also shown interest in the book.

Aware of the fact that a book by itself is typically not going to solve these problems, recommendations were drafted while still in Africa that would help address and eliminate syncretism and fear of evil powers. BRI met with the Annual Council delegations of the three Africa divisions, celebrating their unique contribution through this book to the theology and practice of the Adventist Church. At the same time, further steps to address spiritualism and animism were discussed, including the publication of a simplified version of the material in a book for church members, the preparation of Bible study materials on the topic, Bible conferences in all the unions in Africa to deal with these issues, the establishment of centers of African studies at the Adventist universities in Africa, as well as a mandatory course dealing with Adventist perspectives on cultural and religious issues in Africa for all theology majors at those universities. In addition, Ministry magazine and Adventist World will devote an issue or a series of articles to spiritualism and the Ministerial Association is considering developing an appendix to the Minister’s Manual dealing with these concerns. These steps are aimed at helping individuals and the Church as a whole strengthen their witness to the gospel and to the coming of the Lord, recognizing that our life and proclamation must be congruent.