Smoking menace still haunting humanity

November 1 came and went, and you may not have noted that another win was scored on behalf of children. A new law aimed at protecting children from secondhand smoke will make it illegal to smoke in private cars that have children in them. It is one small step in the gigantic fight against one of the largest enemies of mankind: smoking. This is not a problem for Seventh-day Adventists, who are among the world’s largest communities known for their abstinence from smoking tobacco. As a faith community, Seventh-day Adventists have elected to be doctrinal about it, and for decades have been known for our breathe-free outreach around the world.
On October 27-28, I was reminded about being involved in a major nation-wide public health programme in Poland in the early 1980s – alongside Prof. Witold Zatoński, founder and president of the Health Promotion Foundation based in Poland – when the then Five-DayStop Smoking Plan2 attracted literally thousands of smokers who flooded Adventist churches and public venues. The programme, which was re-formatted for TV, with manuals printed in daily newspapers, ignited a national debate and resulted in smoking being banned in public places.
For Seventh-day Adventists, the stance against smoking and tobacco dates back to the middle of the 1800s. This was before this Christian church was formally constituted in 1863. As early as 1848, the most prominent church pioneer, Ellen G. White, spoke of the harmful effects of tobacco, tea, and coffee. Adventist publications printed articles against tobacco and in 1856, another prominent pioneer, J. N. Andrews, wrote that the use of tobacco was a “sin against God.”
Explaining the health principles adhered to by Adventists, the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Encyclopaedia sums it up that Adventists “believe that Christians should have concern for health, not because of any ceremonial or legalistic significance but for the practical reason that only in a sound body can they render the most effective service to God and to others” [1]. As per a biblical statement that human bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit” (see: 1st Letter to Corinthians 3:16), Adventists have enshrined abstinence from tobacco, alcoholic beverages, and irresponsible use of drugs as one of the fundamental beliefs and “we are to abstain from them as well”.
In more than 150 years, the church established itself as a promoter and activist for healthful living. Seventh-day Adventists in Poland...


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