ACADEMIA Letters

Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context

Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, Fellow at Emmaus Collegium, Switzerland

Introduction
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has expanded exponentially across the world, demon-
strating its worldwide mission of preaching the Gospel. The estimated number of Adventists
today is more than 21 million worldwide, compared to a decade ago. According to this fig-
ure, Africa has approximately 41 percent of the membership, making it the continent with the
most Adventists in the world.[1] This phenomenal growth in Africa has been understood, ac-
cording to Charles Bradford, that Black Africans “have a unique proclivity toward accepting
the seventh-day Sabbath…because the Sabbath roots of Africa run deep, both in Scripture,
and historical practice.”[2] Bradford’s point sheds light on an earlier statement by an Adven-
tist pioneer from Ghana known as Francis Dolphijn.[3] On January 23, 1890, Dolphijn wrote
to the International Tract Society, stressing the importance of contextualizing the Sabbath in
Ghana: “I am in faithful hopes that the work of S. D. Adventists will make rapid advance-
ment on the Gold Coast, especially to those under the thickness of heathenism, as the Bible
(Saturday) Sabbath is readily understood throughout the Fantis, and the whole Gold Coast.
Even the heathen take or assume the question upon themselves thus: —’How was it that God
is worshiped on Sunday and not on Saturday? for God is not called by Sunday (male) name,
but that of Saturday…, the last day of the week, so prominently blessed by God, the Creator
of all things in existence.”’[4]
The cultural group mentioned in Dolphijn’s letter is the Akan people, an ethnic group
comprising of several unique tribes whose current settlements are in the tropical areas of
Ghana and the southeast of Cote d’Ivoire.[5] The Adventist church keeps growing in Ghana
with a membership totaling more than 360,000. This article will use the Akan people of Ghana
as an example to demonstrate how Adventism flourished in Africa as a result of the Sabbath
being already embedded in the culture, and why this should influence a renewed approach in

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.

1
preaching the Sabbath in Africa.[6]
Akan theology about God
Akan spirituality is deeply rooted in the belief in a unique God called Onyame or Nyanko-
pon, a suprasensible deity transcending all in His absolute reality.[7] The derivation of the
name from Nyame (God) kro (Only), pon (Great or Supreme), thus “The Only Supreme God”,
asserts the supreme importance attached to God. The Akan give Him anthropomorphic names
like NanaNyankopon (The Great Eminent God or The Great Ancestral Spirit), and Tetek-
waframoa Nyankopon (The Most Ancient of Days God). Others include Oboade฀Nyankopon
(God the Creator), TotorobonsuNyankopon (The Maker and Giver of rain), and Nyankopon
Kwame Twiaduampon (The Great dependable God of Saturday, in other words, He whose
day of birth, or worship is Saturday). In these honorific attributes of God, the Akan comes to
discover the value of independent awareness or discovery of God and how the depths of these
revelations inspire their communal spirituality.[8]
The Sabbath God Among the Akan
The Akan God, with His name Onyankopon Kwame Twiaduampon, already translated as,
The Great dependable God of Saturday, makes Him a personality who responds when called
by His name. Akan people call Him Kwame because the proper name given to an Akan
male child borne on Saturday is Kwame, and Ama (if female). Hence, Onyankopon Kwame
expresses His affinity to Saturday.[9] The Name has been in discovery since the advent of
European missionaries to Ghana, then Gold Coast, in the sixteenth century.[10]
Onyankopon Kwame has been identified as the God of Saturday by both Western and Akan
scholars who study Akan religion and culture. Johann Gottlieb Christaller, a Swiss-German
missionary of the Basel mission to Ghana, did recognize the name Onyankopon Kwame in his
A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tschi (Chwee, Twi) in 1881.[11] Robert
Sutherland Rattray, one of the pioneer ethnographers of Akan religion and culture understood
the supreme importance and sacredness attached to Onyankopon Kwame in religious services
among the Akan ethnicity.[12] In one account of a Silver Stool given by Ashanti queen moth-
ers to Princess Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary (Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood) at
her royal wedding to Viscount Lascelles on 28th February 1922 at Westminster Abbey, Cap-
tain Rattray translated a speech delivered by the Queen Mother of Asante Mampong, Serwaa
Akoto, in which the following statement appears:
[W]e pray the great God Nyankopon, of whom men lean and do not fall, whose day of
worship is a Saturday, and whom the Ashanti serve just as she serves Him, that He may give
the King’s child and her husband long life and happiness, and finally, when she sits upon this
silver stool, which the women of Ashanti have made for their white Queen Mother, may she
call us to mind.[13]

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.

2
 Among indigenous scholars studying Akan religion like Joseph Boakye Danquah, “the
Akan have a particular name for the God of religion, who is called “He of Saturday,” Nyanko-
pon Kwaame…Nyankopon is known, he is Kwaame. This alone is sufficient for the Akan
worshipper.”[14] Kwadwo Dickson in a review of Danquah’s Akan Doctrine of God discusses
the various meanings to Nyankopon Kwame: “It is believed by some that it was on a Saturday
that Nyankopon was born, hence Kwame. Others explain that “God completed his work of
creation on a Saturday, and used to appear to men on that day to receive their worship.””[15]
Kofi Abrefa Busia affirms the latter that “Onyankopon Kwame the Great One who appeared
on Saturday.”[16] The Akan people have considered Saturday as a sacred day for Onyankopon
from time memorial and great reverence are attached to this day.
Sabbath Trajectories in Akan Religion
First, there are nine ritual Saturdays on the Akan calendar for the year according to Dan-
quah. Every fortieth Saturday on the calendar is known as Dapaa or Dapaada. Dapaa is a
compound of Da “day” and Paa (elongation of pa “good”); in other words, Dapaa means
Great Day, Free Day, Good Day, or Open Day. The day is treated with all of its sacredness
in respect of the Saturday God.[17] Dapaa is not a ceremony to commemorate any historical
event or ascription to the ancestors as would suggest to the other celebration of the festivals.
Children born on this special day have Dapaa as part of their natal names, e.g. Kwame Da-
paa.[18]
Second, one area of Akan’s economic life is their premodern practice of weekly or market
days. Every Akan town and village has a regular cycle day called Market day for buying
and selling. The market days involve specific selected days within an area for buying and
selling[19]. These market days bring vendors from near and far to a centralized market area
in the town or village because of the higher demands of goods on that day. All other days
within the week were assigned as market days except Saturday—the reason being the day of
Nyankopon Kwame.[20] The same reason is given to why the Akan people did not fix a funeral
day on Saturday.[21]
Lastly, the most fascinating of the name Kwame is the attribution of Amen as an appellation
to those born on Saturday. Danquah states, “[i]f God is Kwaame, then his religious appellation
or strong name is Amen, for every Kwaame, probably taking after the original of that name,
is addressed, in salutations, etc., as Amen.”[22] He further added, “the God Kwaame, he is
the God who counts. His nature is Amen, and he answers to that appellation in all address to
deity.”[23] This seems, of course, somewhat like the name of Jesus in Revelation 3:14, “To
the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and
true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.” The idea is again not far from Jesus’ statement in
Mark 2:28 that “For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” The name of the God of

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.

3
the Sabbath is Kwame whose appellation is Amen.
Conclusion
The strong affinity of God to Saturday has been a bedrock in Ghanaian Adventist missi-
ology for a long time, and one that continues to convince a majority of Ghanaians about the
Sabbath truth. Owusu Mensa says, “if God is not remembered in Akanland for anything, it is
for His day of worship, Saturday, the seventh and last day of the Akan week.”[24]Therefore, to
the Akan, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” is not just a commandment to rest but
a call to worship; something they have been conversant within their past and present history.
It was upon these lines of faithful truth “the holiness and specialty of Saturday to the Cre-
ator, perfectly docked in with the Adventist doctrine on the Sabbath” in Ghana.[25]However,
this cannot be said to be exclusive from the knowledge of the Sabbath in other indigenous
African cultures. For this reason, the Adventist church is always provided with the opportu-
nity to strengthen its contextual approach to preaching the Sabbath in Africa. Once Adventists
demonstrate that African traditions contain sparks of biblical truth for spiritual growth, the
positive response to the Adventist message will increase.
References and notes

1. Annual Statistical Report for 2020. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Statistics/

ASR/ASR2020A.pdf. Last visited August 16, 2021.

2. Charles E. Bradford, Sabbath Roots: The Africans Connection. Vermont: Brown, 1999,
234.

3. Francis Dolphijn accepted Adventism through literature reading in 1888 and thus be-
came the first Ghanaian Adventist on records.

4. Kofi Owusu Mensa, Ghana Seventh-Day Adventism: A History, Vol. 1. Osu, Accra,
Ghana: Advent Press, 2005, 20.

5. In both Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the Akan constitute the majority with an average pop-
ulation of more than twenty million citizens. There are also few Akan found in Togo
per the accounts of Louise Muller, “Ghanaian Films and Chiefs as Indicators of Reli-
gious Change among the Akan in Kumasi and Its Migrants in Southeast Amsterdam”,
in Robert W Hefner, John Hutchinson, Sara Mels, Christiane Timmerman (eds), Reli-
gions in Movement: The Local and the Global in Contemporary Faith Traditions. New
York: Routledge, 2013, 246.

6. The viewpoints given in this article on the Akan religion and culture are fully based
on Africa’s pre-Christian religion and culture and they may not entirely reflect today’s

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.

4
 modern Akan religion and culture which is significantly nuanced by Christian traditions.

7. Nyame or ‘Nyankopon or Onyankopon express the same idea of the unique God. The
spellings may differ in this article depending on the orthograph of the various authors.
This also follows for other names like Kwame and Kwaame, etc.

8. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion. London: Cass, 1968, 1.

9. During the 1999 ACTS 2000 campaign in Ghana, pastor Mark Finley told a story of
how children were calling him Kwasi Broni on the streets of Kumasi. Being curious
to know what that meant, he was told Kwasi is a masculine name given to a Sunday-
born and all White people are best known to Akan as Kwasi because they introduced
Sunday worship service. Pastor Finley responded that he was not a Sunday Whiteman
but Saturday Whiteman.

10. See Hans W. Debrunner, A History of Christianity in Ghana. Accra: Waterville Publ.
House, 1967, 1.

11. Johann G. Christaller, A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tschi
(Chwee, Twi) With a Grammatical Introduction and appendices on the Geography of
the Gold Coast and Other Subjects, Basel, 2nd rev. ed., edited by J. Schweitzer in 1893,
published as A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Languages Called Tshi (Twi), Basel,
1881, 661.

12. Robert R. S. Rattray, Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923, 102.

13. Robert R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, 295.

14. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion, 46, 47

15. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion, xviii, xix.

16. Kofi Abrefa B., “The Ashanti of the Gold Coast,” in: African Worlds: Studies in the
Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples. London: Oxford University
Press, 1954, 192

17. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion, 43.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.

5
 18. The name Dapaa is not exclusive to only those born on Dapaada. It is also an affectionate
or family name.

19. John D. Bengtson, Harold Crane Fleming (Eds), in: Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehis-
tory: Essays in the Four Fields of Anthropology; in Honor of Harold Crane Fleming.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008, 34.

20. Kofi Owusu-Mensa, Saturday God and Adventism in Ghana. New York: Peter Lang
Publishers, 1993, 42, 45.

21. Saturday has been recognized for funerals among the majority of Akan people due to the
considerable shift from Sabbath-day worship to Sunday as introduced by Western mis-
sionaries, as well as other factors linked to the economic landscape of modern Ghana.

22. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion, 47.

23. Joseph Boakye Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics
and Religion, 152.

24. Kofi Owusu Mensa, Saturday God and Adventism in Ghana, 36.

25. Kofi Owusu Mensa, History of Adventism in Ghana, vol. 1, 22.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, owusugyamficliff@gmail.com

Citation: Owusu-Gyamfi, C. (2021). Adventism and the Sabbath in an African Context. Academia Letters,
Article 3097. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3097.