Pathfinder Camporee After-Party: What the Church Doesn’t Want You to See

The biggest and most exciting dance parties within Adventism are hosted by the Seventh-day Adventist Pathfinder Camporees. In the video above, Adventist youth from 51 different countries dance the night away to music by Bob Marley and others at an international Pathfinder Camporee after-party. These Pathfinder after-parties, however, are never featured in our official church publications or media. It’s no wonder why. These after-parties, which take place after the main Camporee event has concluded, are unscripted and informal celebrations that include jumping, shouting, clapping, ecstasy, cheering, dancing, music, and entertainment.

The video comes from the Inter-American Division’s 2023 Pathfinder Camporee, held earlier this year at the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium near Montego Bay, Jamaica. [1] In attendance were Andres Peralta, the World Pathfinder Director for the General Conference, and Busi Khumalo, the Youth Director for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. The Inter-American Division, working with the various unions in its territories and the General Conference, sponsored this Camporee.

I am well aware of all the arguments put forth to defend the positive spiritual blessings and the good points that the Pathfinder Camporees provide for the young people who attend them. However, when all is said and done, the after-parties that the church doesn’t report on tell us the real story. Some may want to comfort themselves with the glowing reports about all the baptisms that take place during Camporee, but remember, the Emperor Constantine was also baptized. And when we see videos like the Pathfinder Camporee after-parties shared by young people on social media, how many of these Adventist youth gatherings today are no better than the apostasy seen in the early centuries when baptized paganism was introduced into the Christian church?

• Woe unto you, church leaders, for financing and hosting these international dance festivals that defile our children and shut them out of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 23:13).

• Woe unto you, church leaders, because you are the ones who promote these events and then do nothing to stop the abominable dancing; therefore, you shall receive the greater damnation (Matthew 23:14).

• Woe unto you, church leaders, for causing our youth to become corrupt with worldly music and making them twofold more the children of hell than yourselves (Matthew 23:15).

• Woe unto you, church leaders, for you paint pretty pictures in our church publications about the spirituality of these Camporees and present them as whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward but are instead full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27).

• Woe unto you, church leaders, for you build the tombs of the prophets and make a fortune selling Ellen White books, but utterly reject her counsels from God about the bedlam of noise, the abominable music, and the pagan dancing (Matthew 23:29).

• Woe unto you, church leaders, for your complicity and silence fit the description Jesus gave when He said: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Matthew 23:33.

We are doing the very thing that the prophet warned us against doing, but like ancient Israel, we are following in their footsteps:

“They ventured upon the forbidden ground, and were entangled in the snare of Satan. Beguiled with music and dancing, and allured by the beauty of heathen vestals, they cast off their fealty to Jehovah. As they united in mirth and feasting, indulgence in wine beclouded their senses and broke down the barriers of self-control” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 454).

“Many of the amusements popular in the world today, even with those who claim to be Christians, tend to the same end as did those of the heathen. There are indeed few among them that Satan does not turn to account in destroying souls. Through the drama he has worked for ages to excite passion and glorify vice. The opera, with its fascinating display and bewildering music, the masquerade, the dance, the card table, Satan employs to break down the barriers of principle and open the door to sensual indulgence. In every gathering for pleasure where pride is fostered or appetite indulged, where one is led to forget God and lose sight of eternal interests, there Satan is binding his chains about the soul.” (Patriarchs and Prophets 459).

Sources

[1] https://camporee.interamerica.org/english