The Adventist Peace Fellowship (a group of politically left Adventists) recently started a petition calling for Seventh-day Adventist Church pastors, leaders, and members to apologize to LGBTQ+ individuals. Apologize for what, you may ask?
For our commitment to biblical sexuality, which upholds the scriptural standard of male and female matrimony and condemns sex outside of heterosexual marriage
For not accepting unrepentant homosexuals as church members
For being the reason that some LGBTQ+ individuals have left the church.
For not being loving (and affirming) to LGBTQ+ people
For not allowing ourselves to be changed in this matter; for expecting people in moral failure to change through repentance
For having a Church Statement on human sexuality and gender orientation that is not affirming of LGBTQ+ lifestyles
Initial Signers of this Petition Include:
Alexander Carpenter — Editor of Spectrum Magazine
Anwar Ottley — pastor of Takoma Park SDA Church. Potomac Conference
Charles Sandefur - Former President ADRA International
Chris Blake — Pastor and contributor to the Review Magazine
Daniel Xisto — pastor of Takoma Park SDA Church. Potomac Conference
David Sedlacek - Professor Andrews University
Drechelle McCray - Principal Takoma Academy Prep School. Potomac Conference
Greg Hoenes - Director Southern California Conference
Kendra Haloviak Valentine — Professor, La Sierra (one of the first women to be ordained in defiance of the world church after the 1995 GC Session vote
Lisa Clark Diller — Professor Southern Adventist University (also multi-time speaker for the One Project)
Reinder Bruinsma — Retired Pastor & long time advocate for the ordination of women
Sigve K. Tonstad — Research Professor Loma Linda University (also spoke at the Sligo LGBTQ Symposium in the Potomac Conference)
Stephen Chavez - Admin Board Chair Sligo SDA Church. Potomac Conference
Tiffany Llewellyn - Founder Adventists for Social Justice (this goes without saying)
Observations
The lifestyle choices of LBGTQ+ people are not the fault of heterosexual (normal) people.
There may be times when some individuals have been unnecessarily unkind to LGBTQ people. That happens. But we are not being unkind when we call people in moral failure to repent of their sin(s) and find freedom and forgiveness in our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. He is the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13), and well able to deliver us from the lion of sexual immorality (Daniel 6:16, 22).
If heterosexual marriage is to display to the world the beauty and holiness of Christ’s relationship with His bride, then homosexuality is the sacrament of paganism.
Here are some of the original founders and advisors of the Adventist Peace Fellowship.
Every one of the aforementioned signers, first agitated for WO and now LGBTQ. Both positions were arrived at by rejecting the biblical creational binary; both use the same ethical trajectory. Moving on from WO, homosexuality is now celebrated by these folks with pioneering excitement. To them, it’s a good thing, as the new hallmark of progress.
Never apologize for having a biblical worldview. They don’t want your apology, they want the complete destruction of your faith.
The Seventh-day Adventist church can survive moral assaults from outside the church easier than it can survive moral ambush from within the church. Attacks from the outside make us stronger, attacks from inside make us confused, weak and dissipated. We must separate these trojan horse enemies of the everlasting gospel from us while there is still something left to save.
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