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This short film, written and directed by two Millennial feminist Adventist women, addresses questions of worth and personhood against societal pressure (perhaps especially felt in religious settings) to be in a relationship.

It features Danielle Baez, Upasana Beharee, Stacey Burcham, Vanessa Marie Dewing, Melissa Effa, Rachel Logan, Alexis Quinn, Hadiyyah Noelle Smith, and Renée Wylder. At a time when women's place in society seems called into question by prevailing political forces, these young voices ring out clearly.

Watch: "Complete"

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In August of last year, US president Barack Obama published an article on feminism in the fashion magazine Glamour. Identifying himself as a feminist, he wrote that twenty-first-century feminism is about “the idea that when everybody is equal, we are all more free.” This applies not just to basic human rights, but to gender stereotypes as well. "We’ve come a long way," he wrote, "but there are still many things we need to work on:"

We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear. We need to keep changing the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs. We need to keep changing the attitude that permits the routine harassment of women, whether they’re walking down the street or daring to go online.

We need to keep changing the attitude that teaches men to feel threatened by the presence and success of women. We need to keep changing the attitude that congratulates men for changing a diaper, stigmatizes full-time dads, and penalizes working mothers. We need to keep changing the attitude that values being confident, competitive, and ambitious in the workplace—unless you’re a woman. Then you’re being too bossy, and suddenly the very qualities you thought were necessary for success end up holding you back.

For Obama, the feminist movement is far from finished. We need to keep working on feminism to liberate everyone, male and female. Other people are less certain about the benefits of feminism.

In a 2014 social media trend called “Why I Don’t Need Feminism,” women were invited to take a picture of themselves with a caption that described why they don’t identify as feminists—and many did.

At the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas, I listened to Natasha Nebblett explain to the delegates why she didn’t want the GC to allow women’s ordination. She argued that while people often recognize her work as president of Generation of Youth for Christ, “they should give more recognition when I become a wife next February and a mother after that, since the Spirit of Prophecy says that that position is higher than the ministry and the desk and the king on his throne.”

I’ve also heard a lot about pastor-evangelist Doug Batchelor, who argues that feminism is “becoming” more about angry women who wanted to be like men rather than attaining the rightful respect for being a “woman.” He feels that feminism is pushing the church “beyond” voting rights and equal pay into the arena of unisex “thinking.” Now that women have equal pay and are allowed to vote, what is feminism doing? For Batchelor, it’s turning all of us into some form of male-female hybrid. It’s limiting us, both male and female. Who is right? Is feminism a liberating movement or a limiting one? The answer is too complex to be summed up in a few words. But let’s see what we can do.

Feminism existed before the women’s liberation movement in 1960s America, and it’s likely to be around for a good while. It has been many different things at different times, to different people. It’s only natural that things get a little complicated as a movement gains size and momentum. Like Christianity (or even Adventism) feminism is not a static entity, composed of people who think exactly alike and who all move in the same direction. Nor should it be—if it was, it wouldn’t be able to do the thing it aims to do: work towards equal rights for all people, regardless of their sex. In fact, the illusion of unity—unity of one group, or even of the whole human race—was one of the problems feminism had to overcome along the way. Let me explain what I mean with a short history lesson.

Hillary Rodham Clinton may have been the first woman nominated to a major political party in the US, but she’s certainly not the first woman to run for the office of president. In 1872, almost fifty years before any woman would be able to legally vote for her, Victoria Woodhull became America’s first female presidential candidate. A campaigner for women’s suffrage, she reasoned: “If Congress refuse to listen and to grant what women ask, there is but one course left to pursue. What is there left for women to do but to become the mothers of the future government?” If the government was not going to listen to women, women would just have to join the government. She lost spectacularly to Ulysses S. Grant, but her campaign drew a great deal of media attention, and she continued to campaign for women’s rights until she died at age eighty-eight—seven years after women were finally granted the right to vote.

Woodhull, and other women like her, formed what we call the “first wave” of modern feminism. The height of first-wave feminism was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the suffragettes and the women’s rights movement. These feminists were largely focused on the legal aspects of equal rights: the vote, the right to be educated, the right to own property, etc.

The “second wave,” generally marked as taking place from the 1960s through the 1990s, came up against a different set of challenges. Equipped with the legal rights won by first-wave feminists, the second wave set out to negotiate questions of identity and social justice. Women were now legally “equal,” but deep-seated cultural biases still kept them from true equality on most fronts. They had to fight for the right to be women in the workplace, and in this new environment they were forced to reconsider what it actually meant to be a woman, and what it meant for a woman to be equal to a man.

Undaunted by these challenges, second-wave feminists succeeded in reforming higher education, business and politics, and reproductive rights; set up organizations and legislation for the protection of battered women; and raised awareness about the movement at a popular level. Second wave feminism was loud and proud, and this is the wave we are still most likely to associate with the term “feminism.” They also changed history in a deeper way. I work at a university, teaching, and researching literary and cultural criticism.

Basically, I study how art and literature shape identity. In my field feminism is hugely important— and not just because the feminist movement ensured my right to work in the first place.

For hundreds of years we assumed that great art was universal. We believed that it held up a mirror to the world—that it showed us who we were as people. Then, in the middle of the twentieth century, we suddenly and shockingly realized that most of the art we had previously considered “great” was actually only reflecting a very small portion of the world, from a very specific point of view. Most of the art was made by men: specifically, well-off white men from the West. We discovered that “we” were not as united as we had thought, and that our unity had only been possible because we were excluding everyone with a different perspective than ours—people who were women, who were black, who were poor or uneducated. These people didn’t matter in our society, and so their art couldn’t possibly matter either. Until a group of feminist critics came along—at this point still mostly women—who, thanks to their nineteenth-century feminist forerunners, were finally allowed to participate in scientific discourse. They pointed out, in a language other scholars could understand, that actually these other perspectives were everywhere, and could be very valuable indeed.

The impact this realization had on the arts (and later on the sciences as well) cannot be overstated. There were endless, conflicting worlds and perspectives out there, just waiting to be recognized. The effect was revolutionary.

Batchelor argues: “All of history has been altered in the last fifty to sixty years. Up until the feminist movement, the church understood for 1,900 years that the final authority was to rest solely with husbands and men pastors.” He’s absolutely right. Feminism is responsible for teaching us to read differently, from multiple perspectives. It opened our eyes. It showed us that our society wasn’t as fair as we thought it was, but that we could make it better. We just needed to open the floor to other voices.

Soon the feminist scholars were followed by postcolonial scholars and class scholars. They didn’t focus on women, but on non-Western peoples and on the poor. They were followed by disability studies and by queer theory. Some feminist critics (male and female) even turned their focus back to the old perspective, to learn how these new perspectives could help us reevaluate thousands of years of rich, white masculine—and all the men left out by that category. The floodgates were opened and the knowledge poured in.

Some people took this knowledge to strange extremes, as people always do. This was OK. Feminism taught us that difference wasn’t the end of the world, it was the beginning. Some feminists hate men, and some feminists are men. A thousand varieties of third-wave feminism were born. They responded to second-wave feminism’s attempts to avoid the mistakes of the past 2,000 years by teaching us that there is more than one way to be a woman (or a man). Where the second wave was mostly composed of highly educated white women, third-wave feminisms work to improve conditions for all people, each according to their needs.

Some of these feminisms are contradictory, and that’s OK. People are contradictory as well. But it’s important to recognize that feminism made their contradiction possible in the first place. Feminism isn’t obsolete. It’s still doing exactly what it was meant to—building the opportunity for real democracy and equality, for everyone.

The Adventist Church still needs feminism too. The world church is arguing for unity, but feminism has taught us the dangers of that type of unity. Can the church be truly unified? Or are we enforcing unity at the cost of people? Are we only united at the cost of excluding everyone with a different perspective? Could that be why the church needs feminism? Not, as Batchelor fears, to push the church into “unisex” thinking, but to allow everyone in the church a voice? To make our church better and more fair? To let all of us be equal and more free?

Feminism isn’t about ordaining female pastors and it’s not about recognizing the position of wife and mother above that of president or king. Feminism is about recognizing that you should have the right to prefer being a mother or father over being president, and vice versa.

Feminism is about recognizing that your way of looking at things is not the only way of looking at them. Of course, that’s just my perspective. The beauty of feminism is that you are free to offer your own perspective on equal footing, regardless of your sex, race, class, or gender. No matter how radical.

Megen Molé is a feminist and a fourth-generation Adventist. She was a Dutch delegate to the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, and she is currently a teacher and PhD researcher at Cardiff University in Wales.

This article was first published in Volume 44, Issue 4 (Winter 2016) of Spectrum under the title "The Dangers of Unity."

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Brian and Anne Savinsky talk about the new film they have produced about same-sex attraction within Christianity and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which shares the perspective of Coming Out Ministries. Watch the film on 3ABN on February 16.

What made you want to make the film Journey Interrupted, featuring the four members of Coming Out Ministries, talking about their journey through issues of sexual identity?

As we got to know the team members and heard the stories of their journeys, we were compelled to make a way for these to be shared with everyone.  Though we are a straight couple and don't have any history of same sex attraction ourselves, we related to their journeys as fellow Christians and were greatly inspired by them.  We also saw the need for their stories to be told in a culture that grapples with the issues of homosexuality and gender.  

What is the main message that Ron Woolsey, Wayne Blakely, Danielle Harrison and Michael Carducci share in the film? 

The main message of the film is that, regardless of who you are and what your struggles are, you are loved by God, you matter to Him and He has the solution to whatever issues you are struggling with.  God respects each of us and gives us the freedom to choose His way or our own.  

Is there a new message in the film that Coming Out Ministries has not articulated before?

While the testimonies of the four team members have been shared by Coming Out Ministries in the past, there is a new element in this film that has not been heard before.  That is the journey of Anna, a friend of Coming Out Ministries.  Anna currently lives in the gay culture and shares her past and present struggles with God within that context.  And while the message of Journey Interrupted is consistent with that which Coming Out Ministries has always given, the documentary provides a wider platform for more people to encounter via the media of film. 

Can you tell us a little more about the narrative structure of the film? I watched the trailer but haven't had the opportunity to watch the whole thing. Does the story move between the speakers? Is it all documentary-style with talking heads? Who made the film?

The documentary features the stories of five individuals who have struggled with same-sex attraction.  The film blends their journeys in chronological order taking each of the stories from early childhood through present day.  

The film was made by Woods Media Productions, a non-Adventist production company located in Ohio. It has been intentionally produced as non-denominational to appeal to the Christian community at large. 

Journey Interrupted was filmed on location in several parts of the world including Germany, Italy, Czechia and Brazil besides the US.  

Why the title Journey Interrupted?

Each of the cast members has had their "journeys" interrupted by God, and the film documents how the Lord has intentionally sought them and their responses to Him. 

Would you say this film is an answer to Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer's films Seventh Gay Adventists and Enough Room at the Table?

This is not the intention of Journey Interrupted.  The film does, however, address many of the same issues that Seventh Gay Adventists and Enough Room at the Table deal with.  Coming Out Ministries had made prior unsuccessful attempts at putting a film together before Seventh Gay Adventists was released.  

I believe the film premiered in Berrien Springs in September.  Where has it been shown so far?  How has the film been received? 

Yes, Journey Interrupted was premiered in Berrien Springs in September 2016.  Since then it has been shown in numerous churches in North America, at the General Conference Annual Council, at GYC Houston as well as GYC Costa Rica and at the recent Adventist Ministries Convention. 

The film has been received extremely well and we have been given much positive feedback!  It will be globally broadcast on 3ABN and Dare to Dream with a Q&A following on February 16, 2017, at 8pm Central Time.

Has there been an official response from the Adventist Church to the film?

No, not an "official" response, however it has been well received by denominational leadership at many levels. 

How is the film being distributed?  How was it funded?

Journey Interrupted has been funded by the producers of the film. We saw the need for a film that conveys the basic message of Coming Out Ministries - that of God's love, compassion and tenderness as Jesus holds out redemption for all who will seek Him.   

Coming Out Ministries has been widely criticized for espousing conversion to a straight sexual identity for gay people, or at least leaving same-sex attraction behind. Is that correct? How do you respond to this?

Thanks for asking this important question. 'Coming Out Ministries has been falsely accused of promoting "conversion" and "reparative" therapy.  Coming Out Ministries has never promoted these therapies and has been very open about sharing how dangerous some of these therapies can be.  We all suffer from various temptations, but there is a difference between "attractions" and "behavior." 

Coming Out Ministries focuses on how God invites us to live for Him, not for the desires of self which are in contrast with His plans for us.  For example, there is a line from the film which states, "I didn't go under the water ‘gay’ and come up ‘straight’… that disappointed a lot of people."  Coming Out Ministries educates congregations and audiences wherever they go, that same-sex attractions may last until Jesus comes.  They advocate for God's family to walk with each other on this journey, lifting each other up and asking God to put His desires in our hearts.  His desires never disagree with His Word.  Only in experiencing His love are we inclined to give our desires over to Him.

What do you say to parents whose children have identified as gay? 

We can share with you what we have heard the team members of Coming Out Ministries tell parents.  Listen, love and embrace your child.  Encourage them never to give up on Jesus because Jesus will never give up on them. Don't blame yourself for your son or daughter's declaration of being gay.  Pray diligently, claiming God's promises and ask God to interrupt your child's plans and reveal Himself to them.  Don't give up on them or ostracize them.  Prayer was the most powerful influence in each of the lives represented in Journey Interrupted.

Isn't not accepting LBGT individuals for who they are very damaging to them?

It would be wrong for any Christian not to accept anyone.  This question leads us to a deeper conversation.  God doesn't approve of behavior that He has outlined in His Word as sinful.  He tells us in His Word what constitutes sin so that we can draw the boundary lines for us to be safe.  Choosing an identity based on what our temptations are, and saying that is just who you are, begins the downward spiral.  

We might not always be in control of the temptations we encounter, but we don't have to identify by them.  By identifying with our temptations, we become enslaved to our feelings rather than who Jesus says we can be in Him.  The damage is in choosing an identity that distances us from God's plan for our lives.  You can certainly be a guy or girl who has same-sex attractions and temptations and be a child of God who is a believer.  Our identity is in Jesus, not in the attractions we experience.  We have a part in the decision process.

What is your ultimate goal for the film? Where would you like to see it go?

Ultimately, our aim for this film is to go worldwide both inside and outside the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  It offers a universal, non-denominational message of hope and redemption for all, and we are thrilled to be able share it with the general public very soon!  We plan for it to be available on DVD, for download, and on social media soon.  

What is your connection to Coming Out Ministries? 

We first got to know the team over four years ago.  Immediately it became clear to us that this was a ministry that was both very unique and greatly needed.  We saw the message of Coming Out Ministries as the embodiment of "present truth" and most certainly the third angel's message of righteousness by faith. We were so moved by their stories and inspired by their work that we began to support them both structurally and financially, and eventually became members of the Board.  About a year into our friendship with the team we had the idea of the film and began to work on that.  We travel with the team at times to conferences and speaking engagements. 

Can you tell us a little bit more about you and your background?  Have you produced a film before? Have you always been an Adventist?

Neither of us have ever been involved in the film industry before.   It's been a marvelous adventure to be part of something that has the potential to reach so many hearts for the Lord! 

Brian's background is control systems engineering and Anne is a registered nurse. 

While Anne is third-generation Adventist, Brian was raised in the Catholic church before becoming an Adventist.  Both of us pray that this film will continue to be used by God to spread His message of love and redemption to the entire world. 

For more information about the film and to view the trailer, see  www.journeyinterrupted.com

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Dear Trump Voter:

I know Donald Trump probably wasn't your first choice. Or your second or third. After voting, one of my friends wrote on Facebook: "I voted. Lord have mercy on my soul." 

That might have been how you felt.

After Donald Trump became president, however, you might have been feeling optimistic. You might even have been pleased that some of the policies you disliked under the previous administration were being swiftly reversed. I get that, and while I would love to talk with you sometime about our differing political beliefs, now isn't that time.  

I'm writing because the totality of what has happened during Donald Trump's first weeks in office is a pivot from traditional Republican principles and is contrary to our shared American values. 

Is it too dramatic to say that I'm worried about the soul of our nation? 

Since his inauguration, President Trump and his team have countered actual facts with "alternative facts,"censored government offices, advised the free press "to keep its mouth shut,"spoken positively about torture, and placed chief strategist Steve Bannon on the National Security Council. (Steve Bannon, of course, is the former chairman of Breitbart, an alt-right website.) 

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House released an official statement about the holocaust that intentionally excluded the words "Jew" and "anti-Semitism." When Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications, was asked whether the omission was to "avoid offending anyone," her sidestepping response was, "it was our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day." 

In my history classes at Southern Adventist University, I learned that those who start chipping away at history usually have an agenda. It doesn't feel like a coincidence that Steve Bannon has ties to the white nationalist movement.  

Of course, International Holocaust Remembrance Day was also the day that Donald Trump issued an executive order banning the entry of citizens from seven Muslim majority nations. (As almost everyone has pointed out by now, not included in that ban are countries that do business with private citizen Trump.) 

There was chaos at the airports this weekend as those with visas and green cards were often handcuffed, denied lawyers, and were either detained (at best) or placed on flights leaving the United States (at worst). Yemeni brothers Tareq Aqel Mohammed Aziz and Ammar Aqel Mohammed Aziz (just 19 and 21 years old) were handcuffed, forced to relinquish their U.S. green cards, and eventually sent to Ethiopia, where their Yemini passports were then also confiscated. They now wait, with nowhere to go and no documents. 

When Donald Trump first spoke of a Muslim ban, the Interfaith Immigration Coalition wrote a letter that has now been signed by over 2000 leaders of faith. The letter begins, "As religious leaders from a variety of backgrounds, we are called by our sacred texts and faith traditions to love our neighbor, accompany the vulnerable, and welcome the sojourner." 

We Adventists are also called to love our neighbor and welcome the sojourner. In addition, we have a long history of advocating for religious freedom and tolerance. Now is the time for Adventists to be a clear voice opposing any attempt to use religion as a litmus test for entry into the United States.

Last week, as I read the news, I alternated between discouragement, shock, and anxiety. Eventually, I sat down to write. First, I wrote all my representatives. Then, I wrote the White House. Now, I'm writing to you. I'm writing this open letter because while we might have different political opinions, we share a common culture.  

I don't know the particulars of why you voted for Donald Trump, but I do know that as an Adventist, you're probably skeptical of government overreach. If you think this new administration has overreached in its first week, please call or write your representative. If you're uncomfortable with the dismantling of environmental protections (which will surely threaten God's creation), please call or write your representative. If you're uneasy about the term "alternative facts," please call or write your representative. Because you voted for the current administration, they will listen more attentively to your voice. 

If you finished reading this letter and you're tempted to argue with me. Please don't. Instead, reach out to one of your liberal friends. Let's eat some haystacks together and listen to each other's stories. If you come to my house, I promise to send you home with a bag of oranges.

Sari Fordham is Associate Professor of English at La Sierra University.

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Community organizer Samuel Sukaton talks about knocking on doors, electing people who can help us live more abundant lives, and geeking out over numbers. 

Question: You have been working as a community organizer for the Sierra Club for almost three years. You recently finished managing the Sierra Club's involvement in four state legislative elections in San Bernardino and Riverside counties in California. What was that like? Did your candidates win?

Answer: It was a pretty good season out in the Inland Empire. One of our candidates won a come-from-behind victory against an oil-funded incumbent after maybe $6 million was spent in that race. All told, we won two out of four Assembly races (with our endorsed candidate in Loma Linda/Redlands/San Bernardino coming painfully close — I hope she runs again). We picked up a couple city council seats and a community college board seat. 

Out of 10 endorsements/friends of the Sierra Club in the two counties running in November, I think five folks won their races. One (which we didn't have time to endorse in, but who is a Sierra Club member-leader) won a city council seat by something like 37 votes! 

I like elections the way some folks like football — it satisfies my itch for competition, for short-term projects that require massive effort, and for nerding out over scores and how things could be played different. (Good campaign managers have to use algebra and geometry!)

What were the main issues you were focusing on with voters?

Clean air, clean air, clean air. San Bernardino has some of the worst air quality in the nation. California's filthiest natural gas plant is a couple of minutes away from Redlands Adventist Academy. Freeways, warehouses, and the region's transition from industrial to post-industrial are leaving two generations of people — many of them already dealing with our racist legacies — poor, broke, and sick.

Young folks are being asked to give up clean air for good jobs and are getting neither. The political-speak for it is  “environmental racism/environmental justice,” namely, that access to Creation's natural beauty and the health and wellness that attends it is limited by principalities and powers tied up with how we practice race in this country and that those most impacted by environmental degradation have the highest stake in needing to fix it. 

What did you do to inform voters of the issues and mobilize them to vote?

I talked to them. I have cousins who were colporteurs, so we have a genetic affinity to wearing down shoe leather and eating cheap meals. I'm a field person by training (as opposed to someone who specializes in press, fundraising, e-mails), so I'm incredibly biased in favor of my trade, but I won my races on the cell phone and people's front porches. 

Every campaign starts with what's called a “win number” — one predicts turnout by averaging how many people voted in previous elections then works his way to a winning majority. Then, one decides how to get to that many voters: how many conversations, how many touches by mail and advertisements, how many articles or op-eds in local papers, and how much money to spend on those things? 

The race that I'm proudest of was almost all volunteer. Eloise Reyes and her husband Frank were running for an Assembly seat and a San Bernardino Community College Board seat based in Colton and points further west to Fontana. Our team was all volunteer, and overwhelmingly, young and non-white. I'm talking about seventh graders knocking doors and high school students on phones, still dressed for tennis practice. We recruited young folks who were sick of the violence, disinvestment, and irresponsible government our hometowns had been saddled with and took a chance on someone who combines experience with commitment (Eloise and Frank are longtime community activists), and we saw the good guys win in a big way on election night. 

What was the hardest thing that happened during the campaign?

My grandmother died about three weeks before the election. That was incredibly discouraging. We were joking about registering her to vote for the first time in that race (Eloise and Frank are her neighbors while Abigail Medina represents my parents on the San Bernardino school board), and I was the last of the grandchildren to know because work ate me alive. That nearly broke me, and it's hard to make space to grieve in the middle of 18-hour days. 

Frankly, I don't think I've made space to grieve still. 

So many of my friends — and Eloise and Frank and their whole family and our students — stopped and came to the Loma Linda Indonesian church to help us bury her which was so healing. 

I grew up out in San Bernardino, but the Adventist community (and the Indonesian Adventist community) can be very inward-focused. I know that my community was incredibly compassionate and committed to one another, but one doesn't expect candidates to stop for a funeral, much less a funeral for someone they have never met who is beloved by someone they don't know well. 

Politics can be profoundly transactional and dispassionate, but the way folks closed in around me reminded me about the grace and power that come in the work, too.

What did you learn during this recent election? How has your job changed now that the election is over?

I've developed a healthy sense of perspective about my craft.

On the one hand, I'll always rant and rave that field is everything. Like I said already, I am glaringly and aggressively biased in favor of field organizers and volunteers in the context of broader campaign and political life. I respect folks who walk and knock; I'm more inclined to listen to what they have to say; I recruit and advise the ambitious and upwardly mobile to walk or call for one campaign each cycle.  I don't believe anybody can talk about politics with authority without walking and calling regularly, and I jealously defend our trade as the “heart” of political campaigns. 

I believe that intentional, compassionate, face-to-face conversations between people who inspire trust get people to vote. That's the great lesson of all the disruptive campaigns, from Cesar Chavez and the UFW driving Bobby Kennedy to victory in California in 1968 to Barack Obama stampeding to two terms in the White House in 2008 and 2012. As I said this weekend to a friend who specializes in finance: “I’m a field nerd; fight me. Oh wait, you can't because my feet are stronger.”

On the other hand, realistically, field is maybe five percentage points in a race — probably less. If you're unpopular, you're tied to bad policy, you're getting wrecked in the newspapers, you're running with an unpopular president, you're dealing with a major scandal, the civil society institutions in your district have rejected you, voter registration numbers are against you by large enough margins, or if you have low name identification or not enough money to sustain an operation, the most authentic, genuine, or engaging field organizers and volunteers can't save you.

It's a sort of tension between “what I can control” and “what I can’t” that Sabbathkeepers who are saved by grace just might be familiar with.

Do you feel California voters are in a very different place than much of the rest of the country? What do you think of our new president?

Is California different? Yes and no. Yes, in that our communities have been presented with choices earlier than other parts of the country and are, perhaps, in a different historical moment politically. (Proposition 187 predates “building a wall” by a generation, for example.) No, in that I don't think the choices California has faced and made are uniquely different from those other states and that the Union generally is facing. 

Those choices and their consequences are being played out differently in different states, which explains the gap. Furthermore, the numbers from the recent post-inauguration march suggest that there isn't something unique about California's rejection of the incoming administration. (One number I saw that made my breath catch was 3,500 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.) Rather, California's rejection of the Trump administration — from 750,000 on the streets of Los Angeles on January 21 to the first resolution considered by the 2017-18 Assembly being a full-throated defense of immigrants — is the product of the same process the rest of the country is going through a couple of decades earlier. An image that comes to mind is California's Senate President pro tempore, Kevin de Leon. De Leon was a major organizer of the opposition to Proposition 187 in 1994 and now manages our upper house. The young people who led chants, brought out friends, or walked their strollers after Trump’s inauguration (much like Kevin De Leon did 23 years ago) will “sit in deliberative and legislative councils” (to borrow from EGW) much as Senator de Leon does now. 

Regarding the gentleman who has moved into the White House: Maranatha. A lifetime of training by Indonesian immigrants so excited to keep the Sabbath in freedom in the U.S. has me praying always for those whom God and the electorate have seen fit to impose over us, but I'm thumbing through my copy of A Thousand Shall Fall these past few months.

You were born in Pennsylvania to Indonesian parents and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles. You grew up Adventist? Are you still an Adventist? Why or why not?

I was raised Adventist (though the Indonesian churches I grew up in serve meat). My parents felt very strongly about public school, so I didn't see the inside of an academy until I was 17 (and then only for a choir concert), so I went through San Bernardino public schools and got my BA at UCLA. I'm still Adventist — I attend church pretty regularly.

How did you get involved in community organizing?

Mostly school, a little church. When I was at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) I met Zach Hoover, an LA Voice PICO organizer and colleague of Geoffrey Nelson-Blake (who has graced these pages in the past) at Hollywood Adventist, which was then pastored by Ryan Bell and involved in local anti-poverty work. 

I ran in anti-austerity, pro-public education circles at UCLA, working on making the UC more affordable for students, more accessible to undocumented students (this was pre-DACA),  and more accountable to the service workers, lecturers, and graduate teaching assistants who provided so much frontline service to students and kept the place running. While my values (religious freedom, protection in the workplace, democracy as the best vehicle to pursue freedom and joy in a broken world, education as a public good) come from my childhood in San Bernardino, I started to learn my craft in school and after graduation.

Do you like politics?

Chris Matthews writes in Hardball that it's the only game for grown-ups. I'm not sure how I feel about that — I like board games, and we're dealing, in the final analysis, with people's lives, so he's not quite correct, but I think the work satisfies me on a lot of levels. 

Intellectually, the problems that come with elections and with legislation are interesting to solve. Frankly, working at the intersection of science and politics (liveable wages on a liveable planet, space exploration, environmental justice, and good jobs) is both urgent and fascinating, and something I'd like to do more of. 

If we talk about values, I try to elect people and make laws that allow my own family and people like us to live more abundant lives. Most of political values can be rooted in an experience I've had with a parent, one of their siblings, or one of my cousins. I want my mom to have the protection of a union, not just lawyers to defend her right to the Sabbath. If budgets are moral documents, I want California's to honor people like my late grandmother and uncle who care for some of California's most dangerous patients at Patton State Hospital I want my cousins not to have to pay for college if University of California Riverside is a better fit than Loma Linda University. I want my sister and her husband not to lose their house to fire or their kids to respiratory illnesses caused by climate change and pollution. I look down my pew in any church on Sabbath morning and see folks who might get deported, or whose kids benefit from DACA, or who are victims of police brutality.

Emotionally, I'm drawn to the organizing/campaigns/field world because it's hard. It's generally difficult because the work is as grueling as it is inconsistent, and it's particularly difficult for me because of who I am. Organizing as a discipline and the subdisciplines of political field work do not lend themselves to the strengths I had as a child or the career assumptions for young man growing up in the Indonesian community or the Adventist faith. I do think I have a bloody-mindedness, an intransigence about choosing to do political work (and, to my mind, the hardest kind of political work) when my contemporaries are going to professional school or working in healthcare.

Finally, it satisfies my need to geek out. My sister follows the Steelers, and my dad fills out his March Madness bracket every year.  My mom stitches and watches Law and Order. I practice writing a better phone script and play saxophone.

Do you believe it is important for people of faith to get involved in politics?

Yes, politics is for everyone. Being a partisan might not be. Being a candidate or an aide or a campaigner might not be. And that's fine. But being able to talk to a neighbor about safe streets, good schools, and where your tax money goes is as difficult as it is necessary. 

For those more inclined toward the critically necessary tedium of committee work, monitoring local councils and boards, or managing the day-to-day life of volunteer organizations, there are thousands of places that our unique skills as Adventists involved in the life of our church (I remain in awe of potluck planners, nominating committee members, elders, and deacons) can fill well. 

As an example: The Sierra Club is generally seen as one of the great DC-based players in the environmental/conservation community with lobbyists stalking the halls of Congress. And it is. It's also hundreds of small groups of people leading hikes, maintaining trails, searching for rare flora and fauna, and enjoying the world's natural beauty in their own backyards. How many of us ex-Pathfinders would be enriched by, or be of help to, a local Sierra Club group somewhere near Berrien Springs or Loma Linda? 

Do as much as you can, whenever you can, wherever you can. Run a cleanup with your Assembly member. Run for the school board. 

While my own politics are very clear here (I'm left-of-center, an assertively partisan Democrat, and somebody who identifies himself very clearly with labor unions and the environment), I want to emphatically say that politics is for everyone, regardless of party.  Adventists have acquitted themselves well on both sides of the aisle. Dr. Bill Emmerson served with distinction as a Republican in both houses of the California Legislature; Jerry and Shirley Pettis, of course, represented Loma Linda in the House long and well, while Roscoe Bartlett served Maryland in the same capacity. On the Democratic side, Justin Kim ran a strong campaign for Congress in the seat the Pettises occupied, and Sheila Jackson-Lee continues to represent Houston, while Nathan Blake in Iowa lost a very close primary for the State Senate and continues to serve on his school board.

What do you feel the Adventist church does well? What could it do better?

I don't feel qualified speaking to that question directly because I'm not deeply embedded in the organizational and cultural life of our church — the different schedule and different community public school provided always kept me a bit apart. 

I think that Adventists in California make more space for for ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity than most of the Protestant churches I've passed through. When I went to church with non-Adventist friends, I might catch a verse of a praise song in Spanish every now and again or a story about the heathens in the mission field. 

Conversely, my mother says grace, studies her Bible, and takes sermon notes in Indonesian, and most languages have at least one church in the community I grew up in. There's a comfort with non-white, non-American, and non-English speaking cultures and languages in Adventism I've not seen elsewhere in the non-mainline Protestant world — we aren't weird.  We aren't held up as “the mission field.”  We're just another kind of Adventist, albeit with specific types of cultural and political baggage.

I apologize for getting unnecessarily political (and I'm very excited to see the comments section for what I'm about to say), but I remain confused about the conflict over women's ordination. That may have to do with my separation from the community at large or my Californian origins, but if the the Most High sees fit to bestow the Spirit of Prophecy on a woman, why should women be uniquely barred from ministry? My cousin is a Bible teacher at an academy. If she's qualified to teach Scripture, why couldn't she (hypothetically) be qualified to preach Scripture?

Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years time?

I'm not sure. I like my job, but the instability of campaign work is starting to wear my family out. I might pick another trade and continue to volunteer. I'd like to be in southern California.

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Coming Out Ministries (COM) is an organization that is devoted to helping people find “redemption, victory, healing, and freedom from homosexuality.” COM board members, Brian and Anne Savinsky, interviewed by Spectrum on January 31, produced a documentary film that primarily features the stories of four individuals who make up the Coming Out Ministries team: Ron Woolsey, Wayne Blakely, Michael Carducci, and Danielle Harrison. I attended a screening of Journey Interrupted along with a follow-up Q & A session with Blakely and Carducci on December 10 at the Pasadena, California, Seventh-day Adventist Church.  

The stories of each person in the film begin tragically and end triumphantly. Dysfunctional and abusive homes and friendships marred the early years of each person’s life and failed to provide a stable environment where healthy sexuality was modeled and discussed. Each person was exposed at an early age to harmful sexual experiences through other people in their lives and through access to pornography. Depression and mental illness during their teenage and adult years was common. Some became addicted to alcohol and drugs. During periods of their adult lives, each engaged in compulsive sexual behaviors—prostitution, anonymous sexual encounters, excessive self-gratification, and more. But each story concluded with the testimony of breaking free from dysfunctional sexual experiences, most by practicing celibacy. Ron Woolsey found a loving relationship with a wife, raised children with her, and continues to minister as an Adventist pastor. Each subject in the film testified that it was the power of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit that gave them freedom from “the gay lifestyle” where they can now describe themselves as God’s sons or daughter, rather than as a gay man, lesbian, or bisexual. The film is well-done and would be an inspiration for anyone who hopes to break free from dysfunctional sexual behavior.  

As a pastor who has had the privilege of serving and becoming friends with many individuals who identify somewhere in the LGBTQ spectrum, I greatly appreciate that this film and the Coming Out Ministries team are getting Adventists to talk about the reality of same-sex attraction in a way that encourages faith communities to show grace, love, and support to LGBTQ people in their midst. This is desperately needed and long overdue.  

But while I believe that each person with COM has the best of motives for how to counsel people to respond to their same-sex desires, they are, unintentionally, causing harm to the very people to whom they are trying to minister. Perpetuated in the film and the follow-up comments from Blakely and Carducci were a number of myths about human sexuality, false stereotypes about gay and lesbian experiences, and a lack of differentiation between the realms of sexual attraction and gender identity.  Despite the best of intentions, this film has the potential to further isolate LGBTQ youth and young adults and keep church members from knowing how to best serve those with same-sex attractions. 

Here are five of the myths I heard explicitly or implicitly communicated by the film’s presenters followed by my attempt to provide corrective data.  

Myth 1: All gays and lesbians are obsessed with sex.

Listening to the stories in the film, this is a natural conclusion to draw if you do not know any LGBTQ individuals yourself or only get your information on same-sex orientation by people and ministries that are opposed to same-sex relationships. 

Reality 1: The majority of gays and lesbians yearn for companionship.¹ 

Most people with same-gender attractions want the type of relationships that people with opposite-gender attractions want.  Yes, that includes sexual intimacy.  But as much or more than that, they want emotional support, spiritual support, and all the other benefits that a soulmate brings into one’s life. 

Myth 2: There is one gay lifestyle. This lifestyle is the experience of every person attracted to someone of the same gender and is marked by many of the following: 

1. drug and pornography addiction
2. active sexual experimentation
3. excessive self-gratification
4. promiscuous and, sometimes anonymous, sexual encounters; and/or
5. a lack of desire for and an inability to maintain monogamous, same-sex relationships

Reality 2: There are as many same-sex lifestyles as there are heterosexual lifestyles.²

This means that people with same-sex attractions can have from 1-100 sexual partners in their lives, just like people with opposite-sex attractions. Gay and lesbian people can have strong or weak sex drives. Some will experiment more than others. Sexual behavior preferences, appropriate or inappropriate, vary widely and are different from orientation.   

Myth 3: If families can protect children from harmful early-childhood experiences, their child are certain to grow up with typical heterosexual attractions and desires.

These are the harmful experiences that they believe can lead to same-sex attraction include: 
1. a sexually-dysfunctional or physically/sexually-abusive home
2. sexual molestation by a stranger, friend, family member or authority figure
3. an absent or an “effeminate”/“emasculated” father; or 
4. an overbearing (read “masculine”) mother

Reality 3: People with same-sex attractions come from all types of upbringings, including from what COM presenters would affirm as ideal Adventist homes.

I have friends who grew up in multi-sibling homes where their brothers and sisters grew up with a heterosexual orientation while they had a same-sex orientation. I have other gay and lesbian friends who grew up in severely dysfunctional homes where their siblings were heterosexual.  How can siblings grow up in the same home environment and have different orientations? The only explanation is that a dysfunctional home life cannot be understood to be a predictor for developing a same-sex orientation³ any more than a stable and sexually-healthy home life can be a predictor for developing an opposite-sex orientation.

Myth 4: A person’s gender identity or expression of gender must fit early 20^th-century Western norms of what is considered masculine and feminine.

Neither the film nor the presenters recognize that gender identity is a separate human characteristic from sexual attraction.From their perspective, anyone operating outside of a western binary gender expression and opposite-sex attraction are dysfunctional. If a biological male has a strong expression of a “feminine side;” a biological female carries herself too much “like a man;” or either gender’s internal psychological identification differs from their biological presentation; these people, are in, or dangerously close to, “the gay lifestyle.”

Reality 4: Gender identity and sexual attraction are two different aspects of a person’s makeup.

Further, gender identity and sexual attraction are not binaries. Both aspects of a person’s being can be presented along different continuums of self-expression.⁴

Myth 5: Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, can remove your desire for same-sex intimacy. If you pray and claim the promises found in the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, God will give you the self-control necessary to gain victory over same-sex attraction.

Each person in the film states that he/she has been set free from homosexuality and that God brought deliverance though being immersed in prayer and the reading of inspired writings.  

Reality 5: With rare exceptions that are statistically irrelevant to the same-sex-oriented population as a whole, gay and lesbian individuals never lose their innate desire for companionship and intimacy with someone of the same sex.⁵ 

In one breath, Blakely and Carducci stated that Jesus set them free from homosexuality. In the next, they stated that they are still attracted to men. Their orientation has not changed. What has changed for them is that they have, through the Holy Spirit’s work, severely curbed, or stopped completely, engaging in sexual promiscuity or excessive self-gratification facilitated by gay pornography. Their stories of breaking free from sexual addiction are wonderful. But they need to properly identify what they left behind—their behavioral addictions, rather than their same-sex orientation.  

I have listened to dozens of stories from gay and lesbian friends who share their stories of trying to find victory over their same-sex attraction for years, even decades. They cried out to God in prayer every day, claimed scripture promises, met with pastors and counselors, and, in some cases, tried what we now recognize as the barbaric and increasingly-illegal practices of conversion or reparative therapy.^{6, 7}  These friends tried just as hard as those in the film and did not find freedom from their orientation.  

To their credit, neither COM nor the film offers or encourages people to try conversion therapy.  But the implication of their message is if you have not broken free from “the gay lifestyle,” you have not fully surrendered to the work of the Holy Spirit. This subtle message is the most dangerous one in the film. It has the potential to severely demoralize someone who believes that God requires a person to break free from same-sex attraction and has been pleading, to no avail, for God to remove this desire.

While I do know LGBTQ individuals who are engaged in some of the same dysfunctional behaviors as the COM presenters, I know many more who are living a life that, if they were heterosexual, people with COM would affirm their behaviors as healthy and normative. A couple of these friends have chosen celibacy; others are looking for a life partner (some more patiently than others), and some have pledged fidelity to a same-sex soulmate and are experiencing the full range of joys and challenges that come with marriage.   

Even more than getting accurate information on sexuality in the hands of upcoming generations of Adventists, my experience on December 10 reminded me of how desperately our teens and young adults need Adventist churches and schools that will create safe and loving environments to support them as they determine how they will healthfully live out their lives within the framework of their orientation. To tell a person with a same-sex orientation to pray and read the Bible by themselves and let them work it out on their own only guarantees them more loneliness and depression and greatly increases the risk of them engaging in harmful behaviors, including suicide.⁸ Those wrestling with identity, attraction, and addiction need us to come alongside them and stick with them no matter what they are going through and what mistakes they make along the way. We should not interrupt their growth by exasperating their fragile teen years with unrealistic expectations borne out of spiritual and cultural myths.  

If you are considering showing this film to a group, allow me to make three recommendations: 
 

1.Do not show this film to teens or market it to young adults. Because of the extensive misuse of terminology; the lack of differentiation between addiction, attraction and identity; and the suggestion that the addictions suffered by the subjects in the film are normative for all LGBTQ people; confusion and further discouragement for these age groups will likely result. The stories in Journey Interrupted are important stories to hear. But whomever hosts this event must clarify that the film shows people with same-sex attractions breaking free from their sexual addictions rather than their orientations. Providing a primer on the conventional usage of terms would be helpful as well.⁹
 

2. If you show this film or invite COM’s presenters to come, consider showing two other films made by Adventist filmmakers that introduce viewers to a broader array of LGBTQ stories:  Seventh-Gay Adventists and Enough Room at the Table. Adding these two films will give a more robust view of Adventist theological perspectives and showcase the diversity of struggles and triumphs of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters within the Adventist denomination.
 

3. Before, during and after the presentations, make sure that your faith community communicates unconditional love and support for LGBTQ people along with anyone, gay or straight, who suffers with sexual addictions. Tell them that when you look into their eyes, you see Jesus. And do everything you can to create safe spaces for them and their families. I can think of no better way to minister the love of God.  

Todd Leonard is senior pastor at Glendale City Seventh-day Adventist Church in Glendale, California.  

NOTES:

1. American Psychological Association: “Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality,“ 2008. Expand the section subtitled “What is the nature of same-sex relationships?”  http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx?item=4 

2. Justin Lee: “4 Ways Christians Are Getting the Gay Debate Wrong,” July 6, 2013, Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-lee/4-ways-christians-are-getting-the-gay-debate-wrong_b_3219665.html 

3. Kurt Conklin, “Child Sexual Abuse I: An Overview.” February 2012, Advocates for Youth. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/publications-a-z/410-child-sexual-abuse-i-an-overview 

4. The Trevor Project. “Coming Out as You: The Spectrum.”  http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/spectrum 

5. Warren Throckmorton.  “Alan Chambers: 99.9% have not experienced a change in their orientation,” January 9, 2012, Patheos.com.  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2012/01/09/alan-chambers-99-9-have-not-experienced-a-change-in-their-orientation/ 

6. “Insufficient Evidence that Sexual Orientation Change Efforts Work, Says APA,” American Psychological Association, August 5, 2009.

7."’Therapies’ to change sexual orientation lack medical justification and threaten health,” Pan American Health Organization, May 17, 2012.  http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6803&Itemid=1926 

8. Stephen T. Russell, PhD, and Kara Joyner, PhD:  “Adolescent Sexual Orientation and Suicide Risk: Evidence From a National Study.” American Journal of Public Health, August 2001, Vol 91, No.8.  http://itgl.lu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SB-2000.pdf 

9. A helpful glossary and resource guide can be found here:  http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/glossary# 

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Denis Fortin, former dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, offers a new look at Ellen White's classic Steps to Christ with an annotated edition that shows the sources of the volume's material from her previously published writings. 

Question: You have just published, through the Andrews University Press, a new academic, annotated edition of Ellen White's Steps to Christ. You wrote an historical introduction to the book and for each chapter you have prepared annotations and a brief introduction, attempting to locate Steps to Christ within the wider historical theological tradition of Christianity. Can you give us some examples of what that means? Who is the intended audience for this new edition? Why did you think it was an important project to do?

Answer: Ellen White’s understanding of salvation is similar in many ways to what Wesleyan Methodists believed in her time.  It is important to remind ourselves of that similarity and to know that Adventists understood themselves as having something to supplement what most Protestant denominations taught.  

We did not see ourselves as replacing Protestant churches but as offering them something they lacked—the new truths we had found. When it comes to salvation, we were basically in agreement (and still are) that salvation is a gift of God through Christ’s death on the cross, given to repentant sinners who by faith claim the promises of God. Even the title of the book, Steps to Christ, was at the time a very obvious Wesleyan metaphor for the plan of salvation. 

I thought of preparing this annotated edition a couple years ago when I realized the coincidence that 2017 is the 125^th anniversary of the publication of Steps to Christ and also the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation.  Having seen annotated editions of some classics at Barnes & Noble, I thought that maybe we could publish something similar with some of Ellen White’s classic books.  

I started working on this edition also with the goal of preparing something that could be an Adventist contribution to mark the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.  My intent was to prepare an edition that local churches and pastors can give to pastors of other denominations in their communities.  Ellen White prepared this little book to help Adventist evangelists in their work, and I prepared the annotated edition with a similar purpose: to give it to other Christians and to share with them what we have in common regarding our experience of salvation. I thought this would be a fitting contribution for the 500th anniversary. The book is an ideal gift for outreach—it looks beautiful, the layout reads well, and the content provides a good introduction to Ellen White and the doctrine of salvation.

You credit Steps to Christ with bringing you to the Adventist church after you were given the book by an Adventist pastor. How old were you then? What was it about the book that made such an impact on you?

I grew up in a nominal Catholic home and received something of a cultural understanding of God, Jesus, salvation, and faith.  When I was a teenager, I watched the It Is Written program on my local TV station in Quebec City and found these programs on the study of the Bible fascinating. I learned a lot of about biblical teachings that built on what I already knew and a whole lot more. 

After I asked for a brochure offered at the end of a program, the local pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist church dropped by my home to see me, and before he left, he gave me a French Steps to Christ.  That was the first Adventist book I read, and it began to mold my spiritual journey.  I have read it many times in French and English.  Through the years, I have reflected on its teaching for my own personal life but also for my classes, and I often share insights with my students.  Although this is a devotional book, compiled mainly from Ellen White’s articles and sermons, the theological insights in it reflect a beautiful biblical perspective on the plan of salvation.

Ellen White used passages from many of her previous books to put together Steps to Christ— is that right? Why do you think she felt the need to publish Steps to Christ if the material was already out there?

In the summer of 1890, a group of pastors told Ellen White that they would appreciate it if she could prepare a small book on the experience of salvation that they could give in their evangelistic meetings to supplement their own teaching.  She liked the idea and asked her assistant Marian Davis (whom she nicknamed her “bookmaker”) to prepare this book.  

Davis compiled Steps to Christ from Ellen White’s earlier published materials, mainly from articles in the Review and Herald, Signs of the Times, and the Testimonies for the Church.  

Ellen White did not “write” this book, so to speak, from cover to cover; Marian Davis compiled it for Ellen White as she did for many other books of Ellen White between 1880 and 1904.  (For more information on Marian Davis’s work, I recommend the article under her name in The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia.)  

The historical introduction to the book in this edition discusses this process.  Also, you will find in the Appendix a list of what I think are the likely sources for most of the content in the book.  

This is the first time that a book of Ellen White is published in which we can find such a discussion about its preparation and information about its antecedent sources.  

I know that there are also some non-Adventist sources that are very similar to what we have in Steps to Christ, from books Ellen White had read, books she was given or recommended by pastors.  I did not do a study of these similarities and parallels although I know they exist.  Since Steps to Christ is a compilation from her own prior publications, these parallels with the books of evangelical authors would have come from the prior documents that ended up later in Steps to Christ. But such a study is complex and multi-layered, and I did not have the time or the technical resources to do it.

So you are saying that Steps to Christ is not uniquely Adventist — it has a wider appeal?

As I mentioned, the idea for Steps to Christ was suggested to Ellen White by evangelists in the summer 1890 during a pastors’ meeting. So the book was first intended for Christians of other denominations or non-church people as an introduction to some simple elements of the Christian faith. From the start, the intent of the book was to be an outreach tool, and while many important aspects of the doctrine of salvation are discussed in the book, the vocabulary is simple (some key theological words like justification and sanctification are omitted), and the tone is often conversational (like a pastor speaking to people during a sermon).

It is also for this reason that Fleming Revell, an evangelical publisher in Chicago, was approached to publish it.  

And it worked.  The book was sold by the thousands in the first couple years, and Revell asked Ellen White to provide him with other books—he would have liked to publish more of her writings.  

One hundred and twenty-five years later the book still has this appeal, but like any other book written decades ago, time and culture have made it more difficult for many people to understand or to relate to its content.  I felt that an annotated edition might be helpful to keep its content still relevant.  Even some Adventists today have difficulties understanding the content of Steps to Christ, and this edition will be helpful for us, too.

You have done significant research on how Ellen White was helped in her work by her assistant. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Honestly, it is hard to say only a “little” about this.  Much of the work of Ellen White’s assistants was well known by people in her entourage while she was alive, but the details of what their work consisted of was not well known.  Some letters were exchanged between her staff or family with other people asking questions about this relationship, but these letters were not widely circulated. (Some letters of W. C. White were published in Selected Messages, book 3.)  And over the decades this knowledge was forgotten, known only by a few people.  

Her assistants were responsible for correcting Ellen White’s grammar, syntax, and basic composition mistakes.  She had little formal education and relied on these assistants to polish her writing, but they were not allowed to compose or insert their thoughts into the documents they worked on.  

Marian Davis, however, was her “bookmaker.”  Davis did the compilation work for about 10 of Ellen White’s books, including all the major ones we love: The Desire of Ages, Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, Patriarchs and Prophets, and The Great Controversy.

The absence of public awareness of the process used to prepare Ellen White’s books goes all the way back to her own lifetime.  Some pastors were surprised to learn about this, and that caused some to lose confidence in her ministry and in the church.  The conversations between Bible teachers at the 1919 Bible Conference also reveal some ambivalence about this. Some professors felt that it was better to not talk openly about it for fear that it would discourage and disillusion people.  

In the 1970s and 1980s, the “discovery” of a number of these factors in the production of Ellen White’s books created a huge stir among Adventists.  And periodically the same questions and comments resurface.  The recent publication in Spectrum of the two-part interview with Walter Rae reminded me of what happened about 35-40 years ago.  I think there has always been a fear that if people know the details about the production of Ellen White’s books, how her assistants helped and even created these books, and how she borrowed (more or less extensively) from other authors she had read, that in the end people will lose faith and confidence in her prophetic gift.  

Undergirding the hesitation to openly share all this is often, I think, a de facto view of verbal/mechanical inspiration that cannot adequately (and will never be able to) accommodate such a writing/production process and also a need to use Ellen White’s writings as the final arbiter of doctrinal, historical, and theological disputes—something she never intended her writings to become.  

But in the end, history has taught us that not sharing sufficient information about this process causes many people to lose their faith in her gift and in the church when they find out about it.  Somehow, we must do better at educating our members about Ellen White’s writings, how they were produced, and what the intent behind them is. If we were to do this better, I think we would answer many questions about her writings.

What is your next big project?

I have completed a Sabbath School Adult Bible study guide on biblical concepts of unity in the church, and I also wrote the companion book (which is basically done).  The study guide is scheduled for fall 2018.

I am currently writing the Adventist pioneer series biography on George I. Butler which I find fascinating and stimulating.  There are many historical and theological issues related to his leadership and ministry that are still relevant for our church today.  The tentative publication date for this book is 2020.

Where can people get a copy of your new edition of Steps to Christ?

I’m sure most Adventist Book Centers will have the book.  But people can also visit Andrews University Press online or call 269-471-6134. 

Denis Fortin

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Earlier this month at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, the newly inaugurated president of the United States repeated his campaign vow to repeal the Johnson Amendment, the 1954 provision in the U.S. tax code that prohibits all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing political candidates.

What is the Johnson Amendment?

The Johnson Amendment is an IRS tax reform bill that was successfully passed in Congress by Senator Lyndon Johnson in 1954, the same man who would later become president in 1963 following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Churches can invite a candidate to speak at their local church if it invites the opposing candidate; and ministries, houses of worship, denominations, and religious individuals can speak out on the moral and spiritual issues of the day, including getting involved in ballot referenda. But the Johnson Amendment is a prohibition on churches and other houses of worship to prevent churches from publicly favoring or endorsing one candidate over another. This includes the strict prohibition on financing acandidate or organizing to campaign for him/her.

Just to be clear, the attempt to repeal the Johnson Amendment is not about restoring “free speech” but rather about politicians receiving tax-deductible campaign financing from churches in return for giving churches unprecedented political power. I believe that repealing this amendment will be instrumental in creating the prophetic combination of church and state that we as Adventists have been warning about for many years, and I am extremely concerned about where this is heading.

A Divisive Proposition

If you donate money to your favorite candidate for public office, that donation is not tax-deductible. But under one of the bills in Congress that would do away with the Johnson Amendment, churches could use up to 25 percent of their church budget to endorse candidates and campaign for them. That means that if your church decided to campaign for a candidate, a significant portion of your offerings could go straight to a political candidate that your pastor or church board decided to support.

Donations will begin to pour into churches that will choose to take on a political mission, as big-time donors try to find ways to “launder” their otherwise taxable campaign donations, and money-grubbing politicians will be knocking on the doors of every church to capture large amounts of “blessed” campaign money.

Even putting the prophetic warning aside, practically speaking, as people who live in the real world, we all hold political views, and there is a good chance that you know somebody in your local church with whom you disagree when it comes to politics. Can you imagine what it would be like if your church made an awkward choice to endorse a slate of either Democrats or Republicans? Imagine the potluck discussion! It would make social media seem tame in comparison.

And if you think the current political climate has divided this nation, just wait until pastors and congregations start to argue over which candidate will get 25 percent of their church’s money. Saturday and Sunday mornings may never be the same!

While many organizations, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, speak out boldly on the issues of the day and get involved in ballot referenda related to policies that could affect us, the repeal of the Johnson Amendment crosses the line because it involves endorsing or opposing particular candidates for office. These are the people who need more money than ever before to run their campaigns and who will come knocking on the door of your church asking for an endorsement.

Gutting Church Coffers

Now, it is easy to think that nonprofit organizations would love to be able to use the power of the purse to influence candidates, but it would actually diminish giving and put church missions at risk. The same day as the Prayer Breakfast, Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits released the following statement:

Nonprofits are already free to exercise their First Amendment rights to advocate for their missions. Allowing political operatives to push for endorsements would put nonprofits in a position where they become known as Democratic charities or Republican charities and put missions at risk.

Furthermore, those who donate to nonprofits want those contributions to go toward advancing the mission, not toward advancing the careers of politicians or lining the pockets of political consultants. Getting involved in supporting or opposing candidates will have a chilling effect on contributions on which many nonprofits rely."

With the repeal of the Johnson Amendment now on the table, either by congressional action, or an executive order of the president to the IRS not to enforce it, the Adventist Church is taking a very serious look at this issue, and we plan on following Ellen White’s counsel to steer clear of divisive political endorsements. But there is little doubt that the ability to use tax-free donations to endorse candidates will give the churches huge amounts of political power—and this is not a good thing.

The Temptation of Power and a Prophetic Warning

I would go as far as to say that without the Johnson Amendment, some churches will gain huge amounts of political power and will manipulate, dominate, and eventually control the government at all levels through the electoral and policy-making process.

Many good Christian people probably think that it would be wonderful if their church had more pull in Washington, but this movement has serious prophetic implications that many people will not see until it is too late. Note Ellen White’s prophetic observation in The Great Controversy regarding Revelation 13:11-15:

“In order for the United States to form an image of the beast[that is, in the likeness of Papal Rome during a 1,260-year period in which the Church manipulated, dominated and controlled both kings and emperors], the religious power [or “powers”] must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends” (The Great Controversy, page 443, my comments added).

And what happens when the church gets this kind of power?

“Whenever the church has obtained secular power, she has employed it to punish dissent from her doctrines. Protestant churches that have followed in the steps of Rome by forming alliance with worldly powers have manifested a similar desire to restrict liberty of conscience. An example of this is given in the long-continued persecution of dissenters by the Church of England. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thousands of nonconformist ministers were forced to leave their churches, and many, both of pastors and people, were subjected to fine, imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom” (The Great Controversy, page 443).

Could that happen in America? Will churches seek to use the power of the state to punish those who dissent from their doctrines? We can already see that some churches would love to have this power, and White warns us that we will one day experience similar, if not much more severe, persecution in America. That is why this matters and why we need to work now to preserve liberty of conscience.

Repealing the Johnson Amendment isnot about giving pastors “freedom of speech.” Pastors are already able to speak to issues. It is about giving churches the financial power to influence elections using tax-deductible donations. When it is gone, pity the politician who does not have a large congregation willing to fund a political campaign and who has to rely on traditional taxable donations.

An Appeal to Christ’s Kingdom

Before 1954, American churches were fairly disparate, disunited, and pretty much politically isolated, but today Evangelical Protestants and Catholics are very much united on many issue—sissues that even we can and do agree with regarding shared concerns. This is, therefore, shaping up to be a prophetically explosive trend. If we fail to ascertain the larger prophetic picture at stake here, we will fail to be the voice of prophetic warning in our otherwise well-meaning attempts to champion and preserve religious freedom, which includes not only the constitutional guarantee to the free exercise of religion, but also the constitutional guarantee that church and state will remain separate.

Once the Johnson Amendment is gone, politicians who want to maintain power will be asking large churches to commit their resources to their elections, and church members will feel religiously compelled to support them. The resulting centers of combined religious and political influence will become the most powerful entities in America, capable of calling on politicians to enforce their plans just as White predicted in The Great Controversy.

Do not fall for the hype that the Johnson Amendment is necessary to restore your pastor’s freedom of speech and see the attempt to repeal it for what it is—a plan by politicians to grab your tax-deductible offering money. Politicians would love to be able to claim a church’s stamp of approval as “God’s favorite candidate” in return for giving churches more political power. And yes, I believe we are watching the seeds being planted in America for the combined church-state power that we have been warned about in Revelation 13.

With tremendous events happening around us on a nearly daily basis, we are the front row of history. We also have the benefit of Bible prophecy, and we know where this is going, but that knowledge is not enough. We need to work to preserve liberty of conscience so that we can continue to preach, not a message of political power, but the gospel of Jesus Christ who taught us that His Kingdom is not of this world.

My Philosophy

I believe in freedom of religion, not freedom from religion (i.e., a society free of religion) or freedom to enforce religion, particularly acts of worship. This means upholding both the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment to a high constitutional standard against powerful forces.

Using this standard, government neutrality means that religion and religious institutions must be allowed to thrive freely but without its official endorsement. The First Amendment, in part, states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Today, some seek to reinterpret the no Establishment provision separating Church and State in ways that would require government to financially support their institutions and enforce their dogmas so as to solve the moral ills of the nation.

Others seek to marginalize the Free Exercise of Religion by failing to recognize that government must have a sufficient compelling interest when lawfully denying or restricting the constitutional right of individuals and institutions of faith to exercise and maintain their religious mission and practices.

Both are harmful to our constitutional health. We believe the Nation’s Founders anticipated this tension. That is why they created an internal check and balance within the very wording of the First Amendment in order to prevent the Country from being overrun by either extreme in the great church-state debate (a puritanical vs. godless society).

Remove this balancing safeguard, our nation’s constitutional guarantees will be lost, and with it, our civil and religious freedoms. Sandra Day O’Connor summed it up best: “The religious zealot and the theocrat frighten us in part because we understand only too well their basic impulse. No less frightening is the totalitarian atheist who aspires to a society in which the exercise of religion has no place.”

Gregory W. Hamilton is President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. This article first appeared on the NRLA website and is reprinted here by permission.

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Polymath Ray McAllister talks about his work coding Hebrew symbols for Braille, winning the "Nobel Prize for blindness," and being a part of the miracle of childbirth.

Adventist: I cook with TvP and tofu, never any meat or cheese.
I’ll die before I use unnatural remedies to treat disease.
I’ve never tasted alcohol or tried to smoke a cigarette.
I don’t wear jewelry, and I tithe the half of everything I get.
Then, all day Sabbath I’m at church and gladly sit on every board.
I help out with the Pathfinders, and never do I seek reward.
I know all 700 hymns and never miss a syllable.
Syllable? Ah, yes.
I make all strive to reach my goals however unfulfillable.
All: He makes all strive to reach his goals however unfulfillable.
He makes all strive to reach his goals however unfulfillable.
He makes all strive to reach his goals however unfulfillable.

--This one verse is excerpted from Ray McAllister's "The Modern Faithful Adventist," based on Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Modern Major General" from The Pirates of Penzance. The complete poem will appear in the next issue of the Spectrum journal.

What inspired you to write the poem "The Modern Faithful Adventist"? Had you been listening to Gilbert & Sullivan's work a lot? Listening to some particularly "thought-provoking" sermons?

I wanted to address the issues of how many Adventists major in minors, being really good with doctrinal and dietary issues but not necessarily up on matters like loving one another.  

Many science fiction programs like Star Trek and Babylon 5 seem to involve the Modern Major General song, and I got familiar with it through those.  It just seemed like a match made in heaven for satire.

Have you written other poetry? Do you have a special interest in poetry?

I write lots of poetry.  I published a book of poetry, Journey of Passion, in 1998 from Mellen Poetry Press.  Mellen says its books never go out of print, so someone could contact the company and order one if it isn’t found anywhere else.

You are the first blind person to get a Ph.D in Hebrew Scriptures, which you earned at Andrews University in 2010. Can you explain why this was a particularly difficult subject for a blind person to study?

שָׁלוֹם   That’s Shalom, in Hebrew.  But, I had to handle that in Braille and use texts that weren’t converted into Braille. 

The languages we were studying had more technical characters and markings than the standard Braille Greek and Hebrew original language texts provided.  

I ended up resorting to using computer-code-style files that used letters, numbers, and punctuations to represent Greek and Hebrew symbols.  I had a computer that would convert these symbols into Braille letters and show them on a Braille display: a device using something like magnetic pins that pop up in the shape of Braille.  

I was grateful to have these resources, but I knew that other blind people would need something that would appear more like Braille Greek and Hebrew, just with the extra symbols. 

And now you feel a mission to help other blind people study ancient languages, is that right? You and your organization, The Semitic Scholars, were awarded a prestigious prize from the National Federation of the Blind last summer for your work in making Biblical language materials accessible to the blind. I understand you coded Braille in ancient biblical languages so blind people could study the original texts. How did you do that? 

More and more blind people have dreams that involve studying the Bible in the original languages.  For some, this study is a means to the end of being successful professional spiritual leaders.  For others, there is a deep passion for more fully understanding the meaning and beauty of the Biblical texts.  Whatever the reason, such a journey presents some difficult obstacles.  Developing ways to overcome these obstacles has been the work of the Semitic Scholars group: three blind or visually impaired individuals.

I developed coding for the symbols not already set up in Braille.  Hebrew has these accents which help one know when to pause when reading and which also can be used to know how to chant, or sing, the text.  Most of these symbols were not already coded in Braille Hebrew.  Since chanting is a task a blind person can enjoy, I felt the need to prepare Hebrew Bibles in Braille for the blind with all these symbols.  Once I developed these symbols, I needed to have them peer reviewed. 

That was where Sarah Blake LaRose, one of the other two Semitic Scholars, came in.  Mrs. Larose is a professional Braille transcriber and professor of Hebrew.  In 2007, she developed a Braille table for JAWS screen reader for Biblical Greek, with all its technical markings, and Hebrew.  JAWS, then, would enable a computer to show Biblical Hebrew in Braille for blind users. 

With her guidance, I completed a system I could use to prepare texts that the blind could use.  One notable text is the Aleppo Hebrew Bible, available in the public domain.  Using “search and replace” in MS Word, and a lot of other technical tricks, I converted that entire Hebrew Bible, accents and all, into Braille, and, yes, I have chanted Hebrew from it fluidly.  

I also converted many other Hebrew documents, Semitic inscriptions, and many Greek documents into Braille using “search and replace.”  Then, in 2014, I wrote a Hebrew course for the blind.

I began collaborating with Duxbury Systems, a company that produces software to convert documents of various languages into Braille, where I began working closely with Matthew Yeater.  Mr. Yeater is the current president of the National Federation of the Blind of Michiana and is the third member of our Semitic Scholars group.  He had been working with Duxbury to set up a system for converting Biblical language documents containing many languages, with English included, into Braille.  This would allow grammars, articles, and dictionaries to be easily Brailled.  Mr. Yeater and I set up the code for Syriac in Braille, and I coded Coptic.  (Syriac is similar to Hebrew but uses a different alphabet.  Coptic is a late form of Egyptian but has letters based on Greek.)

It is now possible to use Duxbury to convert many ancient texts to Braille without having to use “search and replace.”  

Recently, I have begun converting public domain Greek works of Plato and Aristotle into Braille.  It’s definitely a lot easier relying on Duxbury to do most of the translation into Braille. 

My dreams for the future of this project are simple:  I wish to have more texts in these and more related ancient languages in Braille formats for the blind.  

It is my prayer that this award will give me the recognition I need to negotiate with scholars around the world so I can access the text materials I need. 

The prize came with $20,000. How will you use this money to further your goals?

I used my portion to fund the downpayment for a house in which I have more space and a central point to work from in anything I do.

How did you become interested in studying Hebrew scriptures?

I just wanted to.  I find Hebrew and Jewish roots fascinating.

You teach religion classes for Andrews via distance education on an adjunct basis. Would you say it is easier for a blind person to teach online?

Easier than doing other things, easier than teaching face to face, or easier than a sighted person teaching?  With my screen reader, I’m able to manage just about anything a sighted person can do, and, there’s no commute time or transportation issues.

You are also a licensed massage therapist. Do you currently work as a massage therapist? What led you to this work? It seems very different from working as a biblical scholar!

My main historical mentor is Leonardo da Vinci who did just about everything well.  My mind, to be satisfied, must do many things.  I’ve always enjoyed massage as a hobby, and when I wasn’t succeeding as planned in academia, I decided to make massage a profession.  Now I don’t want to give it up.

And even more unusually, you are also a certified doula, helping women in childbirth! A male doula is very unusual, and maybe a blind doula even more unusual. What inspired you to become a doula? When did you become certified? Do you actively work as a doula? How many women have you assisted in childbirth? Do you have children yourself?

I was turning 40, and my wife and I had no kids. Yet for years I had dreamed of experiencing the miracle of birth. 

Since I'm totally blind, sitting in the back of a delivery room wouldn't be helpful.  So in 2014, a year after I became a licensed massage therapist, I began training to become a certified massage doula. (I have never heard of any other blind male certified doulas.)

I had to complete theoretical and practical training to first become a certified prenatal massage therapist. Next, I read all the materials (with my screen reader) for becoming a massage doula. Learning the theory was easy, and I passed the academic test for the doula course.

But then I had to find three pregnant women who would accept a blind man as their doula. That turned out to be a challenge even though I was offering free prenatal and postpartum massage care. Finally, I reached out to a homeless shelter where I had done infant massage previously. A pregnant woman there decided she wanted me as her doula, and she referred me to another pregnant friend of hers, who in turn recommended me to another friend.

I helped those three mothers as they went into labor and supported them through pushing. Being part of those births was the most amazing experience. The mothers all reported that I helped them significantly and that my blindness was not a hindrance. 

Later, I was able to serve as a doula for three more women.

How did you lose your sight?

Peter’s Anomaly is the condition. In 1987, when I was 12 years old, the degenerative birth defect climaxed, and I lost the limited vision I had in my one somewhat good eye.

Where are you from originally? 

California.

Would you describe Michigan, where you now live, as the heartland of the "modern, faithful Adventist"?

They’re everywhere.

Where do you picture yourself in five years? Ten years? Do you intend to pursue teaching? Research? Something else? What would be your ultimate job, with practicality no object?

 Well, that’s the beauty in all of this. I threw away the “script” a few years ago, turned off “autopilot,” and now my mission is at my discretion.  I haven’t a clue where I’ll be.  I’m just trying to follow God’s lead.  I like the adventure better this way.

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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I see a troubling trend in the Evangelical Christian community that I would like to address. What much of Evangelical Christianity focuses on and what members are willing to overlook does not seem in any way reflective of the character of Christ. Evangelicals seem to focus on two offenses to the exclusion of anything else: participation in an abortion or committing homosexual acts. The message seems to be that if any segment of society involves itself in either of these activities, God’s punishment will be exacted on all of society as a result. Condoning is tantamount to participation. Evangelicals act terrified of the possibility of a vengeful God’s punishment through collateral damage. They do not seem genuinely concerned about the “sin” or the “sinner” but rather the effect that it might bring upon them. 

Take televangelist Pat Robertson who has pointed to several natural disasters as having been caused by miscreants’ “evil deeds.” Most notably, Robertson has called out the “wickedness” of New Orleans which, he was quick to assert, brought God’s judgment in the form of Hurricane Katrina. The late Reverend Jerry Falwell also connected natural disasters with abortion and the LGBT community. Simply allowing the existence of these activities is said to be enough to bring about the consequence of a “wrathful” God. 

While there are reasonable points to be made about reproductive rights, for the purpose of this piece, I wish to concentrate on the LGBT community.

My interest was first stimulated by the much-discussed story a lesbian couple, one of whom was recently baptized in an Adventist church in Chico, California. Same-sex marriage has been a peripheral issue for those who live in this community, but over the past few years, it has come to the fore.

Just because I am not a part of the LGBT community does not absolve me of the responsibility of helping to make their lives less difficult—at minimum, adding my voice to help in their struggles. I was so glad to see those in the Chico Adventist Church adding their voices, not necessarily in support of homosexuality, but in support of humanity, dignity, and love for fellow humans. At Pentecost, the disciples were taken aback when Gentiles (considered sinful) also received the Holy Spirit. Just as then, God must also be trying to reach the LGBT community now. Why else would people be eager to be baptized into God’s family? I think that when God brings someone through the doors of our churches, the message is,”This is my child, too.”

I find it almost laughable when people say same-sex marriage has denigrated their heterosexual marriage. How? I have been in a heterosexual marriage for almost 50 years, and I have honestly tried to understand how my marriage has been negatively impacted by two men or two women making a commitment to each other and receiving a piece of paper acknowledging that commitment. Marriage is not defined by a sexual act; it is a commitment signifying faithfulness to another individual, be they the same or the opposite sex.

The sacrality of marriage is a religious additive. Marriages have been performed by secular magistrates, judges, justices of the peace, ship captains, for thousands of years, none of which necessarily have any religious affiliation. Are two atheists not entitled to marry in this country? The only thing that confines marriage to being between two people of the opposite sex is a religious belief. This is precisely why the courts had no choice but to come down on the side of legally affording marriage to same-sex couples. To do anything else would make the government complicit in incorporating religious values into a secular government.

Even Evangelicals have to admit there is no way to make homosexuality go away. There have been attempts through aversion therapies to try and "convert" the homosexual into a heterosexual being. But these attempts have been almost universally denounced as both ineffective and downright harmful. Even the Catholic priesthood has not been effective in this area, and priests are in a position to control their environment much better than secular society ever could.

Evangelicals have concentrated on pushing the LGBT community back into the closet. Evangelicals have even acknowledged that this is their goal. They say that all of the attention that is being paid to LGBT rights is causing "our young people to be more receptive to becoming part of that community.” They have never been able to substantiate this in any way, but they persist in promoting this notion. What interests me is, if God is truly angry about the sexual activities of the LGBT community, how does moving them back into the closet satisfy an angry God? What about that collateral damage? Or, were their original fears, only that a public display of same sex activity, is what will bring on God's wrath? Can’t God still see what goes on in secret? So, how do you appease this angry God? What seems more important to me is the question of what kind of God does that make God?  I think that God's character has been tarnished enough by our hateful attempts to make Him into anything but the loving and merciful God that He is. 

If it is proven that the LBGT person is born into this orientation rather than choosing it, how then would you feel about your continued persecution of this group? How could you reconcile a God that has either created, or allowed the creation, of a being with not just the propensity, but one of man's most intense forces, their sex-drive, (the very term “drive” connotes a very powerful force) which then would supposedly causes this same God to look upon them as an abomination? Couldn’t this fall into a category similar to a sort of predestination?  

It has never been established what causes an individual to have an attachment to another individual of the same sex nor has it been determined when this process takes place. We do not even have absolute knowledge whether this attraction is caused genetically or societally. If you speak with a homosexual person, they will tell you that they have been this way from the time they were old enough to remember. They will tell you they were "born this way.” Attempts to find a genetic explanation to this have been less than conclusive.  Although there are some signs of a genetic difference between heterosexual and homosexual genes, proof has been less than conclusive. On the other hand, all scientific studies within these populations by sociologists and psychologists and the mental health community as a whole have shown an almost universally conclusive understanding that homosexual attraction is an inherited or "born with" trait. In recent years, the DSM, the bible of mental health disorders, has been modified by removing homosexuality as an abnormality and treating it simply as a human condition.

What is most troubling is that it is not enough for Evangelical Christians to preach from their pulpits about the "evils" of the behavior of the gay community. In recent years they have set out to use the secular institutions of government to try and force those who disagree with their religious beliefs to bring them into compliance. There is an irony in this process because these same Evangelical Christians have an almost universal condemnation of these same governmental institutions for being corrupt, ineffective, and irrelevant agencies.

Safe to say, there has never been any love lost between the "Religious Right" and the government, that is except when it suits their purpose in bringing about containment of those they wish to condemn. These same players became the "Moral Majority" and Mr. Dobson's "Focus on the Family,” which spawned other organizations too numerous to mention. Their "majority" was very doubtful, their morality questionable, but they persisted in systematically grabbing power at every turn. Dobson, himself has been known for bragging about how many in Congress he could control. He, in turn, provided voting blocs at election time.

Where does God fit into all of this? It is an essential question to ask in light of the suffering and outright persecution that the LGBT community has endured. The number of suicides within this community reveals the cost of "religiously shaming” these members of our society. Studies have shown that each episode of LGBT victimization increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times. While LGBT individuals make up roughly 5% of the youth population, it is estimated they make up 40% of the homeless.  This is due in large part to the parents of these youth being intolerant of their children's orientation. The overall suicide rate for the LGBT community is 14 times greater than that of the population as a whole. Can you honestly say that any of these lost lives were not God's children? How many more young men do we have to watch tied to a fence in the bitter Wyoming cold and snow before we say enough? Is it a fair question to ask if one “sin” is more egregious than another in the sight of God? And is it also fair to ask if we, by our silence, hold any responsibility for their suffering and deaths?

Lynden Williams is a 71-year-old retired broadcast engineer who lives in Tehachapi, California.  He has been a Sabbath School teacher for more than 25 years—currently as one of the adult Sabbath School leaders at the Lancaster California Seventh-day Adventist Church.

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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If you exist in a culture, you are subject to it. No exceptions.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech that would go down in history as one of the greatest speeches of the 21st century. In it, he implored America to re-think the way it had treated African-Americans theretofore, and plowed ahead using the language of unity and equality.

The most forgotten parts of that speech are the warnings.

Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."

The nation did.

Life at Andrews University

As an alumnus of Andrews, I know a thing or two about “the bubble.” It can be difficult to remember while in that quiet town of Berrien Springs, Michigan, with its frigid winters and haystacks, that you are present inside of America. Most of the students and faculty are American, of course. And not much is done to puncture that sense of safety.

I wouldn’t even argue that that’s a bad thing. I spent the best years of my life at Andrews University, and part of that is due to the insular nature of the community. Regardless of the diversity of language, culture, and background that the students represent, we have the same rituals and customs, we eat (and complain about) the same food, and breathe the same foul, dairy air on particularly windy Thursdays.

This allows for a cohesive community and allows for students to focus on their work and purpose for being at an institution of higher learning in the first place: education. However, there’s something being left out of the curriculum.

University of Texas vs. Fisher

In a Supreme Court case deciding on the constitutionality of the implementation of the University of Texas’ racially sensitive admissions process, Chief Justice Roberts asked simply: “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?” Followed by: “I’m just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?”

As Jedidiah C. Isler writes in an op-ed for the New York Times:

The truly damaging part of Chief Justice Roberts’s question is the tacit implication that black students must justify their presence at all. Black students’ responsibility in the classroom is not to serve as ‘seasoning’ to the academic soup. They do not function primarily to enrich the learning experience of white students."

Peace without Restitution

The #ItIsTimeAU video took the campus by storm, but should it have?

In this country where a Supreme Court justice either does not believe or does not know what value there is to having black students in the classroom? 

In this country where those very same students are asked to justify their presence in a physics classroom?

In this country that remembers only the first four words of a 17-minute speech?

Is it surprising, then, the notion that black students may have grievances others aren’t privy to?

Surprising to white people, I suppose.

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."– Jeremiah 6:14

White America has swallowed a tranquilizing drug that says there can be peace without restitution, and amends without apology. Adventism has swallowed the tranquilizing drug of believing so much in being “a peculiar people” that some, judging from comments upset about the administration’s response to black student’s grievances, truly believe that you can have a campus divorced from culture. You cannot.

The Whirlwinds of Revolt

Underneath the administration response video, one commenter wrote, “I saw zero racism when I attended in the early 2000s. Considering AU is one of the most diverse campuses, I find this hard to believe. Pandering to the white guilt/privilege BS plaguing the country.”

1.    Seeing “zero racism” when attending Andrews in no way precludes there being…more than zero racism there.

2.    Diversity does not preclude racism, either. By the logic that because Andrews is diverse, it cannot be racist, then America cannot be racist, for she is very diverse.

Another commenter was “VERY disappointed” and believes that Andrews, with the response, “does not stand up for what it’s [sic] values truly believe in.” It is hard to understand what values this individual believes Andrews to be abandoning with their empathetic response.

How are we supposed to hold conversation with such willfully shallow understandings of lessons that have already been taught?

The students in the video were not simply mentioning issues of the past and dredging up Andrews’ racial history, as some suggested. They were explicating how present aspects of the Andrews experience and present aspects of the university’s policy have affected their academic, social, and spiritual experience at that school.

And at a time when black Americans are told that it is disrespectful to take a knee, insulting to sing a protest anthem, or immoral to lob a molotov cocktail, we could simply ask of white America that they share with us their preferred form of dissent. We can now cross, “making a video to address grievances” off the list of acceptable methods.

The race conversation will always come as a shock if it is relegated to the sidelines. If the carefully constructed bubbles of Adventism, Andrews University’s campus, and white identity are not punctured from time to time with reminders of the actual state of justice, calls for change will always be met with bewildered stares.

People will always cry, “But we’ve always had good race relations here!” if the nation has returned to business as usual, and views cries for comprehensive policy change that benefits all, not simply some, of Andrews students, as an aberration or deviation from “the norm.” The whirlwinds of revolt will live on if underlying problems are not addressed, or if black students are perennially met with an attitude of “*Sigh*, what do you want now?” or “When will you be satisfied?’”

Personal Experience

For the record, as an alumnus of Andrews University, even as a black student, I can definitively say that in my day-to-day experience, I did not feel the weight of the issues mentioned in the video. That also doesn’t cause me to believe that simply because I did not personally experience it, that it didn’t happen or does not exist.

Perhaps that is a lesson that the community of Andrews can learn from.

Timothy Hucks is a blogger/author who graduated from Andrews University in 2014 with a Bachelor's of Art in English Literature.

Photo Credit: www.andrews.edu

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Charles Scriven needs no introduction to most readers of Spectrum. For more than 50 years, he has been thinking and writing about the interaction of life and religion. He has been a pastor, an editor, a professor and college president. He belongs to that interesting group of people whose pursuit of truth is not driven by concerns of career and ambition. He is a lifelong Adventist who believes that loving your church does not mean that it is a good idea to seek to preserve it in dogmatic amber.

Question: The Adventist church was built on the premise that God had commissioned it to build an Ark of solid biblical timber to function as a lifeboat for God’s people during the Apocalypse to come, a ship of truth that would discharge its passengers safely into the Kingdom of God. Is this still a viable concept?

Answer: The image of God’s followers in a boat that keeps them safe from storms has New Testament support (Mark 4:35-41; 1 Peter 3:20-2).  The evangelist Billy Sunday famously suggested, however, that the church is a lifeboat and the world a shipwreck to escape from. This image is misleading for its implied slander on what God has made, and that slander is always a temptation for communities, like ours, that steep themselves in apocalyptic thought while forgetting that God’s creation is good. 

Popular Adventism veers toward Billy Sunday, and is wrong. Thoughtful members know this, and are working on a fix, which is to say, an affirmation of the doctrine of creation, not just the arithmetic.  

Your 2009 book, The Promise of Peace is a well-written, radical restatement of Christian—and Adventist—faith. And yet it seems to have come and gone without meeting with either great support or great opposition. I have always been of the opinion that unless you spell out what you oppose, most people will try to merge new ideas with their old ones, and if that doesn’t work, they’ll discard what’s new in favor of the old. Luther started the Reformation by being controversial. In general, do you think you could have accomplished more if you had been willing to state your case in terms that would have invited controversy?

A writer who doesn’t get much notice gets defensive. I am that guy.

Now I’ve said it, and no one else has to.

I fall flat on the campmeeting circuit, and never appear on 3ABN or the Hope Channel. Bad news for book sales or impact.  When I was a pastor and administrator I usually (not always) told myself: “Affirm, don’t debunk”; preach Revelation in a new key, for example, but don’t attack Uriah Smith. But controversialists get more attention. What’s more, The Promise of Peace is an appreciative, if also fresh, take on the whole Adventist vision; it’s not an attack on anyone’s claims about hot-button topics like the sanctuary or the age of the earth. That means people who read when they’re angry just don’t have enough to get angry about.  

A few theologians and young reviewers took notice anyway. Chris Blake’s honors class at Union College calls me up. My words appear in a liturgy used at the La Sierra University Church. Still, the official Adventist press ignored The Promise of Peace, as did the Seminary, as far as I know.

Maybe Adventists readers just are conflict-motivated. Or maybe just bored. I shudder at both thoughts, as also at this final one: maybe I am boring.

One of your startling statements in The Promise of Peace occurs in the chapter entitled “Jesus Saves.”  You write: “No one in the New Testament breathes a sigh of relief at Jesus’ death. No one declares that if He “has not been executed, you are still in your sins.” It is all about the Resurrection. You point out that it took 400 years before the cross even began to be used as a symbol in Christian art. Please explain.

You remind me: atonement theory raises hackles. When three young reviewers discussed the book at a meeting of Adventist scholars several years ago, an associate editor of Adventist Review stood up to say: “Once I got to the chapter on Jesus, I was so angry I couldn’t finish the rest of the book.”  

I think that’s because I don’t see penal substitutionary atonement theory in the New Testament. Jesus paid the price for human sin, but that doesn’t mean the Father had to arrange his Son’s murder to legitimatize divine grace. As Mothers don’t send their sons to war just so they can be killed, the Father didn’t send his son to earth just so he could be killed. God knew the mission entrusted to Jesus was lethally dangerous, but the mission was to bear witness, reveal truth, destroy the works of the devil. Jesus did not have an abusive parent.

It’s not Jesus’ crucifixion that declares his mission a success. It’s the resurrection; what followed his faithfulness unto death.  Just look at the start of Romans 1, as well as what your question alludes to: namely, 1 Corinthians 15:12-19.

Do you think Adventism can survive in the developed world if it holds on to its 19th century America-centered theology and refuses to move into the 21^st century? 

There’s a difference between compromise of the message and adjustment based on better understanding of the Gospel and deeper awareness of human need. The trick is to aim for the latter, but traditionalists aim for nothing but what they’ve always believed. That’s a posture of irrelevance and, sooner or later, certain defeat. It puts our whole Movement at risk.  

You have taken a great deal of interest in the ideas of the Radical Reformation: the Anabaptist movements that focused on ethics and sought to change the moral character of society without resorting to the coercive power of the state. Since Adventists traditionally have seen the church’s apocalyptic message as too important to justify spending time on perceived side issues such as social justice and ethics—issues that will take care of themselves once Christ has returned—can you explain your interest in these movements? And as an Adventist, how do you derive a social justice mandate from the Bible?

Your question takes us back to Billy Sunday’s “shipwreck” metaphor.  It’s a terrible mistake in light of the creation doctrine, and the mistake is equally terrible in light of the whole Old Testament story. Abraham’s family, said God, would bless the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3). Only a people who “establish justice in the gate”—even if they pride themselves in thinking they are the remnant—escape God’s condemnation, said Amos (5:10-15).  Even expatriates should seek the “peace”—the well-being of all—where they live, said Jeremiah (29:7).  God’s covenant is a “covenant of peace”—a promise of security, freedom and prosperity—said Ezekiel (34:25-31). Then Jesus came quoting the prophets and saying he’d bring “justice to victory” and put “peacemaking” at the center of disciple mission (Matthew 12:15f.; 5:9).

If the Anabaptist point is that Christian effort should not rely on the state’s coercive power, that does not mean we can dispense with our moral responsibilities.  It just means that we must embrace them creatively, without violent (and futile) shortcuts. Jesus is our example (1 Peter 2:21). 

All of the above is plain as a peacock. But the “shipwreck” metaphor—escapist eschatology—blinds us to it. Almost none of what I’ve been talking about belongs to the popular sense of Adventist mission. Even when we bring up the Gospel Commission (Matthew 28:16-20), we usually reduce it to a ministry of words. Sermons on mission call us to preach; they don’t call us to peacemaking, which is also what disciples do. 

Ironically (for a Sabbath-celebrating people), we overlook key Old Testament themes even when they appear prominently in the New Testament. Is it inattention, or is it defiance of God’s will? We should be asking that question.

Your doctoral dissertation came out under the title The Transformation of Culture: Christian Social Ethics after H. Richard Niebuhr (1988). When people today hear the name Niebuhr, they usually have in mind Reinhold Niebuhr, the hugely influential theologian and public intellectual who influenced Martin Luther King and Barack Obama and a host of other political intellectuals. You chose to focus on the lesser known brother. Why? 

H. Richard Niebuhr’s most famous book, Christ and Culture, teased out, from the whole of Christian history, five main types of church involvement with society. His analysis was unsympathetic to the Radical Reformation (Anabaptist) point of view, which he associated with withdrawal from cultural life instead of active effort to transform it.  Although his brother was more famous generally, H. Richard had tremendous influence on Christian ethicists, so I found flaws in his (very impressive) account that enabled me to argue that the Anabaptist way is the best way to change culture for the better. 

The book got positive journal reviews, but it advances what is still very much a minority thesis. 

In the early 1970s, I was given a stack of old Ministry magazines. One included a brochure that blasted Søren Kierkegaard, the 19^th century Danish Christian philosopher, as being responsible for the theological evils lurking on the periphery of Adventist academia back then, i.e. existentialism and Barthian neo-orthodoxy. I imagine attitudes must have changed since then and that Adventists today read Kierkegaard, but you are still the first one that I have come across to write about Kierkegaard in positive terms. What do you see as valuable in his thinking?

He wrote (about the time of very early Adventism) in a culture of complacent Christianity, and at a point when the West was veering toward the secular humanism that has been gaining ground ever since. His analysis of what he saw as the four stages, or levels, of moral existence provides leverage for assessment of various expressions of the secular point of view. And what matters just as much, he sheds light on the life-changing implications of Christian faith deeply understood. He was formally Lutheran, but he broke with Luther in affirming the Letter of James: Christians are doers of the Word. In that respect, his views align with those of the Radical Reformation. 

Existentialism? Kierkegaard was the founding influence on that movement, but others took it in a secular direction. He didn’t say enough, I think, about the shared life of believers, but he was still thoroughly Christian. 

You spent 21 years as president of Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University) and later Kettering College. What did it teach you about leadership?

I got into these jobs without knowing what I was doing. Luckily, that never changed.  I was always trying to figure it out. Now I might say: Leaders express a vision, energize a workforce, execute a plan. But did I mention humility? Nothing matters more, and I apologize to anyone who worked with me for not getting that point when I should have.

All academic institutions, from the most prestigious to the humblest, are at times forced to clamp down on views that run counter to their values and ideology. When it comes to Adventist institutions of higher learning, it seems to me that administrators of these schools have been far more tolerant than the community at large, and that calls for intervention almost always come from outside academia. What is your perspective on this?

Unalloyed academic freedom is pretty much a superstition. Neither white supremacists nor young-earth creationists go far in the Ivy League. But freedom to think—to suggest corrections, to advance new ideas—is as basic as bread, not just in academic institutions but in any sustainable community. I’ve had administrative experience, and I understand that limits matter. I understand how a certain ambiguity creeps in, some of it necessary. But top-down effort to stifle thought is poison, and poison kills. People who don’t get this are a menace.

Finally, were you to give Adventism’s State of the Denomination address, what would you say?

Right now top church officials are afraid of the challenges religion is facing; they are afraid of what we ourselves, with our own specific history, need to deal with. So, along with a substantial part of the membership, they are careening into authoritarian fundamentalism. They fuss over orthodoxy, obstruct Bible study, anathematize honest conversation. It is tragic and scary all at once, and whether we can emerge stronger from this period is, for any thoughtful Adventist, a genuine concern.

Still, if I could be a church leader, I would acknowledge, but certainly not focus on, the dark possibilities. I would focus instead on the fact that we are an amazing, worldwide community. Centers of energy abound, whether conservative or progressive. Adventist-laymen’s Services & Industries (ASI) is flourishing; so is Loma Linda University and so are the congregations that surround it. We are still winning converts and, incredibly, we are expanding our ministry of medical education in just the sorts of places that need it.

I would focus, too, on the rudiments of the message: on the conviction of God’s kindness, on hope and on the Sabbath and on the sense of indispensable, electrifying, mission. 

And I would point constantly to the exemplars of Adventism at its best: to physicians in the world’s remote corners, to pastors (of both genders) in China, to lay members bearing witness not only in the developing world but also in embattled contexts like Western Europe. Here someone like Herbert Blomstedt comes to mind. He’s a deep-down Adventist of the thoughtful stripe, and as he approaches his 90^th birthday he’s still conducting the world’s major symphony orchestras some 60 times a year and still bearing witness, in interviews that appear in major newspapers, to his faith, his health-building lifestyle and his beloved practice of Sabbath rest.

So much good is going on. Like anything good and beautiful, it’s threatened.  But it’s still going on.  And it’s wonderful.

Charles Scriven is Board Chair of Adventist Forum, the organization that publishes Spectrum.

Aage Rendalen is a retired foreign language teacher who has served the Richmond public school system in Virginia.

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Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier is well known among many Seventh-day Adventists since making three films about the denomination. Doblmeier’s Adventist trilogy has appeared on PBS television, and the films were screened for capacity crowds at Loma Linda Seventh-day Adventist Church. Doblmeier is set to return for the Southern California premiere of his latest film, which is on American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. The screening will take place Saturday, March 11, at 4:30 pm, in the university church. Here is a recent interview with the award-winning filmmaker.

Question: You have made a wide range of religious films during your career; several of these are biographical, such as your Bonhoeffer film. Why did you decide to make a film about the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr?

Answer: Reinhold Niebuhr has been a hero of mine for decades. Over the years, as I continue to revisit his writings and draw upon them as I mold my own thinking, my admiration for his work continues to grow. I don’t always agree with Niebuhr, but he is the kind of figure who needs to be included in any meaningful conversation about ethics — especially Christian ethics — power, justice, and responsibility.

And making a film about Niebuhr afforded me an opportunity to explore mid-20th century America, one of the more defining periods in our nation’s history, through the lens of a truly brilliant theologian. What you have to appreciate is that while Niebuhr’s times may be different from our own, human nature seems to change very little.

For someone who may not be familiar with Reinhold Niebuhr, what are some of the theologian’s ideas that you have come to appreciate most?

Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the most inspiring figures of the 20^th century because he did not see the events of his time in isolation—he saw them through a much broader lens. Niebuhr was versed in history, ancient history as well as American history, and that gave him perspectives others lacked. His early roots were in theology and that provided a language and a foundation of faith that centered him. Many of his critics would see in Niebuhr’s writings great political wisdom but could not accept that all of it was predicated on his understanding of the presence of God in the world. Niebuhr himself never lost sight of that reality, and I admire that. And he traveled and spoke widely, so his insights were not based merely in his scholarship but had a genuine human dimension, honed by countless talks and pastoral engagements. It was the combination of it all that made him unique.

I am intrigued by the title of your film: An American Conscience. What led you to this title, and how did you come to see Niebuhr as America’s conscience?

When I initially began to think about the arc of the film, I kept coming back to the idea of how Niebuhr emerged as a moral conscience — an American conscience — for people of his era wrestling with enormous and complex issues. What is remarkable is that Niebuhr was both a theologian and a public intellectual, versed in history, political science, and philosophy as well as theology. The media often sought Niebuhr’s opinion on some of the most vexing issues, such as whether to intervene in Europe when World War II began, how to handle the escalating tensions of the Cold War, and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. They turned not only to Niebuhr but also to Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other religious voices who could elevate the conversation and thereby transcend all the political rancor of their day.

Many believe the place for a “public theologian” is gone in our own times. But I am convinced that in pushing the religious and theological perspective to the sidelines, we may have lost a vital component in our national conversation. There are insightful, moral voices with strong intellectual foundations present today — people like Cornel West, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Tim Keller, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, and others.

Unfortunately, the media today is more often inclined toward conversations that are highly partisan, political charged, and combative rather than broadly insightful and universal. Public theologians who seek that higher ground no longer have a place to pitch their tent. America can only benefit from acknowledging that the great dilemmas we face today deserve more than only political and economic perspectives.

Throughout much of the 20th century, millions of Americans turned to Niebuhr as a voice they trusted — a moral conscience — who spoke with insight and eloquence on the most critical issues of the day. Presidents took counsel from his observations, and policy makers found comfort in his balance of hope and realism.

Why do you think Niebuhr’s theology had such a broad reaching influence, even with United States presidents like Jimmy Carter or U.S. Senators like John McCain?

In many ways, one of the traps with Niebuhr is that he changed his mind, so when you ask people why they like Niebuhr, they need to clarify “which Niebuhr” they favor. The early Niebuhr was so shocked by the horrors of World War I that he declared himself a pacifist. He was so committed to economic justice that he favored socialism. But later in life, when he came to the understanding of the ever-present inclination toward evil that is common to all our natures, he called for military resistance toward the Nazis before others recognized the pending disaster. Later too, he saw Communism as an evil that needed to be resisted. Niebuhr was willing to change as the realities around him changed. For me, that is something to admire, not denounce.

Jimmy Carter says that one of his favorite Niebuhr quotes is, “It is the sad duty of politics to establish justice in a sinful world.” In many ways, that sums up Niebuhr’s thought: his commitment to use the system to affect change while accepting the realities of our human condition and our inclinations toward injustice.

Senator John McCain is known to quote Niebuhr about the presence of evil in our world and that overcoming evil may require force. But it is President Barack Obama who is often credited with the recent Niebuhrian revival, calling Niebuhr his “favorite philosopher” and quoting at length from Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History. Obama, however, emphasizes Niebuhr’s call for humility in national affairs  and the acceptance that, as a nation, America cannot overlook its own share of responsibility.

All this only contributes to the mystique around Niebuhr that seems to cross generations. Today, writers like E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times continue to keep Niebuhr present in the headlines by infusing his writings into the issues of our own day.

You screened your Bonhoeffer film at the Loma Linda University Church several years ago. Do you see any connections between these two films? Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr were friends.

In the film I say that Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were friends, although it is clear the friendship did not start off well. Bonhoeffer came to Niebuhr’s Union Theological Seminary with a certain skepticism about how theology — or the lack of it — was taught at Union. Bonhoeffer was quite disturbed by the fusing together of theology and social action. But over time Niebuhr’s brilliance and genuine commitment to the challenge of Christian ethics inspired a change of heart in Bonhoeffer. So when Bonhoeffer returned to Germany just as the Nazis were ascending to power, Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer stayed in contact, and that afforded Niebuhr insight into German events that others did not have.

Of course, the great tragedy is that their lives would take very different paths. Niebuhr lived a full life  and wrote with honesty and courage throughout it all. And while he did suffer some reprisals at the hands of an anxious American government, it was nothing like the restriction Bonhoeffer lived with during the Nazi era. And Bonhoeffer’s life was cut short when he was executed at age 39; whereas,  Niebuhr lived to almost 80 years of age. So for Niebuhr we have a body of work to reflect upon, and for Bonhoeffer we can only imagine what theology he would have developed had he lived a much fuller life.

A poignant part of your film is Niebuhr’s enduring friendship with the Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel. Many Spectrum readers are aware that Dr. Roy Branson, the founder of Adventist Forum, marched with Heschel at Selma, Alabama in 1965. How did Niebuhr and Heschel become such close friends? And what may this say to us today about inter-religious friendships in the 21st century?

Reinhold Niebuhr and Rabbi Abraham Heschel were able to forge a deep friendship that in many ways was extraordinary in terms of American religious history. Niebuhr used his notoriety to bring attention to Rabbi Heschel’s book Man Is Not Alone. Heschel was then only an emerging author. Out of that initial professional encounter grew a personal relationship based on respect for each other’s scholarship and a mutual trust that allowed them to share ideas at the deepest and most vulnerable level. It is a hopeful sign that religious leaders who represent different traditions not only can find tolerance and common ground, but also respect and admiration for the work of the other.

Does Reinhold Niebuhr have any relevance in 2017? Would he be America’s conscience today? Or for that matter, for Christians today? Seventh-day Adventists?

Niebuhr’s great contribution is to challenge us all by asking what it means to be an ethical person of faith given the realities of our circumstances. He calls us all to realize that the “evil in the foe” is so often the evil in the self. Too often we tend to ignore that, but we do so at great peril. And what Niebuhr says is true not only for individuals but nations as well.

In his own day Reinhold Niebuhr rose to near celebrity status, offering a corrective voice for what he identified as the volatile rhetoric of American Exceptionalism.

Instead, he called for a greater sense of humility, acceptance of our individual and social responsibilities, and a willingness to forego self-interest for the sake of justice. It is always risky to imagine what any character from the past, including Reinhold Niebuhr, would think of our own issues and times. Yet in Niebuhr’s case I can’t imagine him being silent in the face of our current realities.

Martin Doblmeier is the founder of Journey Films. Since 1984 he has produced and directed more than 30 films focused on religion, faith, and spirituality.

Jeffrey Gang, D.Min. is an assistant professor for Loma Linda University School of Religion. He is currently writing a dissertation on the ecclesiology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

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J Douglas Hines, chairman and general partner of Atlantic Natural Foods, talks about his company's latest deal that will bring Nutmeat and Nutolene from Australia to the US — familiar cans already to many Adventists that he hopes to introduce to many more beyond the Adventist community.

Question: Atlantic Natural Foods has just announced that this summer it will be bringing two products from Life Health Foods in Australia to the US market. What are those two traditional Adventist foods? Are they the same as the original products?

Answer: Those two products are Nutolene and Nutmeat. They are the same traditional products that the Adventist community in Australia has been consuming for over 100 years and we’re excited to bring them to the US.

I understand that these products, which were owned by Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing, were only recently sold to Life Health Foods Australia, a new company. Why did Sanitarium spin off its Vegie Delights brand?

Life Health Foods and Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing are both Adventist companies seeing tremendous growth. As the church looked at how to best manage that growth moving forward, it made sense to bring the Vegie Delights brand under the care of Life Health Foods, which focuses on the plant protein space. 

Since the change, the brand has undergone an incredible transformation that continues to propel its growth. 

How will these products from Australia complement the brands you already sell?

The Australian products are a great fit because those companies share our core mission to provide quality plant-based products that are renewable and above all, healthy. At the same time, the individual products we are bringing over are uniquely different and have a long history in the Adventist community, giving our customers even more great options.

Do you plan to stock more of Life Health Foods' products as well?

Absolutely. Nutolene and Nutmeat are the first two of an initial four product introduction. The remaining items will be announced and rolled out in the US over the next 12 months. 

Those products are top secret but I will say that Life Health Foods has a complete list of frozen entrees that could be quite exciting in the future.

Is it really cost-effective to ship the products over, rather than manufacture them here in the US?

In a global market, we find that products need to be created and distributed for a geographically diverse audience. For example, Loma Linda is sold as far away as South Korea, Singapore and England. Since these particular products are so unique, especially for the Adventist community, we find its most efficient to maintain current manufacturing processes and ship products wherever there is demand.

How are things going for Atlantic Natural Foods, and the Loma Linda and Worthington brand canned food? Is it selling as well as you hoped? Are non-Adventists buying it in significant numbers? Where are the major sales happening?

We have been thrilled at the response to the brands so far. In addition to our core group of Adventist consumers, we are expanding our reach to the non-Adventist market and today have over 7,000 points of distribution. That number is growing rapidly as individuals outside of the Adventist community continue to find the secret of the lifestyle and commitment of the Seventh-day Adventist to a long and healthy life. 

So while we have been able to maintain and grow our core market in the ABC stores and through traditional Adventist distribution, we are also reaching out through other channels including e-commerce, natural stores and traditional retail.

How does your distribution work?  

The Adventist community has been and will continue to be a primary focus for us, so the 100% Adventist owned and operated AFDA (Adventist Food Distributors Association), who are the distributors to the ABC stores and campmeetings, are a major avenue of distribution. We also have healthy export channels to ensure we can reach the community globally. 

What is your major marketing strategy for the Loma Linda and Worthington brands?

These are iconic brands within the Adventist community and we want to continue to build on that reputation while showing the rest of the world how a commitment to health and wellness can improve their well-being.  

In particular, we’re very proud of our “Labels Make Cents” program that gives money directly back to local Adventist churches, schools, and universities. Customers can simply return UPC codes off our Loma Linda, Worthington and Caroline’s shelf stable products and turn those in to their church or school. For every label, that church or school will receive 25 cents in support of their specific programs. We also have a number of promotional programs throughout the year to the general market with special offerings during campmeeting season. 

Does canned food sell as well as the products you sell in other forms, like frozen?

We have devoted a great deal of research to this topic to help ensure that we are meeting the demands of our consumers. From that research we have found that the greatest opportunity for today, and especially as we look into tomorrow, is in shelf stable products. Portability and storage constraints limit frozen food purchases and in certain areas around the world refrigeration is limited. So we see shelf stable as the real future and will be rolling out additional products moving forward to meet the demand of the next generation of healthy consumers.

What is Atlantic Natural Foods' best-selling product?

Of course, no home is complete without Big Franks.

Are there Adventists who work for Atlantic Natural Foods?

Yes, two individuals in particular that come from the core environment of the Seventh-day Adventist community have been invaluable contributors to our leadership group. Gary Shockley from Village Market in Chattanooga heads our sales into the community and Charles Smart recently joined us after working with Cedar Lakes where he was the General Manager in Michigan. In that position he worked closely with Elder Pizzaro who is one of the true pioneers within the Adventist Food Community. 

Looking at the wider organization, it is important to us that we adopt an Adventist commitment and retain those principals in our business and life. The church has had a truly incredible influence on our company because of those principles.

What other projects do you have in the pipeline? 

In the immediate future, we will be introducing a full line of new products at the world’s largest natural, organic and healthy products event: Natural Products Expo, in Anaheim, California. Those products will be under the Loma Linda “blue” label of clean, healthy foods and meal solutions. In addition, we are unveiling a new line of gluten-free, vegan based baking items under our Neat brand, which will be available for the fall season.

As we look farther into the future, we are excited about the prospect of a long term program with the leading health and nutrition universities in southern California. Through the program, the community will have direct input in creating Adventist focused foods with the commitment of bringing them to a new level of health and wellness for the next generation of consumers.

Read the Spectrum article about Kellogg selling its Worthington and Loma Linda canned products line to Atlantic Natural Foods here.

Read about Heritage Health Food buying the frozen food lines from Kellogg here.

Read an interview with long time Worthington boss Allan Buller here.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Maja Ahac wrote the following essay about her experiences in Kivoga, Rutana, Burundi to commemorate International Women's Day, Wednesday March 8. 

The sun was beating down relentlessly. I opened my umbrella just to make it slightly more bearable. Instead of joyously watching the newly built school, I could only think about the ruthless heat. Were the locals not feeling hot? I “suffered in silence” because I did not want to embarrass myself by commenting on the heat. At least then I was silent, yes . . . I was silent. And no, I will not show how much spoiled I am. No way!

Violette was the first neighbor of "our" school. Somehow we managed to communicate. Hands are a very useful tool when there is a language barrier and everything else fails. I visited her home, and we have become a very strange couple. She was black as night and I, white as a ghost. Mzungu, as they call whites. When her husband saw us, he was laughing so loudly that all remaining villagers came to see us. Great!

Villagers were joyously loud. They explained to me how great they found their new school, how happy the kids are now, and how thrilled the parents are as well. I was in heaven.

Violette was silent all that time. She had her baby on her chest, and the baby was scared. Out of the fear of the "white phantom," the little one was constantly breastfeeding. I asked our interpreter to please ask Violette's opinion. What is she thinking about? Is it about heat? Please, let it be heat.

"It is so good that you visited us. A woman. You showed our girls that women can also manage projects. Leading organizations. Be managers and leaders.”

I was stunned. These are her thoughts? She sees me as a role model for her daughters? She was surprised at the fact that women too can dream and make their dreams come true?

Every year, at least 15 million underage/teenage girls are married. 37,000 girls every day. 133 million women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation. In some parts of the world, girls are still not attending school. Women are paid less than their male colleagues although performing the same work. In management positions, there are few women.

Violette and I continued our conversation. What do we want? What are our dreams? Dreams of happiness, peace, prosperity and a better future for our children. While my daughter plays soccer and attends music school, her daughter of the same age gave birth herself and dropped out of school. Who is the father, I did not dare to ask. Often, young girls like her are rape victims, and the perpetrator usually remains unpunished. Violette is younger than I am and already a grandmother.

One of the targets of better and happier life by 2030 for our big human family is to reach equality for boys and girls, men and women. Why? Gender equality is beneficial from every perspective. A society where children and adults of both genders have equal opportunities is much healthier. Poverty is reduced, protection is better, people are happier. Businesses that include more women in top management positions generally have higher profits. Partners who share domestic tasks and responsibilities are happier in their relationships.

I said goodbye to Violette and her family. Maybe someday we will meet again. Who knows. Across the globe live many Violettes. There are many dreams. Every day. Dreams for all girls and women, boys, and men! Because we love to be happy."

Maja Ahac is country director for ADRA Slovenia. This article is reprinted with permission.

If you respond to this article, please: 

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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Four professors at Andrews University, feeling that the time was right, teamed up to study the experience of Seventh-day Adventist LGBT+ youth related to coming out to their families. Curtis VanderWaal, chair and professor in the Department of Social Work, along with colleagues in the psychology and religion departments, surveyed hundreds of LGBT+ adults who were raised Adventist. They were shocked by some of the findings.

Look for their article about the survey and its findings in the forthcoming issue of the Spectrum journal.

Question: You have been studying the subject of family acceptance and the “coming out” of LGBT millennials in Adventist homes.  You surveyed more than 300 adults ages 18-35 who identified as LGBT+ and were raised in the Adventist church.  What did you find?  What was the most surprising or compelling finding?

Curt VanderWaal: We are just beginning to analyze the data, but our preliminary findings, which are found in our Spectrum article, have focused mostly on the LGBT+ individuals who experienced varying levels of family acceptance or support, as well as current levels of social support, self-esteem, depression, substance use, risky sexual activity, recent suicidal thoughts and lifetime suicide attempts.

It’s a bit difficult to summarize all that we found since it was a pretty long survey, but our main findings showed generally low levels of family acceptance and support, as well as elevated levels of depression and at-risk thoughts and behaviors, with higher levels among those who experienced high levels of rejection.  That said, a high proportion of respondents have retained strong spiritual commitment and moderate church involvement.

The most compelling findings were the rates of suicidal thinking in the past six months (32%) and rates of lifetime suicide attempts (29%). Although we knew from the research literature that suicidal thinking and suicide attempts were much higher among LGBT+ individuals than the general population, we were shocked to find this level of despair among those who had grown up as Adventists. Clearly we need to do more to educate Seventh-day Adventist families and church members about the pain and alienation that a large number of LGBT+ youth face as they grow up and begin to experience their identity.  Conversely, we were quite surprised by how many respondents have remained deeply spiritual and have continued their involvement in religious activities.  For example, about a third of respondents said they pray daily and participate in religious services on a weekly basis, even though the level of support they feel from their congregations is often quite low.

Was it difficult to find survey respondents?

Curt VanderWaal: Since we (the authors) are all LGBT+ allies rather than members of the LGBT+ community, we knew from the beginning that the only way we would get a significant number of respondents was to work with LGBT+ Adventists and influential allies to spread the word.  

The internet makes it easy to send a SurveyMonkey link out in a Facebook post, an email, or a tweet, making potential distribution of the link relatively easy.  The hard part is convincing busy people to take 20-30 minutes of their day to answer really difficult questions about painful memories, risky behaviors, and current life situations.  

As we created the survey we invited people from conservative, moderate and progressive LGBT+ perspectives to review and provide suggestions on question content and wording.  Once we had incorporated their ideas, we asked them to send the link through their social media contacts and also ask those people to forward the link to their friends.  In the end we relied on the trust and good will of an amazing group of people who took the risk to answer hard questions without really knowing how their sensitive information and stories would be used.  

When did you first conceive of this research and survey?  And why?  When did you start the project? 

Curt VanderWaal: A few well-documented events at Andrews University prompted our university administrators to establish two taskforces in the autumn of 2015. The first taskforce reviewed and updated campus policies relating to LGBT+ issues, with a special focus on developing a recognized LGBT+ support group on campus. The second group, the Teen Homelessness Taskforce, focused on campus education and outreach around vulnerable teens, 30-40% of whom are LGBT.  Three of our research group are part of this second taskforce.  

Although we had heard many stories from LGBT+ individuals about the difficulties they encountered as they attempted to understand and talk about their orientation or identity with their families, we quickly realized that there was no systematic research on LGBT+ issues within the Seventh-day Adventist church.  

Research shows that around 9% of teens in the US are kicked out of their homes when they tell parents about their orientation or identity. We wondered how that statistic compared to the Adventist church (we found the same rate in our study) and decided to develop our own survey to better understand how Adventist families responded when their children disclosed that they were gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. (We patterned some of our research on the Family Acceptance Project, a group that has worked with the Mormon church to create better relationships between LGBT children and their families. Their focus is to downplay theological issues and focus on loving and accepting children, even if they don’t understand or approve of their child’s orientation or identity.)

We began developing our survey early in 2016 and began circulating drafts around to selected LGBT students, their parents, and various LGBT allies and leaders.  We were careful to include a representative from one conservative Adventist LGBT+ organization and kept our very supportive senior-level university administrators in the loop every step of the way.  After about three months of survey development, we collected data between July and October 2016.

Did most of the individuals who completed the survey feel rejected when they came out to their families? Or accepted? Did it vary by culture/ethnicity? Age? Are parents becoming more accepting?

Shannon Trecartin: Coming out is a really hard and complex process for most LGBT individuals.  Many come out to some people but not to others, or they come out at different times to different people. 

For those Adventist LGBT individuals who had already come out, about 85% said they did not feel comfortable coming out to their parents, while 11% said that they were comfortable. Those who were uncomfortable often had their fears confirmed. More than two-thirds (69%) said that their parents were disappointed in them when they came out.  About 16% were not sure whether their parents were disappointed or not. Not surprisingly, 20% of the people we surveyed had not even told their parents and others had told one parent but not the other one. This finding was similar across ethnicities and age categories with no significant differences between groups. 

We cannot say whether parents are becoming more accepting or rejecting in the moment their child comes out. However, when the respondents elaborated in a short answer format, they were able to describe their ongoing relationships with parents. For some, relationships with parents improved over time. Other individuals described being able to reach a point of tolerance, while others described achieving parental acceptance. A few described their relationships with parents as being actively supportive from the time they came out. 

We saw the greatest difference when we compared respondents by the degree of religious/spiritual family upbringing on accepting and rejecting variables. For our sample, a significantly higher percentage of respondents who reportedly grew up in families that were very religious/spiritual reported that their parents struggled to accept their sexual orientation/ gender identity (84%) compared to those who grew up in families that were not religious or were somewhat religious/ spiritual (75%). Practically speaking, though, the majority of families struggled regardless of degree of reported religiosity/spirituality. 

How does family acceptance/rejection for LGBT+ individuals differ in the Adventist population from the general LGBT population?

David Sedlacek: The Family Acceptance Project (FAP) at San Francisco State University studied family acceptance and rejection among 13 to 18 year old LGBT+ children. Over 50 variables were used to examine family acceptance or rejection. Only a small sample of these variables were released to the public so we aren’t entirely sure how Adventists compare to the general population. 

Without the benefit of knowing all of the variables measured in the Family Acceptance Project, we developed over 30 acceptance and rejection variables in consultation with a wide range of members of the LGBT+ community.  Many of these variables were unique to individuals with a Christian belief system, so it is not possible to accurately compare the rates of family acceptance/rejection between studies.  

That said, we do have one comparable statistic from the general population: our research shows that Seventh-day Adventist LGBT youth were kicked out of their homes at a comparable rate to LGBT individuals in the general population (9% in both groups).  Again, we can’t make comparisons in other areas because the data is not available. 

Are rates of depression and suicide higher among LGBT+ individuals from Adventist homes than in the general population?

David Sedlacek: Yes they are.  About 6.7% of the general population meets the criteria for clinical depression in a given year.  We know that depression is multi-dimensional and our study used a survey that measures nine dimensions of depression.  Thirty percent of our sample experienced low energy and sleep difficulties and around 20% reported appetite problems, feeling bad or like a failure, and trouble concentrating.  Between 10-16% experienced some of the more severe symptoms of depression such as anhedonia (lack of pleasure), feeling down or hopeless, or reporting moving and speaking slowly.  While a total depression score has not yet been aggregated and analyzed for our study, the responses to these questions are well above the 6.7 percent of the general US population. This is consistent with previous research that suggests that LGBT persons are 5.9 times more likely to be depressed than persons in the general population.

The Center for Disease Control reports that an estimated 9.3 million adults (3.9% of the adult U.S. population) reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year. Lifetime suicide attempts for the general population average 4.6%. LGBT young persons are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-LGBT individuals. 

In our study, we asked three questions relating to suicidality.  Almost one-third (31.7%) of respondents said they had thoughts of suicide or thoughts of ending their life during the past six months. This is over eight times the rate of suicide thoughts in the general population. Almost one-third (29.0%) had made a suicide attempt at some point in their life. This is over six times the national average. Of this group, almost a third (29.5%) said that their suicidal thoughts or attempt(s) were related to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

These statistics should be a wake-up call to the church that an extremely high proportion our LGBT+ youth are in serious distress, some of which is related to rejecting behaviors from Adventist families and the churches they attend.

What lessons can the Adventist church learn from your research?

Nancy Carbonell: First, we learned that there are a cluster of attitudes and behaviors that appear to contribute to an unreceptive and hostile environment for LGBT+ youth when they come out to their parents and community.  Some of these factors, reported by a high number of participants, included:  fear of coming out (85%); feeling like their parents struggled to accept their identity (82%); believing that their parents’ religious beliefs made it difficult to accept their sexual identity (82.4%); fear of being seen as “disgusting” and “sinful” to their parents (75.8%); religious beliefs that triggered feelings of guilt and shame (75.2%); feeling like they disappointed their parents because they came out (70%);  not assured of parents’ love after coming out (67%); seeing that one or more of their parents responded as if their sexual orientation and/or gender identity was a poor reflection on them (65.8%); finding that parents were not open to finding ways to support their coming out (64%); fearing they would be disowned by their parents (57.2%); noticing that parents did not listen attentively when they came out (51.2%); and having parents forbid them to tell others of their sexual orientation or gender identity (42.8%).  There is no doubt that LGBT+ adults often see their parents, home and churches as very rejecting places, making coming out or understanding their sexual orientation or gender identity extremely difficult for the majority of these young people.

Second, we learned that this non-affirming, sometimes hostile, environment has often led to serious consequences: it was too unsafe to come out and thus continue to live hidden in the closet (20%); they were not taken for counseling to get help in understanding and accepting their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (85.4%); and, as noted above, almost a third had thoughts of suicide during the past six months or had made an unsuccessful suicide attempt at some point in their life.   Because of the high number of participants who attempted suicide at some point in their life, it gives us pause to think how many were successful and thus are no longer with us to respond to this survey!

Third, while many of our LGBT+ youth reported having a friend that they could share their joys and sorrows with (70%), less found this support from their parents (34.2%), few found support from their pastor (11.9%), and even fewer found their congregation as an important source of support (9.3%).  Our homes, schools and churches are not generally seen as safe spaces.

What can the church do to support families and LGBT+ individuals?

Nancy Carbonell: Recently, Dr. Richard Hart, President of Loma Linda University Health, stated in a presidential communication that our knowledge about sexual identity is changing so rapidly that it requires a paradigm shift on how we should understand and respond to our LGBT+ youth.  We agree.

The best place to start would be for all of us — youth, parents, church members, teachers, pastors and church leaders — to become better informed about recent findings and studies of human sexuality and gender identity.   The confusion, rejection and the level of hostility suggest that a lack of information and/or misinformation about human sexuality lies at the center of this problem. 

After gaining this clearer understanding, our church leadership could use this information to develop new resources that would help and support family members, friends, church members and pastors to provide a more loving and friendly environment to our LGBT+ young people and their families. 

Informed pastors and teachers could lead in the development of two different compassionate spaces: first, one where we listen and dialogue with our LGBT+ youth as they seek to learn and understand more about their sexuality; and second, one where we provide a listening ear and support to the parents and families of LGBT+ youth as they sort through the fears and concerns about the present and future well-being of their LGBT+ young person.  Teaching parents how to listen carefully and non-judgmentally while their LGBT child shares their pain and confusion will help the child feel safe and supported while they explore their identity.  

Do you still have work to do on the project, or putting the findings together? Are you presenting the data to any official church entities? 

David Sedlacek: We are still in the very preliminary stages of data analysis. What we have been reporting to date are basic frequencies and percentages.  Our ultimate goal is to analyze more specifically whether real or perceived of rejection of LGBT+ youth results in higher rates of depression, suicidality, substance abuse, unprotected sexual activity as well as lower levels of self-esteem and social support. 

We plan to complete the data analysis and to write articles for church publications as well as professional journals in order to disseminate this information. We will recommend to church leadership that they use this research as a springboard for the development of resources that could be helpful to members of the church in various capacities. We have already made our preliminary findings available to several North American Division and General Conference officials and some have expressed cautious interest in exploring next steps for support and further dissemination of materials.

What research in this area still needs to be undertaken? Are there upcoming projects you are planning?

Shannon Trecartin: Currently, we are focusing on the short qualitative responses we collected in our survey, as these stories will help add depth and richness to our understanding of the experiences of Adventist LGBT+ persons. Their stories are important for teaching us about what it is like to be in their position, and how we can better support them through their journey. 

In addition, we are in the process of analyzing the variables that measured acceptance and rejection through the use of factor analysis. Once this is complete, we will look at relationships between family acceptance/rejection and outcomes like depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, as well as religious and spiritual practices in later life. 

Finally, we hope to conduct a similar study with parents of LGBT+ children to better understand their experiences and perceptions, and identify promising avenues of support. 

How is the landscape changing for people who identify as LGBT+ in the Adventist church?  What changes do you see happening in the next 20 years?

Curt VanderWaal: In 2013 the Pew Research Center conducted a survey with almost 1,200 LGBT adults. Four in 10 (39%) said they had, at some point in their lives been rejected by a family member or close friend because of their orientation or identity and 29% said they had been made to feel unwelcome in a place of worship.  However, almost all (92%) of these same respondents also said that society has become more accepting of them in the past decade and the same number expect society to become even more accepting in the decade ahead.  

This optimism seems to be borne out in more recent 2014 Pew Research Center study, which finds that over half (54%) of US Christians say that homosexuality should be accepted, rather than discouraged, by society.  While the highest rates of acceptance are coming from Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, Evangelical church members have increased acceptance levels from 26% to 36% between 2007 and 2014.  This trend is partly driven by younger church members who are generally more accepting of LGBT individuals than older church members. We know from surveys of Millennials, including those in our own church, that a major reason for leaving the church is frustration with the church’s lack of tolerance toward LGBT+ individuals.  That said, levels of acceptance have increased across all age groups, driven in part by more people knowing and interacting with someone who is LGBT, a better understanding of what it means to be LGBT, and advocacy by public figures across the social, political and religious landscape.  

The Adventist church is grappling with these issues along with the rest of society. We have LGBT members in our churches and homes too.  In fact, in another recent study (soon to be released) researchers from Washington Adventist University and Andrews University surveyed over 1,600 US Adventists and found that 84% had a friend, colleague, or family member who is LGBT. The more church members interact with LGBT individuals, the better they will understand them and the more they will recognize that there’s nothing to fear.  

Listening to their stories, we speculate that more and more church members will appreciate that loving unconditionally does not necessarily mean feeling pressured to give up their own values, perceptions, and theological understandings, but that it is rather a love that chooses to actively strive for the well-being of another.  

It will take some time to work through the differences in theology, and those differences may never be fully reconciled, but more and more people are choosing to focus on trying to hear each other and figure out how to create safe spaces where everyone feels respected and loved.  In the end, that’s what Christ calls us to do — to love generously and freely, knowing that we all are sinners who are saved by God’s grace.  

Top picture (left to right): Nancy Carbonell is associate professor in the Department of Graduate Psychology and Counseling, Curtis VanderWaal is chair of the Department of Social Work, Shannon Trecartin is assistant professor in the Department of Social Work, David Sedlacek is professor of family ministry and discipleship in the Department of Discipleship and Religious Education.

An article about the survey and its findings will appear in the forthcoming issue of the Spectrum journal.

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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I have long been fascinated by Thomas Hardy’s diatribe against fate, Hap.

If but some vengeful god would call to me 
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing, 
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, 
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!" 

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, 
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; 
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I 
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. 

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain, 
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? —
Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, 
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . 
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown 
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain

Hardy’s lament over life’s arbitrary nature is one of many polished verbal wedges in the triumphal arch of senseless suffering. Theologians call it theodicy: the obscene sight of people tortured to death by illness and starvation and war in the presence of an almighty but apparently indifferent God. As far back in time as we can go, people have tried to resolve the discrepancy between what Heaven promises and what Heaven delivers.

In the second millennium BCE, the author of the Babylonian Theodicy[i] complained to his friends that religion had been a great disappointment.

67~Your mind is a north wind, a pleasant breeze for the peoples.
68~Choice friend, your advice is fine.
69~Just one word would I put before you.
70~Those who neglect the god go the way of prosperity,
71~While those who pray to the goddess are impoverished and dispossessed.
72~In my youth I sought the will of my god;
73~With prostration and prayer I followed my goddess.
74~But I was bearing a profitless corvée [obligation] as a yoke.
75~My god decreed instead of wealth destitution.
76~A cripple is my superior, a lunatic outstrips me.
77~The rogue has been promoted, but I have been brought low.

The same lament is heard in the Psalms and the Book of Job (which it resembles). The conclusion is always the same: God is inscrutable, or as a friend of the Babylonian Job puts it:

254~O wise one, O savant, who masters knowledge,
255~In your anguish you blaspheme the god.
256~The divine mind, like the centre of the heavens, is remote;
257~Knowledge of it is difficult; the masses do not know it.[ii]

C.S. Lewis made somewhat of a career lecturing and writing on the mystery of suffering.[iii] As a confident Christian rationalist, he strove to make sense of suffering. Then his newfound love, Joy Davidman, died of cancer and all his rational answers imploded in an explosion of grief. The 1993 movie Shadowlands (and his originally anonymous booklet, A Grief Observed), explores the pain that purged his soul of rationalism and led him to reconsider faith itself.[iv]

From time to time, believers attempt to defend God against the never-ending insults and charges hurled toward Heaven by people scandalized by the idea of divine passivity in the face of egregious suffering, but this is one aspect of life that no rational argument can touch.Theodicy is inherent in theism. Whether you argue that God really is not as powerful as we have thought[v] or that he is restrained by the freedom of choice that he has granted humans, you are only going to convince people who are not existentially touched by suffering.

In the above-mentioned Wikipedia article on "Process Theology,", process theologian David Ray Griffin lays bare the bankruptcy of any form of Christian rationalist attempt at explaining suffering.

"One of the stronger complaints from [debate opponents] Sontag and Roth is that, given the enormity of evil in the world, a deity that is [merely] doing its best is not worthy of worship. The implication is that a deity that is not doing its best is worthy of worship. For example, in reference to Auschwitz, Roth mocks my God with the statement that “the best that God could possibly do was to permit 10,000 Jews a day to go up in smoke.” Roth prefers a God who had the power to prevent this Holocaust but did not do it! …Roth finds my God too small to evoke worship; I find his too gross.".[vi]

The Bible gives vent to the same frustration that we find expressed in the Babylonian Theodicy referenced above, but it does not provide any more of an intellectual solution to the theistic conundrum than the Babylonian sage. The Bible’s solution is religious, not intellectual: you are simply told to trust in God.

Some Christians will take exception to my conclusion. They will point to Isaiah and Ezekiel’s royal taunts with their oblique references to an extra-biblical story about a heavenly being who was cast down from Heaven (Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28). When combined with Luke 10:18 and the Book of Revelation, it supposedly establishes that evil has a cosmic origin, and that the happiness of the entire world, if not the universe, depends on how the war with evil will be fought and eventually resolved. Human suffering, from this theological perspective, is collateral damage in an ideological war between good and evil. (Few people have done a better job at mining this Great Controversy theme for a rational solution to theodicy on biblical grounds than Sigve Tonstad in his 2016 book, God of Sense.)[vii]

Personally, I am not at all convinced that it is possible to braid the various strands of biblical and extra-biblical references to a cosmic conflict into a coherent, chronological narrative that accommodates all the biblical data.[viii] But more importantly, even if we could establish that the Great Controversy theme, bequeathed to us by the Ante-Nicean fathers and enhanced by Milton and Ellen White, was indeed the Bible’s salvific framework, we would be no closer to resolving the problem of theodicy.

First of all, it is only in the game that paper beats rock. When life clobbers you, no amount of paper theory will alleviate the pain. When your six-year-old is wasting away with cancer or is killed by a drunk driver and you know that God could effortlessly have saved your child, no excuse, however high-minded, will take even a bite out of your grief. Moreover, any suggestion that God is complicit in her death, that she is dying for a reason, will at best sound like justification of human sacrifice. You are free to tell a grief-stricken parent and a suffering child that God’s heart is bleeding for them, but even that will be a stretch under such circumstances. To suggest that they are collateral damage in a cosmic war that God has not found it timely to put an end to would be to pour salt in an open wound. It would be plain awful. Paper does not beat rock in the real world.

In a recent Atlantic Monthly article[ix], Molly Ball writes about Trump’s spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway: “She’s figured out that she doesn’t need to win the argument. All she has to do is craft a semi-plausible (if not entirely coherent) counternarrative, so that those who don’t want to look past the facade of Trump’s Potemkin village don’t have to.” I would argue that virtually all rationalist arguments that apologists have come up with to “get God off the hook” fall into the category of religious “spin.” You explain theodicy in rational terms in order to quiet the concerns of those who would like to believe the very best about the character of the Almighty not to convince outsiders.[x]

We live in an age of science, and it is understandable that believers want to appear rational, but it is a risky proposition to wager your religious confidence and your faith on the integrity of rational syllogisms, be they philosophical or biblical. When it comes to theodicy (“passing judgment on God”), the brutal truth is that the only philosophically satisfying explanation for God’s non-interference is a materialistic universe devoid of divine will. Only if you remove God or gods from the equation does it make sense that the innocent suffer and that the wicked prosper and that suffering drags on and on for thousands of years.

With God in the picture, there is no other answer than the one given by both Old and New Testament writers: doggedly trusting in God against all evidence to the contrary.[xi] The Bible’s approach to suffering is religious, not analytical.

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For several years now, I have listened with interest to arguments for and against the continued operation of regional conferences. Most of the arguments against their continued existence are:

1.      Separate (so called “segregated” conferences) fly in the face of the biblical imperative of unity as outlined by our Lord and Savior in John 17.

2.      Separate conferences are relics of the past; are “sustained by ancient arguments and stories” and are no longer relevant in post-civil rights America.

3.      Separate conferences result in the unnecessary waste of already scarce church resources; represent a needless duplication of effort and are a continued “embarrassment” to the church while continually hampering its witness.

While such arguments generate significant support for the eradication of regional conferences, they fail to address deeper issues that demand consideration if the Seventh-day Adventist church is to be the organization God intends for it to be in these last days of earth’s history.

The relevant issues are summarized below.

The Issue of the Logical Solution

While some vehemently advocate for the dissolution of Seventh-day Adventist regional conferences, they appear to see no impediment (and in fact encourage) the formation of other ethnically responsive structural entities within the Seventh-day Adventist structure (i.e. unions of churches in Scandinavian and European countries).

Changes in the Seventh-day Adventist church structure resulting in the creation of ethnically sensitive entities does not automatically result in exclusionary behavior any more than their elimination will cure the cancer of racism. The creation of totally integrated conferences will also notresult in the dissolution of racially distinct churches.

People tend to gravitate toward and fellowship with persons of similar background, lifestyle and socio-economic status. Preferences in worship style alone can result in the formation of unique congregations not because the attendees wish to exclude particular races or ethnicities but because they seek to support (and promulgate) a particular brand of Seventh-day Adventist Christianity that suits their taste, reaches the persons they are most likely to invite to church (and to Christ), and which satisfies their particular spiritual cravings.

Despite these realities, in virtually every passionate plea for the dissolution of regional conferences, the stated (or subliminal solution) is that regional conferences should dissolve operations and “come back home” to the “original” state (so called “regular”) conference. At NO TIME have I ever heard it proposed that predominately white state conferences dissolve their operations and join already established regional territories; a process that would be even more feasible than its highly espoused reverse solution.

The Issue (and Myth) of the Racially “Pure” Conference

The all too frequent call for the dissolution of regional conferences is based on the assumption that regional conferences are exclusively black while so called state conferences are exclusively white. This is not the case. Regional conferences (including my former employer) are made up of multi-ethnic congregations including: Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, African, Haitian/French, and others. State conferences, as well, are populated by numerous multi-ethnic churches. In fact, some non-regional conferences (e.g. Greater New York, Potomac, etc.) have become largely non-white in their membership make-up. Is it the intention of those who would dissolve regional conferences for purposes of unity also to dissolve state conferences whose ethnic memberships are greater than 50%?

The Issue of Ethnically-Focused Ministry

The Gospel Commission given to us by our Lord and Savior is a call to “preach the gospel” to “every nation, kindred, tongue and people.” That call places upon each of us, whether members of a regional or state conference to reach the lost regardless of their racial make-up, socio-economic level, gender, or inherent sinful propensities.

In Acts chapter 2, the Lord sent (in answer to diligent prayer and heart searching) the Holy Spirit to temporarily eradicate the barrier of language from the evangelistic equation. Nationalities present in Jerusalem heard the preaching of the Cross by Jesus’ disciples “each in his own language.” As a result of this miraculous anointing by the Holy Spirit, new believers were fitted to depart from Jerusalem to carry the message of the salvation to their respective countries and local communities.

The challenge of the first century church is not unlike our own. Theirs was a challenge involving chiefly a language barrier. The continuing challenge for the Seventh-day Adventist church includes not only language but also culture and socio-economic separation and stratification.

The apostle Paul himself, when commenting on the need for ethnically focused and responsive ministry, emphasized his need to be “a Jew” to the Jew and “a Greek” to the Greek; thus contextualizing his ministry approach for the sake of spreading the message of Christ beyond his provincial boundaries.

In a similar way, the overriding call (and purpose) of regional conferences is to reach the world with the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Savior within the context of the Three Angels’ messages…with particular focus and concern for the needs of people of color. This purpose does not exclude any race from the “net” of salvation but merely targets people of color as its unique “catch.”

The Issue of the Awkward Question

Some have complained that the mere presence of regional conferences puts them in an “awkward” position of having to explain their existence.

When the question of why regional conferences exist arises, instead of apologizing for their existence, such questions provide a unique opportunity to explain to the honest inquirer:

1.      The Wisdom of God in creating diverse races of people in His creation (distinctions, by the way, that in my understanding, will not be erased in the new earth…) and the necessity to provide venues for their exercise of self-determination.

2.      The leading of the Lord in allowing for the creation of ethnically sensitive entities that address the particular needs of a racially diverse populous.

3.      The necessity of pastors and leaders in majority races to continually remain sensitive to the needs and concerns of racial minorities regardless of the structures in place.

As we journey toward the future, I remain open to “a better way” of performing effective ministry. I welcome calls to discuss such approaches if they are made with sincerity, humility, and with a recognition that all players in the debate sit at the table as equals. However, until that day arrives, we should continue to support (and explain when necessary) the origins, purpose, and continuing relevance of structural entities that not only pursue the Great Commission given to us by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but who do so in the context of racial inclusion and cooperation.

Donald L. Bedney II, M.Div., M.S.A., J.D., is a Senior Development Officer at Andrews University and former Executive Secretary of the Lake Region Conference.

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Cynthia Adams, an attorney and member of the Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church in Atlanta, was appointed last month by the Georgia Governor to serve as a Superior Court Judge. She spoke to Spectrum about her passion for law, her faith, and her interview with Governor Nathan Deal.

Question: Congratulations on your recent appointment by the Georgia Governor as Superior Court Judge of the Douglas Judicial Circuit. Have you begun your new work as judge already? Georgia Governor Nathan Deal was considering several other attorneys before selecting you, I understand. What about your experience and expertise made him choose you for the job, do you think?

Answer: Yes, I have begun my role as a judge. I was sworn in on February 13, 2017, and took the bench the following day for my first court calendar. 

The job appointment process started with several people interviewing with the Judicial Nominating Commission, and the Commission had the responsibility of narrowing the candidates down to a shortlist. I was one of three people who interviewed with Governor Nathan Deal.  The other two candidates who interviewed were also highly qualified public servants in Douglas County.  

I had a wonderful meeting with Governor Deal and was able to share with him my dedication and commitment to serving the county. In the last five years, Governor Deal has worked tirelessly to improve Georgia’s criminal justice system.  One of several significant criminal justice reform initiatives was the Accountability Court Program.  These courts are to provide effective alternatives to sentencing for nonviolent offenders and reduce the state's prison population.  I had the opportunity to share my interest in the accountability courts with Governor Deal during my interview. 

I consider it a privilege that in the end I was selected for the position.

What are the main types of cases you will hear from the bench?

I will be hearing both civil and criminal law actions. On the criminal law side, I expect to hear cases involving felonies, misdemeanors, and to preside over felonies involving jury trials, including death-penalty cases.  On the civil side, I expect to preside over cases involving contract disputes, premises liability, cases of divorce, and cases involving title to land.

Was it always your ambition to serve as a judge?

Yes, my desire was always to serve as a judge. I worked hard to get here, and I am blessed to see my dream become a reality.

You leave your work as an attorney in private practice to take up the new role. What kind of law did you specialize in? What will you miss about working as a lawyer? What won't you miss?

I practiced in the areas of Criminal Defense, Juvenile and Family Law, and Immigration Law. I worked very hard for my clients and tried to give each case the personal attention it deserved.  As a result, my clients were always very grateful and never failed to let me know. I will miss my clients.  However, everything in the metro Atlanta area is 30 minutes or more away.  I will not miss having to drive to several different jurisdictions. 

You replace a judge who served for 34 years. Is it likely you will continue in this role until retirement? 

The position is an elected post, and I would be blessed and honored to continue being elected to serve the citizens of Douglas County for many years.

Do you feel that, as a woman, you will bring anything different to the role than the former judge? Has your gender had any impact on your career? Have you had to work harder to get to where you are, for instance?

Looking back, I do not believe that as an attorney I practiced law any different because I am a woman. Likewise, I also do not believe that I will necessarily bring anything different to the role as a woman. The judge who sat before me was an excellent and respected jurist. I plan to continue the path he was on: to be firm, but fair; to run the courtroom efficiently; and to be mindful of the lawyers, the citizens, and others touched by the court. 

You are a graduate of Oakwood University and of University of Georgia law school. What did you major in at Oakwood? What career path did you see yourself following then?

I participated in the Atlanta Bar Association Summer Law Intern Program as a teenager, and it gave me an early look at what it would be like to practice law. I always knew I wanted to be an attorney. 

I am, however, a bit of a science nerd. I started out with a major in biology my first semester. Oakwood University has one of the best biology programs in the country, and I took full advantage of being in that amazing program. But I knew where my passion lay. I remember telling the head of the program at the time that I was going to be changing my major to English, and he took me aside for a long conversation. He thought I would make a great doctor and that I should stay in the program. I explained that my passion was not in the medical field — it was and always had been in the law.

Even still, I approached my education with a possible back-up plan. While my friends who were interested in law were majoring in history and political science, I went the English, with a minor in communication, route for two reasons. First, I knew that law school would involve a great deal of reading and writing, so I wanted to get comfortable with writing long essays and briefs.  But I also chose my major as a back-up plan.  If for some reason law school did not work out, the plan was to become an English professor. 

You are married to an attorney, I understand, and have two children? What ages are they? Have they chosen careers yet?

I am married to my college sweetheart.  Dwayne and I met at Oakwood College (now University), and after 21 years together, we are still dating!  We will celebrate 16 years of marriage this year. He is a partner at his firm, practicing civil litigation. 

Our daughter Isabel is nine years old. She loves cooking and baking and says she wants to be a chef. She is already a pretty good cook.  Our son Alexander is four years old, and right now he just wants to be a superhero. He tells me to introduce him as Spiderman.

I believe you attend the Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church in Atlanta — one of the largest Adventist churches in the country. Are you active in your local church? What do you most like about your church?

As attorneys, my husband and I are called on now and then to help the church with legal issues. But what keeps me at Berean are the people and the history surrounding it.  The church is made up of people who were born there, grew up in the church, and now attend with their own children.  It makes it feel like home.  I want that for myself and my children.

How does your faith impact you in your work? 

My faith is and always will be in the forefront of everything I do. God tells us to treat others as we would want to be treated. He wants us to be a shining example of who He is.  God is a loving and compassionate God, and I think some people equate that with being soft or lenient. But God is also a firm God.

Is there anything hard about being a Seventh-day Adventist in the legal profession? Do you know any other Adventist judges? 

I remember being told at a young age that it would be difficult being an attorney as a Seventh-day Adventist. Some people have a negative perception about what it means to be an attorney, and the lawyer jokes don’t help. 

I have never found my faith or religion in conflict with practicing my profession. Of course, there are many functions that take place on the Sabbath that I will not attend.  

Personally, I do not know of any other Adventist judges, but I know they are out there and would love the opportunity to meet them. 

What advice would you have for young Adventists who are studying law or hope to be lawyers or judges?

I would have the same advice that I give to any young person who expresses a desire to study law or be an attorney: I would say that if it is truly what you want to do, then go for it. 

Sometimes, people are overwhelmed by all that is involved with becoming a lawyer: more school, the law school admission test (LSAT), law school itself, and then, of course, the bar exam. I tell young people, take things one step at a time. I tell them to just start with applying to take the LSAT. Once they have taken the test and received their scores, it is easier to start applying to schools.

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Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.

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1. Always speak the truth in love. Truth welcomes fearless examination. Love is the one motivation that matters, the only legacy that lasts. While truth is precious nobody is helped by honesty that is brutal.

2. Prioritize your pursuits. If you answer every call you’ll be like a stray dog at a whistlers’ convention. Don’t try to change the world. Change your world. Then witness the ripples widening.

3. Cherish stories. Pay attention to the presence of paradox. Travel and read widely. Focus less on telling and more on listening. As Gracie Allen pointed out, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”

4. Challenge the narrative. With integrity confront your privilege and confirmation bias. Cultivate an active crap detector. Represent people who are on the margins. Remember that when you’re following the masses the m is often silent.

5. Guard your joy flame. Enjoy the journey. When you lose your joy you’re no good to anyone, including Jesus. Keep the fun in the fundamentals — otherwise we’re left with “damentals.”

6. Strive for excellence. Continue learning your craft. If you’re older don’t let technology intimidate. If you’re younger don’t let technology dominate. And don’t just do your best — do your balanced best. Seek to be balanced mentally, socially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When we’re out of balance our lives become as barren as a bachelor’s refrigerator.

7. Write for people who are not Adventist. Avoid godtalk. Knock down fences. Open the blessed doors.

8. Stand up for communicator colleagues. Communication is the key to life. We carry a noble calling, so go forth with courage especially when a truth-teller colleague comes under attack.

9. Bring it fresh. An artist is someone who looks a little longer. Breathe authentically. Make your audience care. Do not settle for the single story. Be succinct. Ask the hard questions. Consider the unconsidered.

10. Never work one second for the church. You may be employed by the church, but work for your God. Embrace the bigger picture. In so doing you will also become a better church employee, because even when no one else is looking you are working for the ultimate Boss.

Chris Blake is an associate professor of English and communication at Union College and the author of many books and hundreds of articles.

Image Credit: Ralph Hammann - Wikimedia Commons

If you respond to this article, please:

Make sure your comments are germane to the topic; be concise in your reply; demonstrate respect for people and ideas whether you agree or disagree with them; and limit yourself to one comment per article, unless the author of the article directly engages you in further conversation. Comments that meet these criteria are welcome on the Spectrum Website. Comments that fail to meet these criteria will be removed.