"Evidence of liberal drift within the Adventist denomination in Southern California continues to mount. The latest incident involves the showing of a pro-homosexual documentary at a local Adventist Church.
On August 30, the Vallejo Drive Church of Seventh-day Adventists (VDC), a 1,300 member church located across the street from Glendale Adventist Medical Center in Glendale, California, showed a 99 minute documentary titled “For the Bible Tells Me So” at its Friday evening vespers service. VDC senior pastor Mike Kim confirmed he authorized the documentary.
The film cuts together interviews of parents of homosexual children with interviews of their gay offspring, and snippets of interviews with liberal Christian theologians. Among the families interviewed are the Robinsons—the parents of gay Episcopal bishop V. Gene Robinson—and the bishop himself, politician and presidential candidate Richard Gephardt and his wife, who have a lesbian daughter, the Reitans, a family of Minnesota Lutherans who have a gay son, and the Poteats, a southern black family who have a lesbian daughter who attended Yale. Most of the parents tell similar stories of how their view of homosexuality was changed by having a gay child.
Very early in the film, Harvard theologian Peter Gomes (since deceased) states that perhaps the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic Church was right in not allowing ordinary people to read the Bible because ordinary people usually get it wrong, {WHAT did he just say?} “and I'm convinced that usually we do.” Lawrence Keene states that there is nothing wrong with a fifth grader's understanding of God as long as you're in the fifth grade, implying that people who believe God condemns homosexual conduct have a fifth-grader's understanding of God.
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| Vallejo Drive Church --- Why are the mega church congregations always the most rebellious? |
The theologians take the position that the problem in Sodom was not the sexual act the Sodomites wanted to perform upon the persons of the strangers/angels, but rather the lack of hospitality shown them; hence the Sodom story does not stand against homosexual conduct, only against a failure of hospitality. Likewise, they argue that Paul, in Romans 1 (the only New Testament passage mentioned) is condemning only exploitative same-sex sexuality, not the loving, committed, monogamous gay relationships that are the rule today (but see my article “The Myth of Male Homosexual Monogamy”). Most Scriptural passages bearing on homosexual conduct are not mentioned in the film.
The film is critical of Pastor James Dobson and his Colorado-based ministry “Focus on the Family,” because Dobson does not believe parents of gay children should offer unqualified, unconditional support of their child's choice of a gay lifestyle. Near the end of the film, the Reitans demonstrate on the street in front of the offices of Focus on the Family, willfully trespass on the campus as part of their protest, and are arrested.
The film also seems to be at pains to equate (or confuse) any condemnation of homosexual conduct with “gay bashing,” that is, physical violence against homosexuals. A theologian chimes in with his view that homosexual conduct is not a sin, but homophobia is a sin and a serious one.
The screening of this documentary was not an aberration. A few weeks previously, Vallejo Drive Church youth and family pastor Tony Parrish offered the view that the sin of Sodom was indeed merely a lack of hospitality, {"hospitality"? Are these people delusional? God rained down fire & brimstone because someone wasn't very friendly?}and that the Sodom story in Genesis 19 does not stand against homosexual conduct. Parrish also opined that the Centurion's servant whom Jesus healed (Mat. 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10) was actually the Centurion's homosexual lover.
If the liberal trend in parts of Adventism cannot be arrested, what should Adventists in those conferences do? Where should they place their membership? Where should they pay their tithe? These questions will become more pressing as parts of Adventism go the way of the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, and other liberal denominations in promoting the normalization of homosexual conduct." Advindicate
Let's see if a "5th grader" can understand Paul.... Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality,
1 Corinthians 6:9