SENIOR ADVENTIST EDITOR
“I edit the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guides (the “Quarterly”), the official denominational teaching publication for the world SDA Church; the publisher is the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.” (Clifford Goldstein, Graffiti in the Holy of Holies: An Impassioned Response to Recent Attacks on the Sanctuary and Ellen White, Pacific Press Publishing, 2003, p. 12)
TEACHES THE WORLD CHURCH HOW TO MAKE DISCIPLES
His publication has this sage advice for the worldwide membership:
“Making disciples might require us to do strange things: eat or drink strange mixtures, and be all things to all people so we can win some. This is the call and challenge of discipleship, especially as the gospel goes around the world and into cultures sometimes radically different from our own.”
http://ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/08a/less06.html
WHAT IS THIS MAN TALKING ABOUT?
“Drink strange mixtures”. Well, like what?
Most Adventists don’t consume alcohol, so is the quarterly suggesting drinking a few beers with your neighbor just to save his soul?
How could the progressive Adventists “be all things to all men”?
OUTREACH WITH GAY-ORIENTED PUBLICATION
“Charles Scriven is president of Kettering College of the Medical Arts and chairs the Adventist Forum/SPECTRUM board.” (Alexander Carpenter, Reconstructing Seventh-day Adventism – Charles Scriven, 26 June 2008, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)
“
Owned and operated by Kettering Medical Center, KCMA is an integral part of the educational mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” http://www.kcma.edu/AboutUs/sdaInfo.html
Dr. Scriven’s publication addresses fundamental gay issues:
“At some point some of these anti-homosexual behavior
arguments start to breakdown and sound like anti-sexual variety. Missionary position only, thus saith the LORD (really my own confusion over body and pleasure).
Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if we humans were anthropomorphizing God by projecting our discomfort with difference onto the Creator who made so much variety? Oral sex may be the worst thing to you, but let’s not project that onto a God who calls lying an abomination (Prov. 12:22).”
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/05/12/southerns_school_religion_hosts_own_panel_homosexuality
THE PUBLICATION WAS A START, BUT THE PROGRESSIVE ADVENTISTS WANTED TO DO MORE
The progressive Adventists wanted more gay church members. The blueprint was simple: “do strange things: eat or drink strange mixtures, and be all things to all people so we can win some.”
http://ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/08a/less06.html
The progressive HQ is located in the Berkeley gay village, where popular culture involves eating and drinking things that most Adventists were not accustomed to. However, the Adventists find themselves in a phase of history where “the gospel goes around the world and into cultures sometimes radically different from our own.”
LIKE IN BERKELEY
“Glory holes are usually found in rest stops, sex shops and yes, college campus restrooms. They tend to be at the end of the row of stalls, farthest from the entrance. Drilled, poked out or cut, the holes are more than a peeper’s delight.”
EATING AND DRINKING
“In the basement restroom, we found more metal plating on the wall on the last stall. In pen, somebody taunted with “Try now.””
“The other side had instructions on how to remove the plate alongside someone’s scrawled “shoot it down my throat.” Precious.”
AN ESTABLISHED BERKELEY INSTITUTION
“Glory holes, however, have long been a UC Berkeley institution, at least since 1965. In November of that year, the Daily Cal launched a features series about homosexuality, starting 
with glory holes. Features editor Konstantin Berlandt wrote that “in a 21-month period … the Berkeley police arrested 240 people for homosexual offenses of ‘soliciting or committing a lewd act in a public place or open to the view of the public’ or ‘loitering in a public restroom for the purpose of engaging in a lewd act,’” according to then Berkeley Police patrolman Joe Mulvey.” (Christine Borden, Glory, Glory Hole-lelujah, The Daily Californian, 27 November 2007)
Surely the progressive Adventists have excelled in meeting the “call and challenge of discipleship”.
http://ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/08a/less06.html
HUGE THEOLOGICAL STRIDES
You may be saying, Well, so what? Its high time that Adventists started reaching out to the Gay Village.
Well, up until a few years ago, such an effort would have been unheard of. The Adventist church was still bogged down in the Bible, which contains a large number of anti-gay passages.
This posture became quite a burden to the Bay Area evangelistic thrust.
As Dr. Scriven put it, “The Bible is at once a revelation and a…burden.” (Charles Scriven, Comment of 30 June 2008 at 5:38, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)
Well, it was.
But then things changed.
WINDS OF CHANGE BLOW THROUGH LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY
“I can choose not to apply specific teachings of Scripture”
“I do not think that the full expression of the homosexual identity is sinful.”
Juhyeok Nam
http://progressiveadventism.com/2008/12/02/ why-i-disagree-with-paul/#more-582
Dr. Juhyeok Nam had a really revolutionary concept. If there’s something in the Bible that bothers you, just ignore it.
Juhyeok Nam is an associate professor at Loma Linda University School of Religion. http://www.llu.edu/llu/faculty/directory/portfolio_activity.php?uid=jjnam&catid=19
“Loma Linda University (LLU) is a Seventh-day Adventist educational health-sciences institution” http://www.llu.edu/llu/about.html
HELPFUL, BUT NOT ENOUGH
The Loma Linda University edict was, certainly, a big step in being “all things to all people“, but it wasn’t enough.
The rank-and-file in the churches wasn’t convinced. And so the progressives went to the General Conference to get a religious ruling.
BEING ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN
“I’m sure Jesus looks approvingly on ‘loving, monoganamous, and committed’ homosexual sodomy, don’t you?”
(Cliff Goldstein, 17 June 2008 at 5:33) http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/06/16/why_adventists_should_consider _supporting_gay_marriage
For screenshot and full quote context – click here
Pix:
http://www.sligochurch.org/images/gallery_photos/OSR/DSCN0416_edited.JPG
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