Another provocative, pertinent piece by a writer whom I greatly admire!—William G Johnson.
Johnsson did not allude to the Evangelicals overwhelming support of Israel. Trump confirms them in this, with his ardent support for Israel, as demonstrated by his moving the US embassy to Jerusalem— long promised by former presidents but never achieved.
Trump’s anti Iran actions and his other Middle East policies are in line with his support of Israel and Netanyahu — Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East and does deserve the support of our US administration . I am not sure why the Evangelicals are so pro Israel,
but I applaud their stance.
The Adventists seem to have neither a pro nor anti Israeli agenda.
Dr Johnson, you allude to the widespread practice, in Biblical times, of heterosexual Greek and Roman men having “ boy toys” adolescent / teenage male slaves for their sexual pleasure outside of the marital bed .
Many current Biblical scholars are in agreement that Paul’s homophobic comments were addressing this practice. What a shame that Paul was not more clear in delineating the activities he was condemning.- boy prostitutes and not loving same sex monogamous unions.
Because of Paul’s admonitions against male on male sex, the Evangelicals are vehemently, vociferously and venomously, homophobic — despite modern medical / psychological / psychiatric understandings that sexual orientation ( whether heterosexual or homosexual ) is an inborn attribute over which the individual has zero input.
As you state, despite this demographic of LGBT being undoubtedly present in Christ’s time, our Savior declines comment on it,
Given the demographic fact that 4-5 per cent of the population is LGBT — every extended family has at least one cousin / sibling / child / grandchild who is gay / lesbian, ——the Evangelicals response to the problem is troubling —. they prescribe life long celibacy for their LGBT offspring ( which equals life long LONELINESS )
While Adventists “ sit on the fence “ regarding the abortion issue, our current denominational hierarchy is actively anti gay
They threw our LGBT members under the bus when they recently opposed the congressional EQUALITY ACT. In many US states, gays / lesbians can be fired from their jobs, merely due to their sexual orientation —over which they have zero control.
Gays / lesbians can also be evicted by their landlords from housing , and can be denied low cost public housing, if they are gay — this without any legal recourse, in many states. The EQUALITY ACT was designed to eliminate this egregious inequity.
Since employment and accommodation are surely necessary to the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ( as guaranteed to ALL in our constitution ) what were our SDA leaders thinking when they opposed the Equality Act??
Just as Evangelicals espouse coercive légal agendas to impose their beliefs on a wider non Evangelical, non Christian population, the Adventists do likewise. Even the Pacific Union Conference Religious Liberty Secretary ( who should have known better ) promoted proposition Eight, in California , which would have denied LGBT same sex marriage rights.
More recently, the SOUTH PACIFIC DIVISION was in active opposition to same sex marriage in Australia,
thus imposing their doctrinal views on Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Atheist gays / lesbians as well as on other Christian Protestant gays whose denominations held a more liberal view of marriage.
As equal taxpayers, LGBT surely deserve all the tax / estate / financial advantages that legal marriage confers. . .
Finally, TW’s largest “compliance “ committee is committed to a witch hunt against our LGBT members.
The Evangelicals must surely be applauding all these homophobic actions by our SDA hierarchy!