Gregory Hoenes: Food, Ecology, and Spirituality — Adventist Voices

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On this episode of the Adventist Voices podcast, Elder Gregory L. Hoenes, PhD, director of the West Region of the Southern California Conference, talks about his recently completed dissertation in practical theology at Claremont School of Theology.

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/arts-essays/2021/gregory-hoenes-food-ecology-and-spirituality-adventist-voices

[Harry_Allen]

Thanks, @morrcahn.

@Harry_Allen

Are you suggesting, if one believes the practice of homosexuality is outside of God’s will, empathy for the experiences of people from the LGBTQ+ community and an understanding of related history should move them to reverse that conclusion?

Really?

@morrcahn

Haha, it’s pretty basic. Considering you seem to find this difficult to believe, it’s indicative to me that empathy has never persuaded you against your current understanding of a given idea, never persuaded you to reevaluate the root of your beliefs in or understanding of something.

Respectfully, what you might do is just answer the question and give a reason for your response. I’m only going to deflect attempts to psychoanalyze me as not credible.

@morrcahn

That’s when you pick up a book, without expectations and all these but, but, but, if rules, and read it with an open mind. As far as I can tell, that’s the best way to bypass one’s bias. Then you can use your evident critical thinking skills to evaluate the argument as a whole.

Please see what I said here. Also, thanks for telling me how to pick and read books. Are you a white person?

This topic is a life-and-death issue for many people. Mine is racism (white supremacy), but I don’t even buy or read all the books on that subject. Twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, four point zero nine seconds in a day.

I’m interested in what Alicia Johnston has to say. I’ll buy her book and read it if I find out she’s interested in what I have to think.

@morrcahn

Personally, I would not trust a scholar or anyone to make informed decisions when they necessitate a simplified, lacking-in-nuance, explanation of a heavily nuanced and complex situation/idea. To each their own, though.

Perhaps, by your closing phrase, you acknowledge you have no ability to formulate nuance and complexity on behalf of others?

HA

[Harry_Allen]

Thanks, @morrcahn.

@Harry_Allen

You’re bear-hugging a common talking point — the ill of comparing homosexuality to something authentically offensive, in order to make a larger point — and being needlessly picayune.

Select any act — otherwise innocuous — you like.

• Replace “embezzlement” with “stopping to pick pretty flowers by the side of the road,” but make the offended group “Team F1 race car drivers.”

• Replace “embezzlement” with “parkour,” but make the group “an award-winning society of classic still-life painters.”

It doesn’t matter. The point is that a) any group can be offended by some behavior, but, more importantly, b) no group would only leave it to members who offend them to raise the subject of their offense, and only speak about the offense when the offending group brought it up. This is what you have actually suggested SDAs do.

If you ran a submarine , and you had a group of seamen aboard who liked to drill holes in the side of the sub and see who could patch them up the fastest, the commander on board would not “butt out.” He would butt them out.

@morrcahn

“needlessly picayune”
To reiterate what I’ve already said, you made a false equivalency (again and again). Every example you used is a choice . A desire for same-sex marriage is the same as a desire for different-sex marriage, and neither desires are choices.
If you want to make a point about, well, anything, don’t use logical fallacies to support it. It makes a point and argument weak when someone finds it expedient to use logical fallacies because it doesn’t matter to them .

You’re not responding as though you understand the illustrations I’ve given, or what they mean.

Let’s walk through this, again, @morrcahn:

@Harry_Elliott asked a question which amounted to this:

If homosexuals follow their sexuality, why can’t the rest of us just tell them our opinions only if they ask?

I said the answer should be obvious: Because such a policy would be fatal to ecclesia; the fellowship of believers.

A church, where the discussion of behavior it deems wrong could only be initiated by those engaged in such activities, would inevitably become deeply corrupt.

You could just as well ask this question: If embezzlers follow their fiduciary instincts, why can’t the rest of the bank just tell them our opinions only if they ask?

Harry found the comparison of homosexuality to embezzling offensive.

@Harry_Elliott

If you equate homosexuality to embezzlemeant, I abandon all hope (to quote Paul Frees).

This led me to make the statements — the examples / thought experiments — that open this post.

That ends the review.

Now, in response to you, two points:

• It doesn’t matter whether homosexuality is a choice, or not, as far as my examples / thought experiments are concerned.

Homosexuality is a behavior, in the context of Seventh-day Adventism, the larger body deems would, if it progressed unchecked, make the larger body deeply corrupt.

This is inarguable. But it’s not inarguable that the SDA church would become deeply corrupt. It’s inarguable that the SDA church thinks this. Otherwise, why is Alicia Johnston writing a 300-page book?

• Harry Elliott’s question was about homosexuals "following their sexuality."

Again:

If homosexuals follow their sexuality, why can’t the rest of us just tell them our opinions only if they ask?

"Following one’s sexuality" is a choice. Put another way, I hold that, after a homosexual person realizes they are gay — if or whenever this takes place — they then make choices which are not the choices they would make were they not gay. Presumably, this is what “being gay” means.

(To cite your counterpoint, desiring same-sex marriage may not be a choice, but engaging in one is a choice. The same is true for traditional marriages.)

However, one can debate what “following one’s sexuality” means, or whether or not it is a choice. This is not my point, nor is it the point of my examples / thought experiments.

My point is that no larger body would withhold comment on behavior, in which a smaller part of their body was engaged, if they deemed that behavior as detrimental to their continued, coherent existence.

(I’m presuming that these larger groups are not moribund, or suicidal; that they desire to continue existing. I think you would agree that Seventh-day Adventists are, plausibly, such a group.)

That’s my argument. Now, if you have counter-examples — samples of cultures where a smaller part of their group was doing something the majority deemed fatal to their existence…so — because of this — they said nothing, please present them.

I’ll wait.

And wait.

@morrcahn

The bulk of the problem you are trying to highlight is mitigated, I would suggest, by three things:
(1) Recognizing that sexual orientation and identity is as much a choice as it is for a cisgender straight person. I.e., it’s not a choice.

I believe this, always have, and, as noted above, nothing I’ve stated is predicated on the false idea that homosexual people choose to be homosexual people.

@morrcahn

(2) Exercising empathy for someone whose worldview and lived experience is different than our own.

I can have all the empathy I want for another person’s worldview and lived experience. I’m still not going to let them pilot the Saturn V.

In other words, even empathy has limits. All phenomena do.

I’m still asking the same question I asked you previously, and waiting for a simple “Yes” or “No” answer:

Are you suggesting, if one believes the practice of homosexuality is outside of God’s will, empathy for the experiences of people from the LGBTQ+ community and an understanding of related history should move them to reverse that conclusion?

@morrcahn

(3) Most importantly, cisgender straight people should mind there own business.

So, like Harry Elliott, you’re saying the SDA church should do this in matters that pertain to them; e.g., theological coherence & practice?

Really?

@morrcahn

Alas, when a group of people—Christians–have been taught they must control and harass other people with their subjective “truths,” while simultaneously believing their current understanding of their scriptures is unflawed, these things can generally not be achieved.

You can’t prove what you’re saying.

That is, you seem to think that you can certify Seventh-day Adventist theology incorrect on these matters by merely stating this; by fiat.

Meanwhile, Alicia Johnston recognizes, perhaps, in order to do the same thing, she needs to craft a rebuttal one-quarter the length of the Bible.

Alas.

HA