• January — 2011
  • Editor's Perspective - “…Was Blind, But Now I See”
  • Diversity & the Church
  • Homosexuality & the Church
  • Burlas/gays/esc./IASD
  • Creating a Safe Environment
  • Introducing SDA Kinship
  • Current Initiatives of Kinship
  • Discussion Questions
• April — 2011
  • Editor's Perspective - “Who Would Choose This?”
  • Sexual Orientation: Can We Talk About It?
  • Adventist, Professional—and Gay
  • Book Review - "Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why"
  • How Deep Is God’s Love?
  • Deep, Dark Closet
  • Book Review of Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives
  • Discussion Questions
• July — 2011
  • Editor's Perspective - "A Million Gay Adventists?"
  • Gay and Lesbian Seventh-day Adventists
  • When God Disagrees with God, Whom Do You Follow?
  • Answers from the Brain Doctor
  • Links of Interest

Who Cares? A Newsletter for Caring Pastors and Educators  —  Vol. 1/No. 1  —  January 2011

“…Was Blind, But Now I See”

You’re looking at the first issue of an e-mail newsletter designed to highlight a conversation among Adventist pastors and educators about how to deal more constructively and compassionately with our gay and lesbian constituents. 

Like me, some of you may not have realized that we have any, because they aren’t wearing labels or demanding our attention. But more and more our eyes are being opened and our hearts are being wrenched by nagging questions about how to act as Jesus would in the face of deep but quiet anguish.

Whose anguish? That of members in our pews and students in our schools who deeply identify as Adventists, but who are sure that their other, equally deep, identity as gay or lesbian can never be welcomed by their church.

Briefly, here's my story. This past June I retired after more than 40 years of pastoral ministry, mostly in the NAD Columbia and Southern Unions, with five years in Ethiopia, where I had grown up as an MK. My wife Donna and I are the proud parents of five adult children, all outstanding achievers with solid careers and great families, giving us 11 grandchildren (to date!).

So why would I want to dedicate a portion of my retirement to editing a newsletter about gays? Because I have come to realize that for most of those wonderful years of marriage and ministry I was blind. Blind to some pressing needs of my parishioners. And blind even to agonizing struggles going on in my own children.

First came the news that one of our daughters-in-law (an Adventist professional from a good Adventist family, a great mother of two of our wonderful grandchildren) was leaving her marriage, having decided she is a lesbian. Then just over a year ago, another son (in medical school, still single at 31, a "son with whom I am well pleased") called to tell his mother and me that he is gay.

Obviously all this has raised many urgent questions in my mind—some deeply personal, others more general and professional. Why couldn't a son struggling for years with his sexual orientation confide in his pastor father or his educator mother? Why in all my years of pastoring Adventist churches was I never aware of even one gay or lesbian member or attendee? The best statistics available suggest that as many as 5% of church family members and potential members are homosexual or struggling to deal with those issues in their personal lives. 

I've come to realize that it wasn't because they weren't there that I didn't see these people, but because I was blind. They didn't make themselves known because my churches, and the attitudes I projected, were not "safe" for such discussions or disclosures. And I now know that my experience is not all that unique.

This is not an easy subject to tackle. Most of us have strong convictions and maybe even stronger feelings. But we must not avoid study and discussion just because it is hard. The love that our Lord demands (and provides) cannot look the other way while significant numbers of our neighbors, our members, our students, and our families feel that we condemn the very beings they know themselves to be.

When Jesus lays out the criteria by which he will judge our faithfulness and effectiveness in ministry, He commends those who ministered tenderly to His brothers and sisters considered outcasts or less valuable, not realizing they were ministering to Jesus Himself. Those who failed the test are those who neglected the most vulnerable of His children (Matthew 25:31-46).

Who Cares? proposes to be a voice calling Adventist leaders to care enough to take another look, to take seriously the divine scolding of Ezekiel 34 directed at shepherds who neglect to care for the weak and the abused of the flock, and to help transform our churches and schools into safe places for all of God’s children. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we invite you to join the conversation searching for them. We point no fingers for we are all guilty. And in the words of Jesus, “…they know not what they do.” But the Chief Shepherd is already at work, and we are invited to repent and join Him. 

Claude E. Steen, III