Jamaica: Adventist pastor apologizes after favorably citing song lyrics that call for the shooting death of LGBT people:  

https://goo.gl/14Fpyr

By the 2018/19 Transgender Seminarian Cohort: Davíd E. Patiño and Ezra Fairley-Collins, Jude Johnson, Greyson Kentopp, Erica Saunders, Cole Williams

As trans people, we know the love of God. We feel it in our bones, in the very skin that lines our bodies, in the very nature of who we are. God is that voice within us that shows us the way to authenticity, to self-love, and to community. The Holy Spirit is at work within and through us. The Holy Spirit is that which can transform our deepest anger, sadness, and loneliness into something new. We can recognize this when the impossible happens, when inside us, despite our despair, there is the tiniest of lights, the smallest sign of hope, the little bit of energy that seems to be coming from within us. The Holy Spirit is that which resurrects us from the death we experience deep inside us from trauma. It is the darkness that shelters us and keeps us safe. The Holy Spirit resurrects us and allows us to see our own sacred divinity.

How We Fit In is a podcast project dedicated to sharing the stories of current and former Seventh-day Adventist church members all around the world. We want to explore how over 25 million unique individuals fit under one belief system. We all have stories to tell, and they deserve to be heard.

This month, two events affecting Adventist members of the LGBTIQ community fell on the same day.  October 11 was National Coming Out Day, and it was also the beginning of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Annual Council—the governing body of the world church between General Conference SThis month, two events affecting Adventist members of the LGBTIQ community fell on the same day.  October 11 was National Coming Out Day, and it was also the beginning of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Annual Council—the governing body of the world church between General Conference Sessions.

This past summer, the General Conference set up five committees to deal with various issues of “non-compliance” within the church. The committees, approved by the Annual Council on Sunday, October 14, 2018, can now officially begin their work.

At the October 2018 Annual Council (#GCAC18), Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders approved a widely debated document that unprecedentedly proposes, among other things, “public reprimand” and “disciplinary measures” that include removal of conference leaders from committees due to matters of what is determined to be “non-compliance.”

We agree with the North American Division of the church that the voted document “does not follow the biblical values proclaimed by the Protestant reformers and the founders of the Adventist Church.”

Reinder Bruinsma has been a Seventh-day Adventist conference president for the Netherlands and for Belgium, General Conference administrator, pastor, and author - among several other things. In what he loosely calls his "retirement" he continues to write, speak to Adventist leadership and laity conferences and, attend other meetings around the world. 

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On the weekend of April 20, the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s North American Division (NAD) hosted a workshop that included a select group of church leaders and lay members. The purpose of the workshop was to “participate and preview a new resource (booklet) titled Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones: Adventist Edition.”

The new 71-page booklet from the NAD provides the most compassionate response to LGBT+ Adventists ever published by the denomination, while still maintaining the church’s position.