Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International

Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International is a support organization that provides a spiritual and social community to current and former Seventh-day Adventists who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or intersex (LGBTI), and have felt hurt or rejected because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. SDA Kinship offers them the compassion and support not generally available within the organized Adventist Church.

History and organization

SDA Kinship grew out of a 1976 meeting in Palm Desert, California, after some gay Adventist men placed an advertisement in The Advocate seeking other gay Adventists. Within four months there were 75 members and a rudimentary organization. During this time the name "Kinship" was chosen because Seventh-day Adventists typically enjoy a close-knit family relationship with each other. Small groups of gay Adventists who had found each other in New York and San Francisco soon joined Kinship.

SDA Kinship is managed by a volunteer board and was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1981. Current membership, including friends and family, is approximately 1,500 people in 62 countries. At this time Kinship has no formal connection with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Member services

SDA Kinship exists to ease the initial distress of Seventh-day Adventists when they realize that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, and to facilitate the reconciling of their spirituality with their sexual orientation by offering suggested reading materials, personal dialog, professional counseling referrals, and a network of supportive members.³

Media services

SDA Kinship enables communication among members by publishing a free monthly newsletter, Connection, and maintaining a free online community, Kinship Online (KOL), which includes a web-based chat venue called KinNet.

Kampmeeting

Since 1980, SDA Kinship has organized an annual week-long conference called Kampmeeting where members can meet and renew friendships. Worship, lectures, music, group activities, and good food, including vegetarian fare, are all part of the program. Spiritual ministry is provided by supportive church leaders and gay former pastors. Communion service is conducted on Friday evening and is the only communion received by many members who have been alienated from the church. In recent years (as of 2008), similar gatherings have been held in Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world.

Regional services

In order to communicate with and serve its diverse membership SDA Kinship is organized by regions, with nine United States regions and eight overseas regions: Australia-New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Central-South America, Europe, Germany, The Philippines, and the British Isles. Regional coordinators communicate with members, sometimes by newsletter, and often sponsor meetings for social, recreational, educational and worship purposes. The frequency and type of activities depend largely on the number and proximity of members living within each region.

Special interest group services

In addition, attention is paid to the needs of special interest groups. "IMRU?" (I am, Are You?) is an outreach for college-age and under-30 young people and there are also coordinators for intersex persons, transgender persons, older adults, African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and friends and family. www.someone-to-talk-to.net is the website for the ministry for families.

Actions taken to inform and sensitize the Adventist Church

Information packets

SDA Kinship has mailed thousands of information packets to Adventist pastors, teachers and counselors and to every Adventist academy and college in North America. Information about HIV/AIDS has also been sent to every Adventist church in the United States.

Church leaders invited to Kampmeeting

In 1980 SDA Kinship held its first national gathering called Kampmeeting (similar to a typical Adventist camp meeting). Three professors from the Adventist Theological Seminary and two pastors were invited to participate. They received permission from the General Conference, with the stipulation that SDA Kinship would not claim that this indicated the church’s acceptance of homosexuality and that Colin Cook also be invited to present his ideas about helping homosexuals find healing. The invited theology professors, after the first in-depth research into what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, came to the conclusion that it was silent about persons with a homosexual orientation, and that its proscriptions against sexual exploitation, promiscuity, rape, and temple prostitution apply equally to heterosexuals and homosexuals. After hearing the traumatic stories of growing up gay in the Adventist church, the clergy were deeply moved and drew up a list of recommendations in their report to church leadership. However, protests from conservative members prompted church president Neal Wilson to instruct Adventist college, hospital, and church administrators to prevent anyone from meeting with Kampmeeting attendees the following year. Nevertheless, certain pastors and church leaders have continued to attend and speak at the annual Kampmeetings.

AIDS conference

In 1989 a pastor at Sligo Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Maryland, attended by many denominational headquarters personnel, conducted a support group for people with AIDS and their family members. The editor of the denominational magazine, Adventist Review, was a member of Sligo Church and together Sligo Church and the staff of Adventist Review sponsored a weekend AIDS Conference. They asked SDA Kinship to send three of its members who were ill with AIDS as delegates. A call was made at this conference for the church to address the AIDS epidemic through its hospital system. However, nothing of substance was accomplished until the extent of the epidemic among many heterosexual church members on the African continent became known.

Kinship Advisory Council

In 2000, a group of supportive church leaders was invited to form an advisory council to guide SDA Kinship in bringing the Adventist Church to a more loving and redemptive attitude. This Council was instrumental in organizing a Workshop on Homosexuality and publishing a book resulting from the workshop.

Workshop on Homosexuality

In January 2006, a Workshop on Homosexuality, held in Ontario, California, was jointly sponsored by SDA Kinship and the Association of Adventist Forums (now Adventist Forums), and was attended by about 60 invited observers. Twelve papers were presented on biological, sociological, psychological, legal, pastoral, theological, ethical, and Biblical aspects of homosexuality, and personal experiences.

Media Activities

A book, My Son, Beloved Stranger, written by the wife of an Adventist minister about her family’s experience after learning their youngest son is gay, was published by Pacific Press in 1995. Another book, Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives, consisting of the papers presented at the 2006 Workshop on Homosexuality and six responses, was published by Adventist Forums in May 2008. Complimentary copies were mailed to 500 pastors, administrators, and thought leaders of the Adventist Church. In 2005 SDA Kinship produced a DVD, Open Heart, Open Hand. It records three conversations with leaders in the Adventist Church who are parents of gay and lesbian children. It is introduced by an Adventist theologian whose brother was a gay man. It was filmed by Dr. Harry and Janice Wang, who also have a gay family member.

Exhibits at church conferences

Beginning in 2000, at the quinquennial General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, “Someone to Talk to,” an outreach to Adventist families and friends of gays and lesbians, has had an exhibit presence in at least one large church convention every year, with informational handouts and book and DVD sales. A growing interest has been noted over these years.

Relations with Adventist Church

See also: Homosexuality and Seventh-day Adventism

In the Seventh-day Adventist Church, homosexual relations are considered a violation and members engaging in such relations are subject to discipline.

Church sues SDA Kinship over use of church name

In 1987 a federal lawsuit was filed by the Adventist Church against SDA Kinship in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, California, charging that by using "Seventh-day Adventist" in its name the gay support group was guilty of trademark infringement. Curiously, the lawsuit came ten years after the organization and seven years after the incorporation of SDA Kinship, and after limited cooperative contacts between the church and SDA Kinship. Leaders of SDA Kinship surmised the reasons for this belated decision may have included anger over a recent Kinship demonstration at church headquarters. The lawsuit was decided in favor of SDA Kinship.

See also

• LGBT-welcoming church programs

References

• Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives, edited by Fritz Guy, David Ferguson, and David Larson (Roseville, California: Adventist Forums, 2008)
• Gay religion by Scott Thumma and Edward R. Gray

External links

• Kinship International official website
• Kinship Australia
• "Dilemmas of a Homosexual" by Wayne Blakely. Adventist Today website, posted September 7, 2009
• Adventists and homosexuality part one and part two, from ReligiousTolerance.org
• Marriage, Homosexuality and the Church special report, from the Adventist Review